Fright Night (13 page)

He looked down. No Dandrige.

Dandrige.

No Dandrige.

Peekaboo.

Peter Vincent, the Great Vampire Killer, went pasty with shock. The case fumbled and fell to the floor with a crash and a tinkle of shattered glass. He knelt, heart pounding, and scooped up the wreckage.

All eyes turned to him. Peter whisked the case off the floor and into his mack before anyone had a chance to see what it was.

“Something wrong, Mr. Vincent?” Dandrige asked, conciliatory.

“No, no, just my own clumsiness,” Peter stammered. He hoped that his shaking wasn’t obvious to all. “Amy, Ed, Charley, we’ve taken up quite enough time. Come along.”

Jerry watched the old fart advance toward the door. He looked ashen, shaky. Palsied. He wondered if the man was having some sort of seizure. Peter turned to him, eyes wide, smiling stiffly.

“Thank you once again, Mr. Dandrige. Mr. Cole.” Polite nods.

“My pleasure. Please, come back anytime.”

Peter Vincent nodded curtly and practically fell out the door in his haste to depart. The kids followed suit, Charley throwing one last baleful glance into the room. Billy shut the door quietly after him, smiling a tiny and humorless smile.

“Bravo,” he said. “A faultless performance.”

Jerry strode down the hall, stopped suddenly to scoop up something bright. Something shiny. He turned it over and over in his hand, then held it up for Billy to see. His comprehension grew with every refraction of light that played off the surface of the mirrored glass.

“Perhaps not,” he mused aloud.

Peter made it to his car in record time. It would have been unseemly to run, but there was nothing wrong with walking just as fast as his scrawny legs would carry him.

Charley was completely confused.
He acts like he’s gonna have a goddam coronary.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“Nothing. Leave me alone.” Peter was leaning against the car door, fumbling for his keys. His breath came in ragged clumps.

“Then why are your hands shaking?”

“They are
not
shaking. Now leave me alone, I say!” He dropped his keys, flustered.

“You
saw
something back there, didn’t you?” Charley said accusingly. He pointed back to the house. Amy and Ed were just leaving the porch.

Peter glared at him. “I saw nothing,” he said.
“Nothing.”
He put his key in the slot, engaging the lock, then threw the door open and slid behind the wheel.

“You saw
something,”
Charley said, his voice drowned out by the gunning of the Rambler’s engine. “You saw something that convinced you that he’s a vampire, didn’t you?”

“No!” Peter threw the car in gear, grinding the clutch.

“DIDN’T YOU?”

“PISS OFF!”

The Great Peter Vincent stomped on the gas, tires squealing as he roared off into the night.

“Shit!” Charley muttered, stomping his own foot on the ground. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit . . .”

SIXTEEN

C
harley was very intense, Amy thought. Clearly, the meeting had failed in its primary purpose; he still believed that Jerry Dandrige was a vampire. He hadn’t stopped arguing with Evil Ed about it, in fact, for the last twenty minutes, ever since they’d started walking Amy home.

She felt curiously out of it, listening to the two of them go back and forth. Her rational mind wanted to tag-team with Eddie, pin Charley’s shabby logic to the mat. But there were dark shapes moving in the shadowed recesses, where thought gave way to whispering hunches and quietly nagging fears. They had kicked the legs out from under her conviction.

They had given her reason, however unreasonable, for doubt.

What if he’s right?
she found herself wondering. The thought refused to laugh itself away. Something strange had happened when Dandrige had looked at her, that much was for sure. Something strange.

And not altogether unpleasant.

They’d gone nearly a mile already, moving briskly toward the center of downtown Rancho Corvallis. The first of the five- and six-story buildings began to loom above them, sporadically crowding the sky. Green Street was desolate and anything but green: an endless stretch of gray on gray, punctuated by pools of light and darkness.

There was a singularly dark alley on their left. Naturally, Evil Ed moved toward it. “Hey,” he called. “Let’s cut through here.”

“No
way,
man! We want people and lights, the more the better!”

“Yeah, well, you picked the right spot for it, Ace; nothing but people and lights, far as the eye can see!” He gestured broadly at the emptiness surrounding them.

Charley bridled. “Well, it’s better than
that!”
Pointing at the alley. “That’s a goddam
death
trap!”

“Aw, fuck you, Brewster! You’re certifiable, you know it? You’re one for the files!” He moved away from the others decisively now, heading toward the mouth of the alley. “I’m splitting.”

“Ed, please.” Charley dropped his anger, and the only sound left was fear. “Just stick with us.”

“Piss off. Amy, I’m sorry your boyfriend is such a jerk. I just can’t watch him walk around with a load in his pants anymore. It’s embarrassing.” Then he disappeared into the darkness.

Throughout it all, Amy remained strangely unmoved. The shadowshapes were crowding more and more of her mindspace, taking her farther and farther away from Green Street, Charley and Ed, the endless argument. She didn’t resist when Charley took her by the arm and said, “Forget it. Dandrige wouldn’t want him anyway. Probably give him blood poisoning.”

It was the scream that brought her out of it.

Every hair on her body jerked to attention; her every nerve ending shrieked in sympathetic discord. It was like catching a quick 110 volts from a faulty extension cord: the terror that sizzled through her was a living thing, crackling and burning and fusing what it touched.

Her hands came up to lock on Charley’s shoulder in a death grip. Her eyes came up to lock with his. They shared a moment of mutual nightmare paralysis . . .

. . . and then the scream came again, louder this time, and worse. Much worse. As if someone had reached down the dying throat, yanked it out, and hurled it bleeding through the air.
Evil Ed, it’s Evil Ed, it’s Evil . . .
her mind chanted in crazy singsong . . .

. . . and then they were running straight into the mouth of the alley, feet slapping percussively against the pavement. Not thinking about how much noise they were making. Not thinking about how they might as well have been blowing a bugle.

Not thinking about the death that they were racing toward.

Roughly midway down the alley there was a row of trash cans. A few of them had been toppled over
(and hadn’t she heard the sound of crashing metal, mixed in with the screams?).
They lay on their sides, contents ripe and festering on the cobblestones.

A dark shape lay behind them, crumpled against the base of the wall, not moving. Amy grabbed Charley by the arm again, jerked him to a halt, and pointed a quivering finger.

“Oh, God,” he whispered.

Slowly now, they moved toward the body. It lay there, huddled, a fetal ball of unmoving limbs. The head was tucked in and away from them. They could not see his face.

“Oh, God, Eddie,” Charley moaned. “Oh, God, Eddie, no . . .”

They knelt beside the body. It did not move. It did not breathe. Amy became aware of the ice water that was trickling into her bowels. She felt light-headed and queasy, close to shaking apart.

This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening,
droned a voice in her mind as Charley reached out tentatively to touch the still shoulders . . .

. . . and the body whirled, howling, clawing out for his throat.

Amy screamed and staggered backwards. Charley screamed and fell back on his ass. The body screamed and fell forward, on top of Charley, grappling for his jugular.
“RAAAARRGH!”
it howled.
“I’VE GOT YOU NOW!”

Then it rolled over on its side, laughing hysterically.

“What?”
Amy squeaked. She tried it again:
“What?”
It didn’t work any better. She had lost her voice; she had lost her bearings; she had very nearly lost her mind.

But Charley was on his feet, yelling, “You
asshole!
You fucking
asshole!”
at the top of his lungs; and Evil Ed was still rolling around on the pavement, hooting and gasping for air. Then it all clicked together.

She started to giggle.

“IT’S NOT
FUNNY!”
Charley roared.

“You . . . you shoulda seen your
face!”
Evil Ed barely managed to get out among the torrent of
hee hee’s
and
ha ha’s.
“It was . . . it was . . .” He couldn’t go on. He was laughing too hard.

Amy couldn’t stop laughing, either. It was a hysterical reaction, she knew; it had less to do with humor than with the working off of terror. She had very nearly pissed herself at the time; now she was releasing it in hiccuping laughter, like hot coffee being forced up a percolator’s shaft.

“You’ll get
yours
someday, Evil!” Charley snarled. Then he grabbed Amy roughly by the shoulder and led her, still giggling, back out to the street.

“HOO HOO!” Evil Ed was in his glory. “HOO HOO! HOO HOO!” It was the funniest thing he’d ever seen, no doubt about it. He wanted to shout after them, soak the moment for a little more comic potential. He couldn’t. It was already too much.

What a dope!
his mind howled.
What a sap! What a moron!
His sides ached. Tears flowed from his eyes. It was like being tickled, painful and hysterical all at once. He found himself wanting to stop, but the image wouldn’t leave him: Charley’s face, eyes and mouth forming three tremendous O’s of terror, lips peeled back . . .

Gradually the phantom fingers of mirth lightened up on his sides. He began to breathe normally again. “Hoo hoo,” he gasped, the last trickles of hilarity petering out of him. He pulled himself up onto hands and knees, turned toward the mouth of the alley.

It was empty.

“Oh, well,” he sighed philosophically. “Can’t win ’em all.” He brought his right coat sleeve up to wipe at his eyes.

And then the cold hand touched him gently on the shoulder.

“Glad to see you’re having fun,” said the voice from behind him. A warm voice. Melodious. Oozing sickly sweet mockery.

Ed spun. All the humor squeezed out of him like ketchup from a plastic packet. His breath caught; his eyes stared upward.

Into the face of Jerry Dandrige.

“Hi, Eddie,” the vampire said. He wore a palsy-walsy grin. “Good ta see ya. How’s tricks?” He made a nudge-nudge motion with one elbow, leering.

Evil Ed took one crab-walking step backward, right into the wall.

“C’mon. Don’t be afraid,” the vampire implored him. “What are you afraid of? I mean, really. It’s not so bad.”

Eddie collapsed, curled up into himself. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t funny at all.

“I know what it’s like for you,” Dandrige said. “To be different. I’ve been different for a long time.” He smiled. For the first time, he showed his teeth. They were long. Very long. “I know what it’s like to be misunderstood, to be ostracized, to be treated like the enemy.”

The vampire stooped, his face coming very near. Evil Ed heard himself whimpering, and was unable to stop.

“But it’s going to be different now. Wait and see. They won’t be able to beat up on you anymore. Guaranteed. They won’t be able to get away with it, ever again.”

Very close now. Very close.

Very long teeth. Very long.

And very . . . very . . .

Sharp.

“Say good-bye now, Eddie,” the vampire crooned. “Say nighty-night. When you wake up, you’ll be in a far, far better place. I promise you.

“You’ll love it.”

It was almost the truth.

But not quite.

SEVENTEEN

T
here was no scream, only a puny death rattle that barely made it to the mouth of the alley. Charley and Amy were more than two blocks away by then. The only sounds they heard were the staccato slapping of sneakers on cement, the harsh and weary rasping of their breath.