Stake

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Lexi looked away, suddenly reminded of the ‘Bigfoot Rapes Hiker’ story – how Holly Smith had been assaulted, yet her story was given little credence because of what she had said. ‘I believe you.’

  ‘Vampires hide in plain sight. They live among us, because no matter how blatantly they kill their victims and dispose of the bodies, the public is just numb to it. Every time you look at the news, some absurd story makes you roll your eyes in disbelief, then an hour later you hear something even sillier. It’s one whopper of a story after another, and people believe or disbelieve depending on which news network they watch. Some people believe anything they read on the internet, and others believe nothing – which means our entire society no longer has any basis in fact.’

  He tugged down the baseball cap to shade his face. ‘But those of us who know the truth have to do something! I didn’t ask for the responsibility.’ Helsing skewered her with his intense blue eyes, and she felt as if he had pounded a stake right through her. ‘I have to keep the lampir at bay.’

  She saw Helsing fidget, move his hand as if looking for a weapon. Even though they sat outside with a constant stream of pedestrians passing by – talking, shopping, some even helping the panhandler on the corner – she felt uneasy. Lexi began to realize that something wasn’t quite right about this man.

  But she was accustomed to that after interacting with so many HideTruth followers. Even if Helsing was dangerous, she doubted he would do anything to her, at least not here, and not while he considered her a potential ally.

  ‘You have more knowledge than I do,’ she said in a calm but firm voice. ‘I spend my days debunking crazy stories, but I am willing to believe. But first it has to pass the smell test.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Helsing nudged the manila folder even closer to her. ‘I’ve done my research and tracked down where some of the vampires are, right here in the city. Yes, there were countless false leads, and I have to be careful. Sometimes an odd lifestyle choice might make a person falsely appear to be a vampire. But I’ve got a solid list of candidates, and many others that are likely vampires. Check them out yourself. See if you agree with my conclusions.’

  Lexi opened the folder to see printouts, observation logs, names and addresses, work records. She was impressed. ‘It takes a lot of skill to get this kind of information.’

  ‘It takes a lot of skill to fight vampires. They are smart and they are deadly.’ He nodded to the folder. ‘Look at the evidence. With your help, maybe we can expose vampires for what they are.’

  ‘With my help? You want me to post these names on HideTruth?’ She instantly worried about legal issues. Even with the nice monthly donation from Hugo Zelm, she couldn’t afford a lawsuit.

  ‘It’s the only way to bring them out into the light of day – if you know what I mean.’ Now Helsing really smiled. ‘We can’t let the lampir hide anymore. They are everywhere.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I think there’s a king vampire here in the Springs, and that makes our job even more difficult.’ The intensity in his eyes increased. He reached forward and grasped her wrist, startling her. It was like a vice clamping down. ‘I can’t do this alone, Ms Tarada. You can help me. You are the only one who really understands.’

  ‘I … I’ll take a look.’ She swallowed hard, drew her arm back. ‘Please let go of me.’

  Alarmed, he released her hand like a rattlesnake that had just struck. ‘Sorry! I don’t want to scare you. Look at the list. Look at the evidence. You’ll see what I mean. You understand.’

  Scraping the metal chair back, Helsing bolted, slipping into the flow of pedestrian traffic and heading away from the coffee shop. He managed to vanish in the crowd.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Standing at the corner of Tejon and Cascade, Lucius kept a kind and hopeful smile on his face as people walked by. He held out a plastic cup half full of coins and low-denomination bills, many of which he had added himself, but even while he interacted with the pedestrians, his main focus was elsewhere.

  Years of living in the forest had trained Lucius to stay attuned and alert for any potential threat, even from a distance. Most people assumed he was a down-on-his-luck military veteran who had seen enough horrors to last a lifetime. Because of his large size, he had learned how to appear innocuous, just another scruffy panhandler with a distant stare.

  His attention was focused on Alexis Tarada.

  She sat outside the coffee shop, meeting with Simon Helsing. Lucius wished he could hear their conversation. Though he called little attention to himself, he was a big, distinctive man, and Simon had certainly spotted him standing on the corner. The two had a special relationship, although the other man was fiercely independent, even obsessive. They’d had their disagreements before.

  As the leader of his people, Lucius didn’t want publicity for what the Bastion was doing. The only way they could survive was to remain invisible. Exposing the danger too blatantly might provoke the lampir to retaliate, resulting in an all-out war with the undead. Lucius would never bring that on his people, but Simon would not be convinced. His crusade was too fiery, too personal.

  Lucius also knew who Alexis Tarada was. He had begun studying the young woman even before Helsing took an interest in her. Lucius knew where she lived, had researched HideTruth. Frankly, he was surprised that Simon had suggested this open meeting with her. He was zealous, desperate to find an ally, since he no longer agreed with the Bastion’s approach to survival.

  Lucius had a nagging feeling inside that perhaps – just perhaps – Simon was right in his dangerous, provocative approach. Was the Bastion wrong to shrink away from the crisis? But Lucius was suspicious of civilization – and of people like Alexis Tarada. Was she an ally or an enemy? A scam artist? An opportunist? HideTruth asked for donations and sponsors, and bored or unstable followers were eager to believe any conspiracy theory, any monster that went bump in the night, any spaceship that abducted middle-aged women from laundromats. Alexis Tarada posted all of the nonsense, although she did try to differentiate between the ridiculous and the truth.

  Yet she was here meeting with Helsing, listening to him. Maybe she was for real.

  She was clearly uneasy as he made his earnest pitch, gave her his manila folder. Hunched over the metal table outside the coffee shop, Simon spoke with animation, tapping on the pages of his dossier.

  To her credit, she took notes, paid attention. Lucius studied her body language, her expression, and she seemed confused and concerned, rather than afraid.

  ‘Spare some change?’ Lucius rattled his plastic cup as three college students strolled by with backpacks slung over their shoulders.

  An angry-looking student turned his head the other way, aggressively ignoring him, as many people did, but the young woman beside him dug into her pocket and pulled out two dollars. The other young man with her did the same, offering a five-dollar bill. ‘Hope your luck improves, man.’

  Shamed into competing, the angry student dropped a bill into the cup as well. The three strolled on down the street, looking in shop windows, walking past Alexis Tarada.

  When Simon slid from his chair, he ducked in behind the students, moving quickly, dodging the crowds. He turned down a side street and vanished, using skills Lucius himself had taught him. The members of the Bastion knew how to disappear.

  Alexis remained at the table, hunched over her large coffee cup and flipping through the manila folder. She appeared unsettled as she read the documents.

  Lucius made up his mind. Still holding the big plastic cup, he made his way down the sidewalk.

  Often people would shun the chattering and disheveled homeless who clearly needed the most help, but Lucius wasn’t one of those. He wore clean clothes, smiled, nonthreatening. He sauntered up to the coffee shop where Alexis sat, still pondering the folder. She didn’t look up at him, didn’t even notice him, until he stepped close to the table.

  When she glanced at him, Lucius gave her a somber nod. ‘It’s all true, you know.’ He tapped the manila
folder, then kept moving down the sidewalk without looking back.

  He could feel the young woman watching him with countless questions, but he reached a corner and turned in the opposite direction from the way Simon had gone.

  Sometimes people had to take a chance. Maybe this woman was worth considering. He would keep a personal eye on Alexis Tarada from now on to see how she reacted.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  On the drive home from the coffee shop, Lexi couldn’t stop thinking about the bearded homeless man. It’s all true, you know.

  Was he watching her? Spying on her? Did the man have some connection to Simon Helsing and the supposed vampire scourge? Or was he just some mentally ill man who managed to survive at the fringes of society.

  It’s all true, you know. Why had he said that?

  When she got home, Blair was still in his room, getting ready for work that afternoon, but she was happy to hear him bustling about. She pulled up a chair and sat at the kitchen table, engrossed in studying the documents in the folder. The information Helsing had given her was both fascinating and disturbing.

  The first pages showed other victims that real vampires had supposedly killed – grainy photographs of pale corpses with notations that the bodies had been burned and sterilized to make sure they wouldn’t turn into vampires. She didn’t know where Helsing had gotten the photos. He could have faked them or culled them from some sick website, but she wasn’t sure. The pictures were graphic, sickening, showing unrivaled violence. Many of those ‘vampire victims’ were purported to be homeless men and women whose disappearance would have remained unremarked.

  When meeting her, Helsing must have assumed that Lexi believed in vampires, so he hadn’t spent extensive time making that part of his case. Rather, hoping to enlist her as an ally, he presented evidence of specific people whom he suspected to be vampires hiding in society. Looking forward, not backward.

  Lexi flipped the pages, and when her stomach growled, she realized she hadn’t eaten lunch. Maybe later. She still had some leftover pizza from the other night. She wondered if Blair had eaten, but he would never consider that an acceptable lunch. After he’d been hurt, Lexi made up her mind to take care of him, cook for him, but she wanted to do better than leftover pizza for him. She could always get takeout food, which would certainly taste better, but wouldn’t come from the heart.

  As a fallback, if she took over the cooking chores, it might give Blair the incentive to get better faster.

  Now, she turned to the next page in the dossier. Helsing had been thorough, even obsessive. Because of HideTruth, he had confided in her, delighted to find a kindred spirit at last. He believed she shared his concerns. That made her uneasy.

  She remembered the similar case with Richard Dover, Dicked Over, her original stalker, though Helsing was more measured, more rational. She looked at his carefully curated list of potential vampires.

  He highlighted a night-time security guard, Douglas Eldridge, who worked at a secretive Eastern European importing firm. He was always accompanied by a vicious German Shepherd, assumed to be a ‘demon familiar’. Lexi frowned at the idea, but read through the surveillance, Eldridge’s movements, his work shifts, his home address. She found it all a little creepy.

  Then there was Tom Grollin, a night-time cab driver, and MaryJane Stricklin, a third-shift ambulance driver with records of accident victims who suspiciously died during transport when she was the lead EMT. Helsing claimed that the death numbers were higher than average.

  The listings included three hotel night clerks, a pizza delivery man named Frederik Lugash, and a pair of after-hours stock clerks in the local warehouse store. She turned page after page, and the last name in the folder surprised her – Hugo Zelm. Lexi smiled at the suggestion of Zelm as a vampire. Though quirky and reclusive, her benefactor was seen quite often, even if Helsing was unable to find any photos taken in broad daylight. He did fit the clichéd wealthy Nosferatu profile, but Lexi didn’t believe the idea for a second. In the margin, Helsing had written a note to himself, ‘King vampire?’

  Disturbed by all this, imagining what this dossier might signify if Helsing’s observations were true, Lexi had an idea for a post on her homepage, ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’. Just for the sake of argument …

  Without giving any specific names, because Lexi had no desire to be sued, she decided to lay out the details of Helsing’s research, the criteria he applied and the questions he raised. How could a person never be seen during daylight hours?

  She also knew about confirmation bias. Helsing only found information that tended to reinforce what he already believed. Even celebrities weren’t watched twenty-four hours a day. Who kept track of whether or not someone walked to the end of the driveway in the morning to pick up a newspaper? Or went to the park alone on a sunny afternoon? Just because the people on Helsing’s list weren’t commonly out during the day, that didn’t mean they never ventured into the sunlight. Given Helsing’s thoroughness, though, when she posted ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’, maybe others would search, investigate the data – and find other information. She wanted nothing more than for someone to disprove his claims.

  At first, Lexi had greeted the idea of vampires with a thrill of mysterious excitement, her sense of wonder returning. Like when Teresa had appeared to her. Later, when Lexi realized that she had seen her friend after her death, she believed Teresa had come back to give her a message, to help guide her life. That was one reason Lexi had left Iowa and moved to Colorado, why she had accepted a job tracking down myths and fake news. And why she had created HideTruth, to gather more evidence of things that simply couldn’t be explained. One of these days, I’m sure to be right.

  Helsing was serious, but in a different way. He saw a threat that the public willfully ignored. Lexi considered presenting the entire folder to Detective Carrow, letting him investigate all of these potential vampires, but he would probably dismiss the idea out of hand. Even to her, the conclusion of a vampire infestation was a stretch, unless she could find something more definite.

  Rather than embarrassing herself in front of the detective, Lexi would do some investigation on her own, see what else she might find.

  Blair opened the door of his room, startling her. ‘Lex, I could use your help before I go to work.’

  She was glad to know he had decided to go back out into the world, even if he wanted to stick to the shadows and hide his bruises. ‘Anything you need.’ She had been on edge about him, about everything. She hurried into the hall and grimaced to see his puffy lip and bruised face, which looked even worse after two days.

  Seeing him that way made her angry, but Blair had refused to file charges against his abusive boyfriend. Now she felt her face flush. ‘I can go directly to Detective Carrow and demand that he pull strings. If he wants my help on the stake killer case, then he can help me. It’s his job.’

  ‘The police won’t do anything,’ Blair insisted. ‘A domestic quarrel. They’d get a kick out of two gay lovers hitting each other.’

  ‘You weren’t hitting each other. He hit you. Don’t start gaslighting.’

  Blair sighed. ‘No lectures please. Free pass, remember?’

  She blinked away tears. ‘Free pass. What can I do for you? Just name it.’

  ‘It’s time for me to face the world, but I don’t want anyone to see me like this. I need some help putting on make-up.’

  She let out a surprised laugh and turned him by the shoulder, guiding him into her room. ‘I’m not very good at it, but I’ve had to look pretty on rare occasions.’

  After she sat him on the corner of her bed, he winced as she applied foundation, making do with what she had, hoping the color matched well enough. ‘It’ll hide the worst of the bruising. I’ll do my best for you, you know that.’

  He dabbed at the tender purple circle around his eye. ‘You’ll do great. Pretty soon it’ll all be back to normal, like nothing ever happened.’ He let out a wistful sigh.

  He remained stoic as
he endured her ministrations. Unable to keep her anger inside as the discoloration gradually disappeared, she asked, ‘You’re not going to see him again, are you? He might kill you next time.’

  ‘He won’t.’ Blair tensed as she lifted the brush, ready to scold him, then he lowered his eyes. ‘No … I won’t see Cesar again. I’ve had it with him. I learned my lesson.’

  ‘Good. If you date him again, I’ll drag you to counseling.’

  ‘If I dated him again, I would certainly need counseling.’ He seemed to be trying to lighten the mood.

  ‘Don’t get amnesia.’ She wasn’t convinced he was strong enough, but she had pushed the matter as far as she could. She knew Blair had shut down, but she would never stop watching out for him.

  He tried to smile, but flinched when it stretched the scab on his lip. ‘Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, Lex. You’re the best friend. I promise I’ll find you the absolute perfect dress for the gala.’

  The comment came out of nowhere. ‘A dress? The gala is the last thing on my mind right now,’ she said, finishing up the make-up. Hugo Zelm – the king vampire?

  ‘Well, it’s not the last thing on mine,’ Blair said. ‘If I’m going to be your plus one, somebody has to worry about it.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  One of the cable channels was playing a ‘Bloodsucker Marathon’, though it was a month before Halloween.

  Working for hours in the motel room, Helsing played the vampire movies in the background. They provided imaginary thrills, silly monsters that posed little danger, nothing at all like the real threat of the lampir. Peter Cushing, the brave vampire slayer, battled a snarling Christopher Lee in Horror of Dracula, one of the better offerings from Hammer Films. Cushing was a true hero who pounded stakes without sympathy, making the sign of the cross with a pair of candlesticks to drive Dracula into a blaze of purifying sunlight, which roasted him to ash. Cushing’s Van Helsing was an inspiration.