Alec Kerley and the Wrath of the Vampire: Alec Kerley and the Monster Hunters, #2

May, 1873

Southeast Kansas

Capital S HE WAS THE SUN, and he basked in the warmth of her light. Her beauty stole the oxygen of any great or small space, and Benjamin had to remind himself to breathe when he was with her. Petite and well-formed, her luxurious, deep auburn hair fell lazily over her shoulders and prettily framed her creamy white china doll skin.

The universe was in her eyes: bottomless pools of green with unique exploding stars of gold that combined to form the most singular hazel eyes he’d ever discovered, and he felt like begging for mercy when he lost himself in those enchanting eyes. And her lips, full and soft, held the promise of the most exquisite, undiscovered dreams any 23-year-old young man like himself could muster. Benjamin’s heart ached within him for everything Katie.

But now his heart ached with fear and confusion. The men from Osage Township were in an uproar and heading to the Bender homestead outside of town to search for Katie and her family. At least eleven people had gone missing in the immediate area over the last couple of years, and now it looked as if Katie’s people were missing, too, according to Billy Tole, who’d passed their homestead while driving cattle a few days ago. Billy said the place looked abandoned and the farm animals were unfed, and Benjamin immediately feared the worst. Now several dozen men were forming a search party to head out to the Bender homestead, despite the threat of another thunderstorm under this blanket of night. Benjamin buttoned up his black canvas duster as the wind began to pick up, and pulled his wide-brimmed gray slouch hat down tight. He mounted Daisy, his sweet old white and brown Paint, and clicked his tongue, turning her into the passing, hollering mob of riders who were hurrying over the muddied main strip of town toward the foreboding gloom of the prairie. Women and children peered out of lit windows and gathered on the wooden plank walkways that lined the road, watching the men leave with concerned expressions.

Benjamin’s 12-year-old kid brother, Jacob, was running on the walkway toward him calling out his name. Jacob’s shaggy blonde hair framed his rosy cheeks and cherub blue eyes with golden curls.

Benj! Take me with you!

Benjamin reined in Daisy and stopped next to him. Stay here, Jacob, he said grimly.

I wanna go, too!

No! Benjamin shouted, and his throat felt thick and tight. He gasped, trying to keep his composure. We don’t know what we’re gonna find, Jake, okay?

Jacob stared at his older brother with wide eyes, fear creeping into his expression.

Just stay here, Jacob. Go home. Ma’ll be lookin’ for you. I’ll be home later.

I love you, Benj, Jacob said, sweet and clear, in an uncommon show of affection between the two brothers that surprised Benjamin, who gazed at his brother with red eyes. He cleared his throat, reached down and put his hand on the back of his brother’s neck.

I love you, too, Jakey.

He sat up high in the saddle, nodded at Jacob, and shook Daisy’s reins. The horse trotted forward, joining the mass of riders passing by. Jacob waved at him, the wind blowing his mane of blonde curls.

Benjamin followed the huge group of men out of town and onto the dark prairie. Voices were murmuring to each other as they rode. Benjamin rode in reflective silence.

Harvey Gilbert pulled his horse up next to Benjamin’s. Walker, he greeted tersely.

Gilbert, Benjamin replied.

Awful lot a fuss over a witch an’ her old German family, ain’t it?

Benjamin scowled at him. Katie Bender was well known in the area as a mystic and psychic, conducting séances and selling healing tonics. She had distributed flyers that advertised her services and referred to her as ‘Professor Katie Bender’, though she held no academic credentials. Harvey Gilbert, 26 and one of innumerable southeast Kansas men with eyes for Katie, had nonetheless been rebuffed by her repeatedly, and made no attempt to hide his bitterness. And he enjoyed antagonizing love-lorn Benjamin Walker.

Oh, I forgot, Gilbert continued, she’s yer one and only, she’s yer one true love, ain’t that right, Walker?

Benjamin kicked Daisy and she loped on ahead. He heard Harvey laughing behind him and felt the heat in his face, knowing it was red from anger.

Maybe she was a witch. Benjamin didn’t care. She had certainly bewitched him, that he knew for sure. His mind drifted and once again he heard the honeyed notes of Katie singing ‘Listen to the Mocking Bird’ on the banks of Spill-Out Creek under a starry sky. The tune was lively but the lyrics were haunting:

"I’m dreaming now of Hally, sweet Hally, sweet Hally,

I’m dreaming now of Hally.

For the thought of her is one that never dies.

She’s sleeping in the valley, the valley, the valley,

She’s sleeping in the valley,

And the mocking bird is singing where she lies.

Listen to the mocking bird, listen to the mocking bird,

The mocking bird is still singing o’er her grave;

Listen to the mocking bird, listen to the mocking bird,

Still singing where the weeping willows wave."

Katie’s singing voice had sounded mellow and smooth, like hickory smoke in fall. The memory of it now, under these current troubling circumstances, brought a moistness to his eyes that made it hard to see the horses and riders around him. Benjamin was thankful for the cover of night so that no one could see his face, and he avoided the hand-held lanterns that some men carried.

Halloo! someone called out ahead. The group of riders had arrived at the abandoned homestead.

The wind gusted and cold drops of rain began to sprinkle Benjamin’s clothing. His wide-brimmed hat kept the rain off his face and neck.

Daisy entered the large yard outside the cabin, and Benjamin surveyed the grounds. Men were dismounting and entering the house, while others were riding around the property, searching for signs of life. Benjamin rode up to the porch and swung his leg over the back of his horse, stepping down onto the soggy grass. He wrapped the reins around a handrail and walked inside the open door, joining the others.

An overwhelming, rotten-meat stench slammed into him like a brick wall, causing him to gag. In the lamplight he saw that men had drawn their handkerchiefs up over their nose and mouth and tied them around the backs of their heads, and he did the same. His eyes began to water from the fumes.

Smells like somebody died, a middle-aged man named Abe muttered gravely to Leroy Dick, trustee of Osage Township, who was leading the search. Benjamin’s heart began to pound inside his chest like a drum.

The Benders had turned their small house into a general store and inn. In this front room area there were a few empty shelves where supplies and home-canned vegetables had been for sale, a cook stove, a plain wooden table with four chairs, and an off-white wagon canvas draped across the room directly behind the table, from ceiling to floor. Someone had lit the kerosene lamp on the table and in its flickering orange glow it appeared to Benjamin that there had been some dark stains on the canvas, faded now, as if hand-washed but not completely clean.

There was no food in the house, and the family’s clothing and personal possessions were mostly gone. The Bender family had packed up their belongings and left.

Benjamin’s mind was thick with confusion. Why did they leave? Where did they go? Why didn’t she tell me goodbye? How am I going to find her? His head began to ache.

Benjamin saw an old clock on a shelf and examined it. He opened the glass door and found a compartment, below the clock face, that was full of various pieces of women’s jewelry. He had never seen Katie or her mother wear any of that jewelry. Next to the clock was a German Bible.

Two men emerged from behind the canvas toting three hammers and a knife. The knife had a wooden handle and a slick blade.

And it was covered with dried blood.

Benjamin began to feel sick. He stepped behind the canvas and saw some other men pushing a bed from the back wall. There was a trap door below the bed, nailed shut, leading to somewhere under the house. He watched the men pry it open. The stench was definitely coming from under the house.

A military man from out of town, Colonel York, climbed down into the space below, holding a lantern. There was silence. Then they heard the man vomit.

Benjamin became light-headed and lost his equilibrium. He sat down heavily onto the edge of the bed, and the room began to spin. Ranchers and farmers and immigrants wearing bowler hats rushed to and fro past him, in and out of the cabin, stomping in their mud-covered heavy boots. Their voices were tangled together in a cacophony of incoherent noise to Benjamin’s ears.

From somewhere a million miles away he heard someone shout that they found a body buried in the orchard. It was Colonel York’s missing brother.

Benjamin vomited onto the coarse wooden floor.

He stumbled out the front door to the grassy yard. Men were standing in the rain, holding lanterns and burning torches in various spots around the property while others were probing the ground with a metal rod, pushing it down into areas of disturbed soil in the garden and the orchard to see if it would hit anything solid. And it did, over and over and over.

In all, they uncovered the grisly remains of all eleven missing persons, buried in shallow graves. There were severed body parts of other unidentified people discovered in the well. The evidence was overwhelming. The Benders were serial killers, robbing travelers on the nearby Osage Trail, then murdering and burying them on the Bender property. The group of men remained there for hours, digging up bodies and identifying graves to be dug up tomorrow.

They’ll pay for this, I swear! Charlie Coe shouted, harsh and loud.

We’ll get a posse after ’em, Abe spat.

Benjamin was in shock. But surely sweet Katie didn’t know about this! It must have been her parents and brother who did this. She probably didn’t even know — or maybe she found out and they kidnapped her and moved away before she could tell anyone!

Well, whadda ya think of yer witch now? It was Harvey Gilbert, standing in the rain behind him.

Benjamin’s face became hot. He turned around and punched Harvey in the face, hard, knocking him backwards into the mud. Benjamin dove on top of him and hit him over and over, yelling, She’s not a witch! Understand? Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

Two of Colonel York’s soldiers pulled Benjamin off Harvey, who was bloodied and disheveled. Benjamin jerked away from them and stomped off into the black night, tears mixing with the rain that streamed down his face. He had lost his slouch hat back in that mud with Harvey.

Benjamin wandered a half mile from the cabin and sat under a cottonwood tree, watching the torches and lanterns move about the grounds. And he cried, without shame. There was no one around to see, anyhow. He was in love with Kate Bender, whose family were serial killers. And now she was gone. His world had suddenly turned upside down, twisted into some sort of nightmare.

Presently, the lanterns began to move away from the Bender Inn. They were leaving. Another thirty minutes, and all the riders were gone. Benjamin sat in the dark in silence, listening to the wind shake the leaves in the tree above him.

Lightning streaked across the sky, followed a moment later by bone-jarring thunder. The rain suddenly began to pelt in heavy sheets and the wind gusted. The tree branches were doing a pretty good job of shielding him from the downpour, but if he stayed there under that tree he might be struck by lightning. And he needed to go move Daisy into the barn until the storm passed.

Then there was a shadowy form standing before him. Benjamin’s heart leapt. He peered at the person, but it was too dark to make out any features or details.

Hello? Benjamin called, still sitting.

Silence. He swallowed hard.

Another streak of lightning lit up the prairie, and in the brief flash he saw clearly who it was.

Kate.

Her auburn hair and dress were soaked, and she leered at him with a smirk. Then it was pitch black again. The thunder boomed.

Benjamin’s heart began to gallop and his breath came in gulps, hyperventilating. He scrambled to his feet.

Katie!

Her voice was soft and husky. Hi, Benjy.

A rush of relief flooded over him. I thought you were gone! Where’s your family?

Hiding out, down by the river.

Well, what happened? There are dead bodies all over your family’s property!

She laughed.

Laughed.

Benjamin was silent, dumbstruck. What’s funny about that?

They were just strangers, Benjy, travelers going somewhere, or coming from somewhere, she said in her light German accent. "They were traveling with their life savings, you see, on the ‘great Osage Trail’! And our inn was so convenient for them, right on the way. It was so…eeeaassssy," she hissed.

A shiver electrified Benjamin’s skull and slithered down his spine.

"Oh, don’t be so shocked, Benjy! I’m still your dear, sweet Katie! No one tried to kill you, right? You were just too poor, Benjy, which, as it turns out, was a good thing."

Benjamin backed against the tree to steady himself. The gusts blew so hard, he could barely hear her speak.

Did I ever tell you about the handsome world traveler who stopped at our little inn last winter? No, probably not! She chuckled. He was from Europe, you see, very rich, very dark, very mysterious.

Why does she just stand there in the wind and rain? Benjamin wondered. She was motionless.

Well, she continued, I thought I’d get one over on him. Give him a good bonk on the head, cut him and bury him under the apple tree. But… she sighed, he got one over on me.

Kate stepped closer to Benjamin and reached out her hand. He stood mute and didn’t respond. Kate sounded as if she were pouting.

Oh, Benjy. You don’t want to hold my hand? How sad.

Katie, I… I can’t believe what you’re telling me, he gasped.

Kate let out a laugh, dark and hideous. And then she was dead silent. Benjamin’s skin began to crawl. When Kate spoke again, her voice was grim.

"You see, that man from Europe was a vampire, Benjy. A vampire. And he gave me a wonderful gift. It’s eternal life, Benjy. Eternal life! Imagine! Just take my hand, Benjy."

No.

Take my hand!

"No! No, Kate! What’re you talking about? This is crazy! Are you saying you’re a… a vampire?"

She laughed again, and it terrified him. Her hand was still stretched out toward him. "You’ll never die," she whispered, barely audible.

A warm tear traced its way from the corner of Benjamin’s eye, down his left cheek, reaching the corner of his mouth. It was salty.

"I… love you, Benjy. I know I never said it, but you know it, don’t you? Don’t you know you’ve always been the one for me?" She giggled.

Oh, Katie. I’ve always loved you! Always!

Then take my hand, Benjy.

He stood silent, shivering.

"Take it!"

Benjamin was weeping now. Slowly, timidly, he reached out and grasped Kate’s outstretched hand. It felt like a corpse, hard and cold. Katie…

Kate cackled. "It’s a gift, Benjy, it really is. Who needs G—… who needs… Him, she pointed up, when we can live forever without Him? Now we can live off the blood of our victims. I was killing them before, for trinkets and fun. But now, I get to kill for trinkets and fun…"

Lightning flashed and for a brief eternity the prairie became day. Kate’s mouth was formed into a wide-mouthed snarl, and she had long canine teeth. Her eyes were red and wide.

Benjamin was in a dream, he decided. Just a dream. Or a nightmare. Yes, a nightmare.

And as he stared at the face of evil before him, his memory recalled again dear, sweet Katie singing in her haunting way…

"When the charms of spring awaken, awaken, awaken,

When the charms of spring awaken,

And the mocking bird is singing on the bough,

I feel like one