Richard Laymon: The Stake

That’s where I come in, he thought.

“Guess that’s that,” Pete said, and yawned. He was reclined in the easy chair, wearing one of Larry’s shirts over the bandages that had been applied in the emergency room. “Score one for the good guys.”

“I just wish you would’ve told us,” Jean said, looking at Lane with weary, sad eyes.

“Let it go, honey.”

“I was just so scared,” Lane murmured.

“It’s all right,” Larry told her, and stroked her hair. “It’s over now.”

She nodded, her cheek rubbing against his shoulder. “Is it okay if I go to bed now?”

“Sure, go on.”

Lane got up from the sofa. She said good night to Pete and Barbara, kissed Jean, came back to Larry, whispered, “Night, Dad,” and kissed him. Then she walked out of the living room, moving slowly, her head hanging.

When she was gone, Barbara said, “Poor kid. The hell she must’ve gone through...”

“You got the bastard, Lar.”

“With a little help from my friends.”

“Man, you nailed him good.”

“Let’s not talk about it anymore,” Jean said. She slumped forward until her elbows met her knees, and seemed to stare at the carpet.

“Come on, Pete,” Barbara said, getting up. “Let’s go before you pass out.” To Larry she said, “They doped him up pretty good at the E.R.”

“I’m fine.”

She took his arm and helped him out of the chair.

“I’m okay, I’m okay.” Pulling away from her, he staggered toward the sofa. He shoved a hand toward Larry.

Larry reached up and shook it.

Pete held on. “So I guess we did good, huh, pardner?”

Larry shrugged. He didn’t feel as if he’d done good. He felt dazed, sick and weary and sad.

“Too bad old Bonnie didn’t perk up for us.”

“Just as well,” Larry said.

“Still got us a hell of a book, though, huh?”

“No book,” Larry said. “Not about this.”

“Hey, man...”

“We never had a vampire, anyway. Even if we did, I couldn’t write the truth. I couldn’t write about Kramer. About Lane. I won’t.”

Pete stared down at him, eyes still blackened from his encounter with Uriah’s rock. He stared for a long time. Then he sighed. His grip on Larry’s hand tightened. “Good man,” he said.

“You, too. We’ll do a different book together.”

A corner of Pete’s mouth tilted up. “All right . I’m full of ideas. We’ll...”

“You’re full of Darvon,” Barbara broke in, putting an arm around him. “Now, come on. Let’s go home and get some shuteye.”

When they were gone, Larry turned off the lights and walked with Jean toward their bedroom. At the end of the hallway a glowing band showed beneath the bathroom door. He heard water running.

“I’ve gotta take a shower, too,” he mumbled.

“Don’t be long,” Jean said. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“I’ll hurry,” he told her. They entered the room. He went to the master bath, turned on the light but left the door open.

He took off his clothes. When he lifted the lid of the hamper to drop them in, he saw the wadded, bloody shirt he’d been wearing when he killed Kramer. The sweatsuit covered it. He shut the lid, stepped to the tub and turned on the water.

Under the hot spray he thought of Lane in the other bathroom. Like him, trying to cleanse herself of Kramer.

He was weeping when the shower curtain rattled open. Jean stepped into the tub. She slid the curtain shut and put her arms around him. Her face pressed against the side of his neck.

They didn’t speak. They held onto each other hard.

Lane draped her towel over the bar and slipped into her nightshirt. Where she had missed a patch of water, low on her back, the soft fabric hugged her skin.

She left her clothes hanging in the bathroom and stepped out.

The house looked dark except for light from the open door of her parents’ bedroom.

She went to her own room, flipped on the light and stared at her bed. As weary as she felt, she knew that sleep wouldn’t come easily or soon. She would lie in bed, wide awake, remembering.

No, I won’t, she told herself.

She was in her room just long enough to pick up her pillow and blanket. Holding them to her chest, she turned off the light and walked silently down the hallway.

She glanced into her parents’ room. They weren’t there, but she heard a windy sound of rushing water from their bath.

Moving through darkness, she made her way to the sofa. She dropped her pillow and blanket onto it, stepped to the television and turned it on.

A Christopher Lee movie. She changed the channel, recognized Jimmy Stewart in some kind of Air Force story, and returned to the sofa.

There, she lay down and covered herself with the blanket. Curled up cozy on her side, she watched the show. When Kramer forced his way into her mind, she made herself remember the people zipping the rubber bag shut around him, taking him out to the van along with Bonnie.

They’re both gone now, she thought. Kramer can never touch me again. And I don’t even have to worry about Bonnie. They’re gone. I’m safe. Mom and Dad are safe. Everything’s okay.

She wondered if she should go to school in the morning.

They’ll have a substitute in English.

It would be nice to see Henry and Betty and George.

Not tomorrow, though. It’s so late. I’d be a space case.

The Jimmy Stewart movie ended. Lane wondered what would come on next. Before she could find out, however, a warm fog seemed to fold itself over her mind, and she closed her eyes.

In the first light of dawn Uriah left his hiding place. The neighborhood was silent. He crossed the empty street and glanced at the red Mustang of the vampires as he walked by.

Getting his hands on its registration had made things so easy. The first time he’d gone after Bonnie, he didn’t have that. All he knew, then, was what kind of car she drove.

One of those Volkswagen bugs had gone by on the road while he was hiking back to Sagebrush Flat after his pickup broke down. It had a pale color in the moonlight, and he’d glimpsed enough of the driver to see she was a girl.

Not much to go on. He couldn’t even be sure the bug was on its way to Mulehead Bend, though that was the first town to the east, the direction the car had been heading. So that’s where he went looking.

It took him a while, but he found the girl vampire who had a yellow VW. He put her to rest. But then another turned up, and then another. They were all girls, all about the right age, and they all had light-colored Volkswagens. They were all vampires, too.

During his search was when he came to learn they didn’t behave like vampires should. They didn’t sleep in coffins. The sunlight didn’t burn them up. They could go around in daytime, just like regular girls. All the sun did was weaken them.

The sun would’ve made them easier to kill, but he’d been so headstrong back then that he’d gone after them at night. When he thought about it afterward, he figured it must’ve been a kind of deathwish on his part. He’d wanted his revenge, all right, but he hadn’t really cared whether he kept on living.

That had been a fool way to go about it. But the Lord stood by him and kept him from harm.

The Lord had a mission all set up for Uriah. He planned to send His warrior all across the nation to hunt out the legion of vampires doing Satan’s work in every corner of the land. So He’d let Uriah slip by, even though he went about killing the first three vampires in such a foolhardy fashion.

Uriah hoped the Lord would allow him to retire after today. If he survived.