The Stake

They found his station wagon fifteen minutes later in the crowded parking lot of the marina.

The chain-link gate, which had been locked last night, now stood open. Lane didn’t pass through it. She stood there, alone, and peered at Kramer’s deserted slip.

Then she went back to the car. She opened the door, pulled the revolver up high enough so its barrel wouldn’t dig into her, then slid into the driver’s seat.

“He’s out in his boat,” she said.

“Shit.”

“God, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just as well.” She took the gun out of her blouse and stuffed it into her denim bag.

“Just as well, my ass.”

“Would’ve been tough getting away with it here. Awful lot of people around.”

“Yeah, but we could’ve deep-sixed him in the river.”

“I know.”

“Shit,” Riley said again.

“There’s nothing we can do about it. We’ll have to figure out something else.”

“Like what?”

Shaking her head, Lane backed up the car. She drove toward the parking lot exit. “He’s gonna want me again. He said Monday or Tuesday. He’ll probably want me to meet him someplace. Someplace where we’ll have privacy. Maybe I can let you know ahead of time. You can be waiting.”

“Sounds good.”

Lane steered onto Shoreline. “Want to go to the mall?”

“Okay with me.” He gave her a strange look. “Do you?”

“Yeah, I think so. It’ll give me time to calm down.”

“You forgetting who you’re with?”

She glanced at him. “Riley Benson. Tough guy. Just don’t try getting tough with me, okay?”

“Not with you,” he said. Then he added, “Lane.”

Forty-three

During the day, Uriah stayed in a dry wash some distance from the road.

He had tried to eat jerky that morning, but found that he couldn’t chew it without sending horrible pulses of pain through his jaw and cheeks. He was able to drink water, though some dribbled out through the holes in his face. And he was able to sleep.

He dreamed the vampires got him. He recognized all of them. All were demons he had slain, but they were slain no longer. They came shrieking at him through the desert sunlight. They brought him down. They stripped off his animal skins. They took the hammer and stakes from his pack. Holding him down, they pounded the wooden spikes through his hands and feet. They nailed him to the ground. Crucified him. As he writhed in torment, one ripped the patch off his eye. He looked up out of the depths of the socket, thinking, How strange! He could see with both eyes. The vampires were all around him, down on their knees, hunger and delight in their eyes, drool spilling down their chins. Their hands moved over his body as if trying to awaken his lust. Horrified, he realized they were succeeding. I must resist, he thought. I am God’s warrior. The faces lowered onto him. He felt their mouths all over. Sucking him. Instead of pain, he felt ecstasy. This is wrong! Lips pressed against his mouth. A tongue thrust in. Other tongues slithered through the holes in his cheeks. Another pushed into his anus. As he wondered how that was possible, flat on his back the way he was, a tongue entered the tip of his penis and snaked in deep and he squirmed. Another slid into his empty socket. He realized he was not pinned to the ground by stakes. The wooden shafts had turned into vampire tongues that writhed inside the holes in his hands and feet. Then tongues were sliding into his body where he had no openings, melting in through his flesh, filling him.

Uriah twisted and bucked in an agony of exquisite pleasure and woke up as pain flared in his right cheek. He found the tip of his forefinger inside the bullet hole. Wincing, he eased it out. He sat up and gently held both sides of his face.

Night had come.

In the frenzy of his dream he’d tossed his blanket away. He dragged it toward him and clutched it around his shoulders. But he couldn’t stop shaking.

Satan had visited that dream upon him. Trying to tempt him. Trying to weaken his resolve.

I amGod’s warrior, he told himself. I won’t fail.

He got to his feet, picked up the satchel that held his weapons and useless food wrapped the blanket around himself, and climbed the loose gravel wall of the wash.

Soon he came to the road. He looked both ways. There were no headlights.

During the whole of the night, as he made his way toward Mulehead Bend, Uriah encountered no headlights. Not once was he forced to flee from the road and hide. He made good time.

When the horizon began to go pale, he climbed to the top of a bluff. From there he could see the Colorado River in the distance — a broad, twisting ribbon of slate bordered by lights like hundreds of stars that had fallen to the desert near its shores.

Streetlights. A few slowly moving headlights. Porch lights. Maybe even lights from the windows of homes where people had already started their day or spent a sleepless night.

Uriah wondered which of the lights might be glimmering from the lair of the vampires.

Maybe none.

Tomorrow night he would be in among those lights. He would sneak into the lair and put Satan’s children to rest.

Forty-four

A hand gently shook Lane awake. “Time to rise and shine, honey,” her mother said.

Monday morning.

Her stomach clenched.

“Okay,” she muttered. When she was alone, she rolled onto her side, hugged her belly and drew her knees up.

I can’t go to school, she thought. I just can’t.

I’ve got to.

Yesterday she’d told Riley that she would talk to Kramer after class and arrange to meet him.

But that was yesterday. It was easy to make brave plans when you were safe with someone else and talking about tomorrow. Now she was alone and this was the day she had to do it. Not quite the same. Not the same at all.

Curling up more tightly under the covers, Lane pictured herself in sixth period. Sitting at her desk. Right next to Jessica’s empty desk. Right in front of the table where Kramer always perched when he talked to the class. He would be sitting up there, all smug and handsome, acting as if nothing had happened. But sneaking glances at her. Calling on her sometimes. And all period long he would be thinking about how she looked naked, remembering the things he’d done to her, daydreaming about what he would do the next time he got her alone.

I can’t go, Lane thought. I can’t sit there in front of him. Not for an hour, not for a second. I’d go crazy.

So don’t.

Right away she felt better.

Uncurling, she rolled face down. The mattress pushed against her bruised body, but didn’t hurt very much.