Free The Darkening Dream by Andy Gavin Page A

coiled about his lifeless flesh.
    “Brace yourselves,” Alex said.
    He raised the long spear. Sarah could see that his hands were shaking, but he drove the stake down hard into the boy’s chest.
    The creature’s dark eyes — so different from the blue ones Sarah had seen in the Williamses’ parlor — snapped open. He hissed and squirmed. Alex leaned into the spear, twisting it deeper. Pinned like a collection beetle, Charles flailed, limbs lashing out. Sunlight crept into the pit, and the smoke issuing from the body thickened. The soft hands transformed into wicked claws, and a forest of teeth sprouted from his mouth. Ropes of blood spat from his hideous maw and oozed from the point where the stake penetrated his chest.
    Even impaled, he managed to stretch up a taloned hand to grope at Alex’s foot. Alex tried to move away, but his grip on the pinioning spear tethered him to the creature.
    “Sam, take the knife and cut off his head! Hit him hard.”
    Sam picked up the machete, examined its two-foot length, then looked into the grave.
    “I can’t reach from here!”
    “Just stay away from the sharp parts, I’ll try and keep him pinned.”
    Alex danced to evade the groping claws.
    “I’m doing the best I can.” Sam lay on the earth and stabbed down into the pit with the machete.
    Sarah grabbed up one of the shovels and tried to whack at the hands reaching for Alex. Nervousness — and perhaps a general lack of shovel experience — caused her to miss her target.
    “Watch the feet, please!” Alex yelled as he dodged the blow.
    Sam wasn’t faring much better. The vampire grabbed the tip of the machete, forcing Sam into an awkward tug-of-war, head and shoulders drawn toward the pit.
    “Fool idea using the blade!” he yelled.
    Sarah raised her shovel again but found herself frozen when her eyes locked on the thing below. Its flesh blackened and bubbled, making a sound like sausage in the pan. The smoke became a thick column, and she coughed and gagged on the fumes, dropped the shovel into the pit when her hand flew to her mouth. Thick pink vomit splattered her pants and hard leather boots. She turned away and wiped the strands off her face with her sleeve.
    Sam jerked the machete free and moved towards her.
    “No!” Alex yelled. “The head!”
    Small flames sprouted from the vampire’s clothing. The horrible hissing and squirming continued. The dead boy grabbed the shovel Sarah had dropped and swung it toward Alex—
    Who released the stuck spear to avoid being clobbered. Flames leapt out of the pit as the vampire struggled to rise.
    “I’ll do it my way.” Sam knelt, snatched up the other shovel and struck.
    He missed the neck — the lower face collapsed with a sickening crunch and a burst of flame. The thing emitted a feeble hiss. Alex grabbed the bobbing stake and forced the vampire down while Sam swung again at the neck. This time the blade drove cleanly through blackened skin and bone like a carving knife through overcooked turkey. The head separated and rolled to the side. The body stilled, flames intensified, and acrid smoke poured upward into their faces.
    Sarah gagged again. Her stomach empty, her painful contractions gave birth to only a thin stream of fluid.
    Alex clung to the stake. “We need to boil the head. Sam, can you get it?”
    “You’ve got to be kidding?”
    But Sam used the shovel to push the charred, smoldering head up the side of the grave. The edge of the hole was ragged, and the skull kept falling off the shovel, thudding against the collapsing corpse. Finally, on the fourth try, he was able to flip it onto the grass above.
    In seconds Alex had pressed the garlic bulb into what remained of the mouth and kicked the head unceremoniously into the burlap bag.
    “Let’s break off the stake and get this dirt back into the grave.”

Eleven:
    The Morning After
    Salem, Massachusetts, Friday, October 24, 1913
    S ARAH RETURNED FROM THE graveyard feeling like a corpse herself. She