“My God.”
“A lot of girl’s stuff, too. Panties, bras, nightgowns. Fuckin‘ pervert. Looks like he used ’em to...”
“Just leave everything the way it is. For godsake, don’t burn the place. The cops’ve gotta find that stuff. It’ll help keep my dad out of trouble.”
For a few moments there was silence. Then Riley said, “I don’t know. Some of the shots he got of Jessica... I don’t want a bunch of cops seeing her like that.”
“They have to know what Kramer was doing.”
“Yeah? Bet you wouldn’t be saying that if you saw what he’s got on you.”
“He couldn’t...”
“He was following you around, Lane. He was out to your house, too, from the looks of it. You better start learning to shut your curtains better.”
“Jesus,” she muttered.
“Still want me to leave everything?”
Squeezing her eyes shut, she groaned.
Pictures of me on his walls. Taken through the windows? Her skin went hot and crawly.
“Leave everything,” she said. “Please. You’ve got to.”
More silence. At last Riley said, “I’ll leave some of it. Enough so the cops get the idea. Okay? I’ll take the worst ones of you and Jessica and burn ‘em.”
“All right. Thanks.” She heard the front door bump shut. “Look, I’ve gotta hang up. My folks just came in. I’ll be in touch. You get out of there.” She hung up the phone and hurried to the hallway.
* * *
From his hiding place behind a cactus cluster across the street, Uriah watched the lair of the vampires and wondered what had happened there.
Everyone else in the neighborhood must’ve been wondering, too. He counted more than twenty rubberneckers wandering around the street and sidewalks, all of them strange in the flashing lights of the police cars and coroner’s van.
After a long time a couple of gurneys were rolled down the driveway. As they were being loaded into the coroner’s van, Uriah caught glimpses of bulky dark bags.
A lot of the gawkers cleared out, once the meat wagon was gone.
One by one the police cars left. The last of them stayed for quite a while. Only a few neighbors were still hanging around by the time a pair of cops stepped out of the front door, went to the remaining car and drove away.
Uriah sat down on the gravel behind the cactus, wrapped the blanket around himself to keep off the chill, and waited.
Whatever had gone on across the street, he still had to go in and carry out his mission. The cops hadn’t taken care of any vampires, he was sure of that. Cops might be good at some things, but they didn’t know beans about Satan’s bloodthirsty children.
That’s where I come in, he thought.
* * *
“Guess that’s that,” Pete said, and yawned. He was reclined in the easy chair, wearing one of Larry’s shirts over the bandages that had been applied in the emergency room. “Score one for the good guys.”
“I just wish you would’ve told us,” Jean said, looking at Lane with weary, sad eyes.
“Let it go, honey.”
“I was just so scared,” Lane murmured.
“It’s all right,” Larry told her, and stroked her hair. “It’s over now.”
She nodded, her cheek rubbing against his shoulder. “Is it okay if I go to bed now?”
“Sure, go on.”
Lane got up from the sofa. She said good night to Pete and Barbara, kissed Jean, came back to Larry, whispered, “Night, Dad,” and kissed him. Then she walked out of the living room, moving slowly, her head hanging.
When she was gone, Barbara said, “Poor kid. The hell she must’ve gone through...”
“You got the bastard, Lar.”
“With a little help from my friends.”
“Man, you nailed him good.”
“Let’s not talk about it anymore,” Jean said. She slumped forward until her elbows met her knees, and seemed to stare at the carpet.
“Come on, Pete,” Barbara said, getting up. “Let’s go before you pass out.” To Larry she said, “They doped him up pretty good at the E.R.”
“I’m fine.”
She took his arm and helped him out of the chair.
“I’m okay, I’m okay.” Pulling away from her, he staggered toward the sofa. He shoved a hand toward Larry.
Larry reached up and shook it.
Pete held on. “So I guess we did good, huh, pardner?”
Larry shrugged. He didn’t feel as if he’d done good. He felt dazed, sick and weary and sad.
“Too bad old Bonnie didn’t perk up for us.”
“Just as well,” Larry said.
“Still got us a hell of a book, though, huh?”
“No book,” Larry said. “Not about this.”
“Hey, man...”
“We never had a vampire, anyway. Even if we did, I couldn’t write the truth. I couldn’t write about Kramer. About Lane. I won’t.”
Pete stared down at him, eyes still blackened from his encounter with Uriah’s rock. He stared for a long time. Then he sighed. His grip on Larry’s hand tightened. “Good man,” he said.
“You, too. We’ll do a different book together.”
A corner of Pete’s mouth tilted up. “All right. I’m full of ideas. We’ll...”
“You’re full of Darvon,” Barbara broke in, putting an arm around him. “Now, come on. Let’s go home and get some shuteye.”
When they were gone, Larry turned off the lights and walked with Jean toward their bedroom. At the end of the hallway a glowing band showed beneath the bathroom door. He heard water running.
“I’ve gotta take a shower, too,” he mumbled.
“Don’t be long,” Jean said. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“I’ll hurry,” he told her. They entered the room. He went to the master bath, turned on the light but left the door open.
He took off his clothes. When he lifted the lid of the hamper to drop them in, he saw the wadded, bloody shirt he’d been wearing when he killed Kramer. The sweatsuit covered it. He shut the lid, stepped to the tub and turned on the water.
Under the hot spray he thought of Lane in the other bathroom. Like him, trying to cleanse herself of Kramer.
He was weeping when the shower curtain rattled open. Jean stepped into the tub. She slid the curtain shut and put her arms around him. Her face pressed against the side of his neck.
They didn’t speak. They held onto each other hard.
* * *
Lane draped her towel over the bar and slipped into her nightshirt. Where she had missed a patch of water, low on her back, the soft fabric hugged her skin.
She left her clothes hanging in the bathroom and stepped out.
The house looked dark except for light from the open door of her parents’ bedroom.
She went to her own room, flipped on the light and stared at her bed. As weary as she felt, she knew that sleep wouldn’t come easily or soon. She would lie in bed, wide awake, remembering.
No, I won’t, she told herself.
She was in her room just long enough to pick up her pillow and blanket. Holding them to her chest, she turned off the light and walked silently down the hallway.
She glanced into her parents’ room. They weren’t there, but she heard a windy sound of rushing water from their bath.
Moving through darkness, she made her way to the sofa. She dropped her pillow and blanket onto it, stepped to the television and turned it on.
A Christopher Lee movie. She changed the channel, recognized Jimmy Stewart in some kind of Air Force story, and returned to the sofa.
There, she lay down and covered herself with the blanket. Curled up cozy on her side, she watched the show. When Kramer forced his way into her mind, she made herself remember the people zipping the rubber bag shut around him, taking him out to the van along with Bonnie.
They’re both gone now, she thought. Kramer can never touch me again. And I don’t even have to worr
y about Bonnie. They’re gone. I’m safe. Mom and Dad are safe. Everything’s okay.
She wondered if she should go to school in the morning.
They’ll have a substitute in English.
It would be nice to see Henry and Betty and George.
Not tomorrow, though. It’s so late. I’d be a space case.
The Jimmy Stewart movie ended. Lane wondered what would come on next. Before she could find out, however, a warm fog seemed to fold itself over her mind, and she closed her eyes.
Forty-nine
In the first light of dawn Uriah left his hiding place. The neighborhood was silent. He crossed the empty street and glanced at the red Mustang of the vampires as he walked by.
Getting his hands on its registration had made things so easy. The first time he’d gone after Bonnie, he didn’t have that. All he knew, then, was what kind of car she drove.
One of those Volkswagen bugs had gone by on the road while he was hiking back to Sagebrush Flat after his pickup broke down. It had a pale color in the moonlight, and he’d glimpsed enough of the driver to see she was a girl.
Not much to go on. He couldn’t even be sure the bug was on its way to Mulehead Bend, though that was the first town to the east, the direction the car had been heading. So that’s where he went looking.
It took him a while, but he found the girl vampire who had a yellow VW. He put her to rest. But then another turned up, and then another. They were all girls, all about the right age, and they all had light-colored Volkswagens. They were all vampires, too.
During his search was when he came to learn they didn’t behave like vampires should. They didn’t sleep in coffins. The sunlight didn’t burn them up. They could go around in daytime, just like regular girls. All the sun did was weaken them.
The sun would’ve made them easier to kill, but he’d been so headstrong back then that he’d gone after them at night. When he thought about it afterward, he figured it must’ve been a kind of deathwish on his part. He’d wanted his revenge, all right, but he hadn’t really cared whether he kept on living.
That had been a fool way to go about it. But the Lord stood by him and kept him from harm.
The Lord had a mission all set up for Uriah. He planned to send His warrior all across the nation to hunt out the legion of vampires doing Satan’s work in every corner of the land. So He’d let Uriah slip by, even though he went about killing the first three vampires in such a foolhardy fashion.
Uriah hoped the Lord would allow him to retire after today. If he survived.
Going up against five of Satan’s children would be no easy task. He figured his chances were slim, especially since he didn’t have his bow and arrows.
But if the Lord stuck with him, he planned to stake them all, and cart them back to Sagebrush in the van that belonged to the vampire he’d almost put to rest on Saturday. It was in the driveway of the house on the right. He would go to that house after finishing here.
Uriah tried the front door. He found it locked, so he made his way around to the side. He let himself in through a gate. Up ahead was the garage. It had a yellow plastic ribbon across the front — the kind of thing police put up in places where there’d been a crime.
That’s where the vampires must’ve killed those two people last night. What kind of story had they told, anyway, to make it all right?
The police couldn’t have kept them long, anyway.
Only one thing will do the job on those creatures, and that’s what I’ve got.
At the rear of the house Uriah found a window that was open just a crack at the bottom. He set his satchel down on the concrete, pulled his knife, and cut an opening in the screen. He tried holding the knife in his teeth to keep it handy, but clamping his jaw shut tight just hurt too much, so he sheathed the knife at his side. Then he reached through the split screen and pushed the window up.
He slung a strap of his satchel over his shoulder and climbed in.
A bathroom. It smelled flowery and nice.
The door was open. Beyond was a hallway, dim in the early morning light.
Before leaving the bathroom, Uriah took off the bag. He removed his hammer and one stake, then slipped the strap onto his shoulder again and crept into the hallway.
He stopped at an open door. A bedroom. But he saw nobody in it.
He kept moving, and came to another bedroom. There, he found the vampire who’d shot him. Uriah tongued the hole in his right cheek. It made him wince, and his eyes watered up.
This one’s chest was exposed. He was sprawled on his back, bare to the waist where the covers were rumpled up.
A woman vampire slept next to him. She was covered to the shoulders, lying on her side with her face toward the other. She wasn’t Bonnie.
As much as Uriah wanted to kill the one who’d given him such hurt, he’d already decided to take care of Bonnie first. She’d made these two into vampires after they brought her here. So they were new at it. They wouldn’t be near as dangerous as Bonnie.
Besides, Bonnie was the demon that killed Elizabeth and Martha.
The two girls he’d staked before Bonnie were vampires, but she was the one who killed his family. The Lord had told him that. So she needed to be the first, here, to be struck down.
Silently he stepped past the bedroom. As he continued down the hallway, he heard a quiet sound of voices. His heart almost stopped. But then he heard music, too, and realized the noises must be coming from a radio or television.
He paused to catch his breath. Then he went on.
In the front room he found the television. Some kind of news report was on, the volume very low.
On the sofa he found Bonnie.
She looked just as Uriah remembered her. Satan’s vermin, disguised as a beautiful young woman. She lay on her back, her golden hair spread out against her pillow, a blanket up around her neck.
Uriah gazed at her. She looked so peaceful, so innocent, so lovely.
He lowered his satchel to the floor, then stepped between the coffee table and the sofa. He slipped the stake under his right arm. Holding it against his side, he bent over and slowly drew the blanket down. Bonnie didn’t stir. Uriah, though trembling and breathless with the sight of her, didn’t rush. He eased sideways, taking the blanket with him. At last it no longer covered her at all. He left it heaped on the end of the sofa.
Satan took such beautiful ones for his own.
The leg closer to Uriah was stretched out straight. The other was bent a little, heel against the cushion, knee resting against the back of the sofa. Slim, bare legs, softly tanned, but bruised up around the thighs.
In her sleep of the undead, her red nightshirt had slipped up around her hips. Uriah stared between her legs. He licked his dry lips. His heart pounded so badly he feared the sound of it might wake her up. He felt his hardness rising against the coyote hide of his skirt.
She’s a vampire, he reminded himself. She’s a vile daughter of Satan, a bloodthirsty demon.
Get on with it! he told himself.
He stepped sideways, but he couldn’t help himself from looking back. From here he could see her fine golden curls, but not the tempting region lower down.
He rubbed the back of his hand across his lips. Then he took the stake out from under his arm.
He looked at her chest.
I’ve got to look, he told himself. Have to see where I want to plant the stake.
He stared at her breasts, smooth mounds under the nightshirt, nipples pushing at the fabric.
The cloth was so thin that Uriah knew the stake would poke right through it — almost as if it wasn’t there at all. Still, having it out of the way would be better.
She’ll wake up, sure as hell.
But Uriah had to do it.
He set the hammer and stake on the floor at his feet. He drew his knife. Ever so slowly, starting at the neck, he sliced his way down the nightshirt. Bonnie stirred once or twice, but she didn’t wake up.
At last he sheathed th
e knife. He carefully spread the severed edges.
She was mighty bruised up. Someone had used her in a rough manner. It surprised Uriah to see injuries. He’d thought such demons couldn’t be damaged except by the stake.
Her breasts looked smudged with faint shadows. So did much of the skin around them. He saw a bruise the size of a fist just below her rib cage.
And a shape like a cross on her belly. A cross, for sure. It looked just like the one on Uriah’s own chest after he’d been saved from the bullet. The beams of the cross had bruised her, and its edges had gouged her skin. The scraped places looked raw and shiny.
A wound from a cross on the vampire’s belly. Uriah wondered what it could mean.
Had someone else come after her? Someone armed with a crucifix?
Those bodies the police took away last night...
Are there more of us? Had the Lord sent a couple of other warriors, afraid I might fail?
Well, they’re the ones that failed.
Uriah picked up his hammer and stake.
She had no bruise at all where he had planted the stake the last time. There, her skin looked flawless, a silken cream in the gloomy light.
He let his eyes roam once more down her slim, smooth body. Then he eased the stake forward. He brushed its point against her left nipple and wished he could put his mouth there, wished he could kiss it and suck on it — but she would wake up for sure if he did that, and kill him. Besides, his mouth was in no shape to suck on anything.
He guided the stake to the place where he’d put the other one in. It shook slightly, its tip trembling half an inch above her skin.
Then he raised his hammer.
Fifty
The alarm didn’t go off that morning. When Larry awoke, he found Jean still asleep beside him. He sat up and looked past her at the clock. Eight-fifteen.
Lane’s going to be late for school, he thought.
Then he realized she probably wouldn’t be going today. Not after all that had happened.
All that had happened. Kramer raped her. Oh Jesus. Oh God. My girl.
I killed the rotten son of a bitch.
The Stake Page 42
