Chapter 1:05 — Legion
2310 Maple Drive is a nondescript suburban home buried in winter. If it wasn’t for the multiple tire tracks crushing the snow on the front lawn, there would be no sign of the tragedy that unfolded here this morning when Eva Gunter took her own life. But I’m not convinced this was suicide. In my mind, there is an evil that binds these deaths, something insidious, hidden in the shadows.
The two story home has a large wooden fence on one side, erected by the neighbor on the left. A “Beware of the Dog” sign indicates why, but from my perspective, this limits the options. The neighbor on this side could never have seen in through a basement window.
I walk around the front of the home with my boots crunching in the snow. On the far side, a chain-link fence separates the adjacent property. There are two low windows on this side of the house, but they’re mostly buried in snow. How anyone could see in them, I don’t know. I doubt they did. There are no footprints other than mine, and the next property begins with a garage. No windows look out from the neighbor’s house toward 2310 Maple.
My fingers tighten on the compact Colt 45 buried in my jacket pocket, and I shrug my shoulders, fighting off more than the bitter cold. This is the point of no return. Am I being overly paranoid? Irrational? Insane? Perhaps there’s some other rational explanation I’ve overlooked.
I tell myself, I’ve read too much into the ramblings of a nineteenth century gothic author. Bram Stoker never intended Dracula to be taken literally, but perhaps he never believed in the historic origins of the notes he compiled.
Somehow, Stoker stumbled upon the journal entries of Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray, Professor van Helsing and Dr. Seward. For him, this was a fantastic tale and he played with the possibilities, elaborating on what must have seemed to be incoherent ramblings at times. The idea that evil walks through the centuries, transcending generations, must have been intoxicating on the cusp of a new age. Such tales are a throwback to the superstitions of the dark ages, a time before scientific enlightenment. To Stoker, the rough notes must have been tantalizing, almost romantic in their allure.
My boots halt on the wooden steps leading to the front door.
I’m Renfield, delirious, mad at the prospect of meeting the prince of the undead.
I’m Jonathan Harker, reluctant to confront the Count.
I’m Mina, forced to be brave when she would otherwise flee, and yet it is the lament of van Helsing that sits heavy in my heart—this evil can lay dormant for generations, defeating us with the mere passage of time.
Now I understand what happen between Mavis Harrison, James Fallon and Eva Gunter. Eva was supposed to kill Fallon—that was the plan. She would have been a hero. She would have been lauded for killing a murderer, and no one would have been the wiser. Thus the vampire would have slipped away unseen, only the gun went off prematurely, wasting the last bullet. From there, the creature had to improvise. Fallon and Gunter committed suicide, no doubt swayed by some unearthly spell—the creature had to clean up its mess. As for me, I needed to be warned, scared into abandoning the trail.
I pause with my gloved hand clenched tight in a fist, hovering inches from the wooden door in anticipation of an age old confrontation between good and evil playing out once again. I should wait. I should take a police officer inside with me, but they wouldn’t understand. That was Fallon’s problem, or should I say, Eva’s once she was displaced into the body of a killer. I check my phone for any last messages, and activate the microphone, wanting to capture an electronic recording of the vampire.
With a sense of authority I don’t rightly have, I pound on the door.
A woman cracks open the heavy wooden door, hiding behind a security chain.
“Can I help you?”
“Jasmine Halter?” I ask, holding up my ID. It’s not a police badge, but it does have the state seal and a photograph on it. To an untrained eye, it should be intimidating. “My name’s Dr. Jane Langford. I’m working with the police, investigating the death of your neighbor.”
“I thought it was suicide,” Jasmine replies, sounding defensive.
“Oh, it was,” I say, trying to dismiss any suspicion on her part, wanting her to play along. “Tragic—and yet even in heartbreaking circumstances like these, there’s a standard process we follow, gathering background information from associates for statistical purposes, so we can recognize trigger events and prevent future tragedies.”
Jasmine nods, but I’m not sure she’s convinced, so I add, “Paperwork and procedure—they’re tedious, but that’s police work for you.”
“So young,” Jasmine says, opening the door and letting me in. “And with such a young family.”
“Yes,” I reply. I feel as though social norms demand we avoid eye contact, if only for a second so as to make each other feel more at ease given the grave subject, but neither of us makes the first move. Neither of us is willing to look away. It’s clear, we don’t trust each other. Our eyes betray us, revealing bitter determination on both sides.
Jasmine Halter is petite, probably in her early forties. She appears quiet and unassuming, and is soft spoken, with tender blue eyes. It’s hard to realize I am staring into the face of death as I smile politely and say, “Thank you for meeting with me.”
Jasmine leads me into an open plan living room with a vast, modern kitchen at the rear. The home is lavishly furnished, with a leather couch, recliner, and a massive flat screen television. Heat radiates from the vents throughout the house.
“Langford,” she says, casually recalling my name. “Dr. Langford, right?” She recognizes the name, which isn’t a surprise given she sent me a pack of wolves this morning.
I ignore her, making small talk. “So, what are you and your family doing on this chilly Saturday afternoon?”
“Oh,” Jasmine replies with a warm smile as she adds fresh water to a coffee machine. “Bill and the kids are at the mall shopping for Christmas presents.”
There were no tire tracks outside. The snow in front of the garage was pristine and untouched. My heart sinks at the realization they’re already dead.
“Coffee?”
“Sure,” I say, smiling politely.
Jasmine turns her back to me, opening a cupboard and reaching for a coffee mug. I stuff my thick gloves in my pocket and pull out the Colt 45. Jasmine stops, pausing when she hears the sound of the safety clicking into the off position. Even though her back is to me, she knows.
“Well,” she says, still smiling as she turns to face me. “This isn’t exactly standard police procedure, now is it?”
“These aren’t your everyday murders,” I say in reply, trying to keep my hand steady as I level the gun at her.
“And how are you going to explain this?” she asks. “Are you willing to go to jail for twenty years for killing me in cold blood?”
There are no pretenses between us.
“I’m counting on there being bodies in the upstairs bedroom,” I say, summoning my courage.
Jasmine laughs, smiling with what can only be described as unbridled wickedness, but I will not be deterred. I came here for answers as well as justice.
“Who are you?”
“Who am I?” she replies, pointing at herself. “My name is legion, for we are many.”
My blood runs cold at her casual use of a plural pronoun.
“Stay back,” I yell, pointing my gun as though it were a wooden stake about to plunge through her chest and pierce her heart, but she walks calmly around the marble countertop, retrieving a large kitchen knife from a wooden block.
“Put it down,” I say, backing up and keeping plenty of distance between us.
“This?” she says. “Don’t worry about this. I’m not going to kill you with a knife. No, that would be too easy. I think I’ll use the gun you’re holding instead.”
With a wicked smile, she says, “This is just a little insurance. Evidence.”
“It’s over,” I say, raising the handgun and holding it stea
dy at arm’s length, aiming for the center of her chest. “Take one more step and I’ll fire.”
“Oh, I’m counting on you pulling that trigger,” she says, calling my bluff and edging forward as I step back, bumping into a coffee table. As much as I try, I can’t hide the fear racing through my veins.
Jasmine says, “You didn’t really think a mere handgun would kill me, did you?”
There’s no more than ten feet between us, and she has a knife. The time for words is over. I grip the gun with both hands, cupping my left hand beneath my right, and fire rapidly. The gun kicks with each shot, and I have to fight to keep the gun down and on target.
The gunfire is deafening inside the lounge. The first shot catches her in the center of her chest, plunging into her sternum, the second lands high and to the right, tearing through her shoulder. The third leaves a bloody mess at the base of her throat, but the heart. I have to hit the heart, and multiple times.
Jasmine drops the knife in an involuntary spasm as bullets tear through her body. Somehow, she still has the strength to lunge at me. She reels with the impact of each bullet, staggering forward as I back away. By the time I’m squeezing off the fourth round, her right hand is reaching for my Colt 45. Her fingers brush against my wrist in a feeble attempt to grab the gun, but her chest is exposed. I push the handgun hard into her ribs as I fire again and again in rapid succession. Five, six, seven rounds lash out of the barrel, and she collapses backwards. Eight, nine, ten. I advance on her as I fire, shooting down into the center of her bloody chest, destroying her heart as she writhes on the floor in agony.
Her body shudders with each thundering impact, and yet still she reaches for me.
I have no pity for this wretched creature. She lies awkwardly on the bloodstained carpet with one leg bent behind her, and her head twisted unnaturally to the side, yet still she clings to the last vestiges of life. With outstretched hands clawing at the air, she struggles to breathe.
Eleven shots, and the extended magazine is empty. The block on the top of the Colt remains back, awaiting more ammo.
Her eyes haunt me. I can see the vale of death descending, the looming awareness that these are her final fleeting seconds of life. There’s heartache, hurt, astonishment, disbelief in her eyes.
Words form on her lips, but no sound comes forth, and suddenly, the change comes over her. Whereas moments before, life animated this complex arrangement of molecules called a body, now she’s inert, dead, as lifeless as the coffee table beside her.
Outside, blue and red lights break through the gloom. A female police officer stands beside the window staring in. I’m not sure how long she’s been there, but she sees me holding the gun as I stand over the body.
How am I going to explain this? No one will believe what’s happened? Do I lie? How much should I distort the facts to protect myself?
I toss the gun on the couch and raise my hands, clasping them behind my head so there’s no misunderstanding. Two police officers come bursting through the front door.
“Jane?” one of them cries, recognizing me, but I don’t know her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, Liz,” I reply, shortening the name on her badge from the more formal Elizabeth.
Liz leads me to one side, away from the dead body, saying, “What the hell happened here?”
“It’s a long story.”
She says, “We’re going to need to take a formal statement from you. Remain here while we secure the crime scene.”
“Okay.”
There are four police officers in the house now, but they’re all quite relaxed around me even though there’s a dead body bleeding out on the carpet. One of them bags the Colt and then moves on to bag the knife as evidence. Several officers talk into their radios, providing updates to command. Outside, two more squad cars pull up.
“Check upstairs,” I say to one of the officers standing in the open doorway. “You’ll find three bodies in the bedroom. A man and two children. A boy and a girl.”
Boots pound up the stairs.
I’m exhausted.
Damn, that was close.
No one’s been able to get that close to me since Jonathan Harker.
I lean back on a low counter, half sitting on it.
“You’re shaking,” Liz says.
“Yeah,” I reply, trying to put on a brave face. I can’t look too happy, but I need to look relieved. From here on out, I’ve got to avoid attention. What should have been a simple bait-and-switch in the gas station became all too complicated when the damn gun ran out of bullets. Jane almost had me, but after seventeen thousand years, I’ve learned what it means to be a survivor.
Transitions are always smoother when the switch dies immediately, as it did this afternoon, and as it did in the foothills of the Carpathian mountains when I sacrificed the frame of the Count to become Jonathan Harker. Like Jane, he too couldn’t fathom what happened to him in those final few seconds. On that grey, overcast day, I slit his throat and denied him the chance to cry aloud and spoil my escape. Quincy Morris then plunged a dagger deep into his heart, destroying that old body and turning it to ash.
I need to keep a low profile, but to indulge in the taste of life is ecstasy. Death is a drug, and I cannot deny myself. But for now, I must move on.
“How did you know?” Liz asks, distracting me from my thoughts.
“Lucky guess,” I say. “Just following a hunch.”
My mind is elsewhere. A thousand voices crowd my head, screaming to be heard. Patience, my friends. We are nearly there. It is but seven hundred years until our rescue arrives and we can flee this accursed planet.
“You did a good job,” Liz says, and I look up, being dragged back into the moment by her presence. I can hear the soft rhythm of her heart beating. I can smell the sweet scent of her sweat glands responding to a rush of adrenalin. I can almost taste her life force in the air. I long to feed again, but for now, I must disappear.
“Let’s get you back to the station.”
As we walk from the room, I glance back to see dead eyes staring blindly at the ceiling. Poor Jane. She never stood a chance.
BOOK TWO — WE ARE LEGION
Chapter 2:01 — Home Sweet Home
“Just here, thanks,” I say as the driver pulls up outside my apartment complex.
“That’ll be twenty-seven bucks,” he says, more out of habit than anything else, as the fare has already been paid and money exchanged at an electronic level as soon as his fingers touched the meter to close out the ride.
“Sure,” I reply, not really listening. I’m already getting out of the warm car and into the bitter cold evening. Snowflakes swirl around me, falling lazily to the deep snow smothering the lawn. I close the car door gently, only in the still of the evening it sounds as though I’ve slammed it.
Streetlights illuminate the night, making the falling snow appear like stars drifting elegantly to Earth. My shoes crunch through a crisp layer of snow on the sidewalk. Even though the snow’s been shoveled earlier in the day, there’s still a couple of inches hiding the concrete, and I am careful not to slip on any hidden ice.
Most of the apartments have their lights on, but not ours. Dark windows and a darkened doorway greet me as I arrive home. The front door is slightly ajar. It should be shut, I locked it this morning. I know I did.
My heart races. I should call the cops.
As I creep toward the open door, I spot fresh paw prints in the snow beside the path. Most of the shoe prints from this morning have been buried beneath the fresh snow fall, leaving only a faint outline or subtle indentation in the snow, but the paw prints leading to the apartment are crisp and sharply defined.
There’s a faint glow coming from inside the apartment.
“Jane?” I ask, not understanding why she didn’t pick me up from the hospital, or at least meet me at my folks’ place.
A low growl comes from the shadows within the apartment. My legs shake. I can see the outline of a wolf in the dar
kness. I can’t move. I want to turn and run, and yet I know that would be a mistake, the savage creature would be on me in seconds.
Slowly, the massive animal paces toward me, baring its teeth and snarling from the shadows. The wind whips around my legs, causing the snow to swirl about me.
“Alan?” a familiar voice says, and a light turns on inside the apartment, blinding me for a second.
Jane stands roughly where I thought I saw a wolf moments before, but my eyes must be deceiving me, as with the light on I can see through the lounge and into the kitchen.
“Jane,” I cry, rushing forward and throwing my arms around her.
Jane smiles warmly, but her face is pale. Her skin is cold and her lips are blue. She looks like a cadaver. I shake such a morbid thought from my mind.
“Alan, you scared me.”
“Me? I scared you? You scared me. I—I thought…”
“You thought what?” she asks, leading me into the apartment. The door has been open for some time, and a fine coating of snow covers the furniture near the entrance.
“Nothing,” I say, feeling immense relief. “It’s just, after this morning, I thought…”
Jane has lit a few candles and placed them around the kitchen.
“Why was the door open?” I ask. “Why were the lights off?”
“I just got in,” Jane says, but there’s something unusual in her reply. Although what she’s said is entirely plausible, she rushed her response, leaving me wondering about her sincerity.
She goes on to say, “Fuse must have blown. I had to reset the switches.”
“Oh,” I reply, seeing a slab of raw steak defrosting on a plate beside the kitchen sink. A bloody puddle has formed beneath the meat. The steak has been bitten, or perhaps chewed would be a better description. There’s an open bottle of red wine and a wineglass beside the steak. Drops of scarlet red wine have dripped onto the white marble counter. This is unlike Jane. She’s normally overprotective of the counter as getting stains out takes considerable effort.
Van Helsing's Diaries: Nosferatu Page 5