Desert Darkness

Night was beginning to fall. The desert winters brought a cold chill to the earth in the wastelands of Arizona. The reprieve from the scorching heat brought about longer nights and with those longer nights had come a new and unknown terror. The mining community of Prospect, Arizona was smitten with a dark and unspeakable scourge. Recent disappearances could not be attributed to any known source other than a black shadow creeping into the town in the dead of night. The disappearances began with the elderly and helpless of the community, many of which had been found dead on the outskirts of town or in the middle of the desert pale as a ghost with blood covering their nightgowns. Peculiar bite marks appeared on their bodies as though they had been sucked dry by some fiend. Next, young children were whisked from their beds as their parents slept. Many of these bodies were never found. 

“It’s been a week since the first attack Colonel,” said the town preacher William T. James. “My flock needs protecting. I am a humble shepherd. I am no warrior. I cannot defend my people from this evil that befalls them except for with the might of prayer and faith.”

“I’m afraid that prayer and faith won’t be enough this time, Bill,” sighed Colonel Tobias Fredrerick Jones. “Faith and prayer may get your flock to heaven a hell of a lot sooner than they ought to if we don’t figure some defense or change for this here town.” 

Tobias, old Toby or TF to some of his friends, had fought and served in the War of Northern Aggression against Billy Yank as a young man. The hardship, death, terror and violence of the war had left him a scarred and dangerous man. He was just sixteen when the war began. His father joined the Confederate Army of Kentucky out of an abundance of loyalty to his home, his community and his neighbors. They were but lowly shopkeepers, merchants for the townspeople. They didn’t own any slaves or want any.  Defending the soil that they had lived on for so long felt more important than any other idealistic conversation in Washington. His father had not cared for Jeff Davis or slavery for that matter.  He did not care for the war at all. He would have preferred to stay home, but duty did not allow this. His father was counted among the many casualties of the battle of Sharpsburg and shortly thereafter Toby was enlisted into the military following his eighteenth birthday and a growing need for soldiers. 

Following the end of the conflict Toby had returned home for a time to nurse his wounds and recover. After a couple of very uneventful years he re-enlisted in the US Army and wore the blue coat he had fought against. He was shipped off to the west to fight the Indians and spread the glory of America. His experience and strategic prowess proved to be useful as he fought the hostile Indians. The Apache had proven to be a formidable and dangerous foe. He had fought many years and lost many men in the unforgiving desert of the Apache home. As he advanced in rank, he prioritized his men as his community and home having never wed and lived a solitary militant life. He was now aged and gray, retired from the Army and serving as the Marshall of a small and previously quiet mining community. 

The preacher was a good man with a good heart but not a stout heart. His faith lay in the Bible and in the goodness of men. The goodness of men had failed Toby far too many times to put his trust in them. 

“I hear what you’re saying Colonel,” said the preacher. “I just don’t know what to do. What can be done against such a thing. We’re not even sure what we’re really up against.”

“We know that the attacks only happen at night. Nothing has happened in daylight yet so there must be a reason for their sneaking about,” replied the Colonel. “If it is some form of man or beast that terrorizes us we must take the proper shelter. We’ll hole up in the church tonight. All of us together. Everyone with a weapon. Everyone on the look out.”

The townspeople sat nervously in the pews of the church looking over at the preacher and the colonel speaking discreetly in the doorway of the chapel. Murmuring and whispers spread across the room as each townsperson shared their fears.

“My little Jimmy was taken two nights ago. I laid him down in his room and I told him to keep his window closed no matter what. I went in the next morning and he was gone. No trace of him,” gasped Mrs. Moira O’Malley as she began to sob into her husband’s shoulder.

“It’s a terrible thing,” sighed Mr. Ivan Radovich. “There is still hope. My poor mother was found five days ago in the desert dead and covered in blood. Her body was a wreck when we found it.”

“Our pequeno nino Juan Carlos slept in our bed last night terrified of what happened to Jimmy Senora O’Maley. I did not sleep at all if I could help it. I kept the candles burning and watched over mi familia. La cruz de Jesus in the window protecting us. I must have prayed a thousand Rosaries last night.” Senor Pedro Ramirez reached for the crucible around his neck and kissed his wife on the top of the head. “It was very frightening.” 

Toby stepped into the chapel with the preacher and closed the door. The heavy latch falling behind them. The torches that would generally be lit in the town street were brought inside to provide extra light to the chapel and the townspeople. Candles also littered the building. If anything tried to get in they wanted to get a good long look at it. He approached the pulpit at the front of the chapel and addressed the remaining families.

“Evenin’ folks. I know we’re all scared here. It’s something unknown happening round here. But with all this happenin’ quiet like in each of our homes, I figure it’s best if we do this together. We spend a night together here in the chapel. I see you all brought your bedrolls. That’s real good. We’ll keep watch for each other and we’ll see what happens tonight.” 

“Will we truly be safe here tonight?” asked Ivan. “We don’t know what’s happening or why people are disappearing.”

“This place has the biggest, heaviest doors in town so if it’s man or beast causing this terror we stand a better chance behind these walls. We’ve boarded up the windows except for enough room for us to look out at eye level. If something’s going to happen we stand our best chance in here together,” replied Toby.  

“We will pray for our friends who have left us for Tucson that they will tell of our plight and send help,” said the preacher. “It’s a two day ride to Tucson. If they sent help back for us it should be here tomorrow.”

“If they were able to make it through the night Padre. Hay un demonio!” exclaimed Pedro. “There is a demon in the night.”

“Best thing we can do is keep our eyes open and stay on our toes, Senor,” Toby said reassuringly. “I’ll take the first watch down here. Father, you’ll want to take the first watch in the bell tower and you call down to us if you see anything.” The preacher nodded.

Several hours went by without incident. The silence was eerie but for the sound of a breeze in the night. The preacher had climbed up the ladder into the bell tower, the three remaining families were asleep on the pews or across the floor of the building. As it neared one in the morning, the silence was broken with the sound of footsteps and what sounded like snarling. The preacher came climbing down the ladder.

“There’s a group of people out there. They’re walking through the town looking in the houses,” he called over. “I’m not sure what they’re looking for.”

“How many of them are there?” responded Toby hurriedly, standing bolt upright. 

“I’m not sure. It looks like maybe ten or fifteen.”

“Get back up there and tell me what they’re doing,” Toby said as quietly as he could, raising over to the ladder.

The preacher climbed back up the ladder and he could not see them anymore.

“They’re…..they’re gone. No wait, listen.” 

The silence was broken again by the sound of dirt crunching underfoot and a sort of snarling. Then it suddenly stopped.

“Momma? Is that you? Are you in there Momma? Momma come out. Open the doors. It’s me Jimmy.”

Mrs. O’Malley became fully alert. Her husband had to pull her back. The sound of her only son calling out to her had her in a panicked frenzy. She fought against her husband's grip as she tried to reach for the door.

“Something’s not right,” said Mr. O’Malley. “Why didn’t he come back in the daylight? Who’s he out there with?”

Toby looked out the window and saw one of them walking around the church looking for weak points. Then one of them came up to the window and stuck their face up against the window revealing in the candlelight and the moonlight bloodshot eyes and what appeared to be dried blood caked on their face. Their teeth were stained with it.

“Stay back. Don’t open that door,” Toby called over to the O’Malley’s. “They’re not right out there.”

“Come on Momma. It’s okay. It’s safe. You can come out. We won’t hurt you,” came little Jimmy’s voice again near the front door. 

Pedro came over to look through the gap in the boarded up windows with Toby. He held his crucifix up to his mouth as he looked out the window and then one of them came to the window. It immediately pulled back. Pedro stepped back with it. 

“Madre de Dios. It does not look natural. It does not look human,” Pedro cried out jumping back. “The devil is in its eyes.” 

“How much longer until daylight?” asked Mrs. O’Malley. “When can I go see my son?” 

“I’m afraid we won’t be able to leave the chapel before daylight. There’s too much risk and too much we just don’t know,” replied Toby. “It looks like it’s getting close to two in the morning. We should start to have light on the horizon in about three hours.”

“Old Toby,” called out a voice from the streets. “I hear it’s you that’s holed up in that chapel like a rat.”  

It could not be. He knew that voice but he hadn’t heard it in thirty-five years. It was the voice of a man he believed to be long dead.

“Young Jimmy boy has told me all about your little Sheriff act that you’ve taken up in your retirement. A fine sight that’d be. You serving Billy Yank. Did they give the fancy blues and everything?”

He peered through the window and saw El Carter. A man who he hadn’t seen since the bloody days of Gettysburg when they were both young and newly recruited into the Confederate Army. Toby had been forced to leave him as he was caught up in the wave of men retreating from the destruction. He hadn’t aged a day.

“You’ve grown old, Old Toby,” he leered through the window.

“Oh my God….Eli. What’s happened to you?” Toby said with horror.

Eli punched through the glass and the boards ripping the nails from the wall as he did so and sending shattered glass throughout the chapel.

“I’ve become more than you could ever hope to be,” he said, pulling his unscathed hand back.  

Then he punched through several more times, ripping and tearing at the boards. Once he had broken through the boards he poked his head in through the window. In the improved lighting, dried blood was visible on his chin and stained across his coat. He reeked of death, decay and dirt.  From the corner of his eye Toby saw movement to his left and the preacher threw holy water on Eli’s face. Eli screamed and snarled, pulling his face back out of the window. 

“Get back servant of evil!! Get back!” exclaimed the preacher. “This is a house of God! You cannot enter here!”

Then all was silent again as shock and fear rose to a new level in the townspeople. 

“Pedro, keep an eye on that other window. Ivan, watch the door. O’Malleys, you watch this window and keep quiet,” whispered Toby to the group. “With the window broken they’ll hear us that much more clearly.” He stepped aside from the window with the preacher. “What was that? What just happened?”

“They are creatures of the night. A manifestation of evil incarnate. I did not believe the stories,” began the preacher gravely. “As a young man in the seminary I had heard other priests discuss the evil that could be found in the world. A lust for blood, violence and death. A waking immortality dependent on the consumption of human blood. An evil known as a vampire.”

“So how do we kill it? What did you just do to Eli?” Toby asked, running his hands up and down the barrel of his pistol.

“It is wounded by holy water but would not be killed unless it bathed in it. We do not have enough for this. It is also repelled by the cross and by garlic. We do have several crosses around the church but no garlic. A creature such as this,” sighed the preacher heavily, “cannot set foot on hallowed ground. It cannot enter a house of God and it cannot enter a cemetery. It will be repelled. So you were wise to suggest we remain in here for the evening.”

“Why had you not made mention of this before?” Toby insisted.

“I did not believe the stories. I believed them to be the paranoid and deluded imaginings of old men. I still would not believe it if I had not just seen it with my own eyes.” The preacher began walking towards the back of the chapel looking from side to side. “We must find a cross for each of us to hold out in front of us or wear on our necks. We must all be armed with the power of God.”

“Right. That’s fine Preach but how do we kill them? How do we survive this if you say that they are immortal?” Toby said desperate for an answer, for something he could do. 

“You must drive a stake through their heart or cut off their heads. Either of these will end the vampire. If you shoot them, stab them or otherwise wound them, their bodies may recover in time and with consumption of blood.” The preacher laughed and shrugged. “I’m surprised I still remember all this. I heard the other priests talking about it and one of them gave me this book on it here. He told me that I’d need it if I was going out into the desert by myself.”

He pulled a book from the drawer of his desk in the back titled, “The Manifestation of Evil” with a cross on the book cover. Inside the book were drawings, prayers, what appeared to be personal inscriptions and steps to take. It was a copy of a guide of everything that was known about vampires documented in this book.

“So what do we do next?” asked Toby. “Do you have any more of that holy water?”

“I do have more, yes, but we don’t have a great deal. We could consecrate more but there is a limited amount of salt and water here in the chapel. We’ll have to make due with what we’ve got for the next few hours I’m afraid,” replied the preacher.

“We’ve got movement over here Toby” called out Mr. O’Malley. “I can hear 'em coming.”

“The preacher has some holy water. Very well,” came the voice of Eli through the broken window. The face of Jimmy became visible through the window.

“Mama? Mama?” came the voice of the young boy. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin an ashen gray and dried blood covered his mouth and chin. He still wore the nightshirt he had been wearing in his bed in his parents home.

“You want to see the boy again, huh Mama? You can’t hide in your church forever,” taunted Eli. “Come see us out by the old abandoned entrance to the mineshaft. We can all be one happy family. If you don’t, we may just decide that Jimmy isn’t good enough to be a part of our group. We may just decide to kill him yet. Think about it.”

With that lingering threat he put the scared boy down on the ground and left. 

The townspeople looked around at each other, unable to voice what had just happened. The world had turned upside down, swallowed up by this desert darkness.