I had made it to the door, when the strangest notion took hold. Not understanding why, I turned around and walked back over to the window. I stood there for a few moments, doubting what was running through my head, but unable to resist the temptation of what it was suggesting. I reached out and grabbed one of the nails by its bent head and pulled. It slid out of the wood as easily as if I were pulling a spoon out of a peanut butter jar. The same thing with the other one.
I held them up, examining them, thinking that there must be something wrong with them. But they looked just like ordinary rusted nails. Somehow I knew I could do that, but had no idea how I knew. And I stood there, still amazed that I actually had.
“Ok, Richard. You can figure this all out later. Let’s get these windows open and keep em open.” I pushed the sashes up and jammed the stay rods in place. Then, without even thinking about it, I pushed the nails back into the widow grooves and bent the heads around the stays. These windows were not coming down again. I then affixed a few layers of aluminum foil over the panes on the outside. Permanent reflection.
Satisfied with my work, I went back and sat at my desk. I rubbed my hand through the back of my hair, expecting to find a sizeable lump from the pounding I took. Nothing!
“Another curious piece to this puzzle, my boy,” I said, trying to force out a laugh, but succeeding only in a choked off cough.
4
The next few weeks were uneventful. July quietly dissipated into August, and August into September. Most of the things that I’d wanted done around the house were finished. What remained now was to figure out what I wanted to do with the back yard. I considered moving the tree line back a few yards. I wasn’t much for cutting down trees, and the willow certainly wouldn’t be touched, but I kept getting a nagging feeling that I should clear a little more space around the back of the house.
So, on a bright and sunny morning, I took a legal pad, pen, and a large ball of string and walked around to the back of the house. The yard was starting to be spotted with the earliest of the falling leaves. Oaks and Maples were slowly divesting themselves of their summer outfits and preparing for the winter to come.
Once out back, the first thing I did was to stop and admire the Weeping Willow. I gently ran my fingers up and down its slender, tendril-like branches, letting its thin leaves slide across the tips. There was something very special about this tree, something that made me feel calm and safe inside. It felt very much like its sole purpose was to stand guard over me, a trusted friend. Yet, at the same time, there was an underlying sense that it also held a terrible secret. A secret it kept hidden within its long flowing branches and deep roots.
“Ok,” I said, turning away from the willow and toward the woods behind it, “let’s see who goes and who stays.”
Looking left and right, I made a quick sketch of the house on the legal pad and the approximate distance to the beginning of the tree line. I wasn’t much of an artist, so I just made a series of wavy lines to represent the rows of trees and a square for the house. Shifting my gaze from the pad to the trees, I finally decided where I wanted to begin the cutting. I moved into the woods about ten yards and started with a Poplar that stood about thirty feet tall to the right of the house. I wrapped a length of string around it and slowly made my way left, playing out the string against the reprieved trees as I went. Everything in front of the string would go.
When I reached the left end, and the place I wanted to stop the cutting, I tied off the string and let what was left on the ball drop to the ground at the tree’s base. When I looked back at the house to see if I was on target, I saw the little cemetery, its wrought iron fence still rusted and falling. It occurred to me that I’d never even gone to look at it the whole time I’d been here.
I walked over to it, running my fingertips across the chipped metal. The gate was hanging on one hinge, like a drunk on a lamppost. The bottom of the latch post had worked its way into the ground, so that when I pulled on the gate it only bent forward and then swung back. I had to pry it up to get it open.
Inside, there were four headstones, two large and two smaller ones. They were sandstone and the names were so weathered that I couldn’t really make them out completely. I ran my fingers across the names in a vain attempt to read them like Braille. Some of the letters were easy to figure out; some were just too worn away. But I could guess at the ones that were gone. The family name appeared to be Fleishman. The curious thing to me was that the smaller stones seemed to have never been engraved with first names. Only the last name was on those stones.
I knelt down in front of the first stone, presumably the father’s and tried to get a rubbing. Using a sheet of paper from my legal pad I did my best to bring up a first name, but my pen was inadequate to the job. All I ended up getting was a shredded piece of yellow paper.
“Oh well, guess you’ll have to wait for another time.” I left the yard and closed the gate behind me as best I could. When it clanked shut, a sudden wind blew up. It was a very strong wind, strong enough to push me forward before I caught my balance. When I looked down, I noticed that, had I fallen forward completely, I would have impaled myself on one of the gates spikes. Not a pleasant thought.
Recovering myself, I took a few steps back, the wind still pushing at me, my eyes still on the spike. When I looked up, the bramble bushes beyond the cemetery were being pushed from side to side, allowing a succession of quick glances beyond them. Hidden behind them, there seemed to be some kind of stone building, totally obscured when the bushes stood tightly side by side.
I made my way around the back of the cemetery’s fence, but not without a good deal of effort. It seemed that, with each step I took, the wind blew harder. And above, the clouds had seemed to roll in from nowhere. I figured we were in for one of those freak, pre-autumn, thunder storms and standing out under trees and near an iron fence probably wasn’t the best of ideas. So I beat a hasty retreat back into the house. The building behind the bushes, whatever it was, would have to wait for another time.
5
I went upstairs and fumbled around with my copywriting for awhile, not really concentrating on it. The whole time, I kept an eye out the window, hoping the storm would blow over quickly. I was really curious about what that building might be, and why it was never mentioned by the realtor when I’d bought the house.
With the dark of the approaching storm, the window panes, those not already covered with aluminum, were in perfect light to reflect my office, but no lady today. I was beginning to wonder if I’d hallucinated the whole thing. But the nails in the window frames eradicated those thoughts from my mind.
A finger of lightning arched across the sky, followed by a rolling rumble of heavy thunder. I moved closer to the window, my hands in my pockets to watch nature’s aerial display of anger. I always enjoyed lightning storms—enjoyed them, but respected their power. I don’t know how long I stood there or how many times my little brass clock chalinged away the hours.
The driving rain, the lightning and the way the wind was whipping the willow branches around held me captive. I couldn’t seem to draw myself away from the window. When I finally managed to, it was half past eight.
I turned and reached over to push the little black button on the bottom of my desk lamp when I felt it. Another hand on mine. I froze in place, my fingertips on the lamp switch. I could feel the cool fingertips gently rubbing the back of my hand. The touch was feather-light and comforting. Immediately, I looked into the window but saw nothing. I wanted to shift my angle so that I could see more of the room, but was unwilling to pull my hand away from the lamp for fear of losing the touch. I stood there, bent over, hand on the switch, not moving.
“Is it you?” I finally asked. “Have you come back? You’ve been gone a long time.”
“It’s I, Richard. I am here. Have you really missed me?”
“Yes. Why have you been gone?”
“It was not my doing. I wanted to come to you. I needed to come to you.” Her v
oice was strong, perhaps because of the strength the storm was imparting to the wind, but it was also melancholy. There was a profound sorrow, almost an anguish, to it.
“What kept you from coming…and what is your name?” I already felt I knew the answer to the first part of the question. Whatever had attacked me had kept her from coming back.
“I can not give you names, Richard. You must come to that by yourself. And you know what kept me from coming, don’t you?”
“Yes. It was him, wasn’t it?” I didn’t know who “him” was, but I had no doubts that that’s who it was, and the it was definitely a male. I only needed to think about how my head felt when it hit the floor to know that.
“It was. And he will try to keep me from you again. You must remember, Richard. You must remember everything…and soon. Your time grows short.”
“What does that mean? Remember what?” There was something about the way she said that that stirred a feeling deep inside me. I had no idea what it was I was supposed to be remembering, but I knew, just from the way she’d said it, that there was something to remember.
I stood up, taking my hand away from the lamp. When I looked in the window I could see her. Her white lace gown flowing around her, much like the branches of the willow flowed around it in the storm. There was a beautiful innocence to her face, her long black hair, hanging below her shoulders accented its softness.
“He will come again, Richard. And he is strong. You must be stronger. You must remember. You must find all of your strength.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, almost pleading. “What strength? What must I remember?” I wanted desperately to turn around and look at her, to touch her, but I knew I couldn’t. I had to content myself with the image in the glass.
“I must go now. I can linger no longer tonight. Please, Richard, before it’s too late—remember.”
Like a movie fading to black, she vanished. Once again, the only thing visible in the window was the storm that raged outside.
“I need more answers I shouted,” but it was useless. There were no more answers forthcoming.
6
The next day I woke up about four-thirty in the afternoon. I must have been more tired than I’d realized. That groggy, can’t quite get it together feeling held on tight. I didn’t start feeling myself until a little after seven. By then, the day was shot and I was at a loss as to what to do with myself. I could try to get some writing done, but the idea of putting together another useless ad just left a bad taste in my mouth. Then I remembered the building out back. Time to go check that out.
Although the days were getting shorter, there was still plenty of time and light left to go poking around, but I grabbed a flashlight anyway. I might just want to take a look inside the thing and I was sure there were no lights.
It must have been an overcast day. Clouds still hung heavily in the sky, white above with streaks of gray and black moving faster beneath. The grass was soggy and puddles had formed here and there where the drainage was worst. Some of these I managed to avoid, others I squished through.
At the back of the house I turned to look at my willow. I had to pinch my eyes shut and then look a second time. What I saw just couldn’t be. I walked over to it and held out my hand, palm up. There was a red liquid dripping off the ends of the leaves. It was as if it had rained blood last night. I looked around, even up in the tree. I’m not sure what I was expecting to find, maybe another dead cat that had been ripped apart by the storm. There was nothing that explained what I was seeing.
I held my hand up to my nose. I could smell the metallic of the copper in the blood. The heme group. In fact, now that it crossed my mind, I’d been able to smell it since I stepped out of my door. I had just been too intent on getting to the mysterious building to realize it.
Bending over, I wiped my palm off on the grass, then stood up, still puzzled and a bit amazed at what I was looking at. I’ve heard that some people believe that trees and things have souls, but I’ve never heard they could bleed. This was one for the books and I had no idea what it meant.
Giving it one more look, I headed over to the bushes behind the cemetery plot. They were thick and prickly. Getting through them wasn’t going to be easy. I thought about doing an end run, but I could see that they were pretty full all the way around. Nothing for it but to push through. Steeling myself for their sharp resistance, I closed my eyes, held my hands in front of my face and pushed forward.
I actually got though easier than I had expected. There were a few scratches on my forearms and hands, but overall, I weathered it pretty well. I just hoped the same would hold for the trip back. And I had been right about the bushes. They wrapped completely around the building, the sole occupant to their center.
It was made of solid stone, from foundation to roof. It looked like some kind of home made mausoleum. What struck me the most about it though was the fact that it was in such good shape. There were places where it had been recently re-pointed. The ivy that grew around the base was clipped, keeping it a bay. At first I thought that the yard crew I’d contracted to take care of the lawn did it, but that didn’t make any sense. Nobody was going to jam themselves through those sticker bushes just to cut some ivy. Yet, the fact remained, someone had.
I circled the building slowly, taking in its architecture. At the base of it in the back was, what appeared to be, a kind of door. It measured about three feet at its widest and only about two or two and a half tall. I rapped on it with my knuckles. Solid iron, which I’d guessed just from the brownish-red rust that covered it. But it was more than just iron. It was solid. I’d expected to hear an echo reverberated through the inside chamber but there was none. It was as if someone had just added an iron plate to an already solid stone wall. Once again, I was at a loss as to why anyone would want to do that.
“Sure is flippin’ odd.” I said. I rapped again, first with my fist and then with a stone. Same results. If the inside was hollow, as I was certain it was, someone had gone to an awful lot of trouble to keep people out. I ran my hand over the stones. I’d expected them to be cool, the way stone usually was, but these were cold. And there was something else about them too. I don’t know why, but I got the distinct feeling that this building was in some way connected with my mysterious lady—and maybe my mysterious attacker too.
I knelt down and examined the iron door more closely. There was no handle of any kind and it was cemented into the stone on all sides. One thing was for sure, this plate was never intended to be removed. I ran my fingers along the edges, checking to see if any of the cement had loosened, but that was a wasted effort. If joints were maintained, as evidenced by the re-pointing, then I could expect that the plate was kept solid too. And it was.
“Well, Richard, there’s always a sledge hammer, you know.” I thought about that. I got the mental image of myself out here beating on the stone with a sledge hammer to break my way in. “Into what? Probably end up looking as foolish as the Capone’s Vault folly.” The thought didn’t cheer me. As with many things lately, I didn’t know why, but I had to get into that…vault?…chamber?…whatever it was.
By the time I was done with the building and had wormed my way through the thickets (they seemed a lot harder to get out of than into) it was getting dark. I looked at my watch, but in my haste to get to the building I’d forgotten to put it on.
Over the horizon, the top edge of the sun was still visible, an inverted bowl of orange and pink. For this time of year, that meant that it had to be around eight o’clock or so. I was almost to the front door when I realized that I’d left my flashlight back on the ground at the building. There wasn’t much point now to go and get it. I could do that tomorrow. I just hoped I didn’t blow a fuse during the night, which I figured would be my luck.
Not that most of them in this house weren’t anymore, but that night was a very strange night for me. I found it hard to get to sleep. I wasn’t tired at all. Of course, I had slept most of the day.
But I tried anyway. I didn’t want to fall into the rut of being up all night. Yet, try as I might, I couldn’t fall asleep.
I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was restless and bored. For the longest time, I just wandered aimlessly through the house. Up to my office, down to the kitchen, sit in the living room until I couldn’t sit still anymore (which was usually about ten minutes), back up to my office, out on the porch—nothing seemed to satisfy me and I wasn’t nearly ready to sleep.
By four-thirty I was starting to wind down. I could feel a drowsiness begin to settle over me like dust in an attic. When I finally laid down, I made sure to set the alarm for eight o’clock. Tired or not, I had to get up and break this cycle before it really took hold. I put my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes.
7
It was the heavy pounding that brought me awake. I sat up and rubbed my face. Bang-bang-bang, bang-bang-bang-bang. It took me a moment or two to realize that there was someone pounding on my front door. I looked at my alarm. 3:45 P.M. I’d done it again. I’d slept through the alarm, and if it hadn’t been for my, as yet unknown, visitor, I don’t know when I would have awakened.
I threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and padded downstairs, still in bare feet. When I opened the door, I was surprised to see Jacob Waters standing on my front porch.
“Jacob? What brings you out here?”
“C’n I come in?”
“Uh…sure.” I stepped back, dragging the door open as I did.
“Won’t take too much-a yer time. Just a few things.”
“Take all the time you need, Jacob. What’s up?”
He stood just inside the door, head down looking at the floor. He reminded me of a school boy standing before the principal.
“It ain’t easy fer me. There’s things I think I should be tellin ya…bout this place mostly. But other things too.”
“What kind of things?” I asked. He turned away, as if he couldn’t look at me.
“Dunno. Well, I do know. Just dunno if I should be tellin ya. That’s all. Like I said, it ain’t easy.” He fiddled with the strap on his overalls.
The Vampire Megapack: 27 Modern and Classic Vampire Stories Page 8
