Vampires Don't Sparkle! (5 page)

“Don’t be fooled by his appearance. He’s just as strong and resistant to damage as we are – and he has none of our weaknesses.”

Dylan looked skeptical. “If you say so. But even if it’s true, so what? There are two of us and one of him. All we have to do is tag team him.”

“It’s not that simple. Killing one’s own soul is the final act of evil that completes our transformation. Once you do it, you’ll be truly immortal. Otherwise, even though you are a vampire, you will age and die just as any mortal. But
you
have to do it. Your Animus can only perish at your hands. No one else’s.”

The other Dylan moved on from comedies and was now standing in the children’s section. Al and the real Dylan could still see him, so they stayed where they were.

“Did you kill your soul?” Dylan asked.

“Yes. And it was the toughest battle I’ve ever been in. I’d rather face a dozen of our kind in combat than a single Animus.”

Dylan continued looking at his other self for a few moments, and when next he spoke, he sounded overly nonchalant, as if he were scared and working hard not to show it. “So … what do I do?”

Before Al could respond, the other Dylan’s head snapped up and turned in their direction. His eyes narrowed, as if he were trying to see them but had trouble focusing his vision. Al grabbed hold of Dylan’s arm again so they would be in physical contact, the better to extend his glamour over the other vampire.

“Don’t move,” he breathed.

They stood absolutely motionless in the way that only the dead can do, and after a few moments, Dylan’s Animus looked away and wandered off to another section of the store.

Still keeping hold of Dylan’s arm, Al led him toward the exit.

“Come on. We have work to do.”

-----

“Why didn’t you warn me about him before?” Dylan asked. He tossed another shovelful of earth out of the hole he’d been digging, hurling it with such strength that it flew a dozen yards away to join the rest of the soil strewn there. The hole – a small pit by this point, really – was square, four feet deep and six feet across. Dylan stood inside, doing the excavating, while Al remained topside, supervising.

Dylan sounded pissed, and Al supposed he couldn’t blame him.

“You’re not the first vampire I’ve mentored. Ever heard the phrase ‘Seeing is believing’? Why do you think we’ve spent so much time hanging out in parking lots the last couple weeks? I’ve been waiting for your Animus to track you down so I could show it to you – and I wanted to give you more time to grow stronger, so you’d have a better chance of defeating it.”

“The least you could do is get in here and help me dig,” Dylan said, sounding like a sulky child.

“I told you, I need to keep watch. We don’t want your Animus sneaking up on us, and since I’m so much older than you, my senses are stronger. I’ll know when it’s within half a mile of here.”

The two vampires were in a field beneath a clear night sky. A crescent sliver of a moon hung overhead, nestled in an ebony expanse dotted with glittering stars. Nights like tonight, it was good to be undead, Al thought. An abandoned farmhouse and barn sat on the property, two black shapes silhouetted against the horizon. The Community EMS van was parked inside the empty barn, lights off, of course.

Dylan removed a couple more shovelfuls of dirt before speaking again.

“I don’t see how this is going to work. You said my Animus is just as tough as we are. How is falling into a pit going to hurt it? And really, do you think it’s stupid enough to fall for a trick like this?”

“It’s not intelligent, per se. As I said earlier, it’s like an antibody. It doesn’t think; it just acts and reacts. I stopped cloaking your presence over an hour ago, so your Animus is undoubtedly on your trail and headed this way. Once it sees you, it’ll make a beeline straight for you, and as long as you’re standing on the other side of the pit, it’ll tumble right in. Hell, by that point, it’ll be so excited that we probably don’t even need to cover the pit, but we’ll put some trees branches over it and lay some sod on top, just to be sure. When you finish digging the pit, we’ll put sharpened stakes in the bottom. They won’t kill the Animus. It’s not a vampire. But they will hold it in place long enough for you to jump in and sink your fangs into its neck. The only thing that can kill your Animus is the bite from a vampire. But not just any vampire: you.”

Dylan flung another shovelful of dirt out of the pit, and then looked up at Al, a skeptical expression on his face.

“Are you sure about this?”

Al smiled. “Have I steered you wrong yet?”

-----

“It’s close,” Al said.

He stood next to Dylan at the edge of the pit. They’d waited like this for several hours, during which Dylan had run through all of his cigarettes. The stink of tobacco hung heavy in the air, but Al didn’t complain. He had been in Dylan’s shoes once, and he understood how nervous the younger vampire was. It was a hell of a thing, finding yourself transformed into a bad-ass monster, only to discover that there was something out there just as dangerous as you whose only purpose was to take you out.

“I think I can hear him,” Dylan said softly.

Al had been able to hear the Animus approaching for the last ten minutes, its footsteps steady and regular, machine-precise. If he was right, the thing was just about close enough to –

The pace of its footfalls suddenly picked up, shoes pounding the earth, waist-high grass rustling as it raced toward them.

“It’s coming,” Al said. “Remember what I told you. Once it falls into the pit, strike fast and kill it quick. You won’t get a second chance.”

Before Dylan could say anything, Al moved several yards back from the pit. This was the younger vampire’s battle, and he had to fight it alone.

Dylan instinctively assumed the classic vampire defensive position. He crouched, knees bent, hands outstretched, fingernails lengthening into talons. And although his back was turned, Al knew his canines extended into sabers that hung past his chin, and his jaw unhinged so he could take the biggest bite possible out of his opponent.

Good lad,
he thought.

Dylan’s Animus made no sound as it came for him. Al had always found their silence to be one of the eeriest things about Animi, but far worse was the expression on their faces when they attacked. They didn’t look angry or excited. They weren’t filled with rage or possessed by bloodlust. They appeared totally at peace, smiling, arms lifted as if they wanted to embrace their other selves instead of annihilate them. Seeing that expression was the only time Al regretted being a vampire, and even though this wasn’t his Animus, he experienced a split second wherein he wished he hadn’t vanquished his own soul. What would it be like to feel such peace? To be truly at rest? But he quickly shoved such thoughts aside. They were part of the Animus’ attack, a psychic assault designed to make their victims hesitate at the crucial moment. He hoped Dylan would be able to resist it.

Dylan’s stance relaxed somewhat as the Animus came toward him, and if it hadn’t been for the pit, Al feared the soul creature would’ve succeeded in claiming him. But true to its nature, the Animus ran straight toward Dylan without paying any attention to its surroundings, and when its foot came down on the branches covering the pit, it fell in face-first. It made no noise as the stakes pierced its flesh, other than letting out a slight outrush of air from its lungs.

“Now!” Al shouted.

Dylan hesitated a split second, and then leaped into the pit. An instant later, Al heard the sound of his saber teeth latching onto the Animus. This was followed by loud sucking noises, accompanied by ecstatic moans. Al waited a moment longer, and then strolled to the edge of the pit.

Dylan was hunched over his Animus, his mouth buried deep in his other’s self’s neck. He’d bitten into its flesh with such savagery that the Animus’ head had almost been severed, but what spilled out of the wound wasn’t blood. It was a thick golden liquid that looked something like luminescent honey. As Dylan drank, his body spasmed repeatedly, as if he were caught in the throes of an intense orgasm.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Al said. “If human blood is like wine to us, then the ichor that flows from the veins of an Animus is like a combination of every drug that ever existed. Ambrosia of the gods. There’s only one thing as good: when that ambrosia has been filtered through the body of another vampire.”

Al jumped into the pit, grabbed hold of his protégé by the shoulders, and sank his own saber teeth into his throat. Dylan couldn’t stop draining his Animus. Once the process had begun, it had to be finished. A tidbit of information that Al had failed to pass along to his student. So as Dylan filled his belly, Al in turn filled his. And when it was all over, the Animus was dead, and so was Dylan.

Al, sated, crawled forth from the pit. His limbs were heavy, and he felt so lethargic, he could barely move. He glanced at the sky and saw it was a shade lighter in the east. Dawn was near. He needed to bury Dylan and the Animus before he could rest, though. Good thing the pit doubled as a ready-made grave.

He picked up the shovel and got to it.

-----

He was inside the EMS vehicle—the barn door closed – before the first rays of sunlight pinked the horizon. He was so weary that it took a major effort of will to keep his eyes open as he climbed into the back of the van. He’d intended to lie down on the gurney, but he swore when he saw the body of the jogger was still strapped there. He’d forgotten all about her. He should’ve tossed her into the grave with Dylan and the Animus. Oh, well. Too late now. He’d take care of it after sundown.

He started to unbuckle the corpse, intending to dump it onto the floor so he could lie down, when it suddenly took in a gasping breath and opened its eyes.

“Where am I?” the woman said. “What happened?”

Al smiled when he saw her fangs.

“Don’t worry. Everything’s okay. I’ll explain later, but right now you have to sleep. All right?”

She looked at him for a moment, but the daylight torpor was already taking hold of her. She nodded once, closed her eyes, relaxed and fell still.

Al let her keep the gurney. The floor would be fine today. As full as he was, he would sleep well, regardless, and tonight, once the two of them had awakened, he would begin training his new protégé, the latest of many he’d had over the long years. He settled onto the floor and closed his eyes.

Life was good.

THE DARKTON CIRCUS MYSTERY

Elizabeth Massie

Elizabeth Massie is a Bram Stoker Award — and Scribe Award — winning author of horror novels, short horror fiction, media tie-ins, and mainstream fiction. More recent works include 
Desper Hollow
 (horror novel) and 
Naked, On the Edge
 (collection of horror short fiction.) She is the creator of the Skeeryvilletown slew of cartoon zombies, monsters, and other bizarre misfits. In her spare time she manages Hand to Hand Vision, a Facebook-based fundraising project she founded to help others during these tough economic times. Massie lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with the talented illustrator/artist Cortney Skinner.

The vampire that left the most lasting and disturbing impression on Beth was Count Orlock from 
Nosferatu. 
The eyes. The hands. The cold, insatiable hunger.

–––––––––––

P
eter Darkton’s Traveling Circus of Wonders was a sad little spectacle, hardly a circus and not even enough to qualify as a modern mid-list carnival, composed of a 22-year-old Chevy Suburban with large rust spots and a 1975 30-foot travel trailer with bad shocks and a long gouge down its side where Peter had backed it too close to a row of pines in a Kentucky campground. Peter traveled throughout the year, deep South in winter, North in summer, and as far west as Illinois whenever he could afford the gas and the weather held. He was fifty-eight now, well-worn himself with spots and gouges from an occasional fight with locals who came to his exhibit drunk or who just wanted to test their manliness again a stranger who was, more often than not, shorter and less muscular than themselves.

But the traveling circus was a living. A living handed down from Peter’s father, who’d inherited it from his own, and so on back into the shadows of the long, forgotten past. And just as they had when his ancestors parked their horse-drawn wagons in weedy-choked pastures or beside muddy river banks, when Peter parked his Suburban and trailer in a campground or in the trees along a graveled country roadside, they came. They came with crumpled dollars and twitching noses, drawn in by the garish paintings on the side of the trailer showing costumed monkeys playing cards, a vanishing pig, chickens dancing in a spotlight, and most curious of all, the big, fire-red letters promoting “The Darkton Circus Mystery! See It to Believe It! Feed It! Prove Your Courage! Then Speak Of It To No One on Pain of Certain Death!”

On this particular September day, Peter had the circus rattling up the western slope of a Virginia mountain, seeking a lonely place where people hungered for an entertainment beyond the everyday, hoping the vehicle’s slipping transmission would hold. In his lap was a bag of corn chips, in the drink holder a beer he’d wrapped in tin foil. In the passenger’s seat was his daughter, Kelly, all of nineteen, who’d joined him when he’d swung through her hometown of Dillyville in northeastern Tennessee and told him she wanted to ride with him for a month or so.