Blood Stakes

by Upton, Bradley

  After Mass Father Bryant stood outside and chatted with the people as they left. People praised his efforts and made comments, telling him how they were moved. He always took the words graciously though he sometimes didn’t feel like he deserved it. When the crowd cleared he walked to the sacristy and took off the vestments and hung them up. Underneath was the typical black shirt with the collar and black pants of a priest, his everyday costume.

  He walked to his home next to the large looming church. Wearily he moved into the living room and sat down in a large soft chair. He closed his eyes and nodded off.

  Chapter 2

  The Visitor

  The intercom on the phone buzzed. John started to wakefulness then groaned slightly. The last thing he wanted was a disturbance. Being a priest meant being on call at all times. He sighed and picked up the phone. “Yes?”

  “It’s Tim, Father. Sorry to disturb you. There’s someone here to see you.”

  Father Bryant was silent for a moment, he glanced at the clock on the wall. It was late. He had slept longer than he intended. ‘Tim is called to service. It’s strong in him.’ He thought. ‘Being a priest is what God intended for him. I could use his fervor right now.’ “Tim, it’s really late. Could they come back another time? Tomorrow morning maybe? Tell them I’m asleep and make an appointment for the morning.” Father Bryant said. The prospect of counseling someone so late didn’t appeal to him at the moment. God would understand a little white lie, if He was listening.

  “I’m sorry, Father. He’s standing next to me at the intercom.” A note of regret was in Tim’s voice.

  Father Bryant covered the receiver and sighed, then asked. “Can he come back in the morning?”

  The murmur of a voice could be heard, a male voice somewhat familiar. “He says that’s impossible,” replied Tim.

  “Very well. I’ll see him for a little while.” Father Bryant set down the phone and walked through a dimly lit sitting room to the door of the rectory. He unlocked the door and let Tim and the tall man into the room.

  “I’m sorry, Father, he was most insistent.” A shadow of embarrassment played across Tim’s young features.

  “Not to worry. It’s all part of the job. You’ll find out soon enough. Go home. I’ll see my guest out when we’re finished.” Tim left and shut the door behind him. “Can I take your hat and overcoat?”

  “No, I’m fine.” replied the shadowy figure. There was something about his quiet voice.

  “Please sit down. The chairs may look a bit old but they’re comfortable I assure you.” Father Bryant said. The priest and the stranger sat in the two armchairs facing each other.

  “I remember. You’d think the diocese would spring for new furniture once in a while.”

  “You’ve been here before?” Bryant asked.

  “Johnny Boy, of course I’ve been here before.”

  Father Bryant stared at him. Bright blue eyes burned under the brim of the man’s fedora. “No one calls me that. Only one person ever did. He’s dead.”

  “I know.” The man said. There was a long pause as he took a deep breath before speaking again. “I’m him.”

  “That’s not funny. He died of leukemia five years ago in this very house. The doctor was here, I performed the Last Rites on him myself. His body is in the mausoleum near the church.” Father Bryant quickly stood up. “I don’t know what you want or who you are, but this joke is in very poor taste. I want you to leave.”

  “Has it been that long? Have I changed so much, John? Maybe I should have fed first. It’s been a few days.” The man added softly, speaking to himself in a distracted tone.

  Father Bryant gazed at the gaunt man. He was similar to his dead mentor but, no, it was impossible. He crossed to the man to physically escort him out.

  The man held up his hand to halt the priest. “Where’s Elaine Sanders?”

  “What?”

  “You left her behind to join the Priesthood.”

  Father Bryant stared at the man. “No one here knew about her except Sean.” He said quietly when he found his voice. “Sean died. I watched him waste away and die over the course of a week.”

  “Remember when we used to stay up late watching old horror movies on TV? I’m thinking specifically of a Universal release, 1931, stars Bela Lugosi…”

  “Dracula.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “This is ridiculous. I want you to leave right now.” Father Bryant moved forward and grabbed the man by the wrist. The skin was cold. This shocked him for a moment as he tried to drag the man out of the chair. It was like trying to move a granite statue. In the blink of an eye the man grabbed the distraught priest and pulled Father Bryant close so their faces almost touched. Scintillating blue eyes bored into John’s soul.

  “I am Sean Ryan. I died in this house and I came back to life as a vampire. I roam this planet feeding on the blood of people to survive.”

  Father Bryant could see the flash of fangs in his mouth as he spoke. Sean tossed John back into the chair opposite. The frightened priest grabbed for the crucifix around his neck. It would shield him from the creature in front of him. Fear made him pull with all his might, breaking the chain. Links from the chain fell to the floor as did his priestly façade. He was now just a scared man.

  The rage of the vampire turned suddenly to amusement and he burst out laughing. For the first time in a long while Sean laughed. He truly laughed. The frightened priest stared incredulously at the spectacle.

  “Stay back, spawn of Satan!” Father Bryant shouted. Sean stared at him. “Crosses don’t work?” John asked when he saw no reaction.

  “No, they don’t. And spawn of Satan is pretty harsh, John.” smirked Sean, his eyes burning in the shadows. “You’ve lost your calling haven’t you?”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Your faith wavers as surely as your hand.” Sean said.

  “God help me. “ Father Bryant sank back in the chair. How was this possible? Vampires were fiction, an old easy answer to explain inexplicable deaths before medicine and science came up with the real reason. It’s not cancer or some other wasting disease; it’s something supernatural, something from dark superstition. “Why are you here? What do you want?”

  “I came to talk, not to feed. I wanted to talk to someone from before, from when I was alive. Please.” Sean implored, “I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”

  John sat up in the chair, trying to shake the tension in his body. The flight fear response was screaming at him to run. Oddly, he didn’t sense any malice at the moment, but he still clutched the crucifix in his hand. “How did this happen? You were a priest!”

  “The vampire who made me was a punk girl named Frog. She thought it would be funny, no, fucking hilarious to turn a priest into a vampire. A man of the cloth, a man of God as a vampire. So the whole time I was weakening and wasting away over that week, she was draining me. She would make me forget she came in the night to feed and her saliva made the puncture holes heal. She was feeding off the artery in my leg. So even if she had left a mark, no one would look at my thigh. On the final night, she infused me with her blood. I died, the doctor here when I passed the next day, and the diagnosis was leukemia. A blood disease did kill me but not leukemia. I was laid to rest by my promising protégé. When I freed myself, Frog was waiting for me. She showed me the ropes and was gone a week later. Fucking bitch.”

  “She taught you about…” John started the sentence but found it hard to finish the thought.

  “It’s considered bad form to create offspring without teaching the fledgling how to survive. You have to know how to feed, limitations and powers from this dubious gift. You need to know how to dispose of the bodies if you kill; basically everything you need to know in 7 days.” Sean said, remembering his initiation into the nocturnal world. “She could have imparted the information in a night. She wanted to watch my turmoil and suffering. Nice kid.” He added sarcastically.

  “That’s horrible.�
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  “Yeah, but it’s practical. You need to know what you can do and what can hurt you.”

  “But to teach someone how to kill…”

  “The army does that all the time. And you are forgetting vampires are not human. The human race is the cattle we feed on. We hunt for food the way hunters stalk deer for venison...” Sean said. The look in his eyes was distant, like he was remembering hunts from the past.

  John shuddered slightly and tried not to think about the possibility of vampires being real. They were fiction, something from a Victorian 1897 novel, not the modern world of 1987. Creatures gliding through a sea of night like sharks swimming in the ocean, feeding off the blood of humans. He stared at Sean. How many people had his friend and mentor killed?

  “What’s it like?” John asked almost inaudibly. The heightened hearing which could hear the squeak of a mouse in the attic of the house heard the question. Sean cocked his head to the side, a move like a falcon searching for prey.

  “What’s what like?” Sean asked. “Hunting? Killing? Being dead? Be more specific, Johnny.”

  “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” John said with a tinge of anger. Why was Sean here? What did he want? There had to be another purpose. Fine. “What’s it like hunting and killing people?”

  “It’s a hunger, yes, but it’s also a fever in your brain. Human hunger can be ignored for days, weeks. People have survived on the ocean for weeks without food. This hunger can be ignored for some time, a few days, maybe a week at most, but eventually you need to feed. If a vampire doesn’t feed the hunger instinct can take over; rational thought is submerged. Hunger will drive it to kill indiscriminately. Starving vampires don’t die. They become more and more emaciated until the skin tightens around the bones. Feeding will restore them. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard of it. But when you feed, well, that part is glorious. It’s like the best orgasm ever. It encompasses the mind and the soul. Words pale to describe the experience. But afterwards, for me, there’s a body to dispose of.”

  John shuddered. The presence of his unearthly visitor disturbed him more than he wanted to admit. Somehow he figured Sean knew it. “You’re killing people, innocent people. Could you take your own life? Stay out until the sun rose? Does that even work or is that just superstitious mythology?”

  Sean stared angrily at John for a moment and then spoke in a bitter voice. “I don’t kill innocent people. I feed upon the dregs of humanity; the drug dealers, criminals, child molesters. I help to clean humanity of human garbage. As for suicide, I would love to. My body can take horrific damage and recover, things that would kill humans outright. Johnny, this life is a hell almost impossible to escape from. My instinct for survival is too great. I don’t think I could stay in the sun. I’d run for darkness when I started to burn. Could you walk into a blast furnace? Your death would be quick. Mine wouldn’t. However much I loathe this life, it’s an existence I cannot end.”

  “Being what you are, doing all these things, killing the way you do, do you believe in God?”

  “Oddly enough, yes. It’s because of the things I have seen and done, I believe. I’ve witnessed a great deal of evil no ordinary human would ever see. What I am gives me an all access pass to evil, both human and supernatural. There has to be a balance, a force of good to counteract all this malevolence. I hesitate to label the forces God and Satan, but it’s almost unavoidable.” Sean studied his good friend closely. “Why do you ask if I believe in God?”

  Father Bryant looked at the floor. He spoke quietly. “Lately I’ve been having doubts about the priesthood.” John had almost forgotten it wasn’t his mentor in front of him, but a vampire. He needed his friend. He needed to talk. “It’s stupid but I think about Elaine sometimes. I had a chance at a good life with her.”

  Sean stared at him. His glowing blue eyes made it seem he could see into the priest’s mind. “Where is she now?”

  “She’s still lives in the town I grew up in. Married. Two story house, 2.5 children, white picket fence, and a Westie named Happy. I get a Christmas card every year and a letter telling of the happenings in her and her family’s life. She never understood why I left her to become a priest.” John said. “At the moment, neither do I.” He added quietly.

  “This is one of the reasons I came to see you now. If I were still alive, so to speak, I might have been able to help you during this crisis. You were bound to question your faith. It happens to all of us, we all go through it. I planned to be here when it happened to you but things didn’t work out that way.”

  “What can I do?” asked John.

  “Find a way to keep your faith. Find something that gives you renewed strength, a purpose. Building this church is what kept me going during my darkest hours. A monument to my most troubled time as a mortal priest. Not bad for a guy who didn’t believe. The process of getting the funds and the construction brought me back.” Sean looked out the window. He could see the church he built, and he could see the tendrils of dawn still hours away. “I’m sleeping in a townhouse, number 6 on Bedford Street. Come by tomorrow, three hours after dusk. We can talk more. Don’t come by earlier. I need a chance to feed. It’s been a few days and the wolf is at the door.” The vampire rose from the chair and moved to the exit. “It’s good to see you, Johnny. I missed our late night talks. I’ve got to go. It’s a long walk to my townhouse.”

  “Good bye, Sean.” John walked over and shook the cool hand offered to him.

  “Good bye.” Sean opened the door and slipped outside. John watched through a window as the vampire walked out of sight. Father Bryant walked into the kitchen and looked around. There was a kitchen table with four chairs, stove, oven, microwave, cabinets. A knife block had an assortment of knives. He walked over and picked up a kitchen chair. Not too heavy, round legs. He lifted the chair up and smashed the legs against floor. It took a few blows to break the legs free from the seat. He pulled off the side support posts from one leg and grabbed a large knife from the butcher block.

  John went back to the chair in the sitting room, pulled over a waste basket and began sharpening the end of the chair leg. “I’m going to see you earlier than you planned, Sean.”

  A shadow slipped away from the window.

  Chapter 3

  An Education

  Father Bryant looked at his watch. Again. He had been checking it often to see just how slowly the day was passing. Time seemed slower than usual. The old saying ‘Time flies when you are having fun’ is a truism. It drags when anticipating something unpleasant. The meeting ahead would be unpleasant. Or deadly. Or horrifying. Confronting Sean in his townhouse might be the most foolish thing he ever considered doing. John wasn’t a risk taker, his life was about as safe as anyone in the clergy. Was Sean’s visit really the cry for help he took it to be? Was it a cry for release? He said he hated his life as a vampire but couldn’t end it. John took it as a plea for help from his former friend. It was still unfathomable. Vampires; a myth, a scary story for the dark of night. But, evidently vampires were a reality in 1987. Creatures of legend created by superstitious peasants were real. If they weren’t real how could he possibly explain the visit from someone he thought long dead?

  Sunset was going to be 5:42 pm. The sun had not set by the time Father Bryant arrived on Bedford Street. The sky was tinged orange as he drove by the townhouse. He circled the neighborhood and found a parking spot down the block where he could see the comings and goings from the building. Inside Sean was powerless. Asleep, wherever he sleeps; a coffin? A bed in a blacked out room? Did he need a box with some soil from his home country or was that a myth? What part of the myths were true and what was author’s license? There were so many things he didn’t know. John could still enter before sunset and destroy Sean while he slept. He didn’t move; he stayed in the car watching the front door. He could end it immediately by storming the townhouse and killing the vampire while he was harmless. But like Hamlet, he sat paralyzed with indecision. Maybe he wanted to see
Sean one last time - he missed his friend. When Sean died it had been so sudden there was no closure. No chance for preparation. As bizarre as the previous night had been, it had been comforting.

  On the seat next to John was a small canvas bag. Inside was the stake he had carved last night from the chair leg and a three pound sledgehammer he bought at a hardware store. Carving a stake out of the chair leg was more labor intensive than he expected. He didn’t have proper woodworking tools and a butcher knife was inadequate for the job so it took a long time.

  He went with no holy water, no crucifix since it didn’t seem to keep him at bay or harm him. He had none of the tools found in the vampire movies when Van Helsing is stalking Dracula, and no priestly collar. People notice clergy. They get put off when they see him and don’t know how to react. They suffer from residual guilt for past indiscretions. All Father Bryant had was a stake and a mallet and faith his friend wouldn’t hurt him. Sean almost admitted he wanted to die.

  The street lights came on one by one as the crickets began their monotonous song. The door of the townhouse opened and a tall pale figure descended the steps. He paused for a moment looking up and down the street; it was obviously Sean. He adjusted his hat and burrowed his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. A human gesture against the chill of the October cold. Do vampires feel cold? He turned and walked down the street away from where John was parked. Had Sean seen him sitting in the car?