by Brian Hodge
Elliot was about to head back down the creek bed when Timmy tugged on his shirt. A flash had caught the five-year-old's eye. It was far away, whatever it was. The setting sun was reflecting off something shiny. Probably metal.
Gunning the bike, Elliot moved up the creek bank and tried to figure out where the flash had come from. After a moment, he did. The old Navajo burial ground.
"That place is scary," Timmy said. "Everybody says it's hunted."
"That's haunted. Shut up, will you, I'm trying to think." Elliot paused, picked some gravel out of his skin, and tried to decide if he wanted to go check it out or not. The old graveyard gave him a major case of the creeps, even if he wouldn't admit it to his younger brother. That big old white cross made him think about church, and that made him think about hell, which was where his grandfather said he was going if he didn't straighten up and fly right.
The wind made funny noises up there. It always sounded like somebody crying. He revved his engine. What had made that flash? Finally, curiosity won out. It could be something worth stealing.
As Elliot gazed toward the graveyard in the far distance, he saw the flash had been caused by a car. No, hold on. It was three cars. They were just sitting there all in a row, nose to ass, like elephants in a parade. They were just specks, too far away for him to identify them. Elliot held his ground, looking for signs of the owners.
After about ten minutes, he was convinced the place was deserted.
Jesus, this was really weird. There was no road leading out here, yet somebody had driven these cars out into the middle of nowhere and left them. Excitement grew in his stomach. Cars had stereos. Stereos could be ripped off. And sold. For cash.
Then there were tires, car seats, engine parts, and that was just to start.
He grew light-headed at the possibilities.
As he drifted closer, guided by the white cross that rose above the graveyard, he recognized two of the cars. One belonged to Bobby Roberts, the other to his dad, Chester, but the third was a BMW Elliot had never seen before. It wore silver paint and dusty Texas plates.
The teenager's hopes for quick riches diminished somewhat. "That's Bobby's car," Timmy said. "He'll cut off your balls if you touch it."
"Shut up." A fly settled on Elliot's face, crawled toward his still-bleeding chin. He waved it away.
This whole scene was getting weirder by the minute, all of the cars were chained together, bumper to bumper, and he could see that the white Caddy had towed the other two out here.
He climbed off his bike and listened, but he couldn't hear much. His ears were still ringing from the bike. Now that he had stopped moving, the heat was like a blast furnace. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, trickled down, stinging the scrapes on his chin. More flies gathered on his face as he walked toward the cars. One crawled in his open mouth. He absentmindedly spat it out.
Rocks clattered beneath his feet. He stopped. What if someone was inside out of the cars? He scooped up a handful of small stones and fired a couple of them at Chester's Caddy. The sound was loud but nobody inside sat up. Nobody yelled at him.
He called out Bobby's name. No answer.
"Where is everybody?" Timmy asked. The distance ate his voice.
The sun dipped behind the mountains and suddenly it was ten degrees cooler, just like that. It never ceased to amaze Elliot how fast things could change out here. The evening breeze sprang up, began rocking the pines that surrounded the graveyard, causing them to creak. That was bad enough. But soon that weird crying noise would start up. He wanted to be gone before that happened. Long gone.
He started to kick his bike back to life.
Hesitated.
Elliot couldn't resist looking inside the cars. Just a quick peek. A chance like this might never come along again. He inched closer, still convinced someone was going to raise up and scare the crap out of him.
The BMW fascinated him and he knew he had to look inside it first. He had only seen pictures of cars like that.
Another rock bounced off the window brought no protest, so he opened the door. Strange exotic odors drifted from inside, new leather, shampooed carpet, freshly painted metal. These were odors that Elliot had only dreamed about in his most secret wet dreams. He had to climb inside.
The BMW smelled better than the girl's john at school and was clean enough to eat off the floorboard. It had a pair of fuzzy pink dice dangling from the rearview. One said DORA, the other me. He sat there staring at the gauges, trying to figure out their purpose. His hands caressed the steering wheel. If he had a car like this, the babes would be begging for mercy.
Reluctantly, he pulled himself from the BMW.
Chester's car was bourbon, cigars, sweaty sex. Elliot found some loose change, a half-pint bottle with an inch of Jim Beam in it. He put the change in his pocket, drank the Beam. "You tell the old man, you ain't coming with me again."
Bobby's car smelled like dust, cheap after-shave, and stale beer. There was another odor, hanging in the dry air, and it was one he couldn't quite identify. It smelled like perfume, but it seemed as if the perfume had been poured over something that didn't smell so good. He slapped at a fly buzzing around his face.
Man, the place was crawling with flies.
From where he stood, he saw lines of tracks leading to the graveyard and he realized someone had made several trips from the Caddy in front.
As though that person had moved something from the car. To the graveyard.
The sound of buzzing slowly seeped into his ringing ears and he looked around, trying to figure out where it was coming from. He didn't see anything at first. Now that the sun was doing its disappearing act behind the mountains, darkness was coming quick. He flipped on the bike's light and swept it around, feeling the first twinges of panic.
Timmy pointed.
At first Elliot didn't see anything, but the buzzing grew louder. Agitated.
The noise was coming from back by the fence.
He flashed the light in that direction, saw movement His eyes were drawn to the graveyard, to the blue-green iridescent blanket covering the stones beneath the white cross. Part of it reached up the cross itself.
Elliot's mouth fell open.
The blanket was moving by itself. Rippling in the breeze, ebbing, flowing.
The gawky teenager stared without comprehension . until he realized he was looking at blowflies. The entire graveyard was crawling with blowflies. The reason he hadn't heard them before was because his ears had been ringing from the bike. His light was disturbing their feeding. The flies rose in a wave, descended.
There must be thousands of them. Maybe tens of thousands.
What were they feeding on? He suddenly decided he didn't want to know.
He bolted to his bike, straddled it. This was getting past weird, way past, this was getting into scary. He kicked the starter. The engine coughed once, went silent. He went to give the starter another kick.
"Hey, Elliot, Timmy, what's your hurry?"
Elliot looked around for the voice, didn't see anyone. "Who's there?"
"It's me, Bobby Roberts."
"Bobby, where are you?" Timmy asked. "I don't see you." He smirked. "Elliot was in your car."
"I'm right here."
They heard a clatter from inside the graveyard fence, which sounded as though something were moving the rocks around. Elliot flashed his bike light in that direction, and still all he saw were the flies. They covered everything.
A huge glob of the flies moved away from the rest and began heading toward Elliot. Their buzzing became a tangible thing. A few of them flew away from the rest, landed on his face. He felt them crawling on his skin but he was too numb to brush them away. Something, maybe it was an arm, reached upward from the roiling mass, holding an object, slapped it against the cross. It turned into a hat.
"Be with you in a second," the voice said. The hat began beating against the bigger glob of flies, causing them to lift, revealing a man beneath. Bobby Roberts.
>
"Hey, Elliot, Timmy, how you boys doing?"
Elliot redoubled his efforts to start his bike, but in his haste, he flooded it. The sharp tang of gasoline overrode the riper odor of Bobby as he walked closer.
"You ever have one of those nights where everything goes wrong?" Bobby asked with a laugh. He kept beating off the flies with his hat. "So much to do, so little time. There just aren't enough hours in the night." The flies wouldn't seem to leave Bobby alone. Sometimes, parts of him would completely disappear beneath their squirming bodies. "I guess you're wondering what I'm doing out here."
Elliot tried to nod. Timmy whimpered.
"Carelessness, pure and simple," Bobby said, as if he were talking about the price of beef. "Got caught by the rising sun and I had to burrow in under those rocks back there. It's cool under the trees." His smile was a trifle embarrassed. "But I damn sure didn't count on all these flies. It must have been the dead dogs that brought them."
Elliot was unable to look away. Timmy had his face buried in his brother's back again. Elliot had to admit it was a little disconcerting talking to someone whose head kept disappearing beneath a mass of blowflies. "Bobby, don't get mad, but could I ask you something?"
"Sure, little buddy, ask away."
"How come you're all covered with flies?"
"I expect it's because my clothes are all soaked with blood." Bobby walked toward his Caddy, opened up the trunk and pulled out some clean jeans and a shirt.
"Bobby?"
"What, little buddy?"
"Did you kill somebody?"
"I killed a lot of people."
"Are you going to kill us?"
"I expect so." Bobby began changing into his clean clothes.
He wadded up his old ones and tossed them over the fence.
Timmy whispered in his brother's ear, "See, I told you he'd cut your balls off."
The flies swarmed over Bobby's blood-crusted shirt and jeans. "I guess you'll want to know why."
Elliot nodded.
"Well, I've got a little surprise for Crowder Flats, and I can't have you two spoiling it."
"You mean like a surprise birthday party?" Timmy asked.
"Yeah, something like that."
"Are you a monster?"
"Fraid so." Bobby was completely changed now. "I guess I'm what you'd call a vampire. It's the only term you'd understand."
"No shit?"
''No shit."
Elliot couldn't decide if he was excited or scared. This was definitely the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him. "You like it okay, I mean, being a vampire and everything?"
"No, not really. The thing inside me makes me do things I don't really want to do."
"Like killing us."
"That's right." Bobby closed the trunk. The sound had a note of finality in it.
"Vampires get all the babes," Timmy said. "Could you make us vampires?"
Bobby laughed, sailed his bloodstained hat over the fence, where it landed next to his old clothes. The flies descended. "You've been watching way too many bad movies, boys." Bobby's face turned serious in the bike's light, his good humor falling away. All that was left was pain and it twisted his mouth into a crooked line. "You don't want to be a vampire, Timmy. It ain't nothing like what you think. You're better off being dead, believe me."
"We can work a deal," Elliot said. "How about we promise not to say anything about what we saw here, and you don't kill us?"
The smile was back, only now it looked painted on. "You always were a funny kid, Elliot. All that crazy shit you do, spearing jackrabbits, lighting the barbecue grill with a flamethrower. I'm going to miss you." Bobby moved around the car, started toward him.
Cocking his head, Elliot sniffed the air. There was no gasoline smell now. He stepped down, kicked the bike to life, revved the engine.
Bobby stopped. He looked pissed. "You were just stalling me, weren't you?"
"Yeah, my bike was flooded."
"All right, maybe I was a little hasty." Bobby backed up a step. "Maybe we can work out a deal on this vampire thing."
"Fuck you, Bobby; you must think I'm a retard. Get out of the way." Elliot revved the engine again, dropped the pole he still held in his hand to jousting position. "I mean it, get out of the way." The sharp end was pointed at Bobby's chest.
"Vampires get all the babes." Bobby raised his head to the night air, sniffed, and Elliot had the feeling Bobby was sniffing him. "You'd like to get Louise Warrick, wouldn't you, especially after what she did to you today?"
The pole in Elliot's hand wavered. "How did you know that?"
"Vampires know lots of things." Bobby leaned against the Caddy, seemingly at ease. "You want her; I can smell it on you."
The bike idled while Elliot digested that. "You're full of shit."
"Am I?"
"Okay, so maybe I like her a little."
"If you were a vampire, you could have her."
The possibilities played across Elliot's face. "I could really have her?"
"Absolutely. You'd be able to get any woman you want."
"Even Amy?"
The skin at the corner of Bobby's eyes tightened. "Even Amy."
"I don't know, Bobby. I think I gotta go home and sleep on it."
Bobby shrugged, raised his hands. "All right. See you boys around."
While they were talking, smoke from the idling bike had drifted toward the graveyard, sending the flies into a hovering cloud.
What they had covered was becoming visible, and Timmy was quietly tugging on Elliot's shirt.
Elliot risked a quick look, turned back to Bobby. He was still holding up the Caddy.
What Elliot had seen began to register.
Five dead bodies lying in various positions of repose.
Four of them were people Elliot had known all his life. They were pale, waxy mannequins. For the first time in his life Elliot had an inkling of what death really looked like. He tried not to look again, but he couldn't stop himself.
Elliot looked back at Bobby.
Bobby wasn't by the car anymore. He had moved.
He was much closer.
And he had both hands on the pole.
The suddenness of the move startled the teenager and his hand twitched on the accelerator. The bike lurched forward.
Not much, maybe a foot.
Like magic, the pole was sticking out of Bobby's back. He looked at it with faint surprise and the embarrassed smile suddenly appeared. "That's what I get… letting my lips flap… guess becoming a vampire hasn't changed that none."
Elliot tried to turn the bike, but the cars and the fence had him hemmed in.
Blood, or whatever passed for blood, leaked from Bobby's stomach and ran down the pole. It was dark red, almost black in the light and slightly luminous, filled with specks of light that glittered like broken glass.
It stunk, too, worse than Bobby.
Timmy wrinkled his nose at the awful smell.
The black substance was a trickle at first, though as it got nearer Elliot's hand; it sped up, moving with startling speed. The teenager turned loose of the pole as though he had been burned, and scrambled back on his bike.
The blood came to the end of the pole, paused, rose up, and split into dozens of tendrils. They wriggled with agitation, as though trying to decide whether or not to go any farther. They made up their mind, shooting toward Elliot like a nest of striking rattlesnakes.
But their strike fell short.
All except for one tendril.
It brushed Elliot's hand, leaving behind a welt. And a trace of itself. Inside his mind, the fifteen-year-old had a flash of something too alien to comprehend, something that was incredibly old.
There were images, murky at first, then clearer, like one of those photographs that developed in your hand.
Elliot sucked in his breath when the images crystallized.
He saw a moon, bright as silver, clear as pain, riding over a stretch of desert that seemed to reach t
he ends of the world.
Mountains sprawled at the desert's edge, the skeletal backbone of a giant snake pushing its way up from the earth. He took a breath and looked around. The night was humid, filled with the siren call of flutes, the slow thunder of drums, the hot copper smell of blood, the screams of people crying out in pain and ecstasy. All somehow joined together.
Elliot was standing on the summit of some vast triangular stone monument, a pyramid was the word that came to him, and he was looking out over a clearing, while hundreds of thousands of dark-skinned people dressed in bright-hued clothing and exotic feathers bowed down to him. They were chanting his name and Elliot knew he was a god to them. There were steps carved into the lofty stone triangle, leading up to him, and the steps were stained red. Blood red.
Stacked along the walls of his temple were thousands of skulls, some bleached white, some still dripping.
The sea of worshippers held out their arms to him. Beckoning. Imploring.
He moved down the familiar route to the throng waiting below, listening to them call out his name. "Huitzilopochtli, Huitzilopochtli," they screamed, their faces twisted with adoration and fear. Some began tearing at their own flesh with the knives in their hands.
As Elliot reached the base of the pyramid, they fell silent. The wind ruffling their bright feathers, their torches guttering, were the only sounds.
As one, two hundred thousand people held their breath, looking to him. A feeling of expectation hung in the air, a hush so palpable he could reach out and touch it. Time ceased.
Gazing toward the summit of the pyramid, he gave a signal to the people gathered there. They were his priests, sworn to him.
Twenty thousand men, women, and children kneeled before the priests, their faces serene. They gazed down at their god with love.
He basked in their adulation a moment. Gave another signal.
And the stone knives of his priests cut out the hearts of those who knelt. The wet blades traced faint, arcane glimmers in the moonlight as they went about their work.
The chosen were slaughtered in a matter of seconds. Even as they died, they called out their god's name.