99 Coffins: A Historical Vampire Tale

I’m to be notified whenever a case like this comes up.”

He asked her what she’d thought of the cavern. He grunted his approval when she told him she’d checked all the skeletons and that all the hearts were gone.

“What about the other one?” he asked.

“The empty coffin?” She turned and asked Montrose, “Has anyone been down there other than your team?”

“Of course not,” he replied. “And we’re all under strict instructions not to talk about it. The professor was very upset with Marcy when she called you in—though of course, we’re happy to cooperate with your investigation in any way we can.”

Caxton nodded. “And the coffin was empty when you found it.”

The grad student concurred.

“That doesn’t mean it’s always been empty. It doesn’t mean there wasn’t a vampire inside it at some point,” Arkeley insisted.

“Okay, but what of it? You know as well as I do that a vampire buried underground that long with no blood couldn’t possibly be active.”

He grunted again, less agreeably. “I also know better than to underestimate them.”

She sighed, but she’d known it would come to this. Arkeley had spent twenty years of his life chasing down every vampire legend and rumor he could find. He’d turned up real vampires twice in that time—but only because he never tired of the search. He considered his hobby to be vital to the public safety and had frittered away his life with endless investigations. No doubt they had all been crucial, had all been fraught with danger, at least until he’d actually done the legwork and found a cold trail or a long-dead monster who had grown in time into a local myth.

Arkeley had become obsessed a long time ago, and now he had nothing else to occupy his time. She wouldn’t let that happen to her. She wouldn’t let vampires define her life.

“This is a dead end,” she said. “Something bad was here, but that was a long time ago. You should go home. You should call your wife.”

“You don’t want to open an investigation, then?”

She turned to look right at him. The scars on his face didn’t bother her as much as they had before. “I’m not authorized to do that. This isn’t my job. It’s not even my jurisdiction. I’ll put in some calls. I’ll alert the proper authorities, get a bulletin out for people to keep their eyes open. Just in case. After that I’m done. Now, come on. I’ll give you a ride back to Hanover.”

“Don’t bother,” he said. “Montrose will take me into town and I’ll get a bus from there.”

“That’s ridiculous, Jameson. My car is right here and—”

He had already turned to leave the tent. “You’ve made yourself clear. I can’t count on you. So be it.”

Her chest burned with the rejection, but she let him go. Montrose gave her what might have been a sympathetic glance and then filed out after the old Fed, leaving her alone. She stood in silence for a minute until she’d heard them drive away, then went out to the Mazda and headed back toward town.

Halfway there her stomach started to grumble and she realized she hadn’t eaten all day. It was five-thirty, about when Clara would be getting home, but Caxton needed to eat before she went back to Harrisburg.

She parked in a public lot in Gettysburg and went into a little cafe that wasn’t completely overrun with tourists.

She ordered a ham croissant and a diet Coke and sat down to eat, but the food was tasteless. She took two or three bites and pushed the rest aside.

14.

“If he’s hurt, I can track him, ja,” German Pete said, & reached for his haversack. From this reeking bag he took out a measure of black powder, some small greasy pieces of hollow bone that might have belonged to some unfortunate bird once, & a couple of hawthorn leaves. “It’s madness,” he told me, “to go traipsing in the dark when vampires are about, but I’ll do what you say, Corporal.” He ground his ingredients together in a tiny pestle with some spit, then rubbed the resulting paste into the blood that still stained his hands. He asked for a match & Eben Nudd broke one off his block, then snapped it to life. German Pete took the flame between his cupped palms & cursed liberally as the gunpowder there flared up. He put his breath into the fire, however, & the flame which had been yellow turned a dull & flickering red.

All around his feet the same hellish light licked at the grass & the fallen leaves. Wherever John Tyler had lost his life’s blood the light shone, & much of it on his corpse & shirt as well, & everywhere we looked, though not as much of it as I expected. I’ve seen so many men die in this war, & always the blood splashed on the ground like a pitcher of water being poured out. Yet here only a few drops & splatters remained.

German Pete had claimed our demon was a vampire, & I knew vampires sip blood as their repast. Perhaps I did not wish to believe it before; I had no choice now.

“There, look ye,” German Pete said, & pointed with his glowing hands. A trace of dim fire led away from where we stood. Small drops of it could be seen heading off to our right. That was the same direction from which the vampire had first come.

“Is that Bill’s blood?” I demanded. I was terrified, if the War Department must know.

“Ye’ll have to take a chance. This charm’s for tracking a wounded deer, as such it was taught to me, & I’ve never seen it used otherwise. Might be Hiram Morse’s,” German Pete told me. “Might be the vampire’s own. Yet it’s a track, & that’s what ye asked for.”

—THE STATEMENT OFALVAGRIEST

15.

Night had fallen, just barely—the sky still showed a burning yellow through the black silhouettes of the trees. The streetlights were on, but some were still glowing a doubtful orange, occasionally flickering into life just to wink out again. In the street the air had gotten colder, far colder than she’d expected. She’d left her coat in the Mazda, and she wrapped her arms around herself for warmth as she headed toward the car.

The very last thing she wanted to do was spend another minute in Gettysburg. It was time to go home.

She thought of Clara, probably already waiting for her back at the house. She could go home, feed the dogs, and then spend the evening curled up on the couch with Clara while the TV put them both to sleep.

It sounded just about perfect.

Maybe Clara would let her sleep with the light on for once. After the chill she’d gotten from the mass vampire grave she didn’t feel the need to be frightened again for a long time.

It was only a few blocks between the cafe and where she’d parked. She walked quickly, keeping her head down. She didn’t look up at the windows of the houses-turned-souvenir-stores that she passed.

When she reached the Mazda, though, a sound made her look up.

An alarm bell rang somewhere nearby. The harsh panicky sound might have come from blocks away, but it was one of the sounds she was trained to notice and identify. It was a burglar alarm. Not her area of expertise, she told herself.

She was who she was, however. She was a cop. She stepped away from the Mazda and back into the tree- lined street. The alarm was around a corner, she thought, away from the main tourist areas, deeper into the actual town. It would only take a second to check it out. She wasn’t supposed to do that, of course. The state police didn’t intervene in municipal criminal investigations. According to standard operating procedure, she should call it in and let the local police take care of it.

She was right there, though. It couldn’t be more than a minute away on foot. She would just take a look, get the street address where the bell was ringing.

Half-jogging, she headed around the corner and up the block beyond. The alarm came from a nondescript building across the street from the Gettysburg College campus. The shrill noise bounced off the big brick buildings of