Night of the Vampires (19 page)

C
OLE AND
M
EGAN
returned to the train car just before they pulled into the station. God knows, the soldiers here were probably unnerved enough as it was without watching such a strange arrival as the two of them balancing on the roof.

When the great locomotive chugged to a stop, Sergeant Newcomb stepped down first, looking around, but they were greeted by none other than Brigadier General Thomas Bickford himself and his aides. There had been other troops aboard the train, but, apparently, they had been unaware that another car on the train had been attacked. They were met by Lieutenant Dowling, who, quickly and with military precision, gave them instructions for lodging, nodding with courtesy to Megan and shy little Trudy Malcolm.

Thomas Bickford was a man of about fifty, solid, courteous and as weary as the rest of the world.

“You'll be in a house in the lower town, just up the street from the engine house,” he told them. “We'll see that your horses are stabled for the evening, and you'll join me for dinner two doors down. The town has been so deserted that there aren't really many facilities to offer. You'll have one of my aides-de-camp, Corporal Dickens, to assist with your needs. Dickens is from this area, so he knows the terrain, as well. You'll find that most of my
officers are housed along the road, as well. If you take Church Street, you get to the church, should you desire. Had another church up there, but it got blown to bits.” He looked over at Dowling briefly. “But you can see more of the town tomorrow and get the lay of the land then. Darkness comes real quick and harsh here, so you might want to be seeing to your lodgings, first thing.”

“What I'd like to see first thing,” Cole told him, “is the corpses.”

“Suit yourself then, Granger. I'll see to it that Dickens settles the ladies in.”

“I will stay with Mr. Granger, if I may,” Megan told him.

The general shook his head. “I hear that you know a great deal about men possessed by this horrible disease, Miss Fox. But I'm not sure you want to see
these
bodies.”

“Sir, I must, if I'm to be of assistance.”

He looked at her solemnly. She doubted that the man knew anything about her or her past. He certainly didn't know what she was. But, there was a telegraph office here, and here was a man in direct contact with the
supreme commander
of the Union forces, so there really wasn't any need for her to argue her presence.

“As you wish. I am far too eager to put a stop to this to demand delicacy in any situation these days, my dear. You may go with Mr. Granger and we'll rendezvous in two hours' time in my dining room. Dickens will show you the way.”

Trudy managed to speak up at last. “General Bickford, I'm here as secretary and assistant to Miss Lisette Annalise.”

“Yes, of course. Miss Annalise is lodging in the lower
level of the house. Private Anderson will take you then, and the men who will be sharing the Mickleberry house with Mr. Granger's party. And now, Mr. Granger, since you are eager… Dickens—where are you, son?”

Dickens quickly came forward. He was a young fellow, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two, with freckles and bright red hair. He quickly nodded, smiled at the ladies and tipped his cap and then said to Cole, “This way, sir.”

As she followed Cole and Dickens, Megan looked around the town and felt a chill. On the main street they walked uphill. She looked at the houses, and it seemed that none of them had borne the true wicked brunt of the war. The houses lining the street remained beautiful as they went up the hill.

But it wasn't the same town at all. There was no one there. Men and women did not stroll the streets. Nobody leisurely enjoyed the misty cool air of evening.

They passed by the engine house where John Brown had reportedly holed up during his infamous raid on Harpers Ferry. It was now in use by the military, and all that remained of the fiery abolitionist was the ghost of the past. Right or wrong? Shades of gray. The man had believed desperately in freedom for all men, but he'd murdered innocents to prove his point. He had died himself, promising that the land would be washed in blood.

And so it was. In a different way, now.

“This is our temporary morgue,” Dickens said. He opened a door on the street level, but when they had entered the building, he opened another door at the end of a hallway where there were stairs leading down to the coolness of a basement. “Summer's coming. The heat, even here nearly in the mountains, can play havoc with the dead.”

“Of course,” Cole said.

“There's gas lamps on the walls. I'll just get them on for you,” Dickens told them.

They went down the darkened stairway, Dickens in the lead. When he stopped, Cole stopped, and Megan nearly plowed into his back.

Suddenly, Dickens let out a horrendous cry. He had turned the wick on one of the lights, and in the pale red glow that came to surround them, Megan saw that a man stood in front of Dickens. His head was at an angle, his throat badly slashed, and he was reaching for Dickens with a savage smile upon his mottled face. The man had risen, and recently.

Cole quickly pushed Dickens out of the way, ready with a stake for the heart of the “diseased” man. The body fell, but Megan knew as well as Cole that if one had resurrected, the others would soon follow suit.

She reached into her skirt pockets, hoping that, after their adventure on the train, she still had a decent supply of holy water. She had four vials; seven men had been killed the night before; one was down.

“Back out of the way!”
she ordered Dickens, stepping around him. Cole was already dispatching the second beast to rise, one that wore a sergeant's stripes. She hurried to one of the wooden benches where the corpses had been laid out, and hurriedly emptied the contents of one vial over a corpse's heart. The water became like acid, eating through uniform wool and the man's flesh. His mouth started to form into a snarl and his eyes opened in shock. But then the man's eyes softened. He looked straight at Megan for a minute. And then he closed his eyes, and he was dead and gone, a hole where his heart
had been and the ragged remnants of his insides still visible.

“Oh, holy Jesus! Mary, mother of God!” Dickens slumped against the rough brick of the basement wall.

Megan glanced at him, and he cried out, pointing. She swung around swiftly enough to duck the attack of a private first class. Avoiding his lumbering embrace, she slashed down hard on his neck with her balled fist as he fell, then straddled him swiftly to roll him over and plunge a stake Cole tossed her deep into his heart. Another came at her, while Cole engaged another himself. They both staked their opponents cleanly.

Poor Dickens was mouthing words incoherently.

“One more!” Cole cried to her—he had already dispatched four of the undead dead, and was pointing to the last bench.

The corpse upon it was now rising. She kicked out hard, catching the head with her booted heel, and causing the thing to roll off the bench. Cole tossed her another stake from the arsenal in his coat, and she slammed the finely honed wood hard into his chest.

The dead were now—dead. Dickens had slumped all the way to the floor and was just staring at the two of them.

“Mr. Dickens,” Cole said gently, hunkering down in front of him. “This is a really bad disease, and the problem is that it's contagious. Once you're ripped apart, you can end up coming back. This is the way the dead must be dispatched. Now, to finish this off, they all need to be decapitated. Can you handle this?”

Dickens stared at him, blinking.

“We've got to get this situation under control, now,”
Cole said gently. “Or…well, you've seen what can happen.”

Dickens nodded. Cole stretched out a hand. Dickens took it and pulled himself up. He shivered and seemed to give himself a huge mental shake. He saluted, though Cole wasn't military. “Yes, sir!”

“I'm going to need a wagon and some shrouds. Can you get them for me? We'll get these men buried before it gets any later. This is one occasion when they just can't be sent home for proper burial.”

“Yes, sir!” Dickens started for the stairs. He came back. “I have a bowie knife on me, sir. The orders came through over the wire that we were all to be armed with bowie knives. I can do my part here, sir.”

Cole hesitated, wanting to keep the man's mind sound.

Megan stepped forward, touching his arm and speaking quietly. “He should learn while he's with us.”

Cole nodded.

Dickens, now that he was gaining control over his shock, was going to prove to be a stronger individual than Megan had previously thought. She went quietly to work on her own kills while Cole showed Dickens how to best sever through the neck. It took some strength.

Finally, Dickens left to acquire the wagon and shrouds. Then he returned, Newcomb was with him, and between the four of them, they brought the corpses up, the heads in a separate bag, and then began the long haul to the Harpers Ferry cemetery. It was at the top of the hill, and trees surrounded it, shrouded in fog. Megan kept a staunch lookout while the men dug graves and buried the remains of the deceased.

Dickens was quiet a moment while Cole tamped down the earth that covered the heads.

“That one fellow,” he said. “The one who came after me. I knew him well in life. We served together since the beginning of the war. That was Petey Marlburg. A good friend. A staunch Catholic.”

“We can have words said over him tomorrow,” Megan said, her tone consoling.

“That's right, son. But when you come back with the—uh, disease, well, then you need to be put down and put to rest properly, then have the words said over you, do you understand?” Sergeant Newcomb asked.

Dickens nodded. “Yes, sir. I—uh—I sure do understand. After tonight. Was it—was it other
diseased
men who did this?”

“Yes, precisely,” Cole said. “And that's why we have to find the men who are out there—those with the disease.”

Dickens nodded. They all walked back to the wagon and crawled aboard. Dickens took the reins for the slow and careful journey back down the hill in the dark. Megan was certain that they would be attacked any minute. She sat with her hands in her pockets, ready for whatever came.

But though the night sky was dark, and though they were surrounded by mist, no one, and no creature, assaulted them. It had grown late—they should have been at the general's quarters an hour before to share supper, but there had been nothing they could do. If they were to be of any help here, they had to see that the dead were
dead,
and not buried before then.

It turned out that they had very decent quarters, with Cole and Megan in separate bedrooms on the second
floor, their four-man military escort in bedrooms on the ground level. There was a woman, a middle-aged, still-round spinster named Mary-Anne Weatherly who tended to their rooms and to their needs. They washed up quickly. While bringing in warm water so that Megan could clean herself, she informed her that no matter what people said, she just wasn't afraid of Rebs, Yankees, guns, bombs or diseases. For the good Lord had taken her first love in the war with Mexico, and her second love last year at Gettysburg. She was ready to join all her loved ones when He chose, and that was that.

She winked at Megan, though, and told her, “But I don't mind paying heed to superstition, I'll have you know. I sleep next to my own little altar with a beautiful, carved wood crucifix made by my nephew and blessed by a priest. And I go up to church every day of my life and make crosses all over my body with holy water. When the good Lord wants me, he gets me. But no other!”

With that, she left Megan smiling and a little lighter. Megan finished scrubbing up the best she could. Right as she finished, Cole knocked at her door and asked in his deep voice if she was ready.

She joined him quickly.

The general had taken up residency in an abandoned home, as well. There were still pictures of somebody's family on the mantel, and on a few of the side tables. They'd probably been taken just before the start of the war, when photography had grown so popular. Older silhouette drawings sat side by side with the images.

The family had consisted of a mother and father, two sons and a daughter. The mother had a beautiful smile. The girl seemed to adore the brothers she sat between. The grandparents had…pleasing profiles.

Megan wondered if these people were all alive. She hoped so, and that one day, they would come back and laughter might fill the house again.

Their meal had been kept warm, and it had dried out. The general had already dined with his other guests—Lisette Annalise and Trudy Malcolm.

“Well, how very lovely and charming, Miss Fox—you've accompanied Cole,” Lisette said, greeting Megan.

She practically gushed the words. Her eyes were brilliant, and anyone might have thought that she was honestly open, warm and giving.

“Yes, I think I can be of service,” Megan said.

“Dickens reported on your service, Miss Fox,” General Bickford said gravely. “How did you come to know how to deal with this disease so well?”

“I saw it on the battlefield.”

“And you were on the battlefield, supporting Southern troops?” Bickford asked.

“Yes, sir. I am from Virginia.”

“Many a man from Virginia chose to stay with the Union,” Bickford pointed out.

One of the general's aides handed Megan a sherry. She accepted it, weighing her answer. “And many a man did not. But I'm not here to wage a war against anything other than disease, sir. And I pray that you will take advantage of that.”

“I am grateful that you have chosen to lend us your expertise,” he said, jovial and expansive from drinking.

“And your strength!” Lisette said. “Trudy has told me you were amazing—better than any male soldier—when your train was beset this afternoon.”