Richard Laymon: The Stake

“Yeah, I could go for one myself. Or three or four. We should be home in less than an hour.” He glanced at Larry. “You believe that back there? That was like right out of one of your books.”

“He hasn’t written any vampire books,” Barbara said. “You’d know that, if you ever read them.”

“Bet you will now, right?”

“I think I’d rather forget about it.”

“Same here,” Jean said. “God.”

“That babe had a stake in her heart.”

“We all saw it,” Barbara reminded him.

“And how about that crucifix? I’ll bet they put it there to keep her from getting out.” He nodded, squinting at the road. “You know? In case the stake fell out, or something. To keep her from breaking through the wall.”

“How would the damn stake fall out?” Barbara asked, sounding a little bit annoyed by his musings.

“Well, you know, a rat could get in there. A rat might pull it loose. Something like that.”

“Give me a break.”

“There’s no such thing as vampires,” Jean said. “Tell them, Larry.”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Well, there’s plenty of legends about them. It goes way back. Back in the Middle Ages a lot of poor jerks wound up buried at crossroads with their heads cut off and garlic stuffed in their mouths.”

“Guess ours got off lucky, huh?” Pete grinned at him. “All she got was the ol‘ stake-in-the-heart routine.”

“She’s not any vampire,” Jean insisted.

“Somebody sure wasted her, though,” Barbara said.

“That’s right,” Jean said. “Has it occurred to anyone that we found a dead body?”

Pete raised his hand like a school kid. “Me,” he said. “I caught that right off the bat.” He chuckled. “No pun intended.”

“No, I mean shouldn’t we tell the police?”

“She’s got a point,” Barbara admitted.

“So does our babe under the stairs,” Pete said, laughing some more. “A point right in her chest.”

“Give it a rest, would you? This is serious business. We can’t just find a body and pretend it never happened.”

“Right. We’ll just tell the cops we broke into a locked hotel.”

“ You broke into a locked hotel.”

“Hey, you want to be married to a jailbird?”

“We could make an anonymous call,” Jean suggested. “Just explain where the body is, so they can go out and get it. Really. I mean, whoever she is, she deserves a decent burial.”

“I wouldn’t want it on my conscience,” Pete said.

“What do you mean?”

“They won’t bury her with that stake in her chest. Some poor slob’ll pluck it right out. Next thing you know, he’s a vampire cocktail.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jean muttered.

“Is it?” Making an evil laugh, he grinned over his shoulder at her.

“Watch where you’re driving,” Barbara said.

“I don’t think we should call the cops,” Larry said. “Even if we do it anonymously, there’s still a chance we might get dragged into the situation.”

“I don’t see how,” Jean told him.

“How do we know we weren’t seen? Somebody might’ve driven through town and spotted the van while we were admiring the jukebox.”

“Or the vampire,” Pete added.

“And might’ve noticed the license plate number.”

“Oh, there’s a pleasant thought,” Barbara muttered.

“You just never know. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Hey, somebody could’ve even been watching us from a window or something.”

“Thanks, Peter. I really needed to hear that.”

“Even if nobody did see us,” Larry went on, “we undoubtedly left physical evidence behind. Fingerprints, footprints, tire-tread marks where the van drove over dirt. The police would probably treat the whole area as a crime scene. There’s no telling what they might find. Next thing you know, they could be knocking on the door.”

“We didn’t kill her.”

“Have you got an alibi,” Pete asked, “for the night of September 3, 1901?”

“A pretty good one. I wasn’t bora yet. My parents weren’t bom yet.”

“You think she’s been dead that long?” Barbara asked.

“Sure looked old to me.”

“I have no idea when she might’ve been killed,” Larry said, “but I bet she hasn’t been under the stairs there for much more than twenty years or so. I imagine she was put there after the hotel closed down.”

“Why’s that?” Pete asked.

“The guests would’ve smelled her.”

“Gross,” Jean muttered.

“Well, it’s true. Assuming she was put in there right after she was killed, people would’ve noticed the stink. She doesn’t smell now, but...”

“You’re making me sick, Larry.”

“Why do you say twenty years?” Barbara asked.

“The jukebox.”

“Ah-ha. The oldies-but-goodies.”

“I don’t think any of the songs I noticed were much later than the mid-sixties. That’s probably when Holman’s went out of business. I figure the hotel might’ve closed its doors around the same time as Holman’s.”

“Makes sense,” Barbara said. “So you think the body was put under the stairs sometime after, say, ‘sixty-five?”

“It’s just a guess. Of course, she could’ve been dead fifty years before somebody put her under the stairs. If that’s the way it went, there’s no telling how long she’s been there.”

“Yeah,” Pete said. “You eliminate the stink factor by having her someplace else while she’s ripe, you could stick her under the stairs and nobody’d be the wiser.”

“I don’t see how it matters,” Jean said. “The thing is, she’s dead. Who cares how long she’s been under the stairs?”

Pete again raised his hand. “I myself find it to be of more than passing interest.”

“So would the cops,” Larry added. “I think it’d make a big difference in the way they look at the situation. If she’s been dead half a century — and they have ways of figuring that stuff out — she’s almost like an historical artifact. If she was only killed twenty years ago, they might very well start an active homicide investigation.”

“That’s right,” Barbara said. “Whoever put the stake in her could still be alive and kicking.”

“Speaking of which,” Pete said. He glanced at Larry, arched an eyebrow and stroked his chin. “Wait’ll you hear this one.”

“We know,” Barbara said, “ You did it.”

“Hey, I’m being serious here. Anybody happen to notice anything odd about the front doors of the hotel?”

“Aside from the fact that we were the first to break in?” Barbara asked.

“Very good, hon. That’s one thing. The place was still sealed when we got there. Just about every other joint in town was wide open. People’d busted in and done some exploring. But not the hotel. What else?”

“Are we playing Twenty Questions? Is it bigger than a bread box?”

“Here’s a clue. Bright and shiny and brand new.”

“The padlock,” Larry said. “The hasp.”

“Right! The way those suckers looked, I’ll bet they were sitting on the shelf of a hardware store a month ago.”

“So?” Jean asked.

“Who put them on the doors? Who wanted to keep intruders out of the hotel?”

“Could’ve been anyone,” Larry answered.

“Right. And it could’ve been someone who hid a body under the stairs. Someone who’s still around and trying to make sure nobody stumbles onto his little secret.”

“The same person who put the crucifix on the wall,” Larry added.

“Right.”

“Sort of a guardian, a keeper of the vampire.”

“It’s more likely,” Barbara said, “that whoever put the lock on the doors doesn’t know a thing about it.”