These are the last seconds of your life.
I have no memory of driving it in—I only remember that I did. His laughter ceased and he took an awkward step. His eyes turned black in the space of a single blink, as if the inkwells in his pupils had suddenly shattered—the spill contained behind glass. His fangs descended, and I could presently make out a faint blue web beneath his skin. It was true. Until that moment there had been room for doubt. But now I saw it with my own eyes. Now I knew.
Vampires were real.
His arm rose, and his stout little hand instinctively grabbed the stake. There was no fear in his face yet. Merely a puzzlement, as if he was attempting to sort out just how such an object could be attached to his body. He presently lost his footing and collapsed into a seated position, where he remained for a moment before falling the rest of the way onto his back. His hand lost its grip on the stake, and the arm fell to his side.
I walked around him, wondering when he would strike. Wondering when he would laugh at the futility of what I had done and cut me down. As I did, his eyes followed me. They were the only things that moved now. There was fear in them. He was dying… and he was afraid. What little color he had left him now—and rich, dark blood began to run from his nostrils; out the sides of his mouth. A trickle at first… then a flood—running over his cheeks and pooling over his eyes. More blood than I ever thought possible. I could see his soul (if indeed he had such a thing) departing. Bidding an unexpected, frightening farewell to such a long, long life—one undoubtedly filled with happiness, and agony, and struggle, and success. Filled with moments too beautiful to share. Too painful to recall. It was all ending now, and he was so afraid. Afraid of what nothingness awaited him. Or worse, what punishment.
And then he was gone. I expected my eyes to fill with tears. To feel remorse at the sight of what I had done. I admit that I felt nothing. I only wished he had suffered more.
Thomas stood aghast. “Look what you’ve done,” he said after a sickened silence. “You’ve killed us.”
“On the contrary… I’ve killed him.”
“More will come.”
Abe had already begun to walk away.
“Then I shall need more stakes.”
THREE
Henry
It is the eternal struggle between these two principles—right and wrong—throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle.
—Abraham Lincoln, debating Stephen A. Douglas
October 15th, 1858
I
Southeastern Indiana was in the grip of fear during the summer of 1825. Three children had gone missing over a six-week period beginning in early April. The first, a seven-year-old boy named Samuel Greene, disappeared while playing in the woods near his family’s farm in Madison, a thriving town on the banks over the Ohio River. Search parties were sent out. Ponds dredged. But no trace of the boy was found. Less than two weeks later, before the people of Madison had abandoned all hope of finding him alive, six-year-old Gertrude Wilcox vanished from her bed in the middle of the night. Now alarm turned to panic. Parents refused to let their children outdoors. Neighbors leveled accusations at neighbors, all while three weeks passed without incident. Then, on May 20th, the third child was taken—not from Madison, but from the town of Jeffersonville twenty miles downriver. This time the body was found in a matter of days—along with two others. A hunter had made the gruesome discovery, following his dogs to a shallow wooded ditch where the three twisted corpses lay, hastily covered with brush. Their bodies were unnaturally decomposed—almost completely devoid of color. Each of their faces locked in an open-eyed mask of fear.
Abe Lincoln was sixteen years old that summer, and his resolution to “kill every vampire in America” was off to an inauspicious start. His father’s fears had proved needless. No vampires ever came to avenge Jack Barts. In fact, in the four years since he’d staked Barts, Abe hadn’t so much as seen another vampire, though not for lack of trying. He’d spent countless nights chasing distant screams on the wind and keeping watch over freshly dug graves just in case, as folklore suggested, a vampire came to feast on the corpse. But with nothing more than old books and old myths to guide him, and a father unwilling to help, Abe spent those four years in a constant state of frustration. There was little to do but keep up with his training. He’d reached his full height of six feet four inches, every square centimeter of him lean muscle. He could outwrestle and outrun most men twice his age. He could bury the head of an ax in a tree from over thirty yards. He could pull a plow every bit as fast as a draft horse, and lift a 250-pound log clean over his head.
What he couldn’t do was sew. After spending weeks trying to fashion himself a long “hunting coat” only to see it fall to pieces after one or two wearings, he’d broken down and paid a seamstress to do the job (he hadn’t asked his stepmother, for fear of raising the obvious question of what he needed such a coat for). The long black coat was lined with thick material over his chest and stomach, and inside pockets to store all manner of knives, cloves of garlic, and a flask of holy water, which he’d blessed himself. He wore his quiver of stakes on his back, and a thick leather collar, one that he’d commissioned from an Elizabethtown tanner, around his neck.
When word of those twisted corpses reached Little Pigeon Creek, Abe set off for the river at once.
I told Father that I had found work on a flatboat bound for New Orleans, and that I would return with $20 pay in six weeks’ time. I did so in spite of having received no such offer of work, and despite having no idea where I would find the money. I could think of no other way that Father would have permitted such a long absence.
Contrary to his infallibly “honest” image, Abe wasn’t above lying so long as it served a noble purpose. This was the chance he’d ached for those four long years. The chance to test his skills. His tools. The chance to feel the exhilaration of watching a vampire fade away at his feet. Seeing the fear in its eyes.
There were far better trackers than Abraham Lincoln. Men with far more knowledge of the Ohio River. But there was nary a human being in Kentucky or Indiana with a more extensive knowledge of mysterious disappearances and unsolved murders.
When I heard a description of the bodies at Jeffersonville, I knew at once that a vampire was responsible, and I had a very good notion of where it was going. I remembered reading about a similar case in Dugre’s On the History of the Mississippi River—one that had confounded settlers almost fifty years prior. Children had gone missing from their beds in small towns all along the river—beginning in Natchez, and continuing to Donaldsonville. North to south. The bodies had been found in groups along the river, badly decomposed. Unnaturally so—each with nothing more than small cuts on their appendages. Like that vampire, I was willing to bet that this one was heading south with the current. Furthermore, I was willing to bet that it was on a boat. And if it was on a boat, it would reach Evansville sooner or later.
That was where Abe lay in wait on the night of Thursday, June 30th, 1825, hiding behind brush on the wooded banks of the Ohio.
The moon was blessedly full, revealing every detail of the night… the light fog rolling over the river’s surface, the dewdrops on the leaves of my hiding place, the silhouettes of sleeping birds on a tree branch, and the flatboat tied up not thirty yards from where I hid. It looked no different from any of the small barges one saw up and down the river: forty feet by twelve; fashioned from rough wooden planks; all but a third of its deck taken up by covered living quarters—yet my eyes had been fixed on this particular boat for hours, for I was sure that there was a vampire inside.
Abe had spent days watching the occasional flatboat come ashore at Evansville. He’d scrutinized every man who had stepped onto land looking for the telltale signs he’d read so much about: pale skin, avoidance of sunlight, fear of crosses. He’d even followed a few “suspicious” boatmen as they went about their business in town.
But none of this had yielded anything. In the end, it was the flatboat that didn’t stop that drew his suspicion.
I had been close to retiring. The sun had all but set, and any boats upriver would be tying up for the night. And then I saw it. The outline of a flatboat passed—barely visible in the darkness. It was curious that a boat would pass one of the busiest towns on this part of the river without tying up. Even more curious that it would do so at night.
Abe ran along the river, determined to follow this strange boat (which as far as he could see was being piloted by no one) for as long as he could.
Heavy rains had quickened the current, and I found it difficult to keep pace. The flatboat continued to slip away, and when it disappeared around a bend in the river, I feared I had lost it for good.
But after a half hour in a near flat-out sprint, Abe caught up. The boat had tied up on the same bank a few miles outside of town, a small plank leading from its deck to the shore. He set up a good distance away and began an all-night vigil. Hungry, exhausted hours passed, but Abe kept his post.
I had been still for so long that I feared my legs might betray me when I needed them. But I dared not strike until I saw him. Until I saw the creature emerge from his sleeping place. I looked down at the ax in my hands to ensure that it was still there. I shook from the anticipation of watching it fly into his chest. Of seeing the fear on his face as the last of him left this world.
There was a faint rustling of leaves and snapping of twigs from the north. Someone approached, walking through the woods along the bank. Abe steadied his breathing. He felt the handle of the ax in his right hand. Imagined the sound it would make as it tore through skin, and bone, and lung.
I had been waiting for the creature to emerge these long hours. It had never occurred to me that the vampire might already be about. It mattered not. I readied my ax and waited to get a look at him.
“Him” turned out to a small woman wearing a black dress and matching bonnet. The shape of her body suggested she was quite old, though she walked along the uneven riverbank with ease.
The possibility of it being a woman had never entered my mind, much less an old one. The madness of what I was doing suddenly rang clear. What evidence had I? What evidence beyond a suspicion that this was the boat of a vampire? Was I merely going to kill whomever it belonged to and hope that my theory proved correct? Was I prepared to take the head of this old woman without being absolutely certain?
Abe didn’t have to agonize for long, for as she drew closer, he could see something in her arms. Something white.
It was a child.
I watched as she carried him through the woods [and] toward the boat. He was no older than five years, wearing a white sleeping gown—his arms and legs hanging freely. I could see the blood on his collar. On his sleeves. I could not strike from such a distance, for fear that an errant ax blade might kill the boy (if indeed he lived).
Abe watched the vampire reach the flatboat and start up the small plank, then stop halfway up.
Her body became rigid. She smelled the air, as I had seen animals do when they caught the scent of danger. She looked across the darkness to the opposite bank, then toward me.
Abe froze. Not a breath. Not a twitch. Satisfied there was no danger, the old woman continued up the plank and onto the flatboat.
A sickness came over me. A rage—directed more at myself than she. How dare I sit idly and let this boy be taken? How dare I allow something as petty as fear—as insignificant as my own life—keep me from what must be done? No! No, I should sooner die at her hands than die from shame! I rose from hiding and ran toward the river. Toward the boat. She heard my footfalls at once—seized on my direction and dropped the boy to the deck. Here! Here was my chance! I raised my ax and let it fly. Watched it spin toward her. Despite all appearances to the contrary, she was quite nimble—moving from the path of my ax and condemning it to the bottom of the Ohio River. I kept running, convinced that my strength and practice would win the day yet. Convinced that there was no alternative. Reaching into my coat pockets, I found a hunting knife for each hand. She waited for me, those clawed fingers outstretched. Black eyes to match her bonnet. My feet hit the plank. I leapt at her, and she swatted me away as a horse’s tail swats a fly, sending me onto the deck and exorcising the air from my lungs. I rolled onto my back, every ounce of me aching, and held the knives in front of me to keep her at bay. These she grabbed by their blades and pulled from my hands—leaving me with nothing more than bare fists to defend myself. I sprang to my feet and lunged at the wretched old demon, my fists flying wildly. I may as well have been blindfolded—such was the ease with which she moved from the path of each strike. All at once I felt a searing pain in my middle—one that nearly knocked me from my feet and onto the sleeping boy below.
The force of the vampire’s fists had broken several of Abe’s ribs. He staggered as she hit him in the stomach again… again. He coughed, sending flecks of blood flying onto her face.
Here she paused, dragging a foul finger across her cheek and touching it to her tongue. “Rich,” she said with a smile. I struggled to keep my feet, knowing that if I fell again, it would be for the last time. I thought of my grandfather—how his face had been crushed by the fists of a vampire. How he had failed to land even one blow in return. I refused to meet the same fate. I used her pause to my advantage, finding the last of the weapons in my coat, a small knife. I threw myself at her with the last of my strength and thrust its blade into her belly. This only improved her good humor, for she grabbed my wrist and dragged it along her gut, cutting herself and laughing all the while. I felt my feet leave the deck; felt her hands on my throat. In what seemed an instant, I was drowning. She held my head beneath the river—my back pressed against the side of the boat. My feet kicking wildly. I could do nothing but look up into her face. Her wrinkles smoothed by the water. Then thoughts turned from struggle, and a strange joy infected me. It would all be over soon, and I would rest. Those black eyes changing shape above me as the water began to calm. As I began to calm. I would be with her soon. It was night.
Then he came.
Abe was barely conscious when the old woman disappeared—pulled backward onto the boat. Her hands no longer holding him down, he sank gently toward the bottom of the river.
I was pulled from the depths by the hand of God. Placed upon the deck of the tiny boat next to a sleeping boy in a white gown. From this lowly vantage I watched the rest play out—slipping in and out of sleep. I heard the woman scream: “Traitor!” I saw the outline of a man struggling with her. I saw her head fall to the deck in front of where I lay. Her body was not attached to it. And then I saw no more.
II
“And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray—” *
I woke in a windowless room to a man reading by oil light. He was perhaps five-and-twenty—slender, with dark, shoulder-length hair. Upon seeing me wake, he stopped reading and placed a marker in the pages of a thick leather volume. I asked the only question that mattered. The one that had troubled my dreams.
“The boy… is he—”
“Safe. Placed where he will be found.”
His accent betrayed no particular origin. Was he an Englishman? An American? A Scot? He sat beside me in an intricately carved high-back chair, one leg of his dark trousers folded neatly over the other, the sleeves of his blue shirt rolled to the elbows, and a small silver cross hanging around his neck. My eyes came around, and I traced the shape of the room by the light of his oil lamp. Its walls seemed made from stones piled one on top of the other—the space between them packed with clay. Each boasted no fewer than two gold-framed paintings; some as many as six. Scenes of bare-breasted native women carrying water from a stream. Sun-soaked landscapes. A portrait of a young lady hanging beside a portrait of an old one, their features remarkably similar. I saw my belongings carefully laid out on a chest in the far corner of the room. My coat
. My knives. My ax—miraculously rescued from the bottom of the Ohio. Surrounding these, some of the most elegant furnishings I had ever seen. And books! Stacks and stacks of books of every conceivable thickness and binding.
“My name is Henry Sturges,” he said. “This is my home.”
“Abraham… Lincoln.”
“The ‘father of many.’ A pleasure, indeed.”
I tried to sit up, but met with such pain as to bring me to the edge of fainting. I lay on my back and looked down my chin. My chest and stomach were covered in wet bandages.
“You’ll forgive the intrusion on your modesty, but you were quite injured. Don’t be alarmed by the smell, either. Your dressings have been steeped in an assortment of oils—all very good for healing wounds, I assure you. Not as beneficial to the senses, I’m afraid.”