The Mammoth Book of Dracula (96 page)

Pretty damn depressing up on the boards. The big glass windows in Jenkinson’s arcade were smashed and it was dark inside. The lifeless video games stared back with dead eyes. All the concession stands were boarded up, the paralysed rides were rusting and peeling, and it was
quiet.
No barkers shouting, no kids laughing, no squealing babes in bikinis running in and out of the surf. Just the monotonous pounding of the waves against the deserted beach.

And the birds. The seagulls were doing what they’d always done. Probably the only thing they missed was the garbage the crowds used to leave behind.

Al and Stan headed south, scouring the boardwalk as they moved. The only other humans they saw were Kenny and Artie coming up the other way from the South Beach Arcade.

“Any luck?” Stan called.

“Nada,” Kenny said.

“Yo, Alphonse!” Artie said. “How many Heinies you have anyway? You seein’ things now? What was it—a blonde
bird?”

But Al knew he’d seen something moving up here, and it hadn’t been no goddam seagull. But where ...?

“Let’s get back to the car and keep moving,” Stan said. “Don’t look like we’re gonna make us no brownie points up here.”

They’d all turned and were heading back up the boards when Al took one last look back ... and saw something moving. Something small and red, rolling across the boards toward the beach from between one of the concession stands.

A ball.

He tapped Stan on the shoulder, put a finger to his lips, and pointed. Stan’s eyes widened and together they alerted Artie and Kenny. Together the four of them crept toward the spot where the ball had rolled from.

As they got closer, Al realized why they’d missed this spot on the first pass. It was really two concession stands—a frozen yogurt place and a salt water taffy shop—with boards nailed up over the space between to make them look like a single building.

Stan tapped Al on the shoulder and pointed to the roof of the nearer concession stand. Al nodded. He knew what he wanted: the second-storey man had to do his thing again.

Al got to the top of the chain-link fence running behind the concession stands and from there it was easy to lever himself up to the roof. His sneakers made barely a sound as he crept across the tar of the canted roof to the far side.

The girl must have heard him coming, because she was already looking up when he peeked over the edge. Al felt a surge of satisfaction when he saw her blonde ponytail and long thick bangs.

He felt something else when he saw the tears streaming down her cheeks from her pleading eyes, and her hands raised, palms together, as if praying to him. She wanted him to see nothing—she was
begging
Al to see nothing.

For an instant he was tempted. The pleas in those frightened blue eyes reached deep inside and touched something there, disturbed a part of him so long unused he’d forgotten it belonged to him.

And then he saw she had a little boy with her, maybe seven years old, dark-haired but with eyes as blue as hers. She was pleading for him as much as herself. Maybe more than herself. And with good reason. The vampires
loved
little kids. Al didn’t understand it. Kids were smaller, had less blood than adults. Maybe their blood was purer, sweeter. Someday, when he was undead himself, he’d know.

But even with the kid there, Al might have done something stupid, might have called down to Stan and the boys that there was nothing here but some old tom cat who’d probably taken a swat at that ball and rolled it out. But when he saw that she was pregnant—
very
pregnant—he knew he had to turn her in.

As much as the bloodsuckers loved kids, they went
crazy
for babies. Infants were the primo delicacy among the vampires. Al once had seen a couple up then fighting over a newborn.

That had been a sight.

He sighed and said, “Too bad, honey, but you’re packing too many points.” He turned and called down toward the boardwalk. “Bingo, guys. We struck it rich.”

She screamed out a bunch of hysterical “No’s” and the little boy began to cry.

Al shook his head regretfully. It wasn’t always a pleasant job, but a cowboy had to do what a cowboy had to do.

And besides, all these brownie points were going to bring him that much closer to some stud time at the nearest cattle farm.

~ * ~

Sister Carole checked the Pyrex bowl on the stove. A chalky layer of potassium chloride had formed in the bottom. She turned off the heat and immediately decanted off the boiling upper fluid, pouring it through a Mr Coffee filter into a Pyrex brownie pan. She threw out the scum in the filter and put the pan of filtrate on the window sill to cool.

She heard the sound of a car again and rushed to a window. It was the same car, with the same occupants—

No, wait. There had been only four before. Two in front and two in back. Now there were three squeezed into the back and they seemed to be fighting. And did that third head in front, sitting with the red-haired cowboy in the passenger seat, belong to a child? Oh, my Lord, yes. A child! And in the back a woman, probably his mother. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the poor thing was pregnant!

Sister Carole suddenly felt as if something were tearing apart within her chest. Was there no justice, was there no mercy anywhere?

She dropped to her knees and began to pray for them, but in the back of her mind she wondered why she bothered. None of her prayers had been answered so far.

Sacrilege, Carole! That’s SACRILEGE! Now tell me why you’d be thinking the Lord would answer the prayers of such a SINNER? God doesn’t answer the prayers of a SINNER!

Maybe not, Carole thought. But if He’d answered
somebody’s
prayers somewhere along the line, maybe she wouldn’t have been forced to turn the Bennetts’ kitchen into an anarchist’s laboratory.

The Lord helped those who helped themselves, didn’t He? Especially when they were doing the Lord’s work.

~ * ~

Artie and Kenny had been fighting over the blonde since they’d all left Point. She’d put up a fight at first, but she’d been nothing but a blubbering basket case for the last few miles. By the time the Mercedes hit Lakewood, Artie and Kenny were ready to start swinging at each other.

The blonde’s little boy—Joey, she called him—looked up with his baby blues from where he was sitting on Al’s lap and said, “Are they gonna hurt my mommy?”

Stan must have overheard. He said, “They better not if they know what’s good for ‘em.” He looked at Al and jerked his head toward the back seat. “Straighten them out, will ya?”

Al turned in his seat and grabbed Artie since he was closest.

“You ain’t gonna do shit to her, Artie!”

Artie slammed his hand away. “Yeah? And what are we gonna do? Save her for you? Bull
shit!
”

Artie could be a real asshole at times.

“We’re not saving her for me,” Al said. “For Gregor. You remember Gregor, don’t you, Artie?”

Some of Artie’s bluster faded. Gregor was the bigshot bloodsucker in charge of the Jersey Shore. One mean son of an undead bitch. You didn’t mess with Gregor. Al knew Artie was probably thinking of Gregor’s smile, how most times it looked painted on, how with all those sharp teeth of his he managed to look both happy and very, very hungry at the same time. Gregor was a big guy, with broad shoulders, dark hair, and a pale face. All the vampires looked pale. But that wasn’t what made Al’s skin crawl every time he got near one. It was something else, something you couldn’t see or smell, something you
felt.
But they had to meet with Gregor every night and tell him how things had gone while he was cutting his Z’s or whatever it was the bloodsuckers did when the sun was up. It was part of the job.

“Course,” Artie said. “Course I know Gregor. But I don’t wanna suck her blood, man,” he said, jamming his hand down between the blonde’s legs. “I got other things in mind. It’s been a long time, man—a
long
time—and I gotta—”

“What if you screw up the baby?” Al said. “What if she starts having the baby and it’s born dead? All because of you? What’re you gonna tell Gregor then, Artie? How you gonna explain that to him?”

“Who says he has to know?”

“You think he won’t find out?” Al said. “I tell you what, Artie. And you, too, Kenny. You guys want to get your jollies with this broad, fine. Go ahead. But if that’s what you’re gonna do, Stan and me are stopping the car here—right here—and walking away Am I right Stan?”                                                                                            ‘

Stan nodded. “Fuckin’ ay.”

“And then you two clowns can explain any problems to Gregor yourselves tonight when we meet. Okay?”

Artie pulled his hand away from the blonde and sat on it.

“Jesus, Al. I’m hurtin’ bad.”

“We’re all hurtin’, Artie. But some of us just ain’t ready yet to get killed for a little pregnant poontang, know what I mean?”

Stan seemed to think that was real funny. He laughed the rest of the way down County Line Road.

~ * ~

Sister Carole finished her prayers at sundown and went to check on the cooled filtrate. The bottom of the pan was layered with potassium chlorate crystals. Potent stuff. The Germans had used it in their grenades and land mines during World War One.

She got a clean Mr Coffee filter and poured the contents of the pan through it, but this time she saved the residue in the filter and let the liquid go down the drain.

Lookit after what you’re doing now, Carole! You’re a sick woman! SICK! You’ve got to be stopping this and praying to God for guidance’ Pray, Carole! PRAY.

Sister Carole ignored the voice and spread out the potassium chlorate crystals in the now-empty pan. She set the oven on LOW and placed the pan on the middle rack. She had to get all the moisture out of the potassium chlorate before it would be of any use to her.

So much trouble, and so dangerous. If only her searches had yielded some dynamite, even a few sticks, everything would have been so much easier. She’d searched everywhere—hunting shops, gun stores, construction sites. She found lots of other useful items, but no dynamite. Only some blasting caps. She’d had no choice but to improvise.

This was her third batch. She’d been lucky so far. She hoped she survived long enough to get a chance to use it.

~ * ~

“You’ve outdone yourselves this time, boys.”

Gregor stared at the four cowboys. Ordinarily he found it doubly difficult to be near them. Not simply because the crimson thirst made a perpetual test of being near a living font of hot, pulsing sustenance when he’d yet to feed, urging him to let loose and tear into their throats; but also because these four were so common, such low-lifes.

Gregor was royalty. He’d come over from the Old Country with the Master and had helped conquer America’s East Coast. Now he was in charge of this region and was in line to expand his responsibilities. When he was moved up he would no longer be forced to deal directly with flotsam such as these. Living collaborators were a necessary evil, but that didn’t mean he had to like them.

Tonight, however, he could almost say truly that he enjoyed their presence. He was ecstatic with the prizes they had brought with them.

Gregor had shown up shortly after sundown at the customary meeting place outside St Anthony’s church. Of course, it didn’t look much like a church now, what with all the crosses broken off. He’d found the scurvy quartet waiting for him as usual, but they had with them a small boy and—dare he believe his eyes—a pregnant woman. His knees had gone weak at the double throb of life within her.

“I’m extremely proud of all of you.”

“We thought you’d appreciate it,” said the one in the cowboy hat. What was his name? Stanley. That was it. Stan.

Gregor felt his grin grow even wider.

“Oh, I do. Not just for the succulence of the prizes you’ve delivered, but because you’ve vindicated my faith in you. I knew the minute I saw you that you’d make good cowboys.”

An outright lie. He’d chosen them because he guessed they were low enough to betray their own kind, and he had been right. But it cost him nothing to heap the praise on them, and perhaps it would spur them to do as well next time. Maybe better. Although what could be better than this?

“Anything for the cause,” Stan said.

The redheaded one next to him—Al, Gregor remembered—gave his partner a poisonous look, as if he wanted to kick him for being such a boot-lick.

“And your timing could not be better,” Gregor told them. “Why? Because the Master himself is coming for a visit.”

Al’s mouth worked as if it had suddenly gone dry. “Dracula?”

Gregor nodded. “Himself. And I will present this gravid cow to him as a gift. He will be enormously pleased. This will be good for me. And trust me, what is good for me will eventually prove to be good for you.”

Partly true. The little boy would go to the local nest leader—he’d been pastor of St Anthony’s during his life and he had a taste for young boys—and the pregnant female would indeed go to the Master. But the rest was a laugh. As soon as Gregor was moved out of here, he’d never give these four walking heaps of human garbage another thought. But he smiled as he turned away.