Nightblood

by T. Chris Martindale

  “Goddamn it, Del,” came a pained voice, gasping and full of tears, “gimme a fuckin’ hand!”

  “I’m trying!” He scrambled across the floor on his knees, feeling about in earnest, this time determined to strangle any rat that crossed his path. He brushed against Bart’s tennis shoe, then felt along his trouser leg. It’s got to be right around here somewhere, this is where he dropped it just before the lights . . . “Oh, shit, Del . . .”

  His hand found cool metal.

  “Got it!” He thumb-stabbed the rubber switch and sprayed the walls with a flash of lightning, then hit it again and this time the bulb stayed on.

  Bart was in the same position as before, jammed up against the hole in the wall, his face pressed to the stone and distorted by fear. He tried pulling his arm free but he was too off balance and panic had sapped his strength. Tears were streaming through the dust on his face.

  Del looped his arms around his brother’s chest and pulled as hard as he could but the older boy wouldn’t budge. “C’mon, Bart,” he urged, “pull your arm out. You can do it.” He tugged again. Bart groaned. “Bart! Pull your arm out!”

  “I can’t, you little dumb-ass! Something’s got me!”

  “Bullshit.” The boy moved around to where he could look into his brother’s face. “C’mon, you pussy. You can do better than that. I ain’t carrying you.” There was a spark of anger in Bart’s reddened eyes. A sneer curled his lip. “That’s it,” Del taunted. “Get mad! Pull!”

  With a growl Bart lurched backward, gaining only scant inches of freedom but enough to bring up a foot and brace it against the stone. With like effort he raised the other leg and planted it as well, till he was bent double and clung to the wall like an imprisoned insect. “Del,” he wheezed, “grab hold.” The boy did as instructed, locking his arms around his brother’s middle. “On three. One. Two. Three!”

  It was like surging against a steel cable. Neither of them budged; trembling with strain was the only evidence of their efforts. Eyes bulged. Sweat broke and slid down their faces. Teeth grated. Leg muscles quivered, almost spasming. Something popped.

  “Oh, God . . .”

  “Bart, what . . .”

  “Don’t stop!” There was pain in his voice, mingled with the fear. “Del, don’t stop! It’s coming!” He wrapped his free arm around his shoulder as if to hold it in the socket and the tug-of-war continued.

  “It gave!” Bart grunted. “It gave! Pull harder!”

  Del worked until he could squeeze a shoulder between Bart and the wall and then locked his own legs against it and pushed. He could feel the give long before he heard about it. “It’s coming,” Bart reported. “My shoulder’s out. Keep going. Now my elbow—harder, Del!” The boy gritted his teeth and strained. “Here it comes . . . oh, Jesus . . .” His voice drained. Del turned, keeping a shoulder planted in his brother’s ribs to hold him, and looked at Bart’s arm.

  It had cleared the hole. But it had brought something with it.

  Reaching from the darkness of the hole, still clutching Bart’s wrist, was a hand or something that had resembled one once. It was thin and bony, the knuckles and joints protruding, nearly tearing the sallow skin that enclosed them, and it looked incap­able of the strength that held Bart in check. Its nails were ragged and long, but some had been torn to the quick from scratching away mortar and digging at the stone of the third wall. The flesh around the fingertips was brittle and split. There was no blood.

  Bart’s legs began to quiver with revulsion. “Get it off me!” he yelled. “Get it off me!”

  “Lock your knees!” Del ordered, slapping Bart’s legs until he obeyed. Then he slipped the nunchaku sticks from his brother’s belt and started to twirl them in the limited space, just as Bart had taught him. “Hold still,” he warned, as he brought the sticks down like an ax, striking the hand just behind the knuckles. Whack! The sound echoed through the cellar. The flesh there dimpled like a thumbprint in soft wax. But the hand did not let go.

  “Again!” Bart was frantic. “Hit it! Hit it!”

  Del dropped the Mag-Lite and swung the sticks with both hands, over and over, and the air was filled with the slap of wood meeting flesh and the crackle of metacarpals breaking. Del could feel them give even through the sticks. But the hand refused to loosen. The fourth blow split the flesh over the knuckles; calcium whiteness peeked through, but there was still no blood, still no sign of release. Bart was being pulled inexorably closer to the wall. “Give, you bastard!” Del swung again, this time for the wrist, and the bone there shattered with a satisfying pop. The hand opened and Bart tumbled backward to the floor, moaning, cradling his injured arm.

  Del backed away warily, watching the hand flop and claw at the air and send monstrous shadows across the wall. Seeing it move like that reminded the boy to be scared; this wasn’t an old bear trap Bart had stumbled into. This was alive, or something like it. And its owner was just beyond those walls. Something. Moving.

  The talon receded into the hole slowly, like a pale moray eel returning to its den. It disappeared into the darkness there.

  Bart lurched to his feet and picked up the Mag-Lite and shined it into the hole. “C’mon! Show me your face, you sonuvabitch! C’mon!”

  There was only silence.

  Del strained to see into the hole as well but didn’t want to get too close. “What can you see?”

  The older boy wiped his eyes against the cloud of dust that glittered in his light. “Nothing. I don’t see nothing but another wall . . . no, wait.” He stepped nearer. Del had to stop him from getting too close. “Jesus, Del, there’s a room back there. No bigger than a closet, but—” His eyes widened. His mouth was working but nothing came out.

  Del edged his brother aside and looked directly into the hole. And the face there looked back.

  It was only there a second, staring, gaping at them, before vanishing back into the darkness. But its image remained before his eyes like phosphor burned into a TV screen. Waxen, dead skin, stretched taut over bones too large for it. Eyes bulging from cavernous sockets. Sunken cheeks, one with a ragged, black scar. Thin, almost translucent lips, barely concealing the abundant teeth behind them.

  Had it been an old man? Despite the shrunken, withered countenance, the tangle of greasy hair had been too dark for that. And the eyes . . . He began to wonder if it could have been a man at all. The eyes had been dull and empty, devoid of any spark that would remotely suggest life. And yet . . . in the glare of the flashlight they had shone silver.

  Bart was the first to stammer, “What the hell was that?”

  Before Del could answer, the face reappeared. The atrophied muscles along the edges of its mouth jerked and constricted. Whether it was a smile or a grimace was hard to tell, but it accomplished the same end. It showed them its teeth.

  “Oh, lordy, this can’t be right. A vampire.”

  “There ain’t no such thing, Del.”

  “Then you tell me what the hell it is!”

  Bart fumbled for logic but he must have left it upstairs with his knapsack because nothing would come. He could only stare at the horrific thing and rub its taint from his wrist. “Move, Del. Now.” They began to back away slowly, keeping the flashlight trained on the hole. In its trembling light they saw the hand emerge again, clawing at the air, reaching for them. They could hear its owner grunting, straining against the walls, and it spurred them on. Neither breathed until they were halfway across the cellar and out of its sight.

  A voice called out from behind them. “Boys.” It was hoarse and croaking, like audible sandpaper. A voice that grated from lack of use. “Boys. Come . . . back . . .”

  “Keep moving,” Bart whispered, pushing Del ahead of him.

  “BOYS!”

  The tone was frenzied and rising like a banshee’s wail, and it froze them in their tracks. Even after it had died the echoes carried it o
n, all around them. That’s why they didn’t hear the other sounds right away. The ratlike scraping of its nails on stone. The trickle of dislodged mortar. The thud of a falling brick. Two. And that frantic, sandpaper voice, muttering to itself, “Boys . . . mine . . . mine . . .”

  Oh, God, it’s getting loose.

  Del couldn’t will his legs to move. They simply wouldn’t obey, not until Bart shoved him from behind and that was all the incentive he needed. He splashed through the puddles and clambered up the darkened cellar steps on all fours to keep from falling, and would’ve been on down the hall if the darkness at the top hadn’t been so tangible. Instead he waited at the cellar door, panting, until Bart and the flashlight could catch up. The older boy cleared the doorway a few steps behind him, gasping as well, still cradling his arm, and was barely through before Del slammed the door shut and jerked the bolt home.

  “You think this’ll hold him?” he asked fearfully.

  The answer was obvious. They both bolted down the hallway and out the front door.

  Del was already wheezing with effort when they cleared the porch and plunged into the tall grass. The front yard seemed so much longer now, like two football fields, end to end. He began to fall behind about halfway across. “Can you make it, Cap?” Bart called back.

  “Don’t worry about me,” the boy wheezed, “I’ll be—” But Bart was no longer there to listen. He was running the other way and pulling Del after him. “Another one!” he was yelling. “Another one! The woods!” Del looked there immediately. There was something moving near the tree line. He caught a glimpse of milky whiteness. Two silver specks of reflected moonlight, staring back. Then he was running again, back toward the house and even faster than before.

  The banshee wail rose behind them. “No! Nooo!” Del felt his innards twist at the sound. It was coming. He passed his brother like he was standing still. By the time Bart reached the house Del was already at the door, digging at the wedge so he could close it. “You freakin’ idiot!” he cursed as his brother came across the porch, “why’d you jam it in there so tight?!”

  The redhead’s only response was to grab the boy by the collar and virtually walk him through the door and up the winding staircase like an oversized puppet. They collapsed on the second floor landing and flicked off the flashlight just as a shadow spread through the open doorway like running oil.

  Del pressed his face to the mouldy carpet and clamped a hand over his own mouth to muffle his wheezing. He wanted to hide his eyes but the voice inside his head said, No, keep it in sight, or it’ll be on you in a minute. If you lose it, you’re dead.

  He looked over at his brother. Bart must have had the same thought, for with an agonizing slowness they both raised their heads enough to peer beneath the bottom rail of the banister.

  It stood in the doorway below, dark and featureless, a stickman dripping his shadow across the dusty tile. It had fallen silent upon entering and now looked around the room like a praying mantis, craning its neck mechanically, sniffing the air. Enough moonlight spilled through the doorway that, when it turned, they could make out individual features. The face had that same withered, skeletal appearance as the thing in the cellar, the same dark greasy hair, the same prominent brow and aquiline nose, now grown stark with the shrinking of its countenance.

  The same. Del looked at its wrist. Sure enough, it hung limp and crooked, and a shard of bone gaped through the flesh. But how? How did it get out ahead of us?

  The thing wore remnants of an old-style frock coat around its gaunt shoulders, and its vest and trousers were likewise threadbare and nearly rotted through. Its tall riding boots had given out near the sole, allowing long toenails to peek through the rift.

  Del watched the creature stalk about the entry hall, its walk a stuttering caricature of walking and yet almost casual in nature. Like a man on a stroll. It looked at the bare walls and muttered under its breath. It sneered at the graffiti on the study doors and wiped at it with its sleeve. And, for the moment, it did not seem to be looking for the two boys. It was as if something had over­ridden its hunger. But what? Del wondered. Nostalgia? Maybe that was it. Maybe it just hadn’t seen its house in that condition before.

  Its house? Of course! “Sebastian Danner,” Del whispered unconsciously, realizing a split second too late how even a whisper would be amplified in the silence. Realizing that he had just given them away.

  The vampire turned slowly, looked up at them and smiled, showing yellowed dog teeth. “Good going, dickhead,” Bart snapped at his brother. He triggered the flashlight, and the vampire flinched at the sudden brightness in its eyes. “Get out of here!” the older boy demanded. “Leave us alone!”

  It cleared its throat and laughed again. “Come,” it motioned with a toothpick arm as it came to the foot of the stairs. “Come. Boys.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  More laughter. It cleared the first step.

  Bart looked around the landing, then ran to a small table there. Despite its size, it was constructed of stout oak and heavier than he expected. They tried to lift it, but Bart howled and grabbed his shoulder. The table didn’t budge.

  Boot soles landed on the sixth step. A third of the way up.

  “Drag it,” Del ordered, pulling the table toward the stairs, his shoes scrounging for traction and tearing holes in the timeworn carpet. Bart put his weight behind it and pushed. The table crept forward.

  Halfway up.

  A little further, a few more inches. Then Bart motioned Del aside and put a foot to it. The table tipped toward the staircase and fell with a thud upon the top step. Two legs snapped off. And that’s where it hung.

  Two-thirds of the way. Still coming.

  Del cursed, gave it a kick of his own. This time gravity took hold. The heavy tabletop slid off that step and onto the next, then caught and flipped and began tumbling chaotically. The vampire tried to evade the impromptu missile but its reflexes were as atrophied as its muscles. A corner of the spinning table caught it square in the crotch and threw it backward, bouncing it off the wall like a rag doll before both fiend and furniture crashed through the banister to the floor below.

  “That won’t stop him,” Bart cursed, grabbing his brother by the coat sleeve and pulling him toward the hallway. But Del shook his grasp just long enough to tuck the nunchaku into his belt and retrieve one of the broken table legs at the head of the stairs. The end was jagged and sharp. Then he grabbed Bart’s back pocket and followed close behind as they headed down the hall. He looked back once—Keep it in sight or it’ll get you—but there was nothing on the stairs yet and then he was jerked through a doorway. Bart slammed the door behind them.

  Starlings fluttered and squawked about the master bedroom like disturbed spirits before finding their way through the empty frames of the balcony doors. Bart wasn’t far behind them. “C’mon, Cap,” he stepped through and out onto the balcony that overlooked the garden. “We don’t have much time.”

  “What about the door?”

  “Fuck the door. It wouldn’t hold him anyway. C’mon.” Bart swung a leg over the balcony rail, chanced a look down, then kicked over and dropped out of sight.

  “Bart!”

  Del squeezed through one of the door frames, ran to the rail, and peered over. His brother was sitting on his butt on the discolored limestone below, rubbing one cheek tenderly. “C’mon, Cap. It’s not that far.”

  “Are you kidding? It’s at least ten feet.”

  “So what?”

  “So I could break my neck, that’s what.”

  “You little dick. If you don’t hurry, that sonuvabitch is gonna do it for you. Now move!”

  Del groaned his disapproval but there wasn’t any arguing about it. There couldn’t be, not if he wanted to live. He climbed over the rail and stood on the bare ledge. “Catch me if I fall, okay?”

  “Delbert—”


  “Okay, okay.” He closed his eyes and stuck one foot into space. C’mon, putz, you can do this, nothing to it, just drop for Chri’sake. His hand left the rail. “Here goes nothing.”

  The doors made a calamitous sound as they shattered, filling the air with splinters of wood and the Christmasy jingle of broken glass. Del almost toppled from his perch from the shock. He made a desperate grab for the rail and held up the stake in futile defense against an attack that would overtake him in a split second.

  Except . . .

  It didn’t.

  He opened one eye and peered beneath his upraised arm. The balcony doors were intact and undamaged. For that matter so was the bedroom door. It was still closed. The room was empty.

  Then what . . .

  He looked down. What was left of the French doors that led to the garden now littered the porching below. The remaining panes of glass had shattered as well, littering the limestone with crystal fragments of reflected moonlight. There was no sign of his brother.

  “Bart?” he whispered. There was nothing at first. “Bart?”

  A grunt then, from nearby. A gasp.

  Two figures sprawled from under the balcony and into the moonlight, struggling, growling. The taller, gaunter of the two was on the attack and forcing the other to his knees. One fractured forearm was pressed atop the youth’s shoulder, holding him down, while the other had tangled in his red hair and pulled it mercilessly aside to bare his wildly pulsing throat. The teenager was fighting like a madman, pummeling that hideous countenance that loomed over him, but his blows had little effect. He couldn’t keep that face from descending, or that cold mouth from fastening to his throat. All he could do was scream.