They came an hour before sundown, two boys and a girl in a van with an intricate mural painted on the side. I was walking along Main Street with a backpack slung over my shoulder and a wooden mallet shoved into the waistband of my jeans. Dry wind moaned between the wrecked facades of the buildings lining the sidewalks, and trash blew like tumbleweeds in an old western, catching here and there on overturned trash cans, bent metal poles, and abandoned cars. The stoplight over the intersection of Main and Pine swung back and forth in the breeze like a pendulum, and the dead trees placed every six feet rustled like skeletal hands reaching from unmarked graves.
I was deep in thought, like I always was when I made my rounds, and didn’t hear the engine over the eerie whistle of the wind. Maybe if I hadn’t been stuck in the clouds, I would have heard them; sound travels far when everything around you is dead and gone. I went to cross Main and caught a flicker of movement from the corner of my eye; all at once, the van was stopped in front of me, its windshield glinting in the sunlight like a jovial eye. I came to a halt and just stood there, frozen like a deer in the headlights. In my defense, we don’t get many visitors in Pine Creek anymore.
You can say the highway missed us.
The driver side window buzzed down and a boy about eighteen stuck his head out. “Hey,” he said. The wind chose that moment to slacken, and his voice echoed in the silence. “What happened here?” He jerked his chin to the side, indicating the dead village around us. Windows were broken or boarded up, a car sat half on the sidewalk, its front kissing the exterior wall of the bank; front lawns were overgrown and teeming with bugs and animals. It looked like the apocalypse had come to Pine Creek.
But only because it had.
“The town is sinking,” I lied.
The boy blinked in surprise. “Sinking?”
“It’s the mines. They’re caving in. And the gas fire, that’s part of it too.”
He stared at me incredulously. I couldn’t blame him for his skepticism. If a guy with scraggly hair and a bushy beard, dressed like Paul Bunyon told you what I told him, would you buy it? “What do you mean gas fire?” the kid finally asked.
I walked up to the car and he shied away like maybe I was going to hurt him. I put on my biggest, most friendly smile and said, “There’s a lot of natural gas underground. A while back, it started burning. The earth’s turning to ashes under our feet.” I stomped my foot on the pavement, but no jets of flames shot up.
Too bad.
It would have really helped my case.
“Same thing that happened in that one town,” the boy in the passenger seat said. “That place in Pennsylvania.”
My smile faltered a little. I was counting on them not knowing about Centralia. That’s where I got the story about gas fires and sinking towns. “That’s right,” I said. “It’s our sister city.” I glanced over my shoulder at the rapidly setting sun; it was perched just over the rooftops, its light rich and golden. My stomach knotted and I swallowed.
There was still time.
“Do you live here?” the girl asked from the back. She was tall and slim with dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, and an oval face. She wore shorts and a top with spaghetti straps. She looked younger than her companions, maybe as young as fifteen or sixteen.
“No, I’m just passing through.”
“With those?”
The driver nodded to the sharpened stakes poking from the top of my bag.
“Yes, with these,” I said. “They’re to mark weak spots in the earth.” I glanced at the sun again. “You guys should get going. This place is dangerous. There’s a 500 dollar fine just for driving through.”
“Why wasn’t the road blocked off?” the passenger asked, genuinely curious.
“It’s a state road,” I said. “They can’t close it, but there should be a detour sign. You didn’t see it?”
Both boys shook their heads.
“Huh. Strange. Anyway, I gotta get back to work. Drive safe.”
The driver nodded and the passenger lifted his hand. The van pulled off and I watched it until it was gone.
Back to it, I thought grimly.
Since it was so late, I didn’t have time to visit many of my parishioners. Walking fast, I set a course for a particular house on a particular street, cold dread beginning to roil in my stomach. I already knew I wouldn’t find her there, and maybe that’s why I chose that house out of all the others in Pine Creek.
The house was a pale yellow Victorian situated on a quiet corner. A wrought iron fence separated it from the sidewalk and tall grass pressed against the flagstone walk leading up to the door, where someone had made a big red X with paint.
Who would do such a thing?
Probably the kind of guy who walked around with a hammer in his pants.
The gate shrieked when I pushed it open. I went up the steps and paused at the door, heart racing. Part of me wanted to find her, but another part didn’t.
Inside, the house was neat but dusty. Sunlight filtered through the narrow windows and the pent-up heat washed over me like a slap to the face. I started in the root cellar and made my way to the top floor, I found signs that someone had been there recently, footprints in the dust and ghostly handprints on grimy windows. Was it here? Had she come home? Or was it one of the others? They slept wherever: Under beds, in closets, shoved into kitchen cabinets and old refrigerators Indiana Jones-style. They had their own little nests but if dawn caught them out, they’d go to the first dark, quiet place.
If any of them really had been here, they weren’t anymore.
On the way out, I did my best to ignore the photos hanging on the yellow walls. It hurt too much to see her face. It hurt too much to remember.
In the daylight once more, I walked next to the post office. I found one in the broom closet. It hung upside down from the ceiling, its arms crossed over its chest. Its eyes were closed. Its face was gaunt and gray, its cheeks sunken, its fingernails long and dirty. Its hair had rotted away and its clothes had turned to filthy rags. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.
Not that it mattered. It was one of mine. A child of God.
Setting the bag aside, I took out my stole, kissed it, and draped it over my shoulders. Next, I took out the Bible and gave the creature the last rites. I spoke normally, with no fear of waking it. They were undead. At night, they were un, but during the day, they were just dead.
When I was finished, I took the mallet out of my waistband, withdrew one of the stakes from the backpack, and tacked it over the thing’s heart. I raised the mallet, hesitated like I always did, then brought it down. The stake drove into the vampire’s heart, and its eyes and mouth flew open. Its withered yellow orbs fixed me and an unearthly hiss escaped its throat. I brought the mallet down again, and the stake sank deeper. The thing had already gone limp,the evil inside of it returned to hell or New Jersey, wherever evil went when you vanquished it. Its grip slipped and it fell to the floor with a thud. I checked my watch and realized that I didn’t have time to bury it.
Tomorrow.
Slipping the mallet back into my waistband, I grabbed the bag and rushed out. Long shadows crept across the ground and crickets chirped from the tall grass bordering the sidewalk. The sky cooled to pink, and then purple. St. Anthony’s sat in the center of town, its spires rising into the heavens like a beacon to lost travelers; I reached it just as evening turned to twilight. Inside, I locked the door and let myself relax. They couldn’t come inside. If they tried, they would burst into flames.
Writing that out loud, so to speak, makes me laugh. If you don’t believe it, that’s okay. I wouldn’t either if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.
I tossed the bag aside, lit a candle, and went into the rectory. There was no electricity in Pine Creek anymore. It gets hot in the summer and cold in the winter, but I manage.
After changing back into my Roman collar, I opened a can of beans and ate it at the kitchen table with a pack of Jack’s Links jerky. Terrible wails reverberated through the night, but I ignored them. Done, I went back into the rectory and took up my yusual station by the front window. Shadows moved in the street, and I caught glimpses of dead white faces watching me, but none of them were her.
She came sometimes. She would stand on the sidewalk and smile at me. Even in death, she was beautiful, her hair golden and her body as feminine and shapely as ever. I could almost forget that she was one of them, but then I would force myself to look at her eyes. They were no longer sweet and kind, but cold and hungry.
It wasn’t her.
But it was close enough to pretend.
At least for a little while.
I sat down and waited for nearly an hour, but eventually decided she wasn’t coming. Just as well, I thought with a burdened sigh.
I prayed for a while in the chapel, watched over by Christ on His cross; His eyes were filled with reproach, and I begged forgiveness for my sins. Later, I climbed between the sheets and listened to the terrible moans and screeches of the living dead.
Then, finally, I slept.
***
I don’t know how long I was out before I sat bolt upright in bed, my heart thundering in my chest. I had been dreaming of her of course, and for a moment, I thought that the scream lingering in my head had come from the dream. Then it sounded again, high and frenzied. I knew at once that it wasn’t one of them. You can tell the screams of the living from the dead, and this came from living vocal cords.
Jumping out of bed, I grabbed the crucifix from my nightstand and rushed out into the church, the wind of my passage making the candles dance and sway. I unbolted the door and threw it open just as the scream came again, off to my right. It was one of primal, heart-stopping fear.
Not of pain.
In my heart, I knew who it was before my feet even left the top step.
The girl.
I ran into the street, and there I saw her in the pallid moonlight, hunched over and stumbling toward me, her eyes wide. Behind her, an army of vampires advanced, a rank of gray and rot reaching out with clutching talons. My heart jumped into my chest and I ran to her, not caring about my own safety. She collapsed against me, her breath ragged and her body shaking with fright. I slipped my arm around her shoulders and guided her to the church. The vampires were fifteen feet behind, now ten, their movements stiff and dead.Their faces were twisted in dark hunger and their eyes glowed with the fires of hell. “Come on!” I urged, trying to get her to go faster, “they can’t come in the church.”
A vampire jumped out of the bushes at the bottom step, and I thrust the cross at him. He hissed, mewled, and batted at it, trying to knock it from my hand but not daring to touch it. The others were close enough that I could smell them, and my heart slammed. I pushed the girl forward and she staggered to the door, sobbing now. I spun and a thousand hands reached for me. I held up the cross, and a chorus of pain and misery burst from their throats. I backed slowly up the stairs, never letting the cross falter, and the vampires watched me warily. One - old Matt Conner, the owner of the feed store - gave into his black thirst and threw himself at me. The moment his foot touched the stairs, his leg went up in flames. He screamed and fell back, wildly kicking and trying to pat out the fire.
I didn’t turn my back to them until I was inside. I slammed the door, bolted it, and pressed my back against it. The girl was on the floor in a heap, weeping desolately. I recovered and went to her, kneeling. I ran my fingers through her pale blonde hair and tried to sush her. “I told you to leave,” was all I could think to say.
Later, she sat on the couch in the rectory, a wool blanket draped over her shoulders. She clutched a steaming cup of hot cocoa in her hands and stared into space. “Who were they?” she asked, breaking the silence that had reigned since her crying tapered off. Her voice sounded hollow, slurred, the voice of a shell-shocked soldier who had seen too much…done too much.
“Vampires,” I answered honestly.
“Vampires?” she asked.
I nodded. “Bloodsuckers. Not to be confused with tax collectors.”
She stared down at her feet. “That was supposed to be funny,” I said, “I guess it wasn’t.”
“How?” she asked, ignoring my last comment. “I mean…vampires aren’t real.”
“That’s what I said.” I lifted my hands and let them fall to my lap with a meaty thwack. “But here we are.”
“How?” she asked again.
I sighed. “Long story.” I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was just past 1am. “I guess we have time if you want to hear it.”
The girl didn’t answer.
But I started to talk anyway.
I needed someone to tell.
I needed someone to listen.
“It happened a year ago,” I began….