The Last Hellfighter

by Thomas S. Flowers

  Hunched, poised to strike, the girl looked feral.

  "Christ—she looks rabid," Doc whispered, clutching his leather doctor's bag to his frail chest.

  Ben glanced behind them, on the porch, left beside neatly stacked wood planks and nails, scraps from the nursery, was his wooden handled hand saw. The teeth on it rusted in places, but still sharp and full of purpose.

  He lunged for the saw.

  The feral girl dashed towards them.

  She leapt high into the air.

  Doc Seward groaned and fell backwards onto the porch.

  The little girl who used to be Susan Norton landed on top of the aged doctor, gnashing her many crooked needled fangs. She hissed and moaned, her eyes bulging from her hunger, and glowing red. Dark red, which looked incredibly eerie in the gloomy yellow lamp lights.

  Pushing her hand, Doc Seward managed to keep the beastly girl from ripping open his throat and bathing in his blood. But just barely.

  Saw in hand, Ben turned and punted the girl with everything he had, knocking her head back. A snap echoed horribly as she fell away from the sweating, panting doctor.

  She fell on the her back against the porch, hissing still, twitching like a broken insect. A bone protruded from her neck, but strangely not bruised or bleeding. She was still as pale as death.

  "Hold her down," Ben ordered. He knelt beside her.

  Without giving it much thought, Doc Seward obeyed. He pressed down hard on the little girl. His eyes wide and full of the moon. He looked at Ben and then he looked at the saw in his hand. "What...what are you going to do with that?" he asked, stuttering.

  Ben, remembering back to that broken church, remembering what Professor Helwing had ordered him to do, glanced at Seward, and then he looked at the girl, placing the teeth of the blade on her neck. "We have to decapitate her and then burn the body."

  Seward groaned, nearly laughing. "Decapitate...but why? I have morphine in my bag. We can sedate her, we can—"

  Without further hesitation, Ben began sawing off the feral girl's head. Moving in quick, hard back and forth motions as she howled and kicked and squirmed until the blade struck wood underneath.

  Doc Seward fell away, holding his yawning mouth with his hand. His eyes showed the expression of a man unsure of what is real and what is nightmare.

  The girl lay motionless. And beheaded.

  Ben looked at the saw blade. At his hands. At the porch floor.

  Not a single drop of blood spilled.

  It was if she was nothing by straw and bone—a husk of what she once was.

  "Murderer!" Seward howled finally. He pointed a shrill finger at him. "You...killed her...you..." he shuddered in gasping weeps.

  "No, doctor," Ben said, dropping the saw, "she was already dead."

  Chapter 27

  He could hear them outside. The growling anger of the mob. Restless—and perhaps exacerbated by the constant dust storms that blew across the land making shallow graves of their once upon a time prosperous land. Ben was amazed by how suddenly things had changed. In Champagne he'd witnessed an endless heaven—a bountiful manna in which the Lord had surely blessed and would never take away from him. A free place—free of all the evil he'd seen in war and in the world at large. Sure, there were glimpses of darkness in the hearts of men who resided here, but he never believed it would fester into anything damaging; rather, remain like an itch at the back of his throat. Annoying, but harmless.

  How wrong he was.

  Champagne had become unclean.

  There was an evil out there—hiding somewhere in the dust—darker and more cruel than those gathered in front of the jailhouse. More vile and older than any of them could possibly imagine. If only they would believe him. But how could they? He hardly believed himself. He'd seen his first one of those things—the vampyre as Professor Helwing had called them.

  And he helped kill one, much in the way a pubescent teen fumbles with a first kiss. Still the job was gone, baptized in fire and horror. He'd always assumed there were more of them—but far away from the shores of America, in the remote places of the world. Hidden in dark, wet places like vermin, like a fog of pestilence that hugs close to the tombstones of ancient graveyards.

  Now those adolescent hopes were nothing more but beggars' dreams.

  They had come.

  Somehow.

  Was it coincidence that the vampyre had arrived in Champagne?

  Or was it ordained?

  Did they follow him...somehow?

  The spreading coldness in his stomach told Ben it was likely the latter. He only prayed his letter would reach the Professor in time—or at all.

  * * *

  "Mr. Harker, if you don't talk with me you're going to be talking with that crowd outside. And I don't think you'll like that as much." Sheriff Holmwood sat leaning forward in a creaking wooden chair. His eyes looked puffy and red, his skin drawn and pale as if he hadn't had a wink of sleep in a couple days.

  Ben gazed at him through the bars of his jail cell. He exhaled, frustrated by the totality of trying to explain the impossible. He studied the palms of his hands. Silent.

  "Doc Seward says you came and got him to look after your brother, is that correct?" Holmwood pressed on.

  Ben nodded.

  "Said your brother has a touch of dust pneumonia, is that correct?"

  Again, Ben nodded.

  "Good. He also said you were getting ready to take him home when Bill and Ann's little girl—the missing girl I'd talked to you about earlier that day—showed up at your farmhouse, is that correct?"

  Closing his eyes, Ben nodded, remembering very vividly the next parts of the story.

  "Okay. Next, according to Doc Seward's statement, the little Norton girl was acting...funny. You would say she was behaving oddly, Mr. Harker?" Holmwood leaned back in his chair, watching Ben very carefully.

  "She was," Ben whispered.

  "And what happened next, Mr. Harker?"

  "She attacked us."

  "Why?"

  Ben looked up from his hands, he stared, desperately into the face of the white sheriff. "Because she wasn't Susan Norton anymore. I know it's hard to believe, but it's true. She wasn't alive, she was...undead. The Professor called them Vampyre, Nosferatu, the Unclean. You have to believe me, they're here Sheriff, and they are very very dangerous."

  Sheriff Holmwood leaned back again, rubbing his worn face with his hands. He shook his head, much in the way a man shakes away bad dreams. "According to Doc Seward, she did attack ya'll. But she was most liked suffering from severe dehydration. She'd been missing, lost in a dust storm. She was likely delirious, Mr. Harker, that is why she attacked you and Doc."

  Ben stood and banged the bars of his cage. "No," he said. "She was changed. Doc saw what I saw, he's just too scared to admit what he saw."

  Smirking, Sheriff Holmwood scoffed. "And what exactly do you expect me to believe? That vampires are real? Sorry, Mr. Harker, there ain't nothing you can say besides fantasy that'll justify what you did to that poor girl."

  Ben closed his eyes, resting his forehead against the cold iron bars. "What I did was necessary."

  Sheriff Holmwood stood, glaring now, his nostrils flaring. "Necessary? Necessary! You beheaded that little girl and then you burned the body, God knows why you—"

  "Because she was unclean, infected. Given the chance she would kill, she would have killed Doc Seward. She would have killed me and my wife and my brother. But that wouldn't be the end, assuming there was enough of us left, we'd come back just the same and just as lethal." Ben spoke with his eyes remained closed, nearly whispering now, knowing the sheriff would never believe him.

  Holmwood said nothing at first, then he exhaled as if giving up on a confession—or at least a rational one. He rubbed his temples and then he turned and started away from the small two-cage cell block. "Mr. Harker, I suggest you think about how you want this to play out. I'm going to reach out to the County, try to get you relocated to Lubbock. You bet
ter pray those people shouting outside don't storm the place before that happens."

  "You could always open the door and let them come." Ben exhaled, his eyes open now, staring at the sheriff.

  Holmwood stared back. "That I could...for what you did, you'd deserve no less." He opened the door and said over his shoulder, "But that's not my kind of justice. You'll hang, Mr. Harker, but you'll hang by a judge's orders and not by the fury of a mob."

  And with that, he was gone and Ben was alone with nothing but the shouting anger of the townsfolk echoing in his cell.

  * * *

  It was as quiet as a tomb. And that is most likely what woke Ben Harker from a dreamless sleep. If it was still day light or darkness, he did not know. There were no windows in the jail cell. But the quiet, the emptiness, it was deafening.

  It had been a week since the incident with the Norton girl.

  A week since he wrote his letter for Helwing.

  A week in which he'd only seen Mina but a few short times—weeping, blubbering, and utterly confused. Why had he done it? Why had he burned the little girl? And him without a single explanation that she would believe.

  A week he'd waited to be transferred, or so Holmwood had promised.

  A week without storms or dust.

  Then there was something.

  A whistling.

  Blowing against the building.

  Howling like a banshee's whisper.

  Suddenly the door to the cell block opened.

  Ben sprung up from his cot. His heart hammering in his chest. Sweat beading on his forehead. He was scared. But why? Why now and not before? What has changed? It felt like an electrical charge was brewing in the air. The taste on his tongue was of bitter iron and stale. His stomach knotted and twisted. Goosebumps pricked his dark skin.

  Sheriff Holmwood came into view, knocking dust off his usually dark jacket. The star on his chest looked unusually dull and ruff. He looked at Ben and grimaced.

  Ben stood and went to the bars.

  "No luck reaching anyone from Lubbock. Another blasted dust storm has blown in. Turned day into night. I've got Ollie telling folks on the radio to stay indoors—but his signal can't reach past town limits. Looks like you'll be with us here until things clear up." He stood where he was, still knocking the dust from his jacket and slacks, coughing.

  Ben watched him for a moment and then he looked away, his gaze moving beyond the prison bars and out into the rolling billows of clouds howling through Champagne. "Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness spreads over Egypt—a darkness that can be felt."

  "Say what?" Holmwood coughed in his fist.

  "Have you checked on my wife, Sheriff?"

  "Your wife? Ben, I've been a little busy, trying to keep some of our residents from dragging you out and lynching you from the lamppost outside." Holmwood stood with his hands on his hips, glaring but looking more guilty than angry or annoyed.

  "She's alone, Sheriff. At the edge of town. Alone in this mess."

  "Your brother is with her."

  "He's not well and you know that."

  Holmwood regarded him for a moment and then said, "I'll send a deputy out that way soon as this storm passes."

  "Sheriff—" Ben started to argue.

  The sound of something breaking echoed in the cell block. Of wood and glass smashing open in the room beyond.

  Both men stood and stared out through the door.

  "What the hell was that?" Holmwood hissed.

  "Sheriff—"

  "Shh." Holmwood held up his hand, gesturing for Ben to be quiet. He withdrew his revolver and went out slowly through the prison door.

  Ben listening, pressing his head hard against the iron bars.

  The whistling from outside pressed in around him.

  Otherwise the silence rung in his ears.

  "What the—"

  Ben could hear Holmwood shouting through the walls in the adjacent room. And something else, something feral and hideous in reply.

  Gun reports thundered rapidly together.

  "Jesus—what are you!" Holmwood was screaming.

  "Sheriff!"

  Suddenly the door to the cell block flung open.

  Holmwood stumbled in and then rammed his shoulder back into the door, slamming it shut. He bolted the lock and slid down, panting. His jacket was torn on one sleeve, dark and wet. Crimson poured down his hand, dripping on the floor in a rapidly growing pool. He looked deathly pale. His eyes wide with shock.

  "Jesus...Jesus, what the hell..."

  "Sheriff?"

  Holmwood looked at Ben. He was trembling. "The Westfield brothers. Herbert, Martin, Sam, and Roy. I imagined they'd pay you a visit, on account as I didn't see them with the mob. They've always been trouble..."

  Something rattled and shook at the door.

  Holmwood let out a small yelp, pushing his back harder against the wood.

  "I don't know what I saw...but they ain't human. Their eyes...Jesus their eyes..."

  Ben gripped the bars, clenching his teeth. "Sheriff, you need to let me out. I can help you."

  Holmwood gazed up at Ben looking dazed.

  Again, something shoved against the wood, screeching now, growling like some ravenous demon.

  And again, Holmwood yelped, holding his back to the door. He glanced at his wounded arm and winced. He looked at Ben. "I suppose I better do something before I bleed out on the floor." Standing, he wobbled to the jail cell. "Jesus...I can't believe this...Herbert, he had teeth unlike anything I've ever seen...his face was contorted, unnatural." Using his uninjured hand, he shoved his key from his key ring into the lock and unlocked the cell.

  Moving quickly, Ben reached out and grabbed Holmwood.

  The Sheriff held Ben with a slick, bloodied hand.

  Ben dragged him into the cell and shut the door. He locked it and shoved the keys into his jean overall pocket.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Holmwood shouted. He stood back, holding his bleeding arm.

  Ben went to his cot, turned and tore a strand of sheet. He started for Holmwood, but the Sheriff backed away until he realized what Ben intended and offered his cut-up arm.

  Dressing the wound with a makeshift tourniquet, Ben asked, "Do you have an axe? Or some kind of blade, like a sword maybe?"

  Holmwood looked at him as if he'd made some joke. "A sword? Why the hell would I have anything like that back here?"

  Ben pulled tight on the torn sheet.

  Holmwood winced.

  "Exactly why I pulled you in. Safer in here than out there, at least until the storm blows away and sunlight returns." Ben wiped his red wet hands on his jean overalls.

  "I've got this." Holmwood held up his revolver.

  Ben regarded it and looked away, searching or something, anything he could use to defend them. "That won't do you no good. Not against them."

  "Them?" Holmwood mocked. "Vampires, you mean."

  Ben turned on him. "You were out there, got this," he gestured to Holmwood's bandaged arm, "you tell me."

  Holmwood's smirk waivered. "I don't know what I saw."

  He shook his head. "Right," Ben said.

  They turned in unison as the door crashed open.

  Through the open doorway stepped what Ben could only assume had been Roy Westfield. In life he was no charmer, and now he looked even worse. His eyes fixed on them in the cell, glowing, burning deep red. He opened that awful mouth, hissing with needle teeth glistening in the lamp light. His features looked distorted, as if his cheekbones couldn't decide if it were shark or bat or both. He wore jean overalls like Ben but with no undershirt. His skin was pale as death and he stuck of dust and dirt and spoiled meat. He started for the two men in the jailcell, examining in the bars—looking for a way in.

  "Do you believe now?" Ben whispered from the corner of his mouth, too terrified to speak out loud directly.

  "Yes," Holmwood whispered back.

  Roy, or what was once Roy and now something else entirely, sh
ook the prison bars, growling at the pair of them.

  Ben and Holmwood backed away against the wall.

  More wood and glass breaking came from outside.

  Shouting now. A man's voice, chanting something in a foreign tongue.

  Screeching and howling.

  What had been Roy turned toward the commotion and went back through the doorway.

  He disappeared.

  Ben and Holmwood stood listening. Waiting.

  Again, a man shouting, chanting those strange words.

  Followed by hissing and screeching.

  And then nothing.

  Silence.

  Just the whistling of the wind from outside the jailhouse.

  Footsteps came toward the doorway.

  Slow. Methodical.

  A shadow drew on the smashed wooden door on the floor.

  "Private Harker, I presume." An old man stood in the archway wearing a tailored suit that was covered in a thin layer of brown dust—and wrinkled, as if he'd slept in it for a few days. On his head sat a black bowler hat with a colorful plume. Beneath his scruffy, shaggy beard, he beamed at Ben. In his hand a silver blade sparkled in the lamp light. He sheathed it in a tall walking cane with an ornate handle and came and stood before them on the other side of the bars.

  Ben stepped forward, his mouth ajar. He blinked and said softly, "Professor Helwing?"

  Chapter 28

  Professor Helwing had made quick work of the turned Westfield brothers, beheading each with his silver cane sword. Ben had walked through the Sheriff's Station, shocked yes, but also surprised by how easily the old man had dispatched the creatures. Given his age, the Professor ought to be wheezing or coughing, showing any sign of exertion. No, he stood his ground and perhaps leaned upon the cane, but his hue was a healthy rose and his vigor strangely youthful. He'd beheaded the vampyre, but the bodies still required further attention.