The Mammoth Book of Vampires: New edition (Mammoth Books)

by Stephen Jones

  People usually commit journals as legacy. So be it. Call me sentry, vigilante if you like. When they sleep their comatose sleep, I stalk and terminate them. When they walk, I hide. Better than they do.

  They’re really not as smart as popular fiction and films would lead you to believe. They do have cunning, an animalistic savvy. But I’m an experienced tracker; I know their spoor, the traces they leave, the way their presence charges the air. Things invisible or ephemeral to ordinary citizens, blackly obvious to me.

  The journal is so you’ll know, just in case my luck runs out.

  Sundown. Nap time.

  II

  Naturally the police think of me as some sort of homicidal crackpot. That’s a given; always has been for my predecessors. More watchers to evade. Caution comes reflexively to me these days. Police are slow and rational; they deal in the minutiae of a day-to-day world, deadly enough without the inclusion of bloodsuckers.

  The police love to stop and search people. Fortunately for me, mallets and stakes and crosses and such are not yet illegal in this country. Lots of raised eyebrows and jokes and nudging but no actual arrests. When the time comes for them to recognize the plague that has descended upon their city, they will remember me, perhaps with grace.

  My lot is friendless, solo. I know and expect such. It’s okay.

  City by city. I’m good at ferreting out the nests. To me, their kill-patterns are like a flashing red light. The police only see presumed loonies, draw no linkages; they bust and imprison mortals and never see the light.

  I am not foolhardy enough to leave bloodsuckers lying. Even though the mean corpus usually dissolves, the stakes might be discovered. Sometimes there is other residue. City dumpsters and sewers provide adequate and fitting disposal for the leftovers of my mission.

  The enemy casualties.

  I wish I could advise the authorities, work hand-in-hand with them. Too complicated. Too many variables. Not a good control situation. Bloodsuckers have a maddening knack for vanishing into crevices, even hairline splits in logic.

  Rule: Trust no one.

  III

  A female one, today. Funny. There aren’t as many of them as you might suppose.

  She had courted a human lover, so she claimed, like Romeo and Juliet – she could only visit him at night, and only after feeding, because bloodsuckers too can get carried away by passion.

  I think she was intimating that she was a physical lover of otherworldly skill; I think she was fighting hard to tempt me not to eliminate her by saying so.

  She did not use her mouth to seduce mortal men. I drove the stake into her brain, through the mouth. She was of recent vintage and did not melt or vaporize. When I fucked her remains, I was surprised to find her warm inside, not cold, like a cadaver. Warm.

  With some of them, the human warmth is longer in leaving. But it always goes.

  IV

  I never met one before that gave up its existence without a struggle, but today I did, one that acted like he had been expecting me to wander along and relieve him of the burden of unlife. He did not deny what he was, nor attempt to trick me. He asked if he could talk a bit, before.

  In a third-floor loft, the windows of which had been spray-painted flat black, he talked. Said he had always hated the taste of blood; said he preferred pineapple juice, or even coffee. He actually brewed a pot of coffee while we talked.

  I allowed him to finish his cup before I put the ashwood length to his chest and drove deep and let his blackness gush. It dribbled, thinned by the coffee he had consumed.

  V

  Was thinking this afternoon perhaps I should start packing a Polaroid or somesuch, to keep a visual body count, just in case this journal becomes public record someday. It’d be good to have illustrations, proof. I was thinking of that line you hear overused in the movies. I’m sure you know it: “But there’s no such THING as a vampire!” What a howler; ranks right up there alongside “It’s crazy – but it just might work!” and “We can’t stop now for a lot of silly native superstitions!”

  Right; shoot cozy little memory snaps, in case they whizz to mist or drop apart to smoking goo. That bull about how you’re not supposed to be able to record their images is from the movies, too. There’s so much misleading information running loose that the bloodsuckers – the real ones – have no trouble at all moving through any urban center, with impunity, as they say on cop shows.

  Maybe it would be a good idea to tape record the sounds they make when they die. Videotape them begging not to be exterminated. That would bug the eyes of all those monster movie fans, you bet.

  VI

  So many of them beleaguering this city, it’s easy to feel outnumbered. Like I said, I’ve lost count.

  Tonight might be a good window for moving on. Like them, I become vulnerable if I remain too long, and it’s prudent operating procedure not to leave patterns or become predictable.

  It’s easy. I don’t own much. Most of what I carry, I carry inside.

  VII

  They pulled me over on Highway Ten, outbound, for a broken left tail-light. A datafax photo of me was clipped to the visor in the Highway Patrol car. The journal book itself has been taken as evidence, so for now it’s a felt-tip and high school notebook paper, which notes I hope to append to the journal proper later.

  I have a cell with four bunks all to myself. The door is solid gray, with a food slot, unlike the barred cage of the bullpen. On the way back I noticed they had caught themselves a bloodsucker. Probably an accident; they probably don’t even know what they have. There is no sunrise or sunset in the block, so if he gets out at night, they’ll never know what happened. But I already know. Right now I will not say anything. I am exposed and at a disadvantage. The one I let slip today I can eliminate tenfold, next week.

  VIII

  New week. And I am vindicated at last.

  I relaxed as soon as they showed me the photographs. How they managed documentation on the last few bloodsuckers I trapped, I have no idea. But I was relieved. Now I don’t have to explain the journal – which, as you can see, they returned to me immediately. They had thousands of questions. They needed to know about the mallets, the stakes, the preferred method of killstrike. I cautioned them not to attempt a sweep and clear at night, when the enemy is stronger.

  They paid serious attention this time, which made me feel much better. Now the fight can be mounted en masse.

  They also let me know I wouldn’t have to stay in the cell. Just some paperwork to clear, and I’m out among them again. One of the officials – not a cop, but a doctor – congratulated me on a stout job well done. He shook my hand, on behalf of all of them, he said, and mentioned writing a book on my work. This is exciting!

  As per my request, the bloodsucker in the adjacent solitary cell was moved. I told them that to be really sure, they should use one of my stakes. It was simple vanity, really, on my part. I turn my stakes out of ashwood on a lathe. I made sure they knew I’d permit my stakes to be used as working models for the proper manufacture of all they would soon need.

  When the guards come back I really must ask how they managed such crisp 8 x 10s of so many bloodsuckers. All those names and dates. First class documentation.

  I’m afraid I may be a bit envious.

  FRANCES GARFIELD

  The House at Evening

  IN THE LATE 1930S and 1940s Frances Garfield had a number of stories published in the classic pulp magazines Weird Tales and Amazing Stories, although she was never prolific.

  Born Frances Obrist in Texas in 1908, she was of course better known as Frances Wellman, for fifty-five years the wife of author Manly Wade Wellman. After she retired from her job as a secretary in a school of public health, she kept thinking up ideas for new stories and telling them to her husband. When he told her that they were “women’s stories” and that she would have to write them herself, she returned to her typewriter and resumed her fiction career after four decades.

  During the 1980s a
nd early 1990s she was published in such magazines and anthologies as Whispers, Fantasy Tales, Fantasy Book, Kadath, The Tome, Whispers IV and The Year’s Best Horror Stories.

  Although Frances Garfield died in 2000, ‘The House at Evening’ is a wonderfully atmospheric vampire story that makes us all glad that she returned to the fold.

  THE SUN HAD SET and another twilight had begun. The western sky took on a rosy tinge, but none of the soft color penetrated into the lofty bedroom.

  Claudia leaned toward the bureau. Her stormy black locks curtained her face as she brushed and brushed them. It was a luxurious, sensuous brushing. Her hair glistened in the light of the oil lamp.

  Across the room sat Garland. She quickly combed her short blonde hair into an elfish mop of curls. “Thank goodness I don’t have to worry about a great banner like yours,” she said.

  “Never you mind,” Claudia laughed back. “We both know it’s impressive.”

  They both applied makeup generously. Claudia fringed her silvery eyes with deep blue mascara and Garland brushed her pale eyebrows with brown. Each painted her lips a rosy red and smiled tightly to smooth the lipstick.

  They finished dressing and went down the squeaking staircase to the big parlor. Darkness crept in, stealthily but surely. They picked up jugs of oil and went about, filling and lighting all the ancient glass-domed lamps. Light flickered yellow from table and shelf and glistened on the wide hardwood floor boards. Claudia took pride in those old expanses, spending hours on her knees to rub them to a glow. Garland arranged a bowl filled with colorful gourds on the mahogany table that framed the back of a brocaded couch. She put two scented candles into holders and lighted them.

  Then they stood together to admire the effect of the soft light, Claudia in her red satin, Garland in her dark, bright blue. They checked each other for flaws and found none.

  “I’d like to go walking outside, the way we used to do,” said Garland. She glanced down at her high-heeled slippers. They weren’t too high. “I’ll only be gone a little while.”

  “There’s not much to see out there,” said Claudia. “Nobody much walks here anymore. It’s been a long time since we’ve had company.”

  “Maybe I’m just being sentimental,” smiled Garland. Her eyes twinkled for a moment, as if with some secret delight. “But maybe I’ll bring somebody back.”

  “I’ll stay here in case anybody calls,” Claudia assured her.

  The big wooden front door creaked shut behind Garland. She crossed the gray-floored piazza and ran down the steps to the path of old flagstones. Periwinkle overflowed them and knotted its roots everywhere. Ivy and honeysuckle choked the trees, autumn leaves poured down from the oaks. An old dead dogwood leaned wearily at the lawn’s edge. Garland picked her way carefully.

  An owl shrieked a message in the distance. Garland smiled to herself. She had worn no wrap out in the warm evening, but she nestled into the soft collar of her silky dress to feel its closeness. She breathed deeply of the night air.

  Falling leaves whispered like raindrops. But there were only vagrant clouds in the sky. A young moon shone upon the old sidewalk, upon old houses along they way. They were large, pretentious houses, the sort called Victorian. They were ramshackle. No light shone from any window. Garland might have been the only moving creature in the neighborhood. Once this had been an elegant area on the edge of the old town that existed mainly for Ellerby College, but people had moved out. Deterioration had set in. Urban renewal threatened the neighborhood.

  All at once Garland heard something – voices, hushed, furtive. She saw two tall young men coming toward her. She looked at them in the moonlight. They were handsome, sprucely dressed, looked like muscular young athletes. She hadn’t seen their like for a while, and she felt a surge of warmth through her body.

  They were near now, she could hear what they said.

  “My Uncle Whit used to come here when he was in college,” one young voice declared. “He said this was called Pink Hill. Said you’d be mighty well entertained.”

  Now she passed them, and turned at once to go back toward her house. She quickened her steps. For a moment she didn’t know whether to be sad or happy. If only she hadn’t lost her touch-but she knew her body, firm, sweet-looking. As she passed them again, she spoke.

  “Hey,” she greeted them.

  One, tall with a neat, dark beard, spoke shyly, “Nice evening, isn’t it?”

  Garland smiled. If she had had dimples, she would have flashed them. “Yes, but there’s a chill in the air. I think I’ll just go back home. Maybe make some hot chocolate – or tea.”

  Away she walked ahead, her hips swinging a trifle, not so fast as to lose touch with them.

  They seemed to be following her, all right. The bearded one was speaking, and Garland strained her ears to hear.

  “After all,” he was saying, “we did sort of think we were looking for experience.”

  The other, the fair-haired athletic one, said something too soft for Garland to hear. But it sounded like agreement.

  She walked on, watching her feet on the treacherous pavement. There were so many cracks in that old cement. Sure enough, the two boys were coming along with her. Again she felt a flood of internal warmth. She felt almost young again, almost as young as she must look. Carefully she timed the sway of her hips. There was the house. Along the flagstones she minced happily, and up the steps and in at the door.

  “We’re going to have company, Claudia,” she said.

  Claudia swept the room with an appraising glance, and smiled a cool smile. “Tell me,” she said quickly.

  “Two really lovely young men, coming along to follow me. One with bright hair and a football body. The other tall, bearded, neat, sophisticated looking. We’ll have to do them credit.”

  “Well, there’s a bottle of port out, and some of those cheese biscuits I made.” Claudia studied the table in the lamplight. “We’ll be all right.”

  From outside they heard footsteps on the porch, and hesitant whispering.

  “They’re beautiful,” said Garland.

  Silence for an instant. Then a guarded tattoo of knocks on the panel of the door. A knock, Garland guessed, taught them by good old Uncle Whit.

  “Okay, here we go,” said Claudia, and gave Garland a triumphant look. “Remember your company manners.”

  She glided to the door, her red gown hugging her opulent hips and her slim waist. Her dress was long. It swept the floor and it accentuated every curve and hollow of the well-used body. She could be proud of how she looked, how she moved. She graduated magna cum laude in every way.

  She opened the door, and the lamplight touched the two young men.

  Garland had appraised them accurately. They wore well-fitting suits and open shirts. The taller one had a close-clipped beard, dark and sleek. Promising and intelligent. The other, of medium height but with broad shoulders, looked powerfully muscled. Undoubtedly undergraduates at Ellerby College. Fine prospects, both of them.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” Claudia gave them her personal, hospitable smile.

  “Good evening, ma’am,” said the dark one, like a spokesman. He would be for Garland, thought Claudia. For her the other, the sturdy one.

  “Well,” said the tall one. “Well, we thought—” He paused embarrassedly.

  “We thought we’d come walking this way,” spoke up the other. “My name’s Guy and this is Larry. We – we’re students.”

  “Freshmen,” added Larry. “We go to Ellerby.”

  “I see,” Claudia soothed them. “Well, won’t you come in?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Guy gratefully. They entered together and stood side by side. Their smiles were diffident. Claudia closed the door behind them.

  Larry studied the parlor with politely curious eyes. “This is a great place,” he offered. “Wonderful. It’s – well, it’s nostalgic.”

  “Thank you,” Garland smiled to him. “Come sit here and see if this couch wasn’t more or less made f
or you.”

  He hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he paced toward the couch. He wore handsome shiny boots. He and Garland sat down together and Claudia held out her hand to Guy.

  “You look like somebody I used to know,” she said, slitting her silvery eyes at him. “He played football at State. Came visiting here.”

  “Maybe all football players look alike,” Guy smiled back. “I came to Ellerby to play tight end, if I can make it.”

  Beside Larry on the couch, Garland turned on her personality. It was as if she pressed a button to set it free.

  “Would you like a glass of this port?” she asked. “It’s very good.”

  “Let me do it.” He took the bottle and poured. His hand trembled just a trifle. “Here.” And he held out the glass.

  “No, it’s for you,” she said. “I’ll wait until later.”

  Larry sipped. “Delicious.”

  “Yes, only the best for our friends.”

  “We surely appreciate this, ma’am,” he said, sipping again.

  “You may call me Garland.”

  Claudia had seated Guy in a heavily soft armchair and had perched herself on its arm. They were whispering and chuckling together.

  “Larry,” said Garland, “you look to me as if you’ve been around a lot.”

  “Maybe my looks are deceptive,” he said, brown eyes upon her. “I – I’ve never been at a place like this before.”

  Garland edged closer to him. “Tell me a little about yourself.”

  “Oh, I’m just a freshman at Ellerby. Nothing very exciting about that.”

  “But it must be.” She edged even closer. “Just being on campus must be exciting. Come on, tell me more.”

  She put her hand on his. He took it in his warm clasp.

  “Well, freshman year is rough.” He seemed to have difficulty talking. “There’s no hazing at Ellerby any more, not exactly, but you have to take a lot of stuff to get ready to be a sophomore.”