Blood Stakes

by Upton, Bradley

  Outside the house he got in the Jaguar and led the van to US highway 95 north. On the freeway he drove quickly. The Jaguar’s powerful engine hummed as he led them up the dark highway. Inside the van Thomas and James sat on the floor, Scott had taken shotgun before anyone protested. The floor space was dominated by the open casket. None would have dared to shut the lid and sit on it even though Simone wouldn't tell and Malcolm was in the car ahead leading the way.

  “Did any of you wonder why he had a coffin at a secret house?” Thomas asked.

  “No. Didn't much think about it,” replied Scott from the passenger seat.

  “Neither did I.” said James.

  “Why would he have a coffin a house when he has one at the church?” Thomas’ paranoia was beginning to run away with him. .

  “Probably in case he is caught away from the church when dawn comes,” said James.

  “You seriously expect me to believe that?” He continued without waiting for an answer. “Would a vampire as old as Malcolm not have an ingrained sense for knowing when the sun was going to rise? I'm not even a year old, and I can see the first fingers of dawn an hour before the sky begins to lighten. I think he had another coffin in case we were discovered.”

  “Common practice, really,” said Scott. “I have a few hidden around the city. We all do it.”

  Thomas looked at James who nodded in agreement. “I have two hidden.”

  “What? Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Thomas asked, but he suspected the answer. He wasn’t one of Malcolm’s own. He started hunting in Las Vegas. Malcolm discovered Thomas and gave him an option; join the church or leave town. Malcolm said he was taking Thomas in so the young vampire didn’t expose them all. “Where did you get the money to do this?”

  James glanced at Scott. Marcus listened but didn’t offer anything to the conversation. “The money came from the church. All our money comes from the church. We don’t have a night shift at 7 Eleven.” The simple statement was devastating to Thomas. He was among them but not of them. He was an outsider, always the outsider. Malcolm resented him and showed his displeasure often.

  “Malcolm doesn’t want me to survive,” Thomas stated simply.

  “There you go again. Chasing shadows. He probably hadn’t gotten around to giving you money for spare coffins.” James was trying to defuse a potentially bad situation. An angry vampire was a dangerous thing. In an enclosed space traveling 70 miles per hour his anger could be treacherous. They needed to defuse the situation quickly.

  “When was he going to tell me? When was he going to give me money to protect myself? I’ve been with you six months.” Thomas’ face showed his anxiety. “I think he wants me dead. He’s insinuated as much before all of you.”

  “Malcolm has exploded at all of us at some point. We’ve all done stupid things, but usually we learn from the experience,” James said calmly. “You haven’t learned as fast as the rest of us. What did you think vampires were when you were given this gift? Did you think we run around in capes like Dracula indiscriminately killing people for blood?”

  “I didn’t think vampires were real,” he admitted sheepishly.

  “Ding, ding, ding! Give that guy a prize. Measures are taken to keep us safe and hidden from humans. Science notices when people die from exsanguination. A bloodless corpse with puncture wounds on the neck would raise alarms. With enough evidence even now people might believe in us. The priest came after us and now four are dead and two may never recover. Our race is in constant danger of being discovered.” Scott said from the front seat. His face was sporadically illuminated by headlights from oncoming traffic.

  “Race? Why do you say race? We come from mortals. We can’t be that different,” said Thomas.

  “Do humans drink blood as their only sustenance? How about bursting into flame in sunlight? Humans don’t do that. I don’t know how the changes happen but we are inherently different.”

  Thomas didn’t reply. He hunkered down on the floor, his mind lost in thought. He didn’t like being challenged when he was human. When someone crossed him while he was mortal they ended up with an enemy for life. He seldom let grudges go. Now he had eternal life, he could return an insult years later. He glanced out the back widows at the night sky. Stars burned brightly. They had time to burn and he had time to revenge.

  Veterans Memorial Highway US 95, a predominately flat, straight separated highway which dwindled down to two lane highway with oncoming traffic after it passed by Creech Air Force Base. It was as bleak and desolate as the landscape of the moon; scrub grew tenaciously when seasonal rain fell. When there was no rain, tap roots burrowed deep into the soil. The desert stretched between Las Vegas and Reno with very little of note after the Area 51 Alien Center. The tourist trap came and went in the cold October night. Malcolm had a destination in mind. It was a ghost town 120 miles from Las Vegas on the eastern edge of Death Valley. In 1905 gold had been discovered. By 1907 it had been a bustling mining town of about twenty five hundred people. With the gold rush came everything man brought with it. Saloons, prostitution, greed, desperation for a quick fortune, and vampires. It was reminiscent to the gold rush in 1849, but on a much smaller, dryer scale. Malcolm, Simone, and Ice, when he still went by Jeremiah, spent several months in the mining town. They placed their coffins in a played out mine shaft, like gophers in a hole, far from the burning rays of the sun. After their arrival the some of the citizens of Rhyolite suffered from a sickness which made them pale and weak, but killed very few. After a few months, the malady disappeared to be carried to another mining town, and another.

  Now Rhyolite was a ghost town. The minerals were quickly depleted and the town which sprang up from the dust was left to return to the dust. By 1911 most of the town was gone, miners moved to another nearby town, another fruitful mine. Its buildings were left to crumble or be stripped to build other structures elsewhere. It was a tourist site though seldom visited and occasionally was used as a movie set by Hollywood.

  Malcolm turned left from the 95 onto the 374 going west. He reduced speed a bit as he looked for some sign, there was bound to be some indication of the ghost town. A sign off to the side of the freeway pointed the way to go. He turned off the highway onto a smaller paved road. In the rearview mirror he could see the headlights from the van still following him.

  There was no indication of a street name. He had been looking for any landmarks he might recognize but after eighty years and countless places, he gave up. Even the roads he might have remembered going in and out of the ghost town would have changed.

  The road was lit by a waning moon and the car’s headlights. He didn’t need the headlights as the moon would have been enough for his eyes to see the road. He kept a watchful eye out for the potholes in the seldom used road. Having a car become disabled in a desolate place like this could be deadly. There would be no way to get help at night, and in the daytime a stranded vampire is vulnerable to the lethal rays of the sun. He followed the road around as it snaked up a small incline and cut through the sides of hills.

  Malcolm came in from the top of the town; most of the area was barren. There were a few shells and specters of buildings on either side. Rhyolite was the remnants of a town; walls without roofs, fronts of buildings with only a stone floor behind the lonely facade. He envisioned the way Rhyolite was in its heyday. Busy night life with dozens of saloons, miners, dance hall girls, the shadows on the dark street from the illumination of gaslight, the smell of horse manure mingled with dust and sweaty, unwashed bodies. His heightened senses were almost overwhelmed whenever he came into a town such as this. In the intervening sixty years city living and burning fossil fuels deadened his acute sense of smell somewhat.

  Not much remained to prove a busy town once was there. The only current, completed structures were a house made out of bottles and cement and a medium sized government building. The area was protected as a historical site. Malcolm slowed more and looked carefully at the two buildings. There was no sign of human habitat
ion. He turned up a dirt road and headed up a hill. There were small furrows in the dirt road, dry rivulets from the rare rain, though not deep enough to impede the Jaguar as it climbed. At the top of the hill was a cemetery surrounded by rusting wrought iron fencing.

  Malcolm stopped the car at the side of the gate leaving the road into the cemetery clear and got out of the Jaguar. The van pulled to a stop on the dirt road in front of the gate. He walked up to the driver’s side window. “I’ll open the gate. Pull through and I’ll lead you on foot,” Malcolm said. He walked to the partially collapsed, rusted gate, lifted it up, and swung it into the cemetery. Metal protested and groaned as it moved for the first time in years. The cemetery was not used. People don’t live or die in ghost towns. Malcolm led the van forward. His eyes scanned the terrain for an empty spot. Untended graves overgrown with scrub were scattered around the parcel of land; memories of a town, names of people forgotten in time. Many gravestones were overturned, fallen by gravity and the elements. A few graves were debased, the dirt fallen into the space created by a rotted coffin. Burrowing animals took up residence in the unnatural bone-filled grottos.

  Malcolm looked around for a space unmarked by gravestones. Clear of the dead. He signaled for the van to stop.

  “Let’s dig there.” He pointed to a patch of ground to the left of the van. Marcus got out and put the keys on top of the visor. The three other vampires exited with the tools and rope. Malcolm took a shovel and scratched into the dirt a rectangle big enough to contain a coffin. He placed his foot on the shovel at the top of the rectangle and started to dig. James took a shovel, set himself opposite, and started digging. Thomas and Marcus took the last shovel and the pick and attacked the hard earth. Their supernatural muscles worked quickly with more speed and endurance than mere mortal stamina and sinews. Mounds of dirt swiftly grew on one side of the pit. When they were too deep to all dig, only Marcus and Malcolm continued in the pit. At about five feet down Marcus unearthed a skull. He carefully picked it up, and held it out for Malcolm.

  “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio...” Malcolm murmured as he took the skull and looked into the hollow eyes. A wave of sadness crashed over him. Ice loved Shakespeare. He hadn’t thought of Ice or checked on him since he was boxed after his wounds. Was he healing? Was he awake and aware? Hungry and confused?

  Malcolm carefully placed the skull at the side of the pit and continued to dig. They excavated another two feet of earth and a few more human bones. The bones were set to the side and would be interred again.

  “That should suffice. James, Scott, Thomas, go get Simone and bring her over to the ... hole.” Malcolm didn’t want to say grave. The word bore fearful loss and heartbreaking finality. Malcolm and Marcus leapt out of the large hole.

  The three vampires carried the closed coffin to the side of the grave. They shut the casket in the van so their movements transporting it didn’t bring the heavy lid crashing down. The box was set gently on the flat earth to the side of the hole. Malcolm lifted the lid and looked at her. He leaned down, spoke in her ear, and gently kissed her cheek. He shut the casket.

  “Let’s lower her down.” Malcolm took the rope and cut two lengths about fifteen feet long. They lifted the coffin and put the rope under the ends. The four vampires grabbed hold of the ropes, two were on each side of the hole. They pulled the ropes taut lifting the heavy casket. The four maneuvered it over the hole with Malcolm supervising. “Okay. Go ahead. Ease her down,” he said. He stood watching the box descend. They knew if the box dropped or tilted wildly there’d be Hell to pay.

  Malcolm moved behind Marcus watching as the box hit the bottom. When the ropes went slack he reached up and broke Marcus’ neck. In a blink he grabbed Scott and snapped his neck as well. They crumpled to the ground, not dead but paralyzed. James and Thomas noticed the movement of the bodies as they started to fall. Malcolm picked up a shovel and swung it from across the grave. James turned his head slightly and blow meant to decapitate him struck his head just above the eyes, nearly cleaving it in two. James fell, he pitched to the ground like some dying mutant unicorn. The embedded shovel was wrenched out of Malcolm’s hands.

  Thomas jumped backward creating distance between Malcolm and himself. Fear clutched at him. “Why did you do kill them?” Thomas screamed in horror.

  “It’s over. This dream is dead. For Simone to recover, she needs blood. All of your blood,” Malcolm leapt across the grave pursuing Thomas. Fearfully the neophyte vampire scrambled away, circling back toward the van.

  “You would drain the world to save Ice and Simone?” Thomas moved away. He knew Malcolm was much faster than he and had hatched this plan to kill them all before they left town.

  “Yes.”

  The simple answer petrified Thomas. Malcolm was a good distance away but could cover it in seconds. He crossed behind the van, when the vehicle was between them he launched toward the driver's side and opened the door. The interior light came on. Malcolm was on him instantly. He picked Thomas up and threw him away from the van. Thomas rolled in the dirt smashing gravestones as he tumbled. The wrought iron fence of the cemetery stopped his roll. Malcolm stalked inexorably closer.

  “I’m sorry the others had to die, but you, I should have killed you when I found you in my city. You put us all in danger. You’re stupid and rash and the vampire who created you should be cursed to burn in the sun."

  Thomas shrunk back. Malcolm was upon him, powerful hands squeezing Thomas' throat. Thomas reacted instinctually, his foot shot out catching Malcolm in the stomach. The blow loosened the hold upon his neck. Thomas deftly rolled away from the angry vampire who was now more enraged. His hand grabbed the fence to pull himself up. Feeling the cold metal shift in his hand he pulled with all his might. The upright came free with a screeching sound of torn iron, like a bolt sheering off. Malcolm moved forward, Thomas turned and thrust the makeshift sword into the older vampire's midsection. The metal penetrated two inches into his stomach but was stopped by decorative petals of the fleur-de-lis topping the iron upright.

  Malcolm groaned in pain and dropped to his knees. Thomas let go of his improvised sword and smashed Malcolm in the side of the head with his right fist. Malcolm was staggered and fell backward. Thomas seized the moment and bolted to the van. He had no illusions he could beat Malcolm in a fight. The best option was to flee. Thomas jumped in the open door of the van, and slammed it shut. Darkness hid Thomas’ frightened, searching face. He tipped the sun visor down and the keys dropped into his hand. He put the key in the ignition, it started on the first try. As soon as the engine was running he threw the van into reverse and shot backward out of the cemetery past the Jaguar. At the first opportunity he turned the van, skidding to a halt, shifted the gear selector to drive and stomped on the accelerator. The tail lights diminished and turned onto the main road, disappearing. Quickly Thomas was flying over the uneven roads of the ghost town at a breakneck pace.

  Malcolm’s rage erupted as he stood up. He pulled the iron from his stomach and threw it into the night after the dwindling van with little hope of hitting his target. The fool had escaped him, wounded him. He would have to find Thomas and slay him if he survived the night. The drive to Las Vegas was easy, but Thomas didn’t have spare coffins. The church was his only resting place. The van was not light secure and Thomas had no coffin. Unfortunately Malcolm had revealed his safe house to him. He might try there before dawn.

  Malcolm lifted up the front of his shirt and looked at the wound. It was healing under his touch. He walked back to the grave site and the three bodies. He had created them, brought them over to the night. No matter what he felt for them he would always put Simone ahead of them. Right now she needed copious amounts of blood. He needed blood himself to help speed his own healing. Malcolm walked to James, pulled the shovel from his skull, and listened. James' heart still beat. The autonomic functions of a vampire’s body were truly astounding.

  He tore James’ wrist and imbibed half of his blood. He placed
the body at the edge of the grave; the rest of his blood was for Simone. Next he moved to Marcus. He picked up the body and jumped into the grave landing with cat's feet on the coffin. Malcolm set the body aside and opened the top half of the casket. Simone’s eyes flicked to look at him. That small motion gave him some hope. Her brain might not be ruined. It still broke Malcolm’s heart to see her alive but cognitively diminished.

  He slashed Marcus’ wrist and placed it over her mouth. Driven by subconscious instinct, she drank the blood flowing into her mouth. The light in Marcus’ still aware eyes waned.

  “I’m sorry,” Malcolm said. “I need to do this for her. Your sacrifice won’t be forgotten.” Hollow words spoken to a dead man. It isn’t a sacrifice when you have no choice. It’s just a death. Death had been Malcolm’s constant companion for hundreds of years. It waited patiently nearby as he killed people to survive. Even after discovering killing wasn’t necessary for his survival, Death’s presence could be felt. It waited for him. Malcolm was long tardy, supernaturally living beyond the ken and comprehension of mortal man. Death would collect his truant charge eventually.

  When Marcus was dead, Malcolm lifted his body out of the grave and pulled in Scott. Malcolm offered Scott’s flowing bloody wrist to her still striving mouth. She drank greedily, the strong blood coursing through her. She was healing but would she be whole? Time would be needed and she had plenty of blood. Her curves were accentuated, bloated somewhat, by the amount of blood she consumed.

  Scott was drained dry and Death claimed another victim. Malcolm cleared Scott’s body out of the grave and pulled James down. She quickly fed on the remaining blood in his body. When James was drained he lifted the corpse out of the grave. Malcolm knelt down looking at Simone. His hands reached down and carefully traced the contours of her beloved face, eyes, pert nose, the shape of her full lips, the point of her chin, the delicate folds of her ears, graceful neck, the sweep of her shoulders, her ample breasts, and flat stomach. He wanted to burn this last tactile memory of her into his brain. He leaned down and kissed her for a long timeless moment. Tears welled up in his eyes and rained down on her face.