In the Footsteps of Dracula

by Stephen Jones

  “Yes, and we’ll increase the number depending on the Mayor.”

  “But I can drive . . . there are the trucks . . .” Blaumlein realized that these were poor bargaining tools. There were undoubtedly people here who could drive . . . and they would have the trucks anyway when they . . . He tried not to think of that. “We can travel . . . I’ve seen lots of towns, on the way here, places we can go back to for fresh supplies . . .”

  Duffy thought for a moment and looked across at the others. Eleanor Revine shrugged.

  “He does have a point there, Tom,” Mildred Duffy said. There was something about the way she raised her eyebrows that Blaumlein didn’t like. He couldn’t figure out what it was, but he knew he didn’t like it.

  Duffy nodded and relaxed his grip. Then he removed his hand completely from Blaumlein’s shoulder and stepped back. Blaumlein rubbed his arm and shoulder, trying to get the circulation going again. “Okay,” Duffy said. “But there’s something I haven’t mentioned.”

  Duffy walked around and stood with the other townsfolk. “There’s one myth about vampirism that’s absolutely true. Crucifixes, garlic, silver . . . all that stuff means diddly to us. But we cannot expose ourselves to the sun.”

  Blaumlein frowned.

  “You see where I’m heading with this?”

  Now Blaumlein shook his head. But the smile he had been feeling started to fade.

  “The deal is you take us to these places. We’ll fix up the trucks so we can travel during the day without fear of exposure . . . but you’ll have to be manacled. Just for security’s sake.”

  “But . . . how can I do that? Take you around during the day?”

  “The sun won’t bother you, Mr. Blaumlein,” Duffy said softly.

  “You won’t be drinking any of the treated blood.”

  “Hey, now wait a minute . . . we agreed—”

  “You’re in no position to bargain, I’m afraid. But for the record, you sold yourself on the basis of chauffeur duties. We won’t always be able to travel at night—distances being what they are—so the services of someone who can take sunlight would be valuable. But . . .” He shrugged. “The choice is yours. Life and some driving responsibilities, or . . .”

  Blaumlein glanced up at his wife’s body. It wasn’t much of a decision at all. Not really.

  Duffy reached under the table and pulled out a thick-linked chain with manacles at each end. He walked over to Blaumlein and stooped to fasten one of the manacles to his ankle. “Time for our rest now, Mr. Blaumlein.” He moved across to the first of a series of metal posts attached to the rail for the plastic sheeting and fixed the second manacle. “Sleep well. We’ll see you in the evening.”

  “But . . . but what about food?”

  “Food? Ah, yes. That was what you came here for after all. There’ll be cabbage soup for supper. Then we’ll go down to the trucks and bring back the others. Tomorrow we can start to make plans for travelling.”

  The townsfolk filed out of the barn. The last one to leave—the boy: Billy something—stopped and smiled coldly at Blaumlein. “I knew he wasn’t a real vampire.”

  To Joe Blaumlein, the huge barn doors closing sounded for all the world like a stone slab being pushed over a crypt entrance.

  He turned around and saw his wife’s eyes, sleepily staring straight at him. As the whispering started, he remembered he still had two bullets left.

  F. PAUL WILSON is the author of more than fifty books encompassing the science fiction, horror and contemporary thriller genres. In 1998 he resurrected his popular anti-hero, Repairman Jack, and has chronicled his adventures in twenty-three novels, following him to the near-destruction of human civilization in Nightworld.

  He has also peeked into Jack’s teenage life in the young adult trilogy, Jack: Secret Histories, Jack: Secret Circles, and Jack: Secret Vengeance, recounting a young Jack’s efforts to establish himself in NYC.

  Most of the author’s short fiction is collected in Soft & Others, The Barrens & Others, and Aftershocks & Others, plus a collection of Repairman Jack short stories, Quick Fixes. He has edited two anthologies, Freak Show and Diagnosis: Terminal, and has written for stage, screen, and interactive media.

  His 1981 novel The Keep was made into a visually striking but otherwise incomprehensible movie, the original teleplay “Glim-Glim” aired on Monsters, his short story “Menage a Trois” was part of the pilot for Showtime’s The Hunger series, and “Pelts” was adapted by Dario Argento for Masters of Horror.

  He was voted Grand Master by the World Horror Convention and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association. He has also received the Bram Stoker Award, the Porgie Award, the Prometheus and Prometheus Hall of Fame Awards, the Pioneer Award from the RT Booklovers Convention, and the Inkpot Award from ComiCon.

  The Lord’s Work

  F. Paul Wilson

  Vampires finally rule the world. They use humans as either slaves or livestock, but there are still a few who have the courage to fight back against their undead masters . . .

  And what are you doing, Carole? What are you DOING? You’ll be after killing yourself, Carole. You’ll be blowing yourself to pieces and then you’ll be going straight to Hell. HELL, Carole!

  “But I won’t be going alone,” Sister Carole Flannery muttered. She had to turn her head away from the kitchen sink now. The fumes stung her nose and made her eyes water, but she kept on stirring the pool-chlorinator into the hot water until it was completely dissolved. She wasn’t through yet. She took the beaker of No Salt she’d measured out before starting the process and added it to the mix in the big Pyrex bowl. Then she stirred some more. Finally, when she was satisfied that she was not going to see any further dissolution at this temperature, she put the bowl on the stove and turned up the flame.

  A propane stove. She’d seen the big white tank out back last week when she was looking for a new home; that was why she’d chosen this old house. With New Jersey Natural Gas in ruins, and JCP&L no longer sending electricity through the wires, propane and wood stoves were the only ways left to cook.

  I really shouldn’t call it cooking, she thought as she fled the acrid fumes and headed for the living room. Nothing more than a simple dissociation reaction—heating a mixture of calcium hypochlorate with potassium chloride. Simple, basic chemistry. The very subject she’d taught bored freshmen and sophomores for five years at St. Anthony’s high school over in Lakewood.

  “And you all thought chemistry was such a useless subject!” she shouted to the walls.

  She clapped a hand over her mouth. There she was, talking out loud again. She had to be careful. Not so much because someone might hear her, but because she was worried she might be losing her mind.

  She’d begun talking to herself in her head—just for company of sorts—to ease her through the long empty hours. But the voice had taken on a life of its own. It was still her own voice, but it had acquired a thick Irish brogue, very similar to her dear, sweet, dead mother’s.

  Maybe she’d already lost her mind. Maybe all this was merely a delusion. Maybe vampires hadn’t taken over the entire civilized world. Maybe they hadn’t defiled her church and convent, slaughtered her sister nuns. Maybe it was all in her mind.

  Sure, and you’d be wishing it was all in your mind, Carole. Of course you would. Then you wouldn’t be sinning!

  Yes, she truly did wish she were imagining all this. At least then she’d be the only one suffering, and all the rest would still be alive and well, just as they’d been before she went off the deep end. Like the people who’d once lived in this house. The Bennetts—Kevin, Marie, and their twin girls. She hadn’t known them before, but Sister Carole felt she knew them now. She’d seen their family photos, seen the twins’ bedroom. They were dead now, she was sure. Or maybe worse. But either way, they were gone.

  But if this was a delusion it was certainly an elaborate, consistent delusion. Every time she woke up—she never allowed herself to sleep too many hour
s at once, only catnaps—it was the same: quiet skies, vacant houses, empty streets, furtive, scurrying survivors who trusted no one, and—

  What’s that?

  Sister Carole froze as her ears picked up a sound outside, a hum, like a car engine. She hurried in a crouch to the front door and peered through the sidelight. It was a car. A convertible. Someone was out driving in—

  She ducked down when she saw who was in it. Scruffy and unwashed, lean and wolfish, bare-chested or in cut-off sweatshirts, the driver wearing a big Texas hat, all guzzling beer. She didn’t know their names or their faces, and she didn’t have to see their earrings to know who—what—they were.

  Collaborators. Predators. They liked to call themselves cowboys. Sister Carole called them scum of the earth.

  They were headed east. Good. They’d find a little surprise waiting for them down the road.

  As it did every so often, the horror of what her life had become caught up to Sister Carole then, and she slumped to the floor of the Bennett house and began to sob.

  Why? Why had God allowed this to happen to her, to His Church, to His world?

  Better question: why had she allowed these awful events to change her so? She had been a Sister of Mercy.

  Mercy! Do you hear that, Carole? A Sister of MERCY!

  She had taken vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, had vowed to devote her life to teaching and doing the Lord’s work. But now there was no money, no one worth losing her virginity to, no Church to be obedient to, and no students left to teach.

  All she had left was the Lord’s work.

  Believe you me, Carole, I’d hardly be calling the making of plastic explosive and the other horrible things you’ve been doing the Lord’s work. It’s killing! It’s a SIN!

  Maybe the voice was right. Maybe she would go to Hell for what she was doing. But somebody had to make those rotten cowboys pay.

  King of the world.

  Al Hulett leaned back in the passenger seat of the Mercedes convertible they’d just driven out of somebody’s garage, burning rubber all the way, and let the cool breeze caress his sweaty head. Stan was driving, Artie and Kenny were in the back seat, everybody had a Heineken in his fist as they tooled along Route 88 toward the beach, catching some early summer rays on the way. He casually tossed his empty backward, letting it arc over the trunk, and heard it smash on the asphalt behind them. Then he closed his eyes and grooved.

  The pack. Buddies. The four of them had been together since grammar school in Camden. How many years was that now? Ten? Twelve? Couldn’t be more than a dozen. No way. Whatever, the four of them had stuck together through it all, never breaking up, even when Stan pulled that short jolt in Yardville on a B&E, even when the whole world went to hell.

  They’d come through it all like gold. They’d hired out to the winners. They were the best hunting pack around. And Al was one of them.

  King of the fucking world.

  Well, not king, really. But at least a prince . . . when the sun was up.

  Night was a whole different story.

  But why think about the night when you had this glorious summer day all to—

  “Shit! Goddam shit!”

  Stan’s raging voice and the sudden braking of the car yanked Al from his reverie. He opened his eyes and looked at Stan.

  “Hey, motherfu—”

  Then he saw him. Or, rather, it. Dead ahead. Dead ahead. A corpse, hanging by its feet from a utility pole.

  “Oh, shit,” Kenny said from behind him. “Another one. Who is it?”

  “I dunno,” Stan said, then he looked at Al from under the wide brim of his cowboy hat. “Whyn’t you go see.”

  Al swallowed. He’d always been the best climber, so he’d wound up the second-storey man of the team. But he didn’t want to make this climb.

  “What’s the use?” Al said. “Whoever he is, he’s dead.”

  “See if he’s one of us,” Stan said.

  “Ain’t it always one of us?”

  “Then see which one of us it is, okay?”

  Stan had this pale, cratered skin. Even though he was in his twenties he still got pimples. He looked like the man in the moon now, but in the old days he’d been a pizza face. Once he almost killed a guy who’d called him that. And he had this crazy blond hair that stuck out in all directions when he didn’t cut it, but even when he cut it Mohican-style like now, all shaved off on the sides and all, it looked crazier than ever. Made Stan look crazier than ever. And Stan was pretty crazy as it was. And mean. He’d been thinking he was hot shit ever since he got out of Yardville. His big head had got even bigger when the bloodsuckers made him pack leader. He’d been pissing Al off lately but this time he was right: somebody had to go see who’d got unlucky last night.

  Al hopped over the door and headed for the pole. What a pain in the ass. The rope around the dead guy’s feet was looped over the first climbing spike. He shimmied up to it and got creosote all over him in the process. The stuff was a bitch to get off. And besides, it made his skin itch. On the way up he’d kept the pole between himself and the body. Now it was time to look. He swallowed. He’d seen one of these strung-up guys up close before and—

  He spotted the earring, a blood-splattered silvery crescent moon dangling on a fine chain from the brown-crusted earlobe, an exact replica of the one dangling from his own left ear, and from Stan’s and Artie’s and Kenny’s. Only this one was dangling the wrong way.

  “Yep,” he said, loud so’s the guys on the ground could hear it. “It’s one of us.”

  “Damn!” Stan’s voice. “Anyone we know?”

  Al squinted at the face but with the gag stuck in its mouth, and the head so encrusted with clotted blood and crawling with buzzing, feeding flies, darting in and out of the gaping wound in the throat, he couldn’t make out the features.

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Well, cut him down.”

  This was the part Al hated most of all. It seemed almost sacrilegious. Not that he’d ever been religious or anything, but someday, if he didn’t watch his ass, this could be him.

  He pulled his Special Forces knife from his belt and sawed at the rope above the knot on the climbing spike. It frayed, jerked a couple of times, then parted. He closed his eyes as the body tumbled downward. He hummed Metallica’s “Sandman” to blot out the sound it made when it hit the pavement. He especially hated the sick, wet sound the head made if it landed first. Which this one did.

  “Looks like Benny Gonzales,” Artie said.

  “Yep,” Kenny said. “No doubt about it. That’s Benny. Poor guy.”

  They dragged his body over to the curb and drove on, but the party mood was gone.

  “I’d love to catch the bastards who’re doing this shit,” Stan said as he drove. “They’ve gotta be close by around here somewhere.”

  “They could be anywhere,” Al said. “They found Benny back there, killed him there—you saw that puddle of blood under him—and left him there. Then they cut out.”

  “They’re huntin’ us like we’re huntin’ them,” Kenny said.

  “But I wanna be the one to catch ’em,” Stan said.

  “Yeah?” said Artie from the back. “And what would you do if you did?”

  Stan said nothing, and Al knew that was the answer. Nothing. He’d bring them in and turn them over. The bloodsuckers didn’t like you screwing with their cattle.

  Kings of the world . . . princes of the day . . .

  If you could get used to the creeps you were working for, it wasn’t too bad a set-up. Could have been worse, Al knew—a lot worse.

  They all could have wound up being cattle.

  Al didn’t know when the vampires had started taking over. People said it began in Eastern Europe, some time after the communists got kicked out. The vampires had been building up their numbers, waiting for their chance, and when everything was in turmoil, they struck. All of a sudden it was the only thing on the news. Dracula wasn’t a storybook character, he was real
, and he was suddenly the new Stalin in charge of Eastern Europe.

  From there the vampires spread east and west, into Russia and the rest of Europe. They were smart, those bloodsuckers. They hit the government and military bigwigs first, made them their own kind, then threw everything into chaos. Not too long after that they crossed the ocean. America thought it was ready for them but it wasn’t. They hit high, they hit low, and before you knew it, they were in charge.

  Well, almost in charge. They did whatever they damn well pleased at night, but they’d never be in charge around the clock because they couldn’t be up and about in the daylight. They needed somebody to hold the fort for them between sunrise and sunset.

  That was where Al and the guys came in. The bloodsuckers had found them hiding in the basement of Leon’s pool hall one night and made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.

  They could be cattle, or they could be cowboys and drive the cattle.

  Not much of a choice as far as Al could see.

  You see, the bloodsuckers had two ways of killing folks. They had the usual way of ripping into your neck and sucking out your blood. If they got you that way, you became one of them come the next sundown. That was the method they used when they were taking over a place. They got themselves a bunch of instant converts that way. But once they had the upper hand, they changed their feeding style. Smart, those bloodsuckers. If they got too many of their kind wandering around, they’d soon have nobody to feed on—a world full of chefs with nothing to cook. So after they were in control, they’d string their victims up by their feet, slit their throats, and drink the blood as it gushed out of them. When you died that way, you stayed dead. Something they called “true death.”

  But they’d offered Al and Stan and the guys undeath. Be their cowboys, be their muscle during the day, herd the cattle and take care of business between sunrise and sunset, do a good job for twenty years, and they’d see to it that you got done in the old-fashioned way, the way that left you like them. Undead. Immortal. One of the ruling class.