by Brian Hodge
A breath passed in which, if the sultan had uttered another sound, consequences be damned, he would have died. Vlad knew the message was clear in his eyes, and he saw the momentary quiver in his captor's smile. Very slight, very quick, but no less real for all that.
"I will do as you say, sire," Vlad answered calmly, "because I believe it best for my people. I will live as my father lives, doing as you bid, as long as what you bid serves the common good. You have spoken of honor – it is obviously not a concept you cherish, or you would know that, horrible as your threats have been, dizzying as the reality of these creatures is to my heart and mind, I will not be your slave."
"I would never consider such a thing," the sultan smiled. "Go to your quarters, Prince Vlad. Clean yourself and get some wine. Find another girl. Just see that you do not forget … wherever you go they can find you. There is no escape."
Vlad knew that there was no way that he could share this experience with anyone. He could tell his brother, little Radu, but Radu was weak. He had always been the weak one, and if he believed the tale at all, it would only add to that weakness. He might tell their father, were they to meet again in this life, but to what purpose?
So he had an enemy. A new, very powerful enemy. An enemy that dropped from the shadows and drank the very life from your blood. An enemy that he did not know. Of these facts, only the last was intolerable. Only the last could he do anything about.
Without a word, he slipped past the sultan and out of the cell, being careful not to go near any portal or window that looked as if it might skirt the border of that courtyard. It was daylight outside, and yet he did not feel as though he could face those bent and twisted trees. Nor did he feel the urge to approach the spot where Myrna had lain, or to search for her remains. What he wanted he could not have – freedom from the memory of what had happened in the night. Freedom from those eyes, those dripping fangs and that hypnotic voice.
One of the corpses slid further down its stake with a sickening lurch and the sound brought him back to the present. The horror of the memory lingered and transcended coherent thought. He knew the vyrkolakes now, knew them as no living man could know them, as no man living should know them. He felt their pain, knew where and when they would strike before they knew themselves. He had lived and breathed their lore, and he knew the ways of their deaths.
He had not kept his word to the sultan, as he'd known, in the end, he could not. He'd learned more of the church and its God as he matured, learned more of love, war, and hate than he'd believed possible. He'd learned death best of all.
Turks. Any of them could be the one, any of them could be the demon set to stalk him, to drag him into the realms of nightmare and blood. Any of them. He had no idea how many he'd killed, how many of his own people, seen through fevered eyes in moments of rage, that he'd added to that total. The stake was the only sure way, the only absolute in any of it. He could take no chances, could afford no weakness. If he were caught alone, or unaware, he would be theirs, and evil as he himself had become in their eyes, his people and those of the church needed him … his strength, his wisdom in battle – his ruthlessness.
He heard a creak, felt droplets of blood drip down his neck toward his collar, and he turned. It was the woman. She refused to die – refused to meet her maker. As he watched, his eyes widened and his heart tripped like the drums at a festival, faster and faster, running out to become a trembling in his arms and fingers.
The woman was not sliding down the stake with the force of gravity. She was not sliding anywhere. She was reaching out, one hand after the other, and she was dragging herself down the pole. He watched in dark fascination as she struggled, heard the sickening wrench of the stake as she forced herself downward, clawing ever nearer. The madness in her eyes turned to a glow of pure hatred, and something – something deeper, older, and more chilling.
Words slid like sand over yellowed, elongated teeth. Her hands became claws and her progress more pronounced, until at last her feet came to rest on the ground before him. Placing them firmly, she gave a great wrench, and the stake tore free. Almost contemptuously, she dragged it the final two feet through her torso and tossed it aside.
"No," he said softly. "No. The stake should end your life – your death-life."
"It would be so," she hissed, taking a step nearer, "were I only what you believe me to be, Vlad Tepes, son of the Dragon. You truly do not recognize me, do you?"
His head was shaking back and forth, perhaps in answer, perhaps in negation only. His hands were white with tension as they pressed into the arms of his chair – his crude wooden throne – readying his body to leap free, to run like the wind.
With a cackle void of mirth, the woman snatched at one of the bodies that hung near where she stood, ripping it downward. As the blood burst free of the corpse in her hands, she gulped it down greedily, huge, heaving swallows that inhaled more than was possible, more than he could believe. And she changed.
At first it was subtle, the lessening of the twist in her back, the glossy, gossamer soft hair sprouting – materializing? – where only grey patches had clung, a firming of the muscles. Vlad tried to send the message to his limbs that would carry him away, tried to galvanize his frame, to move as he had moved so many times, to fight yet again.
She turned. It was her. No mistaking it. Age and years had spun their web over the features of young Prince Vlad, but Myrna was ageless and beautiful. What had been bright and fresh, naive and endearing, was now tragically beautiful. A woman's eyes – or a demon’s – stared from beneath arched brows. Her lips twisted in a smile so powerful, so erotic and enticing, that he grew hard, even as his blood ran to ice.
"Oh," she sighed, almost coquettishly, "you remember me now?"
He fell backward again, into time, into memories that battered at his sanity. He did not run. There was no power left to his limbs, no will to resist pounding through his veins. He stood, and he waited. That much dignity he maintained, though the urge to fling himself forward into her arms was ripping at his control.
"You?" He'd meant it as a statement, meant to fill his words with hatred, with bile. They came out soft, gentle, familiar as an old nightmare. It seemed so right, somehow, after years of fear, with lost lives and broken dreams scattered behind him like the dead shells on an endless beach. She had wanted only him. She had chosen him, over Ahmed, over life.
"There was nothing I could do," he said finally. "I was prisoner, held against my will. I could not come to you, and you would not listen when I called to you."
"Oh, but I heard you," she laughed darkly. "I heard you, heard your terror, even through my own. Would you have truly come to me, Vlad? Would you have forsaken the light and life for me? I think not, but I'd like to dream it so."
As she spoke, she moved closer. He trembled, but he did not turn away, nor did he approach her. She was lovelier than he remembered. Her figure was the same, and yet somehow the curves had sharpened, become more voluptuous in their angularity. Her skin, always fair, was pale like the moonlight.
He remembered his last image of her, a crumpled flower, wilted and torn. Torn for his benefit, to teach him a lesson, not for anything she herself had done. As her breath wafted over him, drowning him in the scent of death and decay, he imagined that he smelled lilies – decadent, damp and rotten, lilies long on the grave, and yet sweet.
As she took him into her embrace, drew him close to pierce his flesh, he pulled back – but not far. "How?" he asked. "The stake, it should have killed you … it should have brought you peace. How?"
"It is not the stake, Vlad," she whispered, letting her fangs brush once more against the skin of his throat, "it is the sunlight. You staked me, but at sunset – when my powers wax strong. You have killed many, but few Vyrkolakes...very few, and all by daylight. You didn't even know them when they passed."
"Besides," she continued, running long, slender fingers through his hair, "I could never have left without you. From the moment I heard the sultan
's promise, I knew it would be my charge to come to you, to bring you home. You have been mine all along, Vlad Dracula, mine and the night's"
He closed his eyes then as she grew silent and moved back to his throat, holding him with tenderness and strength beyond his wildest imaginings. He felt himself flow out and through her, felt his senses die and awaken at once … felt at last the chill, final touch of death – and beyond.
As the moon rose to her throne, the blood of Vlad the Impaler joined that of his final victims, soaking into the earth and disappearing. A lone figure walked away over the nearby hills. She was slight, slender and willowy, and her hair blew about her like the petals of a dark, blossoming flower. In her arms, like a child, she cradled a still form, carrying it into legend.
Cockroach Suckers
Near The Great Dismal Swamp, everything grows. Bugs thrive. Plants barely hesitate between frost and full, pollen-bearing bloom. A warm winter week can produce things that should sleep until summer. It’s in the earth. Birth, rebirth – death.
Whatever grows must decompose. That is truth. As the sun set in a splash of deep violet and dark purple above the tree line, Jasper Winslow was contemplating that truth. He was rocking slowly in an ancient pressed back chair, watching the road crumble and brushing flies from his sweat-slicked brow.
Jasper wasn’t an old man, but he was no pup. He’d been running his father’s farm pretty much on his own since he turned twenty, and he’d been selling the excess produce at this out-of-the-way, run-down stand for just as long. The boards were gray, warped and without a sign of peeling paint left to indicate they’d ever been white. The swamp was a ways down the road and across a field, but its creeping, encroaching presence worked its way closer every year. The road had nearly washed out in the last flood, and only a dump truck or two of gravel and half a dozen lazy state highway workers had prevented it.
Down the road in the opposite direction, spitting up a shower of dust and stone in its wake, a pickup truck turned off the freeway, bouncing and weaving down the two-lane gravel road. The back of the truck was covered with a blue tarp that flapped in the breeze. Something poked out from beneath that tarp, but it was still too far away for Jasper to see. The truck was Bobby Lee’s, a grimy green colored Ford as old as Methuselah and twice as cantankerous. Whitish smoke billowed from the tailpipe, and the truck listed heavily to the left, obviously struggling under an unfamiliar load.
Jasper reached down to his left, flipped up the lid on a rusted old metal cooler, fished in the ice and water until he found a beer, and pulled it free. He twisted off the top, slammed the cooler closed with a practiced motion, and leaned back again. He drained a third of the bottle in one quick drag, then sat, resting it on the bulky expanse of his belly, and watched Bobby Lee park.
The truck wheezed, gasped, and died with the rumble of an engine that doesn’t want to quit running, despite its inability to do so. The belch of smoke that erupted from Bobby Lee’s pipes was so reminiscent of a giant fart that Jasper broke into a grin.
“You runnin’ that thing on beans?” he hollered, not getting up, but raising a hand in greeting. Bobby Lee was Jasper’s best friend in the world, but it was hot, and Jasper Winslow rose for no man, once he’d started rocking.
Bobby Lee clambered down from the driver’s seat, slammed the door without looking back and grinned. “Got one a’ them nitro bottles up front,” he said, nodding. “Filled it with Hall-a PENYAS just yesterday. You ought to see her run when I punch that chili button.”
Jasper laughed. With an uncharacteristic flash of energy, he opened the cooler again, grabbed a second cold beer, and flipped it through the air. Bobby Lee caught it neatly, brought the bottle to the brim of his faded Catfish Hunter Baseball cap with a flourish that resembled a salute, and twisted off the top.
“I just bet,” Jasper commented. “Day you waste a Halla Pennya on that truck is the day I quit drinking.
Both of them laughed at that.
“What you got in the truck, Bobby Lee?” Jasper asked, eyeing the oddly draped tarp and the still listing rear end of the truck. “Some sorta tractor?”
Bobby Lee grinned. He took another pull off his beer, and then shook his head. “Nope. I got me a gold mine, is what. I got the answer to all our problems.” He sipped his beer and his grin widened.
Jasper frowned. When he frowned, his brow furrowed, and the expression never ceased to widen Bobby Lee’s grin.
“Don’t think too hard,” Bobby Lee advised. “I know you’ve been conservin’ that gray matter all these years – be a shame to waste it now.”
Jasper considered getting up. Bobby Lee needed his ass kicked, and there wasn’t anyone else around to take up his slack, but for the moment, he held his peace. He was rocking, and that was important. So was the beer, and it was only half done.
“What’s in the truck?” he asked again. This time, his eyes narrowed, and his voice had taken on a cold, empty tone.
Bobby Lee watched him a moment longer, still chuckling, then he spoke.
“You still got that old tin shed you had stored behind your mom’s place?” he asked, ignoring Jasper’s question. “You know, the one you never put together?”
“I got it,” Jasper answered. “So what? What’s in the fucking truck asshole?”
Bobby Lee hesitated a little less this time, but his smile had darkened. “Hold your horses,” he said finally, “and I’ll show you. You don’t have to be an asshole about it - I’m lettin’ you in on a good thing.”
Jasper just rocked. He was one step closer to rising from the chair and doing what had to be done, but he let it ride a last time.
Bobby drained his beer, tossed the bottle aside and turned back to his truck with a curse. “Ought to just leave you here and keep it for myself,” he growled. When he got no response, his shoulders sagged, just enough to be perceptible, and he stepped to the truck. There were three ties holding the tarp in place on the near side. Bobby undid them quickly. Then he stepped to the back of the truck, gripped the blue plastic tightly, and with a flourish, he yanked it free.
Jasper stopped rocking. He drained his beer, reached around to set it on the cooler, let go of it and missed by six inches. He gripped the arms of his chair tightly, half-rising. “What the f … “
What rose from the bed of the truck took his breath away. Jasper fell back with a thump, setting the rocker in motion again and nearly tipped over backward. He gasped, tried to speak, fell silent and gasped again. Without thinking, he reached down and retrieved another beer. It was half gone when Bobby Lee, grinning once again, stepped closer, leaned down, and winked.
“What do you think of her? She’s somethin’, ain’t she?” he said.
Jasper gulped more beer, rocked forward and gained his feet. He staggered forward, reached out a hand to steady himself against the truck, and then reached up to run his hand over polished wood that literally swam with tiny intricate detail and what appeared to be words, or letters, or symbols. Who knew? Who the fuck knew and who cared?
“It’s a . . double-D goddam COCKROACH,” he pronounced in amazement.
“The world’s largest,” Bobby Lee agreed, cackling. “Ain’t she a beaut? I picked her up down at the flea market. They tried three weeks to sell her, but nobody knew what they was lookin’ at.”
“They didn’t know it was a cockroach?” Jasper turned, his face a wrinkled map of confusion. “How they hell could they not know that? The fucking thing’s seven foot tall, Bobby.”
It was all of that. Rising up so that its antennae floated above the cab of the truck, the gigantic wooden vermin leaned to its left, apparently off-balance, making the truck list crazily. The detail was amazing, like some sort of ART or something. Jasper scratched his head and tilted his hat back to facilitate the motion. Who in HELL would go to that kind of trouble for a goddam cockroach?
“She’s a antique,” Bobby continued. “Feller said he didn’t know how old it was. Picked it up at an Indian camp about ten years ago.
Had her in his barn ever since, but his wife said it had ta go. They don’t make a Raid can big enough, so here she is.”
Bobby was still grinning. Jasper was still frowning.
“But,” Jasper formed both thoughts and words carefully, and this one was a corker. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for it, and so he had to figure it out, one word at a time. “Why?”
“Why what?” Bobby asked. “Why did his wife want him to get rid of her, or why aren’t there giant Raid cans?”
Bobby had sense enough to back up at this, raising his hands and laughing.
“Easy, hoss,” he said. “Hear me out. You ever been out west? I have. I traveled out to Kansas once with my Pa. There’s some mountains over there where ... well, anyway, I went there. You know what we saw along that highway?”
“Fields?” Jasper guessed, trying to follow.
“We saw fields, for sure,” Bobby grinned, “but there was something else. We saw the world’s largest Prairie Dog. We saw the biggest ball of string ever, and we saw the footprints of dinosaurs, preserved in the mud. Every time we saw one of them things, you know what we had to do? We had to pay. You know what Pa said every time, just as we left? He said we was suckers. Didn’t stop him from wanting to see the world’s largest sausage link, or from payin’, but he knew. I know too. That ain’t a cockroach, ol’ buddy. That’s a goldmine.”
Jasper was still staring up at the wooden monstrosity. Its eyes glittered in the sunlight, polished and seeming to glare down at him from their cocked, off-kilter angle.
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about, Bobby? It’s a damned roach. A BIG roach, no mistakin’ that, but still a roach. A goddam filthy infest-yer-house and eat your chicken roach. Where’s the money in that? Hell, anyone sees it now, they won’t buy my fruit.”