The Last American Vampire

by Seth Grahame-Smith

  Then there was the constant supervision. The worry that the patient might suddenly bolt awake and run screaming and bleeding into the night. Dealing with the ever-present relatives sobbing and praying by the bedside. Having to forcefully but politely usher them out so he could feed. The stress of it all nearly drove Crowley mad.

  Such a chore, this killing. Such a chore.

  No, it was better they die in the end. Easier for all involved. Crowley refined his method, “treating” each of his patients for a week or so, gradually weakening them, until—always in the dead of night, when no one was around—he drained them until their hearts gave out. The news was broken, a few tears shed, and then the bodies were covered and carried out into the woods. Buried with little fuss, as was the puritanical way. Crowley hadn’t felt so strong, so full, in a long time. He’d considered pulling back, yes. There were only so many colonists to go around. But the ships would arrive from England any day now, doubling or tripling the size of the colony overnight. No, he would keep on feasting until the reinforcements came.

  But they didn’t come.

  Weeks passed with no sails on the horizon. The colonists grew restless, wondering if, perhaps, some terrible fate had befallen their governor on his way back to England. Or on his return journey. Even wondering if the queen had undergone a change of heart and decided to let them rot on the other side of the world. Wondering when the “strange illness” would strike next and whether it would be their turn. Crowley had seen this sort of quiet panic before. He’d seen it as a young vampire during the Black Death, when all of Europe was gripped in fear. Patients vomiting blood on their deathbeds, just days after showing no symptoms at all. The tips of their fingers black and falling off. Tumors the size of eggs on their armpits and necks, oozing pus.

  Ananias Dare had come to him complaining of an upset stomach. Crowley had prescribed a mixture of the usual herbs, telling Ananias to steep them in hot water and drink the resulting tea three times daily. But by nightfall the same day, Ananias had grown violently ill. So ill that two men had to carry him to Crowley’s structure. The grim-faced doctor had examined poor Ananias Dare and, with a heavy heart, shared his diagnosis with Eleanor and a few of the colony’s remaining elders: it was the strange illness that had befallen the others. He left out the bit about how he’d mixed a trace amount of hemlock in with the other herbs he’d prescribed.

  He’d been bleeding Ananias out for three days and nights, carefully, slowly, as he had with the others. A plague had befallen the poor people of Fort Raleigh, God bless and keep them. And though he struggled mightily to diagnose and treat this strange plague, Dr. Crowley had been unsuccessful. Unlike his fellow colonists, who were crammed into outbuildings three and four families apiece, Crowley had a structure all to himself, in which he both worked and slept. One of the many advantages to being a physician, and a very necessary part of being a vampire.

  Like the other worried spouses before her, Eleanor Dare sat diligently beside her unconscious husband, praying for his recovery. Crowley had gently urged her, as he had the spouses before her, to return home and get some sleep when night fell. “No use in the both of you falling ill, dear,” he’d said. “Tend to your precious little one,” he’d said.

  But Eleanor hadn’t been able to sleep tonight. Not with her poor Ananias fighting for his life within shouting distance. What if he’s already passed? What if he’s in heaven, flying with the angels, and the good doctor is sparing me the sad news till morning? So she’d risen, lifted her sleeping Virginia in her arms, covering her with a blanket, and walked through the cold toward Crowley’s structure, resigned to spend the rest of the night in silent prayer, her daughter in her arms.

  But when she’d crossed the threshold, every part of her had gone as cold as if she’d been stripped bare and left to the frozen night. There was the good doctor, his mouth affixed to Ananias’s neck. Only it wasn’t the doctor, but some beast wearing the doctor’s clothes—a beast with fangs planted firmly in her husband’s skin, locked on with primal force, the way an ant’s jaws remain locked on, even after you pull the rest of its body away and sever its head.

  “My God…,” she’d whispered, without thinking.

  Crowley withdrew his fangs and saw Eleanor in the doorway, Virginia asleep in her arms. His eyes were as black as those of the shark she’d watched a sailor pull aboard at Bermuda. Eleanor knew she was looking into the eyes of the devil himself.

  “Eleanor…”

  Crowley walked away from the bed and its lantern and into darkness. When he crossed into the light of another lantern, his features were perfectly normal again.

  “Eleanor, I wasn’t expecting you at this hour. You look troubled, dear. Is everything all right?”

  “You… you were—your face was…”

  “Was what, dear?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “There, there,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Look at you. You’ve driven yourself to fits with worry. Precisely why I urged you to rest.”

  Eleanor supposed he was right. What a silly thing to imagine, she told herself. A doctor, biting a man’s neck. She shuffled Virginia in her arms, instinctively pulling her closer to her chest, without realizing she’d even done so. A trick of the light—that’s all it was. She might have gone on believing this, and things might have turned out differently for the Roanoke Colony, had Eleanor not noticed the blood on the front of Crowley’s shirt—directly below his chin.

  Crowley saw her eyes dart down to his shirt and knew the game was over. Their eyes met again, and they held there a moment, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

  “Of course you’re right, sir,” said Eleanor. “I… I’ve driven myself to fits. Best I go and get some sleep.”

  She pulled away, but Crowley’s hand shot out and grabbed her arm.

  “If only,” began Crowley, “you had listened when I gave you that very advice not two hours ago.”

  “Please,” said Eleanor. “Let me go.”

  “Whose care, madam?”

  “What?”

  “Whose care shall I place your precious daughter in?”

  “Let go!”

  “Someday, when she comes of age, perhaps I shall tell her of her mother… and what a dangerous thing it is to go wandering in the dark…”

  Crowley took his vampire form—the whites of his eyes disappearing behind a black cloud; his hollow, off-white fangs punching through holes in his gums like they were spring-loaded. Claws doing the same atop each of his fingernails—each one bone hard and razor sharp. All of this in the time it took Eleanor to take in a single, sharp breath.

  Eleanor screamed. Crowley cut her throat with a single stroke of his claws, nearly severing her head. All at once the blood ran out of her head and down the front of her dress, and she collapsed, already flying with the angels before her body even came to rest. Crowley snatched baby Virginia from her arms as she fell, saving her from a ghastly knock. The noise of her mother’s scream had woken her, and her sharp cries filled the night, her breath visible against the crisp winter air.

  The men will come now, thought Crowley.

  No bother. It was an Indian, he thought. Who would possibly doubt it? Yes, he would simply tell them that Eleanor had come to check on her husband, and while visiting, they’d seen a savage sneaking about the fort outside. Eleanor had gone to investigate, and the savage had cut her ear to ear before running off. Yes, they’ll believe that. Why wouldn’t they?

  He could hear them rustling. He could even hear them whispering to one another: “Sounded like it came from—” “Savages! Keep the children qui—” “—woman’s voice, I’m certain.”

  The men came—four of them at first, swords and crossbows in hand. They found Dr. Crowley outside his structure, little Virginia in his arms, and a grim expression on his pockmarked face. What appeared to be Eleanor Dare was slumped on the threshold behind him, a pool of blood spreading quickly as her heart beat its last.

&nb
sp; “Savages,” said Crowley. “Wake the others at once.”

  But the men didn’t move. They just stood there, staring at him. Crowley found this odd, to say the least.

  “What the devil are you lot staring at? We’ve been attacked! Wake the others at once!”

  Only now did Crowley hear the arrhythmic footsteps on the threshold behind him. He turned and at once realized that the men hadn’t been looking at him.

  They’d been looking at Ananias Dare.

  Somehow, despite being drained of his blood for three days and three nights, poor Ananias had risen from his deathbed, blood still running from the twin bite marks in his neck. As pale as a ghost. He was unable to speak, but he staggered forward, reaching out for his crying baby girl with one hand… and pointing at Crowley with the other. The other men understood.

  “Put the child down!” the biggest of the men yelled.

  “Listen here,” said Crowley, turning back to them, “I don’t know what lunacy this is, but if you don’t wake the others, we’ll all be—”

  The big man raised his sword and started forward. “I said put the baby down, or I’ll run you through!”

  Crowley had to laugh. It had seemed like such a good plan. Now he would have to kill them. All of them. What then? Crowley supposed he would wait for the ships to arrive. What story would he tell them? It didn’t matter. There was time to sort all of that out. Right now, he had to put an end to this madness.

  His vampire form exploded across his face. The men recoiled, the way Crowley had seen a thousand brave men recoil the moment they’d realized they’d followed their puffed-up chests into a butcher’s shop. He flashed his fangs, sending them staggering backward, then—with the crying Virginia still tucked under one arm—turned around and whipped a clawed hand across Ananias’s face, taking most of the skin and muscle off, leaving a fairly clean cross section of the human head, which, as a doctor, Crowley found rather interesting.

  Seeing this, two of the big, brave men turned and ran. The other two stood their ground, paralyzed by fear. Crowley set Virginia on the ground just outside his door, making sure she remained covered by the blanket her dear mother had wrapped her in. Crowley suspected that he would need both of his hands for the next few minutes. He began with the two men nearest him, advancing on them almost too quickly for their eyes to perceive, and killing them—one by driving a fist into his eye socket, caving half of his face in and driving fragments of skull into his brain; the other by wrapping an arm around his neck and pulling upward until his head separated from his body, popping off and taking a small section of spinal cord with it. Crowley held the head aloft by its hair, studying it as the blood ran out, the eyes still darting around. With the spine hanging out, it reminded Crowley of a fish on a plate, the body picked clean but the head intact, the eyes staring blankly back at you. Crowley let some of the blood drip into his mouth, then dropped the head on the ground, wound up, and gave it a swift kick, sending it over the wall of the fort and into the dark woods.

  Such a chore, such a chore…

  And now the calamity. The colonists rising and hurriedly dressing. Men telling their women to stay as they answered the cries of alarm with their pistols and their puffed-up chests—each of them going bravely, valiantly to their graves.

  Run, Thomas. Run away, and start anew, as you have so many times before. There’s no point in killing all of them.

  But there was a point, and Crowley knew it. His secret was out. If he let any of them live, even a handful of them, they would wait for the ships to arrive, and when they did, they would scurry aboard like rats off a sinking continent and sail back to England with tales of monsters on their tongues. “Thomas Crowley! Yes, the doctor! Fangs in his mouth! Eyes black as soot!” And Crowley couldn’t have that. The older vampires would frown upon it. “Clumsy,” they would call him. No… he’d killed some of them. Now he’d have to kill all of them. Kill all of them and then figure out his next move. It was settled.

  Jack Barrington—sound as a pound, that one; never once came to me with any complaints—charged at him with a sword, which Crowley promptly snatched away and swung at him with more force and speed than any human being had ever swung a sword. The blade cut Barrington from hip to hip—a loud crack! as it shattered plates of bone, tearing him clean in half. The upper Barrington landed on his back, still quite alive. He cried out like a child—“Oh! Oh! Oh!”—and propped himself up with his hands to get a better look at the entrails spilling out of him.

  And here was young Mr. Sturges, having just witnessed sound Mr. Barrington’s unfortunate end, and in plain view of the various heads and torsos that now orbited the monstrous Crowley. He stood his ground. He did not charge (wise). His hands did not shake (commendable). He leveled his pistol and fired it, and the ball found its mark in the center of Crowley’s chest. This, of course, had no effect whatsoever, but Crowley noted that young Sturges was the only man to approach the situation with a degree of caution, and the only with sense enough to keep his distance. Crowley had always liked the Sturges boy. He’d liked both of them—he and that wife of his, Edeva. And she’s with child, too, God bless her. What a shame, all around.

  Henry was surprised to see his target unaffected by the bullet in his chest, yes. But rather than stand there like an idiot and load his pistol, he did the sensible thing. He ran away.

  Crowley could hear the Sturges boy and his young wife rustling in the dark, distant woods. Every footfall. Every snapping twig. He could hear their labored breaths as they ran harder than they had in their lives. They’re running for the coast, Crowley thought. They don’t know why. They’re just going on instinct, the poor dears, God bless them and keep them. They think that if they can just make it to the coast, Providence will deliver them.

  Crowley gained on them as easily as a sure-footed man gains on a wobbling toddler. So easily that, for a moment, he lost track of their footsteps, until he realized that he’d passed them entirely. All the better. He waited as their footfalls and breaths grew nearer. Waited until he could see them in the dark, running hand in hand, the girl trying to keep pace, the boy dragging her along. Crowley kept his eyes trained on them, shuffling himself quietly into their path and taking a position behind a tree.

  Henry never saw it coming. One moment, he was running full speed. The next, he was on his back, his head swimming with stars like the sky above. Crowley had sprung from hiding as they passed and swung an arm at Henry’s throat. But his aim was slightly off, and rather than sever Henry’s head as he’d intended, Crowley had merely crushed his windpipe and knocked him onto his back. Crowley remedied his mistake by balling a fist and punching Henry in the center of his chest, breaking his sternum and collapsing one of his lungs.

  With Henry convulsing on the ground, gasping for air, Crowley turned his attention to Edeva. She’d also lost her footing but managed to get her hands in front of her, tearing up the flesh on her palms but protecting her belly. He walked calmly toward her and grabbed her by the ankles. She kicked and dug her fingernails into the dirt—“No! No, please!”—trying to free herself as Crowley dragged her over the dead leaves and frozen ground. He stopped, spread his feet slightly, hunched his shoulders a bit, then spun 180 degrees, like an ancient Greek discus thrower, lifting Edeva off the ground by her ankles and swinging her torso into a tree trunk, the way a woodsman might swing an ax.

  The muffled sound of bones breaking inside a bag of skin. Not the dramatic cracking sound Crowley had expected, but a dull, anticlimactic thump, like a bag of grain tossed off the deck of a ship and onto the docks. He let Edeva fall to the ground, slivers of bark embedded in her face. Blood pouring from her broken nose and running from the corners of her mouth—just moments ago home to a set of perfect teeth, most of which were now broken or missing. The force of the blow had knocked her out cold—merciful God be thanked—but she was beginning to come around again. Beginning to moan, as the nerves began to wake up and relay the bad news to her brain. Crowley couldn’t st
and to see her suffer. A woman in her condition. He grabbed her ankles and swung her again, her face pointed away from the tree. There was a sharper sound as she hit the trunk this time. A cracking sound.

  So many, nearly all of the images from my living years are gone. The faces, the moments of those first twenty-five years. The sickness of vampirism changes our bodies down to the molecule, to the neuron. It installs a new operating system and reboots us, erasing all but the most essential lines of code from our previous versions. But her face, Edeva’s face… I forced myself to remember it. I accessed it from the first day I was made a vampire and every day after. I clung to it as if I was clinging to that last part of me that was human. In a way, I guess I was. But her voice… [A long pause]… Her voice is gone. Sometimes—even today, I’ll hear a piece of music, a woman singing, and I’ll think of her. I’ll wonder if that was what she sounded like. But I don’t remember. [Another pause.] Jesus…

  This time there was no moaning when she fell to the ground. There we are… second one broke her back, God bless her.

  The end would come soon for mother and child. And for the Sturges boy, too. He was on his back beside his wife, thick, bright-red blood foaming from his mouth. Let them die together, as a family, thought Crowley. Afford them that small dignity. Besides, there were dozens of men, women, and children yet to kill, and time was short. With the unpleasantness behind him, Crowley ran back toward the fort, leaving Henry and Edeva to die in each other’s arms.

  Such a chore.

  Funny thing was, the killing had been the easy part. It had been the digging that had worn the good doctor out. Each body had to be dragged hundreds of yards from the fort, lest any of the future settlers stumble upon an assortment of human bones while digging a new well or tilling a garden. There were more than a hundred dead, in all. Crowley figured the trench would have to be just under six feet wide to make room for the tallest of the colonists, and no less than four feet deep to ensure that a rainstorm didn’t reveal his secret. If he buried them on their sides, he could probably get away with making the trench seventy feet long. Still, that meant excavating nearly seventeen hundred cubic feet of earth, dragging more than a hundred corpses into the resulting ditch, and covering it all over again. All with nothing more than a spade and his own two hands.