Bad Moon Rising

Chapter 23

(1)

They all met for coffee in Weinstock’s office. Val, Crow, Jonatha, and Newton were seated on a ring of chairs pulled around Weinstock’s desk, which was covered with the evidence he had collected. Weinstock had gone over it step by step for Jonatha’s benefit. The morgue videos had rattled her, and she accepted the doctor’s offer of a stiff knock of Scotch in her coffee.

After she’d downed half of it, she said, “I’ve been on the Net all afternoon, and I’ve made a number of calls to friends and colleagues who are deeper into the vampire folklore than I am. I told them the story that I was doing deep background work for a book, and now they all want to be footnoted. I made a lot of promises here, so our boy Newton here had better write that book.”

“Did you find out anything new we need to know?” Val asked.

“Nothing you’ll like.”

“No offense, Jonatha,” said Crow, “but we haven’t liked anything you’ve told us so far.”

“Okay, I know we’re all pressed for time here,” she began—and Crow noted that she used “we.” He cocked an eye at Val, who had registered it, too, and she gave him a tiny nod.

“First, Professor Allenby at Rutgers, who’s written the definitive book on Peeter Stubbe, said that the likelihood that Stubbe was born in Serbia is near to one hundred percent, not in Bedburg as most books claim. There are records in Serbia of the Stubbe family—under a variety of name variations—dating back as early as the 1420s. He wasn’t known in Bedburg until around 1589. That means that he was at least one hundred and fifty years old when he was put on trial for werewolfism.”

Weinstock whistled.

“That would mean that he is likely to be a Vlkodlak, the dominant werewolf species of that part of Eastern Europe, and one widely believed—in folklore before now—to come back to life as a vampire.”

“I’m confused about something,” Val said. “I was looking through some of Crow’s books and they seemed to indicate that Stubbe, or Stumpp as they called him, was brutally executed. Why didn’t he come back as a vampire then?”

“Allenby’s theory is that like many of the more powerful vampires, some werewolves were known to have human familiars and confidants. It’s entirely likely that Stubbe, who was known for being extremely charismatic, suborned some local yokel and—since Stubbe was not truly a native of Bedburg—used that other person as a kind of stand-in or body double. Maybe he appealed to their religious mania—kind of like Manson or Jim Jones. In such cases the person under the charismatic control is more than willing to die for their master, even to the point of undergoing torture. Like a martyr. Even in ordinary psychology there are plenty of cases of it. Add to that some degree of supernatural persuasion and, well, there you go.”

“That fits with what we know of Griswold,” Crow said. “He had a whole crew of local guys who pretty much worshipped the ground he walked on. My own father was one of them. When Oren Morse killed Griswold, it’s a pretty good bet that these followers were the ones who murdered Morse.”

“Reasonable,” Jonatha said. “Scary as hell, but reasonable. How many of them are still around?”

“Except for my father? All of them.”

“Then we are going to have to work them into the equation…take a good hard look at them.”

Val said, “Did you find out anything more concrete about the process of becoming a vampire?”

“Well, the consensus from among my colleagues is that, folklorically speaking, a psychic vampire like Griswold would be able to create other vampires at will. As I mentioned before, all he needs to do is impose his will on anyone who has recently died through violence.”

“You mean anyone bitten by a vampire?”

“No…not exactly. There are as many ways to become a vampire as there are vampire species, but I think we can distil that down to the three most common methods,” Jonatha said. “The first is also the oldest. A person has to die with a corrupt heart and unrepentant. That creates a kind of schism between them and the next world—call it Heaven or whatever. An evil person who dies, typically by violence, and who does not repent of their sins is likely to come back as a vampire of one kind or another. We see this in the folklore of dozens of nations.”

“That could explain Ruger easily enough,” Crow said.

“And probably does.”

“But Boyd was corrupt rather than evil,” Weinstock said, “at least according to what the cops told us.”

“Which brings us to the second most common cause of vampirism worldwide—death by violence. Any death, any kind of violence. There isn’t a lot of commentary on why this is, but generally I take it as a feeling of unresolved anger at having died and the need for some kind of revenge for having been killed. In Boyd’s case it appears that somebody killed him. Maybe even Ruger, who knows? When he rose from death he was a vampire, but for some reason we don’t know his anger was not directed at Ruger but at humans.”

“Griswold?” Val ventured.

“Could be,” Jonatha agreed. “If he is the directing force behind this, then his will would be strong enough to turn Boyd’s anger and aim it like a gun.”

“At my family.”

“You told me your dad was no friend of Griswold’s, and he was a friend of Oren Morse. Griswold also killed your uncle. Maybe there are other reasons he doesn’t like your family, but clearly he wants you all dead.”

Val said nothing but the muscles at the sides of her jaws flexed and bunched.

Crow said, “What’s the third method?”

“That one is closer to the traditional view,” Jonatha said. “In the more modern stories, meaning those from parts of Europe beginning in the early eighteenth century, we see a pattern of vampire stories being built around a bite and an exchange of blood. Not the willing and bizarrely sensual exchange you see in movies where Dracula bites some chick and then she drinks his blood—that’s a Hollywood distortion. No, once a person has been killed by a vampire, then any human blood will reactivate them, so to speak. Not animal blood…it has to be human, according to the stories. Even a few drops will do it.”

“Otherwise they stay dead?” Val asked. She took Crow’s hand and held it.

“Well, that’s a bit cloudy. In about half of the stories the vampire’s victim is caught between Earth and Heaven in a kind of purgatory. Some even rise as ghosts, but they have little or no power.”

“God…” Val said, touching her cross.

“In the other stories the victim is just plain dead unless human blood is poured into their mouth. At that point a demonic spirit enters into them and reanimates their flesh. They have all of the memories and personality of the person they were before they died, but that’s all a trick. What’s inside is pure demon, or ghost, depending on who you talk to.”

“Damn,” Crow said. “So we don’t know what state Mark’s in.”

“No, we don’t,” Jonatha said, “and bear in mind, we don’t know how much of the vampire legend is even true. We’re really fishing in the dark here and for every bit of reliable folklore—if we can call it that—there’s a hundred times as much nonsense, bullshit, and storytelling embellishment. We could be wrong about all of this.”

“Swell.”

“Now, there’s one more thing. In a few of the older stories, if a person is brought to the point of death but not killed outright they can simply transition into a vampiric state without going through the process of actual death. You follow me? In those cases the person retains their soul and true personality only as long as they drink animal blood, but should they take so much as a taste of human blood their human soul is pushed out and the demonic spirit takes over forever.” She paused. “I know this doesn’t apply to your brother or sister-in-law, Val…but in going over everything with Newt I can see that we don’t actually have proof positive that Ruger or Boyd actually died prior to becoming vampires. They could have transitioned.”

“So what?” Crow asked. “Does any of that matter?”

“Well, the vulnerabilities are different. A vampire who has transitioned instead of dying is usually stronger. Much stronger…and the more they feed the stronger they’ll become. So if Ruger transitioned, then he could be even stronger now than he was when you last encountered him.”

Crow sighed and bent forward so he could bang his forehead on the desk a couple of times.

Newton said. “What do you want us to do now? You want us to go with you to meet the cops?”

Crow looked at Val, who shook her head. “No,” he said. “Why don’t you find out everything you can about how to stop these bastards? I mean, can we rely on any of the usual stuff? Crosses, holy water…?”

“No, that’s all Bram Stoker stuff. Fiction.”

“What I figured.”

“Garlic is good, though. It’s deadly poison to vampires. It weakens them and if it gets into their bloodstream it might be fatal. I’ll ask some of my guys about it.”

“Good, we’ll offer them garlic bread next time we see one.”

“I’m sorry, Crow…Val…I thought I’d be able to find something comforting…”

“Actually,” Val said, her voice tight, “you’ve at least told me what I need to know for now. Keep researching this, Jonatha. Right now you’re the most important person in the world to us.”

Jonatha looked at her, head tilted to one side. “But…no pressure, right?”

Val actually smiled. “No, of course not. Another sunny day here in Pine Deep, America’s Haunted Holidayland.”

“I should have stayed in Louisiana. All we have there are killer hurricanes.”

Crow and Val turned to Weinstock, who had been silent throughout, his face buried in his hands. “Saul?” Crow asked.

Weinstock raised his head and gave them the bleakest stare they’d ever seen. “I need to get Rachel and the kids out of this godforsaken place.”

Val nodded.

“Can we stop the Festival somehow?” Newton asked.

“No,” Crow said. “Sarah Wolfe won’t even discuss the matter. All she says is that the town lives or dies on this Halloween.”

“Christ,” said Newton, “she’s not joking there.”

(2)

Mike fled into the night as if all the demons of hell were in close pursuit. His life seemed to be nothing but horror and flight from it. No matter how far he went, no matter what direction he took, it always seemed to circle back around to another, far worse horror.

And now this, the worst of all.

Legs pumped the pedals, hands clutched the ribbed rubber grips, lungs heaved, and pulse hammered furiously. His shirt snapped and fluttered as he rode, and though he was unaware of the chill of the air against his bare forearms, his heart was heavy with black ice.

With each hill he climbed, his legs ached more and more.

He could not think. Could not bear to think.

All he could do was fly. From horror toward nowhere, through the shadows that opened wide to receive him.

The Bone Man stood in the road and watched the boy fly, feeling the eerie déjà vu that was actually memory. He had stood here before, had watched the boy flee before. It had ended badly that time.

It would be worse this time. Halloween was in two days. There was no turning back for anyone now.

(3)

When the manhunt for Ruger and Boyd was at full burn, all of the town’s former and inactive police officers had been called back to duty, but just as the threat diminished the Halloween season kicked into full gear and most of the officers remained on the job. Tow-Truck Eddie Oswald liked working as a part-time cop, partly because he loved his town—despite its tradition of celebrating the pagan holiday—and he hated the wretched excesses of the un-Christian tourists who had to be kept from running amok. The other reason he liked the job was that it gave him yet another reason to be prowling the streets and roads of the borough in his hunt for the Beast. He needed to complete that task to both honor and appease his Father, whose wrath had turned to a cold and disappointed silence in Eddie’s head.

He drove the main drag now, alone in his cruiser, neat and tidy in his crisp uniform, his sidearm a comforting weight at his hip. His mind, however, was an untidy mess—a ransacked room where hope and trust in his own judgment had been thrown to the floor. Doubt seemed painted inside his brain like some vandal’s graffiti. For a while he thought he’d known the direction of his purpose; for a while he thought he’d known exactly who the Beast was and in which body he was hiding. Now the only thing of which he was certain was that he was now completely uncertain…and uncertainty in his holy purpose filled him with shame.

“Base to four.” The sudden squawk of the radio made Eddie twitch and he snatched the handset up.

“Four,” he said, “what’s up, Ginny?”

“Got a job for you, Eddie. Domestic disturbance.”

Great, just what he needed. Eddie sighed. “Give me the rundown.”

“It was just called in a few minutes ago. FedEx guy heard a fight, someone screaming, and then saw this kid go running out of the house, face all bloody.”

So what? “Give me the address.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to go there. Polk’s already there. He called in and told me to tell you to go looking for the kid. Jimmy said you’re the only one free, so you catch this one. Lucky you, huh?”

“Yes, lucky me. Okay, Ginny, do you have anything on the kid? Name, description…”

“Name is Sweeney. Michael Sweeney. Age fourteen, red and blue, five-six, slim build. Probably on a bicycle.”

Eddie jerked upright. “Repeat that name, please?”

“That was Michael Sweeney. Last seen wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt with some band label, FedEx guy thinks it might have been The Killers. The neighbor said the kid had a bloody nose and there was blood on his hands and the front of his shirt. He was reported to have left the scene on a black mountain bike.”

“Michael Sweeney,” Eddie said, tasting each honey-sweet syllable.

“Last seen heading south toward A-32. Probably making for a friend’s house.”

“Out into farm country,” Eddie murmured. “How long since he fled the scene?”

“Say ten minutes. If he’s heading out to one of the farms you should have no problem finding him.”

“I’m on it,” he said and hung up.

Michael Sweeney. Covered in blood. The image was so delicious that tears filled his eyes.

In his mind it was as if a series of relays clicked into place and a current of pure cognitive energy flowed uninterrupted for the first time in weeks. Of course it was Michael Sweeney. Vic Wingate’s stepson. Eddie had even seen the boy at the garage once or twice. So why had it been so hard to identify him at Crow’s shop? A devil’s mind trick, that had to be. The Beast was, after all, the Father of Lies…it wasn’t so hard to assume those lies could have been more subtle than words. Hadn’t the air shimmered like heat vapors from hell? That was all part of a glamour put on him by the Beast. He hadn’t seen it then, hadn’t grasped it fully, but now everything made sense. Now everything was crystal clear.

Michael Sweeney was the Beast and he was out there now, soaked in blood, probably laughing as he fled into the farmlands. The soulless bastard!

No wonder God had sickened of him and turned His back. How could He not when His son was so weak that the Beast could thwart him with such a simple conjuring trick.

“Forgive me, Father, for I am most heartily sorry for my sins.” He recited a dozen different prayers of humility and confession, then threw his car into gear and headed out of town.

(4)

Vic Wingate chain-lit his eighth cigarette and between puffs probed experimentally at his nose and ear. A plastic bag of ice cubes lay on the floor by his feet. He saw Polk’s stare. “What?” he snarled.

They were alone in the living room. Lois was upstairs, and the neighbors had been shooed unceremoniously back to their houses. Polk had taken the call alone, making very sure that no other deputies set foot in Wingate’s house. That would lead to all sorts of complications. He perched on the edge of Vic’s overstuffed wing chair and jiggled his uniform cap in his hands.

Polk cleared his throat. “How bad is this going to be for us?”

Bitterly, Vic said, “Dumb bitch helped him get away. She showed herself to him.”

Polk’s eyes went wide. “She…showed her…? I don’t get it, if she’s one of them why’d she help him?”

“She ain’t gone over to Him, yet. Bitch has been living on neighborhood dogs and beef blood from the butcher’s. Still got her frigging soul, as if that matters to her. Shit, she never used it before.”

Polk swallowed the rock in his throat.

The door banged open and Polk leapt to his feet as Ruger walked in from the kitchen carrying the limp body of a teenage girl in his arms. The sight of him made Polk’s balls climb up into his body.

“Hey hey, welcome to the funhouse, Polkie.”

Polk couldn’t answer. He was staring at what Ruger held in his arms—a teenage girl, head lolling, eyes closed, her face and throat smeared with bright blood.

“Oh, Jesus,” Polk whispered and almost—almost—crossed himself.

Ruger ignored Polk and glanced up the stairs. “She still acting out?”

Vic took a drag, eyes narrow and hard, said nothing. Smoke leaked out of his nostrils. Ruger snorted. The girl he carried could not have been more than thirteen. Her T-shirt was torn, exposing one cup of a functional white bra. Her blond hair hung over Ruger’s arm and nearly to the floor. He hefted her like she weighed nothing. “Well, maybe we can whet her appetite.” He put one foot on the bottom step and glanced back at Vic. “Your face looks like shit.”

“Blow me.”

“Maybe the kid’s turning into something like his old man after all.”

Vic picked a fleck of dried blood from his nostril and wiped it on the arm of his chair. “Yeah,” he said, “maybe. Maybe that’s the only way a pussy like him’d ever get a sly one in on me.”

“Good thing you didn’t cut him,” Ruger said, nodding to the knife on the coffee table. “If Lois hadn’t stepped in…”

“I wasn’t going to kill him, asshole…I was just going to carve my initials on his balls. Maybe take an ear off, or a finger. I wasn’t going to kill the little shit.”

“The Man’s going to really be pissed.” He gave Vic a wink and carried the girl upstairs. Vic and Polk stared at the ceiling for a long time. They could hear Ruger’s muffled voice and Lois’s scream, high and shrill. Polk cut his eyes toward Vic and saw an expression he didn’t expect to see: hurt. When Vic caught him watching he put on a poker-face scowl.

“We have to find the kid,” Vic said, “before Halloween.”

“I put Tow-Truck Eddie on it. He’ll catch him.”

Upstairs Lois gave another long scream, and this time it rose like a banshee wail, filled with such horror that Polk lowered his head and pressed his palms to his ears until it stopped. The scream rose and rose and then suddenly cut off. For a long while there was no sound at all except the vague creaking of the timbers and the twilight wind outside whispering through the slits in the shutters.

Polk rubbed his eyes. “This is getting to be too much,” he said. “I don’t know how much more I can take.”

Taking a long drag, Vic squinted at him through the blue smoke that filled the living room. “Yeah, well…it’ll all be over soon,” he said.

Those words tightened around Polk’s heart like a vise.

(5)

Iron Mike Sweeney was the Enemy of Evil.

At least, that was how he had once thought of himself, back when his inner fantasy life was a safe and exciting escape hatch from the real world. That was before, when evil was an abstract concept from comic books and TV and movies—granted a concept enhanced by the hard hands of his stepfather, but still abstract. That was before evil had become an actual thing, a presence, a force, a reality that chased him through the gloom of the cold October afternoon and the darkness of his cold, shrieking thoughts.

Now evil was a thing that drew a knife and came at him with burning eyes and a whispering voice. Now evil was a thing that roared at him with his mother’s mouth and a monster’s voice. Now evil was more than just real, it was unreal. Titanic, overwhelming, impossible—and he fled before it.

He tore along the roads, not aiming for any particular place. Just away. Away from town. Away from Vic. Away from home and from what that word no longer meant, and what it now meant.

The farthest away he had ever been by himself was the dark stretch of A-32, and so he went that way. Not because he chose to, but because the path was programmed into him and his mind was a small cringing thing that hid from conscious thought. Inside him the chrysalis writhed. Cracks appeared in the cocoon that was wrapped around his transforming soul.

Behind him, Mike felt the vastness of nowhere to go; back there was everything he had ever known and nowhere that he wanted to be. A sudden realization blindsided him with the force of a runaway train and he skidded and slewed his bike to a stop on the verge, kicking up gravel and a plume of dust.

He could never go home again.

Never.

Not just because of Vic, but because of Mom. Tears fell like hot rain and he bent forward over the pain, buried his face in his arms as he hunched down over the handlebars. His lips tried to speak, but they were twisted with weeping, streaked with phlegm. He managed only one word, but he said it over and over again, trying to rediscover its lost meaning.

“Mom!”

The gathering twilight painted him and the surrounding fields in shades of bloody red. He was still crying, oblivious to the rest of the world, when the police cruiser crested the hill behind him.