The Mammoth Book of Dracula (97 page)

“As always, may your night be bountiful.”

~ * ~

A little after sundown, Sister Carole removed the potassium chlorate crystals from the oven. She poured them into a bowl and then gently, carefully, began to grind them down to a fine powder. This was the touchiest part of the process. A little too much friction, a sudden shock, and the bowl would blow up in her face.

You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Carole. Sure, and you’ll be thinking that would solve all your problems. Well, it won’t, Carole. It will merely start your REAL problems! It will send you straight to HELL!

Sister Carole made no reply as she continued the grinding. When the powder was sifted through a 400 mesh, she spread it onto the bottom of the pan again and placed it back in the oven to remove the last trace of moisture. While that was heating she began melting equal parts of wax and Vaseline, mixing them in a small Pyrex bowl.

When the wax and Vaseline had reached a uniform consistency she dissolved the mix into some camp stove gasoline. Then she removed the potassium chlorate powder from the oven and stirred in three per cent aluminum powder to enhance the flash effect. Then she poured the Vaseline-wax-gasoline solution over the powder. She slipped on rubber gloves and began stirring and kneading everything together until she had a uniform, gooey mess. This went on the windowsill to cool and to speed the evaporation of the gasoline.

Then she went to the bedroom. Soon it would be time to go out and she had to dress appropriately. She stripped to her underwear and laid out the tight black skirt and red blouse she’d lifted from the shattered show window of that deserted shop down on Clifton Avenue. Then she began squeezing into a fresh pair of black pantyhose.

You’re getting into THOSE clothes again, are you? You look cheap, Carole! You look like a WHORE!

That’s the whole idea, she thought.

~ * ~

Al walked home. He could have driven but he liked to keep a low profile. He didn’t care to have too many survivors knowing he was a cowboy. Not that there were all that many people left running around free, but until they caught up with the guys who were behind the cowboy killings, he’d play it safe. Which was why he’d removed his earring tonight, and why he lived alone.

Well, one of the reasons he lived alone.

Stan, Artie, and Kenny lived together in one of the big mansions off Hope Road. They liked to brag that one of the Mets used to live there. Big deal. Al spent all day with those guys. He couldn’t see spending all night too. They were okay, but enough was enough already. He’d taken over a modest little ranch that gave him everything he needed.

Except maybe some electricity. The other three were always yapping about the generator in their place. Maybe Al would get one. Candles and kerosene lamps were a drag.

He looked up. At least there was a moon out tonight. Almost full. Amazing how dark a residential street could be when there was no traffic, no streetlights. At least he had his flashlight, but he held that in reserve. Batteries were like gold.

He’d just turned onto his block when he heard the voice. A woman’s voice.

“Hey, mister.”

He jammed his hand in his pocket and found his earring, ready to flash it if the owner of the voice turned out to be one of the bloodsuckers, and ready to keep it hidden if it belonged to somebody looking for a new cowboy to kill.

He clicked on his flashlight and beamed it towards the voice.

A woman standing in the bushes. Not undead. Maybe thirty, and not bad looking. He played the light up and down her. Short dark hair, lots of eye make-up, a red sweater tight over decent-sized boobs, a short black skirt very tight over black stockings.

Despite the warning bells going off in his brain, Al felt a stirring in his groin.

“Who’re you?”

She smiled. No, not bad looking at all.

“My name’s Carol,” she said. “You got any food?”

“I got a little. Not much.”

Actually, he had a
lot
of food, but he didn’t want her to know that. Food was scarce, worth more than batteries, and the vampires made sure their cowboys always had plenty of it.

“Can you spare any?”

“I might be able to help you out some. Depends on how many mouths we’re talking about.”

“Just me and my kid.”

The words jumped out before he could stop them: “You’ve got a kid?”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “She’s only four. She don’t eat much.”

A four-year old. Two kids in one day. Almost too good to be true. The whole scenario started playing out in his mind. She could move in with him. If she treated him right, they could play house for a while. If she gave him any trouble she and her brat would become gifts to Gregor. That was where they were going to wind up anyway, but no reason Al couldn’t get some use out of her before she became some bloodsucker’s meal.

And maybe he’d get
real
lucky. Maybe she’d get pregnant before he turned her in.

“Well... all right,” he said, trying to sound reluctant. “Bring her out where I can see her.”

“She’s home asleep.”

“Alone?” Al felt a surge of anger. He already considered that kid his property. He didn’t want any bloodsucker sneaking in and robbing him of what was rightfully his. “What if—?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got her surrounded by crosses.”

“Still, you never know. We’d better take her along to my place where she’ll be safe.”

Did that sound sufficiently concerned?

“You must be a good, man,” she said softly.

“Oh, I’m the best,” he said.
And I’ve got this friend behind my fly who’s just dying to meet you.

He followed her back to the corner and around to the middle of the next block to an old two-storey colonial set back among some tall oaks on an overgrown lot. He nodded with growing excitement when he saw a child’s red wagon parked against the front steps.

“You live here? Hell, I must’ve passed this place a couple of times already today.”

“Really?” she said. “I usually stay hidden in the basement.”

“Good thinking.”

He followed her up the steps and through the front door. Inside there were candles burning all over the place, but the heavy drapes hid them from outside.

“Lynn’s sleeping upstairs,” she said. “I’ll just run up and bring her down.”

Al watched her black-stockinged legs hungrily as she bounded up the bare wooden stairway, taking the steps two at a time. He couldn’t wait to get her home.

And then it hit him: why wait till they got to his place? She had to have a bed up there. What was he doing standing around here when he could be upstairs getting himself a preview of what was to come?

“Yoo-hoo,” he said softly as he put his foot on the first step. “Here comes Daddy.”

But the first step wasn’t wood. Wasn’t even a step. His foot went right through it, as if it was made of cardboard. As Al looked down in shock he saw that it
was
made of cardboard—painted cardboard. His brain was just forming the question
Why?
when a sudden blast of pain like he’d never known in his life shot up his leg from just above his ankle.

Screaming, he lunged back, away from the false step, but the movement tripled his agony. He clung to the newel post like a drunk, weeping and moaning for God knew how long, until the pain eased for a second. Then slowly, gingerly, accompanied by the metallic clanking of uncoiling chain links, he lifted his leg out of the false tread.

Al let loose a stream of curses through his pain-clenched teeth when he saw the bear trap attached to his leg. Its sharp, massive steel teeth had embedded themselves in the flesh of his lower leg.

But fear began to worm through the all-enveloping haze of his agony.

The bitch set me up!

Stan had wanted to find the guys who were killing the cowboys. But now Al had, and he was scared shitless. What a dumb-ass he was. Baited by a broad—the oldest trick in the book.

Gotta get outta here!

He lunged for the door but the chain caught and brought him up short with a blinding blaze of agony so intense that the scream it elicited damn near shredded his vocal cords. He toppled to the floor and lay there moaning and whimpering until the pain became bearable again.

Where were they? Where were the rest of the cowboy killers? Upstairs, laughing as they listened to him howl like a scared kitten? Waiting until he’d exhausted himself so he’d be easy pickings?

He’d show them.

Al pulled himself to a sitting position and reached for the trap. He tried to spread its jaws but they were locked tight on his leg. He wrapped his hand around the chain and tried to yank it free from where it was fastened below but it wouldn’t budge.

Panic began to grip him now. Its icy fingers were tightening on his throat when he heard a sound on the stairs. He looked up and saw her.

A nun.

He blinked and looked again

Still a nun. He squinted and saw that it was the broad who’d led him in here. She was wearing a bulky sweater and loose slacks, and all the make-up had been scrubbed off her face, but he knew she was a nun by the wimple she wore—a white band around her head with a black veil trailing behind.

And suddenly, amid the pain and panic, Al was back in grammar school, back in Our Lady of Sorrows in Camden, before he got expelled, and Sister Margaret was coming at him with her ruler, only this nun was a lot younger than Sister Margaret, and that was no ruler she was carrying, that was a baseball bat—an
aluminium
baseball bat.

He looked around. Nobody else, just him and the nun.

“Where’s the rest of you?”

“Rest?” she said.

“Yeah. The others in your gang? Where are they?”

“There’s only me.”

She was lying. She had to be. One crazy nun killing all those cowboys? No way! But still he had to get out of here. He tried to crawl across the floor but the chain wouldn’t let him.

“You’re makin’ a mistake!” he cried. “I ain’t one o’ them!”

“Oh, yes you are,” she said, coming down the stairs.

“No. Really. See?” He touched his right ear lobe. “No earring.”

“Maybe not now, but you had one earlier.” She stepped over the gaping opening where the phony tread had been and moved to his left.

“When?
When?”

“When you drove by earlier today. You told me so yourself.”

“I lied!”

“No you didn’t. But I lied. I wasn’t in the basement. I was watching through the window. I saw you and your three friends in that car.” Her voice suddenly became cold and brittle and sharp as a straight razor. “I saw that poor woman and child you had with you. Where are they now? What did you do with them?”

She was talking through her teeth now, and the look in her eyes, the strained pallor of her face frightened the hell out of Al. He wrapped his arms around his head as she stepped closer with the bat.

“Please!” he wailed.

“
What did you do with them?”

“Nothing!”

“Lie!”

She swung the bat, but not at his head. Instead she slammed it with a heavy metallic clank against the jaws of the trap. As he screamed with the renewed agony and as his hands automatically reached for his injured leg, Al realized that she must have done this sort of thing before. Because now his head was completely unprotected and she was already into a second swing. And this one was aimed much higher.

~ * ~

You’ve done it again, Carole! AGAIN! I know they’re a bad lot, but look what you’ve DONE!

Sister Carole looked down at the unconscious man with the bleeding head and trapped, lacerated leg and she sobbed.

“I know,” she said aloud.

She was so tired. She’d have liked nothing better now than to sit down and cry herself to sleep. But she couldn’t spare the time. Every moment counted now.

She tucked her feelings—her mercy, her compassion—into the deepest, darkest pocket of her being where she couldn’t see or hear them, and got to work.

The first thing she did was tie the cowboy’s hands good and tight behind his back. Then she got a wash cloth from the downstairs bathroom, stuffed it in his mouth, and secured it with a tie of rope around his head. That done, she grabbed the crow bar and the short length of two by four from where she kept them on the floor of the hall closet; she used the bar to pry open the jaws of the bear trap and wedged the two by four between them to keep them open. Then she worked the cowboy’s leg free. He groaned a couple of times during the process but he never came to.

She bound his legs tightly together, then grabbed the throw rug he lay upon and dragged him and the rug out to the front porch and down the steps to the red wagon she’d left there. She rolled him off the bottom step into the wagon bed and tied him in place. Then she slipped her arms into her knapsack loaded with all her necessary equipment and she was ready to go. She grabbed the wagon’s handle and pulled it down the walk, down the driveway apron and onto the asphalt. From there on it was smooth rolling.