Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

by Seth Grahame-Smith

  Abe had received a second letter from Henry before they’d departed Springfield, a letter bearing new intelligence. The Union’s spies had learned that Davis was confined to a bedroom on the west side of the second floor. Intent on giving him peace while he healed, his wife, Varina, had taken to sleeping in an adjacent room with their two infant sons and five-year-old daughter. At night, Davis’s two minders took turns patrolling the grounds while the other remained in the house.

  I thought it strange, therefore, that we saw no sign of such patrols, or lights burning in any of the windows. Henry’s instructions, however, were precise, and we had traveled a long way. There could be no thoughts of turning back. Satisfied that we had waited long enough, we readied our weapons and crept into the clearing around the two-story house. It was white (or yellow, I could not tell in the dark), with a raised front porch and first story, as these parts were often deluged when the Mississippi swelled beyond its banks. I half expected to see a vampire waiting at the front door, long since alerted to our presence by the distant whinnying of our horses, the scent of the martyrs in my coat. But there was nothing. Only stillness. Doubts flooded my mind as we climbed the steps to the porch. Did I still possess the strength to best a vampire? Had I prepared Lamon to face an opponent of such speed and strength? Was Speed still equal to the task at hand? Indeed, the ax in my hands felt heavier than it had since I was a child.

  Abe slowly nudged the front door as Lamon took aim, ready to shoot the vampire that was almost certainly going to leap out of the shadows the moment it was opened.

  None did.

  We entered—I with my ax held high; Speed looking down the barrel of his .44 caliber [rifle]; Lamon with a revolver in each hand. We searched the dark, sparsely furnished first floor, our every step announced by creaking floorboards as we went. If indeed there was a vampire guarding Davis above, he knew we were here now. Finding no sign of the dead (or living) below, we returned to the front of the house and its narrow staircase.

  Abe led the way up. There were vampires here—he could feel it.

  I could see the next several moments unfold in my mind as I climbed the stairs. Upon reaching the top, one of the vampires would spring from hiding and strike from my right side. I would turn my ax in his direction and lodge it in his chest as we met, but in doing so, I would be knocked backward—and the two of us would be sent tumbling down the stairs. As we wrestled, the second vampire would strike Speed and Lamon above. Lamon would panic (this being his first hunt) and empty his revolvers wildly, but his bullets would miss the mark. It would therefore fall to Speed and his rifle to silence the creature, which he would do by shooting it cleanly through the heart and head. The noise would rouse Mrs. Davis and the children from sleep, and they would scurry into the hall at precisely the moment I freed my ax from the first vampire’s chest and took his head at the base of the staircase. Their screams would bring the frail, half-blind Jefferson Davis stumbling out of his own bedroom, upon which Speed and Lamon would shoot him to death. With our sincere apologies to his family, we would then run off into the night.

  But on reaching the top of the stairs, Abe found nothing. Every door was open. Every room empty.

  Could we be in the wrong place? Could Davis have suddenly and inexplicably risen from his bed and departed for Washington? No—no, Henry’s instructions had been meticulous. This was the house. This was the intended date and time of our strike. It was all wrong.

  There are vampires here… I can feel it.

  The truth now formed in my mind. Oh, that I had ignored my instincts! That I had come at all! Damn Henry’s rippling water! How could I have been so reckless? How could I have ventured my life with three sons at home? A wife who was already fragile from grief? No… I would not die tonight. I refused.

  “Out,” whispered Abe. “Out at once—and make ready your weapons… we are betrayed.”

  We bounded down the stairs toward the front door, but on reaching it found it locked from the outside. The clapping of wood against wood now surrounded us as storm shutters were slammed shut over every window, and a chorus of hammers pounded nails into the house, ensuring they could not be opened. “Upstairs!” I cried. But here, too, the shutters had been closed and fastened.

  “They’ve trapped us!” said Lamon.

  “Yes,” said Speed. “However, all things being equal, I’d rather be in here with us than out there with them.”

  Abe said nothing. He knew it wouldn’t be long before they smelled the smoke; before they felt the heat of the fire as it ate through the walls and floorboards. As if answering this thought, Lamon exclaimed, “Look!” and pointed to the flickering orange light coming through the crack beneath the front door.

  They had no choice.

  Whatever horrors waited outside, they couldn’t be worse than certain death by burning. The flames were now visible all around them through the slats in the storm shutters.

  I had a plan. Once through the door, we would remain shoulder to shoulder, three across, and charge straight ahead until we reached the tree line. I would take the center, using my ax to cut down whatever came at us from the front. Speed and Lamon would be on my right and left, shooting whatever came at us from the sides. It was a plan almost certain to fail (based on how quickly the shutters had closed around us, there were at least a dozen men, vampires, or some combination of the two outside), but it was the only one we had. I lifted my ax and steadied myself. “Gentlemen,” I said.

  The front door flew open with a single blow of Abe’s ax, sending smoke and hot ash flying away from the porch.

  The heat was immediate. It drove us back at first, blistering our skin and very nearly setting our clothes alight. When my eyes adjusted to the flames on the front porch (by now fully engulfed), I saw that the fallen door had provided a narrow path across. I held my breath and led the way, hurrying over the door, down the front steps and onto the grass below. No sooner had my feet touched the ground than I realized the hopelessness of our effort. For in the light of the burning house behind us, I discerned no fewer than twenty figures ahead—some aiming rifles, others wearing dark glasses to shield their eyes from the flames. Living men and vampires—conspiring to cut off all hope of escape. One of the living, an older gentleman, stepped forward and stood but ten feet from me.

  “Mr. Lincoln, I presume,” he said.

  “Mr. Davis,” said Abe.

  “I’d be much obliged,” said Davis, “if your companions would put those irons down. I’d hate for one of my men to startle and fill the three of you with holes.”

  Abe turned to Speed and Lamon and gave a nod. Both dropped their guns.

  “The big one is concealing another pistol,” said one of the vampires behind Davis. “He’s thinking about reaching for it right now.”

  “Well, if he does,” said Davis, “then I suggest you kill him.” Davis turned back to Abe. “Your ax as well, if you please.”

  “If it’s all the same, Mr. Davis,” said Abe, “I don’t expect to live but a few moments longer, and I would very much like to die holding the ax my daddy gave me as a boy. Surely one of your men will shoot me if I raise it in anger.”

  Davis smiled. “I like you, Mr. Lincoln—I do. Kentucky born, same as me. Self-made. As fine an orator as ever lived—and dedicated, my Lord! Coming all the way down here just to kill a man! Leaving your family alone and unprotected in Springfield… no, sir, let no man speak ill of your convictions. I could sing your praises till morning, sir—but some of my associates are rather sensitive to sunlight, and… well, I’m afraid we just don’t have that long.

  “Tell me,” said Davis, “with your many fine qualities and famous mind, how is it that you’ve arrived on the wrong side of this fight?”

  “I?” asked Abe. “I must have misheard you, sir—for of the two of us, only one is conspiring against his fellow man.”

  “Mr. Lincoln, vampires are superior to man, just as man is superior to the Negro. It’s the natural order of things, you see. Sur
ely we agree on this much, at least?”

  “I agree that some vampires are superior to some men.”

  “Am I wrong, therefore, to recognize the inevitability of their rule? Am I wrong to side with the greater power in the coming war? Sir, it brings me no pleasure to think of white men in cages. But if it must come to pass—if vampires are to be the kings of men—then let us work with them while time remains. Let us regulate the thing—limit it to the Negro, and to the undesirables of our own race.”

  “Ah,” said Abe. “And when the blood of Negroes is no longer sufficient; when the ‘undesirables’ of our race have been exhausted—tell me, Mr. Davis… who then shall your ‘kings’ feed upon?”

  Davis said nothing.

  “America,” Abe continued, “was forged in the blood of those who opposed tyranny. You and your allies… would you not see it delivered into the hands of tyrants?”

  “America is thataway, Mr. Lincoln,” laughed Davis, pointing north. “You’re in Mississippi now.” He stepped forward, to the very edge of where Abe’s ax could reach if he chose to swing it. “And let us speak plainly, sir. We’re both the servants of vampires. But when these hostilities are at an end, I will be left to enjoy the peace of my remaining years in comfort and wealth, and you will be dead. And there it is.”

  Davis paused a moment, offered a slight bow, and retreated. Three of the living men now stepped to the front of the group—each with a rifle aimed at us. Each waiting for Davis to give the order.

  “Damn it, Abe,” said Lamon. “Are we just gonna stand here and do nothing?”

  “I’m wearing a watch,” Speed told the executioners, his voice cracking. “It belonged to my grandfather, I—I ask only that someone see it back to my wife in Louisville.”

  These are the last seconds of my life.

  “Well, if I’m dying,” said Lamon, “I’m dying with a gun in my hand.” He reached for his coat.

  “Boys,” said Abe to his friends, “I’m sorry for dragging you into th—”

  The crack of rifles filled the night before he could finish.

  In that instant I saw the faces of all those loved ones departed from this earth: my dear, sweet little boy; my sturdy Armstrong and beloved Ann. I saw my sister, and my angel mother. But when this instant passed, and my eyes remembered themselves, my executioners remained in the light of the burning house, shock on their faces. Speed and Lamon remained standing on either side of me.

  We still lived. Our executioners, however, were not as fortunate. All three fell in unison, bullets having torn though their skulls.

  It was a miracle.

  That miracle was Henry Sturges.

  He charged out of the dark with eleven Union vampires on his heels. Some held rifles, others revolvers, firing as they came. The Southern vampires nearest Davis hurried him off, while the others prepared to meet their Northern counterparts. One of them, however, remembered that the job of my execution remained unfinished. He leapt at me from twenty yards distant, fangs and claws extended, eyes black behind his dark glasses. I let my ax fly, and the blade found its target—but my strength not being what it once was, it failed to sink more than an inch or two into his middle. He fell back briefly and looked at the dark ribbons pouring from the gash in his belly. They were of no concern. He picked my ax off the ground and came at me again. I thrust a hand into my coat, looking for a knife that had not been there in twenty years… helpless. With the vampire not four feet from me, Lamon aimed over my shoulder and fired, forever diminishing the hearing in my left ear, but silencing the creature with a bullet through the face.

  As the smoke from Lamon’s revolver hung in the air around his head, Abe became aware of a sharp pain coming from his chin.

  I pressed my hand to it. [The vampire] had come close enough to open a gash with the tip of my ax. Blood dripped from the wound and down the front of my shirt as vampires clashed before us in the light of the flames—jumping impossible distances, crashing into each other with enough force to shake the ground beneath our feet.

  Here, for the first time, I saw Henry Sturges in battle. I watched him run headlong into a Southern vampire and drive the devil into a tree—the result being that its trunk split in two. Yet Henry’s opponent was hardly affected, for he pushed back and began to swing wildly with his hands, as if holding a sword in each. Henry defended each of these strikes with his own clawed hands, until, being the better swordsman of the two, he saw an opportunity and ran his opponent through the middle—forcing five straightened fingers into the vampire’s belly and out his back, snapping his spine in the process. Henry withdrew his hand, and his opponent fell to the ground, unable to move. I watched him twist the vampire’s head backward and rip it from his shoulders.

  The living men unfortunate enough to find themselves in the middle of this melee were torn apart, their limbs taken by errant claws, their bones crushed by the force of the vampires colliding around them. Realizing that the numbers were not in their favor, the remaining Southern vampires made a hasty retreat. Several Union vampires gave chase—the others, including Henry, hurried to meet us where we stood.

  “Abraham,” he said. “I’m pleased to see you alive, old friend.”

  “And I to see you dead.”

  Henry smiled. He tore a sleeve from his shirt and held it to Abe’s chin to slow the bleeding, while his companions attended to Lamon and Speed (who were shaken up but otherwise unharmed).

  The Union had been given false information by a traitorous spy—information meant to lure me to my death. Henry and his allies did not learn of this treachery until after we left Springfield. With no means of getting word to us (for we traveled under false names), they rode for two days and nights to head us off, while sending word to the trinity to have Mary and the boys placed in hiding.

  “And you’re sure they’re safe?” asked Abe.

  “I’m sure they’re in hiding, and protected by three of my most cunning, most vicious allies,” said Henry.

  It would suffice. Abe knew that the trinity took their work seriously.

  “Henry,” he said after a long pause, “I was certain that I was going to—”

  “I told you, Abraham… it wasn’t your time.”

  It would be the last hunt of Abe’s life.

  On November 6th, 1860, Abe sat in a cramped telegraph office in Springfield.

  The tide of well-wishers and appointment seekers had risen to unbearable levels as the election approached. When the 6th came at last, I declared that I wished to see no one until all the votes were in. My only company was to be the young [telegraph] operator. If the outcome was the one I and my supporters expected, there would be few peaceful days in the coming years.

  He’d grown a beard for the first time in his life to conceal the scar on his chin. * It gave his face a fuller, healthier appearance. “More distinguished,” as Mary said. “A face befitting the next president.”

  Mary was, at first, quite opposed to my running—having not enjoyed her previous time in Washington, and being all too aware of the time such an endeavor would require of me. As my campaign met with increasing success, however, her position began to change. I suspect that she rather enjoyed the well-wishers who came to our door at all hours; the wealthy couples who invited us to their homes for dinner; and the lavish events thrown in my honor. I suspect that she began to see the many social possibilities of being married to the president of the United States.

  As the returns began to trickle in over the telegraph wires that Tuesday evening, it seemed more and more certain that Abe would be just that.

  I admit it came as little surprise, for I believed that the Union would see to my victory—whether earned or not. **

  I could therefore feel none of the honor that had accompanied my being elected captain by my fellow soldiers. The weight of the thing was immense. The challenges and miseries ahead unknowable and numerous.

  Henry’s telegram had been one of the first to arrive that morning—long before a single vote had
been counted.

  CONGRATULATIONS MR PRESIDENT EVER H

  IV

  President Elect Abraham Lincoln’s journey to the White House began in Springfield on February 11th, 1861. A private train was ordered to shepherd Abe, his family, his close associates, and his private security detail to Washington, D.C.

  It hadn’t been an easy transition.

  Just over a month after the election, South Carolina’s legislature voted to secede from the Union. One by one, more Southern states followed—seven in all by Inauguration Day: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas. Abe could only watch as President Buchanan did nothing to stem the crisis.

  [Buchanan] continues to rest on his rump as the country comes apart. As the ships of our navy and forts are daily surrendered to the South, and the Union dissolves before our eyes. His weakness astonishes. It seems clear that he has decided to kick this crisis down the road. I, on the other hand, am very much looking forward to kicking him onto Pennsylvania Avenue.

  Three days before Abe’s train left Springfield, the self-proclaimed “Leaders of the Southern People” met in Montgomery, Alabama, to formally adopt a constitution and announce the Confederate States of America.