HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (60 page)

"Yes, Dell,
you would. You were out of your mind. You were vampire only and there
was no human left in you. Don't you feel it? Don't you even now want
to lash out at me for stopping you? For keeping you away from the
thrill of the ride and the slap of the wind against your face?"

She admitted to
herself that he was right. There was a tiny part of her that wanted
to mount the horse again and whip him into a run so they could cross
the pasture as fast as possible. She looked behind her, searching for
shadows, feeling a touch of panic again and a fear that someone was
watching.

"The dream
came to you again," he said. "You had The Maker on your
back."

"Yes."
She hugged the horse closer and shivered. "What happened,
Mentor? What's wrong with me?"

"Get on your
horse and let me lead you back to his stall." He helped her into
the stirrup and then into the saddle. The horse raised his head,
eyeing Mentor as if for direction.

As they walked
slowly back into the woods and across the creek, Mentor explained to
her the way desires would take hold and, unless she squelched them,
would override every human caution and lead her into violent action.
It might be riding a horse too hard or it might be finding a weak
human and being filled with a craving she could not control. She was
a Natural only as long as she disciplined herself and held herself
accountable for everything she did. She must not let fleeting
thoughts of pleasure lead her toward excess. It ended with blood and
death.

He told her of his
meeting with Ross, the Predator leader who supplied their blood every
week. He told her how Predators engaged in wanton gratification, how
they were smart enough not to get themselves in a bind and be caught,
but that they took whatever they wanted when they wanted it. It was
this tendency to live larger than life that filled them with violence
and caused them to attack, even though they might have refrigerators
full of blood, chilled and cleaned and neat.

Did she want to be
like Ross? Did she want to leave her family behind in their struggle
to live decently and without doing harm upon the Earth? Was being a
vampire so thrilling that it superseded morality and good judgment?

Properly chastised,
Dell told him no, she did not want to live that way. She did not want
the life of the real vampire, the deadly intruder in the night, the
monster who lived in madness and depravity. She did not want to hurt
Lightning or worry her parents. She would never do this again. She
promised.

Yet, in the depths
of her being, she felt the pinch and the tug of need that prompted
her to add, "Mentor, will you help me? What if I'm not strong
enough to resist?"

"I'll help you
as much as I can," he said, walking ahead and to one side so the
horse could follow. "That's why I came here at your family's
urging. But in the silence of the night, in the privacy of your room
in your home, the real choice is left up to you. I may not always be
available to stop you. Now that you know there's a danger, you'll
have to be on the lookout for it yourself. In the end, Dell, we are
all on our own."

"Even you?"

"Even after
all these years and despite whatever wisdom I've been able to glean .
. . yes, even me."

18

Alan sat alone in
his locked car, nausea still rising in his throat and making him
sick. What he had witnessed at the isolated ranch house was nothing
short of astonishing. It wasn't simply murder. It was brutal and
evil, the most contemptible thing he'd ever seen happen to another
human being. No one bit out another's throat! Jeffrey Dahmer, maybe,
but no one else he had ever heard of. And Dahmer had been some kind
of aberrant monster himself.

Upton, with his
volumes of lore, was right. There were creatures walking the Earth
who should not exist. They killed wantonly, taking life without a
thought. And Upton wanted to be like that. He wanted to live forever
even if he had to kill over and over again to remain living. What did
that say about him, except that he was as corrupt and insane as the
monster Alan had seen murdering the two women?

Turning the
ignition, Alan looked around at the bare streets under the pools of
lamplight and wondered where he could find a phone. He must call the
police and report what he'd seen. He wouldn't be able to get
involved, so he would have to make the call anonymously.

Ten blocks back
into the city he saw a pay phone outside a closed convenience store,
pulled in, and, after twice dropping quarters from his shaking hands,
managed to dial 911. He told them where the house was located, what
was going on inside it, and described the killer, who obviously owned
the house.

He hung up
abruptly, got into his car, and drove as fast as he could without
getting a ticket to Bette's house.

He knocked on the
door. When she didn't answer right away, he tried the doorknob. It
was unlocked. He let himself in, calling to her. “Bette?"

He found her still
sleeping on the sofa in the living room. She had not moved since he'd
checked on her earlier. She had not changed her work clothes. She
still wore a white lab jacket over her prim white blouse and dark
brown, calf-length skirt. He shook her awake. "Are you all
right?"

She blinked at him
and sat up groggily. She brushed hair back from her face. "How
long have I been sleeping?"

"All evening,
I think."

She pulled at the
sleeve of her lab coat. "I didn't even take this off. I must not
have had dinner . . .”

“
Are you
sick?"

"No. I'm
hungry." She hesitated, bringing a hand to her bosom and laying
it flat between her breasts. "I don't think I'm sick. I must
have been more tired than I thought."

He sat with her at
the little kitchen table while she made herself a cold cut sandwich
and poured a glass of milk. "You're sure you don't want
something?" she asked.

He raised his hand,
tasting the remains of a dinner that had come up again. "No, no,
thank you. Bette, who was that old man who came here tonight? Was he
a friend of yours?"

"What old
man?"

Alan felt an alarm
go off. "The old man. The one who came here tonight." She
still looked confused. "I didn't tell you, but I was outside
watching the house. I saw the old man walk down the street here to
your house. You let him in. After a little while he came out again. I
rushed in here to see if you were all right, and found you sleeping
soundly. I left again, following him. I had to know where he was
going, who he was."

Bette shook her
head as she sat at the table, turning the glass of milk around and
around, watching the wet circle it made as water condensed on the
outside of the glass. "I . . . I must be sick or something. I
remember coming home and putting down my purse and car keys. I think
I was very tired. I must have let in someone. I think I remember
going to the door when there was a knock, but . . . I'm just . . .
having trouble remembering what it was about."

"Never mind.
At least he didn't hurt you. Is he someone you know? You have to
think, Bette. It's important."

She raised her gaze
to meet him. "I guess I know some old men. Friends of my
father's from the neighborhood. There's Mr. Chang, who runs the
Chinese store. And Mr. Graber, who operates a barber shop."

"Well, this
old man has a secret. You need to think about who he was."'

"What do you
mean?"

"I followed
him from your house, all the way outside of town, to another man's
house. I had to walk about two miles, following him when he got out
of a bus and started off. He would have seen me in my car. He went to
a house way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, outside of Dallas.
He met with a younger man in a huge, isolated ranch house. Anyway,
when he left the house, I started to follow him again. Then I heard
screams."

"Screams?
Alan, I don't know what you're talking about."

"Screams,
Bette, people screaming. There were two women in the house with the
younger man, the owner of the place. I heard them screaming, so I
hurried back and looked through the front windows. They were being .
. . he was . . ."

"What? What
did you see?" She was leaning forward, gripping his hand on the
table.

"He bit them,"
Alan said, knowing how absurd it sounded, how it wasn't believable.
He wouldn't have believed it either, had he not seen it with his own
eyes.

"Bit them?"

"On the neck.
He . . . tore at their necks with his teeth."

"My God. Did
you call the police?"

"As soon as I
could find a phone. But, Bette, what about the old man? He left you
here, he went to a killer's house, and then he vanished, and I mean
he vanished, as far as I can tell, into thin air. I was behind him
and he was on the side of the road and then suddenly he wasn't."

Bette sat back.
This reminded her of the stranger who had appeared and then
disappeared in her kitchen the night before. Remembering that
incident made her shiver where she sat. "What did he look like?"

"You saw him!
He was here."

"Alan. What
did he look like? Was he Chinese?"

Though puzzled,
Alan complied and told her. "No, he was an old white man. He was
about my height, wide in the shoulders, white hair that was kind of
frazzled, like it was always windblown, deep creases on his face. He
looks like he's eighty."

"That's him,"
Bette whispered, bringing a hand to her lips to hide her horror.

"Who? Graber?"

"No. Graber's
a little Black man, bow-legged, you'd know him right off. I'm talking
about the man who was here last night. In my kitchen. When you
knocked and scared him off. That's who you're talking about."

Alan didn't
understand. "But he was here last night, too. He knocked on the
front door, and you let him in. I saw you. Why would you do that?"

"I never would
have let him in."

"But . . ."

"Alan, I
wouldn't have let him in. He isn't real. He's some kind of . . . some
kind of . . . I don't know! A spirit. A golem. A devil."

"Do you think
that's why you don't remember he was here and why you slept so long?"

He saw she was
trying to think back to discover any trace of the meeting. She shook
her head finally. "I just can't remember. What did he do to me?
Why can't I remember?"

She began to cry,
and Alan scooted his chair around the corner of the table and held
her in his arms as she sagged against him. He didn't want to say what
he thought, but he knew he had to, no matter how crazy it sounded.
There was no one else he could confide in.

"I think he's
a vampire," he said, getting the worst of it out. "The
other man, the killer of the two women—he was one, I know he
was by the way he . . . by how he killed. And I think the old man is
one, too."

He expected Bette
to refute him, to tell him he had seen too many movies, that he was
imagining things and letting his judgment get twisted. He was
surprised when she stopped crying, shuddered in his arms, and said,
her face buried in his shirtfront, "I think you're right. That's
what he must be. He's a . . . vampire. It's how he can be there one
minute and then wink out. That's why he could come to my house
tonight and make me forget he'd ever been here."

"Of course, on
the other hand," Alan said, hoping to dismiss his own theory,
"there's no such thing as vampires. We're taking what little
evidence we have and leaping to one hell of a conclusion. We have no
rational explanation, so we're making one up."

"Are we?"
She drew away from him and stared into his eyes. "And the man
who devours women is nothing more than a demented killer, is that it?
The man who emerged from nowhere into my kitchen, then just as
swiftly left it, the man who came for a visit that I can't even
recall—that man's just a magician, a hypnotist. Does that make
any sense either? Is it more logical? Why is one explanation more
reliable than another? Because it's respectable and rational? Because
that's how we've been taught to look at reality? Or could the myths
that last for hundreds or thousands of years have some kind of basis
in truth?"

Alan couldn't
answer her. He had been reading about vampires. Was on a mission to
find one, and that could cause him to deduce he had seen them, just
because he was predisposed to seeing them. His was the kind of
investigation that only produced bad science and tainted evidence.
But what about Bette, who understood more than he that the world
wasn't always as it seemed? If she agreed with him and the evidence,
no matter how it was gathered, pointed toward it, then perhaps it
really was vampires.