Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

by Grahame-Smith, Seth

  Booth spun in the direction of the man’s voice.

  Henry Sturges stepped out of the darkest corner of the barn. “… and you think too much.”

  He means to destroy me….

  Somehow, Booth understood everything. Perhaps this stranger wanted him to understand—forced him to understand.

  “You would destroy me over a living man?” Booth backed up as Henry advanced.

  “OVER A LIVING MAN?”

  Henry said nothing. There was a time and a place for words. His fangs descended; his eyes turned.

  These are the last seconds of my life.

  Booth couldn’t help but smile.

  The old gypsy was right….

  John Wilkes Booth was about to make a bad end.

  FOURTEEN

  Home

  I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

  —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

  August 28th, 1963

  I

  Abraham Lincoln had a dream.

  He watched his prey move among the men below; watched how confidently it circled them. Choosing. Glaring at them like a god. Mocking them; reveling in their helplessness. But you, he thought. You’re the helpless one tonight.

  Just a moment now. Just another moment and it would begin. A series of rehearsed movements. A performance refined with each passing night. Perfected. Just a moment, and then the force and commotion and speed. He would stare into the blackness of its eyes and watch the life leave them forever. And then it would be over. For tonight.

  He was twenty-five again, and strong. He was so strong. All of the sorrows in his life—all of the doubts and deaths and disappointments—all of them had been for this. They were the fires that burned in his chest. They were his strength. They were her. There was a prayer that came to mind in these moments. Before the screaming. Before the bargaining and the blood. He wasn’t much for prayers, but he liked this one:

  If my enemies be quick, grant me speed. If they be strong, Lord, then grant me the strength to see them defeated. For mine has always been the side of righteousness. The side of justice. The side of light.

  His ax blade had been sharpened and resharpened. If I swung it hard enough, I could make the air bleed. Over the years, the handle had been worn into the perfect companion for his massive hands. Each furrow a welcoming friend. It was hard to know where he ended and the ax began. Impossible to know how much…

  Now.

  He leapt from the barn roof and soared over his prey. The creature looked up. Its eyes went black from lid to lid. Its fangs descended, hollow and hungry. He swung the ax with all of that strength and felt the handle leave his hands, his body still high above the earth. As he fell, he caught one of their faces in the corner of his eye. The face of a helpless man, frightened and bewildered. Not yet aware that his life had just been saved. I’m not doing this for you, he thought. I’m doing it for her. He watched his old friend somersault through the air… wood metal wood metal wood metal. He knew. From the moment he let it go, he knew the blade would find its target. Knew the sound it would make when it broke through the skull of that false god, splitting its confident smile in two… tearing through its brain… denying it everlasting life. He knew because this was his purpose.

  It had always been his purpose….

  Abe woke in his White House office.

  He dressed and sat at a small desk by one of the windows overlooking the South Lawn. It was a perfect late August morning.

  It’s good to be in Washington. It feels strange to write those words, but then—I suppose I’ve been swept up in the excitement of the day. It promises to be a historic one. I only pray that it’s remembered for the right reasons, and not for the violence that some have predicted (and others hoped for). It’s not yet eight o’clock, but I can already see the crowds marching across the Ellipse toward the Monument. How many will there be? Who will speak, and how will their speeches be received? We will know in a few short hours. I only wish they had chosen a different venue. I admit that it causes me no small discomfort to be near that thing. I was surprised, however, at what little discomfort I felt sleeping in my office. It is fitting, I suppose. For it was here, in this very room, that I signed my name to the ancestor of this day. I must remember to send President Kennedy a note of thanks for having me as his guest.

  II

  On the morning of April 21st, 1865, Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train left Washington and began the journey home to Springfield.

  Thousands lined the tracks as the “Lincoln Special” pulled away from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Depot at five minutes past eight o’clock, its nine cars draped in black garlands, a framed portrait of the late president hanging over the steam engine’s cowcatcher. Tearful men stood with their hats in their hands; ladies with their heads bowed. Soldiers, some of whom had left their beds at St. Elizabeths Hospital to see the train off, stood up arrow straight, saluting their fallen commander in chief.

  Two of Abe’s sons were aboard with him, Robert, now a twenty-one-year-old army captain, and Willie, whose coffin had been removed from its temporary crypt and placed beside his father’s. Tad remained in Washington with Mary, who was too grief stricken to leave the White House. For thirteen days and nearly 1,700 miles, the train wound its way through the North, stopping in designated cities to lie in state. In Philadelphia, 300,000 people pushed and shoved to catch a glimpse of the slain president’s body. In New York, 500,000 stood in line to lay eyes on Abe, and a six-year-old Theodore Roosevelt watched his funeral procession go by. In Chicago, hundreds of thousands gathered around an outdoor viewing stand engraved with the words “Faithful to Right—Martyr to Justice.”

  In all, more than twelve million people stood by the tracks to watch the funeral train pass, and more than a million waited in line to view the president’s open casket.

  On Thursday, May 4th, 1865, a sea of black umbrellas shielded thousands of mourners from the scorching sun as Abe’s casket, sealed for all eternity, was carried into Oak Ridge Cemetery on a hearse pulled by six white horses.

  As Bishop Matthew Simpson gave a stirring eulogy for the “Savior of the Union,” one particularly ashen mourner looked on from behind a pair of dark glasses, a black parasol in his gloved hands. Though his eyes were incapable of tears, he felt the loss of Abraham Lincoln more deeply than any living person in Springfield that day.

  Henry remained by the closed gates of the receiving vault (where Abe and Willie’s caskets would remain until a permanent tomb could be built) long after the sun had set and the crowds dispersed, standing guard over his friend of forty years. Standing guard over the man who’d saved a nation from enslavement and driven darkness back into the shadows. He remained there most of the night, sometimes sitting in silent contemplation, sometimes reading the little slips of paper that people had left along with flowers and keepsakes at the foot of the iron bars. Henry found one of them particularly moving. It read simply:

  “I am a foe to tyrants, and my country’s friend.” *

  In 1871, Tad Lincoln—then living with his mother in Chicago—was stricken with tuberculosis. He died on July 15th at the age of eighteen. His body was taken to Springfield and placed in his father’s tomb beside brothers Willie and Eddy. Again, it was Robert who accompanied the funeral train, as Mary was too distraught to attend.

  Of all Abe’s children, only Robert survived to see the new century. He would marry and father three children of his own, and in later life, he would serve two presidents, James Garfield and Chester A. Arthur, as secretary of war. He died peacefully at his estate in Vermont in 1926, at the age of eighty-two.

  Tad’s death had been the final, irreparable blow to Mary Lincoln’s mental health. In the years that followed, she became increasingly erratic, often swearing that she saw her late husband’s face staring at her from the darkness on nighttime walks. She suffered from paranoia, ins
isting that strangers were trying to poison her or steal from her. She once had $56,000 worth of government bonds sewn into the linings of her petticoats for safekeeping. After Mary attempted suicide, Robert had no choice but to commit his mother to a psychiatric hospital. After her release, Mary moved back to Springfield, where she died in 1882, at the age of sixty-three. She was laid to rest beside the three young sons she’d wept for in life.

  There would be several attempts to steal Abraham Lincoln’s body following the Civil War—until, at Robert Lincoln’s request, the casket was covered with cement in 1901, never to be seen again. None of the would-be grave robbers had had much success. In fact, none had even managed to pry the president’s heavy casket lid open.

  If they had, they would have been shocked by what they found.

  III

  On August 28th, 1963, Henry Sturges stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial, his clothing and hair in keeping with the times, a black umbrella protecting his skin and dark glasses covering his eyes. He was accompanied by an uncommonly tall friend, his eyes behind a pair of Ray-Bans; his shoulder-length brown hair beneath a floppy brimmed hat. A bushy beard obscured his angular face, the same one staring down at him from its marble throne (and causing him no shortage of discomfort). Both listened intently, proudly, as a young black preacher looked out on more than 250,000 faces.

  “Five score years ago,” the preacher began, “a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.”

  Abe and Henry had come to help finish the work begun a century before. They’d been there during Reconstruction, driving out the vampires who continued to terrorize emancipated slaves….

  “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.”

  They’d been there in Mississippi, dragging white-hooded devils to their deaths by the light of burning crosses….

  “Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.”

  And they’d been there in Europe, where millions gave their lives defeating the second vampire uprising between 1939 and 1945.

  But there was still work to be done.

  “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

  The crowd cheered wildly, and the preacher took his seat. It was a perfect late-summer day. A defining day in man’s struggle for freedom. Not unlike the day Abraham Lincoln was laid to rest, ninety-eight years before.

  The day Henry made a choice…

  … that some men are just too interesting to die.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks go to Ben Greenberg, Jamie Raab, and all my new friends at Grand Central for being excited by the idea and seeing it through brilliantly; to Claudia Ballard for making it all happen, Alicia Gordon for making more things happen, and everyone at William Morris Endeavor; to the wonderfully terrifying Gregg Gellman; to the Internet (without which this book would not have been possible), particularly Google, Wikipedia, and the Lincoln Log—invaluable resources, all; to Starbucks—you complete me; to Stephanie Isaacson for her Photoshop genius; to David and everyone at MTV for bearing with me as I bit off more than I could chew; and to my fearless research assistant, Sam.

  A special thanks to Erin and Josh for letting me sit out most of 2009.

  And finally, to Abe—for living a life that hardly needed vampires to make it incredible—and to Henry Sturges—wherever you are….

  *Not the name he went by at the time. For the sake of consistency, I refer to him by his actual name throughout the book, including here.

  *It was common for early settlers to build their homes around forts, or “stations.” In the event of an Indian attack, these forts offered a place to retreat. They were kept manned by a small detachment of volunteers.

  *A sixteenth-century song by Richard Edwards, referenced in Romeo and Juliet, Act IV, Scene 5.

  *Many farmers ran distilleries as a way to make extra money off their crop. Here, Abe is referring to the fact that Thomas often traded his carpentry for corn whiskey—much to the consternation of his new wife.

  *It’s not known how Barts killed Nancy Lincoln and the Sparrows, but based on information elsewhere in the journals, he likely administered a “fool’s dose” of his own blood. Pricking a finger and squeezing a few drops into a sleeping victim’s mouth is the most common method. Such an amount is merely enough to produce the side effects of transformation (sickness, death) without any of its lasting benefits.

  *It’s interesting to note the repeated use of the words “kill” and “killing” in these early entries. Abe would later use the more accurate verbs “destroy” and “slaughter.”

  *Macbeth, Act I, Scene 3.

  *Abe was amazed that passengers were willing to fork over a dollar apiece to have themselves ferried a distance of (in some cases) thirty feet. As in his days on the Old Cumberland Trail in Kentucky, he also reveled in meeting travelers and hearing their stories, many of which he would retell for the rest of his life.

  *A tarlike resin.

  **A rudder with a long handle so it could be controlled from the roof of the shelter.

  *Abe is referring to what is today called St. Louis Cemetery #1.

  *An understanding Poe seemed to have forgotten by 1843, when de Vere was used as a character in Poe’s “Lenore.”

  *A healthy man in his prime could fetch as much as $1,100 (an impossible amount for a slave to bank), while an older woman or those with any sort of impediment might net $100 or less.

  *The town would be renamed Springfield the following year.

  *John Walker’s matches (which he called congreves) were made with a mixture of stibnite, potassium chlorate, gum, and starch. They were incredibly unstable, odiferous items.

  *The name given to a group of some five hundred warriors and one thousand women and children from five different tribes, all under the command of Black Hawk. It was so named because Black Hawk had been told he would receive assistance from the British in any conflict with the Americans (it never materialized).

  *William F. Berry, son of a local minister, and a former corporal in Lincoln’s outfit.

  *Vandalia was the state capital until 1839, when it was moved to Springfield.

  *Abe is either misquoting or paraphrasing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, Scene 2.

  *Long, rectangular strips of leather used to sharpen shaving razors.

  *On August 25th, 1838, the three-year anniversary of Ann’s death, The Sangamon Journal carried this poem on its front page. The author chose to remain anonymous.

  *A boardinghouse on the next block of Hoffman’s Row.

  **A small, three-barreled pistol capable of firing three shots (one from each barrel) without reloading.

  *Abe had by now taken to calling Sarah Bush Lincoln “mother.” It’s worth noting that he doesn’t mention his father.

  *Jack Armstrong had decided to remain in Clary’s Grove when Abe moved to Springfield, effectively ending their brief partnership.

  **A four-room house on the Farmington estate, roughly a half mile from the main residence.

  *This brush would only deepen McDowell’s paranoia. He left Kemper and founded his own college of medicine at Ninth and Gratiot Streets, outfitting the building with rooftop cannons and keeping a store of muskets on hand to ward off attack. He would go on to serve in the Confederate Army before disappearing from history altogether. The St. Louis building that housed his school is said to be haunted by his ghost, though no record of his death has ever surfaced.

  *A modest two-story home that stood on the present-day site of the Library of Congress.

  *
The seventy-year-old founder of the Whig Party, elder statesman, and idol of Lincoln’s.

  *In present-day western Slovakia.

  *Mary had no idea who Henry Sturges was, or that such a thing as vampires existed.

  *In 1852, Abe started a law practice with Ward Hill Lamon, an imposing figure of a man who would later serve as his presidential bodyguard. As he had with his former partner, Abe kept Lamon in the dark about vampires.

  *A witness claimed that he saw Duff commit the murder from a distance of 150 feet “by the light of a full moon.” Abe produced an almanac, which proved that the night in question had been a moonless one.

  *Brooks died eight months after the attack.