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

by Stephen Jones

  “That means something that keeps coming back, that returns daily,” Cobbett said.

  “It’s a term used to refer to a recurrent fever,” added Pursuivant.

  Laurel and Cobbett sat down together on the bed.

  “I would say that for the time being we’re safe here,” declared Pursuivant. “Not at ease, but at least safe. At dawn, danger will go to sleep and we can open the door.”

  “But why are we safe, and nobody else?” Laurel cried out. “Why are we awake, with everyone else in this town asleep and helpless?”

  “Apparently because we all of us wear garlic,” replied Pursuivant patiently, “and because we ate garlic, plenty of it, at dinnertime. And because there are crosses – crude, but unmistakable – wherever something might try to come in. I won’t ask you to be calm, but I’ll ask you to be resolute.”

  “I’m resolute,” said Cobbett between clenched teeth. “I’m ready to go out there and face them.”

  “If you did that, even with the garlic,” said Pursuivant, “you’d last about as long as a pint of whiskey in a five-handed poker game. No, Lee, relax as much as you can, and let’s talk.”

  They talked, while outside strange presences could be felt rather than heard. Their talk was of anything and everything but where they were and why. Cobbett remembered strange things he had encountered, in towns, among mountains, along desolate roads, and what he had been able to do about them. Pursuivant told of a vampire he had known and defeated in upstate New York, of a werewolf in his own Southern countryside. Laurel, at Cobbett’s urging, sang songs, old songs, from her own rustic home place. Her voice was sweet. When she sang “Round is the Ring,” faces came and hung like smudges outside the cross-scored windows. She saw, and sang again, an old Appalachian carol called “Mary She Heared a Knock in the Night.” The faces drifted away again. And the hours, too, drifted away, one by one.

  “There’s a horde of vampires on the night street here, then.” Cobbett at last brought up the subject of their problem.

  “And they lull the people of Deslow to sleep, to be helpless victims,” agreed Pursuivant. “About this show, The Land Beyond the Forest, mightn’t it be welcomed as a chance to spread the infection? Even a townful of sleepers couldn’t feed a growing community of blood drinkers.”

  “If we could deal with the source, the original infection—” began Cobbett.

  “The mistress of them, the queen,” said Pursuivant. “Yes. The one whose walking by night rouses them all. If she could be destroyed, they’d all die properly.”

  He glanced at the front window. The moonlight had a touch of slaty gray.

  “Almost morning,” he pronounced. “Time for a visit to her tomb.”

  “I gave my promise I wouldn’t go there,” said Cobbett.

  “But I didn’t promise,” said Pursuivant, rising. “You stay here with Laurel.”

  His silver blade in hand, he stepped out into darkness from which the moon had all but dropped away. Overhead, stars were fading out. Dawn was at hand.

  He sensed a flutter of movement on the far side of the street, an almost inaudible gibbering of sound. Steadily he walked across. He saw nothing along the sidewalk there, heard nothing. Resolutely he tramped to the churchyard, his weapon poised. More grayness had come to dilute the dark.

  He pushed his way through the hedge of shrubs, stepped in upon the grass, and paused at the side of a grave. Above it hung an eddy of soft mist, no larger than the swirl of water draining from a sink. As Pursuivant watched, it seemed to soak into the earth and disappear. That, he said to himself, is what a soul looks like when it seeks to regain its coffin.

  On he walked, step by weary, purposeful step, toward the central crypt. A ray of the early sun, stealing between heavily leafed boughs, made his way more visible. In this dawn, he would find what he would find. He knew that.

  The crypt’s door of open bars was held shut by its heavy padlock. He examined that lock closely. After a moment, he slid the point of his blade into the rusted keyhole and judiciously pressed this way, then that, and back again the first way. The spring creakily relaxed and he dragged the door open. Holding his breath, he entered.

  The lid of the great stone vault was closed down. He took hold of the edge and heaved. The lid was heavy, but rose with a complaining grate of the hinges. Inside he saw a dark, closed coffin. He lifted the lid of that, too.

  She lay there, calm-faced, the eyes half shut as though dozing.

  “Chastel,” said Pursuivant to her. “Not Gonda. Chastel.”

  The eyelids fluttered. That was all, but he knew that she heard what he said.

  “Now you can rest,” he said. “Rest in peace, really in peace.”

  He set the point of his silver blade at the swell of her left breast. Leaning both his broad hands upon the curved handle, he drove downward with all his strength.

  She made a faint squeak of sound.

  Blood sprang up as he cleared his weapon. More light shone in. He could see a dark moisture fading from the blade, like evaporating dew.

  In the coffin, Chastel’s proud shape shrivelled, darkened. Quickly he slammed the coffin shut, then lowered the lid of the vault into place and went quickly out. He pushed the door shut again and fastened the stubborn old lock. As he walked back through the churchyard among the graves, a bird twittered over his head. More distantly, he heard the hum of a car’s motor. The town was waking up.

  In the growing radiance, he walked back across the street. By now, his steps were the steps of an old man, old and very tired.

  Inside Laurel’s cabin, Laurel and Cobbett were stirring instant coffee into hot water in plastic cups. They questioned the Judge with their tired eyes.

  “She’s finished,” he said shortly.

  “What will you tell Gonda?” asked Cobbett.

  “Chastel was Gonda.”

  “But—”

  “She was Gonda,” said Pursuivant again, sitting down. “Chastel died. The infection wakened her out of her tomb, and she told people she was Gonda, and naturally they believed her.” He sagged wearily. “Now that she’s finished and at rest, those others – the ones she had bled, who also rose at night – will rest, too.”

  Laurel took a sip of coffee. Above the cup, her face was pale.

  “Why do you say Chastel was Gonda?” she asked the Judge. “How can you know that?”

  “I wondered from the very beginning. I was utterly sure just now.”

  “Sure?” said Laurel. “How can you be sure?”

  Pursuivant smiled at her, the very faintest of smiles.

  “My dear, don’t you think a man always recognizes a woman he has loved?”

  He seemed to recover his characteristic defiant vigor. He rose and went to the door and put his hand on the knob. “Now, if you’ll just excuse me for a while.”

  “Don’t you think we’d better hurry and leave?” Cobbett asked him. “Before people miss her and ask questions?”

  “Not at all,” said Pursuivant, his voice strong again. “If we’re gone, they’ll ask questions about us, too, possibly embarrassing questions. No, we’ll stay. We’ll eat a good breakfast, or at least pretend to eat it. And we’ll be as surprised as the rest of them about the disappearance of their leading lady.”

  “I’ll do my best,” vowed Laurel.

  “I know you will, my child,” said Pursuivant, and went out the door.

  HOWARD WALDROP

  Der Untergang Des Abendlandesmenschen

  HOWARD WALDROP’S STORIES are filled with images from contemporary American culture – rock ‘n’ roll music, bad science fiction movies, cartoons, comic books and real-life characters have all found their way into his uniquely comic/tragic fiction.

  Waldrop was born in 1946 in Houston, Mississipi, and has lived in Texas since he was four years old. He is consumed by fly-fishing. He is also a winner of the World Fantasy and Nebula Awards, and his novels include Texas-Israeli War: 1999 (with Jake Saunders), Them Bones, A Dozen Tough Jobs, You
Could Go Home Again and The Search for Tom Purdue.

  His highly distinctive short fiction is collected in Going Home Again, Howard, Who?: Twelve Outstanding Stories of Speculative Fiction, All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past, Strange Things in Close-up: The Nearly Complete Howard Waldrop, Night of the Cooters: More Neat Stories, Dream Factories and Radio Pictures and Custer’s Last Jump and Other Collaborations (with A.A. Jackson, Leigh Kennedy, George R.R. Martin, Joseph F. Pumilia, Buddy Sanders, Bruce Sterling and Steven Utley).

  The following story is typical Waldrop . . .

  THEY RODE THROUGH THE flickering landscape to the tune of organ music.

  Broncho Billy, short like an old sailor, and William S., tall and rangy as a windblown pine. Their faces, their horses, the landscape all darkened and became light; were at first indistinct then sharp and clear as they rode across one ridge and down into the valley beyond.

  Ahead of them, in much darker shades, was the city of Bremen, Germany.

  Except for organ and piano music, it was quiet in most of Europe.

  In the vaults below the Opera, in the City of Lights, Erik the phantom played the Toccata and Fugue while the sewers ran blackly by.

  In Berlin, Cesare the somnambulist slept. His mentor Caligari lectured at the University, and waited for his chance to send the monster through the streets.

  Also in Berlin, Dr Mabuse was dead and could no longer control the underworld.

  But in Bremen . . .

  In Bremen, something walked the night.

  To the cities of china eggs and dolls, in the time of sawdust bread and the price of six million marks for a postage stamp, came Broncho Billy and William S. They had ridden hard for two days and nights, and the horses were heavily lathered.

  They reined in, and tied their mounts to a streetlamp on the Wilhelmstrasse.

  “What say we get a drink, William S.?” asked the shorter cowboy. “All this damn flickering gives me a headache.”

  William S. struck a pose three feet away from him, turned his head left and right, and stepped up to the doors of the gasthaus before them.

  With his high-pointed hat and checked shirt, William S. looked like a weatherbeaten scarecrow, or a child’s version of Abraham Lincoln before the beard. His eyes were like shiny glass, through which some inner hellfires showed.

  Broncho Billy hitched up his pants. He wore Levis, which on him looked too large, a dark vest, lighter shirt, big leather chaps with three tassles at hip, knee and calf. His hat seemed three sizes too big.

  Inside the tavern, things were murky grey, black and stark white. And always, the flickering.

  They sat down at a table and watched the clientele. Ex-soldiers, in the remnants of uniforms, seven years after the Great War had ended. The unemployed, spending their last few coins on beer. The air was thick with grey smoke from pipes and cheap cigarettes.

  Not too many people had noticed the entrance of William S. and Broncho Billy.

  Two had.

  “Quirt!” said an American captain, his hand on his drinking buddy, a sergeant.

  “What?” asked the sergeant, his hand on the barmaid.

  “Look who’s here!”

  The sergeant peered toward the haze of flickering grey smoke where the cowboys sat.

  “Damn!” he said.

  “Want to go over and chat with ’em?” asked the captain.

  “&%*$%@no!” cursed the sergeant. “This ain’t our %&*!*$ing picture.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said the captain, and returned to his wine.

  “You must remember, my friend,” said William S. after the waiter brought them beer, “that there can be no rest in the pursuit of evil.”

  “Yeah, but hell, William S., this is a long way from home.”

  William S. lit a match, put it to a briar pipe containing his favorite shag tobacco. He puffed on it a few moments, then regarded his companion across his tankard.

  “My dear Broncho Billy,” he said. “No place is too far to go in order to thwart the forces of darkness. This is something Dr Helioglabulus could not handle by himself, else he should not have summoned us.”

  “Yeah, but William S., my butt’s sore as a rizen after two days in the saddle. I think we should bunk down before we see this doctor fellow.”

  “Ah, that’s where you’re wrong, my friend,” said the tall, hawknosed cowboy. “Evil never sleeps. Men must.”

  “Well, I’m a man,” said Broncho Billy. “I say, let’s sleep.”

  Just then, Doctor Helioglabulus entered the tavern.

  He was dressed as a Tyrolean mountain guide, in lederhosen and feathered cap, climbing boots and suspenders. He carried with him an alpenstock, which made a large clunk each time it touched the floor.

  He walked through the flickering darkness and smoke and stood in front of the table with the two cowboys.

  William S. had risen.

  “Dr—” he began.

  “Eulenspigel,” said the other, an admonitory finger to his lips.

  Broncho Billy rolled his eyes heavenward.

  “Dr Eulenspigel, I’d like you to meet my associate and chronicler, Mr Broncho Billy.”

  The doctor clicked his heels together.

  “Have a chair,” said Broncho Billy, pushing one out from under the table with his boot. He tipped his hat up off his eyes.

  The doctor, in his comic opera outfit, sat.

  “Helioglabulus,” whispered William S., “whatever are you up to?”

  “I had to come incognito. There are . . . others who should not learn of my presence here.”

  Broncho Billy looked from one to the other and rolled his eyes again.

  “Then the game is afoot?” asked William S., his eyes more alight than ever.

  “Game such as man has never before seen,” said the doctor.

  “I see,” said William S., his eyes narrowing as he drew on his pipe. “Moriarty?”

  “Much more evil.”

  “More evil?” asked the cowboy, his fingertips pressed together. “I cannot imagine such.”

  “Neither could I, up until a week ago,” said Helioglabulus. “Since then, the city has experienced wholesale terrors. Rats run the streets at night, invade houses. This tavern will be deserted by nightfall. The people lock their doors and say prayers, even in this age. They are reverting to the old superstitions.”

  “They have just cause?” asked William S.

  “A week ago, a ship pulled into the pier. On board was – one man!” He paused for dramatic effect. Broncho Billy was unimpressed. The doctor continued. “The crew, the passengers were gone. Only the captain was aboard, lashed to the wheel. And he was – drained of blood!”

  Broncho Billy became interested.

  “You mean,” asked William S., bending over his beer, “that we are dealing with – the undead?”

  “I am afraid so,” said Dr Helioglabulus, twisting his mustaches.

  “Then we shall need the proper armaments,” said the taller cowboy.

  “I have them,” said the doctor, taking cartridge boxes from his backpack.

  “Good!” said William S. “Broncho Billy, you have your revolver?”

  “What!? Whatta ya mean, ‘do you have your revolver?’ Just what do you mean? Have you ever seen me without my guns, William S.? Are you losing your mind?”

  “Sorry, Billy,” said William S., looking properly abashed.

  “Take these,” said Helioglabulus.

  Broncho Billy broke open his two Peace-makers, dumped the .45 shells on the table. William S. unlimbered his two Navy .36s and pushed the recoil rod down in the cylinders. He punched each cartridge out onto the table-top.

  Billy started to load up his pistols, then took a closer look at the shells; held one up and examined it.

  “Goddam, William S.,” he yelled. “Wooden bullets! Wooden bullets?”

  Helioglabulus was trying to wave him to silence. The tall cowboy tried to put his hand on the other.

  Everyone
in the beer hall had heard him. There was a deafening silence, all the patrons turned toward their table.

  “Damn,” said Broncho Billy. “You can’t shoot a wooden bullet fifteen feet and expect it to hit the broad side of a corncrib. What the hell we gonna shoot wooden bullets at?”

  The tavern began to empty, people rushing from the place, looking back in terror. All except five men at a far table.

  “I am afraid, my dear Broncho Billy,” said William S., “that you have frightened the patrons, and warned the evil ones of our presence.”

  Broncho Billy looked around.

  “You mean those guys over there?” he nodded toward the other table. “Hell, William S., we both took on twelve men one time.”

  Dr Helioglabulus sighed. “No, no, you don’t understand. Those men over there are harmless; crackpot revolutionists. William and I are speaking of nosferatu . . .”

  Broncho Billy continued to stare at him.

  “ . . . the undead . . .”

  No response.

  “ . . . er, ah, vampires . . .”

  “You mean,” asked Billy, “like Theda Bara?”

  “Not vamps, my dear friend,” said the hawknosed wrangler. “Vampires. Those who rise from the dead and suck the blood of the living.”

  “Oh,” said Broncho Billy. Then he looked at the cartridges. “These kill ’em?”

  “Theoretically,” said Helioglabulus.

  “Meaning you don’t know?”

  The doctor nodded.

  “In that case,” said Broncho Bill, “we go halfies.” He began to load his .45s with one regular bullet, then a wooden one, then another standard.

  William S. had already filled his with wooden slugs.

  “Excellent,” said Helioglabulus. “Now, put these over your hatbands. I hope you never have to get close enough for them to be effective.”

  What he handed them were silver hatbands. Stamped on the shiny surface of the bands was a series of crosses. They slipped them on their heads, settling them on their hatbrims.

  “What next?” asked Broncho Billy.

  “Why, we wait for nightfall, for the nosferatu to strike!” said the doctor.

  “Did you hear them, Hermann?” asked Joseph.

  “Sure. You think we ought to do the same?”