Blood Stakes

by Upton, Bradley

  “There has to be an entrance someplace.” John said. He sat against the desk. His eyes scanned the room and the ceiling. “Wait. The one who came to me said...” John stood on the big desk and pushed at the ceiling tiles from the drop ceiling. All seemed to be solidly in place. He pressed one and it moved. “Give me a flashlight from the bag!”

  Maggie handed him a flashlight. He turned it on and pushed aside the ceiling tile. He slowly rose into the space and shone the light around. It was not a space filled with duct work and conduit. There was enough room to stand upright and the drop ceiling was a solid floor. In front of him was a burnished coffin in a dark wood. The lid was closed.

  Watching from the floor as John stood with the top half of his torso into the black space above the desk, she couldn’t help but think of every horror movie where someone reaches into a dark hole and is pulled in by the monster. If vampires were real, there really could be a monster in the ceiling.

  Chapter 15

  The Hunt

  John crouched down from the hole in the ceiling. “Doors don’t have to be in the walls.” He concluded quietly.

  Maggie came over to him, her voice low. “What about all the banging around we did? Could it wake him? Is he waiting for us to open the box?”

  John’s face was stricken. He glanced up at the open hole in the ceiling. If it were possible to wake a vampire in the day, had they just done so by blundering around the office for the past 15 minutes?

  “Damn. I have no idea if they can be roused from their daytime sleep,” John admitted.

  “You have a lot of gaps in your knowledge.”

  “Yes.” John agreed, he did have gaps in his knowledge and some of what legends said was true had been proven false. “There's a coffin up there. If we woke him I think we’d know it by now,” John said. “Regardless, I still have a job to do.” He opened the bag and pulled out a stake, the sledgehammer, and a flask. He placed them to one side of the open trap door and put the flask in a pants pocket. “Are you coming up too?” Maggie sighed and nodded. She wanted to protect him and needed to see for herself if everything he’d been alleging was true.

  John stood on the desk, his head and chest in the hole. He was looking at the coffin. Doubts assailed him. Was Malcolm awake and waiting? He was old and patient. What was fifteen minutes to an ancient creature? He set the flashlight on the solid floor in the hole facing the coffin. He would be most vulnerable as he pulled himself up. If an attack came, he might be able to push away and drop out of the ceiling before dying.

  Maggie climbed onto the desk and stood next to him. She was shorter than him by six inches but she could see the coffin in the hiding space. John felt better having her by his side. If things went south, Maggie would be there, gun in hand. John set his hands to the sides of the hole, jumped, and lifted himself up. The space above the tiles was a solid floor. He remained in a crouching position for a few moments, waiting. He heard no sound, saw no movement from the coffin. He picked up the flashlight and shone the beam around. The true ceiling was about seven feet above the floor of the hidden space. John could easily stand up. The walls were hung with dark cloth, the floor was solid hardwood. Five feet in front of him was the coffin, it rested on a small one foot tall draped platform.

  Maggie set the gun to the side of the opening and climbed deftly up without needing any assistance. She picked up the gun when she settled into place. “I don't believe it.” Her whispered voice conveyed amazement. John handed Maggie the flashlight and picked up the wooden stake and hammer.

  John leaned close to her ear and spoke softly. “When I nod at you I want you to open the lid.” Maggie nodded and moved around to the foot of the coffin giving him unfettered access to the front as it opened. She holstered the gun, gripped the lid with her hands and waited. John steeled himself for either a wakened vampire leaping out, or a sleeping vampire. He nodded to Maggie and she lifted the lid slowly. It was heavier than she expected and where she was positioned didn’t give her effective leverage. John helped lift the lid without dropping the weapons. Maggie shone the beam at the middle of the coffin interior.

  Empty. Silk lining sparkled as the light swept from top to bottom.

  “He’s not here. Damn. He must have someplace else. Probably not even another space on this property.” John said. “He’s not here but I’d bet the others are here tucked away in hidden rooms. They wouldn’t be as prepared as him.” John pulled out the flask and sprinkled holy water in the coffin. He wasn’t sure if it would have any effect, but it seemed a prudent precaution. “Maybe this will eliminate a safe place for him.”

  They walked to the trap door and climbed down. John put the ceiling tile in place and stepped off the desk.

  “We wasted a half an hour,” John said dejectedly.

  “It wasn’t a waste. I now believe you. Strange as all this is, I believe you.” Maggie said.

  John gazed at her pretty face a moment. “Thank you,” he said softly. Having her believe him meant the world to him. Up until now he had been in this surreal world all by himself. A fantastic, horrific dreamscape he couldn’t talk to anyone about. All his actions seemed insane, but having one other person accept the reality of the situation was a relief. He wasn’t mad or caught in a self-induced circular delusion.

  “If we didn’t find anything I was going to arrest you.” She stated matter-of-factly. “It’s real. Which messes with the way I now look at the world, but I can't escape the facts in front of me.”

  “We still haven’t found a vampire,” John conceded.

  “Let’s keep looking. This room is done. Let’s check the chapel.” Maggie looked at the unconscious man. “He should be fine here. He’s tied up.”

  They left the office and locked the door behind them. The chapel was large, the walls, except for the office and the atrium walls, were the rough brick exterior. Hidden rooms were not possible. The ceiling was vaulted to the center of the structure twenty feet above them. Unless vampires could fly it was unlikely there would be a space above them in the roof like in Malcolm’s office. Could they fly? Turning into vampire bats seemed unlikely. As Ice said at John’s hotel, where’s the physics of that? They searched the dais tapping with the mallet listening for hollow sounds. Nothing. Everything appeared solid.

  They left the chapel and the atrium. The first man was still in the atrium, unconscious in the chair. They locked the big outer doors of the chapel behind them using the stolen keys.

  They surveyed the area, all seemed quiet. They started searching the long buildings on the side of the chapel. The doors were locked but the master key opened every door. The rooms were classrooms for Sunday school and other similar functions. They searched the rooms quickly. A broom handle was used to push at the ceiling tiles looking for solid resistance where the tiles should lift. The tiles made a dull sound as the seated back into place. He didn’t check every tile, but enough to ascertain there were no solid platforms above. Checking every tile would take far too long. There were many rooms to clear.

  At another exterior room door John inserted the key, the knob resisted when he tried to turn it. John leaned down to look closer at the knob. Something was preventing it from turning.

  The door exploded outward, a bullet piercing the wood. Fragments of wood and the noise startled John. Maggie flattened herself against the rough brick wall. John jumped past her and landed on the concrete. The shooter must have been firing point blank at head height on the other side of the door. Two more bullets ripped through the wood. The noise was muffled by the door. Maggie pulled the 9mm from the shoulder holster.

  “Surprise,” she whispered to John. The door swung in and a man stepped out, a .45 caliber in his hand. Maggie raised her gun and shot him in the temple from a foot away. His brain exploded out the other side and he fell clumsily to the ground, all cognitive support of his muscles stolen as his brains shot from his skull with the round.

  The body blocked the door from closing. From inside they heard a shocked male voi
ce, “Oh shit!” Before the surprised man could make a move against them, Maggie spun into the doorway, found the target and fired two rounds. The man was moving to the side, one round tore into his right shoulder and the other hit the wall behind him as he moved out of the way. He cried out and fell to the floor, a gun clattered from his hand.

  “Don’t move. Your friend is dead. You won’t die if you cooperate.” Maggie spoke in commanding police tones, a voice which carried weight and consequences if disobeyed.

  John stepped over the corpse and followed her into the room. He felt sick to his stomach as his gaze lingered on the man missing half his head. The man on the floor was holding his shoulder with his good hand trying to staunch the flow of blood. He looked at them with hate in his eyes.

  Maggie glanced at John, he looked a little green. “Pull the body into the room. We can’t have him lying exposed like that,” she said. John looked at her a bit shocked by her no nonsense tone and complied. She was right. He grabbed the man by his feet and dragged the body into the room. A corpse in plain view and the sound of gunfire was bad. In this residential area, someone would call the cops. “Where do they sleep?” Maggie asked.

  “What are you talking about?” The wounded man replied, his face pained and angry.

  “This is a church and you have a gun. Stop being cute. I can finish you off, or you can tell me where they are.” Maggie was looking to not fire the gun again. More gunshots would bring the police. So far only six shots disturbed the quiet neighborhood. Three were muffled by the door, three were outside. If that was the only gunfire it might be mistaken for fireworks in the middle of the day. But an out and out gunfight would bring the police swarming to the church. If no one came around to the back side of the church building they wouldn’t see the gout of blood and bits of brain and bone on the concrete from where she shot the man in the temple.

  He stared down the barrel of the unwavering gun. This was too much. He wanted to be turned into a vampire. They’d promised to do it. He’d given everything to the masters, they had promised so much, but their entire world was falling apart. The church would have to be abandoned and they would leave. They’d leave him behind. If he didn’t answer the woman, he would die now, right now. No eternal life, but immediate death and they wouldn’t care.

  John crouched down next to him. “What's your name?” He asked, his years of comforting people coming forward to help the bleeding man.

  “Ken.”

  “Ken, let me bind the wound so you don’t bleed to death.”

  Ken nodded. John did his best with what was at hand. He wrapped a child’s scarf he found hanging from a hook by the door around the wound. Ken winced in pain as a makeshift bandage was tightened. “That should help.” John said. “How many humans are here today?”

  Ken thought for a moment before answering. Should he betray the last few years of his life? He had given them blood and was promised immortality. It wasn’t likely to happen now. A priest had found them; the one who hurt Ice. Malcolm had Jerry murder Greg for a fiction to get the police involved, how could he be so callous? The answer was simple. Human life was cheap to vampires. Malcolm would kill him just as quickly if it served a purpose. The price of immortality was too high and continuing to grow.

  “There are five of us today.” Ken was done. He was going to save his own life. “I’ve seen three of them come out of the next room to the left. Four more come out of the room beyond that. Ice and Simone come from someplace else. I’ve had it with their kind, their eyes burn right through you when you talk to them. I can’t do this anymore. It’s just not worth it.”

  “Will the master keys work for those rooms?” asked Maggie.

  “They should. They open every door in the church.”

  “Excellent.” Maggie knocked him out and eased his limp body to the floor.

  “You’re knocking out everyone whether they are helpful or not.” John was angry but realized they couldn’t leave anyone awake who could call for reinforcements. “He’s going to have a concussion as well as a bullet wound.”

  Maggie looked at him. “He’s not dead. If one of them calls for help we will be. He said five people. We’ve seen four. This is serious, John. We’re in danger” She glanced at her watch. “Let’s get to the next room and find their hiding place. There’s work to do.” Maggie scanned the room and picked up the brass from the rounds, hers and the first shooter. It was best not to leave evidence behind.

  They exited the room and locked the door. John noticed the blood and gore from the first man Maggie shot on the concrete walkway. There was no time to clean it up. With some luck and speed, they wouldn't be there much longer.

  The door to the left was identical to all the doors on the side of the building. John tried the master key and unlocked the door. Maggie motioned for him to step away. She grabbed the door handle and, gun in hand, entered the room first. She took in the empty room. “Clear,” she said.

  “For a cop that lost her nerve, you seem to be back in the game,” John said. “Your reflexes are working.” He looked around the room quickly. It was the same size as the previous room, but set up like a small apartment. There was furniture and shelves with books. A television was against a wall, a couch across from it. To the back of the room there was a door to a small bathroom. The ceiling seemed suspiciously low.

  “Thanks. It’s training. It always comes back to training; no one rises the occasion in an emergency, they always fall back to training.” Maggie replied. “Honestly, I’m scared to death.”

  “So am I.” John pushed at the ceiling quietly. If there were vampires in room like Ken said, would they be awake because of the gunfire next door? Still, it would be foolish to blunder around making noise. If they were awake they would be prepared for an assault. If they were still dormant, it would be best not to alert them of the danger below. The ceiling seemed solid. The tiles didn’t lift up. After a minute he found one near the bathroom which gave way. He pulled a chair below the tile, stood on it, and carefully pushed the tile up to peek in. He was ready to leap away if attacked.

  John couldn’t see anything in the dark. He pushed the tile up and gently placed it to the side. He paused; he was expecting angry vampires to come raging out of the dark hole. With his arm through the handles of the tote bag, he turned on the flashlight and poked his head up into the darkened opening. The space didn’t have the head room like above Malcolm’s office, but he did see three coffins. He held up three fingers and pointed to the relative positions on the ceiling.

  John jumped and pulled himself up into the hole. He had to crouch to move around. “Look out. It’s a low ceiling in here.” He whispered down to Maggie.

  She quickly followed him into the attic crypt. John handed her the flashlight. She surveyed the hidden room. All of the coffins looked old but lacked the air of antiquity and ponderous weight Malcolm’s had. John moved quickly and pulled three stakes from the bag and set them on the floor. He prepared himself; and with the sledgehammer in one hand and a stake in the other he and Maggie opened the lid of the first coffin. Inside the box was a man who looked to be in his mid-thirties. His face was smooth and as white as alabaster. Maggie stared at him in fascination. Vampires were real. In the twentieth century a mythical literary creature existed and lay asleep in front of her.

  John picked up the stake and hammer. He held the stake above the heart. When he had steeled himself he put the point on the chest and brought down the sledge with a sternum crushing blow. The vampire was a wake instantly, the wood piercing his body. Bloodshot eyes communicated pain, rage, and fear all at once. Sharp fangs gleamed in the silent mouth as his hands grabbed at the stake. The second blow fell and pierced the heart, strangling a cry in the throat before he could scream. The third and fourth blow shook the body as Death had finally claimed his tardy victim.

  “That’s just part of it.” John dragged the body out of the coffin and dropped it unceremoniously through the hole. It bounced off the chair and crumpled on the fl
oor below.

  “Why did you do that?” She asked, her voice a whisper.

  “I’m going to drag the body into the sun.” John whispered back. Even with all the gunfire and pounding, they kept their voices hushed.

  “Is that true? Does that work? Do the bodies burn in sunlight?”

  John paused. He turned to look at her. “I don’t know.” So much of his information had been erroneous, based on myth and fiction. He couldn’t say what was fact without empirical evidence. Maybe this too was wrong. He didn’t want to admit to his ignorance. He shrugged. “When I killed... my first vampire, I set his body on fire. He burned fast. It burned down his whole house in fact.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” John admitted sheepishly. “Unfortunately.”

  “Wow. Arson too.”

  “Stop that.” He implored. “Please. I don’t need a running list of my crimes”

  John quickly moved to another coffin. They opened the lid and were greeted by the face of an angelic looking woman in her mid-twenties. She had a beauty unblemished by time. John gazed at her for a long moment. How long had she been alive? She looked as if she had been sculpted by a long dead artisan of ancient Greece; every sinuous curve aligned to create a breathtaking face and body. Her white skin shone lustrously in the radiance of the flashlight. On some level it saddened John to have to destroy such beauty. However, she was also a bloodsucking creature of the night. How many died over unknown years to feed her?

  He readied himself. The stake descended onto her breast. With three stout blows the woman died, her struggles and anguish marring her magnificent visage. John pulled her body out and dropped her through the trapdoor. It hit the chair and sprawled across the first man, limbs like a broken marionette, twisted into frightening angles.

  At the last coffin they moved with newly practiced skill. Maggie and John lifted the lid, Maggie held the flashlight. It was another man. Older, dark hair slicked back, greying at the temples, he had a regal face with an aquiline nose. Another predator to destroy, John slammed the hammer down on the stake. His eyes flashed open, a claw-like hand flashed upward and grasped John’s throat. Quickly John smashed the stake three more times. The aristocratic vampire shuddered, shook, and died. The gripping hand lost strength and fell away from the priest’s throat.