“No one can help you.”
The vampire laughed, hard and wicked, for some time. Then it stopped, when someone came in the back door.
#
Sully heard her before he saw her. It was the voice of a child.
“They take, not stay,” she sang. “They take, never stay.”
The vampire watched the door and waited.
The girl that appeared in the doorway could have been in one of Sully’s classes. She was small and fragile looking. Her brown hair was in pigtails. She walked into the room fearlessly.
“They take, not stay,” she sang. “They take, never stay.”
Sully wanted to yell at the girl that she should run and get help. He wanted to tell her not to do what she was doing. But he couldn’t say anymore, and the girl walked right up to the vampire.
With a sweeping blow, the vampire caused the girl’s head to spin backwards. The girl fell dead to the floor.
Reflexively, Sully tried to get up. He could not. He could feel nothing now. He would soon be dead.
The vampire turned back to him. Again, it laughed, confidently, wickedly, like the monster that it was. She didn’t seem to notice the girl stand up behind her.
“They take, not stay,” she sang. “They take, never stay.”
The vampire swept around to look at the girl, who seemed as good as new. The vampire backed away, nearly stepping on Sully.
That’s when the first dog appeared in the doorway.
And it wasn’t one of his neighbors’ dogs. It was too big. Its hair was speckled black and gray. The dog had not come from around here. It was a wolf. Its eyes were pale white, its expression emotionless. Sully was fairly certain he was looking at a zombie.
“They take, not stay!” the girl shouted. “They take, never stay!”
She motioned with her hand, and the dead wolf rushed the vampire.
The vampire behind him, Sully didn't see what it did. The dog didn't make a sound. It just flew in front of him, landing lifeless on the floor, dark blood coming from its mouth.
The girl’s eyes rolled back in her head. Something seemed to come from her. It was like nothing Sully had seen before. It was just a disturbance of the light, a distortion in the room. It went from the girl to the dead wolf.
The wolf shook, then stood up again. The girl’s eyes went back to normal. Two more wolves appeared at the door, then a fourth. They came up beside the other.
With a motion of the girl’s hand, they attacked. Sully heard the muffled sound of the vampire crying out as she fought the beasts. He saw the wolves flying about the room. He saw others come into the room to join the brawl.
He watched all of this the best he could, until the girl approached him. She looked down upon him. In a gentle voice that he heard clearly, she said, “My Sully.”
She moved a hand way above him. He felt life lift from his body.
Blackness.
#
Sully looked down. Below, he saw himself. He was floating away. It was as he had heard in the stories of death. He went to the corner of the room.
The girl raised a hand, and with some force, what felt like magnetism, she held him there. When she moved her hand away, the force remained.
Now Anna was directly below him. She was coming to, blinking her eyes, moving her head a little. Sully feared for her, but just a little. The girl seemed to have things under control.
Across the room, several wolves had latched onto the vampire. She screamed and tried to fight, but her movement was restricted. The wolves dragged her to the floor and with their jaws held her there.
Anna sat up and looked around. First, she looked at the girl. She held her gaze there for a few seconds, and then she looked where the wolves held the screaming vampire. Then she looked up, seemingly able to see, or at least sense, the invisible presence that Sully now was.
Anna looked back into the room, where the girl was pointing at Sully’s body. The girl then turned and pointed to the floor, over by the glass doors. Anna looked down at the knife she had dropped earlier. For a few seconds, she seemed to think it over. Then she looked up at him again. She stood up. He could see the fear in her eyes. He could see her eyes were begging him. He wanted to tell her not to worry, that he would not leave. But he had no mouth to speak with. She looked away and then hesitated for a few more seconds. Then she moved to his body. Slowly, she reached down and took his hand.
Anna began to sob, and Sully realized why. She was feeling his dead skin. She wept like that for a little while, before she bent down. She then straightened her legs and pulled his body a little ways. She repeated the motion until his body was next to the wolves.
The pitch of the vampire’s screaming changed. Sully looked and saw that two of the wolves had moved and now had the vampire’s mouth pried wide open. Anna left his body and moved across the room, past the girl and to the knife. She picked it up and moved back to the body.
She took his lifeless wrist in her hand and lifted it. She took several deep breaths before she slit that wrist with the knife.
At a motion of the girl’s hands, one of the wolves cleared a path for Anna. Anna positioned his body’s wrist over the vampire’s mouth, then began squeezing up and down his forearm until a small amount of blood came from that wrist. A string of the liquid dangled from his wrist and then released down into the vampire’s mouth.
The girl motioned and the wolves that held the vampire’s mouth released. The vampire lifted its head and emitted a gurgling sound. Then, after a few seconds, its head dropped to the floor.
The vampire had fed on death and was now without life.
The girl motioned at Sully’s presence, still hovering in the corner of the room, and then he was in another place. He saw the coma men, thousands of them, maybe more. One approached. It touched him.
#
When Sully came to again, he was inside his body. Anna was nestled up to him. He opened his eyes to the lit room. The carpet was covered with a mixture of blood and dog hair. The stench was both stale and acrid.
But that was okay, because a few feet away, the vampire lay motionlessly on the floor. Its white skin was cracked and frail looking. It seemed to be crumbling into itself.
Sully lifted the wrist that Anna had cut in front of his eyes. It had healed completely. He felt his neck and found that the holes were gone. He snickered at himself. Of course, the holes wouldn’t be there. All the other nights the vampire must have fed on him, and he had never had a mark to show for it.
Anna sat up. She looked at him for a second and then came down on his chest.
“Welcome back,” she said.
Sully could think of nothing else to say, so he just said, “Thanks.”
They lay there for a little while longer, and then Sully asked, “Is she gone?”
“Yes.”
“Could you understand her?”
“Some.”
“Was she. . .”
“Yes, Sully,” Anna said. “She was your mother.”
More questions arose in Sully’s head. He doubted that Anna would be able to answer them all.
“Will I ever see her again?” Sully asked.
Anna took a few seconds and then replied, “Maybe. But I don’t think she’ll let you approach her.”
“Why?”
“Because she doesn’t trust men.”
Sully remembered what his dad had told him about his birth mother’s past.
“They take, not stay,” he said. “They take, never stay.”
Chapter Nine
The next morning, Sully awoke in bed. It was early, and still a little dark out. He heard somebody in the house. He wasn’t afraid, though. He thought he knew who it would be.
He found his dad standing outside of the study, looking in.
The old man didn’t say anything. He just smiled and nodded. Anna came up behind Sully.
“I made coffee,” his dad said. “You two have a seat.”
Sully and Anna sat at the dining
room table. His dad joined them, bringing three cups hooked in the fingers of one hand, and the coffee decanter in the other. He poured all of them a cup, returned the decanter to the kitchen, then joined them at the table.
He started in immediately. “Your mother died giving birth to you. I even attended the funeral.” The old man stopped to shake his head at a story that, after all of the years, still obviously astonished him. “It wasn’t a year later that I saw her again. We were all at the park in town. It was some distance away, but I knew it was her. She was across the street hiding by the grain elevators. She saw me and left.”
Sully wondered if his dad had intended on telling him this the other night, before Sully had been put to sleep and his dad scared away.
“I saw her again, many times. Once, early on, I tried to get close to her. But she ran away screaming.”
Sully looked at Anna. She nodded her head. His father was a man.
“It was always about this time of year that I saw her. That’s how I knew what to do when I figured out what was happening around here. I kept a look out. I watched around the places I knew you would be. Last week, I caught up with her just down the road. Saw her out in a field. I think she was hiding out, just looking in on you.”
His dad stopped and smiled. Then he said, “All these years I’ve never heard mention of her around town. I think I was the only one to ever see her, because that’s the way she wanted it. She wanted me to know she was still around.” He paused and shook his head. “Anyway, I knew better than to try to approach her again. So I stood on the road and waved a letter I’d written above my head. Then I made sure she saw me leave it on the ground. I just had to go on hope that she’d be able to read it. I guess she did.”
Sully was astonished, but still a little angry about the secrets kept from him. He asked, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner, Dad? Why did you wait?”
Sully felt Anna’s hand on his arm. He turned to her, but heard his dad’s voice.
“I didn’t want you to turn out like her.”
Anna, a compassionate look on her face, nodded. “That was one of the things I think your mother was trying to tell me, Sully. She got too deep into all of this. She went places the consciousness she had was not ready to go. And that’s what made her crazy.”
Mother, Anna had called the woman. Sully thought about that. The mother he knew was at home right now, content to think that she lived in a linear world, content to think her husband was out checking on something, doing whatever lie he had told her to get out of the house long enough to come here.
But there were more important things to focus on than that.
“So if I was to try to learn the things she did, I would go crazy too?”
Anna shook her head. “Not necessarily. Not if you took your time and learned them over many, many years, as your consciousness advances.”
Many years. That was something Sully had. Many years to learn about what was inside of him. Many years to learn to, like his mother obviously had, use it to maintain his youth. Many years.
“And if another one of these things shows up in the meantime, while I’m still learning, what do we do?”
Anna nodded. “Well, there are people out there who can help us. Most people who claim to delve into the paranormal are not legitimate. A few are.”
“You mean like psychics?” Sully asked.
“Yes,” Anna replied. “Among others. And I know some legitimate ones. At least one of them will be able to tell us how to repel vampires.”
“Maybe you can use garlic cloves,” Sully’s dad said.
Sully had thought the old man was joking. But he looked at his face and saw that he was serious.
“Maybe,” Anna said. “I don’t know. I’ve not researched it. I’ve heard all the folklore, but at this point I don’t know what’s real and what’s not. Garlic may very well work.”
The three of them were content to just sit and sip coffee for a little while. Sully’s mind went to the ramifications of what he was.
“And Monica?” Sully asked. “Is it in her too?”
Anna shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
That made Sully feel even more protective of her. He would be here for who knows how long, but Monica’s life was limited. Just like Anna’s life was limited. All he cared about would perish, and he would still be here.
After he was done with his coffee, his dad got up and looked in the study again. “I’ll clean up the rest of that thing.”
Sully got up beside him and looked. The vampire had collapsed and was now just an outline of dust in human shape.
“I’ll vacuum up the glass and pellets in short britches’s room while I’m at it. I got some glass at the farm I can repair the door with. But if your mom ever asks, you were cleaning the gun and it went off.”
Sully looked to where the shotgun still lay on the floor. His father left to his truck outside. His dad would be here doing repairs today. Meanwhile, he would go to school and teach, like nothing had ever happened.
What would his life be like now? Would he be able to tell people about this? Or would he have to leave here someday, because he couldn’t explain why he continued to live while all those around him died? Were there other people like him out there? People like he and his mother?
Anna got up and hugged Sully. “It’s all of them, Sully. It’s not just all the men who were with your mother; it’s every potential life. Every last lifeforce.”
Sully got a picture of thousands of little sperm swimming inside a birth canal. And that had happened many times.
“You are, by our life standards, an immortal, Sully.”
Sully looked at her face. He didn’t understand how she could smile when she said it. “So what does that mean?” he asked. “Is there some kind of purpose to all of this?”
Anna shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ll have to figure that one out. And you’ll have plenty of time to do it.”
“Yeah,” Sully said. “Many years.”
Fear and Repulsion
By, Joshua Scribner
Originally published by Riverdale Books 2007
Copyright 2010 Joshua Scribner
Smashwords Edition
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the author.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
For Brooke and Jenna
Chapter 1
Dr. David Porter loved his job. In fact, he loved nothing in the world more. Hypnosis was his existence, and passion shined through in the results.
His workspace, a 13X10-foot room, was essentially plain. White walls held no adornment. An analog clock gave an audible tick. Atop beige carpet sat an inclined couch for his clients, an armless leather chair for him. Plain was the way he liked his office, for it wasn’t the surroundings that mattered, but the labors that transpired inside.
Today, Peter Harris, a fifty-year-old lawyer and seasoned alcoholic, lay on the couch. Patients always faced Dr. Porter, so he could monitor their reactions to the trance. By his sunken shoulders and the slack muscles in his usually rigid face, Peter was way under.
In the soft melodic voice Dr. Porter reserved for trance situations, he asked, “Am I now speaking directly to the subconscious?”
The index finger on Peter’s right hand shot up, indicating, “yes.” Dr. Porter was pleased
, because he knew he was now talking to more of Peter than anybody else would ever be able to. Through several sessions, Dr. Porter had taught Peter to enter a state of deep relaxation. Only in this state could the mind be separated from the body and everything else in the here and now. Only in this state could a person have complete access to all he or she had ever thought and felt, a complete history of learning and memory spread out like an open book.
“Now,” Dr. Porter said, “I want you to remember the time right before you took your first drink of alcohol. Signal me when you are there.”
In a matter of two seconds, Peter’s “yes” finger shot up. In a regular state of consciousness, Peter would have had to search his mind for a much longer time. Even then, if he could find the memory, it would be fuzzy. Peter wouldn’t be able to experience what he was thinking and feeling at that time so long ago, because his mind would be too crowded with what was going on right now and in his recent life. But under hypnosis, Peter had total access to that long ago time, without anything contaminating his experience.
“Go ahead and take that first drink,” Dr. Porter said.
After a couple of seconds, Peter actually gulped, and then a look of disgust came over his face. He wasn’t tasting alcohol as it tasted last night, when he’d had several shots of bourbon before bed. He was tasting alcohol as it had tasted so many years ago, before addiction made the flavor a signal of approaching comfort.
Dr. Porter knew this case would be a success. Within Peter’s subconscious, Dr. Porter would find all he needed to help this patient conquer his addiction. He would attach that initial taste of alcohol to the here and now, and when Peter went to take his next drink—probably later tonight—it wouldn’t be the soothing taste that comes with years of dependence, but that initial taste from years ago that brought out his body’s natural tendency to reject something that tasted bad. He would remember those early days, his first hangover, the first time he dry heaved fumes of whiskey. These memories would come with clarity, no longer buried under years of alcohol-dependent experiences.
Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner Page 28
