The Mammoth Book of Dracula (91 page)

Some vampire, Billy thought. He didn’t look anything like the proud and regal Transylvanian Count from the old dog-eared comicbooks he had read and reread so many times he knew every word. The man in the picture, his eyes badly drawn so they were actually crossed, looked more like a fool. “The Last Idiot” was what the tarpaulin should read. Billy smiled to himself at the thought.

The man shifted gears, worn cogs crying out, and pulled the truck up onto the grass. When he was completely off the road, he leaned out of the window and waved on the second truck.

By now others from the town had appeared, walking slowly across the grass from down around Jingle Bend, where he knew they had been to greet the visitors. The man from the first truck—Billy supposed he was Joseph Blaumlein—was already down on the grass, slamming the cab door behind him and staring at the approaching figures. The woman—Deirdre, or Deedee—moved around the cab and stood by his side. Both of them looked nervous—
real
nervous—him pulling on his cigarette like he was being lined up against a wall to be shot, and her pushing herself further and further into the gap between her husband and the truck.

Billy turned and looked at the people. There was Mr McKendrick, Solly Sapperstein, Mr and Mrs Revine, young Jeff Winton and a whole load of other folks... including his mom, bringing up the rear with Mildred Duffy and her husband, Tom, the deputy town mayor of Pump Handle.

The congregation got to within twenty yards or so of the trucks -both of them now parked up on the grass at the side of the roadway -and exchanged nods with the visitors. There were five of them, now: Joseph and Deedee; a young fellow with a gap-toothed smile and a vacant stare; a woman who looked to Billy to be around sixty years old if she was a day, her hair hanging down in rat-tails that were half-blonde and half-brown; and a wiry-looking old man sucking on a pipe and leaning against the door of the second truck.

Tom Duffy shuffled from the rear of the group up to the front, where he was a few feet away from Billy Kendow and Joseph and Deedee Blaumlein, and touched the brim of his hat. “Welcome to Pump Handle,” he exclaimed. Like as if he were giving them the keys to St Louis or New Orleans, fabled places of grandness that Billy had never seen but about which he had heard plenty.

Joseph Blaumlein nodded and smiled, dropping his cigarette butt onto the grass and stepping onto it. “I’m pleased to be here,” Blaumlein said, extending a hand of friendship to the deputy mayor. “We all are.”

The smile that accompanied this last statement puzzled Billy. He looked around to see if anyone else had noticed it—the almost ratlike leer and narrowing of eyes—but everyone seemed to be smiling and just having themselves a real ball. Even his mom. He looked back at Blaumlein.

Eleanor Revine stepped around Tom’s wife and, placing her hands on her hips, swayed backwards and looked at the writing on the side of the trucks.

“What the hell’s a ‘post apoc ... apocyliptic shadow show’?” she asked ... not unreasonably, Billy thought.

The old man stepped forward to stand next to Billy. “These here,” he said portentously, waving an arm majestically at the writing on the side of the truck, “are what amounts to some mighty strange occurrences.” He took a deep breath and shifted into

put down that rabbit, boy and roll up, roll up why dontcha for the show that never ends

a sideshow barker’s spiel. “Here we have ...” He walked to the side of the truck and pointed to one of the scribbled, hand-drawn lines. “A hen which lays empty eggs, each one perfectly formed but containing absolutely nothing; here we have Siamese
triplets ...
three legs, two hearts, three heads and five arms between them; and over here, a raccoon with nippers and a long fin on its back; and here—”

“What’s that last vampire like?” said Billy in a small voice.

The man turned to face Billy and, just for a moment, his eyes flashed menacingly. Billy figured it was because he had interrupted his pitch and he hung his head down and muttered an apology. “That’s okay, son,” said the man, blowing a thick plume of acrid smoke from his pipe bowl. He moved across to the illustration and shook his head.

“This here’s maybe the sorriest specimen we’ve come across ... maybe even sorrier than the Siamese triplets, and that’s sorry indeed,” he said. “Name’s Dracula, like in the book. Thought he was a fiction but now we know better. Came across him up in Carolina, north or south makes no nevermind, and he lives in darkness and drinks the blood of anything and ever’thing he can find. Don’t speak a word, not a single—”

“Were there others?”

“What’s that, son?”

“You say he’s the last one,” Billy said. “Were there more? What about all the folks he ... you know ...” Billy made a biting face. “The ones he bit?”

The man glanced across at Joseph Blaumlein who stepped forward and ruffled Billy’s hair. “There’s all manner of strangeness out there, boy,” he said. “Could be he has relatives somewheres but we ain’t seen hide nor ... nor
fang
of ‘em in our travels.” He gave a snort. “We took the liberty of calling him the last one. Could be he’s the
only
one.”

The man turned to face all of the people from Pump Handle and raised his arms wide. “All courtesy of the War, ladies and gentlemen ... and all brought to you here today, for your amazement, in exchange for a little home comforts.”

Now it was the turn of the deputy mayor to speak. “Home comforts?”

The man shrugged and looked across at the old man and the woman with the straggled two-coloured hair. Something passed between them, then; Billy Kendow saw it. But it was gone as fast as it had appeared. He looked around to see if any of the other townsfolk had seen it, but they all seemed to be wrapped up in what the man was saying.

“Some food, little purified water, some gasoline maybe ...” He let his voice trail off and then added, loudly, “and all in exchange for a glimpse of the outside world post apocalyptic.”

“We ain’t got no food or water,” Solly Sapperstein said in a husky voice. “Leastwise none we can spare. And we don’t have no need for gasoline.”

Blaumlein stepped up to the deputy mayor and looked down at him. As he moved, the old woman and the man with the pipe sauntered over to the cabs of the two trucks.

“I can’t believe that,” he said. “I can’t believe you couldn’t spare just one meal for me and my people ... in exchange for—“ He spun around and pointed to the trucks again. “In exchange for the show of your
lives.
Now, how’s that sound for a deal?”

Jack McKendrick stepped forward. “All our provisions is kept in the old repair shop, down in town, and the mayor looks after it. We can’t make no promises about whether he’ll let you—”

Tom Duffy shook his head and took hold of Jack’s arm. “Be okay,” he said, tiredly, glancing at the trucks. “Mayor Ladd will see the sensible solution.”

“There, now, that’s mighty sensible of you all,” said Blaumlein cheerfully. “And, as a mark of good faith, I’ll let you see just one of our special attractions.” He smiled across the sea of blank faces. Maybe this was going to be harder than usual. “Which one’ll it be?”

Nobody said anything.

Billy Kendow looked across the people from the town and waited for someone to say something, but still nobody did.

“The vampire,” he said, blurting it out. “Show us the last vampire.”

Blaumlein laughed and ruffled Billy’s hair again. “Right you are, boy.” He turned to the boy with the gap-toothed smile. “Bring him out, Eddie.”

The boy disappeared around the other side of the second truck and Billy could hear him puffing as he unfastened the tarpaulin flap. Less than a minute later, the boy reappeared around the cab pulling on a piece of rope. At the end of the rope was The Last Vampire!

“My, but he’s the
sorriest
looking fella I ever did see,” said Mildred Duffy.

And that was the truest thing the deputy mayor’s wife had ever said.

The man looked even older than his picture—maybe around sixty, maybe even seventy, Billy had no way of telling. His hair was thick and matted, his face covered in sores and dirt. Around his middle, he wore a crude loincloth fashioned out of pieces of fabric all stitched together and, around his neck, someone had attached a piece of rope fastened to some kind of blanket. Also around his neck was a collection of crucifixes and a string of garlic bulbs. There were more bulbs and crucifixes hanging from the “belt”, Billy saw. In fact, the only thing that was impressive about, this “vampire” was his eyes. They were intelligent eyes, glancing nervously around the gathered throng of people.

Billy walked up to the man and stared up into his face. As he stared, the man flinched. “Let me see his teeth,” Billy said in a soft voice.

“Hey, now,” said the old man with the pipe. “We don’t want to be giving away the whole show ... leastwise not till we get our ‘payment’.” There was something about the word “payment”, Billy thought. Some deep and hidden significance. He looked across at the old man and, just for a second, he saw a conspiratorial flash of something in the man’s face. He looked around quickly and saw that the glance had been exchanged with Blaumlein, who was now averting his own face from Billy’s stare.

“I wanna see the teeth,” Billy said. “I wanna see the teeth
now.”

Tom Duffy placed a gentle hand on Billy’s shoulder. “Now hold on there Bil—” he began, but Blaumlein interrupted.

“Let him see. Eddie?”

The boy with the gap-toothed smile stepped forward as though in a trance and took hold of the vampire’s face in both hands. Pulling at the man’s lips, he quickly exposed the two incisors pictured on the side of the truck.

Tom Duffy tried hard to suppress a snigger.

Billy leaned toward the vampire and the vampire tried to pull away.

“They ain’t real,” said Billy.

“Now hold on there, boy,” Blaumlein said.

“They’re stuck on with something.” He reached out a hand and the vampire pulled back out of the gap-toothed boy’s grip. He threw back his head and let out a guttural howl.

“Sounds more like one of them werewolf fellas,” Eleanor Revine said to Solly Sapperstein.

The vampire shook his head, eyes wide enough they looked set to pop out and hang on his cheeks, and cowered away from Billy.

“Why’s he howling that way?”Tom Duffy asked.

“Kind of like he’s trying to tell us something,” said Solly Sapperstein.

“How d’you know he’s Dracula?” asked Mildred Duffy. “Don’t look like no Count I ever saw.”

Joseph Blaumlein stepped to one side and reached a hand behind his back. When the hand reappeared, it was holding a gun. He gave a big beaming smile and shook the gun at the townsfolk. “Time to wake up and smell the fuckin’ coffee, you hayseed dickheads,” he said in a low voice. Without turning, he said to gap-tooth, “Put him away, Eddie. Show’s over.”

“What the hell’s going on?” asked Charlie McKendrick.

“Shut the hell up, you old fart,” said Blaumlein.

Gap-toothed Eddie yanked on the vampire’s rope and pulled him back around the wagon.

Eleanor Revine let out a chuckle. “Now this is what I
call
a show!”

“You seen all the show you’re gonna see,” Blaumlein said. He backed off a way and motioned with the gun. “Let’s see you all gather up now in a nice group. You too, kid.”

Glancing in the direction of the vampire, Billy shuffled across and stood between Eleanor Revine and Tom Duffy.

“Right, now, that’s real good.” Blaumlein looked across at his wife. “Deedee, get th’other gun.”

“Can you tell—”

“Not now, gramps,” Blaumlein snapped at Tom Duffy. “Okay, who’s in charge here?”

Tom looked around and put up his hand. “I guess that’s me.”

“You
guess,
gramps?”

“He’s the deputy mayor,” said Mildred. “And he’s my husband.”

Blaumlein’s wife appeared with a rifle which she trained on the group.

Solly Sapperstein stepped forward. As Solly started to speak, Blaumlein turned to his wife. “Deedee?”

The shot rang out and echoed in the stillness of the night. Solly Sapperstein rocked on his feet and then, frowning, looked down at his stomach. When he realized what had happened, Solly grabbed hold of his gut and fell to his knees. Once on the floor, he looked around at the others, all of whom were watching him with what appeared to be a casual interest, and then toppled over onto his side.

Blaumlein watched the man for further signs of movement, but Solly was still. He looked up and gave another smile. “Any more questions?”

Nobody spoke.

“Okay, now we need to get us some food and some water. And your Mayor is going to be real generous about that, I can just feel it.” He laughed. “You, deputy mayor ...”

Tom Duffy nodded.

“Step on up here towards me. You’re gonna lead us to this barn with all the provisions.”

Duffy nodded. “Okay.”

Blaumlein frowned and then smiled. He turned to look at his wife, who was also frowning, and then at the old man with the pipe.

“I don’t like it,” the old man said.

Blaumlein turned back to face Tom Duffy. “You just gonna take us up there? Just like that?”