“Young, impressionable woman standing right here,” Jenny said.
14
ELVIS GETS HIM SOME GHOST
They had one more meeting at the dinner table, sipped coffee and ate sandwiches, while Blind Man filled them in on more information about the creatures that were coming. None of what he told them was encouraging. He did say the fence should let them know when they had arrived with a crackle and a pop and spark and a glow. Yeah, it should hold them, or it should at least deter them.
Maybe.
The stars swelled in the heavens, the Milky Way wove its bright net, and the moon was half a coconut pie hanging high in the sky. The Mississippi groaned against the docks and piers, bullied ships and tugs flowing along it, gnawed at the muddy banks, then rolled on satisfied.
Lights across the river, all the way over into New Orleans proper, were bright, and there was a faint echoing sound of jazz slipping out of Bourbon Street, notes jumping through the sky, falling down to bounce off the muddy Mississip, leap-frogging to the house where Elvis and the team waited. Elvis listened to the music and liked it, muted and inconsistent as it was. He remembered reading about an axe murderer in New Orleans in the early nineteen hundreds, and how he became such a fear people locked their doors and windows up tight and stood nervous and ready to fight. A note came from the Axe Man to the press. In the note the Axe Man said he was a fan of jazz, and anyone playing that kind of music would be spared his wrath. A lot of jazz was played that night, and sure enough, the Axe Man didn’t strike. That time.
Elvis was remembering this, lying up in his room, naked and nervous on his bed, sheet folded down over his knees, his pecker at half-mast, kind of interested but not fully committed.
There was a part of him that thought Blind Man and the Colonel might be messing with him. There was another part that made him think the vampires might be coming—he had started calling them that for simplicity reasons—and here he was with his business hanging out, waiting on astral pussy.
He had weapons nearby, specialized stuff for fighting dimensional or supernatural beings (take your choice), but he was more nervous about the ghostly love-making than fighting monsters.
And then the door creaked.
Elvis had his head propped on pillows, waiting. Unconsciously, he pulled the sheet up to his waist. His pecker went from half-mast to lying flat on his thigh like dead hope.
The mist seeped through the crack in the door. It writhed, and the writhing had form; a very tall young woman in a classic, ghostly night gown, hair black as Texas Crude, lips red as a knife wound, eyes shiny like wet prunes. She smiled. Lots of fine white teeth. Maybe too many teeth. Her skin grew brighter, as if life’s rouge were being pumped into her.
Flowing across the floor she arrived at the bed, and then she was gone. And then she wasn’t. The covers moved. She was crawling under them.
Elvis felt the hair on the back of his neck spike up, and then something else stood up. The sheet made a small pup tent.
A black-haired head rose out from under the sheet between his legs, and then the eyes in its pale face looked up at him, large and deep, like a well. He relaxed and fell into them, a long dark tunnel of warmth and satisfaction. Her lips pressed against his, cold at first, then branding iron hot, and the weight of her velvet-soft flesh was on top of him and his penis found heaven. The ghost wiggled and he wiggled. It thrust and he thrust. The motions were slow at first, building, and then more rapid, machinelike, and then very human-like.
Elvis forgot she was a ghost. He almost forgot his own name. All things beautiful and loving expanded in his head with bright lights, hot passions, and damp delight. For that moment, the first in a long time, he was not the King of Rock and Roll, nor was he the Killer of Boobuddies. He was a man, and ironically, what made him feel that way was a shade from the netherworld that had turned warm and solid. (Was it a dream? Was he not here at all?)
It couldn’t have lasted long, but she shrieked as she came, and then he held her, and he came, and then he couldn’t hold her. She became mist and the mist floated to the ceiling and let out a satisfied sigh, then fled across the room in cottony patches of ectoplasmic joy. The black hair became shiny black needle-shapes that floated down onto the bed, and melted instantly, like black snow on a hot stove.
The room vibrated. The bed shook. The walls crawled and leaked little wisps of whiteness, and then the room was still. He felt beyond all human needs and wants and a damn sight silly.
Then he was hungry. He hoped there were still some of those biscuits left. No, he couldn’t go downstairs. Maybe he could yell for some to be brought up.
No. That wasn’t professional.
Mainly he didn’t want to answer questions about how it was to screw a ghost. Boy was he going to catch that one sooner or later, John Henry would be the worst.
Still, a buttered biscuit would be good.
15
JOHNNY'S JOURNAL:
JOHNNY GETS NERVOUS
So there we were, sitting in the ghost house, waiting on vampires to show up. Something about the simplicity of it made me nervous.
Upstairs we could hear a rumble like a storm brewing, the house shook, there was a Banshee shriek, and then Elvis screamed like he was about to be hit by a speeding truck.
I damn near came in my drawers in sympathy.
I had a feeling our ghostly protection had just had her battery charged and the jumper cables had exploded, and Elvis himself might be nothing more than exploded shit stains on the wall.
I was in a chair at the table with the Colonel who sat holding his cane. Blind Man, also holding a cane, was at the doorway, standing, his head cocked, his face popped with sweat balls the size of my fingertips. His legs shook a little.
I got up and wandered off, went into the hall, to the stairway where Jenny sat on the bottom step. She had a water gun across her knees. It was filled with holy water and silver nitrate. Boo-buddies hated that.
“Either Bubba just had the best fuck of his life,” Jenny said. “Or he slipped in the tub.”
I studied her. I thought she looked a smidgen jealous.
Hell, we were all jealous. Anyone that could cum like that by fucking a ghost made you want to fall in line, yelling, “Me too. Me too. Do me! Do me!”
At that very moment the walls breathed and swelled, and then sighed, like a contented breeze blowing through an orchard of blooming peach trees, scattering petals in the soft moonlight. It was a sensation just like that, at least in my mind. The house was stronger now, more prepared to protect us, and hopefully not ready for a cigarette, a nap, and a thank you card.
“I presume you have a weapon sharper and harder than your rapier wit,” she said.
“I haven’t said anything witty,” I said.
“My point exactly. I haven’t seen any tools of the trade.”
“Elvis just showed Spooky up there a tool of the trade.”
“Ah, there it is, an attempt at rapier wit.”
I had a crossbow, but dug both hands in my pants pockets and brought out brass knuckles. They were actually made of pure iron. I slipped them on. Boo-buddies didn’t like that stuff either. The knuckles were knobbed with little bolts. They had been soaked in salted holy water, dipped in virgin blood (which must have been a feat to find and acquire, and man, I hoped no one was lying), and powdered with cursed cemetery dirt from the grave of a saintly woman, or so it was said. Who knew what she did behind closed doors.
All that stuff had proved a potent combination against Boo-buddy problems in the past.
John Henry, shirtless, shiny with muscle, came down the hall then, carrying one of his voodoo-blessed hammers. That hammer looked like something Thor would own. It was nine pounds heavy and had a thick sledge head, a handle made of hickory, wrapped up tight in black electrician tape. There was a loop of thick leather on the end that allowed John Henry to put his hand through it, hang it on his wrist, or grab the leather and swing the hammer about his head like a fan. I saw him do
some walking dead in once with it, turned it into a whirling scythe. He swung it so fast it made swirling rainbows in the air that soon mixed with skull dust, powdered brain, and dark clots of solidified blood.
Behind John Henry came Jack, a short club dangling from his belt, a crossbow in his hands. It was a nice setup. Had some device fastened to it that fed six short bolts into it one at a time, dropping them down like machine gun shells. The bolts were made out of ash and hawthorn. Boobuddies hated that too.
“I’m tired of this waiting,” John Henry said. “I say we go to their house and ask what’s for dinner.”
“That would be us,” Jack said.
“Yeah, well,” John Henry said, holding up his hammer. “I got dessert for them.”
“What the fuck is the King of Rock and Roll doing up there now?” Jack said. “Basking in the glow?”
“That’s his station,” I said.
“Upstairs?” Jack said. “He’s got the whole upstairs?”
“I’m swing-lady,” Jenny said. “It gets upstairs, it has to go through me. I’m the emergency backup for Elvis.”
“Who works the big crossbow up there?” Jack asked.
“That would be me if they force me all the way up to the landing,” Jenny said.
“What if they don’t show?” Jack said. “I had some stuff I wanted to watch on TV tonight. Do we have a TV?”
“The monsters will soon arrive.” It was Blind Man. He had come into our room, followed by the Colonel.
“I suggest shutting up and staying alert,” the Colonel said. “They are a stealthy bunch.”
“Well, I better go take that shit before they show up,” Jack said, and headed for one of the house toilets.
“They won’t get by us,” I said. I really sounded confident when I said it, and that was because I pretty much believed it.
Pretty much.
And then the air turned cold and the lights went out.
16
JOHN HENRY CONNECTS
When the air changed and the light died, plunging them and the house into a depth of darkness like the insides of a croker sack, John Henry rocked forward against the handle of his great hammer, closed his eyes, and let loose with a slight whistle.
The emergency lights came on. They had a low level beam and seemed to tint the house with light more than illuminate it, but now they could at least see what was what and who was who.
“They aren’t in the house,” Blind Man said. “But they are close. The lights going out. That was the result of a power throb.”
“A what?” Jenny said.
“The presence of a very powerful evil,” Blind Man said. “They are swiftly arriving.”
An old litany swelled up in John Henry and he began to sing out. “Come on demons, come on ghost. I got nine pounds of hammer, and I’ll die with my hammer in my hand, gonna die with my hammer in my hand.”
“Personally,” Jenny said, standing up from her position on the stairs, “I think you should let me or Elvis do the singing, John Henry.”
Blind Man turned his head at a curious angle, and in a voice like that of the ancient Stentor who spoke boomingly to the Greeks, he yelled, “They have arrived!”
17
UPSTAIRS
Elvis heard Blind Man’s yell that they had come. Elvis said to himself, “Beat them to it.”
18
JOHNNY'S JOURNAL:
TELL IT LIKE IT IS
Here's one myth down. Vampires can’t cross running water?
Yeah, they can. Pretty quickly too.
I’m here to tell you that’s one old story you can put in the shitter and flush. They came by way of the Mississippi, brought their asses right on over. I know because when Blind Man yelled, I went to one of the broad windows and looked out on the water.
Beyond the fence, and through a split in the trees where the dock stuck out into the water, I could see them in the moonlight. There was a silver shine to the water, and across that shine, they came. They glided smoothly without so much as dipping in. They slipped on over on what must have been some sort of goo they emitted from their bodies, a supernatural slicky slide. I could see in the moonlight their wide open mouths, like manholes without lids, and even at that distance their teeth gleamed like knife blades.
There were twelve of them, vibrating as they came. As they flowed past the docked Nocturne, onto the bank, I could see that from the knees down they were shadow, shadows that floated them over the earth and toward our blessed and electrified fence.
“They ain’t even trying to be sneaky,” John Henry said. He had suddenly appeared at my side next to the window, his hammer lying across one broad shoulder, a hand like a catcher’s mitt clutching at the handle.
“Confident, aren’t they?” I said.
“Well, we’re going to knock that confidence into a knot.” Blind Man, who was in the other room, spoke in such a way we could all hear him, by telepathy. “This isn’t all of them, and these that are coming are three of the same.”
“Three of the same?” I yelled back toward the room where he was.
“I’m tuned in,” came his voice in my head, “think it, and I’ll know.”
“Oh, yeah. Right. I knew that.”
“You’re still talking out loud,” John Henry said.
In my thoughts I said: “What the fuck does that mean? Three of the same? I see more than three.”
“Three are the source for the twelve that you see,” came Blind Man’s thought. “Each one makes four, counting the original.”
John Henry heard that comment too, everyone in the house, I presumed, as we were linked now by the pathway Blind Man had created. He couldn’t hold it long, but that he could do it at all was a constant mystery to me. That and not peeing on his shoes.
Blind Man in our heads: “There are three of them that are the source for the others, to stop them completely, you have to find the root of the existence and chop it out.”
“They’re projections?” I thought.
“More than that, but something like that,” said Blind Man in my head.
John Henry looked at me. “Well, that clears that problem right up. Here’s what I say. Whatever they are, let’s fuck them up, the root, the lookalikes, casual acquaintances, friends of friends, and friends of the family.”
19
FROM THE WINDOW IN ELVIS'S ROOM, AN ELVIS EYE VIEW
Elvis looked out and saw them. It was all he could do not to go downstairs and greet the bastards, but this was his station and he was determined to hold it.
He felt a strange coolness in the room, turned to see the spectre of his sex partner floating slightly above the floorboards, peering over his shoulder. Her cheeks were red, as if painted.
“You’re creeping me out, darling. Could you not float right behind me?”
The spectre adjusted, came to his left, her cold arm touching him. He looked at her, at her wet prune eyes, the slight smile on her lips.
“So was it good for you, darling?”
A nod. The touch on his arm became warmer.
“Not a talker,” Elvis said.
“You know that right now, I can hear everything you say or think,” came Blind Man’s voice in Elvis’s head.
Elvis thought: “Hope you can hear this. Eat shit.”
Elvis and the wraith turned to see the vampires flowing across the yard, soon to touch the electric and spell-fortified fence.
20
THE VAMPIRES MEET ELECTRICITY, NASTY SPELLS, AND HELL'S A POPPIN.
The vampires hit the fence in union. The electricity sizzled and sparked and a long line of blue-white fulmination ran across the length of the fence, from top to bottom, and there was a light blue crackle to the air.
The vampires oozed through the wire fencing as if they had turned to Silly Putty, but as they oozed through, smoking blackly, they flowed together again, and now they were one big beast from which arms and legs and heads projected; a ball of floating ectoplasm the color of pine sap and col
d dog shit. It sprouted spidery tentacles, wiggling heads stuffed tight with teeth, barbs and prickles decorated its skin. It flowed across the yard, its shadow coming free of it with a ripping sound. The shadow moved away from its source, gliding over the grass like an oil spill.
Elvis and the spectre watched it come toward the house. “Don’t you have something to do?” Elvis said.
The spectre screeched and broke away, left a kind of vapor trail in its wake.
Elvis trembled. “You’d think I’d be used to this shit by now.”
21
HOUSE GHOST
She blew misty-blue under the crack in the bedroom door, jetted down the stairs like an angry lightning-filled cloud about to blast the earth with rain, almost blew Jenny off her position on the stairs.
Away she went, to the front door and under the crack. Around the house she flowed, blowing fast, and when she reached the backyard (and Elvis saw this from the window) she fled past the wet shadow, which was on a mission of its own, and smacked up hard against the rolling ball of teeth and tentacles.
Looking out the bottom floor window at the ball of horror and the House Ghost, John Henry said, “What the fuck, a giant beach ball?”
“Let’s go get some,” Johnny said, and they raced for the door.
Even in their enthusiasm, out in the yard, they stalled and watched with amazement, saw the House Ghost (swollen to enormous size) roll and tumble with that mean-ball-of-meat, tearing up grass and earth. The vampire flesh-ball lashed its tentacles and snapped its teeth. The House Ghost was struck by both. There were bright red splashes of blood-red ectoplasm that floated quickly skyward instead of down to the ground.
House Ghost swung solid fists, kicked out with solid feet, rattled that ball of terror like a rat in a paint shaker, but the beast took it, turned wet and blob-like, tried to suck her into its body like a vacuum cleaner pulling dirt.