Free Vampire Rising by Larry Benjamin Page A

fright.
    The bus, reduced to flickering red lights in
the falling night, disappeared altogether as Barnabas knelt by the
side of the road. He dug a shallow hole, and gently laid the
crucifix into it. He covered the hole, and placed a large white
stone over the burial ground.
     
    At the end of the dirt road, hard packed
with gravel and edged with sharpened stones, a cul-de-sac had been
carved out of a dark wood. This was Chicksand Street. Massive iron
gates, set between a high stone wall, hung crooked, and open, from
their ancient rusting hinges. Looking up at the gates, Barnabas
noticed an assemblage of small, long-legged gray-brown birds with
pale bellies and short rounded wings riddled with white feathers,
perched along the top of the gates. Mockingbirds. They seemed to be
watching him as they chirped and chattered among themselves.
    Beyond the gates, Barnabas could see large
old houses of Wissahickon Schist, and brownstone, and dark red
brick with heavy slate roofs and shutters inside and out. Each
house had a massive front door of quarter-sawn oak banded with
iron. On either side of each door hung old-fashioned gas lanterns
whose soft flickering light swatted ineffectually at the dark.
Lawns of fescue grass shone dull pale-green. Behind the houses was
a thick wood of cypress and yew trees, and beyond that, fields of
moss and mushroom.
    The houses were grouped around a broad
circular avenue of cobblestone edged with slate curbs. The full
moon, as if seeing him standing at the gate, paused in its journey
across the sky and hung between the trees for a moment, unfurling
its pale blue bounty like a magic carpet down the avenue, beckoning
Barnabas to enter. Number 197 was straight ahead at the apex of the
circle. Barnabas stepped through the gates and nervously began to
whistle. Soon he heard an echo of his own tuneless whistling.
Startled, he looked around and realized it was only the
mockingbirds imitating him.
     
    * * * * *
     

Gatsby
    THE FRONT DOOR WAS OPEN so Barnabas
walked in. Voices rose and fell on the cool air. A large room to
his left held a mixed lot of men: some were dark-haired while
others were blond; some had long straight hair, while others had
kinky hair; some had pony tails, and others wore their hair cropped
military-short; some had straight aquiline noses; others had broad,
flat noses. They all seemed under forty. Many were dressed as he
was in sneakers and low-rise jeans, but many more were dressed in
well cut black suits over gray high-collared shirts and matching
vests. Most spoke like typical Americans while others, clearly
French and Spanish, spoke with extravagant accents. But they all
had voluptuous red lips and complexions so pale they might have
been hewn from alabaster or amber.
    Several men watched him with a mix of
curiosity and lust. Barnabas knew men found him attractive, but the
knowledge did nothing to bolster his confidence; he’d grown up a
ward of the state, unwanted and invisible for too long. When one of
the men caught his eye and smiled at him, Barnabas returned the
smile, with a tentative one of his own which was clearly a polite
acknowledgement, but not an invitation to further intimacy. Another
man, bolder than the first, detached himself from his group and
approached. Once Barnabas explained he was a guest of Mr.
Calloway’s the man drew back and directed him down a dark hall to
the music room.
    Barnabas had to pass through a rotunda to
get to the music room. The rotunda was furnished with a large round
table on which lay trays of food. Above the table hung a large
chandelier of smoked glass whose jet crystals dangled from an iron
band like black icicles in the chilly air.
    Two men stood against a pair of French
doors, arguing, their eyes red as charcoals in a fire. Across the
room, a waiter, a swarthy young man with thin, pale lips, dressed
in white tie, and kid-skin gloves, stood watching them with hunger
and admiration. As Barnabas passed them another waiter, this one