Draw, stab. Draw, slash. Draw, stab, slash.
The books said various things on the subject of killing vampires, but almost all of them had one thing in common: it had to be the heart. Whether with a wooden stake or a silver dagger, it had to be the heart. Moony had to get it perfect the first time, because Edgar wouldn’t give him another chance.
Standing in front of the mirror as he practiced, he worked on his facial expression. Stern was the thing. Merciless. Over the long weeks, he grew more comfortable staring himself down, viewing himself as a killer. Merciless, like Edgar.
His little brother. How had he let it come to this? How had he let Edgar go on with this so long? Moony knew he could – should – have done something when Edgar was just a boy, the first time he saw the blood. Or the second time, or the third. Maybe the first time he suspected it had gone past birds, or the first time he knew for sure it had. But he had turned his head and made excuses for him. Out of love? Was it simple brotherly love that had allowed Moony to hide the dead birds he found, to bring wet washcloths when Edgar left trails of blood behind on the cold tiles of their childhood home? Was it love or was it ignorance that had let him look the other way, grow up side by side with him, go on double dates with him?
Snarling at himself in the mirror now, he knew it wasn’t only love or ignorance. Now it felt like cowardice. He’d been afraid to know the whole truth. Well, he knew it now. It wasn’t just a few birds, it never had been, and he was just as guilty as his brother.
Because he might have stopped him, and he hadn’t even tried. Had his brother killed anyone yet? He thought maybe he had. What if Edgar killed Cici? What if he started biting the baby?
Draw, stab. Draw, stab. Draw stab.
He practiced for several months, partly for the practice and partly just to avoid taking the next step. But one evening in the summer of 1974, as Vi watched the news of Richard Nixon’s resignation in the face of impeachment, Moony pushed out of his chair and kissed her on the cheek.
“I’ll be late,” he said. “Don’t wait up.”
Chapter 12
…nothing stops him being my brother. Under everything else, as much as I hate him… I still feel for him. He looks just like me. He looks at me with my own eyes.
He waited outside of Edgar’s house as he had before. The timing was right; by this time, Martin had been watching Edgar for so long, he could predict with surprising accuracy when Edgar would feel the urge to go out.
He followed Edgar to the edge of town, and watched him pick up a young man – not even a man, a boy. Moony crouched low in his car, waiting to see which direction they would go. His plan was to follow, to hide in the parking lot at the motel, and to leap on Edgar when he came out afterwards. To stab him. In the heart.
But the couple didn’t move to a motel. Edgar seemed in too much of a hurry to wait, and he pulled over after only a few blocks and drew the boy into the alley nearby.
Moony hadn’t expected this. He dithered, wondering if his plan would still be workable. He snuck his car door open and began moving toward the alley. He was ten feet away when he heard the first scream.
He peeked around the corner slowly. Edgar had the boy faced against the wall, and was holding him by the throat and hair. It was very rough and the young man was begging him to stop. But Edgar only tightened his grip and thrust against him harder, banging the lad’s forehead against the bricks, drawing a thin line of blood.
The sight of the blood inflamed Edgar more and he sank his teeth more fully into the young man’s neck. Now the screams intensified, and the youth began resisting in earnest with a terror-born desperation. Edgar was seemingly too far gone to even notice this, and he increased his thrusting against the bleeding, struggling boy. By the time he subsided, the boy was no longer protesting. He wasn’t moving at all.
Moony watched all this, thunderstruck, terrified. When he saw the boy go limp, he finally remembered to draw his knife. Then the boy’s head hit the asphalt, and Moony charged Edgar.
His aim was perfect, but he hadn’t counted on the leather of Edgar’s jacket being so thick, and it deflected the knife, which chittered away into the darkness as Edgar spun around with a cry of surprise.
“Backstabbing me, brother?” He laughed, and raised his bloody hands up. “I’m stronger than you, even if you are older. Try it.”
With a cry of defiance, Moony rushed in and the brothers grappled with each other in the dim light. Edgar had every advantage; he was taller, he was stronger. And he was much, much crazier. After a short battle, he gripped Moony by the throat and drove him backwards against the wall. Moony’s head connected with the bricks and he grew weak.
Edgar knocked him against the wall again for good measure, and then let his brother slide down the brickwork to slump sideways a few feet from the blonde boy he had failed to save. Edgar laughed and leaned down into his brother’s face.
“You look a little dizzy there, Martin. How many fingers am I holding up?” He held his bloody hands up, waving the fingers back and forth slowly.
Moony wretched, holding onto his consciousness but unable to speak.
“Oh, that’s right, they’re all bloody… you don’t like the blood, do you?” Edgar reached over and dipped his fingers into the blood at the boy’s open throat. “You should try it. Don’t knock it until you try it. Brother.” With that, he reached forward and coated Moony’s lips liberally with blood. “Lick it off. You’ll like it. Maybe you’ll be like me.”
Moony spat, shaking his head weakly until the pain of it made him stop. “gah…uhhh…” He could not form a sentence.
“You’d like to be me, wouldn’t you? You want my life, isn’t that right? I know you like my wife better than you like yours.”
“Uhhh…” Moony’s eyes moved in two different directions.
“You didn’t think I knew you were fucking my wife, right?” Edgar leaned in again, licking his fingers an inch from Moony’s horrified face. “Taste it. It’s sweet.”
Moony tried to stand, but fell back again immediately. Blood seeped into his mouth and spitting didn’t clear the electric taste. The smell was thick in his nostrils.
Edgar stood up and looked at the dead boy. “That one’s going to heaven, brother. He was innocent. I think I was his first.” He reached down to his crotch, and Moony managed to close his eyes, unwilling to watch any more. But he heard only the sound of the zipper going up.
“Are you afraid of me now, Martin?”
Moony croaked with feeble voice.
“You should be. I’ll be back for you. I’ll be back for all of you.”
He drew his foot back and kicked Moony in the ribs hard enough to crack two of them. Moony lost his struggle for consciousness.
When he came to his senses some hours later, Edgar was gone. It was dawn. A few lazy, early-morning flies had settled on the dead boy that lay next to him. Despite his shrieking headache and the pain in his ribcage, Moony managed to turn away before he vomited.
He staggered to his car like a drunk. There, his brother had left him a note of sorts. On the driver’s side window, there was a bloody handprint; in the handprint, Edgar had traced a question mark. Moony wondered what the question was. He wiped his sleeve on the print, smearing it. Smearing it, but not removing it. His stomach lurched again and his vision blurred. The jolt to his head as he fell into the driver’s seat was horrible, and he whimpered with it, against it. He panted shallowly with the pain in his head and ribs. He’d have borne them gladly if he could be rid of what had just happened. The boy…
Moony turned the ignition. He had to get out of here. Before someone found the body. Before anyone saw him here, covered in blood, thinking in circles, and weeping like a fool.
Chapter 13
He found a restroom and washed his hands and face, but nothing erased the images he’d seen. Nothing eased the pain in his head, either, and finally he went to the hospital. The staff at the emergency room shook their heads at him when he told them it
was a bar fight. The nurses gave him scornful looks. The doctor chuckled.
“Well, Mr. Moonrich… I can’t say you look well suited to brawling in bars. Did you at least get a few licks in before he flattened you?”
Moony snorted and tried to shake his head, but the pain stopped him. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Well, you know. I didn’t start it.”
“You didn’t finish anything either, I bet.” The doctor folded a gauze pad and pressed it firmly into Moony’s skull. “You’re very lucky this isn’t more serious. I’m giving you a course of antibiotics. You’ll need a few stitches, I’m afraid. Not a lot we can do for the ribs, other than wrap them.” He had Moony track his finger, asked him some memory questions, put six stitches into the back of his head and sent a nurse in to wrap his ribcage. She frowned at him the entire time, and wrapped them vigorously. He’d have cried out, but his head hurt too much. He could hardly think, but when he did think, he wondered where his brother was, and whether anyone had found the boy yet.
They kept him for observation for another three hours. After the first hour, they let him walk ten feet down the hall and use the pay phone, to call home. (“But don’t go any farther than that, Mr. Moonrich, and come right back here.”)
He didn’t call Viola. He called Cici. No, there had been nothing on the news. Yes, she was alright. No, Edgar hadn’t come home.
As it turned out, neither of them ever saw Edgar again.
PART THREE
Chapter 1
…if he returns, I must be ready. And how can I ever be ready for this? But I must be… God save me, he could be anywhere…
“Jesus, this is such a pain in the ass.” Pam flipped a page over in her address book and ran her finger down the margin. “No… no… um, no… oh, Mrs. Hutchiss, that’s one.” She reached for the phone and dialed.
Scott, watching from the doorway, slid down and crouched there, listening. His mother had been on the phone all morning, calling people for the funeral. He and Todd had both watched for a while, but only Scott was still listening, amused by her frustration. Amused, and frightened.
“…I know… yes… yes, of course…” Her voice droned up and down. “It was. Yes. Yes… well, thank you…”
Scott didn’t remember who Mrs. Hutchiss was. Someone his grandfather knew. Had known, anyway. From the way his mother was talking, it didn’t sound like she was coming to the funeral. He mused on this, and drove his toy car up and down the doorjamb.
Pam hung up the phone, muttering. Her finger traced the edge of the address book again, searching. Another pause, another call. “Hello, Sharon? How have… yes, well, I’m fine… I don’t know if you heard yet…”
Scott had discovered that, if he ran the car along the floor first, and then up the doorjamb, it left tire tracks. “Vroom,” he whispered. “Vroom, vroom.” He lifted the car and judged the recent tracks. Not as dark as he wanted them. Scott pressed the car into the floor again, rolling it back and forth, pretending he was doing a “K” turn. Todd had shown him what a “K” turn was last week.
“Rrrt…rrrt…vroom.”
His mother hung up the phone and turned on him. “Scotty, for Christ’s sake. You’re driving me nuts. Go play somewhere else.”
Scott hated to be called Scotty. He shrugged, moving off into the other room, looking for Todd. He found him in the kitchen, spreading peanut butter on bread.
“Hey,” Todd said when he spotted Scott at the counter. “Want a sandwich?”
Scott considered. “Yeah. Mom’s still on the phone. She’s in a crap mood.”
“She’s pissed off cause of the funeral.”
“Yeah.” Scott took his sandwich and bit into it. “Have you been to a funeral before?”
“Yeah, once. Aunt Hazel. You were too little.”
“Was it scary?”
Todd laughed scornfully. “Hell, no. Just gross. She was in this huge coffin, and we could walk up and look at her. I did. She looked like she was sleeping.”
“Did she smell bad?”
“No. I don’t think so. I don’t remember anything like that.”
Scott nodded, peering at Todd. “Think we’ll have to look at Grandpa?”
“Of course, dumbass. What do you think?” Todd said, kicking Scott in the leg, none too gently. “What, are you a chicken?”
“I’m not chicken…” Scott said. But he was. He’d had a nightmare two nights in a row about Grandpa coming back from the dead. In both dreams, he’d been hiding in the closet when his Grandpa found him. Both times, his Grandpa had a knife.
“Ya, you’re a chicken. Little chickenshit.” Another ungentle kick, but this one missed. Todd looked down at Scott, and saw tears forming. “Hey, don’t. I didn’t mean it. It won’t be that bad.”
“I’m not crying.” Scott wiped his arm across his nose, defiant. “Quit kicking me.”
“I didn’t even hit you, you baby.”
Scott shrugged sullenly, changing the subject. “Mom said cousin Corky stole that necklace.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty mad at Corky.”
“Why did she steal it?”
“I dunno.” Todd shrugged. “Maybe it’s worth money.”
“Is that why Grandpa had it?”
“No.” Todd shot his brother a glance. “He had it ’cause he was scared of vampires.”
“If he was scared of vampires, how come he had so many books with them?”
“I think he was obsessed with them.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I don’t know. Like, he had to collect them. Like… he was scared of them, right? But if he didn’t think about them all the time, they’d get him even faster.”
Scott thought about that for a long time.
Chapter 2
The funeral was held in a small church. Scott sat in the front pew with his brother. Their mother was standing by the door, talking to some lady. Uncle Bruce was in the front talking to the pastor.
“This place smells funny.” Scott turned and knelt on the seat, hanging over the back into the aisle behind them. “Like old ladies.”
Todd slapped him on the leg. “Get down, dumbass.”
Ignoring him, Scott craned his neck and looked around the church. Hardly anyone was here at all. About ten people in the pews, and then the pastor standing by the pulpit. Next to him, a small table with an urn. There was a framed picture there also. Scott couldn’t see it very well; he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
Pam approached the pew and sat down, pulling Scott into place. Scott squirmed against her grip, but eventually let himself be pulled. His mother did a half-twist in her seat, scanning the pews behind her. She made a sound of annoyance, and Scott and Todd both turned to see what had caused it.
Corky was there, far in the back. Bruce was talking to her.
Pam muttered under her breath. “I swear.” She made slight hand motions, gesturing Bruce to come up front. When he did, she grabbed his arm the same way she’d grabbed Scott’s, and pulled him into the pew next to her. She leaned in close and whispered at him, her jaw unmoving. Bruce shook his head and lowered it.
“I was just talking to her,” he said quietly. “Saying hello and all. It’s only polite.”
“Polite!” Pam snorted. “That damn woman is an outright thief. And you want to be polite to her. Should have called the authorities on her, is what we should have done.”
Bruce just shook his head and looked at the floor between his feet.
The soft music in the background faded out slightly as the pastor stepped up to the front and adjusted the microphone. “Good morning… good morning.” As people settled into silence, the pastor began his service. He spoke for a time, and then said “Now let us pray.”
Heads bowed, Scott’s among them. He wasn’t really listening to much of the service. Back and forth went the voices. Lord hear our prayer. Scott murmured along with them, and he heard Todd doing the same. He stole a glance; his brother glanced back at him and made a face.
“And no
w, Martin’s children would like to say a few words,” the pastor said. He stepped back and Bruce made his way to the front.
“I, um. Well, I haven’t really known what I should say here. He was my father, and I loved him. They tell me I should relate some story about how my father made me feel. I’m still a little numb, so… well, I guess the best thing I remember… or well, something I remember was, when I was little… he read me a story. It wasn’t a really good kid story, either. He read me some scary vampire story… I was like, oh I don’t know, nine or ten. And he scared me really bad…” Bruce looked up then, and there were tears in his eyes. “I was scared, and when he saw me crying… I mean, when he realized… he dropped the book on the floor and he grabbed me with both of his hands and he cried. He told me never to forget that he was just a man, and any man could make mistakes.”
Bruce stepped down and returned to his seat, and Pam moved into place, frowning.
“Well…” she started, but didn’t finish. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Well. My father lived a full life, and he always had a kind word to say. He was always there, and it was a shock to us all how quickly he went downhill at the end. It was like watching someone steal him from us.” She paused for effect, looking at the back of the room. “Like watching someone just walk in and take him away.”
Bruce covered his face with his hands, and sighed heavily. Scott couldn’t tell if he was crying or not. He looked over at Todd, but Todd just shook his head.
“At least he didn’t suffer, in the end. It was merciful. He’s been missing our mother since she died, and now they’ll be together again,” Pam concluded. “That’s what Dad would have wanted.”
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