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Andrew Roller Presents
GIRL PATROL
Chapter Thirty-Three
Something was clinging to it, and as we approached it looked like a
man. We advanced slowly, the dawn rising in the east behind us. We were
in the desert now. I was afraid we might get lost, but at least with the
dawnglow to our backs we could always turn around. Behind us,
somewhere, lay the prairie, the forest, the river. And Dirton and the
skeletons.
ÒIt looks like a hut,Ó Becky offered. There was weariness in her
voice as she floated amiably beside my head. Kim was on my other side.
She gave a yawn. We were all tired from a night of running. Well, the
girls had flown part of the way, but that was, so I was made to
understand, as tiring in its own way as running was. Now it was morning,
and we had the sun to protect us.
Or, more likely, to roast us.
ÒMaybe we can spend the night in it,Ó Kim said. ÒI mean the day,Ó
she corrected herself. I wiped my brow. We hadnÕt frozen last night, we
had nearly baked to death. I shuddered to think what high noon would be
like out here.
We got closer to the hut. A scorpion, late perhaps to return to its
lair after a night of hunting, hissed up from next to my foot. I screamed
and jumped.
And fell back to earth for, unlike the girls, I had no vampire lingerie.
I couldnÕt fly. Becky darted upward, Kim did too. Then they drifted back
down. The light behind us grew brighter.
ÒShit,Ó I said, looking back over my shoulder. I saw nothing but dark
sand, the stars overhead dimming now as the dawn shed ever more light
onto our backs.
Suddenly the man was no longer at the hut. We looked around for him
but didnÕt see him.
ÒWhereÕd he go?Ó Becky asked, perplexed.
ÒHe was there a minute ago. Or at least I think he was,Ó Kim said.
ÒMaybe it was an illusion,Ó I said. The desert was famous for
mirages. Except, I thought they occurred in the heat of the day. WasnÕt it
Hemingway who said something about first light showing you the truth of
things?
ÒThere he is!Ó Becky cried. She pointed. A face was peering out
from behind the hut. ItÕs mouth opened, as if in a grimace. It looked
straight at us and I saw fangs.
ÒA vampire!Ó I cried. Becky said the same thing at almost the same
moment and then Kim said, hopefully,
ÒMaybe itÕs Jan!Ó
ÒNo, itÕs a man!Ó Becky said. And it was, I agreed, peering through
the gloom at it. The thing seemed to want to come toward us when
suddenly the glow behind us grew stronger. It shuddered and disappeared
behind the hut.
ÒIt disappeared again,Ó Becky said.
ÒItÕs afraid of us,Ó Kim said.
ÒShit. I wish we had our guns,Ó I said. I looked around. I saw no
sticks, nothing we could use as a stake. ÒWeÕre going to have to let it go,Ó
I said. ÒI donÕt want any of us getting bitten.Ó
A flake drifted down past my nose. Both girls saw it and whispered
the same thing:
ÒManna,Ó they said. But none of us were hungry. I wiped my brow,
nervous and exhausted. I felt the light growing stronger behind us.
ÒIf we have to spend all day in the desert because of that stupid
thing, weÕre gonna fry!Ó I exclaimed.
ÒLetÕs try to rush it!Ó Becky said.
ÒRush a vampire?Ó Kim said, frowning.
ÒItÕs a wraith-vampire,Ó I said, noticing itÕs wavy outline now, the
way it seemed to slip from form to formlessness, and back again, as if
buffeted by the air. But there was no wind here in the desert, just the
heat.
ÒWell itÕs not Jan, then,Ó Becky said, and cast a glance at Kim, as if
fearing the girl might argue with her. She and Kim floated closer. I
walked between them. I could feel their crankiness. They were in no mood
for this, and neither was I. Unarmed, we approached the thing. And to my
surprise, it didnÕt attack us. It shrank from us, slipping behind the wall of
the hut.
The light grew bolder in the east. We went round behind the hut,
staying about twenty feet from it. There, in the growing dawn, the thing
was cowering now. Of a sudden I realized what was scaring it. It wasnÕt
us. It was the thing that was casting shadows behind us.
Hot and blazing, rising like some curled fire serpent, it suddenly
appeared. Our eyes narrowed. The sun glared across the horizon. The
creature hiding in the shadow of the hut grew terrified now. It screamed
in panic. Our hands flew to our ears. A tortured dog with rabies was
probably easier to listen to than this! As the sun grew brighter, the thing
tried to escape. But there was nowhere to go! The shadow of the hut
stretched beguilingly out toward us, but came to a sharp point in the sand,
leaving the creature with nowhere to go. It shrank as the sun rose. I
lifted a hand to shield my eyes from the sunÕs glare.
Then the creature, itÕs range of escape narrowing as the sunÕs rays
arched in closer and closer around the walls of the hut, made a mistake. It
stuck its hand out into the light. Its fingers were touched by the sun.
It screamed. It yanked its hand back, as if scorched by the hottest
iron. But it was too late! Worms sprang from its fingertips. Leaches
erupted from its palm. Flies buzzed out, and sprang delirious up into the
sky, as if pent-up for centuries. The creature looked at its mangled hand,
its jaws still wide and screaming. It tried batting off the leaches; no use!
They crawled up its arm, and only when it faded momentarily to
formlessness did they drop through it to the sand.
But even a wraith-vampire cannot make itself vanish. And soon the
wraith reappeared. To its misfortune it showed more strongly than ever
now, for it was losing, in its weakened sun-lightened state, its vampire
characteristics. It was returning to the man it had once been.
The wraith-vampire grimaced. It made an effort and floated up a
little, regaining some of its prized formlessness. But it was in light-
saturated air now, and though not in the sunÕs direct rays, it was feeling
their effects. It grew bolder again in form, sagged heavily to earth, once
more taking on the figure of a man, a human, a man stranded in the desert.
Again it tried adjusting itself, shifting into its mist-loving formlessness.
This effort of will lifted it again, into the air, and that was its fatal
mistake. For this time, floating upward a little, the top of its head
drifted into the sunÕs rays.
The scream was horrifying. Becky turned away as the creatureÕs
head split open. Lice sprang forth. Worms appeared from the top of a
suddenly open skull and went slithering wetly down the wraith-vampireÕs
face. And then he was a man, fully, and then he was nothing but a
decaying, rotting corpse.
In the full light of day we advanced on the thing. By the time we
reached it he was nothing but a pile of dust. The venomous creatures, so
eagerly liberated, were in fact as old as he was, a part of his soul. They
too were dust by now, indistinguishable from his corrupt remains. I
brushed his dust aside. Flakes of manna began descending, but we were
too tired to eat them. We looked at the hut. It was pyramid shaped, made
of solid stone. I saw now why the creature had become stranded. On the
side of the hut was a stone door. But it was flush with the stone wall
that contained it. There seemed no way to open it.
ÒOh! Look! Little animals!Ó Becky said. She pointed at some figures
running along the bottom of the door. They were Egyptian in shape. Kim
and I bent down next to Becky and looked at them.
ÒThose are hieroglyphics,Ó I said.
ÒOh, pretty!Ó Kim said. She traced the animals with her finger.
Becky did too; they were animal shaped, but with human heads.
ÒTheyÕre strange,Ó Becky said.
ÒWhatÕre hier-- whatever it is you said?Ó Kim asked me.
ÒItÕs Egyptian writing,Ó I said.
ÒLike in Mummy Returns!Ó Becky shouted.
ÒYes!Ó Kim agreed. I stood up. I put my hands on my hips.
ÒWhatÕs a fucking pyramid doing in the middle of America?Ó I asked.
I looked at the girls. ÒItÕs a pyramid,Ó I said to them. ÒA little one, but a
pyramid all the same.Ó
ÒMaybe somebody built it,Ó Becky said. Kim stood up and said,
ÒWe learned in school that London Bridge is in America now.Ó I
shook my head.
ÒMaybe weÕll see the Eiffel Tower around here in a minute.Ó
Dear Becky, God knows what she did to the door but suddenly it
opened. We jumped back.
ÒWhat did you do?Ó Kim cried.
ÒI dunno!Ó Becky said. A room beckoned, dark within the slanted
walls of stone.
ÒShit!Ó I said. ÒWhatever you did, the wraith-vampire didnÕt think of
it.Ó Kim looked at me.
ÒDo you want to go inside?Ó she asked. I shrugged my shoulders.
ÒWe could stay here and bake,Ó I said.
ÒBut maybe thereÕs more vampires inside!Ó Kim said.
ÒIÕm thirsty,Ó Becky said.
ÒThen letÕs go,Ó I said. The girls took my hands. As the sun burned
bright on the horizon we stepped into the doorway.
30
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