The Darkening Dream (11 page)

“The plot doesn’t look disturbed,” she said, “but at least the local theatrical troupe provided some sinister ground-fog.”

She giggled. Her nerves must be getting to her.

“The vampire will be in its coffin,” Alex said. “A young one wouldn’t risk even a hint of sunlight.”

“How did he pack the dirt behind him?” Sam asked. “Do they float down like ghosts?”

Alex shrugged. “I’ve only done this twice before, and those graves were stone crypts. Let’s get to work before someone comes.”

The digging took longer than expected, even though both boys worked quickly. Sarah watched the edges of the yard for intruders. Women’s rights were one thing, but men were welcome to the hard labor.

Finally, she heard the soft thud of metal on wood. A few minutes later Sam uncovered the lid while Alex laid out some garlic cloves, a sword-like knife, and a burlap bag. He donned a pair of heavy leather gloves and grasped his wooden spear.

“Sam, use the iron hooks I gave you to open the box. Sarah, stand back.” Alex positioned himself at the head of the casket, spear raised.

Sam worked the iron rod under the lid until it creaked and splintered. Next, he wedged the head of a shovel into the gap and stepped on the handle. The lid shattered with a loud crack. Sam batted the broken wood aside with the shovel.

Charles lay in his coffin, eyes closed. His fangs and claws were gone, his hands folded soft and clean in front of him. His clothes were filthy and torn, the blood on his shirt dried a dark brown. There were gouges in the side of his head where Sam had struck his skull, but the face was otherwise intact.

He looked so peaceful. Sarah’s heart ached at the thought of what lay before them.

“They sleep deeply during the day,” Alex said, “but see how even this early morning glow burns him?”

Dawn light now streamed through the trees and shadowy fingers reached back from the gravestones. Down in the grave Charles still slumbered in darkness, his white face and hands were turning pink, and small wisps of smoke coiled about his lifeless flesh.

“Brace yourselves,” Alex said.

He raised the long spear. Sarah could see that his hands were shaking, but he drove the stake down hard into the boy’s chest.

The creature’s dark eyes — so different from the blue ones Sarah had seen in the Williamses’ parlor — snapped open. He hissed and squirmed. Alex leaned into the spear, twisting it deeper. Pinned like a collection beetle, Charles flailed, limbs lashing out. Sunlight crept into the pit, and the smoke issuing from the body thickened. The soft hands transformed into wicked claws, and a forest of teeth sprouted from his mouth. Ropes of blood spat from his hideous maw and oozed from the point where the stake penetrated his chest.

Even impaled, he managed to stretch up a taloned hand to grope at Alex’s foot. Alex tried to move away, but his grip on the pinioning spear tethered him to the creature.

“Sam, take the knife and cut off his head! Hit him hard.”

Sam picked up the machete, examined its two-foot length, then looked into the grave.

“I can’t reach from here!”

“Just stay away from the sharp parts, I’ll try and keep him pinned.”

Alex danced to evade the groping claws.

“I’m doing the best I can.” Sam lay on the earth and stabbed down into the pit with the machete.

Sarah grabbed up one of the shovels and tried to whack at the hands reaching for Alex. Nervousness — and perhaps a general lack of shovel experience — caused her to miss her target.

“Watch the feet, please!” Alex yelled as he dodged the blow.

Sam wasn’t faring much better. The vampire grabbed the tip of the machete, forcing Sam into an awkward tug-of-war, head and shoulders drawn toward the pit.

“Fool idea using the blade!” he yelled.

Sarah raised her shovel again but found herself frozen when her eyes locked on the thing below. Its flesh blackened and bubbled, making a sound like sausage in the pan. The smoke became a thick column, and she coughed and gagged on the fumes, dropped the shovel into the pit when her hand flew to her mouth. Thick pink vomit splattered her pants and hard leather boots. She turned away and wiped the strands off her face with her sleeve.

Sam jerked the machete free and moved towards her.

“No!” Alex yelled. “The head!”

Small flames sprouted from the vampire’s clothing. The horrible hissing and squirming continued. The dead boy grabbed the shovel Sarah had dropped and swung it toward Alex—

Who released the stuck spear to avoid being clobbered. Flames leapt out of the pit as the vampire struggled to rise.

“I’ll do it my way.” Sam knelt, snatched up the other shovel and struck.

He missed the neck — the lower face collapsed with a sickening crunch and a burst of flame. The thing emitted a feeble hiss. Alex grabbed the bobbing stake and forced the vampire down while Sam swung again at the neck. This time the blade drove cleanly through blackened skin and bone like a carving knife through overcooked turkey. The head separated and rolled to the side. The body stilled, flames intensified, and acrid smoke poured upward into their faces.

Sarah gagged again. Her stomach empty, her painful contractions gave birth to only a thin stream of fluid.

Alex clung to the stake. “We need to boil the head. Sam, can you get it?”

“You’ve got to be kidding?”

But Sam used the shovel to push the charred, smoldering head up the side of the grave. The edge of the hole was ragged, and the skull kept falling off the shovel, thudding against the collapsing corpse. Finally, on the fourth try, he was able to flip it onto the grass above.

In seconds Alex had pressed the garlic bulb into what remained of the mouth and kicked the head unceremoniously into the burlap bag.

“Let’s break off the stake and get this dirt back into the grave.”

Eleven:

The Morning After

Salem, Massachusetts, Friday, October 24, 1913

S
ARAH RETURNED FROM THE
graveyard feeling like a corpse herself. She trudged up her front walk, arms crossed to fight the chill. The hot spell had finally broken and dark clouds churned the morning sky.

Once in her room, she stripped off her clothes — they reeked of death and smoke — and shoved them under the bed. She fell asleep the second her face sank into the pillow.

Charles haunted her dreams. Smiling, teeth overwhelming his pinched pale face, dressed in his best Sunday suit, he held her hand and tugged her up a grassy hill. Sharp nails and cold fingers pressed against her palm. She heard the baying of wolves, and a dark bird of prey circled the sky.

At the crest of the hill, Charles paused before a lone sycamore, gnarled and bare of leaves. The sun just touched the horizon, throwing dark branches into relief against the heavens.

He gave me the dark gift, and you took it away.
Charles’ reddish mouth didn’t move, so packed with teeth speech hardly seemed possible.

“What’s the dark gift?” she asked.

He gestured to the east, where black clouds roiled across the valley. A tremendous horn blast sounded, a single note free from any notion of beginning or end. The frenzied howl of the wolves played counterpoint. Overhead, the ugly bird shrieked in response.

The horn has sounded, and I have opened the gates
.

“What gates?”

Charles shrugged, sharp blades shifting under dark wool.

The passage is unblocked. What is lost will be found
.

“Passage to where?”

The dead boy pointed to something behind her. She turned. Before the great tree, the green earth was scarred with a neat brown wound. Terror lofted from her belly into her throat.

“I pray that’s
your
grave,” she said.

The bloodless mask of his face was unreadable. His hair, slicked with animal fat, parted neatly in the center.

Only you can stop us
.

She locked eyes with him, but the lifeless black orbs offered nothing. The horn was still blaring. A young woman with brilliant orange-red hair in braids stood beside the grave. She was dressed in a burgundy velvet gown, her breast emblazoned with a white doe cavorting amidst red tulips.

“Is this your grave?” Sarah asked.

The doe-woman gestured at the hole like a hostess offering a seat at a dinner table—

Charles shoved Sarah hard from behind, and she stumbled into the woman, dragging them both down into the pit.

Sarah lifted her face from the pillow.

Papa knelt beside her, his hand resting between her shoulder blades. Outside the window the sky was gray-white, rivulets of rain streaking the glass.

She jerked up. “Am I late for school?”

He picked up her hand and examined her nails, caked with blood-soaked dirt.

“Digging ditches?” He was smiling. “A night job, I take it.”

“I slipped in the mud by the water ride.”

“Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

A tempting offer, but on balance she thought not. He had his secrets, too, plenty of them. They’d long respected those private spaces in each other’s lives, each trusting the other would confide if and when the time was right.

She shook her head.

“When did you come home? After midnight, wasn’t it?” Sometimes he seemed aware of things only God should’ve known.

“I’m sorry, Papa.” He really wasn’t being unreasonable.

He rose and pressed his fingers to the
mezuzah
at her door, then kissed them.

“You’ll be in the house by ten o’clock, Sarah, not a moment later.”

“Yes, Papa.”

The long-case clock in the hall began to chime. She counted the bells. Seven.

“You should get ready for school. I’ll see you at
shul
for
Shabbos
services.”

Friday again. The week had steamed past. The last thing she felt like was an evening in synagogue. Then again, maybe she could use a little extra credit with the Lord.

Papa gave her three quick kisses on the forehead and left.

Sarah threw back the covers. If he’d seen the scrapes her roof-climbing had left on her feet, she’d have more than a curfew from him. She peeked under the bandages. Much improved, although a whiff of the odor from Alex’s salve lingered.

She glanced at her hands. She couldn’t remember why she hadn’t washed them, the trek home had been an exhausted blur. And that tumble down the dark dream-pit, fingers dragging through the dry dirt… After last night, a nightmare was the least any sane person could expect, but this one was reminiscent of her original visions. Dreadful in appearance, dream-Charles had seemed almost brotherly in demeanor. And who was that redheaded girl?

When she stood, a wave of fatigue swept over her. Next time she helped destroy a living corpse in its grave, she’d better be doing it on more than two hours’ sleep.

As soon as Sarah joined the others at the cafeteria table she pulled out her little journal. No need to write that Anne looked drawn and worried or Sam disheveled and tired. But it should be noteworthy that even Alex seemed exhausted. Emily looked unperturbed — excited, even — but then she hadn’t gone vampire-killing with them.