The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women
Page 76
He didn’t though, I thought. And “that bloody murderer Nelson” hadn’t refused to evacuate him. Jack had just gone on working, oblivious to Nelson and the DA, stabbing at the rubble as though he were trying to murder it, calling out “saw” and “wire cutters” and “braces.” Calling out “jack.” Oblivious to everything except getting them out before the gas killed them, before they bled to death. Oblivious to everything but his job.
I had been wrong about why he had joined the ARP, about why he had come to London. He must have lived a terrible life up there in Yorkshire, full of darkness and self-hatred and killing. When the war came, when he began reading of people buried in the rubble, of rescue wardens searching blindly for them, it must have seemed a godsend. A blessing.
It wasn’t, I think, that he was trying to atone for what he’d done, for what he was. It’s impossible, at any rate. I had only killed ten people, counting Jack, and had helped rescue nearly twenty, but it doesn’t cancel out. And I don’t think that was what he wanted. What he had wanted was to be useful.
“Here’s to making the best of a bad job,” Mrs. Lucy had said, and that was all any of them had been doing: Swales with his jokes and gossip, and Twickenham, and Jack, and if they found friendship or love or atonement as well, it was no less than they deserved. And it was still a bad job.
“I should be going,” Quincy said, looking worriedly at me. “You need your rest, and I need to be getting back to work. The German army’s halfway to Cairo, and Yugoslavia’s joined the Axis.” He looked excited, happy. “You must rest, and get well. We need you back in this war.”
“I’m glad you came,” I said.
“Yes, well, Dad wanted me to tell you that about Jack calling for you.” He stood up. “Tough luck, your getting it in the neck like this.” He slapped his flight cap against his leg. “I hate this war,” he said, but he was lying.
“So do I,” I said.
“They’ll have you back killing Jerries in no time,” he said.
“Yes.”
He put his cap on at a rakish angle and went off to bomb lecherous retired colonels and children and widows who had not yet managed to get reinforcing beams out of the Hamburg Civil Defense and paint violets on his plane. Doing his bit.
A sister brought in a tray. She had a large red cross sewn to the bib of her apron.
“No, thanks, I’m not hungry,” I said.
“You must keep your strength up,” she said. She set the tray beside the bed and went out.
“The war’s been rather a blessing for our Vi,” I had told Jack, and perhaps it was. But not for most people. Not for girls who worked at John Lewis for old stewpots who never let them leave early even when the sirens had gone. Not for those people who discovered hidden capabilities for insanity or betrayal or bleeding to death. Or murder.
The sirens went. The nurse came in to check my transfusion and take the tray away. I lay there for a long time, watching the blood come down into my arm.
“Jack,” I said, and didn’t know who I called out to, or if I had made a sound.
VAMPYR
Jane Yolen
Jane Yolen has been called “America’s Hans Christian Andersen” (Newsweek) and “the Aesop of the 20th Century” (New York Times). With more than 360 books to her credit, she is a two-time Nebula Award winner and a recipient of the Caldecott Medal, The Catholic Library Association’s Regina Medal (for her contribution to children’s literature), the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, and the Science Fiction Grand Master of Poetry, as well as the 2017 recipient of SFWA’s Damon Knight Grand Master award.
In 1991 she coedited the anthology Vampires with Martin H. Greenberg, and she has contributed tales of the undead to other anthologies such as Blood Muse and Sisters of the Night, as well as a vampire story in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine (in collaboration with Robert J. Harris). Among her more recent titles are the young adult novels The Seelie King’s War and graphic novel Stone Cold, both written in collaboration with her musician son, Adam Stemple.
“My only insight about vampires is that they suck,” explains the writer. “This poem was written with a melody in my head (I was writing songs for Boiled in Lead at the time, as well as for the Flash Girls and Lui Collins), but the melody has gone away.”
We stalk the dark,
Live in the flood.
We take the madness
In the blood.
A moment’s prick,
A minute’s pain
And then we live
To Love Again.
Drink the night.
Rue the day.
We hear the beat
Beneath the breast.
We sip the wine
That fills the chest.
A moment’s prick,
A minute’s pain.
Our living is not
Just in vein.
Drink the night,
Rue the day.
We do not shrink
From blood’s dark feast.
We take the man,
We leave the beast.
A moment’s prick,
A minute’s pain.
We live to love
To live again.
Drink the night,
Rue the day.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks for their help and support in compiling this volume to Herman Graf, Kim Lim, Tina Rath, Stefan Dziemianowicz, Sara Broecker, Kim Newman, Ellen Datlow, The Author’s Guild, Mandy Slater, Ellen Datlow, Jo Fletcher, Roger MacBride Allen, John Clute, Robert L. Fleck, Krystyna Green, Nick Robinson, and, of course, the incomparable Ingrid Pitt.
“Introduction: My Life Among the Undead” copyright © Ingrid Pitt 2001.
“The Master of Rampling Gate” copyright © Anne O’Brien Rice 1984. Originally published in Redbook, February 1984. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Homewrecker” copyright © Poppy Z. Brite 1998. Originally published in slightly different form on GettingIt.com, 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“When Gretchen Was Human” copyright © Mary A. Turzillo 2001.
“The Vengeful Spirit of Lake Nepeakea” copyright © Tanya Huff 1999. Originally published in What Ho, Magic!. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“La Diente” copyright © Nancy Kilpatrick 2001.
“Miss Massingberd and the Vampire” copyright © Tina Rath 1986. Originally published in Woman’s Realm, January 25th, 1986. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Raven Bound” copyright © Freda Warrington 1999. Originally published in de Sang et d’Encre. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Vampire King of the Goth Chicks” copyright © Nancy A. Collins 1998. Originally published in Cemetery Dance No.28, Fall 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Just His Type” copyright © Storm Constantine 2001.
“Prince of Flowers” copyright © Elizabeth Hand 1988. Originally published in Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, Vol.7, No.6, February 1988. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Services Rendered” copyright © Louise Cooper 2001.
“Aftermath” copyright © Janet Berliner 1999. Originally published in Jerusalem at Night. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“One Among Millions” copyright © Yvonne Navarro 1996. Originally published in The Many Faces of Fantasy: The 22nd World Fantasy Convention Souvenir Book. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Luella Miller” by Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman. Originally published in Everybody’s Magazine, December 1902, and collected in The Wind in the Rose-Bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural (1903).
“Sangre” copyright © Lisa Tuttle 1977. Originally published in Fantastic, July 1977. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“A Question of Patronage” copyright © Chelsea Quinn Yarbro 1994. Originally published in The Vampire Stories of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Hisako San” copyright © Ingrid
Pitt 2001.
“Butternut and Blood” copyright © Kathryn Ptacek. Originally published in Confederacy of the Dead. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Sleeping Cities” copyright © Wendy Webb 2001.
“The Haunted House” by E. Nesbit. Originally published in The Strand Magazine, December 1913.
“Turkish Delight” copyright © Roberta Lannes 2001.
“Venus Rising on Water” copyright © Tanith Lee 1991. Originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, October 1991. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Year Zero” copyright © Gemma Files 2001.
“Good Lady Ducayne” by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Originally published in The Strand Magazine, February 1896.
“Lunch at Charon’s” copyright © Melanie Tem 2001.
“Forever, Amen” copyright © Elizabeth Massie 2001.
“Night Laughter” copyright © Ellen Kushner 1986. Originally published in After Midnight. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Bootleg” copyright © Christa Faust 2001.
“Bewitched” by Edith Wharton. Originally published in Pictorial Review Vol.26, No.6, March 1925, and collected in Ghosts (1937).
“My Brother’s Keeper” copyright © Pat Cadigan 1988. Originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, January 1988. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“So Runs the World Away” copyright © Caitlín R. Kiernan 2001.
“The Night Stair” copyright © Angela Slatter 2014. Originally published in The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“A North Light” copyright © Gwyneth Jones 2001.
“Jack” copyright © Connie Willis 1991. Originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, October 1991. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Vampyr” copyright © Jane Yolen 2001.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Stephen Jones lives in London, England. A Hugo Award nominee, he is the winner of four World Fantasy Awards, three International Horror Guild Awards, five Bram Stoker Awards, twenty-one British Fantasy Awards, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association. One of Britain’s most acclaimed horror and dark fantasy writers and editors, he has more than 140 books to his credit, including The Art of Horror Movies: An Illustrated History, the film books of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and Stardust, The Illustrated Monster Movie Guide and The Hellraiser Chronicles; the non-fiction studies Horror: 100 Best Books and Horror: Another 100 Best Books (both with Kim Newman); the single-author collections Necronomicon and Eldritch Tales by H. P. Lovecraft, The Complete Chronicles of Conan and Conan’s Brethren by Robert E. Howard, and Curious Warnings: The Great Ghost Stories of M.R. James; plus such anthologies as Horrorology: The Lexicon of Fear, Fearie Tales: Stories of the Grimm and Gruesome, A Book of Horrors, The Mammoth Book of Vampires, The Lovecraft Squad, and Zombie Apocalypse! series, and twenty-eight volumes of Best New Horror. You can visit his web site at www.stephenjoneseditor.com or follow him on Facebook at “Stephen Jones-Editor.”