But the glimpse is fading. Too soon, she's dead, and again I'm left with nothing. Another emptiness. Another yearning.
I don't know what to do now. I've heard that I can make other vampires. But that gets complicated, don't it? I decide I'm just gonna burn down the barn. So I do that, and I fly into the night.
flying
Spiraling upward into the air now. It feels good, I think. Mostly I hear the wind but underneath I can hear Hangman's Holler sleeping. I see all the people living their dollhouse lives. Even my own house seems like one of those HO scale model Appalachian houses in Timmy Valentine's infinite train layout.
Look, there's the knoll where Errol's buried. There's a circlet of little trees that Momma had planted there when we got our first big check from Stupendous Entertainment. I remember I used to put my ear to the earth and think I could hear him call to me in his baby voice. The voice was echoey, you know, that Poltergeist sound effect, someone in the studio showed me how they do that, run it through a digital box, human in, ghost out ... it's wild.
Suddenly I want to do that again, so I plummet down out of the sky, bird of prey now, beak out, wings unfurled against the silvery moon ... I'm bad, dude, I'm down, that's how they made me talk in Hollywood, lose that Kentucky twang or we'll lose the market share... Now I'm on the ground, morphing to human form just when my claws collide with grass and stone.
The grass is tall here. It's like it was sucking extra chemicals out of the soil, organic fertilizer I guess. I know Errol's body must have been consumed a long time ago but maybe there's something still here, some piece of him, hovering around the place Momma put him.
I put my ear to the earth.
And you know ... I can hear so fucking much, the itty-bitty earthworms chomping the soil and shitting it back out as they burrow, the crickets rubbing their legs together ... but I can't hear my brother.
What's wrong? There was always something. Yeah, my imagination, my right brain, something, calling to me. Maybe it's because I don't have an imagination no more. I'm an imagined thing myself. I'm only real because so many people have watched so many vampire movies and made me into a true thing. I can't imagine. I can't dream.
Or maybe ... it's because life and death are linked together, flowing in and out of each other, a big old circle like PJ would say ... and so the living can hear an echo of the dead, and the dead can whisper in the ears of the living ... but what about me? I ain't alive and I ain't dead. I'm not part of the great cycle of infinity. I got through the cracks.
Yeah. It's all dawning on me now. Just how alone I am. Jesus is this what I bargained for prayed for exchanged souls with a vampire for? The hunger's still there. The boy I killed satisfied it for only a split second ... Becky Slade a bit longer, because she was someone who used to feel for me when I was still alive. But now it's all come back. It will never go away.
There used to be a whole rainbow of emotions and now there's only one.
Errol! My scream is the cry of a vulture. But there's no carrion to feed on. Feverishly I'm clawing up the soil because I want to know if there's even a little piece of my family I can cling to. But there isn't. I can't even trust my memory. I'm not even sure if Errol ever lived, or if it's just a thing I saw in a mirror once, a fucked-up reflection of myself.
The emotions have gone from color to black-and-white. No, it's worse than that. It's like the whole universe has become one humungous motherfucking video that I'm trapped in ... some virtual reality thing ... and everything I touch, taste, smell is hyper-vivid because it's all electronically pumped up and color-jazzed and juiced up with mega-intensities but ... but ... I still don't really touch, taste, smell ... no ... I don't feel a fucking thing ... nothing, nothing ... only the hunger.
flying
The airplane was going through some kind of turbulence. Lady Chit stirred. A pang went through her chest and she saw that there was a small, dark, bloody stain where her bra had become plastered to the wound in her breast.
Please, came a still small voice in the back of her head. Please, please, release me.
She ransacked her purse and finally managed to dig out one last, dusty Valium. She swallowed it, and the rest of her wine, and once more tumbled down the well of nightmares. ...
And still it was night over Asia; flying westward, time stretches; a night can seem forever.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JOHN GREGORY BETANCOURT is the author of eleven science fiction and fantasy novels (including Jonny Zed, the BlindArcher, Rememory and Rogue Pirate). With his spouse, Kim, he runs the World Fantasy Award-nominated independent publishing company, The Wildside Press. He also claims Jean Stine was "largely responsible for my career today."
JANRAE FRANK is a well-known fantasy author and critic. Her fiction has appeared in anthologies like Amazons and Dragon Tales; her non-fiction in The Washington Post, Movieline, Black Belt and other publications. She is currently working on her first book, Women At Arms: An Encyclopedia of Female Soldiers, Patriots and Spies, due out from Facts on File in 1996.
DIANA G. GALLAGHER's Hugo winning fan artwork hardly prepared readers for her novels of dark fantasy and horror. Her most recent works include Arcade, an entry in the young adult "Deep Space Nine" series, and adult fare like The Alien Dark. Her main hobby is trying not to be a sucker for dogs.
E. J. GOLD is a triple-threat man: science fiction writer, guru and fine artist. His science fiction includes such delicious send-ups as "Those Villains from Vega 8," his work on personal-transformation, the best-selling, Lazy Man's Guide to Death and Dying – while his paintings, ceramics and sculpture have adorned some of the world's most famous museums.
ADRIENNE MARTINE-BARNES is the author of such finely crafted fantasy novels as The Chambered Nautilus, Dragon Rises, and The Sea Sword. With Diana Paxton she is the co-author of the delightful Fionn MacCumhal series. She is also a highly talented craftswoman whose masks, quilts, spirit paintings and hand-dyed fabrics adorn many homes.
DAWN MARTINEZ-BYRNE describes herself as a costumer, Society for Creative Anachronism dropout, and folk singer. She and her family also sell jewelry, costume items and swords at local science fiction conventions. She is a graduate of several writing workshops. "The Cage" is her first story.
CHRIS MORAN, a self-described "book-editing shamanic drag queen," is a former editor of Whole Life magazine. A small press specialist and trade book editor, Chris lives in Topanga Canyon, California, surrounded by a circle of "androgynes, gynanders, womyn-loving-womyn, and various friends of the wild and the night."
KEVIN ANDREW MURPHY has appeared in anthologies like Wildcards and The King is Dead: Tales of Elvis Post Mortem, as well as such distinguished publications as Weird Tales and Midnight Zoo. His passions include folklore, mythology and medieval alchemy. He is proudest of his contribution to Weird Tales for Shakespeare.
WILLIAM F. NOLAN is one of the Grand Old Men of horror. His reputation is equaled only by that of Ray Bradbury. Nolan is the author of 55 books, 112 short stories, 500 non-fiction pieces and over 40 television and film scripts. His novels include Helltracks and the Logan's Run trilogy.
DARRELL SCHWEITZER is a World Fantasy Award nominee author. He is also one of the field's most perceptive editors and critics. His novels include We Are All Legends and The Shattered Goddess. His stories have been collected in Transients and Tom O'Bedlam's Night Out.
DAVID N. WILSON is one writer who is at sea a lot of the time with the U.S. Navy. This gives him plenty of leisure time with few distractions: an ideal environment for a writer. Not so surprisingly, he has become a productive short story writer whose work has appeared in genre magazines like Cemetery Dance, Death Room and The Tomb, and been selected for Best of The Year anthologies.
S. P. SOMTOW is the mysterious pseudonym of a very affable fellow, who just happens to be an award winner in several different genres of literature and fields of artistic endeavor. He is the author of a number of critically acclaimed horror novels including Moon Dance and Va
mpire Junction. His award-winning short stories have appeared in more than three dozen magazines and anthologies.
MORE ABOUT THE UNDEAD...
(The editors believe readers whose thirst for the company of the undead is as yet unslaked might enjoy some or all of the following books and motion pictures.)
RECOMMENDED READING
Adams, Carmen
Song of the Vampire
Aldriss, Brian
Dracula Unbound
Anscombe, Roderick
The Secret Life of Laszlo Count Dracula
Andersson, C. Dean
I Am Dracula
Beath, Warrenton
Bloodletter
Bergstrom, Elaine
The Dracula Story Continues
Blood to Blood
Mina
Etc.
Billson, Anne
Suckers
Brand, Rebecca (Suzy McKee Charnas)
The Ruby Tear
Briery, Traci
The Vampire Journals
Brownworth, Victoria A.
Night Bites: Tales of Blood & Lust: Vampire Stories by Women
Bunson, Matthew
The Vampire Encyclopedia
Cacek, P. D.
Night Prayers
Cecillione, Michael
Thirst
Charnas, Suzi MacKee
Vampire Tapestry
Codrescu, Andrei
The Blood Countess
Colins, Charles M. (ed.)
Collins, Nancy
In the Blood
Constantine, Storm
Burying the Shadow
Copper, Basil
The Vampire: In Legend and Fact
Cox, Greg & T. K. F. Weisskopf (ed.)
Tomorrow Sucks
Dalby, Richard (ed.)
Dracula's Brood
Dalby, Richard (ed.)
Vampire Stories
Daniels, Les
Black Castle
Daniels, Phillip
The Dracula Murders
Datlow, Ellen & Terri Windling (ed.)
Snow White, Blood Red
Datlow, Ellen ed.
A Whisper in Blood
Dozois, Gardner, Shiela Williams (ed.)
Isaac Asimov's Vampires
Eccarius, J.G.
The Last Days of Christ the Vampire
Ellis, Jack
Nightlife
Elrod, P.N.
The Vampire Files
BloodList
Lifeblood
Blood Circle
Etc.
Elrod, P.N. & Martin H. Greenberg (ed.)
The Time of the Vampires
Farren, Mick
Darklost
Frayling, Christopher
Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula
Friesner, Esterh & Martin H. Greenberg (ed.)
Blood Muse
Gilbreath, Allan
Gajen
Giron, Sephera
Eternal Sunset
Golden, Christie
Vampire of the Mists
Gomz, Jewelle
The Gilda Stories
Cooper, Molly
Classic Vampire Stories: Timeless Tales to Sink Your Teeth Into
Gottlieb, Sherry
Love Bite
Gottlieb, Sherry
Worse Than Death
Grant, Charles
The Soft Whisper of the Dead
Grant, Linda
Vampire Bytes
Greenberg, Martin H. / Lawrence Schimel (ed.)
Bloodlines: Vampire Stories From England
Greenberg, Martin H. / Lawrence Schimel (ed.)
Fields of Blood: Vampire Stories of the Heartland
Greenberg, Martin H. / Lawrence Schimel (ed.)
Southern Blood: Vampire Stories from the American South
Greenberg, Martin H. / Lawrence Schimel (ed.)
Streets of Blood: Vampire Stories from York City
Greenberg, Martin H. /Elizabeth Scarborough
Vampire Slayers: Stories of Those Who Dare To Take Back the Night
Grimson, Todd
Stainless
Guiley, Rosemary
Complete Vampire Companion
Guinn, Jeff
Something in the Blood
Haining, Peter & Peter Tremayne
The Un-Dead: The Legend of Bram Stoker and Dracula
Hambly, Barbara & Greenberg, Martin, eds
Sisters of the Night
Hambly, Barbara
Those Who Hunt the Night
Hamilton, Laurell K.
The Anita Blake Series
Blue Moon
Kiss of Shadows
Obisidan Butterfly
Etc.
Hill, William
Dawn of the Vampire
Holland, Tom
Slave of My Thirst
Huff, Tanya
The Blood Series
Blood Debt
Blood Pact
Blood Price
Etc.
Hutson, Shaun
Erebus
James, Robert
Blood Mist
Jensen, Ruby Jean
Vampire Child
Johnson, Ken
Hounds of Dracula
Jones, Aphrodite
The Embrace: A True Vampire Story
Jones, Stephen (ed.)
The Giant Book of Vampires
Jones, Stephen
The Illustrated Vampire Movie Guide
Kalogridis, Jeanne
The Diaries of Emily Dracul
Children of the Vampire
Convenant of the Vampire
Lord of the Vampires
Etc.
Keesey, Pam (ed.)
Daughters of Darkness
Killough, Lee
Bloodwalk
Knight, Amarantha (ed.) (Nancy Kilpatrick)
Love Bites
Krause, Staley & Stewart Wieck (ed.)
The World of Darkness
Lake, Paul
Among the Immortals
Laymon, Richard
The Stake
Lee, Christopher
Tall, Dark & Gruesome
Lee, Tanith
The Darkness Series
Dark Dance
Darkness
Personal Darkness
Le Fanu, J. Sheridan
Carmilla
Lory, Robert
The Hand of Dracula
Lumley, Brian
Blood Brothers
The Last Aerie
Blood Wars
Marffin, Kyle
Carmilla – The Return
Marffin, Kyle
Gothique
Martin, George R. R.
Fevre Dream
Martindale, T. Chris
Nightblood
Matheson, Richard
I Am Legend
McCammon, Robert
They Thirst
McMahan, Jeffrey N.
Vampires Anonymous
McNally, Raymond & Radu Florescu
In Search of Dracula: A True History of Dracula and Vampire Legends
Mitchell, Mary Ann
Quenched
Mitchell, Mary Ann
Sips of Blood
Monahan, Brent
The Book of Common Dread
Morgan, Jill
Blood Brothers
Moriarty, Timothy
Vampire Nights
Nasaw, Jonathan
Shadows
Navarro, Yvonne
Afterage
Neiderman, Andrew
The Need
Newman, Kim
The Anno Dracula Series
Anno-Dracula
The Bloody Red Baron
Judgment of Tears
Etc.
Parker, Lara
Dark Shadows: Angelique's Descent
Parry, Michel
Countess Dracula
P
attison, Barrie
The Seal of Dracula
Pierce, Meredith Ann
The Dark Angel
Polidori, John William
The Vampire
Pratchett, Terry
Carpe Jugulum
Preiss, Byron (ed.)
Ultimate Dracula
Price, Ardin & Trishna Leszczyc
The Dracula Cookbook of Blood
Proctor, David
Quotable Vampire: Immortal Blood Lines from Vampire Fiction and Film
Ramsland, Katherine
Prism of the Night
Reaves, Michael
Night Hunter
Rice, Anne
The Vampire Chronicles
Interview With the Vampire
Pandora
The Queen of the Damned