99 Coffins: A Historical Vampire Tale

by David Wellington

  79.

  “Go, now,” Caxton said, grabbing a guardsman’s arm and shoving him toward the exit. He went. The door flapped open and closed on its spring-loaded hinges as one after another of her troops pressed through. Caxton searched the Cyclorama for any more survivors, but all she saw were torn and bloodied corpses—and vampires.

  Twenty or so of them had pushed inside the vast round space. They stood in the middle of the floor, looking up at her. Their tattered uniforms—one even wore the moldering remains of a forage cap—echoed the look of the painted soldiers on the walls. They were old, these vampires. So old—and so hungry. She could only imagine how hungry they must be, after lying asleep in the ground for a hundred and forty years.

  Caxton cursed herself. Arkeley would never have given that thought time to form. They weren’t people, these vampires. Not anymore. They were killers, wild animals that needed to be put down.

  One of them stepped forward, toward her, arms up. Beseeching, begging her for her blood. Behind him others started moving.

  She lined up her shot perfectly. The vampire took another step. He had fed—she could see a slight tinge of pink in his cheeks, could see his chest where his ribs weren’t quite as prominent as they were on the others. Her first shot only ripped open his skin and splintered a few bones. Her second shot spun him around until she could see only his arm and his side. She waited for him to turn back, to face her again, before she fired a third shot that sent fragments of his dark heart spinning out through a hole in his back.

  The others were still moving, still coming closer. Some of them tried to fix her with their gaze, but she was able to avoid eye contact. She could feel her skin rippling, her body curling in revulsion. Adrenaline—pure, liquefied fear—coursed through her body. Every fiber of her being just wanted to turn and run, to escape. Somehow she held her ground.

  Caxton couldn’t take them all on. That would be suicide. She could buy a few moments for her troops, though. They were out there in the dark, running for the visitor center. The longer she kept the vampires inside the Cyclorama the better chance the guardsmen and Glauer had to make it. She wanted Glauer to make it. She owed him this chance.

  “Who’s next?” she asked, raising her rifle to a firing posture.

  The vampires seethed forward, all of them at once. Like vaporous white mist they rushed toward her, so fast they seemed a single mass of death hurled at her. Caxton had expected as much. They were too smart to try for her one at a time.

  She dropped the rifle, letting it fall back on its sling, and shoved her hand in her pocket to pull out her second and last flashbang. She’d already peeled off the plastic wrapper, so it took only a fraction of a second to rip out the pin and let it tumble out of her pocket. She didn’t have even enough time to throw it—

  She hurled herself backward, her eyes screwed shut. Her back hit the push bar of the fire door even as the flashbang went off and the vampires howled in pain. She hadn’t had time to pull on her ear protectors, and the noise of the explosion ripped through her eardrums, deafening her, filling up her head with a high-pitched whine so loud it made her teeth hurt, made her guts vibrate.

  She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Her body was wracked by the noise, her senses completely scrambled. She was just marginally aware that she was falling, falling backward, then she felt a new wave of pain as she hit the grass hard, her arms flying up reflexively to protect her head. She opened her eyes, but all she saw was darkness. She’d passed from the well-lit Cyclorama into the near-total darkness of the overcast night, and her eyes were still adjusting.

  Someone grabbed her arm. She lashed out, terrified that a vampire would tear her apart while she was still deaf and blind, but the hand just held on to her and eventually she realized it was a warm hand, a human hand holding her. She blinked her eyes rapidly, trying to force her pupils to dilate. Eventually she saw a gray shape looming out of the darkness above her, a gray shape bisected by a darker bar. A face—a face with a thick mustache. It was Glauer.

  “—hear me? The…through…door…bolt…how…”

  His voice was a distant rumbling, a bass-heavy noise trying to fight through the ringing in her ears. She could hear only a fraction of what he was saying. Frustration surged up inside of her and she sat up, then climbed to her feet. She could see Glauer a little better then and she noticed that he was jabbing his index finger at something behind her.

  She spun around and saw the fire door she’d just crashed through. It had closed on its hinges, but now it was rattling in its frame. As if the vampires inside were trying to get it open but didn’t know how to work the push bar. Well, maybe that was even true—they’d probably never seen one before. It would take only seconds before they figured it out, however, if only by trial and error.

  Glauer had been asking her if there was any way to bolt the door. She’d lost precious time while she recovered her senses. Urgently she cast around her, looking for a lock, looking for something to push up against the door. The door had no knob on this side—it was meant to be opened only in emergencies, and to keep out trespassers who might try to break in. There was a small lock plate with a narrow keyhole, presumably to be used to seal the door shut. They didn’t have the key, though. Glauer ran his fingers across the plate, wincing back every time the door jumped in its frame. If a vampire so much as leaned on the door, if his hip caught the push bar, it could fly open at any moment. They had no more time. Caxton grabbed his sleeve, tried to pull him away, but he was intent on the lock plate.

  “—in the movies. Open the…but maybe it’ll…the lock,” he said, staring at her.

  She could only shake her head. What was he saying?

  Looking as if he’d lost all patience with her, Glauer finally drew a bead on the lock plate on the edge of the door with his rifle. Grimacing, he squeezed the trigger before she could stop him. The enormous bullet pranged off the lock plate and Caxton felt its wind as it ricocheted past her cheek. It could have killed her, could have blown her brains out.

  “You idiot,” she shouted, and was surprised to find she could hear herself. Then she looked at the lock plate. The bullet had smashed in the keyhole, deforming the lock mechanism altogether. More importantly, the door had stopped jumping.

  Maybe Glauer’s stupid move had actually jammed the lock. Or maybe the vampires were afraid of being shot through the door. It didn’t matter.

  She shook her head and pushed Glauer toward Taneytown Road, which ran past the side of the Cyclorama building. He’d bought them a few more seconds, but that was all they were going to get.

  80.

  This was the first battle I’d ever directly witnessed. I suppose I had imagined men in pressed blue uniforms whirling sabers in the air, calling other men on to a glorious attack. It was nothing like that at all. At Gettysburg I saw soldiers pressed forth into withering fire, muskets popping and blasting, the oncoming men knowing not which way they should run. I saw the guns chew the land up and spit out corpses, flinging them high in the air. I saw much blood; and many dead men, far more than I could stomach. They lay in heaps, or strewn about the field as if they’d been lead soldiers, tossed aside by a bored and impatient child. They were hauled back behind the line when it was possible, which was rarely, and there stacked like cordwood. The wounded far outnumbered them, but the sight of these was almost worse. So many men begging for water, for a surgeon, and so few of those to go around. There was always some man screaming his last, and some other begging him to shut his mouth and be quiet.

  This was the second day of the battle, which had been running hot all day. Lee held the northwest, and all of Seminary Ridge while we faced him across a sunken roadway from the top of Cemetery Ridge. Rebels came roaring up that incline, their weapons high, their packs swinging, and they were chopped down like wheat at harvest. As they ran they screeched and hollered and bleated out the worst noise I have ever heard. This was the famed “Rebel Yell,” and its design was to strike fear into our hearts. I
t worked well enough on me.

  —THE PAPERS OF WILLIAM PITTENGER

  81.

  Her hearing came back, but not perfectly. A dull grinding buzz filled her head and it didn’t diminish over time. Repeated exposure to the noise generated by the flashbangs could permanently deafen someone, she knew, and she worried she was already halfway there.

  She could hear her own clothing rustle, though, which had to be a good sign. In the distance she could hear gunfire—patrol rifles, some discharging in short, careful bursts, others going wild with pointless automatic fire.

  She ran behind a tree and signaled for Glauer to come up next to her. “Some of our guys are still out here,” she said. “They must have been trapped—unable to get to the next fallback point.”

  “We could go find them, try to help them,” Glauer suggested. He sounded like he was shouting at her from a far-off hilltop, even though he was only a few feet away. “They’ll get slaughtered out here.”

  She shook her head. She had to think like Arkeley, do what Arkeley would have done. The old Fed would have known better than to go racing blindly into the dark in the hopes of rescuing his troops. He would have considered them disposable. For Arkeley the only thing that mattered was that the vampires died.

  She couldn’t reconcile that with her own conscience. But her rational mind was willing to accept it for the time being. “We need to stick to the plan,” she said. She looked up at Glauer. “You should have stuck to the plan. You shouldn’t have waited for me out here in the open.”

  He shrugged. “We’re partners, right? You don’t abandon your partner in the middle of a firefight.”

  She scowled and looked away, toward the road. Partners. Glauer’s old partner, Garrity, had died at the hands of a vampire. Glauer had refused to give chase, instead sticking with Garrity even though he was already dead.

  Caxton had been Arkeley’s partner, once. At least she’d thought of herself that way. Arkeley had only ever meant to use her as bait.

  “Come on,” she said, and hurried out into the road. The streetlamps lit up the dark asphalt but nothing beyond the edge of the road. They ruined her night vision, but still she squinted into the shadows, ready for any threat that came toward her.

  It was Glauer who saw the danger when it came.

  “Something moved,” he said, raising one hand to point at a cannon sitting by the side of the road. The streetlight dripped from the rim of one of its wheels. “There,” he said again, much louder.

  A vampire launched itself from behind the cannon, streaking across the asphalt. For a second Caxton thought she saw his red eyes. She swung her rifle up and fired three shots, but she knew she wouldn’t hit the vampire. It was just suppressing fire.

  “Run,” she shouted, and then booked across the road, her knees pumping madly.

  The visitors center, their next fallback point, sat low and massive directly in front of her. It was a sprawling pile of yellow brick with plenty of doors, much less defensible than the Cyclorama building. She rushed up to the front entrance, a row of glass doors, and shoved her way inside, Glauer pressing up tight behind her. Behind the row of doors lay a narrow entrance foyer and beyond that the main access point to the building. She crouched down and stared through the glass, trying to see the vampire she’d shot at. For a few panicked seconds she waited, trying not to move too much, trying not to breathe.

  Apparently the vampire was too smart to try a frontal attack. Or maybe he’d just been after somebody else all along.

  “Okay,” she said, finally. “Let’s move in.”

  Glauer went first, his rifle cradled in his good arm. He kicked open an inner door and ran through, then jumped back hurriedly as bullets tore out of the darkness. The noise in the enclosed foyer was like the ringing of giant iron bells, and the muzzle flashes dazzled Caxton’s eyes. She understood what was happening instantly, though.

  “Stand down!” Caxton shouted, grabbing Glauer’s belt and pulling him back, away from the door. “We’re on your side!”

  A scared-looking face popped out of the inner door. It was one of the guardsmen, one of the troops she’d seen at the Cyclorama Center. The one who had wanted a pony.

  “Shit,” he said, looking at Caxton and then Glauer. He chewed on his lower lip. “We thought you were—”

  “Vampires. Yeah,” Caxton said. She cursed herself for nearly getting Glauer killed. “Well, we’re not. Can we come in?”

  The guardsman stepped back from the door and she pushed past him into the main lobby of the visitor center, a cluttered space of display cases and signage. A ticket counter lined the wall on her right, while a darkened gift shop stood on her left. At the far end of the room exits led into gloomy hallways, posted with signs for guided tours and the “famous” electric map.

  Three guardsmen sat on the floor, their weapons across their knees. They stared up at her with terrified eyes. The guardsman who had shot at them leaned against the ticket counter, looking into the shadows, specifically not meeting her gaze. He had corporal’s bars on his uniform and a name tag that read HOWELL.

  “Four of you,” Caxton said. “That’s all that got out?”

  “I’ve been trying to raise the others on my radio,” Howell said. “No fucking dice.”

  Caxton let out a long uncomfortable breath. Four of them—that was horrible. That was devastating. Only four left? She shouldn’t be too surprised, she thought. She’d seen the others die, back in the Cyclorama building. She’d seen Lieutenant Peters die. The contingent of soldiers from the National Guard had been expertly trained, heavily armed, and well organized.

  Arkeley had told her a million times never to underestimate vampires.

  “What about the others?” she asked. Her plan had been to keep the various units of her army together as best as possible. The guardsmen had been responsible for the Cyclorama. The liquor enforcement officers had been assigned to fall back to the visitor center and hold it until all of her troops could regroup there. “Have you made contact with the LEOs?”

  Corporal Howell looked right at her then and she knew she wouldn’t like to hear what he was about to say.

  “We found them, anyway,” he said. He gestured with his chin at the gift shop.

  Caxton took a few steps toward the shop, but she didn’t have to go far to see what he meant. In the cluttered aisles of book racks and souvenir stands a number of human bodies—how many in all she didn’t know—lay strewn about like broken toys. They wore navy blue windbreakers, some of them torn to shreds.

  82.

  My coffins were disguised as crates of rifles and were stowed away carefully in the appropriate magazine behind the line. I stayed with them all the rest of the day, even as the Confederate guns hammered at the earth all around me, and though I feared for my life at every moment. A tightness grew around my head, as if some circlet of iron had been placed there, and through cunning design been made so it could be tightened slowly, almost imperceptibly. By the time the shelling stopped my ears were ringing and my skull felt it might split. I could smell nothing but spent gunpowder and the stink the dead made and my eyes ran freely with water, for the smoke was much irritating.

  At sundown the battle halted for the day. Tents were thrown up, so many of them. I could not see very far, despite my position atop the ridge, for the smoke dulled my eyes to everything. Yet the white canvas stood out in that murk and for the first time I saw just how many men surrounded me. Why, there was a whole city’s population on that field, almost all of them armed. It was something I shall never forget, to look out on that sea of canvas, and feel it must go on forever.

  —THE PAPERS OF WILLIAM PITTENGER

  83.

  “You should have told us,” Howell said. His face was wracked with hatred. “You didn’t tell us it would be this bad.”

  Caxton knelt down to touch the arm of one of the dead LEOs. It was cold and the hand at the end was very pale. She rolled him over on his side and got a shock. The man’s head was mis
sing.

  Stepping backward, unable to see anything except the raw bloodless stump of his neck, she barely heard Howell complaining.

  “We need to pop smoke right now,” he said.

  “What?” Glauer asked.

  The soldier stared at him wide-eyed. “Pop smoke. Bug out. We need to leave!”

  She looked up at him with a sudden measure of anger that surprised her. The LEOs had given their lives to stop the vampires. Now this idiot wanted to just leave, with the job unfinished? It was the kind of reaction Arkeley would have had. Feel free to step outside, the door’s just there, she thought, smoky rage billowing in her chest. See how far you get. She managed not to say it out loud. “We just need to hang on,” she said, instead. “The guard will send more troops.”

  “Oh my God, how many times have I heard that?” Howell held up his radio, his thumb on the receive button. Only crackling static came through. “Nobody’s going to come save us! We’re the last of your task force, lady. Haven’t you figured that out yet? They took us to pieces!”

  “We heard others outside, others who are still alive.”

  “Not for long,” Howell replied.

  She ground her teeth together and hit him with her best cop glare. “A lot of my people have died, yes,” she admitted. “But their sacrifice wasn’t in vain. We killed a lot of vampires. But there are more of them—”

  “No fucking shit!” Howell shouted.

  She began to reply, but Glauer grabbed her arm. He lifted his free index finger to his lips. “Has it even occurred to either of you that the monsters who did that,” he whispered, pointing at the dead LEOs, “might still be here?”

  Howell shut up instantly. He looked away, down the dark corridors leading into the building, and lifted his weapon to a firing position. Caxton could see the flash hider on the end of his rifle shaking in the air.

  She drew her own weapon, pointed it. She half expected a horde of vampires to come running out of the darkness that second. When nothing happened after a long, tense interval, she raised her rifle to point at the ceiling.