By Blood We Live (93 page)

Tookey made the sign of the cross at her. She flinched back. . . and then grinned at us again. We were too far away, and maybe too scared.

"Stop it!" I whispered. "Can't we stop it?"

"Too late, Booth!" Tookey says grimly.

Lumley had reached her. He looked like a ghost himself, coated in snow like he was. He reached for her. . . and then he began to scream. I'll hear that sound in my dreams, that man screaming like a child in a nightmare. He tried to back away from her, but her arms, long and bare and as white as the snow, snaked out and pulled him to her. I could see her cock her head and then thrust it forward—

"Booth!" Tookey said hoarsely. "We've got to get out of here!"

And so we ran. Ran like rats, I suppose some would say, but those who would weren't there that night. We fled back down along our own backtrail, falling down, getting up again, slipping and sliding. I kept looking back over my shoulder to see if that woman was coming after us, grinning that grin and watching us with those red eyes.

We got back to the Scout and Tookey doubled over, holding his chest. "Tookey!" I said, badly scared. "What—"

"Ticker," he said. "Been bad for five years or more. Get me around in the shotgun seat, Booth, and then get us the hell out of here."

I hooked an arm under his coat and dragged him around and somehow boosted him up and in. He leaned his head back and shut his eyes. His skin was waxy-looking and yellow.

I went back around the hood of the truck at a trot, and I damned near ran into the little girl. She was just standing there beside the driver's-side door, her hair in pigtails, wearing nothing but a little bit of a yellow dress.

"Mister," she said in a high, clear voice, as sweet as morning mist, "won't you help me find my mother? She's gone and I'm so cold—"

"Honey," I said, "honey, you better get in the truck. Your mother's—"

I broke off, and if there was ever a time in my life I was close to swooning, that was the moment. She was standing there, you see, but she was standing
on top
of the snow and there were no tracks, not in any direction.

She looked up at me then, Lumley's daughter Francie. She was no more than seven years old, and she was going to be seven for an eternity of nights. Her little face was a ghastly corpse white, her eyes a red and silver that you could fall into. And below her jaw I could see two small punctures like pinpricks, their edges horribly mangled.

She held out her arms at me and smiled. "Pick me up, mister," she said softly. "I want to give you a kiss. Then you can take me to my mommy."

I didn't want to, but there was nothing I could do. I was leaning forward, my arms outstretched. I could see her mouth opening, I could see the little fangs inside the pink ring of her lips. Something slipped down her chin, bright and silvery, and with a dim, distant, faraway horror, I realized she was drooling.

Her small hands clasped themselves around my neck and I was thinking: Well, maybe it won't be so bad, not so bad, maybe it won't be so awful after a while—when something black flew out of the Scout and struck her on the chest. There was a puff of strange-smelling smoke, a flashing glow that was gone an instant later, and then she was backing away, hissing. Her face was twisted into a vulpine mask of rage, hate, and pain. She turned sideways and then. . . and then she was gone. One moment she was there, and the next there was a twisting knot of snow that looked a little bit like a human shape. Then the wind tattered it away across the fields.

"Booth!" Tookey whispered. "Be quick, now!" And I was. But not so quick that I didn't have time to pick up what he had thrown at that little girl from hell. His mother's Douay Bible.

That was some time ago. I'm a sight older now, and I was no chicken then. Herb Tooklander passed on two years ago. He went peaceful, in the night. The bar is still there, some man and his wife from Waterville bought it, nice people, and they've kept it pretty much the same. But I don't go by much. It's different somehow with Tookey gone.

Things in the Lot go on pretty much as they always have. The sheriff found that fellow Lumley's car the next day, out of gas, the battery dead. Neither Tookey nor I said anything about it. What would have been the point? And every now and then a hitchhiker or a camper will disappear around there someplace, up on Schoolyard Hill or out near the Harmony Hill cemetery. They'll turn up the fellow's packsack or a paperback book all swollen and bleached out by the rain or snow, or some such. But never the people.

I still have bad dreams about that stormy night we went out there. Not about the woman so much as the little girl, and the way she smiled when she held her arms up so I could pick her up. So she could give me a kiss. But I'm an old man and the time comes soon when dreams are done.

You may have an occasion to be traveling in southern Maine yourself one of these days. Pretty part of the countryside. You may even stop by Tookey's Bar for a drink. Nice place. They kept the name just the same. So have your drink, and then my advice to you is to keep right on moving north. Whatever you do, don't go up that road to Jerusalem's Lot.

Especially not after dark.

There's a little girl somewhere out there. And I think she's still waiting for her good-night kiss.

What follows is a selected bibliography of vampire fiction. This list focuses primarily on vampires in fantasy, science fiction, and horror novels published within the last thirty years or so, and largely ignores young adult, tie-in (
Buffy
,
Angel
, etc.), romance, and erotica titles, although some crossover is inevitable. This list also looks beyond the obvious origins of the vampire genre; if you're not already intimately familiar with John William Polidori's Lord Ruthven (
The Vampyre
, 1819), Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla (
Carmilla
, 1872), or Bram Stoker's Dracula (
Dracula
, 1897), then start there. Titles noteworthy for their high literary value are marked with an asterisk.

To learn more about the stories in
By Blood We Live
, visit the anthology's website at johnjosephadams.com/by-blood-we-live.

Acevedo, Mario

—The Nymphos of Rocky Flats (et seq.)

Aldiss, Brian W.

—Dracula Unbound

Altman, Steven Elliot

—Zen in the Art of Slaying Vampires

Andersson, C. Dean

—I Am Dracula

Armstrong, F. W.

—Devouring

Armstrong, Kelley

—Bitten (Women of the Otherworld) (et seq.)

Arthur, Keri

—Full Moon Rising (et seq.)

Aycliffe, Jonathan

—The Lost

Baker, Scott

—Ancestral Hungers

—Dhampire

Banks, L. A.

—Minion (The Vampire Huntress Legend) (et seq.)

Barbeau, Adrienne and Michael Scott

—Vampyres of Hollywood

Bellamy, Dodie

—The Letters of Mina Harker

Bennett, Nigel and P. N. Elrod

—His Father's Son

Bergstrom, Elaine

—Shattered Glass (et seq.)

—Mina (as Marie Kiraly)

—Blood to Blood: The Dracula Story (as Marie Kiraly)

Bishop, David

—Operation Vampyr (et seq.)

Bledsoe, Alex

—Blood Groove

Bodner, Hal

—Bite Club

Bradbury, Ray

—From the Dust Returned *

Brand, Rebecca

(see also Charnas, Suzy McKee)

—The Ruby Tear

Briggs, Patricia

—Blood Bound (et seq.)

Brite, Poppy Z.

—Lost Souls

Butcher, Jim

—Storm Front (The Dresden Files) (et seq.)

Butler, Octavia

—Fledgling *

Cacek, P. D.

—Night Players

—Night Prayers

Cecilione, Michael

—Thirst

Charnas, Suzy McKee

(see also Brand, Rebecca)

—Stagestruck Vampires and

Other Phantasms

—The Vampire Tapestry

Clark, Simon

—Vampyrrhic

Clegg, Douglas

—The Priest of Blood (The Vampyricon)

Conner, Michael

—Arkangel

Curtin, Joseph

—Daughters of the Moon

Davidson, MaryJanice

—Undead and Unwed (et seq.)

Dedman, Stephen

—Shadows Bite Del Toro, Guillermo and Chuck Hogan

—The Strain (et seq.)

Dietz, Ulysses G.

—Desmond

Doherty, Robert

—Area 51: Nosferatu

Due, Tananarive

—My Soul to Keep (et seq.)

Elrod, P. N.

—Quincy Morris, Vampire

—Bloodlist (et seq.)

—Red Death (et seq.)

Farmer, Philip Jose

—Image of the Beast *

Farren, Mick

—Darklost (et seq.)

Ford, John M.

—Dragon Waiting: A Masque of History

Fox, Andrew

—Fat White Vampire Blues (et seq.)

Friedman, C. S.

—The Madness Season

—Black Sun Rising (et seq.)

Garton, Ray

—Live Girls

Golden Christopher

—Of Saints and Shadows (et seq.)

Gunn, Derek

—Vampire Apocalypse: A World Torn Asunder (et seq.)

Hambly, Barbara

—Those Who Hunt the Night

—Traveling With the Dead

—Renfield

Hamilton, Laurell K.

—Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter) (et seq.)

Harris, Charlaine

—Dead Until Dark (Southern Vampire) (et seq.)

Harris, Narrelle M.

—The Opposite of Life

Harrison, Kim

—Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows) (et seq.)

Hawkins, Kerri

—Blood Legacy: The Novel

Hendee, Barb and J. C. Hendee

—Dhampir (et seq.)

—In Shade and Shadow (et seq.)

Hudson, Charlie

—Already Dead (et seq.)

Huff, Tanya

—Blood Price (et seq.)

Jefferson, Jemiah

—Voice of the Blood

—Wounds

—Fiend

Jewell, Elizabeth

—Dark Callings: Bloodlines

Jones, Matt R.

—Hollywood Vampires: UnholyWar (et seq.)

Kenyon, Sherrilyn

—Fantasy Lover (Dark Hunter) (et seq.)

Kiernan, Caitlín R.

—The Five of Cups

Killough, Lee

—Blood Hunt (et seq.)

Kilpatrick, Nancy

—Child of the Night (Power of the Blood) (et seq.)

King, Stephen

—'Salem's Lot *

Knight, E. E.

—Way of the Wolf (Vampire Earth) (et seq.)

Kohler, Karen

—Slayer (et seq.)

Kostova, Elizabeth

—The Historian *

Kupfer, Allen C.

—The Journal of Professor Abraham Van Helsing

Lash, Batton

—The Vampire Brat

Laws, Stephen

—Fear Me

Laymon, Richard

—Bite

—The Traveling Vampire Show

Lee, Tanith

—Dark Dance (Blood Opera) (et seq.)

—Vivia

—Sabella

—The Blood of Roses

Lindqvist, John Ajvide

—Låt Den Rätte Komma In (Let the Right One In) *

Lumley, Brian

—Necroscope (et seq.)

—Vampire World I: Blood Brothers (et seq.)

Lukyanenko, Sergei

—Night Watch (et seq.)

Marks, John

—Fangland

Martin, George R. R.

—Fevre Dream *

Martinez, A. Lee

—Gil's All Fright Diner

Matheson, Richard

—I Am Legend *

McCammon, Robert

—They Thirst

McKinley, Robin

—Sunshine

McMullen, Sean

—Voyage of the Shadowmoon

—Glass Dragons

Mellick, Carlton, III

—The Faggiest Vampire

Merz, Jon F.

—The Fixer (et seq.)

Meyer, Stephenie

—Twilight (et seq.)

Mitchell, Mary Ann

—Sips of Blood (et seq.)

Moore, Christopher

—Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story (et seq.)

Mosiman, Billie Sue

—Red Moon Rising

—Malachi's Moon

—Craven Moon

Navarro, Yvonne

—AfterAge

Newman, Kim

—Anno Dracula (et seq.)

Powers, Tim

—The Stress of Her Regard (et seq.)*

Pratchett, Terry

—Carpe Jugulum

Resnick, Mike

—Stalking the Vampire

Rice, Anne

—Interview with the Vampire (et seq.) *

Romkey, Michael

—I, Vampire (et seq.)

—The Vampire's Violin

—American Gothic

Rusch, Kristine Kathryn

—Sins of the Blood

Saberhagen, Fred

—The Dracula Tape (et seq.)

Schiefelbein, Michael

—Vampire Vow (et seq.)

Shepard, Lucius

—The Golden

Simmons, Wm. Mark

—One Foot in the Grave

—Dead on My Feet

—Habeas Corpses

Smith-Ready, Jeri

—Wicked Game

Stableford, Brian

—Sherlock Holmes and the Vampires of Eternity

—The Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires

—The Empire of Fear

—Young Blood

Steakley, John

—Vampire$

Strieber, Whitley

—The Hunger (et seq.) *

Taylor, Karen E.

—Blood Secrets (et seq.)

Thompson, James M.

—Night Blood (et seq.)

Thurlo, David and Aimee Thurlo

—Second Sunrise (et seq.)

Thurman, Rob

—Nightlife

—Moonshine

Waggoner, Tim

—Necropolis

Watts, Peter

—Blindsight

Wellington, David

—13 Bullets

—99 Coffins

—Vampire Zero

—23 Hours

Wilson, Colin

—The Space Vampires

Wilson, F. Paul

—The Keep

—Midnight Mass

Wright, T. M.

—The Last Vampire

Yarbro, Chelsea Quinn

—Hôtel Transylvania (et seq.)

—A Flame in Byzantium (et seq.)

—Out of the House of Life (et seq.)

—The Angry Angel (et seq.)