The Vampire of Plainfield

by Kristopher Rufty

  “Let’s get going,” said Timmy.

  Peter took a deep, trembling breath. He still seemed overly winded from the ride. Timmy sometimes worried about his best friend’s health. Peter maintained a fair complexion, even in the summer, though he was outside often. He never seemed to lose any of the fat that made his arms look like stems of dough sprouting from the short sleeves of his shirt. Timmy could tell Peter was on the verge of outgrowing the shirt he had on.

  Though a lot of the other kids teased Peter for his weight, Timmy had never said anything about it. Sometimes he wondered if he should. Not to mock him, but to suggest he needed to do something about it.

  “Why are you staring at me like that?”

  “Huh?” said Timmy, blinking.

  “You were staring at me like Eddie does.”

  “Oh, shut up. I was not.”

  “Catching the Weirdees?”

  “The what?”

  “The Weirdees. Ma says if I get too close to Eddie, I’ll catch his Weirdees.”

  “Your ma’s mean.”

  “That’s like telling me the sky’s blue. I know. I live with her.”

  Timmy laughed, then started pedaling. He kept his pace slow, so Peter could keep up. His friend huffed and grunted like a dog eating scraps as he rode next to Timmy.

  The fields beside the road were already showing hints of green. Sunlight seemed to bounce off the fresh blades. It wasn’t much past ten in the morning and it was already hot. It wouldn’t last. By this evening, the temperatures would drop for a cold night. The weather never knew what it wanted to be in Plainfield.

  Timmy pedaled without talking because Peter would hardly be able to hold a conversation through his wheezing. The chubby boy rode with his head down, his lips in a tight line as sweat streamed down his face.

  Timmy forced his eyes forward. He didn’t want to be accused of sharing Eddie’s goofy staring problem again. The Weirdees. Ms. Nelson was pretty lousy to most people, but she really seemed to despise Eddie more than others. She’d told Timmy’s parents that Eddie made her feel uncomfortable because he always seemed to watch her.

  “It’s like he’s trying to see through my clothes!” Timmy had heard her say to his father.

  Dad had managed not to laugh until she had left their house. Mama had swatted him on the shoulder for making fun of Ms. Nelson.

  “I’m not making fun of her,” he’d said. “I only think she’s...mistaken.”

  Timmy had watched from his bedroom doorway as his mother crossed her arms over her chest, making it look inflated. That was the first day he’d noticed how pretty she was, and it had caused him to feel uncomfortable and sad. “You’re the deputy,” she’d said. “And she came over here to tell you this because she thinks Ed Gein’s strange.”

  “Everybody thinks Eddie’s strange. He’s harmless. Especially to women who look like her.”

  Mama had frowned at Dad, then walked to the kitchen, shaking her head.

  Timmy knew why Dad had laughed off Ms. Nelson’s worries. She was not a pretty woman—inside or out. She looked like an older version of Peter dressed in women’s clothing. She wore too much make-up and always smelled like dying flowers because of her poignant perfume. The Nelson house was strangled in it. Which was one of the many reasons Timmy didn’t like going over there.

  The comely scenery around them swapped for a sicker looking landscape. The ground to the right was brown and gray, the trees naked and thin. Across from the field, off the road a bit, was the Gein farm.

  Peter’s pace slowed, and Timmy took the lead once again. He veered to the left, aiming the front balloon tire for Gein’s driveway. The rubber made crackling sounds as the tire rolled onto the dirt path.

  More stalky trees bordered the driveway, their spindly branches reaching out. The fat tires ran them over. Timmy enjoyed the crunching sounds they made under his tires.

  Though minutes ago the air had felt rough and hot, it now seemed much cooler. The shadows were heavy, though the trees had no leaves to block out the sun. Eddie’s place always looked darker than others, even on beautiful days like this one.

  The shadows seemed to love it here.

  Timmy saw fragments of Eddie’s house through the trees. It was a large, old home, three stories tall with an attached summer kitchen. In there, Eddie kept his tub of ice and pop. The ceiling of the house dipped slightly. The paint was flaking off and turning brown. The wood was dotted with holes, and needed many repairs.

  Timmy cut through the deer path in the woods, heading for the summer kitchen. Just like the upper level of the house, Eddie didn’t allow anybody inside. Timmy had asked what the big deal was more than once. Eddie’s answer was always the same—those areas were private.

  Peter once suggested they sneak inside to see what Eddie kept in there, but Timmy refused. It felt wrong and dishonest to break Eddie’s rule.

  He heard the wheels of Peter’s bike chew through the dead grass behind him. Timmy was near the end of the path, so he pedaled harder to get the bike going faster. He loved his Cruiser. It was all he’d wanted for Christmas after seeing an advertisement for it in a magazine at the barbershop. He’d torn out the page and stuck it on the refrigerator, so his parents had to see it every day and would know it was what he wanted.

  And now I have it.

  Timmy shot out of the woods, leaving the trail—and Peter—behind him. He pedaled faster, enjoying the feel of the wind whipping his clothes against his body, his hair flapping back.

  It was silly to think so, but he felt free on his Cruiser.

  He leaned to the side, and swung the rear tire around. Dirt sprayed out in an arc. He came to a sudden stop and slapped his feet on the ground to keep from falling. His heart hammered in his throat, making light clucking sounds. It was hard for him to find his breath after it had been stolen by the rush of riding so fast.

  Over a minute later, Peter rolled to a lethargic stop beside him. His shirt was nearly soaked through with sweat.

  Timmy got off the bike, and walked it over to a thin tree. He leaned the bike against it. As he came back, Peter dismounted his bicycle. He let it drop to the ground with a crashing jangle.

  Timmy winced. “You shouldn’t just let it fall like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Might break it.”

  Peter swiped at the air, wrinkled his nose. “Then I could get a new one like you.” He leaned forward slightly and spat. “I sure hope Eddie has some pop.”

  “Me too,” said Timmy. His tongue felt swollen and limp.

  Standing together, the boys looked around. There was no sign of Eddie. Any other time he’d have already come ambling up, twisting his checkered hunter’s cap in his hands, grinning.

  “I don’t think he’s home,” said Peter.

  “Of course he is,” said Timmy. “His truck’s parked right there.” Timmy pointed at the corroded rattletrap with the dust-powdered windows.

  Peter shrugged. “Maybe he’s in the woods. Or at the creek.” He grabbed the bottom of his shirt, and pulled it out, shaking it to fan his sweaty body.

  “Maybe.” Timmy looked around. He saw a cluster of leafless trees, branches sagging. He saw the field that led to the dense woods bordering the Gein property. The creek was deep in the woods.

  There was no wind. No birds. Just complete silence.

  Like at Aunt Agnes’s funeral.

  Though the church had been filled with relatives and friends, the hush in there had been insufferable. Each time Timmy had adjusted his position on the pew, the wood sounded like a growling beast in the quiet, hollow room.

  Maybe Peter was right, and they’d come all the way out here for nothing.

  A rustling sound came from behind the house. In the silence, it sounded like a large mouth chewing something crunchy. The boys turned their heads toward the rear corner.

  A growling monster leaped out from behind the house, landing in a half squat.

  In the fleeting glance Timmy managed to get of th
e hideous creature before fleeing for his Cruiser, he saw a gnarled face; he saw crooked, stretched lips; he saw wild black hair bouncing around limp ears and drooping eyelids.

  The ugly beast shook a bone above its head. Something like a withered human head with blond hair dangled from the end, but smaller, the size of a baseball. Timmy glimpsed pointed teeth.

  He was beginning to mount the Cruiser when he heard laughing. He realized he’d been screaming this whole time as the laughter grew louder.

  Huh?

  His screams tapered off to a soft whine in the back of his raw throat. He turned around. He saw Peter first, frozen in the spot where Timmy had left him. His mouth hung open as if he were screaming, though no sound came out. His body trembled, arms stiff at his sides, hands open.

  Bent over, the beast’s hands were on its knees. The bone pointed at the ground, the tiny head trembling from where it was knotted by its hair to the bone’s tip.

  The laughter came from the monster’s weird crooked mouth. And the laughter was not menacing, not even a smudge frightening. Its tone was very familiar.

  “Eddie?” Timmy asked.

  Nodding, the monster raised its arm, pointing the shriveled head at Timmy. The skin on the tiny, hideous face reminded him of a rotten prune. Small hollow circles of blackness were where eyes had once been, and its mouth was a tight, bumpy line with two narrow points of teeth on each side.

  “I think I shat myself!” said Peter, in a shrill voice.

  This comment caused Eddie to laugh even harder, a deep throaty chortle that shot spit out of his mouth. Timmy also laughed, shaking his head.

  Peter turned around, jutting his rump. “Do you see a stain?”

  Timmy checked the seat of Peter’s pants. “No.”

  “Thank Christ! I only farted!”

  Eddie threw back his head, laughing. The skin hanging below the chin of the mask jiggled. The rest of the costume made raspy sounds as it shook against Ed’s clothes.

  What in the world is Eddie wearing?

  In addition to the mask, Eddie had on a matching vest, held together in crudely stitched patterns. Some type of leathery gaiters had been strapped to the fronts of his legs. Gaps between the materials showed his pants behind them.

  Timmy stepped beside Peter, and together they approached Eddie.

  Timmy’s legs felt a tad weak and stringy.

  “Neat costume,” said Peter, out of breath.

  “Really like it?” asked Eddie. His voice was muffled behind the mask. He grabbed the flap of haggard skin at his neck and pulled the mask up, letting it rest on his head. It looked as if a face had sprouted from the top of his skull. Rough edges of skin hung around his face like a horrid hood. Eddie’s face, the sallow expression and lazy eyes, were relieving to see.

  “Not really,” said Peter. “It’s just…neat.”

  Eddie’s smile flashed pride.

  “Did you make it?” asked Timmy.

  “Stitched it myself,” he said.

  “Wow,” said Timmy. He reached out, rubbed the chest piece. It felt dry and gristly. There was a dark oval far to the side that looked like a nipple that had been split and sewn back together slightly off center, making one side a bit higher than the other. “What is this material?”

  Eddie opened his mouth to answer.

  Peter cut him off. “Get this stuff from your cousin in the South Seas?”

  Eddie’s cousin, Walter, was stationed across the world on a small, isolated military base. He always seemed to be sending Eddie some kind of strange artifact—shrunken heads like the one dangling from the tip of Eddie’s bone, bowls that Eddie claimed were actually the caps of skulls, and various nasty decorations that Eddie kept on display inside his rundown home.

  Eddie’s mouth slowly shut. He seemed to think a moment before answering. Nodding, he said, “Yep. Walter sent it to me, but I stitched it up. It’s real human skin.”

  Timmy snatched back his hand, putting it to his chest. The tips of his fingers felt dirty. “Bull.”

  That prideful smirk returned to Eddie’s face. “It is so!”

  Peter made a face as if he’d been eating the material. “How’d your cousin get human skin?”

  “Remember those tribes I told you about?” Ed asked.

  The cannibal tribes.

  Eddie talked about them often. They were the subject of many articles in the magazines and old books Eddie liked to read. Some of them had genuine photographs of the tribes. Timmy liked to look at them because the women were always naked from the waist up. Their boobs just hung out. Most of the women had large nipples that looked as if they had melted then hardened again, some had tiny dots the size of freckles. He liked those better. All of them wore skirts made out of leaves or twigs, so he never saw them below the waist.

  Some horror comics used such tribes as characters. Usually they featured a white woman in her underwear, tied to a stake and knee-deep in a pile of fire. The tribesmen wore weird masks with bones tacked through the nostrils and lips. Though Timmy would never admit it, the stories—and even the photographs—frightened him. He’d never understand why they fascinated Eddie so much.

  Maybe he just likes weird things.

  The Weirdees.

  When Timmy’s mind cleared, he realized he’d missed part of Eddie’s and Peter’s conversation. Eddie stroked the chest piece. His fingers made soft whispering sounds on the arid material. “…peel it off the bodies of their dead tribesmen. They wear it in battle.”

  Peter’s nose wrinkled. “You mean they wear that stuff like army men wear green.”

  Eddie snapped his fingers. “Exactly!”

  “Why?”

  “The skin is like armor. It’s thin and light, but it’s hard for something sharp to go through.” He thumbed the stomach of his vest. “See?”

  Timmy felt strange, a little dizzy. He wanted to sit down. He wished Eddie would take the dumb costume off. Even if he didn’t really believe it had come from a person, he was tired of looking at it. It made him feel like he was doing something wrong.

  “Got any pop?” asked Timmy.

  Eddie pulled the mask off, holding it by his side with his fingers slipped through the eyeholes. The hair looked bushy and wild, as if a critter had crawled up Eddie’s leg. “In the summer kitchen. Just got the ice this morning, so they should be nice and cold by now.”

  “Great,” said Peter. “We’re thirsting to death.”

  “I’ll go grab us some,” said Eddie. He started for the house. As he walked, he talked over his shoulder. “You know thirsting someone is a form of torture. People use that method to get important information from somebody. They tie them to a chair, don’t let them drink for days, then come in with one glass of ice water and put it on the table. If they tell them what they want to know they can have the water.”

  Eddie climbed the steps to the side door that led into the summer kitchen.

  “I bet it works,” said Peter. “I’d probably squeal all my secrets right now for some pop.”

  Laughing, Eddie opened the door. Gloomy darkness was on the other side. “Let me get my chair,” he said. Then Eddie stepped through the doorway. The shadows inside swallowed him. His foot shot out of the gloom, and kicked the door shut.

  Peter turned to Timmy, eyes wide. “What a weird costume, huh?”

  “Yeah,” said Timmy. He felt his face tighten into a wince. “I wouldn’t want to wear it.”

  “You wouldn’t? Couldn’t you just imagine running around in that get-up? We’d scare the shit out of everybody for sure!”

  “Why would you want to put somebody else’s skin on you? That’s just not right.”

  “I doubt it’s really somebody’s skin. Eddie was probably just fooling with us. I bet he really sent in for it from the back of a comic book.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or those detective magazines. They have some strange things in those. Remember that advertisement for a plant that eats people? Weird!”

  Timmy liked
the advertisements, but would never actually send his money to one. Seemed he could toss his allowance into the creek and it would feel like less a waste of money.

  The door to the summer kitchen swayed open, squeaking on its rusted hinges. Eddie stepped out with three glass bottles hanging from between the fingers of one hand.

  No tiny head. No bone. No skin suit. Timmy was thankful Eddie left the stuff inside. Now, his awkward friend had on a gray T-shirt that was dark in spots from sweat and a pair of work pants. On his feet were the same old, worn-out work boots Eddie never took off.

  Eddie pulled the door shut and trotted down the rickety steps.

  “Want to go in the house?” he said.

  “Got some new comics?” asked Peter.

  “I do.”

  Timmy smiled. The icky sensation that had had his skin feeling cold and tight was starting to fade. “Awesome.”

  Eddie ushered them around the summer kitchen. “Let’s head inside. It’s a lot cooler in there, and we can sit down at the table in the kitchen.”

  -3-

  Eddie’s kitchen smelled like garbage and spoiled food. Dirty plates that Timmy doubted had been washed since Ms. Gein was alive were stacked across the counters and floor. A carpet of old newspapers had been tossed throughout the room, trails cutting through that led to the table, stove, and doorways.

  Though there weren’t any curtains over the windows, the room was heavy with murky shadows from the dark streaks on the glass. It looked as if Ed had painted them with motor oil. Just enough light pushed in for Timmy to see by, but it was like walking in the woods at sunset. He dodged boxes of junk, stepped over some pots lined with a dark crust, and kicked a path through trash and loose paper on his way to the table.

  The table was buried under books, magazines, and comics. A paper bag was on top of the debris, and Timmy could tell it was stuffed.

  Four chairs were spread around the table, and only three of them could be sat in. The fourth had a column of hardback books on its seat, stacked so high it was leaning slightly. Timmy glimpsed the word vampire in the title of the book on top.