This is my ode to Bram Stoker, called "Little Town"
"O Town,
The strange, unbidden guest?"
The Poet’s Town By John G. Neihardt
I know there are vampires out there and not some gentleman who attacks you in the middle of the night when the moon's full. And definitely not the old stories that your grandparents and parents have brought with them from the old country. These are creatures that live next door to you, some you may even give Christmas cards to; you're kids growing up calling 'em Uncle Dan. These creatures don't burn to a crisp when the sun touches them and they sure as hell aren't afraid of garlic. I've known them; they're church going people who throw annual fourth of July barbecues. They are on the PTA, watch I Love Lucy, drink beers, maybe even pick their noses when no one's looking, and they do 'cause I've seen them.
I grew up with them in a little town in Idaho, in the years before I knew there were such things. We were so back woods you had to go through an entire forest just to find us. Over the years our little town grew bigger, with people trooping in from places east, west and south of us wanting to know what nature living was all about. Those who decided to stay permanently fit right in with our ways, our jokes, our annual pork festivals. But some visitors would step one foot into our town line and for some reason would bolt in their car and speed right back. This was a bad move since there was a speed trap just outside town. My uncle was a trooper and everyone he ever stopped for speeding always gave the same answer to why they were in such a rush, they had different names for it but it all boiled to "the willies". Some would say it sheepishly, others defiantly but none ever wanted to turn around just to make sure the feeling was wrong.
I got to hear this first hand one day. This was also the first day I got a glimpse of one. It was the last few days of August when you finally are motivated to get off your butt. It was just before school starts and the days are hazy, threatening some fierce storm to set fire to our forest border. We were lucky not to experience that so far that summer. I had been riding my bike through the forest and was heading back into town. The sun was fiery behind me, being chased down by the cool blue twilight. I decided to take Harker road into town instead of the way I had forged through the forest. As I was pedaling one bend close to town, enjoying the breeze on this slight incline, eyes half-closed I saw a car with the lights flashing away frantically. I slowed down and looked inside the car. Some fancy car with the red leather upholstery type that you saw old private eyes drive on those 70’s shows.
It was a couple. They were almost in tears when they found they had a flat tire close to the border of our town. I guess they didn’t know how to change a tire because Mick, the local mechanic was there. We called him Mick the mech. Anyway they kept telling Mick the mech to hurry up, which was asking for too much. He told them to calm down, that God would get the job done in time. He even stopped to ask them a few questions just to procrastinate with the job.
“So what’s the hurry folks?”, he managed to drawl out, as if savoring each letter. The woman had gone all red in the face like she just saw his jimmy johnson or some such and then she looks at him, probably thinking, “this hick can’t scare me” and blurts out, “this place gives me the heebie-jeebies”. The guy next to her pipes up, he’s pointing toward the town and says with this accent I couldn’t place, “something odd and unnatural is in there.” Mick starts laughing his tar laugh, rising out real slow from inside and it kinda bubbles out. “Alotta people say that but you folks have nothin’ to worry ‘bout”.
Then this is the weird part. Mick turns to me, still smiling, wearing his usual red cap, stained on the brim from the grease on cars, and says, “Listen I can handle this, why dontcha head home, s’lmost dinner.” Then he grins at me, the red fire sun glinting in his eyes. “Head on home there, it’s gettin late, I’ll help these folks” and he nodded at me. I suddenly realized that the hair on the back of my neck had stood on end. I glanced at the people in the car who were fanning themselves and looked at them pleadingly. What I was pleading for I had no idea but they just looked impatiently at Mick and ignored me. I looked back at Mick but he was looking at the people in the car. I saw that the tufts of hair that escaped the back of that cap were on end. Tiny needle points that looked excited more than alarmed. I got on my bike and started pedaling off when I heard the woman whine that they needed to be out soon. I caught the last thing Mick said, “I think it’s moren some tire problem”.
I had pedaled hard, trying to ease down the hairs on my arms and neck, going so fast around that turn that my bike skidded beneath me and slid sideways and threw me off. The rough road crashed against me, scratching at my open palms and I got up shaking. Bits of pebbles had embedded themselves into my palms and the sting of the fall had scared me even more. I located my bike and was about to mount it one more time when I heard an eerie sound. It sounded like the wind does when you’re on your bike going down a hill with no care in the world, plummeting toward the earth. A high pitched Wheeeeee. After that came a grunting, savage, ripping and panting, and then a sickening thud of a body fall to the ground, a jingle of keys accompanying. I clutched at my bike’s handles, forced my legs over the seat and biked away from the hideous noise behind me.
When the next day dawned I was faced with my head buzzing in agony and the town buzzing with horror. Mick was dead, left on the side of the road. No one knew where the couple was and their car was gone.
"Ramblings of the innocent"
it drove me mad to think I would be the one to carry out this unfortune spree amongst the want nots. I hastily retreated toward the convent sacred and flung my strung nerves upon a pew and began a detailed account of my woes to some higher deity that answers the calls of innocent, if not inclined to faint, maidens and bequest upon me the power to keep my head high whilst I traipsed along the scourge and filth of the lower class. Mind you I was wont to stamp a foot and curse a tear that coursed upon my silken cheek. I had not yet known to question the authority of those insipid gods above and felt rightly that they would relieve my grievous heart. Had I known that all along they sat there dull and barren I would have gone to less heavenly powers. But of course I had not and so I went away with less of the horror that had found its way to me, like the poison of the ill fated snake in the creation story.
