by Hixon, Wayne
Vampires
in
Devil Town
by
Wayne Hixon
Originally published in paperback by Grindhouse Press
POB 292644
Dayton, OH 45429
www.grindhousepress.com
Vampires in Devil Town
Grindhouse Press #002
ISBN-13: 978-0-9826281-3-3
ISBN-10: 0982628137
Copyright © 2010 by Wayne Hixon. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction.
Cover art and design copyright © 2010 by Brandon Duncan
www.corporatedemon.com
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author or publisher.
And all my friends were vampires
Didn’t know they were vampires
Turns out I was a vampire myself
In the devil town
-Daniel Johnston, “Devil Town”
One
Rachel Stokes’ bed warmed her against the cool October air blowing in through the half-open window to her left. The air brought with it the smell of dead leaves and the grim promise of frost. Perfect sleeping weather, she thought. But why wasn’t she asleep?
The house was quiet. Her parents had gone to bed hours ago. The whole neighborhood had to be asleep. The only sounds coming through her window were the occasional drearily slow hissing of a passing car and the distant chirp of crickets. Maybe she just had a lot on her mind. This was the last week she would spend in this house. Jacob had proposed to her last month and they both felt like they should live together for at least a year before marrying. Although, at this point, marriage seemed inevitable. She and Jacob were perfectly compatible and they had been through just about everything two people could go through save for those sometimes tedious and boring household endeavors all couples are subjected to. It was a big jump, a huge change in her lifestyle, and she didn’t really know if she was ready for it.
She was only nineteen years old and there was still, probably always would be, a part of her that wondered if she was just too young. But she would have plenty of time to think about that after moving out. That’s what the year was for.
Right now she just wanted to lie in her bed, a bed she increasingly thought of as her “childhood bed,” and feel the cool wind blow in through the window and listen to the comforting sounds of quieted nightlife around her.
Above the cars and the crickets, she heard another sound. A sound so hideously out of sync with everything else it startled her, causing her to jump. Some kind of petulant whine just below her window. The first thing she thought about was the sound of a baby crying. She criticized herself for thinking of that. It was so unoriginal. So clichéd. Why did everything seem to come back to those primal childhood horror stories? The ghost of a dead baby crying in the attic. A monster just beyond the closet door. A serial killer hiding in the backseat of the car.
She knew there were worse things than that out there. She knew there were things out there with no earthly explanation whatsoever and it was those things that bothered her the most.
The Devils.
She had tried so hard not to think of them the past two years. She had tried so hard to simply focus on how happy Jacob made her and forget all about the circumstances that had brought them together. But it didn’t take much to bring all the horrifying memories back, angrily swarming around her brain, trying to prick her sanity with razor sharp stingers.
After everything, she had managed to keep it together. She wasn’t about to let something like that sound from outside bring all those things back, make all those things real again. She wasn’t going to think about the ways she had changed.
Once more, the sound screamed up from outside.
What the hell was that?
Then it hit her.
It was a cat in heat. That was the only thing she could think of capable of making a sound that hideous. It sounded pained and broken. Maybe there was a cat outside the window but maybe it wasn’t just in heat.
Maybe it was hurt.
Maybe someone hurt it.
Stop.
Again, the sound screeched up.
She threw the covers away from her. Her brief moment of panic had warmed her anyway, made her feel like her insides were burning, immunizing her to the chill of the room.
Hopping out of bed, she pulled her tight gray muscle shirt down her white belly, adjusting the black boxer shorts she always wore to sleep in. She didn’t know what she wanted to do. Well, she knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to close the window on the damn mewling cat and try to get enough peace and quiet to go to sleep. But she didn’t think she would be able to sleep if she knew there was something sick or hurting right outside her bedroom window and she didn’t do anything to help it. Damn conscience.
Walking over to the window, the true coldness of the air found her. It was probably too cold to be sleeping with the window open anyway. She placed her hands on the cool wood of the sill and looked through the screen. The streetlights afforded just enough light to grant her a meager view of the side yard, shaded by a huge oak tree. Squinting her eyes, she looked out into the darkness, now half-hoping the cat would make another sound so she would have a better idea where to look.
As though not wanting to disappoint, the animal screeched out again.
If she knew exactly what a cat in heat sounded like, she could convince herself that’s what it was and be done with it. It occurred to her she didn’t really know if she had ever even heard a cat in heat before. She had read descriptions of it in books. She had heard conversational references to it. Wasn’t this the wrong time of year for animals to be in heat? She thought that was in the spring or something. Wasn’t that the rutting season?
The sound came from somewhere off to her left, toward the street.
She didn’t figure it would hurt to go check it out. She wasn’t a veterinarian. She didn’t really know or even care that much for animals so she wasn’t expecting to give this thing some kind of kitty physical but if it was hurt badly she figured she would notice. And if it was in heat... well, then she figured she could just shut the window and drift off into sleep with a clean conscience.
She took a deep breath, thinking it was really just entirely too late for this shit. She turned and headed toward her bedroom door. Her room was at the end of the hallway on the upstairs floor. Turning to her right out of the door, her bare feet padded along the plush camel-colored carpet. The hallway light was on, as it was every night, turned to its dimmest setting. Reaching the bottom of the steps, she wondered why she was so freaked out by this. It was as simple as going out to get the morning paper, right? Only it was dark and...
And Rachel knew that, in Lynchville, things moved in the dark that didn’t move at any other time. Bad things. Evil things. Some of them clichéd, sure, but she knew they were real.
No, she told herself. Those things are gone. You and Jacob got rid of those things. Those things cannot come back to hurt you.
Her feet squeaked along the highly polished wood floor of the formal living room. She turned right, toward the front door. Standing in front of the thick wood and beveled glass, she reached out with her left hand and switched on the porch light. Her parents always turned out the porch light when they went to bed and this made Rachel wonder why they bothered turning the light on at all. If you were going to turn it on, wouldn’t you want it to be while you were sleeping, so neighbors could see if any unsavory characters were creeping up to the front door?
She knew she was thinking things to keep her mind off going outside but, whatever worked, right? She unlocked the dead bolt, the se
cond dead bolt, and then the lock on the knob itself.
Swinging the door open, the sound greeted her again. Jesus, it had a way of spiking right through her ears.
She really hoped there wasn’t a broken and injured cat out on the lawn somewhere. She almost hoped she couldn’t find it.
Stepping out onto the porch, she looked around at all the neighboring houses lining Maple Street. Somehow, knowing those houses were there, with people inside of them, gave her a great sense of comfort. Leaving the door open behind her, she descended the steps until she reached the front walk leading to the sidewalk. She turned toward the west side of the house, roughly where she thought she heard the sound coming from. She wondered if she should call it.
No, it wouldn’t do any good to make any more noise than the cat was already making.
The grass was damp and cold on her feet. She walked until she nearly reached the tree and heard the sound again. It definitely came from her left, toward the road. Slowly, now thinking of rabid cats jumping from the darkness to claw out eyes, she walked toward the street. She walked the few steps, her eyes scouring every direction, until she reached the sidewalk.
She did not see any signs of a cat, injured or in heat.
Hmmm, she thought. She wasn’t just imagining the sound. It had been too concrete to be her imagination.
Maybe you’re going crazy.
Losing your mind.
But now she heard another sound. This time it was the sound of a car, speeding down Maple. Her heart froze up. Cars did not travel that fast down her street. She moved back into the shadows of the oak tree, away from the road.
A black van sped past and she caught just the briefest glimpse of the driver. Her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t even think about looking at the license plate.
She was certain the driver had been staring at her, even as he sped down the road. She got a good look at him too. A teenage boy. He hadn’t looked right. He was too pale, a shock of black hair surrounding his head. He looked like one of them. And why was he staring at her? How would he know she was standing off in the shadows?
Jesus, she thought. You are going crazy. Wild paranoid crazy.
She thought she was starting to sound like her racist grandfather. People not looking right. Us and Them. She almost chuckled at her next thought.
Sure. The driver of that van was probably just out looking for his little cat who had wandered away from his house in the lusty throes of heat.
Sure. Whatever. She was going to bed.
The longer she stood out here, the crazier her thoughts were going to become.
She wanted to go up to her room and shut the window on all the sick and horny cats of the world, all the screeching speeding vans filled with creepy teenagers, all the legends and rumors seeping in from the night and screaming around in her head.
No. She shut the last thought out before it could crawl in and infest and destroy every good, happy thought she was capable of having. Sometimes, she still felt too naked. Sometimes, things still felt too close. Sometimes... like standing out in the front yard in the middle of the night, wearing only her pajamas and letting the dew from the grass numb her bare feet.
She turned to walk toward the house. When she reached the first step to the porch she heard a rustling to her left. She jumped and her heart went wild. She fought the urge to dart to the door. The mums in the garden were trembling. Maybe she had found her cat. Something human-size couldn’t possibly hide in there. She took a deep breath, steadied her heart rate. She crouched down in front of the plants.
It came lurching out, broken and mangled. Rachel covered her mouth with her hands, a plaintive noise coming from her throat. Someone had hit the cat with a car and just driven on. If it had been anything like that van she’d seen earlier, they might have been completely unaware they had hit anything. Either way, it was inexcusable.
The cat again made its painful mewling sound. Its tortoise shell fur was caked with blood. Rachel glanced up at the door to the house to make sure no one stood there. She glanced behind her to make sure no one was on the road. Wild paranoid crazy. She placed her nervous hands on the back of the cat, its bloody fur thick beneath her palms and between her fingers. She ran her hands along its knobby spine, feeling those spots where it was rent out of place. There, her hands lingered. Slowly, it felt more normal. It was like a tuning fork running through her body. One minute, while touching the animal, she felt a sloppy and disturbed connection with it and then it was humming along so finely it was nearly unnoticeable. She continued this way—hands lingering over splits in its skin, shredded tendons in its legs, loosely hanging jawbone, broken tail—until the cat began rubbing itself against her shins, purring happily. She could heal it on the inside but she couldn’t get it clean. When she rose to finally head back inside, she left the cat lying on the lawn, contentedly licking itself between the legs.
She walked back into the house, stopping off in the kitchen for a glass of water. She took a healthy chug of the water. It felt good on her dry throat. She was also now aware of the ringing in her ears and the headache. She thought about going to the medicine cabinet for an Advil but was so tired she would just go to sleep and, hopefully, the headache would be gone upon waking. She emptied the glass into the sink and, figuring it was clean enough, placed it back in the cupboard. Flipping off the light in the kitchen, she headed up to her room.
Before she could cross the room and pull the window down she heard the sound again.
Fuck it, she thought. I’m not going to play this game.
She pulled the window down and heard the noise again.
This time it didn’t come from outside.
This time it sounded like it came from her closet and she didn’t think of a desperate and broken cat, scraping along in the yard. No, for some reason, she thought of an old man, an old man bent over in her closet and weeping. It was a stupid thought and one she found oddly devoid of any danger whatsoever.
Well, she thought, I’ll just put that image out of my head right now.
She turned militantly to her right, toward the closet, reached out her hand and turned the knob, yanking the door open.
And for a brief, heart-stopping second, she saw the man, hunkered over on her pile of shoes and staring up at her, tears beading his red-rimmed eyes.
She nearly laughed when she saw it was only darkness. Darkness and the human form clothes can take when hanging up.
She took a deep breath and closed the closet doors.
A hand closed around the back of her neck.
Another closed around her mouth.
She wanted to scream but she had to fight just to breathe. The hands were incredibly strong and everywhere at once. She wished she had turned her bedroom light on. It felt too dark. Too confusing. For the first time that evening, she thought she might be asleep. She hoped she was still asleep and this was just one of the nightmares, trying to rise up and drag her down.
She kicked her legs up, trying to find a grip on the wall to push back with. Planting her feet on the wall, she shoved backward but whoever held her merely spun her around, driving her down. The side of her face hit the bedpost and she thought she felt something come loose within her mouth. Now, besides the hand covering it, her mouth filled with blood.
A gurgling scream came from somewhere in her throat. The intruder yanked her upright once more, turning her toward the closet.
The door was open and Rachel still had enough of her mind to know this was not how she had left it. She remembered shutting the closet door, hearing it click, and there wasn’t any way a single intruder could hold her arms, her throat, and her mouth and still manage to turn the knob of the door.
She forced her body to go limp, trying to propel it to the floor, but the person continued to pull her toward the closet.
What she saw in the closet didn’t seem right at all, not that anything else did.
All the contents of the closet were slid over to the right side and the wall was open
on the left side, a mouth of blackness replacing the white of the wall.
What was this? Rachel wondered. And then her mind screamed at her body. It screamed not to let this person take her in there. Because if she was taken in there she didn’t think there was any way she would be able to get out.
All of her muscles rigid, the person carried her into the closet, stuffing her into the opening.
The intruder had to let go of her arms in order to shove her into the opening. Rachel reached her arms out, already halfway in the opening or the hole or whatever the hell it was, desperately trying to find something to grab onto.
She couldn’t. Her fingertips reached out, trying to find traction on the wood or the drywall, whatever made up the walls of this house. Instead, they touched something that felt like slimy rock, a smooth stone covered in slippery river muck.
And then she was falling. Falling and wanting to pass out. If she blacked out, went unconscious, she wouldn’t have to feel the impact.
The blackness never came.
She kept her arms in front of her, ready to brace herself for the fall, subconsciously wanting to keep the majority of the damage away from her face. She hit the bottom and wondered if the sound she heard was her skin smacking the surface or her arms breaking. It wasn’t until this moment she realized how badly she was hurt. She knew this because her brain told her body to stand up, her arms to move, her eyes to open, yet her body wouldn’t do any of those things.
A broken heap in the darkness, she waited for what would come next and thought to herself that the past was never that far away. Not really.
Two
Earlier that evening, Jacob Riley returned to his apartment from the gas station two blocks away on the corner of Main and Cherry Street. His apartment was on the second floor, located in the middle of a series of old row houses lining Main. It was just before dusk, a clear and beautiful fall day coming to a close. He walked slowly down the cracked sidewalk, enjoying the sights and sounds of his beloved Lynchville. Children rode their bikes down the street. A gaggle of teenagers stood around the pay phone in front of the library across the street from his apartment, talking on their cell phones. Old men and women sat on their porches. Some of them busied themselves by bringing in flowers and houseplants before the first major frost. Grasses were being mown. This was as lively as the town usually got.
