99 Coffins: A Historical Vampire Tale

fast as she could. Holding on to the sleeve of Glauer’s jacket, she pumped her legs to add more speed. A vampire could be right behind her, or directly in her path. They could move fast enough to get around her, to get in her way—

If that were the case, of course, she was already dead. Nothing she could do about it. She poured on more speed. Her feet hit concrete and she gasped in relief as she dashed up the handicapped ramp of the Cyclorama.

The front doors opened and a pair of guardsmen stepped out, weapons up and aimed at her. She lifted her own patrol rifle and they stood down. “You,” she said, pointing at one of the guardsmen. He had his night-vision goggles dangling in front of his face, a pair of shiny lenses staring back at her. “What do you see? Is anyone behind us?”

“Negative,” he told her.

“Okay. Get this door shut once we’re in.”

As badly as the first stage of the battle had gone, regardless of how many people had died, her plan was still operational. She led Glauer inside, into a building with electric lights and warmth.

The Cyclorama Center was one of the big tourist attractions of the military park—or at least it had been.

It had been closed to the public for renovation for over a year. The police had been kind enough to open it up for her so she could use it as her preliminary fallback position. It was a round building with no windows, so no vampires could come crashing in from the sides. Inside was mostly open space so that people could see the cyclorama itself, an oil painting twenty-seven feet high and hundreds of feet around, a 360-degree vision of the battlefield during Pickett’s infamous charge. The painting was badly faded, but restoration work had already begun and the smoke and cannon and hordes of struggling men were depicted with eerie realism. The subject matter was too close to what Caxton had just fled for comfort.

Some of Caxton’s troops—mostly guardsmen in camouflage-pattern uniforms—had gathered inside, keeping close together. They had their rifles in their hands, ready to fight again at a moment’s notice.

None of them spoke, none of them smoked or even gave her a second look. They knew what was still out there in the dark. Falling back had bought them a few moments’ respite, but nobody would call it peace.

In the middle of the floor a table had been set up on sawhorses. A big man-portable radio rig took up half the tabletop, and the rest was covered in small-scale maps of the park and the town. A guardswoman with chevrons on her uniform was holding court down there, craning over the radio and shouting heated questions into her mouthpiece.

“Lieutenant Peters,” Caxton said, rushing up to the woman. “You made it.”

“By the skin of my ass, Trooper,” the guardswoman said. She was one of only three female volunteers in Caxton’s slapdash army, but she was also the highest-ranking of the National Guard contingent. She was a little older than Caxton, maybe thirty, but she already had streaks of iron in her dark hair. She’d been to Iraq and come back from that alive. Caxton wondered briefly if she would live through the night. If any of them stood a chance, she supposed it had to be the lieutenant.

“Any word from the visitor center?”

Peters frowned and looked at her radio. “There are some men there. They don’t sound well organized.

The mass of the opposition went after them.”

“As long as they’re holding their ground,” Caxton said. She drew one of the big maps toward her. The visitor center was just across the Taneytown Road, only a few hundred yards away and slightly farther north than the Cyclorama. Caxton’s forces had split in groups to occupy the closest buildings, just as she’d planned. Every group had orders to abandon their positions as soon as things got too hot and move to tertiary locations farther up the road. The plan was to draw the vampires farther and farther north, into the town, where it would be easier to box them in. If they headed south instead, into the open ground of the park, they might get away. She had a contingency in place if that happened—the helicopters would try to herd them back toward town with powerful searchlights. She didn’t know if that would actually work.

“If I were them I’d cut my losses and run,” Peters said, as if she’d read Caxton’s thoughts. The lieutenant pointed at three places on the map. “The roadblocks we set up couldn’t hold these assholes for more than a minute or two. If they made contact here—”

“They won’t,” Caxton said, suddenly sure of it. “They’ll come for us first.”

“For God’s sake, why? We hurt them. They hurt us worse, but they took some hits.”

Caxton nodded. “I should hope so. No, they’ll come toward us. They want our blood. They’ve been starving for so long in darkness, waiting, dreaming about blood. They’ll go for the nearest supply. And that’s us.” She looked up at the front door of the building. “Are your people ready? They’ll be here in minutes.”

“I saw how fast they moved. My people are ready,” Peters said, fixing Caxton with her eyes. Caxton started to look away—but the lieutenant didn’t. She just stood there studying Caxton, not blinking.

“Something wrong?” Caxton asked.

“We didn’t expect this kind of resistance. Over in the desert,” she said, shifting her weight slightly, leaning against the table, “our SOP when we found ourselves this badly in shit was to withdraw. Live to fight another day. That’s what we know.”

And that’s why I couldn’t just turn this job over to you, Caxton thought. She would have loved to let the soldiers take charge of Gettysburg. She could have gone somewhere and gotten some sleep. She knew better, though—Arkeley had taught her better. Soldiers didn’t just stand around waiting to get butchered. They moved strategically and only held positions they knew they could adequately defend.

They worked that way because they knew their enemies were following the same model.

Vampires didn’t fight that way. They were too arrogant—they never backed down. “Lieutenant, if we just bugged out now, the vampires could do as they pleased. Like you say, the roadblocks couldn’t hold them. You saw what they did to heavily armed soldiers. Do you want that kind of threat getting out into the civilian population?”

Peters scowled but shook her head. Good enough. Arkeley had never asked anyone to approve of his orders. Just to follow them.

76.

The procedure for creating our new troops was simplicity itself, and was accomplished without hindrance or delay. A man was carried, or wheeled, or walked into the room where Miss Malvern reclined on her bed. She did not speak with them, or rather she wrote them no kind words, no gentle assurances. She told me that what she did must be accomplished in total silence. Instead she only looked into the eyes of the volunteer. In some cases their heads had to be held up so she could see them properly. Some short time would pass, whilst who knew what communication might pass between the two. Then the man was removed to another room, where his cup of poison awaited him. Very few of them balked at this time. Only two refused the cup, and both of them returned a short while later and asked for it again. I had some men under my command, hard-hearted fellows, who took the bodies and put them in the waiting coffins. The coffins were loaded into the funeral car. And then it was done; until nightfall.

I waited by the car, waited for the sun to go down. I did not drink liquor, or play cards, or do any other thing as a pass-time. I simply sat on a camp stool and waited, perfectly alone. Just me and my conscience. When night had properly fallen I heard them stirring inside, moving around. I heard them talking amongst themselves, in low and emotionless voices. Then there came a rapping on the steel door at the end of the car. I rose and threw back a narrow portal in the door, little more than a spy-hole, and saw red eyes, so many red eyes staring back at me.

—THE PAPERS OFWILLIAMPITTENGER

77.

They had a moment’s downtime, maybe no more than that. Still there were priorities to consider.

Caxton placed her patrol rifle on the floor and plopped down to roll up her pant leg. Dozens of red chevrons dotted her calf, places where vampire teeth had just touched her flesh. The wounds weren’t deep and though the