They Thirst

by Robert R. McCammon

  “What is this?” Palatazin demanded, his cheeks reddening. He knew exactly what it was, but he wanted to hear Garnette say it. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “I…the department’s giving you some time off—”

  “Damn it!” Palatazin blurted out, getting to his feet. A pulse was pounding at his temple, and he quavered with confusion and anger. “The department’s canning me, is that right?”

  “No, for Christ’s sake! Two weeks, Andy! That’s not forever!”

  “What is it? Who have you been talking to? Who’s been saying I’m crazy this time?” It dawned on him then—it had probably been that outburst at the Dos Terros tenement. Who had told Garnette? Sergeant Teal? One of the officers who’d been working the scene? Surely it hadn’t been Sully Reece! “Do you think I’m crazy, Paul?”

  “I think…you deserve a rest. It’s long overdue. You just go home and let your men finish this up.”

  “NO!” Palatazin shouted. “I WON’T DO IT! There are some things I have to find out from that suspect. Some very important things! I can’t…I can’t leave it now!”

  “You’re going to have to.” Garnette forced himself to look away. He stared down at his hands. “You’ll report back to work two weeks from today.”

  “I won’t—”

  “Is that understood?” Garnette said very quietly, and lifted his gaze.

  Palatazin started to protest again, but he knew it was no use. He placed his palms on the desk and leaned forward, his eyes glimmering. “I’m not crazy,’” he whispered hoarsely. “I’m not! I don’t care what you’ve heard. There’s a good reason for everything I’ve done or said, and by God if you don’t start listening to me, there’s…there’s going to be great evil in this city. There’s going to be evil beyond your wildest nightmares!”

  “Andy,” Garnette stated firmly, “go home.”

  Palatazin straightened up, wiping his forehead with a trembling hand. “Go home?” he whispered softly. “Home? I can’t…I…there’s so much to be done.” His eyes were wild and bloodshot, and he knew that he must truly look insane. “Shall I…leave my badge and gun with you?” he asked after another moment.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary. This is a vacation, not a suspension. Now take it easy, Andy. And for God’s sake don’t worry about the Roach or anything else.”

  Palatazin nodded and moved dazedly toward the door. “Yes,” he said. “All right.” He heard himself speaking as if he were inside a tunnel. He felt the cold doorknob touch his hand, and he twisted it.

  “Send me a postcard from Vegas,” Garnette said as Palatazin stepped through the door. The captain’s shoulders were slumped forward and he carried himself as if he’d just taken a hard blow to the stomach. Garnette started to say, “I’m sorry,” but then the door closed. God! Garnette thought. I hope two weeks makes a difference! If not…well, let that take care of itself. But anybody who wanted to burn bodies found in an East L.A. tenement—who demanded that they be cremated—was obviously in need of a long rest.

  Poor guy, Garnette mused and then forced himself to concentrate on other matters.

  TWELVE

  It was just after two o’clock when Jo heard the front door open and close. She came down the stairs hurriedly and found Andy in the kitchen, holding a paper bag. “What are you doing home so early?” she asked. “You scared me to death!”

  He glanced at her quickly, then looked away. “I won’t be going back to work for a while,” he said quietly.

  “What do you mean? What happened, Andy? Tell me!”

  He began to take items out of the bag. There was a smaller bag inside with H. Shaffer and Son, Fine Jewelry printed on it. “I’ve been given a two-week vacation,” he said and smiled grimly. She watched him open the bag and take out two identical white boxes. “Two weeks,” he whispered. “Los Angeles might not even exist in two weeks.” He gave her one of the boxes. “Put this around your neck. I want you to wear this all the time; don’t take it off—not in the shower, not when you sleep.”

  She opened it with a trembling hand. It was a small gold-plated crucifix on a long chain. “It’s beautiful,” she said, “but…”

  “Put in on right now,” he said. He opened his box, took out the other crucifix and clasped it around his neck. “I want you to get used to wearing it,” he told her, “so you won’t forget it. I don’t know how powerful its influence will be because it hasn’t been blessed by a priest or sanctified with holy water, but it’s better than nothing. Go on, put it on now.” He went behind her to help her clasp it.

  She watched him, dumbfounded, as he stepped back to the counter and reached into the bag again. Oh, my God, she thought suddenly as she looked into his face. He looked just like his mother did just before she went into the rest home. His eyes held that same fanatical, crazed gleam; his jaw was set with an unyielding determination. “Andy,” she whispered as he took several cloves of garlic from the bag and laid them on the counter.

  “We’ll slice these and smear all the windowsills with them,” he said. “Then we’ll chop some into pieces and spread them on the front lawn. Mama said it would help keep the vampir away because their sense of smell is so strong and the odor reminds them of death.” He turned toward her and saw her face as pale as chalk. “Oh, I see. You think I’m crazy, too, like everyone else, don’t you?”

  “I think…Andy, you’re not in Hungary now! This is a different place, a different time—”

  “There’s no difference!” he objected sharply. “The vampir doesn’t care what place he attacks, so long as there’s an abundance of food! And time to his kind means nothing! I tell you the vampir is here in this city! And someone has got to find the Master, the king vampir, before it’s too late!”

  “You don’t mean…Andy, what’s come over you?”

  “The truth,” he said quietly. “Jo, I want you to leave. I want you to take the car and drive as far away from here as you can. Go east across the mountains. Will you do that—for me?”

  She took a step toward him and clutched his arm. “We’ll both go,” she said. “We’ll make a real vacation out of these two weeks! We’ll pack and leave in the morning, all right? We can drive down to San Diego or—”

  “No. It has to be far from this city because when they start spreading out, there will be no stopping them. I want the mountains between you and L.A., and I want you to leave now.”

  “I can’t go without you,” she told him, tears of despair welling in her eyes. “I won’t, damn it! No matter what you say!”

  He took her shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. “When they come, Jo—and they will come, it’s only a matter of time—I won’t be able to save you. I probably won’t be able to save myself. But I have to stay here, I have to try to…do something! Running doesn’t do any good. They just advance, and sooner or later all of humanity will be pushed together in a tiny pocket, and the vampir will come and then…that will be the end, don’t you see? The vampir will eventually destroy themselves, but only after all of humanity is bled dry. Someone has got to at least try to stop them!”

  “You? Of all the people in the world, why you?”

  “Because,” he said quietly, fixing her with his gaze, “I’m here. And I know their ways. Who else is there?”

  “Let the police do it!”

  “The police? Ah, yes. I know firsthand how efficient the police can be. No, it has to be me. Alone, if that’s the will of God. Now go upstairs and pack your things.” He turned back to the paper bag.

  Jo did not move. “I won’t leave,” she protested. “You can’t make me.”

  “You’re a fool,” he said.

  “I love you.”

  Palatazin looked at her and grunted. “Twice a fool then. Haven’t you understood a word I’ve said?”

  “I understand my place is with you. I’m not leaving.”

  He stared at her for a silent moment, and she could feel the heat of his gaze. She returned it stubbornly. “All right,
” he said finally, “if you’re going to stay until morning, you can help me prepare for them. Cut those garlic cloves into pieces.” As she moved to get a knife, he reached into the bag and brought out a can of black spray paint. She didn’t want to ask him what he was going to do with it.

  He walked to the front of the house, shaking the spray paint, and opened the door. On the wood he sprayed a large, black crucifix and beneath it the Hungarian word OVAJODIK.

  Beware.

  THIRTEEN

  The last bell had rung at Fairfax High School. The classrooms and halls were emptying rapidly. Toyotas and Triumphs squealed out of the parking lot onto Fairfax Avenue and left trails of rubber aimed toward the nearest McDonald’s.

  Tommy Chandler, one of the few eleven-year-old freshmen who had ever walked the not-so-hallowed halls of Fairfax High, carefully dialed the combination of his Yale lock, pulled it open, then opened his locker. Inside there were the usual American history, algebra, and Latin textbooks, a pack of Bic pens, and a few Nifty notebooks. Taped to the inside of the locker was a picture of Orlon Kronsteen in his Jack the Ripper makeup from London Screams, clipped reverentially from an old Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. There was a picture of Raquel Welch in a bikini, too, but that took a lower place of honor. Tommy took out his history and algebra books and the corresponding notebooks. Mr. Kitchens would probably throw a sneak history quiz at the class first thing in the morning, and Tommy wanted to do some advance reading in algebra because what they were covering now was just plain booooring. Across the locker room Jim Baines and Mark Sutro were discussing the physical attributes of Melinda Kennimer, head majorette for the Fairfax High Marching Band and an untouchable but deliciously stacked senior.

  “I saw her in the hall today, fifth period,” Mark was saying as he gathered up a biology text and a geometry notebook. “God, I almost creamed my jeans! She smiled at me. Actually smiled for God’s sake! She’s got a smile like Farrah Fawcett.”

  “Better than Farrah Fawcett,” Jim said. “More like Bo Derek. God, what a bod! I hear she’s going with Stan Perry, the lucky asshole! Last week at the pep rally when she flashed those thighs and the drum corps was putting down a jungle beat, I thought I was going to shoot to the moon. It’s unnatural for a girl to look so good. I’ll bet she’s got a mean streak in her.”

  “Who cares? I like ’em mean. Have you got a date for Homecoming?”

  “Not yet. I’m going to ask Ronni McKay.”

  “Ha!” Mark slammed his locker door and spun the lock. “Too late! Johnny Jackson already asked her, and she said yes.”

  “What? Keerist! I had my lines all ready for her! Damn! Who are you asking, Selma Verone?”

  Mark made a sickened face. “Are you kidding? Old Pizza Cheeks Verone? I’d rather go stag.” He nudged Jim in the ribs with an elbow and motioned toward Tommy. “Bet Selma would go with Chandler if he’d ask her.”

  Here it comes, Tommy thought. Hurry and get it over with.

  “Hey, Chandler!” Mark called to him across the aisle. “Why don’t you ask Selma Verone to go to Homecoming with you? You like monsters so much, she’d be perfect for you!”

  “I doubt it,” Tommy mumbled. He heard the locker room door open and close, but he was concentrating on what the next jibe would probably be, so he didn’t notice who came in. Tommy closed his locker, spun the dial, and turned right into a slab of beef wearing an Aerosmith T-shirt. A hand shot out, catching Tommy on the collarbone, and shoved him back against the lockers. He hit his head on metal, and his ears rang like a fire drill alarm. His eyeglasses dangled from one ear, but he didn’t need to see to know who it was. He heard the raucous laughter like the snorting of pigs. Jim Baines and Mark Sutro were as quiet as the dead.

  “You’re in my way, fuckface!” the slab of beef growled.

  Tommy adjusted his glasses. There were three boys standing before him, Jules “Bull” Thatcher with his usual entourage of Buddy Carnes and Ross Weir. Thatcher’s face was broad and ugly, as cratered and hostile as the surface of the moon. He had shoulder-length brown hair, a scar through one thick eyebrow, and black ferret eyes that radiated hatred. He towered over Tommy. Bull had been a pretty fair running back on the freshman football team until Coach Maxwell had caught him selling ’ludes in the parking lot about two weeks before. He should’ve been a junior, but the sixth and eighth grades had been beyond his capacity. Now he mostly cheated to squeak by. His eyes gleamed with bloodlust as he stared at Tommy. His face was slashed by a cruel, thin-lipped mouth, and Tommy could well believe the stories he’d heard about Bull’s love of pure violence. It was his misfortune to have been assigned the locker right next to Bull.

  “I said you’re in my way…fuckface!” Bull said grimly, his hands on his hips.

  “Uh…sorry,” Tommy said, rubbing his collarbone. “I was just leaving.”

  “He was ‘just leavin’,’” Ross Weir mimicked Tommy’s high, childish voice. “He sounds like a fairy. You a fairy, punk?”

  “Don’t you guys know?” Buddy Carnes said. “This here’s the little brain. He’s in my algebra class, gets As on every goddamn test and fucks up the curve for everybody else. He’s the reason I’m flunkin’ my ass off!”

  “Oh yeah?” Bull said quietly. “A brain, huh?”

  “Looks like a fairy to me,” Weir said and cackled.

  Baines and Sutro tried to slip past the Unholy Three, but suddenly Bull’s head turned, and Tommy saw his eyes gleam like Gort the robot’s power blast from The Day the Earth Stood Still. “Where do you think you’re goin’?” Bull said ominously.

  “Nowhere…” Mark stammered. “We’re just…nowhere…”

  “Better not be!” Bull said and turned his attention back to Tommy.

  Ah, yes, Tommy thought. He needs an audience for his performance. Over Bull’s massive shoulders his cohort’s faces looked like the half-human animals from The Island of Lost Souls. Tommy could feel his heart thumping against his thin rib cage. The “flight or fight” instinct was pumping adrenaline through his body—his head said fight, but his feet said flight.

  Bull stepped closer and shoved Tommy against the lockers again. “You think you’re smart, don’t you? Don’t you?”

  “Not particularly, no.”

  “You callin’ Bull a liar?” Ross Weir snarled.

  Uh-oh, Tommy thought. Caught by the deadly triangle! His face flushed with a mixture of anger and fear. Bull reached out and plucked off Tommy’s glasses. “Hey, don’t!” Tommy said. “Those are expensive!”

  “Oh yeah? You want ’em back? Come take ’em!”

  “You’re about three guys bigger than me.”

  “He’s a chickenshit fairy, too,” Weir said.

  Bull narrowed his eyes into fierce slits. “I’ve seen you in here before, kid. You got the locker next to mine, don’t you? I’m going to give you some advice. I find you in here tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to smear your little fairy ass up and down Fairfax Avenue, you got that?”

  “Just give me back my…” Tommy began, but in the next instant a massive hand had grabbed his collar and was choking him.

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me,” Bull said evenly. “I don’t want to see you in here again. Understand?” He shook Tommy like a dog shakes a bone. “UnderSTAND?”

  “Yeah,” Tommy said, tears beginning to swim in his eyes. He felt more rage than fear, but he knew if he swung a blow, Bull would probably snap his arms out of their sockets. “Yeah, I understand.”

  Bull laughed, blowing fetid breath in Tommy’s face. He flung Tommy back and sneered at Baines and Sutro. “You want some of it, too?” he growled. Their heads shook in unison.

  “My glasses,” Tommy said. “Give ’em back.”

  “Huh?” Bull glowered at him and then smiled. “Sure, kid.” He held them out and dropped them to the floor as Tommy reached for them. “Sorry,” Bull said. “I’ll get ’em.” He placed his boot on a lens and ground down on it. The crack sounded as loud as a gunshot. Buddy Carn
es howled with laughter. “There you go, kid,” Bull said, bending to pick up the glasses and then handing them to Tommy. “Put ’em on and let’s see how they look.”

  Tommy was looking through one clear lens and one crisscrossed with cracks. The damaged side kept slipping off his ear, and he had to hold it in place.

  “Looks real good,” Bull said. His face contorted viciously. “Now get out of here, fuckface! And you don’t come back, you got it?”

  Tommy slipped past Bull and started for the door. He was almost there, thinking he was really going to make it, when Ross Weir stuck a leg in his path and pushed him. He went down in a tangle of arms and legs, his books falling everywhere. Laughter exploded as he gathered up his books again and hurried out of the locker room, leaving Jim Baines and Mark Sutro to their own unfortunate fates. Tommy walked across the empty parking lot and turned south on Fairfax, heading toward Hancock Park. His knees were trembling, and within him there was a great urge to turn around and shout, “BULL THATCHER SUCKS!” as loud as he could. But what good would that do? He’d only end up with a busted head and a mouthful of loose teeth. Soon he’d left Fairfax High behind and was out of shouting range. He wished he had muscles like Hercules; he wished he could deliver a flying kick like Bruce Lee. Then the Bull Thatchers of the world—and there were so many of them—would think twice before they bothered him. Ah! The perfect fate for Bull Thatcher. He imagined the boy running through the fog-shrouded streets of old London, fear glistening in his eyes beneath the whale oil lamps as he heard the approaching footsteps. Orlon Kronsteen’s Ripper was afoot in the darkness, his three-foot sickle seeking new victims to behead. The Ripper’s eyes would look like black holes behind a mask of gray cloth, and as those eyes made out the running figure of Bull Thatcher, the thin mouth would twitch into a cunning smile. There’s no where to run, boy! The Ripper would call out. There’s nowhere to hide! Come, let Mary Death take a taste of your blood!