by Clark Hays
Him and Dad go way back, so when Dad called Doc Near’s receptionist and said it was an emergency, she sent him right over.
Fifteen minutes later he came rattling up the road and parked his old blue truck down by the barn, no doubt expecting some sick cow or birthing mare to tend. Dad went out on the porch and waved him up to the house. While we waited, Dad pulled a box of powdered sugar donuts out of the cupboard and set them out on the table along with another cup of coffee fortified with a splash of whiskey.
“Come on in,” he hollered when he heard boots on the porch. Doc Near pushed the door open and stood there in his one-armed coveralls, which made me suspect he’d been preg testing over at the Dryers’ place, and also made me hope he’d washed up proper. There was sixty-odd years of living lining his face — every wrinkle and crease was like the rings in a tree trunk, bearing testimony to the hard winters and long summers he’d spent outside with his arm stuck up a cow or down a horse.
His eyes lit right up when he saw the donuts.
“Howdy, old man. Tucker. What’s the emergency? Can I have some of them donuts?”
“Help yourself,” Dad said, and then pointed at me. “He’s the emergency.”
Doc took a look at me setting bruised and uncertain on the edge of the bed. “Damn, Tucker. How’d you get so banged up?”
“That’s a long story,” I said.
I started telling it to him while poked and prodded around the painful parts, shaking his head whenever I grunted. He set my ribs tight with gauze and cleaned up the scrapes I had around my neck and on my face where I’d been punched and brought a handful of painkillers for doping up racehorses back from his truck. Each one was about the size of a new potato and he said to gnaw off an aspirin-sized chunk whenever I got to hurting, so I went ahead and took a double dose.
Right away, I got to feeling better and by the time I finished my story, the pain seemed bearable. Down deep inside, though, lay a terrible fear and longing for Lizzie, quiet and despairing like a wounded bear holed up in the brush.
By the time I got to the part about Dad shooting the vampire, Doc was staring at me with his mouth hanging open. “That’s some story,” he said. “Are you sure you didn’t fall on your head?”
“He’s dead serious,” Dad said, and Doc swiveled to face him to see whether we were pulling his leg, but Dad nodded solemnly. “I wouldn’t have believed it neither, but I shot that son of a bitch and he just stood there looking surprised and not thinking at all about dying.”
“Know anything about vampires?” I asked.
“Tucker, for Chrissakes, I’m a veterinarian,” he said, but that didn’t seem to matter once he started talking.
After fifteen minutes, about the only thing I learned for sure was that Doc Near could put away the donuts. What he had to say was no different than anyone who had been single for twenty years and had a weakness for late-night television. He said vampires are real strong, which I already knew. Vampires are real hard to kill, he said, which I had also learned. Vampires drink blood, he said, and although I hadn’t found that out directly, Snort’s death seemed to prove that theory.
Other than that, all he knew was that vampires come from Transylvania, they’re sort of a cross between dead and alive, which was why folks call them undead, and they can’t stand sunlight, crosses or holy water.
“You got real lucky,” he said at last.
“I don’t feel particularly lucky.”
“Think about it,” Doc said. “You tangled with one of them mythic creatures of the night and whipped his ass.”
“Yeah, maybe so, but they still got Lizzie,” I said. “And there’s a whole lot of them I have to get through to find her.”
“What the hell do they want with her?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Dad said. He pulled a box of ammo out of his gun case, tossed it up on the bed with the Casull, and pulled a beat-up suitcase out of the closet by its rope handle.
“We ain’t about to find out anything,” I said. “You ain’t coming with me to New York.”
“I sure as hell am,” Dad said. He drew his shoulders up high and stuck out his chest in what Mom used to call his John Wayne pose. Used to piss him off, but me and my brother liked to hear her teasing him that way. No one else in the world could’ve got by with it.
“Someone’s got to watch your back, boy,” he said. “Be damned if I’m gonna sit on my ass and twiddle my thumbs while you get yourself in more trouble.”
“Rex’ll watch my back,” I said. Rex thumped the stump of his tail at the mention of his name. “Besides, I need you here in case she comes back this way.”
“You know,” Doc Near said, cutting off our debate, “it probably wasn’t the shooting that killed him. It was the log you stuck through him. Or the fire. The next time may not be so easy. You think about that?”
“If that’s so, even the .454 won’t be enough,” Dad said. “You’re gonna need something special.”
“How the hell am I supposed to kill them, then?” An idea hit me and I snapped my fingers. “I’m gonna drive up to Lenny’s. If anybody can help me now, it’s him.”
TWELVE
In the chill of the early morning, in a darkness that gave little evidence the sun would ever rise again, the jet taxied to a stop outside an isolated terminal. Wordlessly, the pilot emerged from the cockpit, negotiated stoically through the seated passengers and opened the hatch, extending the stairs.
“Quickly,” Elita snapped, “we don’t have much time. David, you and your friend put her in the coffin by the back hatch. The ground crew will meet you there and escort our little queen to the hearse. Leave the casket open a bit. Remember, she’s not undead yet. It would be a shame for her to expire by such pedestrian means as suffocation before Julius has an opportunity to turn her. I’ll join you outside.”
She took the stairs cautiously, scenting the predawn air like a panther. Satisfied, she walked briskly to the back of the jet, heels clicking across the tarmac. In all black, she was dressed in the manner of a mourner, a silk scarf around her throat and thin gloves past the elbow. She was aware throughout of Julius’ presence, watching. Always watching. A baggage handler popped the back hatch and rolled a metal stand to the door. David and his companion wrestled a deeply lacquered coffin out of the plane and set it onto the stand. It was light in their hands but unwieldy, and a corner of the hatchway ripped a long scratch down the center.
“Imbeciles,” Elita snapped, rearranging the weighty bulk as easily as she might her hair. “Come, quickly.” She studied the horizon for light. Pulling the scarf tighter, she ignored the famine in her stomach and soul and accompanied the lackeys as they rolled the coffin toward the hearse.
Julius was indeed waiting, demurely leaning against the vehicle.
He was dressed casually in tan linen pants and a soft leather bomber jacket. Calm as usual, his features were drawn and she wondered if he ate at all anymore or instead chose to suffer the hunger silently, using the pain to fuel his grandiose schemes. He embraced her lightly, kissed her coolly on the cheek. His gaze fell on the coffin. “I trust all went well?”
“We have her, if that’s what you mean.” She smiled weakly, while inside she raged at Wyoming, her hunger, Julius, the queen and cowboys in general.
“Where is Desard?”
“He chose to stay behind and take care of any …”
“Loose ends?” Julius said. “So loyal. So obedient.”
“He’d make a fine dog,” Elita said.
“Charming as usual at the end of a long night. Let’s take a look, shall we?”
“Here?” she asked, arching her eyebrow. “With all these people around?”
He waved his hand around. “It’s practically deserted. And who would dare question the newly bereaved?” He opened the lid and stood frozen at the sight revealed. Lizzie lay on a satin pillow, her cascading hair framing her pale face. Still drugged, she rested
peacefully, innocent as a child and breathing shallowly.
“Quite lovely, even beautiful, I’d say. That certainly makes my task more pleasant,” Julius said. “It’s a pity she had to be brought against her will. I hoped the party would whet her natural appetite for blood and make her more of a willing participant.” He stroked her cheek absently, ran his fingers through her hair. Leaning over, he pressed his lips to her forehead. “Now I shall appeal to her intellectual side, since the physical appeal failed abysmally. I certainly would not want history to write that I had not properly seduced the catalyst of our greatest act since Genesis.”
“The uncreation,” said Elita dutifully, knowing when to chime in with the proper words for the conversation they had shared so many, many times before. She knew it was likely to end sooner, and thus she was likely to get home sooner, if she simply helped him cycle through his enthusiasm, rather than diverting him.
“Yes,” responded Julius, nearly in a whisper. “She will give me the power to reverse creation.” Abruptly, he shut the coffin lid. “Job well done, Elita. Well done.”
“Thank you,” she said, hoping her jealousy was not detectable. “Can we continue this reunion later tonight?” She looked at her watch. “The sun is so very damaging to my complexion.”
He smiled tightly. “Gentlemen, bring her along.”
Elita tried her best to ignore the rumbling in her veins.
THIRTEEN
Historic Highway 26 is five miles outside of LonePine, and historic means that at some point in history, it was paved. Now all that remains are asphalt patches turning the road into a rubbled mess so that driving it feel like an ant in a tiny go-kart on the back of an alligator.
After rattling along on it for twenty minutes, my teeth were almost shook loose as I turned off onto a more comfortable set of ruts angling up behind a rock formation hidden by trees. A video camera setting on a post halfway up marked the beginning of Lenny’s property. Although the camera looked sinister, I know for a fact he pulled it out of a dumpster behind a Gas ’N’ Get in Salt Lake City, and that it ain’t connected to nothing. First appearances count for something, I suppose.
I drove on past, up behind the rocks and trees into a clearing Lenny called his bunker. To me, it always looked more like a double-wide trailer fortified with unpainted aluminum siding and bales of straw stacked up to the windows.
Lenny has been a friend of mine since third grade when we used to take bullets apart and make little bombs out of the gunpowder.
He’s the founder and sole member of the LonePine Militia, except on every other Saturday when they meet out at the firing range and Lenny brings the beer and ammo. Most of LonePine feels a little safer knowing he’s holed up in his bunker with all his weapons, because we know they won’t fall into the hands of the Russians, or bored high school kids.
He lives in his trailer, I mean bunker, with his wife June, who, for reasons unclear to the outside world, puts up with his curious ways. Must have something to do with love.
Their yard is a cluttered graveyard of snowmobiles, cars and motorcycles in various stages of not functioning. Out front, for security reasons, he keeps a mean-spirited poodle that thinks it’s a Rottweiler. There’s also a German Shepherd laying about, but I‘ve never seen him move, which means he’s either dead or an ambush.
Lenny thinks the government is out to get him. He won’t get a phone, figuring they’d just tap it, and he won’t watch TV because the government beams out subliminal messages, or what most folks call advertising. He also won’t pay taxes so as not to lend his support to the government, but the IRS hasn’t noticed because he doesn’t have a job. Instead, he supports himself by fixing things and usually bartering for more things.
There ain’t much he can’t fix, from a calculator to a jumbo jet. Folks around LonePine bring him all their busted stuff and directly he’ll bring it back better than new. One time he fixed old Mrs. Johnson’s toaster so damn well that it started making perfect toast in about four seconds, but she threw it out the window when she got that month’s power bill.
I killed the truck in front of the trailer and cautioned Rex to stay in or else run the risk of facing the poodle, who chose that moment to spring out from under the porch, yapping and slobbering.
Like a trained assassin, she managed to pee on all four tires in less than thirty seconds. “Lenny, call your dog off,” I hollered. “It’s me, Tucker.”
The door cracked open. “How do I know it’s really you?” he called.
“For Chrissakes, Lenny, who would impersonate me?”
“Government agents,” he said. “It’d be a perfect cover. Who’d suspect? You’re famous now, after that last cowboy article.”
“Look at these boots,” I said, hoisting my foot out the truck window. The once-gray duct tape was tattered and brown and one loose flap hung down like a ribbon. “You can’t fake boots like these. I probably borrowed the tape from you. Now call off your dog.”
“All right, all right.” He opened the door and stood there in his camouflage pants with no shirt on. He looked a little like a vampire himself, with his long black hair and pale skin from working all the time indoors. “Commando, sit.”
Commando the poodle crawled back under the trailer, but I could sense her highly trained eyes still on me as I got out and walked to the front door.
“Sorry Tucker, but ever since them government types came to town two nights back, I been in a state of red alert.”
“What government types?” I asked as I went inside. Their trailer is real cozy in spite of the discount gun store look. There were rifles and pistols and bullets and knives laying all over everything, and all kinds of electronic stuff that I couldn’t even begin to describe.
June was sitting at the kitchen table reading a well-worn book by Carlos Castaneda. She smiled up at me. “Hi, Tucker,” she said, and then, noticing my bandages, added, “what happened to you?”
“Got into a little scrap.”
“Coffee?”
“Another couldn’t hurt,” I said. She poured me a cup and set it down across from her, scooting a box of ammunition and a pair of brass knuckles out of the way. “What government types?” I asked again, sitting down.
Lenny drew up another chair. “Four of them. Real secretive. Got a room at the Sleep-O-Rama, but stayed inside all day. Told Hazel they were astronomers come to study stars. And now Terry Gleason turned up missing.” He leaned in close like the room might be bugged. “June thinks she saw a black helicopter last night,” he whispered. She nodded in agreement.
“They weren’t government spooks,” I said. “It’s worse. They were vampires. That’s why they never left the hotel in the daytime.”
They both looked at me, Lenny frozen in mid-sip. When he finally broke the silence, he sounded irritated. “This is serious stuff, Tucker. Don’t joke around.”
I shook my head. “I’m as serious as the day is long.”
June squinted her eyes. “Tucker, vampires aren’t real.”
“They’re real enough to bust my ribs.”
Lenny took a long hard look at me. “Are you out of your mind?”
“I wish I was. I know it sounds crazy and if I was listening to me, I would probably be thinking it was time to fit myself for a straitjacket, but it was vampires that done this to me.”
Lenny set his coffee cup down and fiddled with the handle while June ripped the back off a book of matches and used it to mark her place in her book. They listened as I told them my story. “They came up to Widow Woman Creek and kidnapped Lizzie. You remember Lizzie?”
After a pause, Lenny nodded. “Of course. She’s the city girl who wrote that story about you.”
“Right. She was working on a new story about vampires and how they was just pretend. Then she seen them kill some people so she took off out here. They come after her. I shot one of them four times and he just laughed at me.”
“What with?” Lenny interrupted.
“My .357.”
“I wasn’t exactly planning on hunting vampires.”
“Were you shooting hollow points or jacketed?”
“Shit, I don’t know,” I said. “Cheap. They were cheap bullets I bought at the Dollar Store.”
He nodded. “All right, all right, sorry. Keep going.”
After I filled them in on the details, and how dad had saved my life, they stared open-mouthed.
I half expected them to say I was out of my mind, and coming from those two, it would have meant a lot. June spoke first. “What do you suppose they want with Lizzie?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Reckon it’s because she seen them murder those people.”
Lenny scratched absently at his leg. Directly he stood up and walked to the window “Vampires? Damn. You sure they weren’t some kind of government supersoldiers, you know, like experimental cyborgs? They have the technology.”
“They were vampires, no doubt about it.”
“What do you aim to do?”
I nodded for a refill and smiled my thanks up at June. She opened up a box of graham crackers and we all took one. “They came out from New York City and I aim to go after them. But I’m thinking I need an edge. Maybe you could come up with something for me?” I asked hopefully. “Something that’ll kill ’em.”
“How long do I have?”
“I’ve got to leave in the morning. Got a flight booked out of Jackson.”
“In the morning? Jesus H. Christ,” Lenny said. “I can’t get anything ready in one day. A couple of weeks maybe. Have to do some research, get plans drawn up, do some test shooting …”
“Listen, I ain’t got two weeks,” I said. “If there’s any hope of getting Lizzie out of this alive, I got to be in New York City by this time tomorrow.”
FOURTEEN
Julius sat in front of the fire contemplating the flames through the amber swirls of a cognac. Something was disturbing his concentration, a sensation not wholly unpleasant, but relatively new. There was a factor outside his reach, a wild card hinging on the disappearance of Desard.