The professor stopped me with a rather badly timed swipe of his arm. I touched my now-bleeding lower lip. “What are we doing?” I asked.
“We’re waiting.”
“For what?”
A distant and heavenly voice shrieked excitedly: “We found the casket, everybody!”
“For that,” said the professor.
Excited, I turned to head back down the tunnel. The professor swiped at me again. This time he bloodied my upper lip. “Hold on, Andy.”
“But they found the casket.” My mind was whirring, buzzing, in an utter high at the prospect of perhaps finding the vampire inside. The VVV had momentarily escaped my mind in the thrill of discovery. “We have to go help them—”
“My son. That is the road of turmoil, the path of punishment, the concourse of calamity to go to them. They are beyond help.”
I tried to come up with my own little metaphorical comparison. “Like...the trail of trouble...or maybe the highway of...the highway of...
“I suggest you pay attention, because it’s all about to go down the highway to hell any moment now.”
“Yeah. Highway to hell. That’s it.”
We waited in the darkness. A part of me wanted to help them, be with my friends and my future lover. But the sensible part of me knew they were doomed. When that would happen, I didn’t exactly know, but I had a feeling that’s what we were waiting for.
Yes, it is an odd feeling knowing your friends and future lover were in a heap of caca and you knew it was coming.
And that’s when I heard a male voice, probably, Buddy, shout for everyone to move aside while they opened it. They were so excited, they hadn’t even noticed our absence.
The professor’s grip on my shoulder tightened. I needed something to grip. I reached over to a dangling branch and, in my anticipation, squeezed all the juice and life out of it.
We were a good fifty yards from the grave. But I swear, even from that distance I heard the creaking of something very old being opened, like the doors on a ghost-town saloon.
A chorus of moans erupted in the night.
I couldn’t help myself. “Damn!”
The professor eased his grip on my shoulder.
And that’s when the sirens blasted the silent night. My heart slammed into my rib cage. Headlights suddenly poured into the graveyard through the entrance, followed by one clear, deep, unidentifiable voice: “Police! Hold it right there.”
“Come,” said the professor, heading deeper into the tunnel of vegetation. “We have work to do.”
Chapter Twenty-six
My mind was abuzz, and not in that good way, either.
My friends were no doubt assuming the position on some squad car, with Dial in the background living it up with his buddies. They would have noticed that we were missing and would be searching for us now, no doubt quizzing my friends rather ruthlessly as to our whereabouts. I was glad they honestly did not know. No doubt an organization as far-reaching as the VVV possessed some drug that would cause my loyal friends to spill their guts and then some.
The idea of torture passed through my mind, but it was too horrible to contemplate. The image of a battered and bruised Janice blazed in my mind. I shuddered, horrified. If they split one hair on Janice’s head—
“Hurry,” the professor whispered.
A clumpish crypt awaited us at the end of the tunnel.
Tombstone and other marble markers were plentiful, and as we cut across the graveyard, I made absolutely sure I stepped on nobody’s grave. We already had vampire hunters and cops on our tails, we didn’t need spooks and phantoms after us as well.
It appeared we were headed to the rear of the cemetery. Perhaps there was a back gate, or else we’d have to climb over the fence and take our chances in the woods.
Shouts and yells erupted behind us.
“They might be on to us,” the professor rasped, and I realized the professor might not be able to keep this pace much longer.
So I let the old guy set whatever pace he was sure would prolong his imminent heart attack the longest, and soon enough we reached the surrounding iron fence. And, of course, there was no back exit.
“Why would they need a back gate?” asked the professor.
“Heck, if I were hauled into a cemetery, I’d want to make a fast exit, wouldn’t you?”
“So one would suppose.”
“So what now, Professor?”
“Now we climb. Or rather you push me up and over, and then you climb.”
I was of average height and slender and muscular and basically not that bad looking, if I did say so myself. Anyway, I stooped down to lift the professor and discovered the old man must dress in lead. Somehow, for unexplained reasons, he weighed a wet ton.
“Heavy bones,” he said, noticing my grunts of exertion.
I thought I heard rustling in the periphery, so I gathered my strength and gave it the old heave-ho.
With gravity my enemy and panic my friend, I freed him of this earth. He scrambled up with his hands, and soon his muddied shoes were standing on my now-muddied shoulders. A moment of worry passed through me as he eased himself over the spiked iron bars. I had an image of him hung there, his crotch straddling the pointy iron tips in a major ouchy. But he made it over safely and slid down the other side.
I clambered over and joined my mentor, being especially protective of my family jewels. I didn’t want them plundered until Janice had polished them. I also didn’t want to snag my satchel of vampire goodies, either.
“Where now?” I asked.
“To the mansion, of course.”
We started into the thick Pennsylvanian woods. “And what,” I asked, slapped in the face by an invisible branch, “are we going to do at the mansion?” I felt a renewed enthusiasm building, for I knew the answer.
“Oh, maybe pack our bags, and, if we have time, free a vampire.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
We followed a game trail, listening for the shouts of police, the assault of the VVV, or the wail of distant sirens.
On we went through the night. I felt like a Cherokee, my feet lightly touching the ground, as silent as a passing shadow, one with the Great Spirit—
“What are you doing?” The professor was looking at me.
He had caught me just as I hopped upon a decaying log. I was squatting low with my arms outstretched, my head arched as if I were listening to the distant footfalls of a pursuing enemy or prey. I guess I’d played Cowboys and Indians too much as a kid, before I’d really discovered vampires, and so it had stuck.
“Uh, nothing.” I stood straight, hopped down from the log, and followed behind the professor.
From my estimation, we had about two miles to cover. It had taken us about an hour to make the trip by road to the graveyard. I figured, from our present pace, divided by the narrow, twisted trail we followed, subtracted by the professor’s tiring legs, and then calculated with some vampire math, it would take us one hour and twenty-eight minutes to make it back.
I said as much to the professor.
“You forgot to carry the one over the eight,” he said. “It’ll take us one hour and twenty-nine minutes, from this moment on. That is, if you quit doing math and keep walking.”
Something had alighted on my forearm. It was a mosquito. It had stuck its mandibles deep into my skin. As it drank deeply of my blood, I reached down and stroked its wings. So beautiful. As it pulled its mandibles free, a drop of blood escaped and clung to the hair on my arm.
“You missed some,” I whispered tenderly. As if hearing me, it lapped up the blood, with whatever lapping mechanism it possessed. And then it was gone, satiated with my blood. Life was sweet and pure.
“Goodbye,” I whispered into the night
* * *
We reached the mansion before the professor’s heart blew out, thank goodness.
The old mansion was a beehive of activity, especially for the middle of the night. Vampire hunters and huntresses swarmed
into and out of every available opening and orifice.
I saw no sign of my club buddies. I did, however, see Dial Toen. He was standing in the open doorway of the main orifice, drinking a cheap beer. He was talking to a Mayan She-Thing Statue, and she was rubbing his shoulder most suggestively. He, however did not seem too interested.
I wished I had a crossbow, that favored weapon of vampire hunters. I wouldn’t have killed him, but I would have loved to send a Nerf bolt into his doltish head and make a fool of him.
Any and all who passed him pawed at his hair in an apparent gesture of brotherhood. His smile, even from our vantage point in the woods, seemed forced.
“Am I missing something?” asked the professor.
“Not only are you missing something, it appears Dial is missing something also.”
“Might the word be ‘remuneration’ or perhaps ‘satisfaction’?”
“Probably satisfaction, since I don’t know what the hell ‘remuneration’ means.”
“You’d think he’d be somewhat more jovial than he appears now.”
“Yeah, or even happier. Maybe he can’t live it up yet because we’re still loose.”
“Or perhaps he’s missing a piece to his personal puzzle of pleasure.”
I didn’t like the way the professor was squinting. “Janice? No way. He never cared about her except as somebody else he could sucker.”
“Your restraint is envious. Her charms are quite noticeable, even by one as flaccid as I.”
“She’s just another member of the Vampire Club,” I said, keeping my voice steady.
The professor grunted as he bent over to peer through the shrubs. “My young charge, I’m getting too advanced in years for this type of skylarking.”
“I agree, whatever you said. But you are doing it for the ultimate cause: to free a bound vampire.”
“Thank you for reminding me, my devoted pupil. Indeed, I now feel a sort of rebirth in my poor, decrepit, withered, and flaccid body.”
“We’re on a sacred mission,” I reminded him.
Broncos and jeeps came and went, but no sign of the cops. No doubt my friends were rotting away deep inside some dank cell, being interrogated by cops whose breath stank of coffee and donuts and probably vinegar sardines. All because of their stubbornness. After all, if they would have listened to their club leader....
Dial turned away from the pack and headed straight toward us, causing my breath to catch in my throat.
“Come on,” I whispered to the professor. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“No.” He was watching Dial with a sort of grin on his face. Had he suddenly gone senile?
“Jesus, professor.”
“Hold on, Andy.”
Dial’s head was as low as it could go as he ducked into the woods. My muscles tensed and my head spasmed twice as he approached. He was not, however, looking ahead, or for that matter, anywhere near us.
Dial settled on a stump, looked down at the forest floor, and sniffed.
He sniffed once more and I figured he was allergic to the oak leaves or was developing a cold.
He sniffed a third time and I was shocked to realize he was crying.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The sound of his weeping was neither loud nor low, just sort of melancholic and mellifluous. It was a sad noise, bringing back distant memories of lost loves and pain beyond bearing. Now, as I squatted in the darkness listening to Dial’s weeping, I remembered my first Anne Rice novel.
It was both beautiful and horrific. The images it stirred deep within me have never left, indeed were the foundation, the starting point, for my quest of vampirehood. I also remember the horror in my mother’s face when she realized her eight-year-old son was fixated on vampires.
She had banned me from my research. She had thrown my half-dozen vampire books away, saying “That’s not the way nice Christian boys behave.”
That night I dug them out of the trash, and knew from then on, I could never trust my parents again, nor any grown-ups who had lost the magic in their lives. I would have to hide everything from their hostile eyes. In part, I lived a double life all through my years at home. I had built a sort of study for myself in a small attic above our garage, with a curtain over the back part. To the untrained, casual intruder such as a snooping parent, it looked like a nice place to read the Bible and pray.
Behind the curtain, though, was a different sort of shrine. Over the years, my vampire books, both fiction and non-fiction, entered into the hundreds. And my parents never knew it. I simply told them I was going up to read the Book of Matthew, and I disappeared right above their noses.
It was my sanctuary, my holy of holies, that hidden study. There I sated myself with all there was to know of vampires, both fact and fiction. I became a member of every known vampire club, using a school computer to browse the Internet.
I literally prayed for the day graduation would come from high school, and for only one reason: to move out and into college. And my secret life always held sadness, for my parents could never love me for what I truly was.
Yes, I knew sadness. And I couldn’t take any joy in that hulking, Janice-stealing, back-stabbing moron’s pain, as much as I would have liked to get revenge.
“We’re going to have to do something,” the professor whispered.
“Like what?” To me, just watching him was enough of an intervention. Sadness passed, and so did pain. What didn’t kill you made you stronger. Unless, of course, it crippled you for life, or drove you into a suicidal depression.
Or put a silver bullet in your heart.
Let him get up and walk away and let us get back to our seemingly hopeless plan.
“I don’t know, but I think it’s quite clear that Dial might be regretting his situation,” the professor said.
“You mean he feels like shit for turning on the others?”
“Something like that.”
“You think he might help us?”
“I don’t know, but we can see.”
“Huh?” I thought the professor was losing it. All that thinking had gone to his head.
“Grab that stick.”
“Huh?”
“Shhhh.”
“Just grab it.”
I grabbed it. “Now what?”
“Wallop him.”
I was never much of a walloper, and violence never solved anything. Then I thought of him and Janice, giggling and whispering on that tombstone back in the graveyard. Maybe violence was a good answer once in a while. “How hard?”
The professor looked at me, then at Dial. “As hard as your enthusiasm can muster.”
Even that wasn’t much. I stood and crept over a small bush. A twig snapped. I cringed and gulped air. Dial, however, did not turn, still weeping into his hands.
Soon I was behind him. I raised the club overhead. Then, in a blur, I swung down.
And was shocked when Dial’s hand reached out behind and caught my stick.
Yes, it was a most remarkable feat. I tried to tug it free, but he yanked it away.
“Dumbass,” he whispered. “We’ve all had Black Ops training.”
“That explains why you look so good in a dress.” True, I had nothing, but that’s a line that at least confuses, if not insults.
“The only dressing I’m going to do is when I open you like a Thanksgiving turkey and stuff some bread crumbs up your ass.”
“I knew you were a phony from the start,” I said. “Do you think I’d let a member of the VVV into my club if I didn’t have a good reason?”
“Oh, yeah, you’re real leadership material. I heard you behind me the moment you breathed. I figured you’d probably try to wallop me from behind or something. Where’s the professor?”
“Didn’t make it. Dropped dead in the forest.”
“Coronary heart disease?”
“No. Tired as hell. Poor guy. Just couldn’t take another step.”
And that’s when the leaves and sticks and other
fallen extensions began to crunch and crackle as someone made their way through the forest.
It was about at this time where I began to feel things were getting out of hand.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“I sense someone else,” said Dial.
“Your worst nightmare, unless of course you’ve dreamed of Freddie Krueger in a Speedo.” And thank God, in a way, that was the professor speaking. I was glad it was not another VVV member, but now I was caught in a little fib.
“Professor?”
“Of course. Now let’s bypass the small talk. What do you plan to do with us?”
“Well, first off, I’m glad to see you’re up and about and not decaying in the forest somewhere,” Dial said, giving a menacing tap of his club to his open palm. “Because that would spoil the fun. And to answer your question, according to my organization’s golden rule, I have the liberty of killing you on sight, then calling in a special squad that would get rid of your bodies—they have a knack of either making your deaths look like an accident, or wiping you off the face of the earth completely. That last part isn’t my job. My job’s is just to kill you and not leave behind too many visible signs.”
“Well, try not to enjoy it so much,” I said.
“Now, we chose not to kill you earlier, basically because our leaders decided, well, it might cause suspicion because of all the publicity. We wanted you to come, be disappointed about not finding your vampire, have you arrested for attempted grave-robbing, and watch you leave and to never return. Perfect. Except you two escaped.”
The professor nodded. He seemed to be still intrigued by the death route as an intellectual problem, as well as the proper disposal of evidence. I only hoped he wouldn’t offer them any good tips.
“You could’ve made it look like our group fell off some cliff in a tour bus or something,” he said.
The Vampire Club Page 9