by J. R. Rain
As they drew nearer I tried to move, but was powerless, although I could see and hear all that went on around me. Two or three of the soldiers jumped from their horses and knelt beside me. One of them raised my head, and placed his hand over my heart.
“Good news, comrades!” he cried. “His heart still beats!”
Then some brandy was poured down my throat; it put vigor into me, and I was able to open my eyes fully and look around. Lights and shadows were moving among the trees, and I heard men call to one another. They drew together, uttering frightened exclamations; and the lights flashed as the others came pouring out of the cemetery pell-mell, like men possessed. When the further ones came close to us, those who were around me asked them eagerly:
“Well, have you found him?”
The reply rang out hurriedly:
“No! no! Come away quick—quick! This is no place to stay, and on this of all nights!”
“What was it?” was the question, asked in all manner of keys. The answer came variously and all indefinitely as though the men were moved by some common impulse to speak, yet were restrained by some common fear from giving their thoughts.
“It—it—indeed!” gibbered one, whose wits had plainly given out for the moment.
“A wolf—and yet not a wolf!” another put in shudderingly.
“No use trying for him without the sacred bullet,” a third remarked in a more ordinary manner.
“Serve us right for coming out on this night! Truly we have earned our thousand marks!” were the ejaculations of a fourth.
“There was blood on the broken marble,” another said after a pause—“the lightning never brought that there. And for him—is he safe? Look at his throat! See, comrades, the wolf has been lying on him and keeping his blood warm.”
The officer looked at my throat and replied:
“He is all right; the skin is not pierced. What does it all mean? We should never have found him but for the yelping of the wolf.”
“What became of it?” asked the man who was holding up my head, and who seemed the least panic-stricken of the party, for his hands were steady and without tremor. On his sleeve was the chevron of a petty officer.
“It went to its home,” answered the man, whose long face was pallid, and who actually shook with terror as he glanced around him fearfully. “There are graves enough there in which it may lie. Come, comrades—come quickly! Let us leave this cursed spot.”
The officer raised me to a sitting posture, as he uttered a word of command; then several men placed me upon a horse. He sprang to the saddle behind me, took me in his arms, gave the word to advance; and, turning our faces away from the cypresses, we rode away in swift, military order.
As yet my tongue refused its office, and I was perforce silent. I must have fallen asleep; for the next thing I remembered was finding myself standing up, supported by a soldier on each side of me. It was almost broad daylight, and to the north a red streak of sunlight was reflected, like a path of blood, over the waste of snow. The officer was telling the men to say nothing of what they had seen, except that they found an English stranger, guarded by a large dog.
“Dog! that was no dog,” cut in the man who had exhibited such fear. “I think I know a wolf when I see one.”
The young officer answered calmly: “I said a dog.”
“Dog!” reiterated the other ironically. It was evident that his courage was rising with the sun; and, pointing to me, he said, “Look at his throat. Is that the work of a dog, master?”
Instinctively I raised my hand to my throat, and as I touched it I cried out in pain. The men crowded round to look, some stooping down from their saddles; and again there came the calm voice of the young officer:
“A dog, as I said. If aught else were said we should only be laughed at.”
I was then mounted behind a trooper, and we rode on into the suburbs of Munich. Here we came across a stray carriage, into which I was lifted, and it was driven off to the Quatre Saisons—the young officer accompanying me, whilst a trooper followed with his horse, and the others rode off to their barracks.
When we arrived, Herr Delbrück rushed so quickly down the steps to meet me, that it was apparent he had been watching within. Taking me by both hands he solicitously led me in. The officer saluted me and was turning to withdraw, when I recognized his purpose, and insisted that he should come to my rooms. Over a glass of wine I warmly thanked him and his brave comrades for saving me. He replied simply that he was more than glad, and that Herr Delbrück had at the first taken steps to make all the searching party pleased; at which ambiguous utterance the maître d’hôtel smiled, while the officer pleaded duty and withdrew.
“But Herr Delbrück,” I inquired, “how and why was it that the soldiers searched for me?”
He shrugged his shoulders, as if in depreciation of his own deed, as he replied:
“I was so fortunate as to obtain leave from the commander of the regiment in which I served, to ask for volunteers.”
“But how did you know I was lost?” I asked.
“The driver came hither with the remains of his carriage, which had been upset when the horses ran away.”
“But surely you would not send a search-party of soldiers merely on this account?”
“Oh, no!” he answered; “but even before the coachman arrived, I had this telegram from the Boyar whose guest you are,” and he took from his pocket a telegram which he handed to me, and I read:
Bistritz.
Be careful of my guest—his safety is most precious to me. Should aught happen to him, or if he be missed, spare nothing to find him and ensure his safety. He is English and therefore adventurous. There are often dangers from snow and wolves and night. Lose not a moment if you suspect harm to him. I answer your zeal with my fortune.—Dracula.
As I held the telegram in my hand, the room seemed to whirl around me; and, if the attentive maître d’hôtel had not caught me, I think I should have fallen. There was something so strange in all this, something so weird and impossible to imagine, that there grew on me a sense of my being in some way the sport of opposite forces—the mere vague idea of which seemed in a way to paralyze me. I was certainly under some form of mysterious protection. From a distant country had come, in the very nick of time, a message that took me out of the danger of the snow-sleep and the jaws of the wolf.
The End
Coming soon!
Samantha Moon returns in:
Vampire Dawn
Vampire for Hire #5
Available Christmas 2011
~~~~~
Available now!
Hail Mary
Jim Knighthorse Series #3
Kindle or Nook
~~~~~
Samantha Moon is back for the holidays
Christmas Moon
Available now!
Kindle or Nook
~~~~~
Read Fang’s backstory in:
Teeth and Other Stories
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~~~~~
Also, Samantha Moon
stars in her own short stories:
Vampire Nights and Other Stories
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Vampire Blues: Four Stories
(Samantha Moon Case Files #1)
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~~~~~
Available now in ebookstores everywhere:
The Vampire Club
(A group of lovable, laughable, larcenous college students turned vampire hunters.)
by
J.R. Rain and
Scott Nicholson
(read on for a sample)
Welcome
The vampire dropped from above.
The girl recoiled in shock, then let loose with an ear-shattering screech. The vampire stepped back, seemingly impressed by the set of lungs on his soon-to-be victim. As she screamed away, he waved his hands slowly like a maestro.
And then those human lungs faltered and the scream turned into a gurgle. The concert was o
ver.
Staring hypnotically with his obsidian eyes, the vampire approached the helpless girl. She began whimpering. He eased up alongside her, peered down at her exposed neck, and frowned. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away a bit of something.
His tongue slithered out as if summoned by a flute-playing Indian snake charmer. A shudder ran through the girl. He opened his mouth and stretched back his lips, revealing his long and slender teeth. He gripped her shoulders like a lover and sank his teeth deep into her neck—
And I could no longer control myself. Quivering, I leaped from my seat in the movie theater and, waving my fist for needed emphasis, shouted: “God, yes!”
Next to me, Buddy burst from his seat. “Suck it, baby, suck!”
And then Juan further down: “You know you like it! You can’t hide it, baby!”
Janice still further: “Suck like there’s no tomorrow!”
And then finally the professor, with his old and gritty voice, boomed: “Suck until you urinate blood!”
Which was, for me, a new one.
We are The Vampire Club.
Welcome.
Chapter One
My name is Andy Barthamoo, leader of The Vampire Club, which meets every Tuesday night at 7 p.m. in a small room in the basement of Western Virginia University’s library.
There are five of us, and we have one thing in common: we love vampires. We love them from the tip of their pointed teeth to the tip of their leathery batwings, devoting much of our pre-adolescent, high school, and college years in search of them.
You see, we want to become vampires.
However, we have yet to come across any documented proof that vampires truly exist. Until now....
* * *
On this particular Tuesday night, as I stood before the other four members of the group, I had some interesting news to share. Once all the members had assembled before me, I began the meeting. “Now friends and colleagues, I have asked you this question before and I will ask you again: what is the purpose behind our club?”
Four hands shot up. I would have expected no less. “Buddy,” I said, pointing to the blond football player in our group.
Buddy stood, all 215 pounds of him. “To gather evidence to prove the existence of vampires.”
“Very good, Buddy,” I said, and then paused for dramatic effect. “I believe I have found such evidence.”
There was a gasp or two. Probably Janice, though she’d never admit it. She had a way of hiding her true feelings, which is why she resisted her no-doubt undying love for me.
“This past week while doing research in the Virginia Times Library, I came across a newspaper article from the 1820s.” I opened my DayRunner and removed the photocopied article. I cleared my throat and read: “ ‘Stranger Shot Eleven Times, Dies Two Hours Later—Old man Andrews says he’d never seen anything like that in all his life. ‘Course I’m blind as a bat,’ says Andrews.’”
“Interesting,” said Juan, pulling at the goat hair on his chin.
“Now, as you will soon discover, this stranger behaved very much like a vampire.” I looked each member in the eye, stopping a bit longer with Janice and, of course, adding a wink. “And if so, there’s a chance he’s alive today. And I know where to find him.”
“Where did you get this article?” asked Juan.
“A weekly newspaper called The Inquireth.”
“A tabloid!”
“My assignment didn’t specify what newspaper I had to use—”
“A tabloid story about a mythical creature. Sure you didn’t confuse it with the Incredible Bat Boy? We can’t accept it as fact, Andy, or anywhere close to the truth,” Juan said.
“I thought the same thing, until I read between the lines and discovered the writer could not have made this up. He hit too close to vampiric truth. And it was before Bram Stoker, back when vampires were legend and not yet mainstream fiction.”
“Just read the article,” said Professor L. He smiled and nodded his gray head at me. “And we’ll see what exactly you’ve stumbled upon.”
Professor L was not only head of the Vampire Studies department, he was its only teacher. This was the only university in the nation that offered Vampire Studies as a major, and it attracted the devout, which was pretty much us four. You couldn’t just spout lines from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to get in. You had to know about Carmilla, Varney the Vampire, Vlad Dracul, and Nosferatu.
I cleared my throat dramatically, gazed at a promotional poster for The Lost Boys on the far wall to help me focus—Corey Haim had been my hero when I was a kid—then read the article aloud:
“It is common knowledge that evil is brewing in our Pennsylvania. Folk have been disappearing across the state for the last year. Most thought it was Indians, yet there have been reports of a pale-faced demon haunting an area right before a person is discovered missing.
We all know we all got sort of a start when a pale-faced stranger turned up in our town last week, staying at Buford’s Boarding House. He called himself ‘Laumer,’ and never said whether it was his first name or last. We all kept a suspicious eye on the stranger, but he seemed harmless enough; indeed, he was very charming, though rarely seen except at night.
But when old Al Hockborough disappeared, we knew we were in the presence of evil, perhaps Satan himself. A committee was formed, addressing the issue of the stranger and what to do about him. Four of the ten in the committee, including yours truly, wanted to burn him. Sure, give him a trial, and then burn him. Al was a great guy. He didn’t deserve to die by the hands of Satan. The others in the committee, led by Ed Royce, wanted to search his residence; maybe we’d find old Al.
At Buford’s Boarding House, we confronted the stranger at noon, though he was somewhat bedraggled. He was once again all charm, and let us search his residence at will. Nothing unordinary. He expressed his extreme concern over the disappearance of Al, and that times were indeed hard enough for a traveling man without people disappearing and heaping suspicion on innocent strangers.
It was pretty much back to the drawing board, though some of us didn’t like it, especially Ed Royce. ‘Fire’ could be the only word to describe our town’s blacksmith. He really had it in for the stranger, though most of us accepted the fact that his presence was purely coincidental to the disappearing of Al.
We were not surprised then when two days later gunfire shattered the night like fine crystal in the hands of a newborn. Roused from their sleep, most folks stumbled out of their beds to find the stranger dying in the streets. Ed and his gang stood by explaining, while the stranger lay gasping in the street. “He tried to kill Edith! We caught him just in time.” That’s when Edith answered curtly, crying. “He just offered to carry my bags home!
“Then why did he attack us?” demanded Ed.
“Maybe because you bullies cornered him with your guns.”
“Look at Billy, Sheriff, the stranger done him in good.” And Billy was a terrible mess.
“He also just disappeared on us,” said Hank. “When we looked again, he was behind us somehow. We shot at him,” Hank went on, “I knows I hit him a few times, and the others did, too, but he kept on running.”
“And that’s when he ran into me,” said Ed Royce. “One shot was all I needed.” The stranger died two hours later.
The sheriff investigated further, and it was agreed it was in self-defense that the stranger had to die.
If he was an innocent man, God forgive us. And if he was the killer, may God deal with him appropriately.”
They were silent, mulling over what they had just heard. I gave them a moment to reflect before spurring them into a conclusion. “Now, Buddy, who and what was that article really talking about?”
“A vampire, of course!”
“Indeed. The clues are all there. But I have another question: Who is this Edward Royce, and how did he and his gang kill our vampire?”
“The answer,” said Janice, “was the bullet. A silver bullet.”
“Exactly!” I stepped from behind the podium and circled the room. “Fact: we have researched vampires extensively. Fact: we have read all the vampire fiction, and though usually it’s a good read, most of it should be burned. Fact: we know more about vampires than anyone else alive. Question: can a silver bullet kill a vampire?”
As expected, four hands shot up in unison. “Juan,” I said.
Juan stood. “In our studies, we have uncovered voluminous accounts of vampires. The trouble is that most vary as to the true characteristics of vampires. So what we have done, as you all know, is sort through all the slush and find similarities. We are the uncoverers of fact.
“Simply put, we have uncovered the truths and dispelled the fallacies; and, unbeknownst to most folks, a silver bullet can wound a vampire but not kill a vampire. Our vampire is not dead.”
Kindle or Nook
Also available:
The Vampire Who Played Dead
A Spinoza Novella
by
J.R. Rain