The Strange Tale of Eli McMorn and the Vampire - Chapter One

I pulled up to the curb, stepped out of my car and looked up at the house on Claiborne’s Academy Street. I checked to make sure that I had everything I needed for the interview before walking up the steps to the front door. Eli McMorn, now retired, had agreed to talk with me and nothing would embarrass me more than to have to stop and return to the car for something I’d forgotten.

A few minutes later, I stood on his small front porch. There was a folding chair on the stoop. I imagined the old man there in the evenings, watching the shadows grow long across the neighborhood.

I pressed the doorbell and heard it “bing bong” somewhere deep inside the house. I waited for what seemed like a long time, but no one came to the door, even after I pressed the bell twice more and knocked a few times. A pickup truck sat in the driveway, so I presumed McMorn was somewhere inside.

Was something wrong? Had he changed his mind about the interview? Was he napping? Was he dead?

I stepped back down into the grass and took a few steps towards the backyard. I planned to find a backdoor and ring the bell there in hopes that he would answer. As it turned out, that wasn’t necessary.

The back of the house featured a small, screened-in porch and when I reached the steps, I found the old reporter asleep in a weathered Adirondack chair with a paperback book turned down across his stomach. In an effort not to surprise the old man, I called out to him, and he awoke with a start. Quick as a cat, he produced a large handgun, seemingly from out of nowhere.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked, setting the book down on a low table beside his chair. It was a battered copy of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” Before I could answer, he moved to the screen door and pushed it open.

He was tall and well-built for an old man. His eyes were dark, but his hair was white, what some would call patrician. He’d shaved and his khaki pants were ironed. There was a small notepad in the breast pocket of his shirt.

I held up both hands to show that I was unarmed and forced a smile. “I’m Molly Webster from The Claiborne Herald,” I said. I fished my reporter’s ID out of my purse and handed it to him.

He smiled and stuffed the gun in the small of his back. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I forgot that today is Thursday. Come on up and have a seat.”

He held the door open and motioned me to an empty chair. He offered me a soft drink and, to be polite, I accepted. Before returning to his seat, he popped open a can of beer and took a big swallow.

“Your editor said you wanted to talk with me about the old days,” he said.

I nodded. “I think it’s important that someone put to bed some of the rumors about your career and document some of your experiences.”

“You know you’re not the first reporter to come to me like this,” he said. “A few others have had the same idea. None of them stuck with it.”

“I’d like to give it a shot if it’s all the same to you,” I said. I produced a small recorder and placed it on the small table between us, right beside his worn copy of “Dracula.” “Is it ok to record the interview?”

He looked out across his small backyard and considered this for a few seconds. “I’m sure it’s fine,” he said with a smile. “Where do you want to begin?”

“Let’s start with your early days at The Herald,” I said.

“That was a long time ago,” he said. “I was younger than you are now. I didn’t know a cutline from a byline when I started.”

I pointed to his copy of “Dracula” with my pen. “That’s one of my favorites,” I said. “You believe in vampires?”

He gave me a good-natured smile. “Oh, yeah.”

“Really?”

“You bet.”

“Why is that?”

“Because they’re real. I’ve seen them.”

I flipped open the cover to my notepad and began taking notes. “Tell me more,” I said.

“Miss, if you write that up, we’ll both look like nuts,” he said.

“If there’s something to it, I want to hear about it,” I said.

“You sure you want to go down that road? I could just as easily tell you about all the heinous crimes, bad wrecks and awful fires I went to over the years.”

“I’d like to hear what you have to say about vampires.”

“Of course you do.” He took another swallow of beer and looked out across his yard. “Ok. I’ll tell you. You can write it up like you want. I’m an old man. What do I care?”

“Sounds good. Where do we start?”

“That’s easy. I’ll tell you about the first vampire I ever saw. That was a long time ago, long before you were born.”

“You remember it well?”

“Absolutely. It wasn’t just the first one that I ever saw. It was also the first one that I had to kill.”

(All rights reserved. This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.)