I froze in place, struck tarn
like a rabbit in the face of a larger, faster predator. Adam and Chuck, now
dead, had dropped their flashlights, and their beams shined at weird angles across
the dark underground chamber. From my place against the wall, I saw the dust-covered
vampire as he loomed over Chuck’s limp body, gorging himself on hot blood from the
boy’s exposed throat.
I dared not move, afraid that the slightest motion would draw the
vampire’s lethal attention. Seconds later, the vampire threw Chuck’s corpse to
the back of the chamber, where it smashed into the coffin that had held the
vampire only a few minutes before. The coffin, with the year 1862 carved on its
lid, splintered into a pile of dusty planks and shards of rotten wood.
The vampire seemed addled by its belly full of blood. He turned slowly towards
me, his eyes yellow-green in the trembling beam of my flashlight. Blood covered
his chin and the front of his old-fashioned suit, his face bloated leech-like
with blood.
Fight or flight kicked in. I made a move towards the exit, but it was
in vain. The vampire was too fast. He was on me in an instant.
It was in that moment that my right hand closed around the jack-knife in
my pocket. The vampire reared up, his fangs bone white in his monstrous face. I
could think of only one thing to do. I pulled the knife from my pocket, flipped
it open with my thumb and slashed the vampire across his bare throat, just
below his upturned chin.
Surprise passed over
the vampire’s face like a black cloud. He clutched his throat with one clawlike
hand, black blood pouring over his wrinkled fingers, while his other hand held
me by my shirt. He roared and flung me across the room with an unnatural
display of strength.
I landed atop what remained
of the busted coffin. When I hit the dirty floor, I heard a sickening snap as my
left wrist broke like a dry twig, leaving me with an injury that almost kept me
out of the army years later. I dropped my flashlight, and its beam fell across
Chuck’s dead white face.
I fought the urge to
wretch. The pain in my left arm was excruciating. I’d dropped my knife and
began to search for it in the dim light. Like the beat of a bat’s wing, I heard
the vampire move behind me, and it was then that my right hand fell on a long stake
of wood, part of the busted coffin.
I gripped the wood
so tightly that splinters dug into my fingers and palms. I spun just in time to
meet the vampire’s charge. Fear and rage came down on me in an
adrenaline-fueled wave, and I did the only thing I could to protect myself.
I brought the sharp
point of wood down with all my strength on the vampire’s breast. His clothes
were old and dry-rotted, and the wood passed easily through the yellowed dress
shirt he was wearing. The wood sank deep into his chest, and the vampire let
loose a demoniac howl that
echoed deep within the subterranean chamber.
The vampire
staggered back and clutched at the piece of wood protruding from his chest. The
creature stumbled backwards over Adam’s body and fell to his back on the floor.
His feet kicked wildly, and I crossed the room in a flash.
The vampire was
down, and I meant to keep him that way. For the moment, I had the advantage. I
ran to the vampire, leapt atop him and pulled the stake from his chest. I
brought it down again and again like a berserker, stabbing him in his chest,
neck and face.
How the wooden stake
did not break is beyond me. Tears and sweat streamed down my face. I gasped for
breath and again fought the urge to vomit.
Eventually, the
vampire stopped moving, and I got to my feet. I stooped to pick up my
flashlight and saw that the creature was covered with gore. I had killed it. It
had ceased to be undead.
Suddenly and without
warning, the chamber began to shake. Dirt and dust rained down from overhead,
and clumps of brick broke away from the chamber walls. It was another earth
tremor.
Remember that I was
only 11 years old. Had I been older, I might have stopped for my dead friends.
Instead, I bolted from the chamber and plunged headlong back down the narrow
tunnel of the cave. I fell countless times as all manner of debris rained down
on my head and back. I barely made it outside before the tunnel collapsed.
A cloud of dust
belched from the cave as I stumbled down into the fan of sand between the mouth
of the cave and Gaillard Creek. Exhausted, I passed out in the sand and didn’t
wake until after the sunset. The walk back home alone was long, cold and dark.
When I entered my
house, my mother took one look at me and called 911. The police and an
ambulance showed up minutes later. At first, I told them the truth, everything
about the cave and the vampire.
As you might imagine,
they thought I was mentally confused as a result of my injuries and whatever
had happened out in the woods. As the search for Adam and Chuck began, I told a
big, burly captain with Claiborne Search and Rescue where to find the cave. It wasn’t
on any maps, but they went there and found the collapsed tunnel just like I
described it.
Efforts to clear the
tunnel were fruitless. There was just too much debris, and the entrance to the
cave was so deep in the woods that it was impossible to get heavy earth-moving
equipment there. After a week, rescuers just gave up. Many never believed that
there’d been a cave there to begin with.
I was the lone
survivor.
No comments:
Post a Comment