He reached for the bottle of Glenlivet next to him.
“No-no!” Zev said. “You promised!”
Father Joe drew his hand back and crossed his arms across his chest.
“Talk on, oh, bearded one. I’m listening.”
Father Joe had certainly changed for the worse. Morose, bitter, apathetic, self-pitying. Zev was beginning to wonder how he could have called this man a friend.
“They’ve taken over your church, desecrated it. Each night they further defile it with butchery and blasphemy. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“It’s Palmeri’s parish. I’ve been benched. Let him take care of it.”
“Father Palmeri is their leader.”
“He should be. He’s their pastor.”
“No. He leads the vampires in the obscenities they perform in the church.”
Father Joe stiffened and the glassiness cleared from his eyes.
“Palmeri? He’s one of them?”
Zev nodded. “More than that. He’s the local leader. He orchestrates their rituals.”
Zev saw rage flare in the priest’s eyes, saw his hands ball into fists, and for a moment he thought the old Father Joe was going to burst through.
Come on, Joe. Show me that old fire.
But then he slumped back onto the crate.
“Is that all you came to tell me?”
Zev hid his disappointment and nodded. “Yes.”
“Good.” He grabbed the scotch bottle. “Because I need a drink.”
Zev wanted to leave, yet he had to stay, had to probe a little bit deeper and see how much of his old friend was left, and how much had been replaced by this new, bitter, alien Joe Cahill. Maybe there was still hope. So they talked on.
Suddenly he noticed it was dark.
“Gevalt!” Zev said. “I didn’t notice the time!”
Father Joe seemed surprised too. He ran to the window and peered out.
“Damn! Sun’s gone down!” He turned to Zev. “Lakewood’s out of the question for you, Reb. Even the retreat house is too far to risk now. Looks like we’re stuck here for the night.”
“We’ll be safe?”
He shrugged. “Why not? As far as I can tell I’m the only one who’s been in here for months, and only in the daytime. Be pretty odd if one of those human leeches should decide to wander in here tonight.”
“I hope so.”
“Don’t worry. We’re okay if we don’t attract attention. I’ve got a flashlight if we need it, but we’re better off sitting here in the dark and shooting the breeze till sunrise.” Father Joe smiled and picked up a huge silver cross, at least a foot in length, from atop one of the crates. “Besides, we’re armed. And frankly, I can think of worse places to spend the night.”
He stepped over to the case of Glenlivet and opened a fresh bottle. His capacity for alcohol was enormous.
Zev could think of worse places too. In fact he had spent a number of nights in much worse places since the holocaust. He decided to put the time to good use.
“So, Joe. Maybe I should tell you some more about what’s happening in Lakewood.”
After a few hours their talk died of fatigue. Father Joe gave Zev the flashlight to hold and stretched out across a couple of crates to sleep. Zev tried to get comfortable enough to doze but found sleep impossible. So he listened to his friend snore in the darkness of the cellar.
Poor Joe. Such anger in the man. But more than that—hurt. He felt betrayed, wronged. And with good reason. But with everything falling apart as it was, the wrong done to him would never be righted. He should forget about it already and go on with his life, but apparently he couldn’t. Such a shame. He needed something to pull him out of his funk. Zev had thought news of what had happened to his old parish might rouse him, but it seemed only to make him want to drink more. Father Joe Cahill, he feared, was a hopeless case.
Zev closed his eyes and tried to rest. It was hard to get comfortable with the cross dangling in front of him so he took it off but laid it within easy reach. He was drifting toward a doze when he heard a noise outside. By the dumpster. Metal on metal.
My bicycle!
He slipped to the floor and tiptoed over to where Father Joe slept. He shook his shoulder and whispered.
“Someone’s found my bicycle!”
The priest snorted but remained sleeping. A louder clatter outside made Zev turn, and as he moved his elbow struck a bottle. He grabbed for it in the darkness but missed. The sound of smashing glass echoed through the basement like a cannon shot. As the odor of scotch whiskey replaced the musty ambiance, Zev listened for further sounds from outside. None came.
Maybe it had been an animal. He remembered how raccoons used to raid his garbage at home . . . when he’d had a home . . . when he’d had garbage . . .
Zev stepped to the window and looked out. Probably an animal. He pulled the window open a few inches and felt cool night air wash across his face. He pulled the flashlight from his coat pocket and aimed it through the opening.
Zev almost dropped the light as the beam illuminated a pale, snarling demonic face, baring its fangs and hissing. He fell back as the thing’s head and shoulders lunged through the window, its back curved fingers clawing at him, missing. Then it launched itself the rest of the way through, hurtling toward Zev.
He tried to dodge but he was too slow. The impact knocked the flashlight from his grasp and it went rolling across the floor. Zev cried out as he went down under the snarling thing. Its ferocity was overpowering, irresistible. It straddled him and lashed at him, batting his fending arms aside, its clawed fingers tearing at his collar to free his throat, stretching his neck to expose the vulnerable flesh, its foul breath gagging him as it bent its fangs toward him. Zev screamed out his helplessness.
II
Father Joe awoke to the cries of a terrified voice.
He shook his head to clear it and instantly regretted the move. His head weighed at least two hundred pounds, and his mouth was stuffed with foul-tasting cotton. Why did he keep doing this to himself? Not only did it leave him feeling lousy, it gave him bad dreams. Like now.
Another terrified shout, only a few feet away.
He looked toward the sound. In the faint light from the flashlight rolling across the floor he saw Zev on his back, fighting for his life against—
Damn! This was no dream! One of those bloodsuckers had got in here!
He leaped over to where the creature was lowering its fangs toward Zev’s throat. He grabbed it by the back of the neck and lifted it clear of the floor. It was surprisingly heavy but that didn’t slow him. Joe could feel the anger rising in him, surging into his muscles.
“Rotten piece of filth!”
He swung the vampire by its neck and let it fly against the cinderblock wall. It impacted with what should have been bone-crushing force, but it bounced off, rolled on the floor, and regained its feet in one motion, ready to attack again. Strong as he was, Joe knew he was no match for a vampire’s power. He turned, grabbed his big silver crucifix, and charged the creature.
“Hungry? Eat this!”
As the creature bared its fangs and hissed at him, Joe shoved the long lower end of the cross into its open mouth. Blue-white light flickered along the silver length of the crucifix, reflecting in the creature’s startled, agonized eyes as its flesh sizzled and crackled. The vampire let out a strangled cry and tried to turn away but Joe wasn’t through with it yet. He was literally seeing red as rage poured out of a hidden well and swirled through him. He rammed the cross deeper down the thing’s gullet. Light flashed deep in its throat, illuminating the pale tissues from within. It tried to grab the cross and pull it out but the flesh of its fingers burned and smoked wherever they came in contact with the cross.
Finally Joe stepped back and let the thing squirm and scrabble up the wall and out the window into the night. Then he turned to Zev. If anything had happened—
“Hey, Reb!” he said, kneeling beside the older man. “
You all right?”
“Yes,” Zev said, struggling to his feet. “Thanks to you.”
Joe slumped onto a crate, momentarily weak as his rage dissipated. This is not what I’m about, he thought. But it had felt so damn good to let it loose on that vampire. Too good. And that worried him.
I’m falling apart . . . like everything else in the world.
“That was too close,” he said to Zev, giving the older man’s shoulder a fond squeeze.
“Too close for that vampire for sure,” Zev said, replacing his yarmulke. “And would you please remind me, Father Joe, that in the future if ever I should maybe get my blood sucked and become a vampire that I should stay far away from you.”
Joe laughed for the first time in too long. It felt good.
They climbed out at first light. Joe stretched his cramped muscles in the fresh air while Zev checked on his hidden bicycle.
“Oy,” Zev said as he pulled it from behind the dumpster. The front wheel had been bent so far out of shape that half the spokes were broken. “Look what he did. Looks like I’ll be walking back to Lakewood.”
But Joe was less interested in the bike than in the whereabouts of their visitor from last night. He knew it couldn’t have got far. And it hadn’t. They found the vampire—or rather what was left of it—on the far side of the dumpster: a rotting, twisted corpse, blackened to a crisp and steaming in the morning sunlight. The silver crucifix still protruded from between its teeth.
Joe approached and gingerly yanked his cross free of the foul remains.
“Looks like you’ve sucked your last pint of blood,” he said and immediately felt foolish.
Who was he putting on the macho act for? Zev certainly wasn’t going to buy it. Too out of character. But then, what was his character these days? He used to be a parish priest. Now he was a nothing. A less than nothing.
He straightened up and turned to Zev.
“Come on back to the retreat house, Reb. I’ll buy you breakfast.”
But as Joe turned and began walking away, Zev stayed and stared down at the corpse.
“They say they don’t wander far from where they spent their lives,” Zev said. “Which means it’s unlikely this fellow was Jewish if he lived around here. Probably Catholic. Irish Catholic, I’d imagine.”
Joe stopped and turned. He stared at his long shadow. The hazy rising sun at his back cast a huge hulking shape before him, with a dark cross in one shadow hand and a smudge of amber light where it poured through the unopened bottle of Scotch in the other.
“What are you getting at?” he said.
“The Kaddish would probably not be so appropriate so I’m just wondering if maybe someone should give him the last rites or whatever it is you people do when one of you dies.”
“He wasn’t one of us,” Joe said, feeling the bitterness rise in him. “He wasn’t even human.”
“Ah, but he used to be before he was killed and became one of them. So maybe now he could use a little help.”
Joe didn’t like the way this was going. He sensed he was being maneuvered.
“He doesn’t deserve it,” he said and knew in that instant he’d been trapped.
“I thought even the worst sinner deserved it,” Zev said.
Joe knew when he was beaten. Zev was right. He shoved the cross and bottle into Zev’s hands—a bit roughly, perhaps—then went and knelt by the twisted cadaver. He administered a form of the final sacrament. When he was through he returned to Zev and snatched back his belongings.
“You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din,” he said as he passed.
“You act as if they’re responsible for what they do after they become vampires,” Zev said as he hurried along beside him, panting as he matched Joe’s pace.
“Aren’t they?”
“No.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Well, not exactly. But they certainly aren’t human anymore, so maybe we shouldn’t hold them accountable on human terms.”
Zev’s reasoning tone flashed Joe back to the conversations they used to have in Horovitz’s deli.
“But Zev, we know there’s some of the old personality left. I mean, they stay in their home towns, usually in the basements of their old houses. They go after people they knew when they were alive. They’re not just dumb predators, Zev. They’ve got the old consciousness they had when they were alive. Why can’t they rise above it? Why can’t they . . . resist?”
“I don’t know. To tell the truth, the question has never occurred to me. A fascinating concept: an undead refusing to feed. Leave it to Father Joe to come up with something like that. We should discuss this on the trip back to Lakewood.”
Joe had to smile. So that was what this was all about.
“I’m not going back to Lakewood.”
“Fine. Then we’ll discuss it now. Maybe the urge to feed is too strong to overcome.”
“Maybe. And maybe they just don’t try hard enough.”
“This is a hard line you’re taking, my friend.”
“I’m a hardline kind of guy.”
“Well, you’ve become one.”
Joe gave him a sharp look. “You don’t know what I’ve become.”
Zev shrugged. “Maybe true, maybe not. But do you truly think you’d be able to resist?”
“Damn straight.”
Joe didn’t know whether he was serious or not. Maybe he was just mentally preparing himself for the day when he might actually find himself in that situation.
“Interesting,” Zev said as they climbed the front steps of the retreat house. “Well, I’d better be going. I’ve a long walk ahead of me. A long, lonely walk all the way back to Lakewood. A long, lonely, possibly dangerous walk back for a poor old man who—”
“All right, Zev! All right!” Joe said, biting back a laugh. “I get the point. You want me to go back to Lakewood. Why?”
“I just want the company,” Zev said with pure innocence.
“No, really. What’s going on in that Talmudic mind of yours? What are you cooking?”
“Nothing, Father Joe. Nothing at all.”
Joe stared at him. Damn it all if his interest wasn’t piqued. What was Zev up to? And what the hell? Why not go? He had nothing better to do.
“All right, Zev. You win. I’ll come back to Lakewood with you. But just for today. Just to keep you company. And I’m not going anywhere near St. Anthony’s, okay? Understood?”
“Understood, Joe. Perfectly understood.”
“Good. Now wipe that smile off your face and we’ll get something to eat.”
III
Under the climbing sun they walked south along the deserted beach, barefooting through the wet sand at the edge of the surf. Zev had never done this. He liked the feel of the sand between his toes, the coolness of the water as it sloshed over his ankles.
“Know what day it is?” Father Joe said. He had his sneakers slung over his shoulder. “Believe it or not, it’s the Fourth of July.”
“Oh, yes. Your Independence Day. We never made much of secular holidays. Too many religious ones to observe. Why should I not believe it’s this date?”
Father Joe shook his head in dismay. “This is Manasquan Beach. You know what this place used to look like on the Fourth before the vampires took over? Wall-to-wall bodies.”
“Really? I guess maybe sun-bathing is not the fad it used to be.”
“Ah, Zev! Still the master of the understatement. I’ll say one thing, though: the beach is cleaner than I’ve ever seen it. No beer cans or hypodermics.” He pointed ahead. “But what’s that up there?”
As they approached the spot, Zev saw a pair of naked bodies stretched out on the sand, one male, one female, both young and short-haired. Their skin was bronzed and glistened in the sun. The man lifted his head and stared at them. A blue crucifix was tattooed in the center of his forehead. He reached into the knapsack beside him and withdrew a huge, gleaming, nickel-plated revolver.
“Just keep walki
ng,” he said.
“Will do,” Father Joe said. “Just passing through.”
As they passed the couple, Zev noticed a similar tattoo on the girl’s forehead. He noticed the rest of her too. He felt an almost-forgotten stirring deep inside him.
“A very popular tattoo,” he said.
“Clever idea. That’s one cross you can’t drop or lose. Probably won’t help you in the dark, but if there’s a light on it might give you an edge.”
They turned west and made their way inland, finding Route 70 and following it into Ocean County via the Brielle Bridge.
“I remember nightmare traffic jams right here every summer,” Father Joe said as they trod the bridge’s empty span. “Never thought I’d miss traffic jams.”
They cut over to Route 88 and followed it all the way into Lakewood. Along the way they found a few people out and about in Bricktown and picking berries in Ocean County Park, but in the heart of Lakewood . . .
“A real ghost town,” the priest said as they walked Forest Avenue’s deserted length.
“Ghosts,” Zev said, nodding sadly. It had been a long walk and he was tired. “Yes. Full of ghosts.”
In his mind’s eye he saw the shades of his fallen brother rabbis and all the yeshiva students, beards, black suits, black hats, crisscrossing back and forth at a determined pace on weekdays, strolling with their wives on Shabbes, their children trailing behind like ducklings.
Gone. All gone. Victims of the vampires. Vampires themselves now, most of them. It made him sick at heart to think of those good, gentle men, women, and children curled up in their basements now to avoid the light of day, venturing out in the dark to feed on others, spreading the disease . . .
He fingered the cross slung from his neck. If only they had listened!
“I know a place near St. Anthony’s where we can hide,” he told the priest.
“You’ve traveled enough today, Reb. And I told you, I don’t care about St. Anthony’s.”
“Stay the night, Joe,” Zev said, gripping the young priest’s arm. He’d coaxed him this far; he couldn’t let him get away now. “See what Father Palmeri’s done.”
A Soft Barren Aftershock Page 73
