We were walking into a trap, yet the professor had something up his sleeve. Until the proper time came, I would know nothing of his plans—just like in his classes. He’d bring up some marvelous fact, and we would beg him to expound upon it, but he would only answer: “When the time is right, my students, all shall be revealed.”
Well, right then I wanted to know what the hell he was talking about. Darkness will be our ally? What the hell was he up to? All I could do was trust the old man.
My instinct was to turn and flee, saving myself, but not only was loyalty a pain in the ass, I wanted to see what the hell was in the unmarked grave. Who knows, I could have been wrong. Maybe Dial and the others weren’t vampire hunters. Maybe they were kin. Either way, it was one family I didn’t want to mess with.
Unless they wanted to keep me from finally laying eyes on a real vampire.
Right or wrong, I wanted to see who in the hell was six feet deep under the tombstone bearing the name “Devil Child.”
I would soon know, for off to my left, the trees receded and I could barely make out the faint outline of a wrought-iron fence, and beyond that was the place where spooks and haunts abounded: the graveyard.
And maybe, just maybe, my first vampire, too.
Chapter Twenty-two
There was no doubting this place was old, and the iron gate hung from a single hinge before us like a drunken bum catching a railroad car.
Now, as we gathered around the entrance, Buddy finally emerged from the woods. “As far as I know,” he whispered into my ear, for Dial was close by, “we haven’t been followed.”
Maybe if Dial and Janice weren’t flirting like a couple of grade-schoolers, Dial might’ve noticed Buddy had been away, but the newest club member didn’t say a word, which was good because I wasn’t in the mood for making up a story to cover Buddy’s absence.
“So let’s do it,” said Buddy, jovially and loudly, feeling positive we were alone.
We all gathered at the decrepit fence. “Well, here we are,” said Janice. “From Andy’s discovery in the Inquireth to now, standing at the vampire’s burial site. We’ve come a long way—too long to back out now.”
Why everyone felt the need to glance at me, I don’t know, for I was no longer in charge of this expedition and no longer had the strength or desire to sway their impatient and foolish minds. They have now sown their own seeds and they could choke on the weeds, for all I cared.
“All right, guys. Let’s do it. We don’t have all night.” And with that, Juan tromped through the hanging gate and into the graveyard.
“I can feel it,” said Janice excitedly. “We are going to find him tonight.”
“Tonight will be a night to remember, indeed,” said Dial, draping his python-like arm around her narrow shoulders. I snaked out my own wormy hand and steadied myself on the iron fence. As the two of them entered the graveyard, she never once took her eyes from his, and I could only grip the iron bar tighter.
“Easy, old boy,” said the professor, draping his own feeble arm about my shoulders. “She thinks you’ve let her down—”
“I only—”
“I know, I know. He is a fraud. His spark is not generated out of love of vampires. His spark has a different origin. I can feel the difference, and I believe he lives a life of hate.”
“And what is it he hates?” I asked, letting my hand slip from the cold iron bar.
The professor’s voice was soft and ominous, as if the words he spoke were blasphemous: “Vampires, of course. He lives to destroy vampires. But there’s more. He’s living a lie.”
I watched my Janice disappear into the darkness with Dial Toen. “Can’t she see it?”
“She sees nothing, Andy, except the vision of the vampire and her new hero leading her to it. Vampire lust at its finest.”
“What are we going to do? I know those bastards are out there watching us.”
“Rest tight, Andy. We’ll survive this yet.”
I looked at my mentor, then out into the darkness, trying to catch a glimpse of the many beady, stalking eyes I was sure were watching us at that very moment.
Then a shout came from the grave: “Come on, Andy! Juan found the grave!”
The professor smiled and he held what remained of the gate open for me. Damned if I didn’t feel a glimmer of excitement. Like I said, maybe I was wrong....
Chapter Twenty-three
The tombstone shining in our multiple flashlights didn’t waste words: “Devil Child—God rest his soul.”
“This is one soul that hasn’t gone to the other side,” Buddy said, clapping his hands and letting the sound echo in the dark forest.
“You said it,” Dial said. “He may be listening to us at this very moment, wondering why we’re babbling and not digging.”
“So true, Dial, so true.” And that’s when I noticed Janice’s and Dial’s fingers interlocked. Son of a bitch! A most deadly indication that Dial Toen had indeed stomped on my territory.
But what could I do? I was the tag-along here, the extra-baggage to be put up with, and as far as Janice was concerned, I had tried to spoil this expedition. While Dial, brawny, cocky Dial, now appeared to be taking command—of both the club and her affections.
I wondered if she actually questioned my beliefs. The whole day, she’d met my gaze with only a cold stare.
Was Dial perhaps planting false ideas in her pretty little head? I sure as heck wouldn’t doubt it. Divide and conquer. Now was that in The Art of War or Debbie Does Disneyland? I wasn’t sure, though I was more versed in the latter than the former.
“All right guys,” said Juan. “We found our vampire. I suggest we dig in shifts, for six feet of dirt is not three feet of dirt and will take some time to displace.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Buddy, grinding his shovel into the sparse grass. “I’ll take the first shift.”
“I, too,” said Juan, just before Janice volunteered. She pouted, her full lips looking like a ripe strawberry. That thought was almost too much to bear. I turned to the professor. “We’ll take the next shift.”
“And we the third,” said Dial, and Janice pouted doubly, her lips ripening further, though she didn’t protest Dial’s pairing, only the sequence.
“We’re third?” she whined.
Dial placed a long, thick, sickly finger on her precious lips, and as they walked away I heard him tell her: “Relax, gorgeous, by the time our turn rolls around, they’ll have...dug...it...and that gives us time....” And I didn’t catch the last part, but I could figure out what came next.
Within my gloom, I sensed happiness next to me. I looked, and the professor was smiling. “How can you be grinning like a fool at a time like this?” I asked.
“Dial will get his turn,” said the professor. “And we’ll make damned sure he does.”
I took a seat in the wet grass and leaned my weary back against a tombstone. “You mind telling me how we’re going to get out of this mess? Because, I swear to God, I feel like a hundred eyes are watching us.”
“Oh, they’re out there. There shouldn’t be any doubt about that.”
“Then, Christ! Why are we here?”
“Keep it down, Andy. We’re doing what they expect us to do. They think they’ve got us. I suspect they’re in cahoots with the local authorities and merely plan to have us all arrested and sent away, since they haven’t attempted any other drastic measures of stopping us when they had the chance. I assume they are taking the more practical and less suspicious route of getting us out of their hair, which is arrest and prosecution and shame.”
I listened to the crunch of shovels in the moist earth and found it both pleasing and relaxing. I surprised myself with a yawn.
“It’s okay. Rest now,” said the professor. “For I suspect we shall be on the run for most of the night.”
“Come again, professor?”
“Do you think I actually plan on getting caught by these goons?”
“Actually, I had no ide
a what you were planning.”
The professor looked away where about five graves down Buddy and Juan were now ankle deep in cemetery dirt.
“They’re making good time,” he commented.
“They have the ultimate motivation.” I wondered what we would ultimately find. I laughed quietly when I noticed their eyes gleaming brightly in the moonlight. They were good men, devoted to their cause as wholly and fully as to the most demanding of religions, and I was part of this sect, yet, at the moment, did not share in their determination. Though they doubted me now, it was merely a minor set-back in our relationship. I could not stand to see either of them hurt.
“So what are we going to do?” I asked, at the same time constantly scanning the surrounding shrubbery. Once I detected a glimmer, or at least I thought it was a glimmer in the bushes directly behind Buddy and Juan. Probably some bear taking a piss in the forest, if that’s indeed where they take them. I’d always been asked that puzzling question, and all along I could only shrug in reply.
“There’s not too much to my plan, actually, so I won’t tell you now.”
I could only scratch my head at his reasoning. Somehow his last statement didn’t quite sink in. Sometimes I wondered about our vampiric mentor and that sixth-sense babble. I wondered if I’d still be a vampire nut at his age. I shuddered a little at the image. Had he lived a pointless life?
We watched our fellow club members in silence. Twice I heard the distant roar of motors but wasn’t too sure of their direction.
“They’re down to their waists now,” said the professor. “Let’s relieve them of their duties.”
When we stood at the ledge of the rectangular pit, Buddy looked up and said, “Christ, already?”
“Out, boys,” said Professor L. “You’ve done your fair share, now let others share in the experience.”
Buddy crawled out of the pit most reluctantly. Juan, however, continued digging.
“Juan.” said the professor. “Juan!”
Our Latino comrade didn’t turn or even acknowledge us. The professor eased into the pit and placed a hand on Juan’s very narrow shoulders. Still no response.
The professor looked at me. “He’s gone. He’s in a sort of digging bliss. Buddy, get down here and help me with him.”
Grabbing his waist, Buddy lifted, and with the professor’s stranglehold on his ankles they eased him—still digging—out of the pit. He was still swiping at the air with the shovel after they had set him on his back. The professor slapped his face. Nothing.
“Juan, you dedicated mental case—”
“Hold on, Professor L,” I said, pulling the exasperated old man back. “Let me try.”
I got on my hands and knees then said loudly into his ear. “Holy shit! Is that Anne Rice?”
The shoveling stopped.
“What’s that, Mrs. Rice, you’ve got an autographed hardback of your latest vampire bestseller?”
With an explosive burst, Juan was up. He swayed as he looked around drunkenly. And I should add that it was the best kind of intoxication—the rich, sweet, enduring love of vampires.
Juan sat down on the nearest tombstone, apparently too dazed to even speak. He seemed to be lost and very confused, as if prior events had eluded him, and I suspected they had. His head, though, occasionally jerked around as if he was searching for somebody. Who, exactly, I could only wonder.
The professor and I stepped into the pit.
Chapter Twenty-four
It was like digging for a buried treasure—except I knew in my gut the chest would be empty.
That thought ran through my mind as I heaved a heavy load of dirt aside. However, my knowing I was digging at nothing wasn’t wasted energy, for there was a plan brewing in the professor’s larger-than-normal head, and this was obviously part of it. The dirt was dirty and I was soon as filthy as could be. And as the professor and I penetrated the earth, Buddy paced the perimeter of the pit, grumbling occasionally, like a watchman circling a citadel on his nightly rounds. Off in the distance Juan found a tombstone to sit on rather disrespectfully.
And somewhere, many tombstones down, Janice and Dial huddled together. I caught only a faint image of their entwined bodies in the darkness, looking like a deformed zombie having just arisen from its supposed eternal grave. Or maybe it was just the low moans that gave me that impression.
My nerves were working overtime, for at any moment I expected to see the bad guys come pouring out of the woods and put an end to our midnight dig. I was also very tired, and pissed-off at my so-called friends, jealous as hell over Dial, overly curious as to what was actually buried in Devil Child’s grave. Yep, that just about covered it. And that’s when I knew I needed some cheering up.
Still digging at the grave. Perhaps a merry tune? Why the hell not? I opened my mouth, intending to let fly with whatever song was bottled up.
Out it came. Up from the murky depths of swirling lyrics and catchy ditties. The tonality took form at the farthest reaches of my conscious mind. I was beginning to suspect what it might be, and could only wonder why this song. Then in a burst of inspiration, the music took hold of me. I raised my head and sang out:
“The Love Boat...Loooove. It’s just wuuuhh....”
I held my arms wide, in a state of utter glory and happiness as I sustained the warbling note. My voice emanated from deep within. I felt an incredible release from binding emotions of all types: anxiety, anger, horniness.
It was not my conscious mind singing, for this voice, this emotion, this peace, I realized now, could not come from the conscious level. I was singing from the soul, singing loud. “...the Love Boat blah blah blah.”
In my bliss and harmony with the universe, I was aware enough to notice the professor had set aside his shovel and was singing with me. Then Buddy dropped into the pit and put his arm around my shoulders, belting it out in a surprising sweet soprano. Juan appeared next, apparently recuperated from whatever catatonic state he went through, and slid in with us.
And there we were, the male core of The Vampire Club, singing the tune to The Love Boat as if we didn’t have a care in the world.
And suddenly, and most unwillingly, I was pulled out of my reverie, like a fighting salmon with a hook through its face. My eyes cleared and my head focused, or maybe it was the other way around. I could hear the others singing loudly; something, however, had pulled me out of my deep bliss. And, of course, that something was actually a someone and that someone was an idiot named—yep, you guessed it—Dial Toen. God I hated the ring of that name.
He was shouting above the voices: “Because, Janice. It’s stupid. They’re stupid.”
They were completely unaware that I was watching from knee level, for I was deep in the pit, but still watching them nonetheless.
“They’re my friends, you bonehead, and I thought they were yours, too!” Janice said, drawing away from him a little but not letting go of his hand.
“They are, honey. I just don’t see the fun in singing the theme song to The Love Boat in the middle of the night in the middle of some dead guy’s grave.”
“Some dead guy?”
“I mean the vampire—ah, screw it, let’s join them.”
They squeezed in at the end, and I watched as Dial draped one of his mammoth arms around Juan’s narrow shoulders, and he was soon belting out The Love Boat theme at the top of his lungs. I could see Janice’s angelic face in the moonlight. She was singing as loudly as anyone, but her stare was pinpointed coldly at Dial. She was pissed and I was feeling quite chipper myself.
Ha! Just let those soul-sucking VVV vampire hunters figure this one out! We vampire lovers have a bond that goes deeper than the wedge that the vampire hunters had tried so passionately to hammer between us. The heartless bastards!
We had been energized and our souls replenished by the gift of music. Soon, however, the magic wore out, found its place on the wind, and was swept away to Fantasy Island. Our voices dwindled, with an occasional rise from someon
e who wished to keep the fire lit, but it was a lost cause.
We spilled out of the pit, tired and dirty. Some of us, however oozed out more slowly than others. I reached down and helped the professor out. “You okay, big guy?”
“As good as Columbus on his forty-sixth day at sea before discovering America.”
“And how did he feel on the forty-sixth day at sea before blundering into Central America?”
“Like I feel now.”
“A mysterious circle to be pondered and dwelled upon,” said I thoughtfully. “But I’ll bet he felt pretty good the day he blundered.”
And from behind me I heard Dial whisper to Janice: “What the hell are they talking about? Why doesn’t Professor L just say he’s feeling fine or good or okay like a normal person?”
Janice hushed him up quick. The professor stood straight, stretched his chest, and said, “Nothing like exercising the old lung muscles.”
“Had they been muscles instead of organs, I couldn’t have agreed more,” I said.
“Just a minute, young man,” the professor said, looking past my shoulder. I turned and saw Dial moving away with Janice tucked securely in his arm. “Our shift is up. It’s your turn.”
Janice sprung from Dial’s sturdy arm and into the pit. Before Dial could even utter a word, she had already commenced digging. To me, his sudden smile seemed wooden.
“Looking forward to it,” he said with that same forced expression.
He dropped slowly into the pit and began digging on the opposite end, careful not to gouge Janice with the tip of his shovel. That would have been a romance killer, for sure.
“C’mon,” the professor said to me. “I have a story to tell you.”
Chapter Twenty-five
The professor and I headed deeper into the graveyard, my satchel clutched against my hip.
Soon, on either side, shrubbery rose up and formed a sort of womb-like tunnel. Only a few splotches of moonlight made its way through the entwined branches, and I was very aware of the almost complete blackness into which we traveled.
The Vampire Club Page 8