Fright Night (21 page)

The Billy-thing relaxed its grip momentarily, allowing Peter to pull away. The actor fell back, choking and rasping for breath.

Then Charley kicked the creature down the stairs. It pinwheeled down, clawing and caterwauling, hit the floor hard. The force of the impact drove the stake fully through its chest.

And the Billy-thing began to decompose.

It bubbled and spattered on the floor, head lolling back and forth spastically, skin falling away in sheets, creating a pool of viscous slime.

In less than ninety seconds, it was done.

Charley and Peter stood on the landing, staring down at the steaming remains for several seconds. Charley grabbed Peter by the shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go,” he said.

Peter looked at Charley, the shock slowly receding. “He wasn’t
human . . .”
he said, whispering hoarsely.

Charley looked at him in disbelief, then smiled and turned up the steps.

“No shit,” he said. “Now let’s go.”

It was five minutes past five.

TWENTY-SIX

C
harley and Peter hit the top step like a juggernaut, then made their way cautiously down the hall. The shadows seemed alive, undulating patterns of dark on dark that opened inches before them and closed inches after. They moved without speaking, the silence punctuated only by their breathing and their pounding hearts.

The sound of splintering wood cut through the stillness like a knife. And behind it, a woman’s cry.

“Omigod!” cried Charley. “AMY!”

He bolted down the hall, Peter hot on his heels. They hit the door like a SWAT team, spilling into the room with near-suicidal determination.

Only to find it empty. One window (the one that faced his bedroom, Charley realized ironically) had been broken open. The heavy boards so recently nailed up had been rudely wrenched off, and now lay scattered about in disarray. Through the window, his room seemed a million miles away.

Dandrige, and Amy, were nowhere to be found.

Peter went to the window, peering out into the night. Charley stood in the middle of the room, waving his cross and stake impotently and screaming.

“YOU BASTARD!” he cried. “WHERE IS SHE? WHAT HAVE YOU
DONE
WITH HER?”

The answer came from further upstairs, as the sound of something landing—something heavy—reverberated down. Peter looked at Charley.

“He’s in the attic,” he said. “Come on.”

The attic seemed fairly typical at first glance. Huge, sprawling gables shrouded in darkness, boxes and crates piled up along the walls. Rodent droppings crunched underfoot. The musty smell of time.

Peter reached inside his cloak, pulling out a small, high-intensity flashlight. He flicked it on, a ribbon of light cutting through the darkness. Dozens of glistening shapes scurried for cover.

Rats.

The attic was filled with them. Fat, bloated little suckers scuttling in the corners, on the crates, over the bundle by the smashed window . . .

The bundle!
Charley thought. “NO!” he cried, racing across the attic. Rats dived for cover, chittering madly.

It was Amy. She lay trussed in a bedsheet, covered with shards of glass, as though hurled through the window like a sack of potatoes. Rats crawled over her prone form at will. She looked dead, or very, very close.

Whimpering, near hysterical, Charley swatted the rodents away with his bare hands. He checked her pulse and murmured her name.

Not dead yet,
he thought.
But damn near.
He looked up at the shattered window, then turned to Peter. “God damn him, where
is
he?”

Dandrige hunkered on the roof like a nightmare weather vane, eyes rolled back in his head. He rocked back and forth on his haunches, feeling the tendrils of awareness snake out and down to his seed. His lips stretched back in a grimace, revealing his teeth.

“Awake, Amy! Awake!”
he whispered sibilantly.
“I command you! Rise!”

In the attic below Peter cried out. “Charley, come here quickly!”

Charley pulled himself away from Amy, hurried to Peter’s side. He didn’t notice her eyelids flutter, snap open, bright red.

(Show me how much you love me, Amy.)

Silently, she rose.

(Kill them. Kill them both.)

Peter was standing by the window. Before him was a large, ornate chest. His flashlight illuminated the polished wood, the brass fittings. Charley looked at him. “Do you think it’s his?” he asked.

Peter regarded it suspiciously. “Only one way to find out. Brace yourself. We’ll have to act fast.”

Charley nodded, grabbing the lid. Peter readied his stake, prepared himself and gave the signal. Charley yanked the lid open hard, Peter stabbing down . . .

. . . and impaling half a dozen bedsheets.

“Shit,” Peter muttered. Charley looked up at him, half smiling . . .

. . . and saw Dandrige, hovering impossibly outside the window, one taloned hand reared back and ready to strike.

“Peter,
behind
you!” he screamed.

Peter whirled and dove for cover as the hand smashed through the glass. Charley backed away instinctively.

Right into Amy’s outstretched arms.

“Charleeeee,”
she croaked, her voice an insane parody of human speech. She smiled, her lips cracking as they stretched over newly-grown fangs. Her tongue flitted in and out, dry and swollen.

She was very, very thirsty.

“ACK!” Charley screeched. He fell back, stake clattering to the floor, still caught in her clutching grasp. She landed on top of him, scrabbling clumsily toward his throat. Her eyes glowed like foglamps, seeing nothing.

“Charleeeee . . .”

Peter looked up, eyes bulging. Dandrige was nowhere in sight. Quickly, he grabbed the stake off the floor and positioned himself behind Amy, ready to deliver the killing blow.

Charley screamed,
“Peter! NO!”
Amy, still weak from the transformation, smacked her lips in anticipation.

And, from far off downstairs, laughter.

Harsh, mocking laughter.

Sonofabitch,
Peter thought. And, switching grips on the stake, placed a well-delivered blow to the base of Amy’s skull.

She went out like a light, slumping over Charley’s sprawling form. He pushed her off gently, but not without a sense of revulsion.

She smells so rotten,
he thought.

Peter hoisted him up. “Thanks,” he said, somewhat sheepishly. “You saved my life.”

“My pleasure,” beamed the actor. “Now let’s go find that son of a bitch. We’re not the only ones who are running out of time.” He turned and headed for the stairs.

Charley glanced at his watch. Five fifty. “Where do you think he is?”

Peter shrugged. “He’s got nowhere to go but down.”

Charley and Peter hit the hallway, Peter pausing to drop the catch on the attic door. It was not the world’s strongest lock, and Peter eyed it disdainfully. “She won’t be out for long, you know,” he said, “and she’ll be much stronger the next time.”

Charley nodded sourly, the image of the undead Amy fresh in his mind. He felt queasy at the thought of pounding a stake through her. He felt much better about pounding one through Dandrige.

If he could find him.

They moved along in silence, Charley half lost in thought, Peter a walking bundle of paranoid nerve endings. They were about ten steps from the head of the stairs when they heard it.

Very soft. Very deliberate.

“What was that?” Peter said, standing stock still. Charley snapped to, staring at him blankly.

“What was what?”

It came again, so soft one might miss it entirely if one were not attentive. The sound of wood, creaking on brass hinges. Opening, then closing.

The sound of the front door.

“Sonofabitch!” Charley yelled, hurtling past Peter Vincent. He bounded down the steps, taking them three at a time. From the landing, he caught a fleeting glimpse of his prey.

As long taloned fingers slid gracefully around the door, closing it with a click.

It took maybe ten seconds to clear the bottom steps of the sprawling Billy-thing’s oily remains. Another three to hit the door and fling it open, murder in his heart.

But by then it was gone.

“Damn!” Charley yelled. “Damn damn damn damn!”

Peter stood at the top of the stairs, staring down from the promenade. “Charley,” he yelled, “get away from the door! It could be a trap!”

Charley almost wished it was.
Anything would beat this peekaboo bullshit,
he thought.

“Dandrige, show your face if you’re so tough!” he called out.

Peter looked down at him like he’d just swallowed a turd. “Charley,” he squeaked.

Charley had about had it. He whirled around like a teenaged Kali-cultist, waving his cross.
“DANDRIGE! C’mon out and kill me if you can!”

“Charley, come
here!”
Peter cried, adamant.

“DANDRIGE IS A CHICKENSHIT DOUGHWAD! DANDRIGE IS A PENCIL-NECKED GEEK! DANDRIGE IS AFRAID OF HIS OWN SHAD—”

He was cut off in mid-epithet as every clock in the Dandrige house went off in ragged unison, a cacophony of tones and timbres, all pointing to one crucial fact. The time.

Six o’clock.

Charley stared up at Peter Vincent, smiling wickedly. Peter looked at him like the original stern father figure, was about to repeat
Charley, you get up here right this minute . . .

. . . when the enormous stained-glass window behind him shattered inward, spraying him with a rainbow of glistening shards. He threw his arms up protectively and crouched down.

“Not nice,” hissed the vampire, just a few feet away.
“Très, très gauche.”

Peter Vincent was slack-jawed with terror. It took considerably more will than he thought he had to even speak. His voice came out forced and brittle. “Charley, stay right there,” he said. “I
mean
it.”

Dandrige winked at him patronizingly. “So,” he crooned, “just the two of us, eh? Real man-to-man stuff. I like that.” He nudged conspiratorially, circling for the kill.

Peter pulled his cross out reflexively, holding it at arm’s length. Dandrige smiled a long smile. “I told you before. You have to have faith for that, you pathetic. Old. Man.

“Let me tell you something about my kind,” he continued, his voice cutting the air like a razor. “You’ll no doubt find this information utterly absorbing. We kill for three reasons: for food, for spawn and for sport.

“The latter is decidedly the most painful.

“Your
way, Mr. Vincent.”

Dandrige moved in, closer and closer, his words simultaneously degrading and hypnotic. The world seemed to close in around Peter as the vampire spoke, blinding him to everything but his words, his mouth.

His teeth.

And then, just as he was about to slip over the edge, he saw it. And the cognizance of it brought him back, made him whole again.

Seeing it made him think the whole affair very, very funny.

He wanted Dandrige to see it, too.

Dandrige felt something go subtly askew. One moment, the old fart was putty in his hands; the next, he was awake, aware . . .

. . . and
smiling.

Peter Vincent beamed like an only child on Christmas morning. The cross seemed to grow heavier in his hands. He let it drop slightly, clearing his throat.

“Mr. Dandrige,” he said. “I have learned several things of inestimable value this night. First, that you are above all else an insufferable ass; and second,” he winked, “even a
pathetic old man
can have his day.

“Look over your shoulder.”

Dandrige turned with mounting horror to see the first pink tendrils of dawn breaking over the neighboring rooftops. He let out a little primal screech, then whirled to face Peter Vincent. Peter held up the cross, the tiniest scintilla of dawn
pinging
off it like red-hot needles firing straight into Dandrige’s eyes.

“Nooo . . .”
he hissed, and broke away. He ran to the stairs to find Charley at the bottom,
his
cross another impenetrable obstacle.

“Got him!” Charley cried.

And then they heard the shrieking, clawing sound coming down the hall.

From the attic.

“Amy . . .” said Charley, faltering. Showing an instant of indecision.

In that instant, Dandrige leapt.

TWENTY-SEVEN