by Ronald Kelly
Sometime between dusk and dawn, Colonel Vanleer succumbed to the horror of what had happened in that underground cave. He ran blindly and continued to run, losing the fiends that searched for him and, in the process, losing himself as well.
Caleb sat up in bed, shaking so hard that his bones ached. He raised his hands to his bearded face and found it wet with tears and sweat. “Oh God!” he moaned, the images of the nightmare fresh in his mind. “Oh, dear God, I remember now. I remember it all!”
Old Nailhead peeked over the edge of his bunk, his droopy eyes full of concern. The mountain man reached out with a trembling hand and laid it on the dog’s head. “I’m all right, ol’ fella,” he said softly. “I just found something I’ve been looking for for a helluva long time. And I ain’t at all sure that I really wanted to find it in the first place.”
Caleb rose from his bed and walked across the dark room to the table. He picked up his gold pocket watch and peered at it in the gloom. The hands gave the time as eleven-thirty-eight. It wasn’t even midnight yet. Caleb wasn’t surprised at what time it was, though. He normally went to bed at eight or nine in the evening, preferring to rise with first light. He supposed it was the military that had set that internal clock of his.
He was about to light the lantern in the center of the table when a sound came from an open window at the front of the cabin.
It was laughter, the giggling of a young girl.
He looked toward the window and saw the silhouette of a head in the moonlit window. He could detect nothing about its features except for a pair of glowing red eyes.
Caleb backed away from the table, leaving the lantern unlit. He suddenly knew who was out there on the porch. Or more precisely, he knew what was out there.
The giggle came again, then the head disappeared, fading into the night. Caleb went to the mantel, where he had left his flintlock pistol and Bowie knife. He left the gun in its holster, recalling how Conners had fired at the Vietnamese woman, point-blank, to no avail. He unsnapped the retaining strap on the knife sheath and withdrew the Bowie. The twelve-inch blade gleamed in the moonlight that shone through the open window.
“Stay put, boy,” he whispered to the dog. When he was certain that Nailhead had obeyed, he walked toward the cabin door, dressed in faded long johns and clutching the big knife tightly in his right hand. He reached the door, paused, and then unbolted it. He took a deep breath. Then he kicked the door open and stepped onto the porch.
He turned toward the end of the porch where the open window was. No one stood there now. There was only the rick of split kindling piled against the log wall. He took a couple of steps forward. Caleb peered past the end of the porch and into the darkness beyond. He saw nothing there, only heavy brush and young saplings, their leaves etched in silver light.
The mountain man stopped dead in his tracks when he felt something touch his shoulder. Slowly, he turned his head and found a hand there. It was the lean, pale hand of a young woman. A hand with nails painted a bright pink, wearing an oversized class ring on one finger. Caleb recalled the girl who had been killed at the drive-in after having an argument with her boyfriend. Suddenly, he knew the hand belonged to Jamie Bell.
That unnerving giggle came again just behind Caleb’s right ear. He felt a breath on the nape of his neck, as cold as the vapor from an icebox. He tightened his hold on the Bowie’s staghorn handle, then whirled. He drove the blade of the knife square into the chest of the thing behind him.
He stepped back, heart pounding. Jamie Bell looked at him, then stared down at the knife handle that protruded from the space between her small breasts. Her tiny, blue-lipped mouth grew into a pout, a gesture that might have seemed cute in life, but was utterly horrifying in death. When she turned her eyes back to Caleb, malice flashed there.
She started toward him, slowly at first, then quicker with each new step. Caleb looked around for a weapon, but there was nothing within reach. He turned to run and felt the girl upon him, striking him solidly between the shoulder blades. He grunted. It felt as if someone had hit him in the back with a baseball bat. He stumbled forward and landed amid the woodpile with a crash. But the blow proved to be even stronger than he’d suspected. He rolled off the edge of the porch and hit the ground below, taking half of the rick with him.
He landed flat on his back. The impact drove the breath from his lungs and it took him a moment to get it back. When he looked toward the edge of the porch, he saw the girl standing there, staring down at him. She grinned contemptuously, her mouth a bristling maw of fangs and braces.
She was about to pounce on him when a flash of motion shot across the porch behind her. “No!” yelled Caleb, but it was too late. Old Nailhead was on the girl’s back, growling and snapping. He had heeded his master’s command until he could heed it no longer.
Jamie Bell staggered forward and fell off the edge of the porch. She landed on her side in the grass, grappling with the coonhound. The dog tore into the vampire the same way he tore into a coon or possum, teeth snapping, finding flesh, and holding on.
The girl reached behind her, and grabbing Old Nailhead by the throat, pulled him over her head. His teeth remained firmly clenched, ripping her left ear cleanly away. Jamie Bell didn’t seem to notice. She snarled at the dog like some wild, vicious animal. She took one of the hound’s rear legs, and holding the dog over her head, snapped its spine in half with an ugly crack. Old Nailhead unleashed a single, short yelp, then grew silent.
The girl giggled, then flung the dead dog away and attempted to get up.
Caleb got to his feet first however. He picked up a long piece of firewood and staggered toward her. Rage gleamed in his eyes. “You bitch!” he screamed. “You killed Old Nailhead!”
He jumped on the girl, landing on her hips with his knees, pinning her down. He eyed the handle of the knife that jutted from the center of her chest and smiled grimly. Instantly, he knew what he must do.
With all his strength, Caleb drove the blunt end of the firewood against the end of the Bowie’s handle. A couple of strikes pounded the big knife completely through the girl’s torso, widening the hole in her chest. But he didn’t stop there. He drove the stick of kindling into the open wound. Joining his fingers together, Caleb hammered his fists against the end of the log. He felt it hang for a second, as if meeting an obstruction. Then it ripped through the creature’s heart, tearing it apart.
Jamie Bell opened her mouth to scream, but only a burst of cold air shot from her lungs. Caleb stayed where he was until the crimson glow faded from the girl’s eyes and she grew still. Then he rose to his feet and stared down at her. He watched bewildered as the fangs receded, growing shorter and more blunt than they had before. Soon, only the teeth of a teenage girl remained. The steel of her dental work gleamed dully in the moonlight.
Caleb turned and saw Old Nailhead lying beside the foundation of the porch. He walked to the dog, and sitting down on the ground, gathered his best friend up in his arms. “You shouldn’t have done it, boy,” he moaned, tears blooming in his eyes. “You should’ve stayed put, like I told you to do.”
Old Nailhead stared up at him, his eyes blind with death.
Caleb Vanleer sat there for a long time, weeping and cradling the lifeless body of the finest hunting dog in all of the Smokies. Then, after a while, he stood up and walked back to the cabin to fetch a shovel. He had some burying to attend to that night, and he wanted to get it done before sunrise.
After that, he had to drive down to town and eat himself some crow.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Bill Hughs glanced over at his wife, Karen. She was halfway through a romance novel, but he had noticed her nodding off for the past few minutes. They had both had a hard day at work, Karen at the county clerk’s office, and Bill at his shoe store on the town square.
“What about it, honey?” he asked. “Ready to call it a night?”
Karen Hughs stuck a bookmark in her paperback and yawned. “Might as well. I’ve read the
same paragraph three times and I keep losing track of where I am. I reckon I’m just dog-tired.”
“Me, too,” said her husband. He aimed the remote at the television and cut off David Letterman in mid-joke. He looked at the Westminster clock over the fireplace. It was a quarter past midnight.
Karen was about to turn off the living room lamp when someone knocked at the front door. She turned and looked at her husband. “Who could that be?” she asked.
Bill looked toward the door, then at his gun cabinet in the corner. “Just a second,” he told her. He walked to the cabinet, unlocked it, and took out a .38 snubnose revolver.
“Really, dear, do you think that’s necessary?” she asked with a frown.
Her husband looked at her. “With all that’s being going on around Green Hollow this week?”
Karen nodded. “I guess you’re right.” She watched him hold the gun down next to his leg and start toward the door. “Just be careful.”
Bill stepped up to the light switch and turned on the porch light outside. Then he peered through the peephole. At first he saw only the back of someone standing a few feet away. Then the man turned and the pale light revealed his face. Bill recognized him at once.
“Well, I’ll be!” he said excitedly. He turned the dead bolt and started to open the door.
“Who is it?” asked Karen, stepping up behind her husband and looking over his shoulder.
On the porch was their minister, Wendell Craven. The Baptist preacher smiled at them, looking pale and red-eyed, dressed in a flannel shirt and his Sunday pants and shoes.
“Brother Craven!” said Karen, surprised. “God be praised, you’re all right!”
“May I come in?” he asked, eyeing them strangely.
“Why, of course,” urged Bill. “You know that you’re always welcome here.”
Wendell stepped into the house and Bill closed the door behind him. Karen motioned to the living room couch and Wendell accepted her hospitality with a nod. Once he was seated, Bill laid his gun on the coffee table and sat down in the easy chair across from him. “Karen, why don’t you make us some coffee? The reverend here looks a little chilled to me.”
“I am cold,” replied Wendell with a trace of a smile.
After Karen had gone to the kitchen, Bill regarded the preacher who had been missing since the previous Sunday. “We’ve been worried half to death about you, Brother Craven,” he told him, relieved. “To tell the truth, with all the trouble that’s been going on during the past few days, we were expecting the worst.” He noticed how pale the minister was. “Are you okay? You look like you’re sick.”
“No,” Wendell replied. “Believe me, I am far from sick.”
Bill thought nothing of the preacher’s reply. “So, what happened to you? Everyone in the congregation figured there was foul play involved, that maybe someone tried to steal the Sunday offering and you were abducted. Others in the community had less flattering theories about why you disappeared.”
“What do you mean?” asked Wendell Craven.
The shoe salesman looked embarrassed. “Well, a rumor got spread around town that you’d left your wife and run off with another woman.”
Wendell laughed, but there was no humor in his voice. “That’s preposterous,” he said.
“Of course it is,” said Bill. He waited a moment. The preacher sat on the couch and stared at him. His eyes were bloodshot, almost like he had been drinking. “What happened to you? I’m anxious to find out where you’ve been.”
Wendell smiled at the man and leaned forward. “I’ve been on the most incredible journey,” he told him, eyes bright, “the likes of which you could never imagine.”
Bill Hughs felt a little disturbed by the preacher’s reply, as well as the excitement in his voice. “What are you talking about, Reverend?”
“I’m talking about rebirth, Bill,” he said. “Not just the rebirth of the spirit, but of the body as well.” Wendell smiled. “I myself have been reborn in such a way. I have become much more than the man I was before.”
Bill looked into the minister’s eyes and saw something there that scared him. There was a wild light there, the shine of madness… or something worse. “I don’t understand,” he said, wondering whether or not he should have let the man into his house.
Wendell reached out to him. “Take my hand, Bill. Take it and you will understand.”
Bill stared at the preacher’s pale hand for a moment, then reluctantly leaned forward and took hold of it. He recoiled the instant their fingers touched. “Good Lord, Reverend! You’re as cold as ice.”
“But do you understand why?” Wendell asked him.
The man was afraid to answer.
“I’m dead, Bill,” he said. “Dead, yet resurrected. But not by the forces of God.” The preacher seemed to scowl in contempt at the word he had once taken great pleasure in uttering. “No, I’ve discovered who my true master is. And he has shown me the error of my ways.”
“What do you mean?” asked Bill. He left his chair and walked toward the fireplace. He felt uneasy sitting so close to the minister, particularly the way he was talking.
“You know what I mean, Bill,” Wendell told him. “And you know who I’m talking about.”
Bill looked across the living room. The telephone was a good ten feet away, sitting on a cherry end table. He wondered if he could make his way to it without the preacher trying to stop him. “Brother Craven,” he said softly, “something has happened to you. You’re talking crazy… out of your head. Maybe we should call a doctor and have him take a look at you. Just to make sure you’re okay.”
He started across the room, but abruptly Wendell stood up, blocking his way. “Look at me, Bill,” he said gently. “Look into my eyes.”
Bill couldn’t help himself. He stared into the preacher’s eyes and found them even redder than before. Slowly they began to grow brighter, actually seemed to glow. “What’s happening?” he asked helplessly, feeling as if he was losing control.
“Devotion to a new master, that is what is happening,” Wendell told him. “You’ve always put your faith in my hands before, haven’t you, Bill?”
“Yes,” said the man. He wanted to run but seemed to have lost the ability to do so. He could feel his resistance slipping away. All that seemed to matter was the man who stood before him and what he had to say.
“Then you must trust me now,” Wendell said. He extended a pale-fleshed hand. “There is no need to fight it, Bill. Come. Come to me and I will show you the way.”
Karen Hughs left the kitchen, carrying a tray bearing three mugs of hot coffee, spoons, and cream and sugar.
As she walked down the hallway and approached the living room, she was aware of how very quiet it was. She had heard her husband and the minister talking a few minutes before, but now the room was silent.
But, no, on second thought, she did hear something. A sound came from the room ahead; a soft, wet, monotonous noise. A noise that was both puzzling and sinister at the same time.
“Bill?” she called out. But her husband didn’t answer. She entered the room and stood there staring for a long moment. Bill and Wendell Craven were on the couch together. They almost looked like they were kissing. A jolt of alarm ran through Karen, and at first she was certain she had caught the two in a homosexual act. But then she saw that was not the case.
Wendell had his mouth over the left side of Bill’s neck, the lips working, sucking. Then he pulled away and trickles of dark red blood coursed from an ugly wound in her husband’s throat. Bill’s head lolled against the cushions of the couch, his eyes glassy and unseeing.
Karen felt all the strength drain from her arms and legs. She let the tray sag from her fingers. It crashed to the floor, staining the carpet with black coffee and sugar.
Wendell’s crimson eyes shifted in her direction, and he smiled. He left Bill on the couch and stood up.
“What have you done?” she screamed, backing away. “What have you done to Bill?”
She looked over at her husband. He sat on the couch, arms twitching feebly. Blood coursed from his open neck, saturating the collar of his shirt and the powder-blue fabric of the sofa.
“He has become as I am,” Wendell told her. “He has been baptized in the blood of the beast.” He took a step toward her. “Now it is your turn to join us.”
Karen Hughs looked into the minister’s eyes and saw not compassion and goodness, but evil. An evil so dark and engulfing that it was difficult to comprehend. Whoever it was they had invited into their house that night, it was not the Baptist preacher whose services they had attended for the past three years. Just looking at the menace in his eyes and the blood that coated his long, impossibly sharp teeth, Karen knew that there was more Satan than God in the man who walked toward her.
She pulled her gaze from his face and saw Bill’s gun lying on the coffee table. The .38 Special was too far away to reach. She turned and ran back down the hallway toward the kitchen. As she passed the staircase, Karen thought of her daughter, Penny, upstairs. The girl was asleep in her bedroom, unaware of the danger that had invaded their home. She thought about going to her but knew there was no time. Maybe if she ran, it would draw Craven away from the child who slept upstairs.
Karen reached the kitchen. She spotted the wooden block next to the gas range and the carving knives that jutted from its slots. She ran over and snatched one from its holder, a big butcher knife with a ten-inch blade. She clutched it tightly and turned toward the hallway. She waited for Wendell Craven to appear, but the corridor remained empty.
She started toward the back door. If she could get to one of the neighbors’ houses, she could call the police, and hopefully they would get there before the man did any further harm. She thought of Bill slouched on the sofa with that ugly hole in his neck, as well as her daughter upstairs. Perhaps Craven had decided to go upstairs for Penny, instead of coming after her. The thought horrified her. She looked at the back door, then took a step in the opposite direction, toward the hallway. Her instincts told her to run for it, but her love for her daughter prevented her from doing that.