Seth Grahame-Smith - Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter

The front door flew open with a single blow of Abe’s ax, sending smoke and hot ash flying away from the porch.

The heat was immediate. It drove us back at first, blistering our skin and very nearly setting our clothes alight. When my eyes adjusted to the flames on the front porch (by now fully engulfed), I saw that the fallen door had provided a narrow path across. I held my breath and led the way, hurrying over the door, down the front steps and onto the grass below. No sooner had my feet touched the ground than I realized the hopelessness of our effort. For in the light of the burning house behind us, I discerned no fewer than twenty figures ahead—some aiming rifles, others wearing dark glasses to shield their eyes from the flames. Living men and vampires—conspiring to cut off all hope of escape. One of the living, an older gentleman, stepped forward and stood but ten feet from me.

“Mr. Lincoln, I presume,” he said.

“Mr. Davis,” said Abe.

“I’d be much obliged,” said Davis, “if your companions would put those irons down. I’d hate for one of my men to startle and fill the three of you with holes.”

Abe turned to Speed and Lamon and gave a nod. Both dropped their guns.

“The big one is concealing another pistol,” said one of the vampires behind Davis. “He’s thinking about reaching for it right now.”

“Well, if he does,” said Davis, “then I suggest you kill him.” Davis turned back to Abe. “Your ax as well, if you please.”

“If it’s all the same, Mr. Davis,” said Abe, “I don’t expect to live but a few moments longer, and I would very much like to die holding the ax my daddy gave me as a boy. Surely one of your men will shoot me if I raise it in anger.”

Davis smiled. “I like you, Mr. Lincoln—I do. Kentucky born, same as me. Self-made. As fine an orator as ever lived—and dedicated, my Lord! Coming all the way down here just to kill a man! Leaving your family alone and unprotected in Springfield… no, sir, let no man speak ill of your convictions. I could sing your praises till morning, sir—but some of my associates are rather sensitive to sunlight, and… well, I’m afraid we just don’t have that long.

“Tell me,” said Davis, “with your many fine qualities and famous mind, how is it that you’ve arrived on the wrong side of this fight?”

“I?” asked Abe. “I must have misheard you, sir—for of the two of us, only one is conspiring against his fellow man.”

“Mr. Lincoln, vampires are superior to man, just as man is superior to the Negro. It’s the natural order of things, you see. Surely we agree on this much, at least?”

“I agree that some vampires are superior to some men.”

“Am I wrong, therefore, to recognize the inevitability of their rule? Am I wrong to side with the greater power in the coming war? Sir, it brings me no pleasure to think of white men in cages. But if it must come to pass—if vampires are to be the kings of men—then let us work with them while time remains. Let us regulate the thing—limit it to the Negro, and to the undesirables of our own race.”

“Ah,” said Abe. “And when the blood of Negroes is no longer sufficient; when the ‘undesirables’ of our race have been exhausted—tell me, Mr. Davis… who then shall your ‘kings’ feed upon?”

Davis said nothing.

“America,” Abe continued, “was forged in the blood of those who opposed tyranny. You and your allies… would you not see it delivered into the hands of tyrants?”

“America is thataway, Mr. Lincoln,” laughed Davis, pointing north. “You’re in Mississippi now.” He stepped forward, to the very edge of where Abe’s ax could reach if he chose to swing it. “And let us speak plainly, sir. We’re both the servants of vampires. But when these hostilities are at an end, I will be left to enjoy the peace of my remaining years in comfort and wealth, and you will be dead. And there it is.”

Davis paused a moment, offered a slight bow, and retreated. Three of the living men now stepped to the front of the group—each with a rifle aimed at us. Each waiting for Davis to give the order.

“Damn it, Abe,” said Lamon. “Are we just gonna stand here and do nothing?”

“I’m wearing a watch,” Speed told the executioners, his voice cracking. “It belonged to my grandfather, I—I ask only that someone see it back to my wife in Louisville.”

These are the last seconds of my life.

“Well, if I’m dying,” said Lamon, “I’m dying with a gun in my hand.” He reached for his coat.

“Boys,” said Abe to his friends, “I’m sorry for dragging you into th—”

The crack of rifles filled the night before he could finish.

In that instant I saw the faces of all those loved ones departed from this earth: my dear, sweet little boy; my sturdy Armstrong and beloved Ann. I saw my sister, and my angel mother. But when this instant passed, and my eyes remembered themselves, my executioners remained in the light of the burning house, shock on their faces. Speed and Lamon remained standing on either side of me.

We still lived. Our executioners, however, were not as fortunate. All three fell in unison, bullets having torn though their skulls.

It was a miracle.

That miracle was Henry Sturges.

He charged out of the dark with eleven Union vampires on his heels. Some held rifles, others revolvers, firing as they came. The Southern vampires nearest Davis hurried him off, while the others prepared to meet their Northern counterparts. One of them, however, remembered that the job of my execution remained unfinished. He leapt at me from twenty yards distant, fangs and claws extended, eyes black behind his dark glasses. I let my ax fly, and the blade found its target—but my strength not being what it once was, it failed to sink more than an inch or two into his middle. He fell back briefly and looked at the dark ribbons pouring from the gash in his belly. They were of no concern. He picked my ax off the ground and came at me again. I thrust a hand into my coat, looking for a knife that had not been there in twenty years… helpless. With the vampire not four feet from me, Lamon aimed over my shoulder and fired, forever diminishing the hearing in my left ear, but silencing the creature with a bullet through the face.

As the smoke from Lamon’s revolver hung in the air around his head, Abe became aware of a sharp pain coming from his chin.

I pressed my hand to it. [The vampire] had come close enough to open a gash with the tip of my ax. Blood dripped from the wound and down the front of my shirt as vampires clashed before us in the light of the flames—jumping impossible distances, crashing into each other with enough force to shake the ground beneath our feet.

Here, for the first time, I saw Henry Sturges in battle. I watched him run headlong into a Southern vampire and drive the devil into a tree—the result being that its trunk split in two. Yet Henry’s opponent was hardly affected, for he pushed back and began to swing wildly with his hands, as if holding a sword in each. Henry defended each of these strikes with his own clawed hands, until, being the better swordsman of the two, he saw an opportunity and ran his opponent through the middle—forcing five straightened fingers into the vampire’s belly and out his back, snapping his spine in the process. Henry withdrew his hand, and his opponent fell to the ground, unable to move. I watched him twist the vampire’s head backward and rip it from his shoulders.

The living men unfortunate enough to find themselves in the middle of this melee were torn apart, their limbs taken by errant claws, their bones crushed by the force of the vampires colliding around them. Realizing that the numbers were not in their favor, the remaining Southern vampires made a hasty retreat. Several Union vampires gave chase—the others, including Henry, hurried to meet us where we stood.