Sunday, April 26, 2020

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


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.

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