99 Coffins: A Historical Vampire Tale

by David Wellington

  She glanced around the room. She’d been trained to always make a note of her surroundings when she entered a new place, and though she didn’t expect to find any criminals lurking in the corners, she did get a big surprise. The room was nice enough, a small double furnished tastefully though cheaply. There was a big television in a cabinet on one wall, an open closet with a pair of suits hanging from its rack. A door at the far end of the room led to a darkened bathroom. A thin muslin curtain had been drawn across the windows, leaving the room in semidarkness. Arkeley’s suitcase stood open and mostly packed on the other bed. Beyond that bed, near the windows, two metal luggage stands had been erected. Balanced on top of them stood a simple wooden coffin.

  Caxton’s guts clenched at the sight of it. She had no doubt that it was occupied.

  The coffin could belong only to one creature, the vampire who had destroyed Caxton’s life and turned every one of her nights into a parade of nightmares. Justinia Malvern, a three-hundred-year-old monster with a pedigree of cunning and deceit.

  Even a year later Caxton felt the urge to go over to the coffin, throw back the lid, and tear out Malvern’s heart. It was daytime, and she knew that if she did open the casket she would find little but bones and maggots in there. Even by night the vampire was a decrepit wreck, a rotten body with one eye and little else but a diabolical will to continue her blighted existence. Like all vampires she was immortal, but she required blood to maintain her bodily health. The older a vampire got the more blood they needed every night just to be able to walk. A long, long time ago Malvern had passed the point where she could hunt for herself, and now she was doomed to an eternity in her coffin, barely able to move at all. If she could get enough blood—and she would need gallons of it every night—she could have revivified, but Arkeley had made sure that never happened.

  Caxton walked over and set her hand on the coffin. The wood was cold as ice, and her skin prickled when it got too close. Malvern, like all vampires, was an unnatural freak, something that shouldn’t exist. She warped reality around herself, and every living thing recognized the wrongness, the unclean nature of her. Maggots didn’t seem to mind, but dogs and horses would go crazy if she came close to them. Caxton’s urge to destroy her was a perfectly rational reaction. Yet if she did it, if she ended so much trouble then and there, she knew she would go to jail. Malvern was a mastermind of vampires, a schemer and conspirator, but she had never harmed an American citizen as far as anyone could prove. The courts had decided after long deliberation that she was still human and still deserving of the protection of the law. Arkeley had spent much of his adult life fighting that ruling and trying to get a warrant for her execution. He had so far failed at every turn.

  “Jesus,” Caxton said. “You’re traveling with her?”

  “After the debacle at Arabella Furnace I decided I didn’t trust her with anyone else.” Arkeley nodded at the coffin and then at a laptop computer set on the nightstand next to it.

  Caxton opened the lid of the laptop and watched the screen flicker to life. A mostly blank window opened, a document created by a word processor. Malvern was too far decayed to be able to talk or even gesture much, but she could hunt and peck on a computer keyboard, sometimes taking hours to tap out a few characters. If left alone all night with the computer sometimes she tried to communicate with the world outside her coffin. It was rare that she had anything worthwhile to say—mostly she wasted her time on idle threats and dark imprecations. The message Caxton found on the screen was a little more cryptic than usual:

  comformeh

  “Any idea what this means?” Caxton asked Arkeley.

  He shook his head. “It’s not any language I recognize. I think she may have reached the point where she can’t even form words anymore and she’s just stabbing at random keys.”

  Caxton shoved her hands back in her pockets. She felt vaguely ill, as if the air in the room had been tainted.

  She turned to look at him with sad eyes. She expected to find him combative and scolding, but instead he took her glance as a spur to action. He straightened up and his eyes positively glowed. He fastened the top button of his shirt with one hand and struggled into a jacket. Then he scuttled up off the bed and took a pair of black leather gloves from out of his suitcase. With his good hand and then with his teeth he pulled them on. One glove covered the lump of flesh at the end of his left arm. The fingers of that glove splayed out pointlessly, but at least they looked somewhat normal.

  “Why didn’t you get a prosthetic?” she asked.

  “Too much nerve damage. Now, if you’re done playing nurse, we need to get started,” he told her. “There’s much work to be done and we’ve already wasted two crucial days because apparently you don’t check your email anymore. I need you to call your captain and tell him you’ll be working on a new case for an indefinite time period. I’m sure they’ll understand in Harrisburg and if they don’t, I really don’t care. I still have enough clout to get you reassigned as necessary.”

  “No,” she said.

  He stared at her, his eyes frozen and unblinking. “No,” he repeated. “That’s not acceptable.”

  “I helped you once. I was nearly killed. People I cared about were…killed.” She closed her eyes and let a wave of grief pass through her. When it had receded she looked at him again. “That ought to be enough.”

  “It’s never over,” he told her.

  “No? We killed all the vampires. Except her, of course. I’ve moved on. I’ve got a real job, doing real police work now.”

  “And how is that working out?” he asked. “I was a real cop once, you’ll remember. I know what that’s like. It’s pointless. You chase around the same criminals you chased around the year before. You put them away for a while and then they get out and they repeat the same squalid little crimes. This is different. It’s far more important.”

  Arkeley’s life had been taken over by the vampires. Every minute of his day he spent thinking about them, planning their destruction. She couldn’t let herself get sucked in like that. “What I do is important, too,” she said. She didn’t want to go into the details. She didn’t want to say what she was really thinking. Her first raid might not have gone how she’d hoped, but she had survived it. When she was down and hurt people had worked to save her. He would never have dragged her out of the line of fire, she knew. He would have pushed her further into danger. Was her resistance to his plea based solely on fear? Was she fighting him just because she didn’t want to get killed? She said, half trying to convince herself, “I protect the people of this state. I’m working drug law enforcement right now, keeping methamphetamines away from schoolkids.”

  He shook his head. “Forget about that. When you hear what I’ve found you’ll—”

  She interrupted him. “I don’t want to know.”

  He looked as if he couldn’t understand what she was saying.

  Caxton sighed, deep and long. She had no idea what he wanted from her, but she knew she wanted no part of it. “I’m glad you’re doing okay, and I’m sure whatever’s got you so worked up is important, really,” she said. “But I don’t have time to help you right now.”

  “You don’t? Something else more important calling for your attention?” he asked. “Maybe you need to spend more time with your girlfriend? One of your dogs got sick? Well, that’s too bad. You’re needed elsewhere right now. In Gettysburg, to be exact. You’re driving.”

  “No,” she said.

  “No?”

  The word lost all meaning when he repeated it like that. It would be easy to raise her hands in surrender and say yes instead—as she always had before. But she was a normal person now. If she wanted to stay normal, she had to stay strong.

  He grimaced horribly and asked, “Why on earth not? You know me, Trooper. You know I don’t waste my time on trivialities. If I say this is important you should know by now that it is absolutely crucial.”

  “Yeah, well,” she said, but couldn’t, for a moment, fi
nish that thought. He was right—she knew he was right. He wouldn’t have summoned her just to catch up on old times. He had something for her to do, and it was probably something dangerous.

  “I need you right now. I need you to drive me to Gettysburg today.”

  She could say no to him. She was sure that she had the strength to do it. He was a weak old man now. Yet she felt like she had to give him something. “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “I’ll give you a ride. But that’s all.”

  He frowned but he didn’t fight her. She knew him well enough to realize that was a bad sign, but she didn’t know how to react. “Very well. Let me get my coat.” He struggled as he walked around the side of the bed toward the closet.

  “What about her?” Caxton asked, looking at the coffin.

  “As long as I’m back by nightfall she shouldn’t be any trouble,” he said.

  8.

  The life of a spymaster for the War Department had its consolations. For one thing, I was appointed a horse to ride, while it seemed every other man in the world must walk. All that day I rode while the Army of the Potomac moved past me in a never-ending line, a human chain that stretched as far south as vision permitted, and went away from me to the north just as far. The dust they stirred up with their boots made a pall that rose on the air and hung there, like some spirit host of Araby made of sand. All day they tramped by, with calls and halloos from the drivers of the mule trains, and some singing, though not much.

  This was just after Chancellorsville, when all hope seemed vain. Though outnumbered, Lee had trounced us yet again without breaking a sweat. He seemed invincible; surely that was the common belief. The Union has never known a darker day. The war had turned against us and even I believed the dream of a unified Union was doomed. Perhaps this helps explain what we did, and what we dared.

  I was headed deep into Maryland, and away from Virginia, for which I was glad. I’d learned much from my contacts behind the lines, and needed promptly to report. From some runaway slaves who’d been attached to Jeb Stuart’s supply lines, I’d heard that Lee was moving again, and this time the enemy was headed north.

  A very charming Southern belle, who was in secret a hater of slavery, had told me even more. Lee was headed for Pennsylvania. For the first time he intended to bring the war to us, to the North. Already the democrats in Congress were howling for an end to this war. Well, it looked as if they might get it, but on Jeff Davis’s terms.

  —THE PAPERS OF WILLIAM PITTENGER

  9.

  She followed him out to the parking lot. The clerk at the front desk gave them a cheery wave, which Arkeley completely ignored. The old Fed shoved himself into her little Mazda and in a minute they were off. It wasn’t a long drive to Gettysburg—it was the next town over from Hanover. Though they didn’t talk any more along the way, the atmosphere in the car never got too unbearable. She was just doing a favor for an old friend, she told herself. Well, friend was probably the wrong word.

  He cleared his throat as they neared Gettysburg, but only to give her directions. “It’s on the far side of town,” he said.

  She drove through the center of Gettysburg, a town given over almost entirely to history. She knew very little about the Civil War, but like most kids raised in central Pennsylvania she’d been dragged through Gettysburg on class trips as a child, so she knew it had been the location of a particularly important battle, the turning point of the war. Now it was a tourist destination.

  Not necessarily a tourist trap, though. She had seen plenty of those: soulless little towns comprised entirely of T-shirt shops and gaudy ice cream parlors. Instead Gettysburg was a well-preserved Victorian town, full of brick buildings with slate roofs that hadn’t changed much in a hundred and forty years. It was almost tasteful—at least at its center. She drove through a traffic circle called Lincoln Square, past small museums and antiques shops, banks, and hotels. The town was crowded with tourists, families with herds of children carrying plastic replicas of Civil War–era rifles and felt forage caps with plastic brims. The real things were in evidence as well, in some profusion: it seemed every corner had at least one reenactor in blue or gray, clad in authentic but itchy-looking uniforms, most of them with beards and long sideburns.

  She sighed as she stopped at a crosswalk to let a gaggle of schoolchildren pass. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll bite.”

  “Hmm?” he asked.

  “What’s here?” she asked. “What kind of horror could there possibly be in a place like this?”

  He shifted painfully in his seat. “Something old. I got a call a couple days ago from a student at the college here. An archaeologist was digging up some old Civil War ruins and found some evidence of vampire activity.”

  “No,” Caxton exhaled, “we got them all!”

  He waved one impatient hand at her. “Old vampire activity,” he said. “More than a century old. They found the bones of a number of vampires, still in their coffins. It’s almost certainly nothing.”

  “But you won’t rest easy until you check it out,” she said.

  “I never rest easy,” he told her. It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She didn’t want to have anything in common with him, not anymore.

  Caxton stared straight ahead at the crosswalk, ready to get moving again. Eventually some adults herded up the children and moved them on. They drove in silence until she’d reached the far end of town. He had her turn off into the military park, up to the top of Seminary Ridge, a zone of quiet green hills studded everywhere by endless monuments—obelisks, arches, huge marble statues. There were fewer tourists out that way but a lot more reenactors, some of them having set up elaborate period-accurate tent camps. They drilled in formation or stood around polishing cannon and mortars that looked like they could actually be fired. Arkeley told her to turn off on a poorly marked gravel road, and the car rumbled along for about half a mile into a thick clump of trees. Three cars, late-model cheap Japanese sedans, sat in a crook of the road, and a foot trail led deeper into the woods. Caxton pulled up beside a red Nissan Sentra and switched off the ignition. She had no idea where she was or what Arkeley wanted there, and she told herself she didn’t care.

  He cleared his throat again. “Aren’t you going to take off your seat belt?” he asked.

  “No,” she told him. “I’m not staying.”

  “Alright,” he told her. “If you’re determined to be unhelpful, so be it. Maybe you’ll do me one last favor, though.” He reached into his inside jacket pocket and drew out a long length of rumpled knit cloth. It was soon revealed as a necktie that was probably twenty-five years old. “There is a way to tie one of these with only one hand, but I haven’t mastered it yet.”

  She squinted at him. Did he really want her to tie it on for him? Did he really want her to touch him? It would certainly be a first.

  “I’ve never gone into an official interview in my life where I wasn’t properly dressed,” he explained. “I’m not allowed to wear my badge anymore, but I can at least look like a cop.”

  She stared at him for a long time. Jameson Arkeley, vampire killer emeritus, needed somebody else to tie his tie. She fought back the wave of bitter sadness that gave her but she couldn’t quite swallow her pity.

  “Alright,” she said. She unfastened her seat belt. It was easy enough to get the tie on him. She’d tied Clara’s tie plenty of times. When the knot was tight enough for him he grunted in satisfaction.

  “Good. Now. Please help me get out of the car.”

  She could hardly refuse him that. She got out of the car and gave him a hand climbing out of his seat and suddenly they were both standing there, just like they used to. Like partners.

  “Tell me, honestly, that you aren’t even curious,” he said, looking at the trail.

  She started to do just that. The words didn’t come easily, though.

  “Tell me you don’t even want to take a look. What do you have to do today that is so much more important than this?” he asked.

&n
bsp; She would have said no just on principle. She would have refused. But he was right—she was curious, even though her life wasn’t about vampires anymore. Especially not their moldering bones. He was right about another thing, too. She had nothing else to do.

  Arkeley’s body might be ruined, but he still knew how to push her buttons. Then and there she knew she had to at least take a look.

  She locked up the car and together they headed down the trail. It ran through a field of wildly profuse grass for about two hundred yards, then ended in a simple campsite with a cluster of nylon tents and a big fire ring. There were no reenactors around, but a man in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans was waiting for them. He shook Arkeley’s hand eagerly enough, then turned and smiled at Caxton as if he was waiting to be introduced.

  “Trooper, meet Jeff Montrose. He’s from the archaeology department of Gettysburg College.”

  Caxton raised an eyebrow, but held out a hand for Montrose to shake. He was of average height, and maybe a little pudgy. His brown hair was thinning on top and he had a long and elaborate goatee that he had dyed so blond it was almost white. There was something weird about his eyes, she thought, which worried her—but then she realized he was just wearing eyeliner. “Civil War Era Studies is what we’re calling it, but we get our hands dirty whenever we can.”

  “Hi,” she said. His appearance didn’t bother her, but it wasn’t what she expected from an archaeologist. He didn’t recognize her or ask her for her autograph, which was one thing in his favor. “Are you a professor?” she asked. She’d never finished college, but she didn’t remember her professors wearing eye makeup.

  “A grad student. Running Wolf ’s technically in charge here, but he had classes all day, so he asked me to help you out.”

  “Who’s Running Wolf?” she asked, confused.

  He laughed. “Sorry. That’s what we call Professor Geistdoerfer. He got the name because he jogs through campus every day. He’s a fixture around here—I forget sometimes that people in the real world might not know him. The whole college does.” Montrose could not mask the boyish enthusiasm on his face, though every time he looked over at Arkeley he stopped smiling, as if that scarred face had reminded him this was a police investigation. “I’ve sent all the diggers out for lunch, so we have the place to ourselves.” He turned and walked to the largest of the tents and lifted its flap. “This is so exciting. We’d really like to get back to work, so if you don’t mind, I think I’ll just show you what we’ve got.”