99 Coffins: A Historical Vampire Tale

game, she knew. To try the doors she had to lower her weapon, leaving her vulnerable. She needed to do this the way she’d been trained—which meant she needed help. She needed Glauer to cover her while she opened each door.

“Glauer, let’s keep together, okay?” she called out. The big cop had made his way down to the level of the map to stand in the middle of a group of coffins. Though she was sure they were empty, she didn’t want him down there. “Glauer?”

He didn’t even seem to hear her. His rifle was pointed down at the floor, but his face was turned upward, his eyes focused on a glassed-in booth above her head, where the map’s operator would have sat.

His jaw slid open as if it had come unhinged. His massive arms fell lifeless at his sides.

“Glauer!” she shouted, but he didn’t even flinch.

Oh shit, she thought, even as his rifle lifted, even as he brought up the hand of his bad arm to grip the heat shield. She recognized the look on his face just fine—she’d worn the same expression often enough herself. There had to be a vampire up there in the booth. Glauer had made eye contact and now the vampire had him hypnotized. She rushed down toward him, thinking she could snap him out of it.

Then she noticed that his rifle was pointing right at her. Still he looked upward as if transfixed by some religious vision. He wasn’t aiming at her. He probably didn’t even know what his hands were doing. She saw his finger slip through the trigger guard and just had time to drop to the floor as his rifle spat bullets across the wall behind her.

“Trooper?” she heard him call, his voice watery and indistinct. “Where are you? I can’t…I can’t see you.”

Caxton crawled forward on her elbows and knees, protected only by the row of seats between Glauer and herself. He fired another burst that tore at the upholstery of the seats, sending yellow fluff into the air.

She had no idea what she was going to do next. He had her pinned down—if she stood up he would blow her away. If she moved forward or backward too far she would come to one of the sets of steps that ran down to the map. To the side there were two doors, the locked fire exit she’d just tried and the door she’d intended to investigate next, a total unknown. It might be open. There might be fifty vampires waiting behind it. It didn’t matter much, since to get to it she would have to dodge bullets.

“Trooper…did you say…something?” Glauer asked. His voice sounded different, and she realized he was moving. Coming toward her, climbing the steps.

She couldn’t move—but if she didn’t move he would just come to her and kill her where she lay. Her only choice was to try the mystery door. He would have plenty of time to shoot her while she reached for its handle, but she was out of options.

No—she had one option. She could shoot him first. Arkeley would probably have done just that, but she didn’t know if she had the nerve.

So instead she waited for his next burst—just two bullets this time, one of which knocked chips of plaster out of the wall right over her head—and then jumped up and ran as fast as she could for the door.

She glanced back as she ran and saw him six feet away, his rifle barrel trained right on her. His face kept looking up at the booth. She slammed into the door with her hip, hoping to trigger the push bar and propel herself through in one motion. There was only one problem: there was no push bar.

The door was narrower than the fire exits she’d seen, painted the same color as the walls. A sign at eye level readELECTRIC MAP PERSONNEL ONLY. PLEASE! Instead of a push bar it had a brass knob. She grabbed the knob and tried to twist it, but found it locked.

In the next moment, she knew, she would be shot in the back. She drew her Beretta and tried to point it at Glauer, but her arm couldn’t complete the motion.

He took a step closer and squeezed his trigger. The patrol rifle clicked, but there was no round in the chamber. He had emptied his clip. It would take only seconds to reload, seconds during which she could still shoot him. She raised her pistol. If she shot him in the arms it would keep him from shooting. He had already lost a lot of blood, though. There was no guarantee that new wounds wouldn’t send him into shock or even kill him. It was her or him, though—

His hands worked at the rifle, moving the fire control selector back and forth pointlessly. He held the weapon by its heat shield and looked right down the barrel.

What the hell was he doing? But then she understood. Glauer could have ejected the spent magazine and slapped a fresh one in place with a blindfold on. But Glauer wasn’t in control of his own body. The unseen vampire was—a vampire who knew how to load a musket rifle and even a breech-loading Sharps rifle, maybe, but certainly not a Colt AR6520.

“Caxton?” he asked. “Did you—did you leave me here alone?”

Ignoring him, she smashed at the door with her hip and shoulder. If she could get through she could get up to the control booth. She could get to the vampire who had Glauer hypnotized. She could kill said vampire and break the spell.

Behind her the local cop took another step toward her. He threw the patrol rifle away, let it clatter on the ground. Reaching down to his belt, he took out his ASP baton and extended it to its full length.

“Laura?” he called.

The door failed to collapse under her repeated attacks. As Glauer lifted the baton to strike her, he looked like a bear coming at her.

“Oh, fuck this,” she said, and kicked him right in the chest. The air went out of him and he fell backward, hitting the ground like a big sandbag.

She turned back to the door—and that was when the lights went out.

86.

General Hancock, who had nominal charge of me and my wards, came to me just as the dark of the battle was turning to the dark of night. I had a tent of some bigness within which my coffins were propped up on sawhorses. From within them already I could hear my men stirring, getting ready for their baptism in fire.

“By Judas Iscariot,” the general swore. He was a young man, no more than forty years in age, with a long full beard but his cheeks were clean shorn. He waved his hat at Griest and took a step back. Could any man blame him? The first time one sees a vampire is always hard. One does not expect the protruding teeth, nor the red eyes. One feels immediately the suspect coolness, the prickling of the hairs on one’s arms. I rushed forward to assure him.

“Secretary Stanton sends his warmest regards, sir,” I said. “Does the battle go well?”

Hancock’s eyes lit up. “We have not yet lost, and Lee is on the field, so I shall count this day a victory. I’ve come to tell you to stand down for the night.”

Griest’s face fell. I could see he longed to speak but he was still a corporal, even if he was no longer human. Instead I spoke for him.

“The men are ready to fight, sir. They’ve made a great sacrifice, all of them, to be here.”

“I know it well. Yet I cannot loose them on the Rebels tonight. I’m counting on a grand surprise from your fellows, and I dare not spring it too soon. Stand down, man, but be ready.”

He could not seem to get away soon enough.

—THE PAPERS OFWILLIAMPITTENGER

87.

It was dark—so terribly dark. There was no light anywhere, not even a glimmer of starlight. The electric map auditorium had no windows and no light could even sneak in around the edges of the fire exits.

She was trapped in the dark with a vampire and her partner, who was hypnotized and trying to kill her.

Caxton staggered backward, blind and terrified. She fought down a scream and then dug in her coat pocket for her flashlight. She held the Beretta straight upward—without light she had nothing to shoot at.

The door she’d been pressed against a moment before flapped open and something cold and inhuman shot past her, into the dark. The vampire had come down from the booth.