Bad Moon Rising

Chapter 35

(1)

It took a long time for Val to soothe Mike. Clinging to her he seemed to regress to an almost babylike state, his words reduced to an inarticulate wordless noise that was drenched with tears. She stroked his matted hair and kissed his dirty face and rocked him back and forth until his terrible sobs slowed to a whimper and then he felt silent. Jonatha and Newton came in and when they saw Mike they kept silent; Weinstock waved them over to the far side of the room. Jonatha sat in a chair and Newton leaned against the wall, both of them looking as confused and uncomfortable as Weinstock.

When Mike finally lifted his head, he sniffed, accepted the tissue Val gave him, then slowly looked around the room as if he’d never seen it. He wiped his nose and blotted his eyes. He offered no weak smile or embarrassed apologies for his tears. People in wartime don’t need to do it, and their fellow refugees don’t require it of them.

Because his eyes were now so red and puffy Jonatha and Newton didn’t immediately notice their unnatural look.

Val helped Mike to his feet and led him to the bathroom. “Why don’t you clean yourself up, honey? Take your time. You know Mr. Newton, he’s a friend. He knows what’s going on. Professor Corbiel is also a friend. She’s from the University of Pennsylvania.” She put her hand on his cheek. “She’s a folklorist. She knows about vampires.”

That made Mike’s eyes flicker and he turned to look at her and she saw his eyes. Jonatha gripped Newton’s knee and her fingernails dug deep.

Mike went in and closed the bathroom door.

Val and the others huddled around Weinstock and she told them what Mike had said.

“What’s with his eyes?” Newton asked.

“We don’t know yet,” Val admitted, “but something terrible must have happened.”

They heard the toilet flush and the door opened. Mike came into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. His face was composed, but the abiding hurt was there in the stiffness of his posture and the profound sadness of his face.

“Mike,” Val said, sitting down next to him, “you know what’s going on in town, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Some of it,” he said. “Maybe a lot of it, but not all of it.”

“What do you know?” Newton asked.

Mike sighed. “This is going to take time.”

Val wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “We have to know.”

“Before I tell you what I know I guess I should tell you how I know.” He took a breath, held it, let it out slowly. “You know that there are vampires in Pine Deep, don’t you?”

Val just squeezed his shoulder.

“My mother is one of them.”

“God…” Weinstock breathed.

He told them what happened at his house and didn’t dare look at the horror on their faces. “She saved my life,” he said, and sniffed back some tears.

“So…Vic Wingate’s involved in this,” Jonatha said. “If he knew about Mike’s mom—”

Mike snorted. “Vic isn’t just ‘involved’…he’s his right hand.”

“Who, Mike?” Val asked.

He gave her a quizzical look. “Why…Ubel Griswold, of course. Don’t you know?”

“How do you know that?”

“That’s the other thing…the other way I know about what’s going on. I know because the Bone Man told me.”

“The Bone…,” Val put her hand to her mouth. “Mike…tell us everything.”

He did. He started with the Massacre and how Griswold began hunting humans after his cattle were killed by the first blight. A blight, he said, that was different from the current one because it actually was just a freak of nature, a real plague. “This new one is something Griswold did,” he told them. “The first plague just gave him the idea.”

He told them about how the Bone Man, who knew a thing or two about the supernatural from his childhood in the deep South, was able to piece together what Griswold was doing, and what Griswold was. He told them how the Bone Man hunted Griswold that day, trying to catch and kill him before he turned into a monster as the moon rose. He told about the fight they had in Dark Hollow, and how the Bone Man killed him with his old blues guitar and buried him in the swamp a couple of miles from Griswold’s old house.

Val said, “Crow went down there with two police officers, the detectives from Philadelphia who were here during the manhunt.”

“Can you call him, tell him to come back?”

“I tried, there’s no cell phone reception. But they have guns and other stuff. Garlic to use against the vampires, and gasoline to burn the house down.”

Mike looked uncertain. “I hope that works.”

“Go on, kid,” Newton said, “tell us the rest.”

“After Griswold died he was just gone for a long time. There wasn’t any trace of him, even in the swamp, except maybe like a, I don’t know—a presence, if that makes sense. Then sixteen years ago he just woke up. Just like that. He was weak, confused, and he didn’t even understand exactly that he was dead. He was really scared, too, and he called out for the one person he knew would always be there for him.” He paused and his mouth twisted into an ugly shape. “Vic.” He took another steadying breath. “Vic started coming out to the swamp every day, and he started doing research about the supernatural. Griswold told him everything about what he was, about being born to a race of werewolves in Serbia.”

Jonatha glanced at Newton, who nodded.

“Griswold always believed, you see, that when he died he’d just come right back to life as a vampire right away, but that didn’t happen because somehow when the Bone Man killed him it weakened him really badly. The Bone Man thinks it was some magic in his guitar. I don’t know, that sounds kind of stupid.” He wiped his nose again. “Anyway, Griswold was scared, thinking he was just going to be a spirit without a body, trapped there in the swamp, but Vic found something in one of his books, a kind of ritual that sometimes allows a ghost to kind of possess a human body. Not like in the movies, not green pea soup and all. This was more like hijacking a car. Neither of them knew if it would work, or how long it would last. They tried it over and over again, but nothing happened. Vic killed people and Griswold tried to inhabit their bodies. Vic even let Griswold try and take over his own body, but it didn’t work, but then Vic came up with the idea of Griswold trying to use a blood connection to make the process work better. That’s when they decided to try and have Griswold possess the body of his only living blood connection in town.”

They all exchanged puzzled looks. “A blood relative?” Newton asked. “In Pine Deep?”

“Oh…Christ,” Val said, making the connection. Mike looked at her and nodded. She said, “You’re talking about…Terry!”

Mike kept nodding. “During the Massacre, when the mayor was just a kid, his sister was attacked and he tried to save her. She died and Mr. Wolfe was almost killed. He was bitten by the werewolf and was in a coma for weeks. He never turned into a werewolf himself—the Bone Man says that’s because Mr. Wolfe’s spirit is too full of light, or something like that, I don’t really understand that part—but the blood connection was established, and because of that link, Griswold was able to hijack Mr. Wolfe’s body and use it as his own. He…um…well, the way the Bone Man put it—Griswold went out for a night on the town. Drinking, partying, and, um, sex.”

“Good God!” Weinstock stared at Mike. “I feel sorry for whatever poor gal wound up in the sack with him!”

“Do you know who it was?” Val asked.

Mike turned to face her and his eyes burned like flame. When he spoke his voice was bitter and tight. “Take a look at me, Val. All of you take a good look and figure it out for yourselves.”

Her eyes became as big as saucers. “Oh. My. God! A long time ago, when Terry and I were dating, he told me that he got drunk and had an affair. We were…in love at the time, and it’s what broke us up. He tried to tell me that he didn’t remember any of it, that he just woke up in bed with a woman. It was someone I knew, someone I’d been friends with in school. He said that he had no memory at all of what happened, or how he got there. I thought that was a weak, bullshit excuse and I kicked him out.” She reached out and gave Mike a fierce hug. “Oh, Mike…oh you poor kid! I never noticed…none of us did.”

Mike gently pushed Val back. “Why would you? How could anyone know? I didn’t know, even though I delivered the mayor’s paper every day. The mayor doesn’t know, either. Only my mom and Vic know that I’m Mr. Wolfe’s son.”

“But…but…,” Newton stammered, “wait a goddamn minute here. If Griswold was using Mayor Wolfe’s body, doesn’t that mean that, in part at least, you’re…you’re…”

“Yes. That means that I’m also Ubel Griswold’s son.” He gave a bitter laugh. “You all look like you just ate a bug. Imagine how I feel. But, let me tell you the rest of it before I…well, let me just get it out, okay?” Val handed him another tissue, and Mike launched right into the story of how Vic Wingate engineered the death of Big John Sweeney and married Lois shortly after, and then settled in to watch the boy, to study him. “At first Vic hoped that I was going to be like Griswold—another monster. Maybe he even thought I was going to be Griswold reborn. After a while, though, either he or Griswold figured out that I wasn’t a chip off the old block. Vic was furious and he wanted to kill me, but Griswold didn’t. By now Griswold had figured out what I was.”

“A dhampyr,” Jonatha said, and Mike nodded.

“Griswold always expected to become a vampire one day, always assumed he’d get killed eventually as a werewolf, so he made sure he knew a lot about vampires. That’s why he’s so good at being one. He knows what he is, and he began to suspect what I was. He also knows the legend that if any evil hand kills a dhampyr, then its energy is scattered throughout the region. That means that everything in Pine Deep would have had the same powers as a dhampyr.” Newton opened his mouth, but Mike cut him off. “Before you ask, no I don’t have superpowers. I’m not any stronger than I was, I can’t fly or leap tall buildings. The Bone Man said that the dhampyr’s two main strengths are his ability to sense the presence of evil—and, yeah, I got that going overtime, but there’s so much of it I don’t know where to look—and the other thing is that anything I pick up—a stick, a stone, anything—becomes like a supercharged weapon against evil. I don’t need garlic or any of that. Supposedly.”

“Why ‘supposedly’?”

“Because my biological father carries a werewolf bloodline, not a vampire bloodline. His blood and Griswold’s spirit are in me, and my mother was a weak woman who was a slut for Griswold and Vic. A dhampyr is supposed to be pure, untouched by evil, unable to become evil…but look at my family tree, guys. What are the odds that I’m going to be so pure that I’m going to be a real threat to any of these things?”

“Are you guessing, or do you know?” Val asked.

He shook his head. “Even the Bone Man doesn’t know. He says that I’m different than he expected. That’s kind of funny, don’t you think?”

No one laughed.

“If you’re not supposed to be harmed by any evil,” Newton said, “why did he give you to Vic? Pardon me for saying this, but Crow told me that Vic knocks you around a lot.”

“Oh yeah, Vic loves to hit, but he never killed me. He wanted to, more than you can imagine, and I think he was trying to make life so bad for me that I’d kill myself. That would remove the threat without any danger to Griswold.” Mike paused. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it, too. A lot of times.”

Val bent forward and kissed his forehead. “I’m glad you didn’t, sweetie.”

Jonatha said, “Mike, I don’t know you, but from what I’m hearing it sounds like you’ve certainly taken a side in all this. You may have the worst heritage anyone’s ever heard of, but you’re here with us. You’re not with Vic.”

He didn’t meet her eyes, but his cheeks colored. “I guess.”

“The dhampyr aren’t usually fighters,” she said, changing tack. “They’re more like witch-sniffers—beings that can sense evil and are dedicated to revealing it. Among the Gypsies the dhampyr usually goes from town to town and offers his services to detect and destroy vampires or other evil. Not in single combat or anything…it, um, involves some kind of ritual dance and the use of special charms, and so on.”

“Oh brother,” Weinstock said, rolling his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” Mike said, “I don’t see myself breaking into a dance number any time soon.”

“But there’s a downside to being a dhampyr,” Jonatha said gravely. “Did the Bone Man tell you that?”

Mike gazed at her for a long time before nodding. “Yeah, he told me that.”

“Told you what?” Weinstock asked.

Jonatha cleared her throat. “Well, in folklore, the dhampyr is the antithesis of a vampire. Where a vampire is evil, the dhampyr is not; where a vampire preys on humans, the dhampyr preys on supernatural creatures; and, where the vampire is immortal…the dhampyr is not. In fact, the dhampyr generally only lives into his early twenties.”

“What happens?” Val asked, leaning forward. “Is it a matter of a high mortality rate for someone so young fighting those kinds of odds? Because you’re going to have a hell of a lot of backup here if it comes to a fight.”

Jonatha shook her head. “No…it’s worse than that. Beginning with late puberty the dhampyr’s skeleton begins a process of degeneration. It…um…”

“What she’s trying to say,” Mike said, “is that my skeleton is going to turn to jelly by the time I’m in my mid-twenties. It’ll stop supporting my organs, and eventually I’m just going to collapse into a big mooshy mass and die.”

“Holy…God!” Newton said.

Val reached out and put her hand on Mike’s arm and he shied away.

“I’m so sorry, kid,” Jonatha said softly. “Maybe that part of the story’s just bullshit. Maybe the different biology here…Mayor Wolfe and all…it might make things different.”

“Yeah,” Mike said brightly, “and maybe Santa will come and sprinkle elf-dust on me and make everything all better.”

“Well don’t forget you’re in a hospital and this is the twenty-first century, not fifteenth-century Romania.” Weinstock said, reaching out with his good arm and patting Mike’s shoulder. “I’ll bet there’s a whole we can do, so let’s not dig a hole quite yet.”

Mike’s eyes searched the doctor’s face, then he nodded.

“Is there more?” Newton asked.

“Sure,” Mike said softly, “I haven’t even gotten to the part where I died, yet.”

(2)

The crucified man hung there in the shadows and felt his life run out of him. He could barely feel his limbs; his hands and feet were distant countries from which he received little communication. Most of the time he was not conscious, lost in blackness but still aware of his own body, of the tether of pain that still held him to the world. Sometimes he could find his way into the light, but he had to blink away tears of blood just to catch a brief glimpse of the weak gray daylight. He coveted those momentary glimpses because he was sure they were the last ones he would ever have.

His head felt heavy. He wanted to lay it down, let his chin fall on his chest, let his neck rest from carrying that improbably heavy burden, but he couldn’t. Something burned in the back of his head and he felt as if that burning pinpoint kept his head from falling forward. There were other burning spots as well, little fires in his hands, along his sides, down one leg, in the heel of his other, twisted leg. The skin around each point of fire was warm, too, but the warmth was wet and ran in long lines down his limbs.

When he was up in the light he could smell things that didn’t make sense, a cacophony of odors. Distantly he thought that they should make sense, but it was so hard to think with that constant burning. He struggled to separate the smells. There were four of them, he thought. One smell was sweet and thick and reminded him of freshly sheared copper. Another smelled like his mother’s kitchen and her spicy food, of Sunday dinners with Uncle Tony and the pot of gravy always simmering on the stove. He could remember that kitchen to the tiniest detail, though he could not, for the life of him, remember his own name, or how he came to be there. Or where he was. Or anything useful.

His thoughts drifted back to the smells. The third smell was an outhouse stink of urine and sweat, and he knew that those smells came from him. He wondered if he had made a mess of himself; he wondered if he should care. The last of the smells was an aroma from his teenage days long ago. How long ago? He wasn’t sure. A long time? Yesterday? He could not be sure, but he knew that smell was the gasoline stink of cars and grease and filling stations. The four smells were all around him, covering him, clogging his nose, filling the air that drifted past his bloodied nose and mouth and eyes.

He tried to move, and from a thousand miles away he felt the fingers of one hand twitch. Was it his right hand? He wasn’t sure. Just fingers, moving.

He coughed once. A short, sharp cough choked with bloody phlegm, and the brief convulsion of the cough ignited each of those burning points into white-hot searing suns that fried his nerve endings. He wanted to scream, to run away from the burning points of agony, but he could not throw his head back to utter the shriek that welled in him; instead his jaw dropped down and a stuttering, gagging growl bubbled out of the back of his throat.

Gradually, gradually, the intense flare of pain subsided, the fires banking back down to the burning points of heat. Then he coughed again, unexpectedly, sharply, a deeper cough that knotted his guts as if he’d just been punched. He doubled forward and the burning pain in the back of his head flared again, but the resistance was immediately gone. As his heavy head sagged forward, his shoulders followed, igniting more of the burning spots again, but with each flare more of his body became unstuck. He crumpled forward and he could see the ground reaching up toward him. He could see the puddle of gasoline and blood and urine that pooled around his shoes. He toppled forward, finally pulling free of the nails that had held him to the trapdoor.

Frank Ferro collapsed onto the porch of Griswold’s house.

The punctured sprayer leaked high octane down his sides and onto the floor, and blood pumped sluggishly from twenty-six deep punctures in his body. The hole in the back of his head glistened red and there were tiny flecks of bone and brain tissue mingled in with the flowing blood.

One pierced hand flopped out, scrabbling feebly toward the light. He tried to find his feet, tried to recall how they worked, and after long minutes of trying managed to kick weakly backward against the door. He managed to shove himself six inches forward, six inches farther toward the yard. He tried again, and this time his fingers closed around a thick piece of debris from the fallen porch. He pulled with all his strength and slid another five inches forward. He coughed again and blood began streaming from his nose. The light flickered off and on and the point of burning pain in the back of his head became white hot again.

Ferro laid his face down on the floor and tried to remember how to pray. He knew he should be able to remember. But it was so hard to think.

When the thin black man in the dirty suit came walked out of the woods, Ferro looked up, hope flaring in his chest, but then the insight of the dying told him who this man was—this young man in cheap funeral clothes, with a nappy old-fashioned Afro and a blues guitar.

The man sat down on the porch rail, swinging the guitar around in front of him. He had a kindly face, though his eyes were like dusty marbles.

“You can see me, can’t you?” the man said.

Ferro couldn’t find his voice. He tried to nod, but even that was so hard.

“Yeah, you can see me. And I think you know who I am. Something tells me you do.” He picked out a couple of notes on his guitar. “Listen, my brother, ’cause time is short. There’s someone coming out here who you’re not gonna want to meet, but he’ll be here just the same. He’s the peckerwood son of a bitch did this to you, and he’s the one laid the traps for your friends.” He bent closer. “I hope you can understand me, man, ’cause if you do, then you got one last chance to stick it to the Man.”

(3)

The sight of Jimmy Castle standing there jerked Crow sideways into an unreal world where nothing made sense. If he had seen Ruger he could probably have dealt with it…but Castle was dead and buried. He and Weinstock had opened his coffin, had seen his putrefying corpse, had confirmed that Castle was dead. He could not be here.

Castle tossed the flashlight over his shoulder, where it struck the wall and clattered to the ground, the lens cracked but the bulb still lit.

Even though he was still bundled up in the carpet, LaMastra nonetheless made a gagging sound, which is when the spoiled-meat stink of Castle registered in Crow’s stalled brain. It was as rancid as the leavings in the corner of a bear’s den.

“Man, the look on your face is priceless,” Castle said, laughing. “Almost as bad as when you and Saul Weinstock opened my casket. You both looked like you swallowed frogs.”

“You…were dead!”

“I’m still dead, asshole. I’m a fucking vampire. You think sleeping in a coffin for a few days was gonna bother me? Nels and I—we thought it was a gas. Fooled your ass.”

“But you were all…”

“All what? De-com-posed?” He made each syllable sound like a separate word. “Yeah, well, we can do all sorts of things and regenerating is part of the luxury package. Soon as I chomp down on you and your butt-buddy I’ll be right as rain.”

Castle shook his head and laughed. Other voices laughed, too. Behind them…near them, around them in the dark. Crow turned slowly to see other white faces emerge from the shadows. Crow saw Nels Cowan, and he had a flash of memories of their days together as policemen. The thickset man had always been funny, quick-witted, thoroughly in love with his wife and kids, and just crooked enough to accept free dinners at the Scarecrow Diner and a Christmas bottle of Jim Beam from the owner of Friendly Spirits. Now, dressed in the torn and filthy black suit he’d been buried in, he shambled through the shadows, drool hanging pendulously from his bloodless lips. This was the Nels Cowan of Weinstock’s video, but worse—purpled by expanding gasses, visibly rotting.

LaMastra finally punched and wrestled his way out of the carpet and flopped around onto his hands and knees. He stared upward in furious indignation and instantly the look of fury on his face changed to one of stark terror. LaMastra screamed.

Without warning Jimmy Castle grabbed the front of LaMastra’s Kevlar vest and jerked him off the floor and pulled him toward his grinning mouth, teeth gleaming like yellow knives. He held the big detective as easily as if he were a little child. LaMastra punched and squirmed, but Castle was far too strong. The vampire bent forward and ran a colorless tongue along the bloody seepage along the line of stitches on LaMastra’s jaw; a moan of deep, almost sexual pleasure escaped Castle’s throat. His eyes were totally black and as he pulled LaMastra even closer his jaws opened impossibly wide. Castle took one handful of the detective’s hair and jerked his head to one side, exposing his throat.

Castle suddenly gagged and staggered, his grip going from rock hard to weak in the space of a second; LaMastra sagged down to his knees and Castle reeled back, pawing at his own mouth, spitting and hissing like a snake.

Crow stared in shock and confusion. Around him the other vampires sent up a howl of anger and confusion. Then Crow got it. The word sprang right into his head.

Garlic! All three of them had smeared it on their throats! The realization was like a shot of adrenaline to Crow and as he watched Castle retch in disgust and pain he felt sense and control flood back into him. He twisted sideways and dove for the shotgun. Encumbered by the sword strapped across his back, his tumble was awkward, but he rolled away and came up with the weapon in his hands.

Despite his pain, Castle sneered at him. “I’m going to rip your goddamn heart out!”

Crow raised his shotgun and pointed it at Castle’s heart. Around him all the waxy white faces turned toward him, and all the hungry mouths laughed.

“Go ahead and shoot, asshole!” Castle jeered. “Take your best shot ’cause then I’m going to tear your eyes out and drink from the sockets.”

“Blow me,” Crow said, and fired.

The blast caught Jimmy Castle in the chest, plucked him off the ground, and threw him ten feet backward. He slammed into Nels Cowan and they both went down. Cowan was up again in an instant, laughing at the joke, reaching down to pull Castle up, sharing the prank Castle had just played on the stupid human with the gun. But Castle’s hand was limp in his grasp and Cowan stared down, still not getting it. Castle lay in a ragdoll sprawl, arms and legs twisted, head thrown back in surprise, his chest a bloody pit of mush.

Crow jacked another round, the sound as distinct as any insult or challenge that’s ever been. Cowan’s snarl started as a whimper of fear, but instantly intensified into a predator’s hunting shriek as he turned and lunged forward at Crow.

The first shot tore away Cowan’s left shoulder and sent his arm spinning back into the shadows trailing a line of blood. For a moment Cowan froze there in a posture of attack, weight on his toes, one arm still reaching, but his face was blank with shock, his mouth agape. Crow’s second round caught him in the throat and Cowan’s body fell straight backward while his head struck the ceiling joist and then landed with a smashed-melon crunch on the ground.

The gunshot echoes boomed like thunder from every wall and then died into a breathless nothing, freezing them all in a monstrous tableau. But just for a second. Then the other vampires swarmed toward Crow from three sides of the cellar. Crow spun, jacking another round, but immediately there was a titanic bang as LaMastra—finally jarred from his shocked stupor—brought up the heavy Roadblocker and opened fire.

One of the vampires went down with a hole as large as a basketball punched wetly through his stomach; the recoil drove LaMastra back against Crow, and from then on there they stood, back to back, shotguns firing, impacts making them collide, the garlic-soaked pellets filling the room as the pale creatures, driven past fear by hunger and hate, rushed at them. Everywhere they looked there were white faces and clawed hands and black eyes and red mouths.

LaMastra fired his gun dry, but Crow kept shooting his, screaming all the while, jacking round after round into the breech, jerking the trigger, feeling the kick and hearing the concussion and jacking in the next round, and the next, until suddenly the gun clicked and nothing happened. Crow pumped it again. Click. Pump. Click. Pump. Click. Doing it, over and over again, screaming and dry-firing and pumping and staring into the blackness of shock and death.

And then Vince LaMastra tore the gun from his hands and belted Crow across the face. “Crow!” LaMastra shouted, “STOP IT!”

Instantly Crow sagged to his knees, panting like a dog, mouth working to form words but unable to make any come.

“Crow!” said LaMastra again, this time with less force. “It’s over. Crow, man…it’s over.”

Slowly, very slowly, Crow came back from that black place to which his mind had fled, back to the shadows of the cellar and to the musty carpet on which he lay, and back to himself. He looked around…and everywhere there was death. White bodies lay sprawled in improbable heaps, mouths thrown wide, eyes open or closed, hands splayed, flesh torn but bloodless. Dead. All of them. Dead.

Jimmy Castle. Dead. Nels Cowan. Dead. By the boiler, that was Carl Jacobsen, who owned a small farm down by the reservoir. Carl, with five kids at home. Dead. Over by the stairs, wasn’t that Mitzie Grant who had just graduated from nursing school? Dead. The others were strangers. Dead. All dead.

Upstairs Frank Ferro was probably dead, too; and down here in the center of it all—Malcolm Crow and Vince LaMastra. Alive. By some miracle, by a chance. Maybe by skill and luck, too. But alive amid all that death. They looked at each other, shaking their heads, unable to speak because how could human speech make any kind of sense of this? They should have been dead, but they had survived. They were alive.

Alive, but still trapped in Ubel Griswold’s house.