John collapsed into his father's arms, and her grand mother stopped chanting. 'Get him into the bathroom,' she said. 'I will treat his wounds.'
'Will he be all right?' her mother asked worriedly.
'He will be fine. He will sleep for a day, and then it will be as if this never happened.'
Her mother hurried across the room to help her father with John.
'Can you do that to the cup hugirngsi?' Sue asked. 'Talk to it and put it to sleep?'
Her grandmother smiled. 'I wish I could. But I can noL'
'Sue,' her father said, as he pushed past her, John's bleeding body in his arms, 'you sleep in our room tonight.'
'No,' her grandmother said firmly. 'She will sleep with
Sue stood in place as they moved into the hall behind her, took John into the bathroom. She faced the broken window, a cold breeze ruffling her hair, and stared unblinkingly into the darkness of the night.
Pastor Wheeler knelt in the empty church and prayed, his elbows resting on the soft rise of Bill Covey's stomach. The old fuck had died happily, voluntarily, and though he'd thought that would admit him to the kingdom of Heaven, it would not. Oh, no. Wheeler knew that now.
There was room in Heaven for only forty more, and Jesus had come to earth to personally select those forty. He was separating not only the wheat from the chaff, but the good wheat from the bad wheat.
Wheeler heard the sound of muffled hammering from far away.
Tomorrow.
The Second Coming was tomorrow.
An electric tingle coursed through his body, causing his penis to stiffen. It would not be long now.
Wheeler closed his eyes. 'Now I lay me down to sleep, with the girl across the street. If I should die before I wake, please, dear Lord, don't let me bake.' He squeezed his hands more tightly together, prepared for the big sen doff. 'Amen.'
He opened his eyes, unclasped his hands. He pressed his fingers against Covey's naked body, felt the cold, bloated stomach, the white-haired chest. His mouth felt dry, and he knew what Jesus wanted him to do.
He took a deep breath, bent over, bit into Covey's neck, and as the cool blood spilled, pooled, he began to lick.
Mor Tillis was cold. He had wrapped himself up like a mummy while asleep, rolling around in his blankets until every square inch of his body was covered, but the freezing air had penetrated his defenses, and now he lay shivering beneath his comforter. His breath was visible, white in the darkened room.
The darkened room?
He had faJlen asleep with the light on.
The mayor sat up in bed, the movement awkward due to the bulky and closely wrapped blankets. He twisted his arms free, and reached to the left, his fingers finding and turning the black plastic knob just below the bulb on the nightstand lamp. Nothing. The light did not go on.
Then he remembered. He had been watching TV when he fell asleep also, a rerun of Mash.
Blackout. It had to be a blackout. He felt around the top of the nightstand for his glasses, found them, and put them on. The fuzzy monochromatic blackness was differentiated into shades and gradations, and he saw the outline of his dresser, desk, file cabinet. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the room, nothing there that shouldn't be, no unaccounted-for pools of shadow, but he still felt nervous.
As though there was someone in the room with him.
Or something.
Through the top of his pajamas, his fingers found the silver crucifm on the thin chain around his neck. He felt reassured just touching it, but the feeling that he was not alone did not go away. He extracted the rest of his body from the tangled blanket and swung his legs off the mattress.
A cold breeze blew against the skin of his feet from underneath the bed.
Instinctively, without thinking, he jumped, pushing off from the floor, leaping away from the bed. He sprang toward the bathroom and caught himself, his fingers grabbing both sides of the doorjamb.
Something moved within the bathroom, doubled by the mirror
The vampire!
The monster loomed out of the darkness before him. He was tall and aristocratic, vaguely European. In life, he must have cut an impressive figure.. In death, he was truly terrifying. His skin was the bluish white of an untouched corpse, and a palpable sense of coldness radiated outward from his form. There was no expression on the impassive face, only an all-consuming hunger in the red rimmed eyes and a glimpse of white fang between partially parted lips.
The mayor wanted to run but could not, wanted to scream but was unable.
The vampire smiled. Blood filled the thin, gummed spaces between his teeth.
No! The mayor fumbled with the top of his pajamas, then tore the top open and held forth his crucifix. The vampire chuckled, an evil inhuman sound that seemed more like an expression of disdain than mirth, and snatched the crucifix from the mayor's fingers. The mayor's skin burned where the vampire touched it, as though it had been seared with a branding iron, and he watched as the white fist clenched, grinding the silver crusefix to powder that slipped through the long, tapered fingers.
The burning pain awakened him, enabling him to throw off the shocked lethargy that had settled over his mind, and he quickly backed away from the bathroom. Taking a chance, knowing he had nothing to lose, that this was the only way he could even hope to escape, he turned his back on the vampire and ran out of the bedroom into the hallway. He raced down the hall to the front door, running as fast as he could, his heart pounding painfully in his chest. As he fumbled with the doorknob, he turned to look behind him and saw the vampire gliding smoothly and effortlessly in his direction. The monster was grinning, and his fangs glinted in the weak moonlight that shone through the open doorways of the den and bedrooms.
The door was locked, and the mayor tried desperately to turn the small piece of metal that would throw the deadbolt, but his sweaty fingers slipped on the catch.
And then a huge freezing hand grabbed the top of his head, palming it like a basketball, and turned him around. He was staring into the most ancient and evil eyes he had ever seen, and then his head was being bent, his neck exposed.
He felt himself die, and it was not at all the way he'd thought it would be. There was no floating sense of peace, no drifting off into a pleasant sleep. There was the sharp shocking pain of skin being ripped open, blood gushin out, the vampire biting harder, clamping down, teeth tearing through veins into muscle. Then he felt a sudd et slashing agony that jerked his entire body, burnin! through his innards like acid. Spasms of torment rippinl simultaneously through individual parts of his body that had never before experienced sense: spleen, appendi liver. He would have doubled over from the power full wrenching cramps, but the vampire was still holding hit up. He felt his bowel and bladder muscles give way, but nothing came out, and he knew that all of the fluids in his body were being vacuumed out through his neck.
His last coherent thought was uncharacteristically un. selfish: I hope they cremate my body. I hope they don't let me come back.
It wasn't just chilly, it was downright cold, and Janine wished she'd brought a jacket. Her breath escaped from between her lips in visible puffs of white, and she rocked her hands under her armpits for warmth as she hurried across the open area between the buildings. It was quiet tonight: no fighting cats, no howling dogs, no cawing birds, not even the whisk like scuttling of nocturnal bugs and lizards. No natural noises at all. There was only the muffled rhythmic sound of machinery the dishwashers in the kitchen, the heaters on the roof--and, from the rooms, occasional human voices and the fake, flat sounds of television.
She didn't like walking alone across the ranch, not since Terry Clifford's murder, but it was the beginning of the off-season, she was pulling double duty, and she knew that if she balked or complained, her hours would be cut. Or worse. Hollis seemed to be on a rampage, punishing anyone who even appeared to believe in the existence of vampires.
Vampires.
She looked toward the flat boxlike structure at the north end of the ranch. The stables.
She walked faster.
And the lights went out.
