Fright Night (15 page)

Sure as hell, there was a corridor trailing off behind the sign. Sure as hell, it led to the rest rooms and a bank of public phones. “All right!” Charley shouted, barely audible over the din of the speakers. “Come on!”

By the phones it was better. He could hear himself think quite distinctly; and when Amy said his name out loud, it cut admirably through the noise.

“What?” he asked, putting the nearest receiver to his ear. He dug a quarter out of his pocket and slipped it into the slot.

“You were right about the holy water,” she said with great effort. “It was fake.”

“I know.” He was punching a number in.

“I just wish that I’d believed you.”

“Me, too.” He turned to shrug, resigned, at her. “But I don’t blame you.”

The phone rang. Amy bowed her head in what looked like shame. The phone rang again. Charley turned back to the phone, stared dumbly at the ridiculous plastic fern in its pot by the men’s-room door, the tacky stripes that adorned the wall.

On the third ring, they answered.

“Hello? Lieutenant Lennox, please,” he said. “It’s an emergency.”

EIGHTEEN

P
eter Vincent sat in the complete darkness of his apartment, afraid to move. His door was barred, bolted and police-locked; pans of water were laid in front of every window; crosses of varying shapes and sizes were strewn within easy reach.

All of this was scant comfort to the great vampire hunter, who sat in his favorite chair munching garlic cloves like breath mints and suffering a severe identity crisis.

Hoping like hell that he would wake up to find this entire incident a simple psychotic episode.

No such luck.

The knock on the door seemed horribly loud, shattering the silence of the room along with the remnants of his tattered bravado. His heart paused a beat or two, as if considering the wisdom of continuing. He swallowed hard, fighting the urge to crawl under the bed and clap his hands over his ears. It took several seconds and a considerable amount of iron resolve for him to answer.

“Who is it?”

The voice came back muffled, furtive. “Mr. Vincent, open up. It’s me, Eddie.”

Peter didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t think. His mind was a burning wagon wheel, rolling downhill.

Outside the door, Evil Ed waited with mounting impatience. He pulled the collar of his flight jacket high around his throat, obscuring the twin holes so recently acquired.
Better open the door soon, asshole,
he thought.
I’m starving.
He grinned a horrible grin and tried to sound waiflike.

“Pleeeease,
Mr. Vincent. Let me in.”

Peter Vincent clutched his cross as if it were a hotline to the 700 Club. There was something very strange in the boy’s voice, something chilling. It put a wormy feeling in his stomach. He sat up, tried to sound authoritative. It wasn’t easy.

“Y-Yes, Edward. What is it?”

“Please, Mr. Vincent, there’s a
vampire
out here. You gotta let me in.”
Oh, that’s rich,
he thought, thinking suddenly of the joke he’d wanted to pull on Amy earlier. It was the one where Tonto and the Lone Ranger were surrounded by thousands of screaming Indians.
“Well, Tonto,” the Lone Ranger says . . .

The door opened suddenly. Peter Vincent ushered him in with his eyes glued to the stairwell, in fear of sudden attack. Eddie hunkered in, shoulders bunched. Peter shut the door and locked it securely. When the last lock was fastened, he breathed a sigh of relief and turned to address his visitor.

“Well, Eddie,” he said. “What are we going to do?”

Eddie turned and smiled, putting on his best Tonto tone. “What do you mean, ‘we,’ white man?” he answered.

The joke was entirely on Peter. He stared, slack-jawed and blanched as a mackerel, at the horror preening before him.

“Like it? It’s a new fashion concept.” Ed took a few mincing steps forward, hands on hips. His jacket hung open now, revealing the withered flesh around the wounds, the blood-caked shirt. It was not a clean kill. His eyes twinkled, luminous bulging cataracts.

Evil Ed advanced, still smiling. His teeth jutted like some nightmarish carnivorous gopher’s. They had grown quite long in a short time.

Peter’s eyes widened. The part of his mind that wasn’t busy screaming marveled at this new tidbit of vampire lore.

Evil Ed cocked his head, sensing Peter’s thoughts. “Quite the transformation, yes? Bet you didn’t know a person could change so quickly, did you? Yes, yes . . . I bet there’s
lots
of things you don’t know.” He closed the distance slowly, inexorably. “But you’re about to find out.”

Peter whirled, heart hammering in his chest, and fumbled madly with the locks. The cross dangled from one hand, threatening as a rubber chicken, serving only to slow his escape.

Eddie paused to savor the spectacle of the great vampire killer clawing at the door. It was too much. He burst with raucous laughter, spittle flying from the corners of his mouth. “OOOO! OOOO! Peter Vincent to the rescue! I’m DOOOOOOMED!” He flapped his wrists in a grotesque parody of terror.
“Save
me, Peter!
Save
me! OOOO! OOOO!”

Peter felt the words bite deep. A lifetime of fantasy had coalesced into reality in his very room, and he was unworthy of it. He knew it. Evil Ed knew it.

God knew it.

“I used to admire you, you know,” Ed said contemptuously. “Of course, that was before I found out what a putz you really are.”

Then he leapt, landing squarely on Peter Vincent’s back, hands raking across his face—trying to find his eyes, clear his throat for the kill. The aging actor screeched with terror and spun around, slamming Ed into the door. Eddie kicked and clawed gracelessly, grabbing Peter by the lapels and leaning over his shoulder. The vampire’s breath was fetid and chill as he made contact, teeth pressing hard against the soft flesh. An inhuman sound, somewhere between a growl and a whine, filled Peter’s ear. He panicked.

And, quite involuntarily, pressed the cross hard into Eddie’s face.

It was a reflex action. Peter’d done it dozens of times, in dozens of films. It was always followed by a special-effects sequence, a morass of technicians, tubes and latex appliances.

But the acrid smell that followed was all too real. Smoke curled around the cross, accompanied by the hiss and sputter of burning meat. Eddie screamed like a baby on a bayonet and fell to the floor, clutching his forehead. The voice coming through his hands was piteous.
“What have you DONE to me?”
it cried, and a crazy wave of remorse swept through Peter.

Suddenly, the crying stopped. Evil Ed looked up, fixing Peter with an accusatory stare. Lightly, he traced the wound with his fingertips. And realized, with growing horror, the shape of the brand.

The shape of a cross.

“No . . .”
he whimpered.
“Noooo . . .”
He jumped up and ran to the mirror, afraid of what he’d see.

Seeing nothing. No reflection.

“You bastard,” he hissed. “I’ll kill you . . .” He turned, menacingly.

Peter thrust the cross forward in the time-honored style. “Back,” he said.

Eddie stopped dead in his tracks. He winced, unable to face the cross directly. “Shit,” he muttered. The sight of it, even in the darkness of the room, filled him with a bottomless nausea. He tried to sneak around it, but Peter was quickly falling into full vampire-hunting mode.

“Back,
cursed hellspawn!” the actor cried, straight-arming the cross as he advanced.
“Back,
I say!”

Eddie would have laughed if it didn’t hurt so goddam much. It was ludicrous. This guy was a clown,
Fright Night
incarnate.

He retreated nonetheless.

This was not good, not good at all. The tables had turned much too quickly, and he was in danger of being cornered. He gazed around the room. Crosses were everywhere, blocking his path. There was only one reasonably clear choice available.

The window.

Peter stared, blank-faced with shock and horror, as Eddie hissed like a trapped animal and threw himself headlong into the window. It exploded outward, fragments of glass and wood showering down to the street.

Three floors below.

Peter stared at the gaping hole where his window had been. The chintz curtains fluttered harmlessly on the night air. From the street below, silence. No screams. No sirens.

Just silence.

As if the night had swallowed him.

He hurried to the window, poking his head out gingerly. The street was empty. If anyone had heard anything, they kept it to themselves.

He stepped back from the window. A life-size portrait of Bela Lugosi in full regalia, long before the Sterno-sucking days of his decline, loomed before him.

Bela had been a good friend. The greatest vampire and the greatest vampire hunter. That painting had been a gift. It was meant to dominate the room.
Bluh, bluh, I vant to drink your blood . . .

Peter felt old, all used up. The cross was still in his hand, a smear of goo on one side.

Bluh . . .

Eddie limped along the sidewalk bordering Badham Boulevard, very much in pain. Foul sweat glistened on his forehead, the kind of sweat found on meat left too long out-of-doors. The brand on his scalp was growing sticky and congealed, stray slivers of glass and bits of crumbled leaf matted in it.
It hurts, it hurts, oh God, it . . .
The word
God
left a feeling like chewing on tin foil in his mouth. He needed help, bad.

This isn’t working out at all,
he thought.
Not at all like He promised.

The jet-black Cherokee pulled up at the corner, and Eddie staggered toward it as if it were Valhalla. Billy stepped out, leaving the motor running. He looked at Eddie with contempt and perhaps the slightest flicker of pity. “What happened to you?”

Evil Ed stood before him, breathing raggedly. “He . . . he had a cross. He hit me—”

Billy grabbed him roughly by the cheek. “I can see that. Did you kill him?”

Eddie shook his head piteously. Billy snorted, derisive, then grabbed the little vampire by the collar and hoisted him close. “You, my friend,” he whispered, “are in the
deep
shit now.” And hurled him into the Jeep.

Eddie hit the seat so hard the bars bowed. Billy jumped into the driver’s seat, shifted to drive, and sent the Cherokee roaring off into the night.

NINETEEN

D
andrige already knew that Eddie had blown it. You don’t live that many hundreds of years without picking up a trick or two. He sensed it, even as he strolled through the door of Club Radio. Peter Vincent was still alive; ergo, Peter Vincent was still available to play with.

Fine,
thought the vampire, his frail-looking hands clasped together.
It’s the chance of a lifetime. I was a fool to give it up.

He wanted to be staring into Peter Vincent’s eyes when The Great Vampire Killer flickered over into eternal hunger. He wanted to watch the transition. Letting Evil Ed do it would have been enough, in one sense—he liked the cast of the horde he was assembling—but turning down the chance to kill Peter Vincent was like passing up a chance to meet the Devil himself; it didn’t come up very often, and it was bound to be memorable.

So he would wait. He would maneuver it. For now, he had the nitwit and the virgin to dispense with. They had wasted enough of his time in games not of his own devising.

Now they would play by
his
rules.

He planned to enjoy it.

Very much.

The crowd at Club Radio was bursting with life. Hundreds of bodies swarmed over the dance floor, strutting and swaying to the primal groove. As far as Jerry was concerned, it was a wonderful thing. He genuinely loved to see people have a good time.

It made them that much easier to hate.

How long,
since he had walked among ordinary men and not been a stranger?
How long,
since his last taste of camaraderie with the human race?
How long,
since his last glimpse of the sun? After four centuries and more, the questions had not gone away. Neither had the longings. They had become the worst part of his curse, the source of his only remaining nightmares.