“I’m not sure you should drink any alcohol. A head injury like that...”
“Who died and made you a neurologist?” Pete slapped the trunk. “Come on!”
Larry opened it, removed the lid from the cooler and took out two cans of beer. He popped their tops and gave one to Pete. Instead of drinking, Pete poured beer onto his handkerchief and started cleaning the blood off his face.
Larry stepped to the front of the car. The can was wet in his hand. He took a drink. The beer was cold and good. Squatting, he yanked the arrow from the tire.
“Let’s see it,” Pete said, tossing the sodden handkerchief to the pavement.
Larry gave the arrow to him.
“Just like I thought, Apache.”
“Right.” “Nice souvenir.”
“Good thing it didn’t end up in one of us.” Larry drank some more beer. “We’re out here playing cowboy and a lunatic starts shooting arrows at us.”
“Why don’t you take off my hat? You look like a dork. If I laugh, it’s gonna hurt.”
He plucked Pete’s hat off the crown of his own and held it out.
“On this head? You’ve gotta be kidding. Just toss it in the car.”
He sailed it through the open window. It landed on the passenger seat. Taking another drink of beer, he squatted down and started pumping the jack handle.
“You sure we don’t have to worry about that bozo jumping us again?”
“I shot him three times,” Larry said.
“Holy shit.”
While he worked on changing the tire, he told Pete about rushing down the embankment after Uriah had thrown the rock, being unable to find him, returning to the top just as the old man was about to hammer a stake into Pete’s chest, and putting a bullet through his face. He told about Uriah yelling “Vampire!” and attacking him with the stake. About the bullet that was stopped by the crucifix, about the accidental shot and throwing Uriah down the slope.
When he finished, he looked around. Pete blew softly through pursed lips and muttered, “Are you shitting me?”
“Nope,” Larry said. “It got pretty wild there for a minute.”
“And I missed it.”
“Sorry about that.”
“The bastard was really gonna do a Van Helsing on me?”
“That’s right.”
“Sure glad you’re good with that shootin‘ iron, old hoss.”
“Me, too.”
Pete tipped his can high and emptied it into his mouth. “I’m having another. How about you?”
Though Larry’s can was still half full, he said, “Yeah.” He used the lug wrench to tighten the nuts while Pete went for the beers.
Pete set the fresh one down beside him.
Larry started lowering the car.
“Sounds to me like the old buzzard might still be alive,” Pete said.
“If he is, he’s not feeling too spry. And his bow’s busted, so he can’t do us any harm.”
“Wish you’d polished him off, though.”
“I thought about it.”
Pulling the jack out from under the car, he waited for Pete to suggest they go back and finish the job.
It didn’t happen.
Instead Pete said, “What’ll we do about him?”
“Leave him.”
“I’ve got half a mind to go back there and put a bullet in his head. But the other half hurts too fucking much.”
“Let’s just get the hell out of here. We can worry about him later.”
“Come back in a few days, maybe.”
“Maybe,” Larry said. He had no intention of returning. But why argue about it now?
He didn’t feel like fighting with the hubcap, either. Instead, he took it and the jack to the trunk. Then he rolled the flat tire to the rear of the car and lifted it in.
Pete showed up beside him with the flashlight and arrow. “We’re gonna keep this quiet, right?” he asked. “You aren’t thinking we should tell the cops?”
“No way,” Larry assured him.
“Or the wives.”
“What’ll we tell them?”
“We went target shooting, right? I tripped and smashed my face on a rock.”
“Sounds good to me.” He shut the trunk. He returned to the front, picked up his two beers, and climbed in behind the steering wheel. He finished the first can as Larry moved his hat out of the way and lowered himself gingerly onto the passenger seat.
He started the car.
“It’s all gotta go in the book, though,” Pete said.
He made a U-turn and sped for the end of town.
Pete grinned at him. “It’s gonna be great in the book, huh, pardner?”
“Yeah. Great.”
“Who would’ve figured it? We come out here looking for the bastard and we wind up in a fuckin‘ battle. Fantastic. Gonna have us a best-seller, for sure.”
“And a lot of explaining to do.”
“Hey, the guy’s a homicidal maniac. What’s to explain?”
“Plenty, I should imagine. The wives’ll find out everything. The cops’ll find out everything. We’ll be up to our ears in crapola.”
“Hey, you’re not gonna pussy out on me, are you?” Larry shook his head. He took a drink of beer as he sped past Babe’s Garage and out of town. “After all this, nothing in the world could stop me from writing that damn book.”
“My man.”
Thirty-six
Uriah got slowly to his feet. He stumbled over to a boulder and sat down on it, wincing as his rump met the hard surface.
He knew he’d lost a lot of skin on his way down the slope. But the abrasions were nothing compared to the bullet wounds.
Leaning forward, he spit out some blood and bits of tooth. With his tongue he gently probed the hole in his left cheek. The pain made him cringe. The hole was pretty small, though. A lot smaller than the wound in his right cheek. Not only had the bullet exited there, but so had one of his molars.
Lucky that bloodsucking son of Satan just had a twenty-two, he thought.
Hurt like crazy, though.
Spitting out some more blood, he fingered the furrow in the scalp above his left ear.
I’ve been hurt worse, he reminded himself.
This was bad, but he figured nothing could ever hurt as much as the time one of the vampires stabbed the stake into his eye. Talk about a world of pain!
Uriah rubbed the bleeding gouge in the middle of his chest.
He saw the crucifix.
The gold-plated body of Jesus was broken in half at the stomach.
He stared at it for a long time.
My Savior, he thought.
You know I still have work to do.
That’s why You helped me escape from the booby-hatch. That’s why You brought me back home. That’s why You saved me today from the hands of the evil ones. You knew I still had work to do.
Confined in the Illinois hospital for the criminally insane, Uriah had thought his mission was over. He hadn’t destroyed every vampire, but he’d done his share. He’d whittled the army down some. He’d lost his eye. He’d been caught. Though they didn’t know all he’d done, they knew he’d tried to kill that Charleston vampire, which was enough to get him put away. He’d hated to admit it, but he’d been glad it was over.
When he escaped, he’d had no intention of going after any more vampires. All he’d wanted was to make his way back to Sagebrush Flat and live in his hotel where he belonged.
But God was behind it, after all. God had led him back here, knowing in His infinite wisdom that trouble was afoot.
Uriah had been in town no more than a month before those people came and found the hiding place. He’d been out in the desert, hunting up supper. They were gone by the time he returned. When he spotted the broken floor of the landing, he’d prayed that they hadn’t discovered the vampire. But his prayer was in vain. The panel enclosing its tomb was loose. The blanket was disarrayed.
He knew, then, that Satan had sent them to
undo his work.
But why hadn’t they pulled out the stake then and there? It didn’t make sense. Had God intervened, somehow, to prevent it?
For days afterward Uriah had kept a vigil. He never left the hotel. At night, instead of retiring to his second-floor room, he’d slept in the lobby. It puzzled him that the intruders didn’t return to resurrect the foul thing under the stairs. Perhaps they hadn’t been sent by Satan, after all. Maybe pure chance had led them here, and they had no intention of coming back.
But if they were innocents, why hadn’t they told the police about finding a corpse?
Day after day Uriah waited and pondered these things. He left the hotel only to relieve himself and to fetch water from the old well out back. He ate jerky from the small supply that he’d set aside for emergencies. When the last of the jerky was gone, he fasted for two days rather than abandon his watch to go hunting.
Finally, gnawed by hunger and knowing he would need all his strength to combat the evil that was sure to come, he’d set out into the desert. Not until after dark did the Lord provide him with a meal. He’d cooked up the coyote. It had spoken to him as he ate. It told him to beware. While he’d been guarding the vampire under the stairs, the intruders had found the other two and set them free.
He’d been sure it was the voice of God that had warned him. Terrified that the evil had been unleashed, Uriah had hurried back to the hotel. With candles and a rusty old spade from his room, he ran to the east end of town. The front door of King’s Liquor had long since been broken open. Entering, he made his way to the rear of the empty shop. Holding a candle close to the floor, he was able to find the trapdoor.
It had been Ernie King’s pride and joy — a secret entrance to the cellar where he kept his most precious bottles of wine. In the old days Ernie used to brag that nobody knew about the trapdoor except for his own family and his best pal, Uriah. They’d spent many fine evenings down there, sampling, before Ernie upped and left town along with nearly everyone else.
A thin layer of sand blown in from the desert covered the wooden hatch.
Sure didn’t lookas if anyone had opened it up recently.
But maybe the intruders had sprinkled sand around, afterward, to make the area look undisturbed.
Uriah took out his knife. He pried up the trapdoor and eased it down against the floor. Lifting his shovel, he descended the stairs.
The dirt floor didn’t appear to have been dug up. That should’ve been another clue. But Uriah was not about to question the words of the Lord. By the light of the candles, sweating in spite of the cellar’s chill, he’d dug for the bodies.
These had been buried deep. With these, he’d had plenty of time. He would’ve put the last vampire down here, too, but he’d been in too much of a rush. He’d been seen. So he’d just hidden it under the hotel stairs and fled town as fast as he could.
Digging in the hard earth of the cellar, he wished he hadn’t put these two down so far.
Hours seemed to go by, and his last candle was down to a tiny stub before the blade of his shovel struck wood. He had buried the coffins next to each other. He wasn’t sure which he’d found. But it didn’t matter.
Standing in the shoulder-deep hole, he worked feverishly to clear the coffin’s lid. The candle was guttering as he scooped out footholds on each side.
He straddled the coffin. He rammed the blade of his shovel under its lid. The nails squeaked. The candle died.
A chill of dread squirmed through Uriah as he worked in total darkness.
The Lord had told him that the vampires had been set free. Not that they were gone.
There might be a living vampire in the coffin below him.
My crucifix and my garlic will protect me, he told himself.
But his terror grew as he wrenched the top of the casket loose. He tossed his shovel out of the hole, bent down and lifted the lid. He brought it up between his spread legs. He hurled it out of the hole.
Carefully, he eased himself down until his knees came to rest on the narrow wooden edges of the casket. Gripping an edge with his left hand, he bent lower. He reached through the darkness.
His fingers slipped into soft, dry hair, and he felt as if a thousand spiders were rushing up his back.
He touched the parched, crusty skin of the vampire’s face. When his fingertips met the edges of her teeth, he gasped and jerked his hand back.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” he whispered, and forced himself to touch her again. He felt her neck. Her collarbone. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.”
He touched the smooth roundness of the wooden stake.
He curled his hand around it.
The stake was still buried in her chest, just as it ought to be.
Uriah knew, then, that the coyote had lied. Its voice hadn’t been the Lord. Satan had spoken through the beast to trick him.
Throwing himself out of the hole, Uriah scurried through the darkness. He stumbled up the cellar stairs and rushed out to the sidewalk.
In time to see two men come out of the hotel carrying the coffin.
Angry, miserable with fear and guilt, he watched them slide the coffin into the rear of a van. They climbed into the front seats. Without headlights the van sped up the moonlit street. For a wild moment Uriah considered rushing out and trying to stop it.
But the Lord held him back.
Bide your time, He seemed to say. I won’t fail you.
So Uriah had ducked out of sight within the store until the van was gone.
He had bided his time.
Today the Lord had brought the men back to Sagebrush Flat. They had come to kill him. Of that, he was certain. They had set the vampire free and become its undead brethren. They had come here to destroy the only man worthy of laying them to rest.
But they had failed.
Uriah touched his tongue against the raw inside of his cheek and winced.
They failed, he thought. But I didn’t.
No, he hadn’t succeeded in putting them at peace. But he would.
He would get them andthe vampire who had slaughtered his family. All together.
He smiled. It sent fire through his cheeks and made his eyes water.
Reaching down, he plucked a slip of folded paper from between his belt and the skin of his belly.
Before honking the horn of their car to draw them out, he had searched the glove compartment. He had found what he knew must be there.
The vehicle registration slip.
Unfolding it, he blinked the tears from his eyes and gazed at the paper.
The car was registered to Lawrence Dunbar, 345 Palm Avenue, Mulehead Bend, California.
Mulehead Bend.
Uriah used to know that town very well.
It’s where the vampires had come from before — when they came in the night to murder his Elizabeth and Martha. It’s where they were gathering again, growing in numbers.
Some fiftv miles off.
It’ll take me a couple of days, he thought. I’d better get started.
He tucked the registration slip under his belt and began to climb the wall of the ravine.
Thirty-seven
Lane’s hand trembled as she applied eyeliner. It’s not a date, she told herself. Just a school function. Nothing more than a glorified field trip, really.
She’d been telling herself that all day, but it never seemed to help.
I probably won’t even have a chance to be alone with him.
The door bell rang, and her stomach gave a sickening lurch.
He’s here.
Lane took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, then brushed mascara onto her lashes. She put the makeup away. She took her purse off the dresser and stepped back in front of the closet mirror.
I can’t go dressed like this! she suddenly thought, and saw her face turn red. No, it’s okay. He doesn’t want us in evening gowns. He said it’s not the prom.
Besides, she’d worn this outfit to mass a f
ew times. If it’s good enough for mass, it’s good enough for Hamlet.
And I do look good in it, she thought. And it’s me.
Lane lifted her arms. Though her armpits felt wet, no moisture showed on the tie-dyed blue denim. Probably because the blouse fit so loosely. Most of the perspiration just ran down her sides.
“Lane!” Mom called. “Mr. Kramer’s here.”
“I’ll be right out!”
Quickly, she popped open the top snaps. She plucked some Kleenex from a box on top of the dresser, reached inside the blouse, dried her armpits, and applied a fresh coating of roll-on. Pinching the snaps shut again, she hurried from the room.
I amtoo casual, she thought when she saw Mr. Kramer in the foyer. He wore a necktie with a white shirt, blue blazer and gray slacks.
“Good evening, Lane,” he said. Then he turned back to her father and raised the copy of Night Watcherin his left hand. “Thanks again for the autograph, Larry.”
“Thanks for buying the book,” Dad said. “I’m glad you could find a copy.” His face was a little more red than usual, his voice a little thicker. But at least he didn’t slur his words. He’d had a lotto drink before dinner. Lane hoped Mr. Kramer didn’t realize he was pretty well polluted.
“And I can count on you for October thirty-first?”
“I’ll be there.”
“That’s terrific. The kids’ll get a great kick out of having a speaker like you on Halloween.”
“I’ll read ‘em some really disgustingstuff from my books.”
“I’m sure they’ll love it.” He nodded at Lane. “Well, I guess we’d better be on our way. Are you all set?”
“Am I dressed okay?” she asked. “I could put on something more...”
“No, no, you’re perfect.”
Mom, smiling, nodded in agreement. “You look just fine, honey.”
“You shore do, little pardner,” Dad said. “If’n you run into Hoot up the trail, be sure’n tell him howdy for me.”
“Oh, Daaaad.”
Mr. Kramer laughed. “It was very nice meeting you, Larry,” he said, and extended his hand.
Dad shook it. “Nice to meet you, too. And I’ll see you on Halloween.”
Shaking hands with Mom, Mr. Kramer said, “A real pleasure meeting you, Jean. I can see where Lane got her looks.”
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