The Nightmare People

2.

“A stake through the heart,” Elias said from the back seat.

“They aren’t vampires,” Smith said again.

“Yeah, I know,” Elias said, “but Ed, a stake through the heart’ll kill anything! Would you be getting up again if we put a piece of wood through your heart?”

“No,” Smith acknowledged, “But I wouldn’t be getting up again after somebody shot me through the throat, either.”

“You got a better idea?” Sandy demanded.

“No,” Smith admitted.

“Then I say we try it,” Sandy said. “The kid’s right; nothing gets up again with a stake through the heart.”

Smith still had misgivings. “Look,” he said, “I think it’ll take more than that.”

“Sure!” Elias said. “Like in the books. Cut off the head and stuff the mouth with garlic.”

“Cut off the head?” Sandy asked.

“Yeah.”

“With what?”

“Uh… doesn’t matter, as far as I know,” Elias said.

“Garlic?” Smith asked. The one in his apartment had said the same thing, about cutting off a vampire’s head and stuffing the mouth with garlic, but it still sounded stupid.

“Well, that’s what worked with vampires,” Elias said, a bit defensively.

“Elias, they aren’t vampires,” Smith said.

“But they’re related!” Elias insisted. He saw the expression on Smith’s face, and said, “Hey, what can it hurt to try?”

“I don’t know,” Smith replied. “That’s what worries me.”

“So what do we need, then?” Sandy asked. “A stake, and a hammer, and a bunch of garlic, and something to cut off the head…”

“An axe, maybe,” Smith suggested. He remembered how quickly the bulletholes had closed up, and he wanted something that would cut fast. “What kind of stake? I mean, just a chunk of two-by-four with a point, or does it have to be some special wood?”

“Oak, ash, or thorn, I think it is,” Elias said.

That sounded more like something to do with druids than with vampires to Smith, but he didn’t argue.

“Hardwoods,” Sandy remarked.

“We can find oak pretty easily,” Smith said, waving at a tree by the roadside. “Just cut a branch and put a point on it.”

“We gonna do this today?” Sandy asked.

Elias and Smith looked at each other. “I don’t know,” Smith said. “I’d want to do it by daylight.”

“It’s three o’clock now, and the sun sets at what, seven thirty? Eight o’clock?” Sandy said. “That’s five hours. What say we get on with it, then?”

Smith looked at Elias; he was a little pale, but he nodded.

“All right,” Smith said, turning the wheel. “An axe first, to cut the stake, and a bunch of garlic; anything else?”

“A sledge,” Sandy said, “Maybe six pounds.”

“And a cross,” Elias said. “My grandmother’s got a silver cross in her jewelry box.”

Sandy sneered, but said nothing.

“Right,” Smith said, as he stepped on the gas. “Hechinger’s first, then, for the axe and sledge.”