Beloved Father

By Susan Elizabeth Gray

On a fateful Halloween night, fuelled by horror movies and teenage bravado, two boys set out to hunt for the grave of Bela Lugosi, the legendary actor who played Dracula.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. But didn’t it always start out that way?

The boys were in Mike’s basement when the germ of the idea first sprouted in their fertile minds.

Mike’s mom wasn’t home, another one of her “girls’ nights out”. She left Mike and Danny with money for a pizza before floating out the door on a sea of perfume, and an ignored admonition to “be good”.

Mike and Danny wasted no time, heading to the corner Minimart where they scooped up enough junk food to keep them going for the night. Back in the basement, a room smelling of Cheese Balls and dirty sneakers, they plopped on the worn plaid couch, put their feet up on the coffee table, and started channel surfing.

Mike’s mom didn’t have cable, only a crappy antenna that got some of the local stations, so the boys’ choices were limited. They settled on “Fright Night”, a broadcast of old horror movies, hosted by one of the weekend news jockeys dressed in various monster costumes, depending on the title of the feature. At each commercial break, the host, sitting in an ornate chair on a set designed to look like a haunted castle, gave details about the movies, and the actors that appeared in them.

Late that October night, the station was showing vampire movies, three in a row, starting with the original “Nosferatu” and Max Shrek creeping across the screen in silent, yet comical, horror. Both boys snorted with derision each time he appeared and threw cheese balls at the television set. Finally, the movie was over and the host appeared.

“Good ev-en-ing,” he said, in a voice that could only be described as broadcast Romanian. “Tonight’s second film is ‘Dracula’, the classic motion picture produced in 1931 and starring the one and only Bela Lugosi as the Count himself. Mwa-hah-hah-hah.”

“This is lame,” Danny said, digging deep into a bag of a bag of barbecue potato chips. “Black and white. Again.”

Mike shook his head. “No way, man. This one’s cool. I saw it before. That dude, Lugosi, is the coolest. I mean, they didn’t even have special effects but they made him look awesome creepy. Like there’s this one scene where he’s just standing there, staring, and all they did was shine two little flashlights on his eyes to make them glow. You’ll see.”

Five minutes later, both boys were silent, the only sound the munching of snacks and an occasional belch. They watched the entire film, unconsciously holding their breath as Dracula fed on Mina and was stalked by Harker and Dr. van Helsing. Finally, when the movie finished, the host came back on the screen, dressed in a black cape with streaks of red dripping from each corner of his mouth.

“Bela Lugosi went on to make many more horror films, but none were as successful as the first. Lugosi died in 1956 of a morphine overdose, right here in the Hollywood Hills. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, in his full Dracula costume, complete with cape and medallion.” The host paused, widening his eyes. “Visit his grave, if you dare. Mwa-hah-hah-hah.”

The screen faded to black, but not before the host’s said, “Next up, ‘The Satanic Rites of Dracula’, starring Christopher Lee.”

Danny leaned back against the couch. “You were right. That was cool.”

He turned the volume down on the remote, then drummed his fingers against the side of the Coke can.

“Hey, isn’t Holy Cross the bone yard near Fox Hills Mall? You know, it looks like a park, but it isn’t?”

Mike nodded. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

Danny’s eyes narrowed, glowing in the flickering light of the television screen, an eerie mimic of what they had just seen.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he said.

“What do you mean?” Mike’s voice was low and cautious.

“We go down there and check it out. See if we can find it.”

“Find what?” Mike said.

“Bela Lugosi’s grave, you moron. I’ll bet it’s really cool. Probably like a mausoleum or some shit like that.”

“I don’t know, man.”

“What are you, a pussy? It’ll be cool,” Danny said, with a hungry grin, in spite of the crumbs of potato chips stuck to his thin lips.

“Let’s go tonight,” Danny said.

“No way,” Mike said. “If my mom comes home and finds us gone, she’ll kill us both.”

Both boys knew that there was a good chance Mike’s Mom wouldn’t come home until dawn, or even later. By then, she’d be lucky to make it to her own bed, let alone check the basement to see if they were there.

Danny brought out the big guns. “Everyone at school will think we are hot shit. We’ll take pictures. Come on, Mikey. Don’t be a wuss.”

Mike pushed down the fear churning in his stomach. Danny did always have the best ideas. What could happen anyway? It would be cool to show everyone at school on Monday.

“Ok,” he said. “Let’s go.”

They crammed a few Snickers bars in their pockets, and Mike grabbed a flashlight from under the kitchen sink. “In case our phone batteries get low,” he said.

The air was cool but not biting as they rode their bikes across town, skirting what little traffic there was on Hollywood Boulevard, swerving to avoid the broken bottles that littered the street. At Sepulveda and Slauson, they cut through the parking lot of Fox Hills Mall, and finally reached the front gate of Holy Cross.

Holy Cross isn’t a cemetery, in the traditional sense of the word, but a “Memorial Park”. There are no above ground tombstones, no marble angels or granite obelisks; just the rolling hillside, landscaped with groups of trees and scattered benches. Each grave was marked by a flat, rectangular marker, the surface just large enough to contain the name of the deceased and the dates of birth and death.

Peering through the scrolled gate, the boys sighed.

“Shit,” Danny said. “It’s fucking huge. How are we going to find him?”

“Find who, boys?”

They jumped and turned around. An old man wearing a flannel shirt and torn jeans, with a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead had suddenly appeared, leaning against the cemetery fence.

“Uh, no one,” Mike answered, trying to keep his voice from trembling.

“Oh, I don’t believe that,” the old man said, his raspy voice sounding like he’d smoked a thousand cigarettes. “Two youngsters like you out on a night like this, so close to Halloween? Seems like you might be up to something.”

“What’s it to you?” Danny said. “None of your business, you old fart.”

The old man chuckled, pointing a gnarled finger at Danny. “You got spunk, boy. He’ll like that.”

Danny ignored him and nudged Mike. “Come on. We can do this. Even if it takes all night.”

“Maybe I can help,” the old man said. “I know this place like the back of my hand. But it’ll cost you.”

Danny eyed him, then looked at Mike. “You still got the change from the store?”

Mike nodded and dug into his pocket, removing two crumpled dollar bills and a handful of coin.

“How much you got?”

“Two bucks,” Mike said. “And some change.”

The old man snorted. “Hah.”

“But this is all we got,” Mike said.

“Yeah, take it or leave it,” Danny said.

The old man pushed back the brim of his cap. His skin looked as thin and yellowed as parchment, and his dark eyes bored into the boys.

“Who are you looking for?” the man said, stretching out a hand, palm up.

“Uh, Bela Lugosi,” Mike answered.

“Dra-cu-la!” The old man cackled, reaching forward to grab the money from Mike’s hand. “The Count himself.”

“Ok,” Danny said. “Now tell us where to find him.”

“I’ll do better than that.” The old man dug into his front pocket and drew out a folded sheet of paper. “Here’s a map.”

Danny reached forward and grabbed it. He knelt down on the sidewalk and spread it open, motioning to Mike to come closer.

They used his cell phone flashlight. The map was crudely drawn, with dark squiggly lines outlining a path through the cemetery, and crooked lettering labelling various sections as “waterfall”, “meadow” and “grotto.”

Finally, Danny pointed to the left-hand corner of the map. “There.”

Mike leaned forward. Just under the word “grotto”, the old man had drawn a crude mound topped by a stick figure wearing a cape and the name “Bela Lugosi”.

“Look,” Danny said, “There’s an entrance around the corner where the path starts. Is that the one we should use?”

He lifted his head, but the old man was gone. “Did you hear him leave?” he asked Mike.

Mike shook his head.

“Well, the old bastard had better be right or I’ll come back and get our money,” Danny said.

The boys wheeled their bikes around the corner, and half-way up the next block. The iron fence was lower on this side of the cemetery, and there was a small gate with a rusted latch.

“This is it,” Danny said. The gate stuck, but they pulled it open just enough to squeeze through.

“Leave the bikes here,” he said. “C’mon, Mike. Let’s go, man.”

“I don’t know.” Mike shook his head, his eyes flickering from the fence to his body.

Danny stuck his hand through the opening. “C’mon, I’ll pull you through.”

“Get your paws off me, you homo,” Mike said, slapping the other boy’s fingers. He looked again at the fence, then took a deep breath. In spite of the warmth of the air, the iron felt cold against his cheeks as he wedged himself in the gap.

“Man, this is tight,” he said, belt buckle scraping against the bars. With a grunt, he popped through the opening, struggling to right himself.

Danny grinned, his thin face fox-like, a shock of hair dipping over his forehead. “We’re here, man. We’re in.”

Mike brushed off the front of his jeans, flakes of brown rust floating to the ground. He smiled too, his round face breaking into a pumpkin grin.

“Let’s go.”

Danny kept his cell phone flashlight on as they followed the path marked on the map. Mike was careful not to step on any of the flat gravestones, but not Danny. He jumped from stone to stone, calling out the names as he landed with both feet on each granite slab.

“Rita Hayworth,” he said. “Harold Arlen.”

Mike kept quiet, remembering his grandfather’s funeral last year, and how he couldn’t sleep at night, wondering about his grandfather’s body, mouldering in the ground. Was he just bones by now? Did his eyes sink back into the skull, or would they be open, the eyelids rotted away? Would he stink of decay, his flesh blackening, still in the ground, waiting …

Mike stopped short, to avoid running into Danny, who had stopped still.

“Here it is,” he said. “That old man wasn’t full of shit after all.”

Danny shined the phone down. A plain gray stone, the name Bela Lugosi carved in block letters under a scrolled inscription, “Beloved Father”, and two dates – December 13, 1886, and August 16, 1956. A cross with flowers was etched on the left side.

“That’s it?” Danny said. “That’s fucking it?

Mike shrugged and ruffled the grass with the tip of his sneaker. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said.

“Man,” Danny said, punctuating the word with a wad of spit that landed on the grave marker. “You’d think there’d be something more, wouldn’t ya? I mean, the guy was fucking Count Dracula! And to be buried under this pussy stone with a cross on it! Fuck me.”

Mike cleared his throat. He hated it when Danny got mad, always afraid he’d somehow be blamed for the bad feelings and that Danny would ditch him. “But he got buried in his costume. That’s cool, isn’t it?”

Danny turned slowly back to face him. “Yeah,” he said, drawing the word out into several syllables. “In his costume. Cape and all.”

Mike could almost see the thoughts forming in Danny’s head, like hamsters turning wheels and running through the plastic tubes of a Habitrail. When Danny got on a roll, everybody had better run for cover. Like that time in the lunchroom, when the senior jocks were mocking out the freshman geeks. Danny saw how they loaded up on the carbs at the steam table, piling mounds of mashed potatoes on the chipped China plates. Somehow, he’d finagled his way into the cafeteria, and slipped a pound of powdered laxative into one of the boxes of instant mashed potatoes still on the shelf. It was weeks later when Danny’s special recipe hit the cafeteria. Other kids were struck down with the trots too, but it was worth it to see the look on the jocks’ faces as they clutched their gut and ran for the bathroom, elbowing each other to make into the nearest stall before they shit their pants.

“I have an idea. An awesome idea.” Danny’s eyes gleamed. “An un-fucking believable idea.”

“What?” Mike said, a mixture of excitement and dread lacing his voice.

“We dig it up.”

“Dig what up?” Mike struggled to keep a squeak out of his voice.

“Him, you moron. And get the cape. And the rest of it. Remember that cool medallion?” Danny said. “With the jewel in the center?”

“E-bay,” Danny said. “E-fucking-bay.”

Mike looked blank.

“We can sell it, Mikey boy. On the internet. There’s all sorts of celebrity shit out there. You know, like Cobain’s diaries, and that dude Elvis’ boogers. We dig him up, take the cape and medallion, take some pictures, and bam – the big bucks.”

“But it’s a dead body!” Mike said.

“Come on, Mikey. It’s been so long he’s got to be just bones by now.”

Mike’s pulse started to race. Dig up a dead body? Like his grandfather’s?

“But we don’t sell it before we show it off,” Danny said. “At school.”

Mike ignored the queasiness beginning to rise in his throat, imagining the coolness that would be bestowed on him, digging up Count Dracula and taking his cape. It would be the stuff of middle school legend, never to be forgotten. It occurred to him that the decision had already been made, that his own hamsters, admittedly slower and less active than Danny’s, had been turning in their invisible wheels inside his own head. They’d do it; it was settled.

“There’s got to be a shed or something around here, somewhere with shovels. Wait,” Danny said. “Right there.” He pointed to a storage shed behind the Grotto, where the statue of the Blessed Mother stretched out her arms. A simple padlock secured the doors, made of thin metal that was easy to pick with the blade of Danny’s pocketknife. Inside, they found shovels, as well as an old pick that they dragged to the grave.

“Here we go!” Danny held the phone under his chin and grinned. “Good even-ning, Mr. Lugosi,” he said.

Mike tried to smile, and felt the contents of his stomach shift, churning the cheese balls and Mountain Dew he’d had into an oily, gelatinous mass. Swallowing hard, he thought, that’s all I need, to blow chunks all over Danny.

“Ready,” he said, wiping sweaty palms against his pants.

It was much more difficult than they thought. The first few inches were easy – the soil was moist from recent watering. But after they’d dug about four inches, it became harder, like thick clay. They had to thrust down with the point of each shovel, after chopping at the soil with the pick until it loosened enough to scoop out. Before long, both boys were drenched in sweat, and Mike had forgotten about the churning mass in his stomach, focusing instead on his aching muscles.

“How much longer?” he panted, wiping the hair back from his forehead, leaving a smear of dirt. He leaned on the shovel, examining the palm of his right hand. Red, pus-filled bumps blistered from the base of each finger.

“Shit,” he muttered.

Danny was still digging, tossing hard clumps of dirt over his shoulder. “I don’t know, not much,” he said without breaking stride.

He’s a machine, Mike thought. Wants to find the prize. Earlier, they’d tried to figure out how long they’d have to dig. Danny looked it up on the Internet, and found a couple of sites that said three to four hours, max. Some sites even mentioned that older graves were less than six feet deep, closer to four, and Mike sincerely hoped this was one of them.

But they’d been digging for two hours already, and it seemed like they’d hardly started. He knew better than to try to talk Danny into stopping. Besides, the thought of being called chicken brought a new surge of bile to his throat. Mike picked up the shovel, ignoring the burning blisters on his palms.

It was close to 4:00 a.m. when Danny’s shovel hit something solid, and he grinned.

“You hit a rock,” Mike said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice.

“No, I didn’t!” Danny’s face was bathed in sweat, and streaks of dirt lined his face. He shined the phone down into the grave. “Pay dirt, Mikey boy.”

A patch smooth gray metal reflected in the flashlight’s beam. Danny tossed his shovel down and jumped, his feet thudding against the metal coffin.

Mike cleared his throat, conscious once more of the taste of bile in his mouth. “Maybe we should …”

His words were cut short by a hollow groan that rose beneath Danny’s feet. The boys scrambled out of the grave, clawing at the sides to pull himself up onto the grass.

The groan stopped, replaced by a creaking noise that slowly faded.

“What the hell was that?” Mike squeaked.

“Maybe been the coffin,” Danny answered in a slight quaver. “Probably rotted out on the bottom.”

Mike nodded, afraid to trust his voice not to break.

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” he thought. That was another old saying of his grandfather’s, though what it actually meant Mike was never sure. His grandfather again. Lying under the ground, in a coffin. Just like this one. He shook his head. That’s not what I want to be thinking about right now, he almost muttered out loud.

“We gotta dig around the sides,” Danny said. “To get the lid open.”

“The medallion,” Danny said. “And the cape.”

In for a penny, in for a pound.

Adrenalin burned deep within Mike’s belly. There’d be only bones, right? Just bones. He thought about the stories they would tell, a crowd of eager faces surrounding them in the school cafeteria, the pats on the back, the fake punches in the arm as the jocks jostled by him in the hallway, a sign they thought he was cool. He saw his reputation become rock-solid. The kid who dug up a grave. The kid who stole the cape. The kid who saw Dracula and lived to tell about it.

Both boys slid wordlessly into the open grave. They each had a shovel, easing the edge between the sides of the coffin and the dirt.

“Just a few inches,” Danny said. “Just enough to pry it open.”

Danny’s phone was propped on top of the grave, against a small rock, illuminating downward. His hair, plastered with sweat, stuck up in clumps. Even in the dim light, Mike noticed Danny’s red lips, and how he kept licking them in between each shovel of dirt.

“Okay,” he said, and knelt on the coffin lid, his fingers scrabbling in the thin wedge between the sides. “There’s a latch,” Danny grunted. “I can’t get it. Too slippery.”

He sat back and held his hands up to Mike. The palms were streaked with blood and the fingers were ragged. Some of Danny’s nails were torn off, and pus oozed from each fingertip.

“You try it,” he said.

Danny pulled himself out of the grave, and Mike slid forward. He slid his hands down into the slim opening. The latch felt like one of those on an old trunk – a metal loop over a tongue. He pulled, grunting at the resistance of what he was sure must be rusted metal and winced as he felt one of his fingernails rip off.

“Got it,” he said, pushing himself back.

Danny was peering at the surface of the coffin. He reached up and grabbed the phone.

“Look.”

Mike saw a dark line, a groove in the surface.

“It’s in two pieces. The lid. We only have to unlatch one half.”

Oh my God. What if it’s not the front? Mike thought. What if they put him in backwards and all we see is the feet? He stifled a laugh that ended up sounding more like a hiccup and said, “Okay. What next?”

“Move back,” Danny said. “And open it.”

Mike knelt on the lower end of the coffin, Danny perched behind him. He slid both hands into the narrow opening, his fingers finding the edge of the coffin. He pulled, and with surprisingly little noise, the lid opened.

Mike felt the blood rush to his head as a dusty smell, dried flowers and sweet chemicals, filled his nose. It was oddly pleasant, like his grandmother’s parlor on Sunday afternoons when the sunlight came in through the front window and made the dust sparkle like glitter. Yes, glitter, all shiny and slow and moving in those patterns that made you just want to lie down on the rug and take a nap, just lay back and …

“What’s he look like? All bones?” Danny’s voice broke through the veil of Mike’s thoughts. He shook his head and it seemed like little cobwebs of light broke apart before his eyes and he remembered, finally, where he was.

“Come on, tell me!”

Mike shined the phone’s flashlight into the coffin. The yellow beam at first seemed to be swallowed up by darkness, but then focused on a shock of dark hair combed back from a pale forehead, a widow’s peak still visible. He saw the high collar of a dark cloak, the black lapels of a tuxedo.

Mike focused the light on the corpse’s face. The eyes were closed and sunken, the facial skin was still intact, stretched taut against the high cheekbones, over the aquiline nose, dimpled in the cleft of the chin.

“He’s green, man!” Danny’s voice held equal parts of glee and disgust.

Mike bent forward. Danny was right, the skin was a pale green, with black tracings of mold forming spider webs over the surface. The lips were green too, dark lines around the edges. All at once, the scent of spoiled garbage, of lettuce left too long in the vegetable drawer or bologna left overnight on the kitchen counter wafted up in the darkness, but it was just a whiff and then it was gone.

“Is it there?” Danny said. “The cape? The medallion?”

Mike shined the light lower. Beneath a still crisply tied white bowtie lay a red sash that came to a “vee” in the center of the chest, where it was tied to a gold medallion shaped in a six-pointed star, with a dark jewel in the center. The gemstone appeared black, absorbing the beam of the flashlight, not reflecting it. It was like an eye, the eye of a corpse, the eyes of this corpse underneath the thin, green lids. Looking at him. Absorbing him. And reflecting nothing back.

“Well?” Danny’s voice broke through Mike’s trance. “Is it there? The cape too?”

Mike moved the light to the side. The cape was draped around his torso, its red silk lining just visible. A few inches below the medallion, the corpse’s hands were folded, one on top of the other, the green fingers tipped in black. Mike imagined those fingers reaching out, stroking his cheeks. Leaving traces of decay everywhere he touched.

“Yes,” he said, voice cracking. “Both. Here.”

“Fucking awesome!” Small clods of dirt fell into the grave as Danny jumped up and down.

“Stop that!” Mike said. “It’ll cave in!”

“Sorry.” Danny kneeled on the edge, peering over the side. “So take them both and let’s get out of here.”

Mike hesitated. “I don’t want to touch him.”

“I always knew you were a pussy,” Danny jeered.

Mike knelt back, away from the open part of the coffin. If he wimped out now, Danny would never let him forget it. Fuck, he’d never let anyone forget it. Mike would be known as Pussy Man for the rest of his life. He’d might as well crawl in the coffin right now and let Danny fill it with dirt.

“Okay, okay,” he said, tightening his lips. “I’ll do it.”

Mike leaned forward and slid his fingers underneath the bowtie. He tugged on the red sash, the silk ribbon warm to his touch, almost liquid in its softness.

“It won’t come loose,” he said, hearing the rising panic in his voice.

“Just yank it free, you asshole!”

Mike tugged again, harder this time, until he felt the silk tear into shreds beneath his fingers.

“Here,” he said, tossing the medallion up to Danny.

“Now the cape. Lift up his head and untie it.”

Mike swallowed, a dry, gritty swallow filled with the dust of centuries. He didn’t think he could do it. Touch the body. Put his fingers around that cold, dead neck. What if the head snapped clean off? What if his mouth opened, showing those fangs?

“What are you waiting for?” Danny’s voice taunted over the side of the grave.

Mike shook his head. Get a hold of yourself, he thought. This guy’s been dead for years. Nothing left but bones. Bones and dry flesh. No life left here.

He leaned forward, straddling the edges of the coffin.

All at once, in the time it took for Mike’s pounding heart to skip a beat, the corpse opened both eyes.

With a strangled cry, Mike scrambled to the closed end of the coffin. He closed his eyes and pressed back against the damp earth of the grave’s far wall.

“What?” Danny said, “What happened?”

Mike heard the creak of bones moving, and an ancient sound, a horrible sound, the sound of dry flesh unfolding, and the coffin shifted underneath his weight. “I won’t look.” The thought was a refrain inside his skull. “If I look, then it will be real. I won’t look.”

A rush of wind passed over him, as someone, something, took flight, then abruptly left.

“A boy.”

The voice drifting over the side of the grave was a growl, rough with the edges of accent and lack of use. The hair on the back of Mike’s neck stood up, and he felt his balls tighten.

“A lovely, live boy.”

Then, a muffled cry, and Mike winced as he heard the cracking of what sounded like small bones.

“A good boy,” the voice now purred, a dark, liquid sound.

Mike took a sharp breath as a bolt of reason shot through his brain. One boy would not be enough. The message in his head changed, pumping the same thought over and over. “Get out. Now. Go. Before he says, ‘two boys’.”

Mike’s fingers dug into the side of the grave as he pulled, then hefted himself up over the side and crawled onto the grass. The barest coating of dew made the grass wet and slick beneath his knees. Behind him, the crunching had stopped, replaced by the sound of breathing, liquid breathing, no, not breathing — the sound of drinking. Mike felt his stomach lurch and he vomited a thin orange stream onto the grass. If only he could get up. Get up and run and never look back not now, not ever.

“Wait,” a voice behind commanded. “Turn around. Look at me.”

Trembling, Mike rose to his feet, the voice echoing impossibly in his bones.

“Do not be afraid.” The voice became softer, a velvet tone. “You have done me a great service, and you shall be rewarded.”

The cold touch of a finger underneath his chin shot through his body, and he was unable to stop the trickle of urine that bled down his pant leg.

“Look at me. Look!”

Mike lifted his eye and his head snapped back. The creature before him was resplendent in a black cape, white tie and tails. The face was no longer green but white, the white of a full moon against a dark summer sky, a face that glowed with an eerie light all its own. The eyes were black, a pinprick of red at the center. The medallion was back around his neck, the silk ribbon no longer tattered but full and lush.

“You see,” the creature said, smiling, the lips pulling back showing, fangs, real fangs, Mike thought. Tipped in red. Tipped in blood. Danny’s blood. “I am back.”

For the barest second, Mike tried to pull his gaze away from those eyes, now glowing red. But before he could, the fear and resistance in him began to flow away, ebbing in an impossible tide that would never again come in to shore. The red glow deepened, pulling Mike along, pulling him under, and the voice inside urging him to look away was first muffled, then silenced.

“You are the strong one,” he said, stroking the side of Mike’s cheek with a long, curved fingernail. “Not weak, like the other.”

Mike looked over at Danny’s crumpled body lying by the side of the grave. His limbs were twisted, snapped like twigs, and his eyes were open in a bloodless stare.

“Strong, with rich blood.” The fingernail traced down from Mike’s cheek to his throat, the pulse throbbing in his neck.

“But that will come later,” he said, withdrawing the pale hand. “First, you will become my friend. My eyes in the daylight, my protector while I sleep.

“And I will be yours,” he continued. “No one will call you names anymore. Call you weak, or scared. Your enemies will be my enemies, your foes, my foes. We will wage war, and I will feed on the blood of those who taunt you.”

Mike blinked, his eyes suddenly filled with visions of everyone who had ever wronged him, from Mr. Fyfe the gym teacher, to the snickering gaggle of teenage girls who laughed every time he walked by. He even thought of his mother, and how she left him to fend for himself while she went out in search of Mr. Right. Maybe Mr. Right was here in front of him. Mr. Right could end his mother’s suffering. End his own suffering.

A downward pull, a dizzying descent into a well, spun into a vortex.

Somewhere, in the deep recesses of what was left of his rational mind, a thin voice spoke. “Run,” it said, the word lost in the sound of his own blood rushing through his veins.

“Come.”

That word sounded clear, though it was not uttered aloud by the being that stood before him.

“Come.” Mike leaned into the silken folds of the cape that now surrounded him.

“We shall enjoy this feast together, my young one.”

And as they left, passing through the cemetery gates, Mike heard the creature speak once again, the sentence drifting out onto the pre-dawn air, out and down to be heard by an old man, hunched by the cemetery gates. “Thank you, Renfield.”