Billy took another bite of his burger as he briefly looked up to scan the diner for the thirty-fifth time. There was no one really here, but it was always this way after seven at night. The place was a graveyard, just like this part of the city, but that’s what you got for living in a suburb filled with squares.
He picked up a fry and chewed on it as he thought about what he wanted to do next. The boys weren’t doing anything tonight; everybody in the gang was up to something different but unimportant, likely family stuff or odd jobs, so tonight was just a lazy nothing, just a time burner without the gas to burn anything.
However, this lack of interest in life itself wasn’t meant to last.
The door to the diner opened as an older patron in a three-piece and a fedora decided he was going to leave. The diner lady behind the counter looked up and nodded once after that. She said, “Come on in, honey! Everybody’s welcome!” as the older man at the door stepped aside while holding the door open for someone whom Billy had not seen as of yet.
She walked in after that, walking past the older patron as the man holding the door tipped his hat at her entrance, and Billy’s silent drift into boredom drifted away at the sight of this new woman, a real dish in some seriously outdated clothing. She looked about his age, in her early twenties, but she was dressed in what looked like a Sunday-school dress, a white dress with green-and-red print flowers, printed roses or something.
This blonde doll’s hair was done up like ten years behind the times, the kind of style a chick would have worn a couple of years after the war. If he knew anything about women, they weren’t one to fall behind on style, so something was up.
This dish looked around for a brief second after her walk-in debut, and she spotted Billy straight off. Now, normally a Sunday-school chick like this would have turned tail and headed toward someone less “rough,” but this out-of-touch blonde babe zeroed right in on him. Gilly’s Diner wasn’t exactly some greasy spoon, but Billy wasn’t exactly its regular clientele, either.
He fit the greaser to a T. He was tall and attractive, but he wore the white tee and the black leather jacket along with the blue jeans and the black boots…He liked that style. His black hair was greased up in a quiff to match his dark eyes and his generally rough attitude, but this suited him just fine. He had no qualms with his image, but most other people sure as hell did.
Nevertheless, she walked up to him as bold as brass and just planted her sweet butt in the seat right across from him.
“Hey, there,” she said coyly and with a smile.
And she was indeed a real dish up close, a real honest-to-God knockout, but like, weirdly out of touch with the times. She had a candy figure, bright blue eyes, and an absolutely gorgeous face, but the victory roll in her hair was way out of style. It was like she’d been stuck in time since a decade ago, like she’d stepped right out of 1945.
Billy was transfixed upon that bygone beauty for a second, but only for a second…He knew better than to fall for a fox trap.
“Do I know you, doll?” he asked.
“No, but I know you,” said the girl with a grin.
She had perfect teeth, white and shiny, just like her look, so he decided to bite.
“Oh?” he asked. “You know me, huh?”
“You’re just the mug I was looking for,” said the girl. “I need someone for a job…someone outside of the flatfoots.”
“Flatfoots?” asked Billy. “Oh, you mean the fuzz…You been living under a rock, babe? Ain’t nobody dress or talk like you no more…but ain’t you a dish. You’re a real looker.
“You probably shouldn’t be talking to someone like me…Normally, I like the attention, but maybe you gotta screw loose, and I’d feel real bad if something were to happen to a peach like you…I ain’t no Sunday-school preacher, but somethin’ about this don’t feel right. I guess I got a conscience after all.”
“Oh, don’t be such a stick in the mud,” she said as she waved him off. “I need a cool cat who can do a killer-diller job for me, something real dangerous. I saw you, and I thought, ‘He’s the one.’”
“Oh?” asked Billy.
He picked up a fry, swished it around the ketchup on his plate, and ate it before saying anything else.
“Well, I ain’t no chicken heart, but I also ain’t stupid,” shrugged Billy. “I gotta know the job first before I agree to anything…I don’t want no ‘flatfoots’ on me. Yeah, you caught me without my boys, but I’ll bite…What’s the job?”
“My hubby’s away on business, so it’s hard for me to get away from the manor,” frowned the girl. “Even so, I got out tonight, but I don’t have much time…You see, I sometimes get out, and that really burns him up…He gets hot under the collar, and then he has to send someone to track me down.
“Trust me when I say…my old man is just that…old. I want out, but I can’t get out, and that’s got me down in the dumps.”
Now, this was surprising.
“A chick like you is hitched?” asked Billy. “Really?…I never woulda guessed.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed.
“It was arranged,” she said in clear audible unhappiness. “It was definitely against my will…My ‘husband?’…He’s older than my grandfather, and he’s a real dryball…I want some young blood, not some stiff old man.”
“Really?” asked Billy. “I feel sorry for you then. Crazy times we’re living in.”
“Yeah, I know,” snorted the girl.
“Who are you, anyway?” asked Billy. “I gotta know who I’m dealin’ with here.”
“I’m Frances,” giggled the young lady. “Sorry. I guess I forgot to introduce myself.”
“Well, Frances, I’m Billy,” replied Billy. “Now that we’re officially introduced, I’d like to know what the job is…If you’re wantin’ me to off your old man, I ain’t doing that. I may be a lot of things, but I ain’t no hatchet man. I ain’t killin’ nobody.”
“Oh, don’t be such a wet blanket,” said Frances as she waved him off again. “I don’t need a killer…I need a thief.”
“Oh?” asked Billy. “I might be able to swing that. What are we talkin’?”
Frances leaned forward as her eyes darted from side to side, and then she spoke in a near whisper.
“It’s really weird, and you’re not going to believe it,” she said quietly.
“Try me,” said Billy.
This chick was all kinds of weird herself, but he wasn’t doing anything tonight, and this was better than just sitting around and watching the paint dry.
“Have you got a car?” asked Frances. “We should talk in there, not in here.”
Billy had to blink twice at that. Some random off-the-street chick who wanted to jump in his wheels? What was the world coming to?
“Listen, babe, you wanna ride, all you gotta do is ask,” snorted Billy. “You don’t gotta make nothin’ up…Did you see my hot rod? Is that what this is about?”
“No,” frowned Frances. “I was being honest…for once…Let’s…Let’s just talk somewhere else. This place is square.”
“Yeah, I see that,” shrugged Billy. “Okay, babe. You can tell me all about it…but…I ain’t no adulterer or nothin’. I ain’t square, but I did learn a thing or two from Father Mills. I ain’t messin’ ‘round with nobody’s wife.”
“I wasn’t…This isn’t a…I’m not out for hanky panky! What kind of girl do you think I am!” asked Frances in visible and audible shock.
“Obviously not that kind,” shrugged Billy. “Okay. We’ll head to my wheels, then.”
“Thank you,” grinned Frances. “Just hear me out, and then you can help me.”
“I’ll hear you out, but I ain’t said I was gonna help you,” shrugged Billy.
“You’ll help me,” nodded Frances. “I know you will…You won’t leave a girl like me in a bind; I can tell.”
Billy shrugged yet again. This chick was interesting if she was anything else.
He was done eating anyway, so he signaled for the waitress, paid his bill, and he and Frances left together.
He escorted her to his cherry-red 1950 Oldsmobile Rocket 88, that sweet ride parked across the street. He opened the front-passenger’s-side door for her, because even though he fit the bill as a greaser, he was still a gentleman in some respects. He’d learned some things from his ma.
They sat in his car as they shut the doors.
Billy turned and gave her a once-over. Up close, in the dim light of the outdoor lamps, this woman was a scorcher, even with her Sunday-school threads and her old-hat style.
“Okay, babe, you got my attention,” said Billy. “What’s the score, and why are we getting’ it?”
“You’re not going to believe it,” said Frances as she raised her eyebrows and grinned.
“Try me,” said Billy yet again. “We’ve already been over this. Just spill it.”
“Okay, my husband is what’s called a…a ‘necromancer,’” nodded Frances, her eyes widening as she drew her lips into tight lines.
“A necro what?” asked Billy. “Is he a foreigner or somethin’?”
“No, no,” said Frances as she closed her eyes and shook her head. “I mean, yes, he’s originally from Germany, but that’s not what ‘necromancer’ means.”
She opened her eyes and stared him down with those bright-blue orbs.
“No, he’s a…wizard…a…a warlock…a…like a male witch,” nodded Frances.
“What?” asked Billy in disbelief. “What are you talkin’ about?”
“He practices magic,” said Frances with a firm conviction in her voice. “He’s actually a well-known collector, an antiques dealer, but he practices black magic.”
“Is this some kind of Satanic thing?” asked Billy.
He didn’t want nothing to do with any kind of Satanic stuff.
“Sort of,” frowned Frances. “My ‘husband’ is into some really dark stuff. He’s been raising the dead…He…He’s been controlling the dead, too.”
“I don’t know, babe,” frowned Billy in return. “It sounds like you need the Army, not me…that’s if you don’t belong in a looney bin, which I strongly suspect you do. You don’t look like you’re heading ’round the bin, though, so if you’re nuts, you’re puttin’ on a class act.”
“I’m not crazy!” protested Frances. “I’m not…Listen, my husband put together a book…He’s titled it ‘The Book of Chains.’ It’s a small collection of pages from an ancient book titled ‘The Necronomicon,’ or ‘The Book of the Dead.’ Have you heard of it?”
“I ain’t heard a nothin’ like that,” said Billy with a shake of his head. “That sounds like somethin’ for nerds…like all those ones into those horror mags. Sounds like my little brother with his weird collection of masks and fake blood.”
“It’s real,” nodded Frances. “Now, listen, Billy, I need to get ahold of that book, ‘The Book of Chains.’ My husband, Franz…Franz Becker…he’s the real McCoy. He’s out on a business trip right now, and he’ll be gone for a whole month, so he’s left me with some instructions about…about how I can conduct myself.”
“He’s nailing you down, huh?” asked Billy. “Okay, so what do you need from me? You’re already out a the house, so what’s the problem? Just take a bus somewhere. You don’t need this old creep.”
“I…can’t,” grimaced Frances. “He’ll find me…He can control the dead, remember? He’ll just send a ghost to track me down.”
“You’re kind of wacky; you know that?” asked Billy. “You definitely got a screw loose.”
Her face contorted into something almost unidentifiable, as if her rage was barely contained, like a beast locked behind some pretty strong zoo bars. Billy did not know what to make of it.
She opened her blue eyes and stared him down again.
“I’m not crazy,” she said unhappily. “Please, don’t call me that.”
“You got threads and hair like that, and you’re not crazy?” asked Billy.
“It’s what he likes,” sighed Frances. “I…I hate to admit it, but I’ve gotten used to it, too…Look, I know it all sounds goofy, but I am genuinely terrified of him, and I want out of our…uhhh…our marriage.
“If you can steal his book for me, ‘The Book of Chains,’ I’ll be forever in your debt. If you get that book, he can’t find me…Right now, he’s out on an antique deal, and he treats me nice at the manor, but he…he won’t let me have what I want, not what I really want, not what I need…I want out…I need out…Ugh…He’s so Dullsville. He’s driving me batty.”
“You’ll be forever in my debt, huh?” asked Billy. “All this for stealing a book?”
“Yeah,” grinned Frances. “All you’ve got to do is grab it and leave with it…It’s right out in the open in his library.”
“So why didn’t you take it?” asked Billy.
“I…I can’t even touch it,” shivered Frances. “Franz made sure of that…It’s hard to explain…I told you…He’s like a wizard, but for the dead. He can summon the dead, control them, raise them, that kind of thing…You see, he made that book, and he’s put my name in that abomination. If I so much as touch that book, the dead will be all over me…That’s why I need you. He doesn’t know you from Adam, so your name isn’t in the book. You can just pick it up and walk out with it.”
“So why me?” asked Billy. “You could pick up any ol’ turkey for this job. Why me?”
“I need someone tough for this job,” explained Frances. “I need an honest-to-goodness hard case like you…someone who won’t turn tail and run at the first sign of trouble.”
This was definitely cause for concern.
“Why?” asked Billy. “I thought you just needed to get a book. What kind of trouble are we talking about?”
“You’ll see when we get there,” nodded Frances.
“Woah, I ain’t said I was going, but…I ain’t got nothin’ better to do tonight, so I’ll humor you…for now,” said Billy.
He was bored anyway.
“That’s pure ace, Billy!” gasped Frances. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!”
She leaned forward and gave him a hug, and he had to admit to himself that he liked it, even though he shouldn’t have liked the touch of a married woman. Even so, she was a little chilly, her bare skin a little cold in that touch.
She let go of him, and Billy shook his head in concern.
“It’s the middle of November, babe,” he said. “You really need a coat or a jacket or somethin’.”
“Don’t worry about me,” said Frances as she waved him off. “Let’s just go get that book, and then I can finally be free. I’ll grab a coat after that…I can’t worry about anything else right now.”
“Okay,” shrugged Billy. “Suit yourself…Where is this joint anyway? Where are your digs?”
“The manor is outside of Corgan,” said Frances. “I can show you where.”
“That’s like…an hour away, babe,” frowned Billy. “How did you make it out here?”
“I have my secrets,” grinned Frances.
She wiggled her eyebrows and giggled.
“I can’t tell you everything,” she continued. “That would spoil the fun.”
He shrugged. He wanted to drive anyway, lose himself on the road. It’s what he usually did when the boys were up to nothing.
“Suit yourself,” he said. “Let’s motor, then.”
He started the engine, and they were off.
They drove for nearly an hour, and during that time, Billy just made small talk about his family while Frances regaled him about hers.
Apparently, her older brother had died in the Big One, had died right on Normandy Beach, and her parents had been down in the dumps ever since. Her old man had gotten lost in that drag, and because of that, he’d lost his job as well, so her folks had been forced to “sell” her to an old rich guy from Germany, which was pretty darned ironic in Billy’s eyes, considering the Krauts were the ones responsible for killing her brother in the first place.
Her parents had to be the forgiving type, because Billy sure as hell wouldn’t have been.
What was weird, however, was how the girl went on and on about life in the forties. Billy had long since abandoned remembering his childhood. He was alive and here now in his twenties, in his prime, alive in what was happening in the ’50s, and this was the best time of his life, so why would he want to remember what it was like when he’d still been a squirt?
Nevertheless, they made it to “the manor” in what felt like nothing flat. That absence of time was mainly due to the fact that Billy actually liked talking to Frances, and this was unusual in its own right, because he wasn’t really up on talking to chicks, even the foxy ones like Frances…They tended to bore him. He was more in line with some backseat bingo when it came to the babes…He still wasn’t messing around with any married chicks, though. He wasn’t stupid.
They pulled up onto a large gravel drive and wheeled up in front of…honestly what looked like—to Billy, anyway—a haunted house from a black-and-white film, like something straight off of a drive-in screen. The place was two stories tall, had a steeple, and was painted in dark blue, though that dark paint was peeling in places. The lawn was overgrown with dead grass and weeds, and the porch consisted of concrete steps that were cracked and worn in places.
Billy stared in mild denial at the crow resting upon the steeple directly within the very-large lighted-silhouette of the full moon.
“This is it,” frowned Frances.
“This place is a dump,” said Billy matter-of-factly. “This is a real downer, a real horror show. No wonder you want out.”
“It has definitely seen better days,” sighed Frances. “The inside is nice, though…Not that it matters. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“I don’t blame you, babe,” said Billy with a shake of his head. “Well, we’re here. Let’s go get your book and get out of here. I don’t like the look a this place.”
“And I don’t blame you,” sighed Frances again. “Okay, Billy, let’s head in, but…I really hate being here.”
“Yeah,” replied Billy.
Billy exited the car, walked around, and opened the car door for her. Frances then led him to the front door of the manor, she opened that door, and then she invited him in.
“After you, my dark knight,” she giggled. “You are always welcome here.”
Billy snorted out a laugh, shook his head, and then stepped into the foyer of this small mansion.
He could feel a black, invisible fog surround him, like a feeling of spinetingling danger that was wrong, just wrong.
He shivered and shook his head again.
“I don’t like this, babe,” he said quietly. “It don’t feel right.”
Frances walked in behind him and shut the front door.
“Well, I invited you in, so you won’t be attacked, not right off,” she said.
“Attacked?” asked Billy. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
He looked around and shook his head yet again.
This place looked a lot bigger on the inside than it did from without. The foyer or living room or whatever it was was clean and well-lit by a brass chandelier hanging above them. There were bookshelves around the walls filled with dusty old tomes and what had to be antiques here and there. In the center of the room was a large sofa with red-leather seating and dark-wood backing, and this layout was accented by a few lit red candles strategically placed around the spacious room.
“Well, these digs got charm if anything,” muttered Billy. “Still don’t like this pad, though. Gives me the creeps.”
He was beginning to think that maybe this chick wasn’t crazy, that maybe she was actually onto something about this Kraut.
“The book is in the library through that open door,” nodded Frances, “but we can’t go in there yet. You’ll need some protection.”
“Yeah, no kiddin’,” nodded Billy. “I’ll take whatever I can get.”
She led him over to a couple of deep bookshelves that sported some antiques resting in front of some old books.
“Now, I can’t touch any of this stuff,” explained Frances. “He’ll know if I do, but like I said, your name isn’t in the book, so you can grab some things. Some things are cursed, so I wouldn’t touch anything out of curiosity, but I’ll show you what you need to get.”
“Whatever you say, babe,” shrugged Billy. “It’s your show.”
She nodded toward some glass flasks corked by glass stoppers. The flasks themselves held the molded symbols of gold crosses upon their sculpted round shapes.
“Right here is the holy oil,” she said matter-of-factly. “We’ll need that to burn the book. It’s the only way it can be truly destroyed, so we can’t use any of those yet.”
“Okay,” slowly nodded Billy.
“Right here is a black amulet with a pentagram,” said Frances. “This thing will drive off the ghosts…There are two of them…two ghosts, by the way. The first one is straight forward and will rush you. He’s pretty strong, but you can take him, Billy…I’d watch out for the second one, though. She’s a real dragon lady.”
“Ghosts now, huh?” asked Billy. “Okay, babe.”
He picked up the black amulet off of the shelf. The large thing was just a black iron circle, but it did indeed hold a five-pointed star in its center. The whole thing was on a durable black chain, but Billy decided not to put it around his neck. He stuffed it in his right jeans pocket, because he wasn’t going to wear any of that Satanic stuff.
“What now?” he asked.
“Umm, you’ve got to get past Hans,” explained Frances. “This lockbox has a pistol in it, but don’t ask me what model it is or anything. I don’t know anything about guns. I only know that it’s loaded.”
“Woah, I said I wasn’t no hatchet man,” said Billy as he raised up both hands, palms out.
“No, no,” said Frances as she shook her head in reply. “Hans is already dead; he just hasn’t stopped moving…Just…Just take the gun, Billy, just in case. The lockbox isn’t locked, so just open it and grab the gun. You might need it.”
“I’ll take the piece, but I don’t know if I’ll use it,” said Billy with a shake of his own head.
He opened the small, grey, metal lockbox and removed a Luger P08. He recognized the Kraut gun simply from its unique shape… and of course, there was the fact that his old man had drilled into him some of this trivia when he’d been little. His pa had been into the war stuff back then.
“I’d never thought I’d see one of these in the good ol’ U. S. of A.,” said Billy. “This is a genuine war prize here, babe.”
“All I know is that it’s loaded,” frowned Frances. “Just be careful with it…Don’t shoot me on accident, Billy.”
“I ain’t gonna mar a single beautiful hair on that gorgeous blonde head a yours, Frankie,” said Billy matter-of-factly. “You don’t need to worry ’bout that. It’s not like I ain’t used a piece before.”
“Frankie?” asked Frances with a grin. “I like that. You can keep calling me that, Billy.”
“Suit yourself,” shrugged Billy.
“Anyway, there’s one more danger, a trap of sorts, but I never figured out what it was,” said Frances as she screwed up her lips in visible thought. “I overheard Franz talking about it, but I didn’t make out the details.”
“Franz, Hans, and Frances, huh?” noted Billy as he snorted out a laugh. “Are we just playing the name game here? Franz and Frances, Franz and Hans…Are you puttin’ me on, babe? Is any of this for real?. You’re telling me this is for real? Don’t hand me that.”
Frances frowned and gave him a look that could boil lead.
“It’s all real, Billy,” she said in distinct verbal unhappiness. “I’m not trying to pull a fast one…Look, the sooner you get the book and we burn it, the sooner I get out of here. I just want to be free, Billy…I need to be free…You don’t know what it’s like to be in a prison like this. Franz has his dirty old hooks in me…I want out.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Billy. “All right, let’s get this done. I ain’t got all night, and by the sound a things, neither do you.”
“Yeah, Billy,” nodded Frances. “Right this way. You’ll first have to deal with Hans, though, so be careful.”
She led him south across the parlor and to the open door she had pointed at earlier.
Billy took one look through the door and shook his head.
The room through the open doorway was indeed a library, but it was massive, like way bigger than he’d thought it should be, especially after seeing this whole dump of a “manor” from the outside.
The “library” was covered wall to wall by bookshelves loaded down with book after book on thick oak shelves, but that wasn’t even the impressive part. The whole room was two-stories tall, the bookshelves reaching up both stories, rolling wooden ladders placed here and there upon the shelves all the way around this massive open rectangle. The room, itself, had to be sixty feet from the doorway all the way back to the back wall, and there were huge brass chandeliers hanging down from the gabled ceiling, giving the whole place a grand look that was truly impressive.
“Whoa,” said Billy, but his comment wasn’t just because of the grandeur before him.
There was a simple wooden chair about twenty feet in front of him, but that wasn’t what held his attention. What kept his eyes locked was the corpse of a man in a grey three-piece suit sitting in that chair, the face a withered grey husk with hollowed-out eyes and wisps of white hair upon its leather-stretched skull.
“There’s a stiff in here, Frankie,” said Billy. “He looks like he’s been here for a while. This is some trick-or-treat stuff.”
“That’s Hans,” said Frances in a dry tone. “You’ll have to get around him. That’s what the gun is for, Billy.”
“Uh, huh,” said Billy.
He shook his head at all of this nonsense. Someone, somewhere, was putting him on. Maybe one of the boys was trying to scare him…?
Well…it wasn’t going to work.
“I ain’t folding like a deck a cards, guys,” smirked Billy. “Nice try, though.”
“The book is all the way at the back wall,” said Frances. “Just remember the amulet I gave you, and watch out for the last twenty feet. There’s some kind of trap Franz set up, but like I said, I don’t know what it is.”
“Right,” snorted Billy. “This is some real bunk, but whatever. I got nothin’ better to do, anyway.”
He stepped inside the library, amulet in his jacket pocket, the Luger in his right hand. There was still the feeling of oppressive evil lingering in the air, but he shook that off. That was just the freakish atmosphere settling down on him over this giant joke.
“This is some real baloney bunk,” smirked Billy as he marched forward.
His confident smirk faded as he made it forward about ten feet in. The corpse in the suit, the weathered thing in the chair without much of a face, this “Hans,” stiffly rose to block his forward progress.
“What the…?” breathed out Billy.
The walking dead slowly shuffled toward him as Billy raised the Luger in his right hand to meet the oncoming “threat.”
“Is that you, Richie?” he asked. “This is some real bunk, you meathead. Come on…”
“What are you doing!” screeched Frances from outside the open library door. “Shoot him!”
This was all part of the joke; it had to be. The gun had to be a prop; it had to be.
“Okay, baby,” grinned Billy.
Billy pulled the trigger, and the Luger fired with a loud “BANG!” Dust puffed out from the chest of the walking corpse in front of him, and the stiff in the suit jerked backwards a bit, but then the moving body simply took to shuffling forward again.
“Hey, that looked real,” said Billy in growing confusion.
“Shoot him, Billy!” screeched Frances again.
Billy unloaded four rounds into the walking corpse, and the dusty, bony, stiff with leathery, stretched, desiccated flesh jerked backwards with each shot, the rounds clearly impacting in puffs of corpse dust and bone bits, but it continued its forward march without stopping.
“Hey, that’s a pretty-good magic tri—” began Billy, but he was cut short.
The dusty corpse in a grey three-piece suit swung a stiff-armed right that knocked the Luger from Billy’s right hand, and the gun went sliding across the finished wood of the library floor. The walking body then proceeded to grab Billy’s black leather jacket with both bony hands.
Billy stared in surprise at the crawling maggots within the thing’s eye sockets.
“Holy—!” he began.
He was flung backwards through the air, sailing backwards eight feet to land with a loud “Oof!” on his back as he slid back two more feet to stop right in front of the open library door.
He stared up into Frances’ beautiful face.
“Get up, Billy!” she cried out in a clear verbal panic.
The throw had surprised him more than it had hurt him, and thankfully, the wind hadn’t been knocked out of him, or he’d have truly been in trouble. Nevertheless, he’d just been planted like a tulip, and walking dead body or not, this did not sit well with him.
“You chump, loser, son of a…” he rattled off as he stood and charged.
He gave the corpse a solid left hook right across the chops. It turned its skull head from the blow and then turned to “stare” back at Billy, right as Billy followed up with a right hook that turned its head the other way.
Billy could feel his knuckles hit bone and bits of stretched leathery flesh as a few maggots were knocked loose from the eye sockets to fly out left and right from each blow. He followed up with another left hook, but his shot was blocked by the stiff right arm of the animated corpse named “Hans.” This “Hans” pulled back his right arm and winged Billy’s own left arm away, and then the walking corpse backhanded Billy with a stiff left arm.
The force of the blow sent Billy flying again, and he fell to the wooden floor as he slid across it for a second time.
His ears were ringing as he stood up and shook the birds from his head. Frances was saying something, yelling something, but he couldn’t make it out. All he knew was that this dead chump in a suit had asked for it, so he was going to give it to him.
Billy looked around himself for anything he could use as a weapon, and bingo, there was a pair of crossed swords on the wall directly behind him. The deadly-sharp metal blades were curved fat things, like a cross between an axe and a sword, like something out of the Arabian Nights.
He quickly pulled one off the wall, swiveled on the balls of his feet, and charged again toward the lumbering Hans.
“Let’s see how you take this, chump!” yelled Billy.
He swung the sword in a deadly horizontal arc as best he could. The metal blade impacted across the skull of the walking cadaver, there was a puff of dust and bits of bone as the dry head shattered, and then Billy jumped and dropkicked the body in the chest for good measure, his boots impacting right across the sternum.
Billy hit the floor as he landed on his left arm to absorb the fall. Hans’ dry and dusty corpse sailed backwards to hit the library floor, and the body slid across that wooden floor for a couple of feet before skidding to a halt.
Billy popped up and readied his sword again, but the corpse in a suit was just that now…a corpse in a suit. The body had stopped moving, mainly on account of the fact that it was missing half its head.
“Who’s a flyweight now, huh!” yelled Billy.
“That was keen, Billy!” called out Frances from behind him.
Despite the sudden praise, Billy was not happy. Frances had some explaining to do, because this dog-and-pony horror show was actually real, and that was some hard baloney to swallow for a Christian boy, even if he was a greaser who was always up to trouble.
Billy turned and marched straight out of the library, right back the way he’d come. The look on Frances’ gorgeous face was one of surprise, because he was pretty sure she had no clue why he was angry, but he was definitely going to explain that anger, and right away.
He gripped the strangely-curved sword in his right hand as he reached for Frances’ own right arm with his left hand. He spun her about and practically dragged her to the front door of the manor, only to pull her outside and into the light of the full moon.
“Billy!” cried Frances. “Billy, what are you—”
“You got some explainin’ to do, babe,” he said forcefully as he cut her protest short.
He stared her straight in her beautiful blue eyes and shook his head once.
“Now I thought you were just beatin’ a bush, but this Wolf Man/Dracula bunk is on the level, legit, and I don’t like that,” said Billy unhappily.
Frances’ lips screwed up into an expression that Billy found difficult to determine in description.
“I…I…I told you, Billy,” she stammered. “I told you this was all on the up and up. I told you I needed someone tough and not a square for this, because I was telling the truth.”
“You did, but I just thought…” started Billy.
And he did think. There were some things that didn’t add up here, and now that he was thinking about it, he didn’t like any of it.
“Now, hold your horses,” he frowned. “You’ve had me do everything, like everything, now that I think about it. You’ve haven’t touched a thing in there. Yeah, you opened the door for me, but this is your home…sort of…so I don’t count that, but…I don’t think you can do a lot of things, and I think I know why…and don’t think I didn’t notice you didn’t go into the library with me.”
“I…I can’t go into the library, Billy,” said Frances.
“I know,” nodded Billy. “That’s what don’t make sense. You’re tellin’ me you made it all the way to Gilly’s Diner from here just to find someone like me, but you can’t even go into your own library? You’re tellin’ me you can’t even pick up a piece like that Kraut gun you gave me, or that Satanic amulet, or…or anything else?…That’s really weird, Frances…That’s really weird…
“This big ol’ house you got here don’t make no sense, either. It’s way bigger on the inside than on the out, and there was a walkin’ stiff in there, a…a dead guy that shoulda been dead but wasn’t. Now, I’m not stupid, so I know now this bunk is real, but I think…I think you been lying to me. You talkin’ about this guy Franz raising the dead and makin’ ’em do things? Well…that’s on the level, and that’s messed up, but not everything you’ve said’s been the truth, because I don’t think he’s your husband at all…
“I’m beginnin’ to think…I’m beginnin’ to think you’re one of them…that you’re something ol’ Franz cooked up from that book of his. I’m beginnin’ to think the reason you look and talk like you do is because I’m actually talkin’ to a spook and not an honest-to-God livin’ breathin’ person.
“You see…I don’t think you’re actually alive, Frances. That’s why your skin is so cold to the touch, and that’s why you ain’t bothered by this November chill, and that’s got me to thinkin’ that you ain’t actually ol’ Franz’s wife…I’m thinkin’ you’re just another spook that old Kraut stirred up, but you ain’t like the others, so you ain’t a freak, so you know enough to want out.”
Frances’ big beautiful blue eyes flitted back and forth in visible thought.
“I…” she started.
She sighed, hung her head and shoulders, shook her beautiful head twice, and then raised her face to stare him directly in the eyes.
“Franz has me trapped here, Billy,” she grimaced. “I can’t be here. I’m not supposed to be here…I really need out.”
Billy dropped the sword he was holding, dropping it onto the cracked concrete steps. The blade clanged and clattered down the steps, and he thought no more of it. No, he needed both hands free as he gripped Frances by her arms and looked her in the eye.
“Are you one of them, Frances?” he demanded. “I want to know. I need to know. If you want me to help you, I need to know.”
“I…am,” she said in verbal unhappiness. “Please, don’t be mad, Billy. I really need your help, or I wouldn’t have come to you…You’ve already taken care of Hans, so I know you can get past the others. I know you can get the book. Once you destroy the book, I’ll be free, and I can finally move on.”
Billy chewed on this, but he didn’t have to chew for long. He had an honest-to-God spook in his hands, and to be fair, the boys were never going to believe him, so there were no bragging rights there, but if he could pull off this heist and save her, he’d be in good with God, and to be fair, he’d never really been solid with God despite the incessant preaching of his ma.
“Okay, Frankie,” he said after a few seconds. “Okay…I’ll get that book, but you owe me.”
“What do you mean, Billy?” asked Frances, a worried expression upon her beautiful face. “What could I possibly give you?…I don’t understand.”
“You gotta swear in the name of Jesus that you are gonna move on after I free you,” said Billy.
Frances closed her blue eyes, winced, and tried to pull away from him, but Billy held her tight.
“You swear in the name of Jesus Christ that you are gonna move on after I free you!” demanded Billy, and this time with force.
She winced and shuddered in his grip, but he held her firmly within his grasp.
“I…I…I…s…s…swear,” she stammered.
She let out a loud gasp. Her blue eyes were wide in the whites as her mouth rounded out in an “O,” and she trembled in his grasp, but then her shaking stopped after a few seconds, and she calmed down enough to look him back in the eye.
“I swore, Billy,” she said. “That means you have to help me.”
Billy nodded twice and then stared back through the open door of the manor.
“All right, Frankie,” he said, this time with determination. “All right. Let’s go get that book.”
“Thank you, Billy,” said Frances with a weak smile.
Of course, a new problem had just occurred to Billy, and this one was a complicated one.
“I’m going to get that book and burn it,” said Billy. “Here’s the thing, though. What’s to keep ol’ Franz from makin’ a new one?”
“He’s too old,” said Frances with a shake of her blonde curls. “It took him years and years just to make this one, because the pages of the Necronomicon are so dangerous and so scattered across the world that he only found what he found out of sheer willpower and hate.
“He’s looking for immortality, Billy, but he’s never going to get it, not as long as I can resist him, and he knows that. Because of what I am, of what I’ve become, he knows I know it, and he’s been trying to break me to get me to give it to him, but he’s goofy if he thinks I’m going to do that.
“If he ever got what he wanted, he’d be an unstoppable evil the likes of which the world has never seen before. He’d make the war and Adolf Hitler look like a schoolyard prank…so…destroying the Book of Chains is the best way to stop him…or at least, slow him down.”
“Okay, babe,” nodded Billy. “I’m getting’ the big picture…Let’s go, then. There’s a lot ridin’ on this, not just your salvation, which—don’t get me wrong—is important, but if what you say is true, then there’s a bigger game to win, much bigger, so let’s get this done.”
“That’s keen, Billy,” nodded Frances.
He swiveled her around to turn her toward the door, let go of her, and then thought better about it. There was something he wanted to do, mainly because this was the one time in his life he was going to have the opportunity to do it.
He reached down and gave her large bottom a squeeze with his left hand, squeezing her right butt cheek through her rose-print dress.
“Billy!” gasped Frances with wide eyes as she gawped at him.
“Sorry, babe,” he chuckled. “I just had to give a spook a squeeze. No one’s ever gonna believe me, but now I got a story for the grandkids.”
“Oh, Billy…” sighed Frances as she rolled her eyes.
They reentered the manor after that, and Billy headed back toward the library. Frances had mentioned something about two more spooks, so there was no reason to take the sword with him. In fact, that’s why he’d left the blade outside. He didn’t want the ancient weapon to rise and start attacking him on its own accord.
He cautiously entered the library, moved around the now motionless body of Hans, and walked past the wooden chair Hans had been “sitting” in. Frances was waiting at the entrance to the library, just like before.
“Be careful, Billy!” called out Frances. “There’s still Charles and Eleanor!”
“Charles and Eleanor, huh?” muttered Billy to himself. “Wonderful.”
He was cautious as he moved forward on the balls of his feet in spite of the fact he was wearing outdoorsman boots…He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t stupid, true, but he doubted any kind of spook was going to care about him being quiet or not, considering they were dead and all, but this was old hat. He’d been in more fights than he could remember, so this was just instinct.
He held his breath as he made his way thirty feet in toward the bookshelves in the distance. He could see a podium in the distance, a wooden podium in-between two bookshelves loaded with dusty old books, a hanging wall lamp on the dark-wood paneled wall right above that podium. On that podium rested a large black book, but it was thirty feet away, and that thirty feet was what he was concentrating on now.
The wooden floor beneath him creaked as he took one more cautious step forward, and his frustration got the better of him.
“Aww, crap…” he breathed out.
The lighting in this huge room dimmed as a visible shape formed off to his peripheral left. The phantasm in question appeared, and it was just as horrifying as he’d imagined it would be, but Billy was no chicken-heart, so he steeled himself as the thing rushed him.
The ghost of a huge white guy in a flannel shirt and blue jeans charged him. This man’s skin was a motley greyish-white, a pale glow about him, his eyes a dead white, the bruiser-size of him a good six-foot-three, broad shouldered, a big bastard, someone Billy probably wouldn’t have picked a fight with even if this chump had still been alive.
“Son of a—!” yelled Billy, but his expletive was cut short.
He was flung through the air by an invisible force, he hit the floor, and he slid backwards ten feet, only to land right next to the chair Hans had been sitting in.
“Use the amulet, Billy!” yelled Frances from the entrance of the library.
Billy picked himself up, shook his head to gather his wits, and picked up the nearest object, that object being Hans’ wooden chair. This was instinct, as he was used to grabbing whatever he could as a makeshift weapon whenever he had to rumble.
The ghastly apparition appeared before him as it charged yet again. Billy danced to his left as he avoided the charge, swinging the chair at full force, but the wooden piece of furniture simply passed through the spook. Billy spun around in a full circle before he got his bearings once more, but the phantasm was upon him yet again.
“No, the amulet!” called out Frances.
Billy held onto the chair with his left hand as he dug out the amulet from his right jeans pocket. The ghost was already upon him again, but this time Billy ducked a wide right haymaker to avoid being struck by the thing.
Billy held onto the chair like a shield as he clutched it with both hands, though the black amulet was still held by the chain in his right hand. The amulet’s black chain wrapped around one of the chair’s back spindles, but at least he hadn’t dropped the Satanic artifact.
Billy instinctively thrust out the chair toward the apparition’s midsection. To his surprise, the spook bent over as if struck, so Billy hauled back and struck the horrible phantasm with full force across the left side of its face, left shoulder, and left arm.
The chair broke apart upon the ghost as it staggered to its own right. Billy dropped the remains of the chair, but he held onto the demonic amulet, clutching it by the chain in his right fist. He had that chain coiled tightly within his fist so that the large circular amulet hung down beneath the closed palm of his right hand.
“How do you like that, Charles!” yelled Billy.
This had to be “Charles,” and as far as Billy was concerned, spook or not, “Charles” was about to get a shellacking.
Billy threw two quick left jabs, both shots making solid impacts upon Charles’ big bearded face. The spook who used to be a big bruiser of a man ate both shots as Billy threw a right hook to the body, then a left hook to the face, proceeded by a right hook to the face, and finally a left uppercut that sent “Charles” sprawling to the floor.
Billy clutched the black amulet in his right hand as he mounted Charles’ chest. That dark artifact had to be what was allowing him to fight back, and because of that, he now had the upper hand. He didn’t know if you could “kill” a ghost or not, but he sure as hell was going to make this spook wish he was dead all over again.
Billy threw one hook after another as he laid down a thrashing upon the prone Charles. The once-upon-alive big man stopped moving as Billy hit him in the face about six more times, and then the apparition vanished, leaving nothing but a black and smoking stain on the wooden floor, that stain in the shape of the aforementioned once-upon-alive big man.
Confused at first, Billy simply rested on his knees as he stared at the smoking black stain beneath his jeans.
“That was straight ace, Billy!” yelled out Frances. “You banished him with your fists! I didn’t even know that was possible!”
“Huh…” said Billy to himself.
He’d just wiped the floor with a spook. That was definitely something the boys were never going to believe, but since he was planning on having grandkids one day, they’d certainly hear about it. He knew enough not to fill his own kids’ heads with this stuff, but the grandkids were fair game. That’s what his granddad had always done to him; the old man had always talked about weird stuff in the woods way back when, so it was only fair in Billy’s mind to lay down the same kind of thing on his grandkids.
“Well, that gun sure as hell didn’t work on Hans, but this amulet’s got some punch to it,” said Billy as he stared down at the black artifact clutched in his right hand.
He was staring at the amulet, lost in this marvel of the strange and supernatural, when Frances’ voice burned through him like a five-alarm fire.
“Billy, look OUT!” she screeched.
Billy felt a weight on his back before he could even process what Frances had said. Sharp white nails raked across his white T-shirt, opening up bloody lines across his chest, and this caused him cry out and drop the amulet to the black stain beneath him.
He was picked up and flung after that, though he only landed about six feet away from where he’d been resting on his knees. He rolled across the wooden floor and stood up, ready fight, but it was only then that he realized he didn’t have the amulet anymore.
“Aww, you gotta be kiddin’—” he started, but he never got to finish that statement.
The next phantasm flickered into view in front of him, and she was arguably more terrifying than Charles could have ever been. The spook in front of him had once been a young and beautiful white woman, but now she was much like Charles had been, all greyish-white skin with dead white eyes, something nobody should ever look like as far as Billy was concerned.
This next spook, “Eleanor,” was dressed in very-outdated flapper clothing from the 1920s, a sleeveless dress on her, a string of ephemeral pearls around her neck, a corded band around her short hair accented by a ghostly feather protruding from that phantasmal band.
Her lips parted as her mouth dropped wide in a terrifying screech. Billy wanted to cover his ears from that grating sound, but she was already upon him, hands out, deadly-sharp white nails slashing.
He put up his arms in a peek-a-boo guard as the sleeves of his black leather jacket took most of the punishment.
“The amulet, Billy!” yelled Frances. “I can see it! It’s where you banished Charles!”
Going around this freaky spook in order to get to the amulet was going to be tough, a real slash-fest, but considering he didn’t have the amulet yet, that meant he couldn’t even touch her, so he simply decided to go through her.
“Outta my way, lady!” yelled Billy as he charged forward.
He passed through “Eleanor” as if walking through a door. He felt a deathly chill surround him, smothering him as he went through, but it was over in a heartbeat, and that was all that mattered.
He rushed the dark stain that had once been Charles, snatched up the black chain of the amulet, rolled over his right shoulder, and popped up, only to spin and face the enraged Eleanor straight up and straight out.
“Order up!” yelled Billy. “Knuckle sandwich!”
He threw a right uppercut that impacted with extreme force upon the narrow chin of “Eleanor.” The ghastly female apparition was launched straight up, launched and spun like a pinwheel, flipping backwards head-over-heels to land face first upon the wooden library floor, but her ghostly form never struck that wood. No, she turned to smoking ash as her “body” struck floor, leaving a stain behind just like Charles had.
“Go to Hell, you ugly—” he started, but Frances’ voice cut him off.
“That was solid, Billy!” called out the beautiful blonde.
Billy felt energized from that. Yeah, he was bleeding from the cuts across his chest and from a few across the tops of his hands he’d just now noticed, but those cuts weren’t deep, and he was feeling good after that last rumble, like really good, like on-top-of-the-world good.
He jogged back toward the entrance of the library, and more importantly, toward Frances. He knew the gorgeous blonde could see the determined look on his face, but she took it the wrong way. She backed up as he approached her, a look of sudden fear washing over her.
“Billy, I—” she began, but he interrupted whatever she’d been about to say.
She cried out a little as he gripped her by the arms and then kissed her, a savage kiss that drove her backwards two steps. Her lips were ice cold, like kissing a sweet chocolate Sunday, but he didn’t mind, because this wasn’t about any discomfort; this was about the thrill of victory.
He spun her toward the library and bent her backwards as he continued that kiss, and then he lifted her up and planted her steady back on her feet, making sure she didn’t fall over, a big grin on his face to beat the band.
Yeah, she was dead, a spook, but she wasn’t like the others, and hell, why not?
“Billy!” cried out Frances in sheer surprise.
That surprise was replaced by a huge grin that nearly split her face in two. It was clear she had enjoyed his sudden and unexpected “attention.”
“You’re beautiful, babe, you know that?” he asked. “It’s too bad you’re on the other side, but thems the breaks. For what it’s worth, Frankie, I’d head on down to the chapel for you, and I just wanted you to know that.
“If there was a way I could bring you back, I would, but the best I can do is destroy that book, and that’s just going to have to be good enough.”
“Aww, Billy,” grinned Frances. “You’re so sweet, I could eat you up…You’re bleeding, though. I think she slashed you up something fierce. I’d really like to clean up that blood, but you have to get the book…Ugh…I can smell it, too. It’s driving me batty.”
“Nah, this? This ain’t nothin’,” said Billy in return. “I’ve had way worse, but that don’t matter. No, we got one more trial and tribulation to pass, sweet heart. Is there anything, anything at all, you can tell me about this “trap” ol’ Franz cooked up?”
“I can’t,” shrugged Frances. “I know it’s there; I can sense it’s there, but I don’t know anything about it.”
“Okay,” nodded Billy. “I’ll just have to wing it. I’ll play it loose, and we’ll see what happens.”
“Be careful, Billy,” said Frances with an obvious worried frown.
“You got it, babe,” replied Billy. “Hang tight. I’ll be right back.”
He walked back into the library and headed for the book at the far reaches of this grand room. After what he’d just seen and been through, nothing was going to surprise him anymore. He’d just thrashed a walking corpse and two spooks, and that was something for the history books, something for the annals of all the fights he’d ever been in, so the last twenty feet?…Nothing was going to stop him.
He made his way to the home stretch, the last twenty feet.
“Here goes nothin’,” he said confidently.
He clutched the black amulet within his right fist. If he was going down, he wasn’t going down without a fight.
He made it about five feet before he tripped and fell. He landed on his hands, and that hurt, especially with the amulet clutched in his right hand, but after trying to get up, he realized he was being held down, pulled down, by something attached to his right leg.
He turned and saw the shadowy hand gripping his right ankle. This new phantasm was little more than a pitch shape of darkness in the form of a spindly arm and an elongated right hand with long black fingers and long shadowy nails, but it was protruding from the wooden floor, just passing through the floor as if the floor did not exist.
“What the…!” yelled Billy.
The absolute chill of the grave sunk into him a second later. It was a biting maw of pure cold that spread throughout his right leg, numbing it, and this caused him to temporarily panic.
“Get off me!” he yelled as he yanked his leg forward.
Thankfully, the strange power of the amulet allowed him to pull himself away if it did anything else. He stumbled up and hopped forward on his left leg as he tried to gain some sensation back in his right.
They came out of the woodwork after that, emerging from the literal wooden floor of the library, a dozen of them, black and spindly shadows rising from the floor, shadows that vaguely resembled something once human but were now a sliver of that humanity, horribly so. The only thing really recognizable upon them were the pairs of glowing, red, pupilless eyes, shining slits of burning malevolence, a malevolence that radiated in waves that he could both feel and see.
They were blocking his way to the book. They rose before him, forming a shadowy wall of red eyes and gangly limbs, and their touch was clearly deadly, a chill no mortal being could possibly resist, but he did not give into despair…No, the sweet, sweet voice of Frances kept him going.
“Get to the book, Billy!” yelled the beautiful blonde from way back at the entrance to this cursed library. “They can’t touch you once you have the book!”
The book was the key; it had to be, because other than the disastrous Luger and Hans incident, Frances knew what she was talking about…He chalked up the gun mishap with her simply being a girl not knowing what she was talking about when it came to fighting, but honestly, he’d made the same mistake anyway, because apparently walking corpses could eat bullets like popcorn, but you live and you learn, so who was he to judge?
A shadow lunged at him, but he dove over it, rolling over his left shoulder as he hit the floor. He popped up a second later, and the first thing he did was shake off the rest of the chill from his right leg. He was good to go now, because that book was only ten feet away, and he had to make it to it, or this game was over.
He’d played some football when he was a kid, so now was the time to dust off those skills and put them to good use, vital use, like the “staying alive” kind of use. He pretended in his own mind that he was clutching a pigskin in his right hand instead of the black amulet, and then he dashed forward with only one goal on his mind…getting to that book. That book was his touchdown, and he was going to score.
Another shadow reached out to grab him with those deadly, chilling claws, but Billy spun to his left and avoided it entirely. He leapt to his right to avoid yet another shadow, jumped over a third as one of these things dove for his legs, and then he ran straight on toward the book.
He could see the large tome in clear detail. It was a really big book in comparison to anything he’d ever read, though he wasn’t much of a reader. This leather-bound, black book had a big steel skull in the center of it, and that skull was bound to the book by chains that wrapped around the whole damned thing. Those chains were attached to the spine of the book, buckled or buttoned on there somehow, but that didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was getting his hands on this forbidden piece of lore, so he did.
His left hand gripped the spine of the book, he yanked the whole thing off of the wooden podium it rested upon, the lamp on the wall flickered for a second, and then the shadows behind him dissipated, melting back into the floor whence they came.
Billy spun and held up the Book of Chains as he confidently marched forward with it, a victory grin on his face. Yeah, this night had been a real freak show, a real horror fest, but the game had been won, and the girl had been won, and she was the real prize. He could set her free now, because the only thing left to do was to burn the book.
He jogged across the library and held up the book in front of him to show off his well-earned, well-deserved prize.
“You’re amazing, Billy!” called out Frances. “That was straight ace! I knew I’d made the right choice!”
Billy exited the library, but Frances shuffled backwards as he neared her.
“What’s the matter, babe?” he asked.
“I can’t touch the book, Billy,” frowned Frances. “We have to burn that cursed thing…You have to burn it. I can’t even get near it.”
“Then let’s do that right now,” grinned Billy.
They walked together over to the shelf that held the holy oil.
“I’ll just grab some of these, we’ll toss it on the floor, and then we’ll burn the whole place down,” began Billy.
“No, Billy,” grimaced Frances. “Let’s burn it outside and leave. We have to remove it from these premises. The whole manor is cursed with powerful magic, and the book won’t burn in here; Franz made sure of that…
“Nothing really burns in here. You see those red candles? They never burn down…Franz is more than just a necromancer, you know…You have no idea how evil he really is. You have no idea what he’s capable of.”
“I got a pretty good idea,” replied Billy, “but if that’s what you want, beautiful, then that’s what you’re going to get.”
He tossed the black amulet back onto the shelf that held the holy oil. He didn’t want anything more to do with that Satanic thing.
He picked up two bottles of holy oil and stuffed them in his jacket pockets. They then walked outside together and made some distance from the house, walking back toward Billy’s Oldsmobile Rocket 88.
He unlatched the chains from the book and tossed the metal skull and chains to the dirt. He then opened the book so that the pages were displayed.
The moon’s light seemed to dim as a chilling wind picked up and a whispering assaulted him at the back of his mind.
“Oh, this is some bad jazz,” he frowned. “I don’t like this.”
“You have to burn it, Billy,” said Frances quietly. “You can feel its power, can’t you? This is what drove Franz to madness.”
“Say no more,” said Billy.
He tossed the book to the scrub below, pulled out a bottle of holy oil, uncorked the glass vessel, and then dumped that holy oil onto the open pages of the book. He tossed that bottle aside, pulled out the next bottle, uncorked it, and then poured it over the book as well. He then tossed that bottle aside and withdrew a small book of matches from his inner jacket pocket. He lit a match and held it up over the book.
“Sayonara, punk,” said Billy as he dropped the match.
The oil went up in nothing flat, the flames spreading across the book’s pages with ease.
They watched the book burn as the whispering in the back of Billy’s mind finally subsided. The moon shone its pale glory once more, and the wind died down. Everything finally felt back to normal, and there was a settling peace of the soul now, something he’d been awful missing without even realizing it until this very moment.
“It’s done,” he said with some finality.
“Yeah, Billy,” said Frances quietly.
They stood and watched as the book burned to ash. Billy held Frances in his right arm, that arm around her waist, and then he shook his head at it all.
“The boys are never gonna believe this,” he said in quiet resignation. “I don’t think I’ll tell ’em, either. They’d think I got a screw loose.”
Frances turned and looked him in the eye.
“It’s time, Billy,” she said in a sad tone.
“I know, babe,” frowned Billy. “I know.”
He kissed her one more time, savoring that chill sensation upon his lips.
She parted from him, shook her head, and then stared at him with those big beautiful blue eyes.
“The book is destroyed,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m free, Billy…but…what was it P.T. Barnum always said?…Oh, yeah…There’s a sucker born every minute.”
“What?” asked Billy.
She smiled, gripped him around his arms, and then tossed him like a ragdoll.
He flew backwards through the air ten feet, only to hit the hood of his own set of wheels. He rolled off the hood, and he was hurt for a second, but he could take some punishment, so he popped back up on his feet a second later.
“What the…!” he cried out.
Frances walked toward him, a giant grin on her face.
“They always fall for the ‘damsel in distress’ routine,” she chuckled. “I’ve killed dozens of people over the last decade, Billy. I’ve slaughtered whole families just for a taste of their blood.”
Her eyes glowed red in the dark as her canines lengthened into sharp fangs. Her countenance was wicked now, that ruin of beauty assaulting Billy’s mind while attacking his sensibilities. Of course, he now knew what was really going on now, but this betrayal really hurt, hurting him deeply, because he’d really had a thing for her.
“The funny thing about immortality?” asked Frances. “It always comes with a price.”
“You’re one of those bloodsuckers!” gasped Billy. “That’s what this is about! You’re a Dracula in a dress! Ol’ Franz had you trapped, didn’t he! That’s what this is really about! The old man wanted to be like you, but you were too strong for him, weren’t you! That’s why you came to get me, because the old man was keeping a tiger in a cage!”
The undead woman scowled as her glowing eyes flashed a raging crimson.
“That old fool stumbled upon real power, but he had the nerve, the gall, to catch me and keep me like a pet!” growled Frances as her voice lowered an octave. “I will have my revenge upon him, Billy, but first, I think a reward for my efforts is in order. I’ll have your blood, little boy!”
She rushed him, her hands up and out, her fingers warping into long and wicked claws, her mouth open and hissing, those deadly fangs down and ready to bite and maul, and this would have caused any other sucker to piss his pants, but Billy wasn’t going to be shaken this easily, no way.
“You swore!” he yelled as he pointed one accusing finger at her. “You swore in the name of Jesus!”
She stopped her charge and recoiled, her hands up near her twisted face in visible horror.
“You swore you’d move on,” said Billy. “That was the deal, babe. That’s always been the deal, and you can’t deny it.”
Frances let out a little whine as she backed away from him, but then her once-beautiful face twisted into a mockery of itself as she visibly raged against him.
“You ruined my good time, Billy!” she screeched.
“You swore, babe,” said Billy firmly. “You swore in the name of Jesus Christ. It’s time for you to move on.”
She winced, squeezed her eyes shut, and stumbled backwards. She shook her head twice, opened her glowing red eyes, and then let forth a long and low rumbling animal growl.
Her face relaxed back into its confident visage a second later, she put her hands on her hips, and then she looked him straight in his dark eyes with her glowing red ones.
“Okay, Billy,” she said matter-of-factly. “You got me. Good for you…but I can’t ‘move on’ like a spirit would. Nooooooo, sadly, I am bound to this body. The sweet soul that was the old Frances has long since soured…
“No, I like the carnage and the bloodshed now…and the sex! Oh, but do I love the sex! Oh, I do so love the sex…Never got to do that when I was just a little ol’ wallflower…but I digress. I’m off the beam with this conversation…
“No, my point was that I can’t move on like a spirit, but what I can do to honor our agreement is to leave this place for good…Sad, too. I wanted to keep it, hence why I didn’t want it burned, but maybe there’s a way to move out all of Franz’s valuable artifacts after I murder him into an unrecognizable paste. That’ll be straight ace.”
However, Billy wasn’t stupid. There was still no guarantee she wouldn’t rip him in half anyway, so he was just going to have to wing it, think of something on the fly, and something came to mind in a heartbeat, because he wanted to keep his own heart beating in his chest where it belonged, and he was pretty sure she’d tear it out the moment she had the chance.
“You’re in my debt, sweet heart,” said Billy. “I did the deed, and you owe me. You owe me, baby doll, and my reward is for us to split. We part ways, and we’re square.”
“Then my reward shall be to let you leave,” sighed Frances. “It seems I have no choice. No, I guess I’ll just have to go find Franz and pull off his limbs one by one like I would the wings of a fly…Sad, too. I was really looking forward to eating you…Hmm…
“I mean, we could have sex if you want. You are a dreamboat, Billy. We could get in the backseat of your car and…you know…”
Billy was feeling mean. This whole night was just straight-up ruined, all because he got took by a foxy lady with a beautiful smile…He wasn’t surprised, though. Nothing ever seemed to go his way.
“No thanks, baby,” said Billy. “You were a fox, but now you’re just a hound dog. Besides, I know better than to play backseat bingo with a shark…No, you get nothin’…You woulda loved it, though.”
Frances did not react in the manner he had expected. He had expected her to rage and shriek her fury at him, but no, she simply laughed and shook her head in response to his brazen insult.
“You got balls, Billy,” she chuckled. “Too bad I can’t rip ’em off. I’d make a trophy out of them…Oh, well. I’ll just find a passing salesman or something…It’s been a pleasure, Billy, but…we won’t be meeting again.”
She laughed one more time, and then she kicked off both of her shoes. He watched in morbid fascination as she stripped, pulling off her dress and underwear after that until she was standing fully nude before him. She tossed the bundle of clothes to the ground and gave him a wide, fang-filled grin.
“Like what you see, Billy?” she asked. “Can’t believe you’d pass this up. You may have balls, my boy, but you clearly don’t know how to use them.”
She was indeed beautiful, but she was still an undead freak. Billy could not help but stare at her nudity, all of it, from the large bare breasts to the big pink nipples to the wide hips to the near-beard of blonde hanging pubic hair she had down below.
“I’m a little young as far as vampiresses go, but I’m learning,” said Frances. “I do have a couple of tricks up my sleeve…well…up my armpits, I guess, considering I’m as naked as a newborn babe…It’s kind of refreshing showing off like this, but I’ve got places to go and people to eat, so this time it really is goodbye.
“Goodbye, my dark knight. Take my advice, though, and don’t just trust any wayward vixen with a candy smile. You’ll live longer…
“Ugh…I’m soooooo hungry! Oh, it’s driving me batty!…Speaking of batty…”
She warped into something else after that, her body slowly changing by strange metamorphosis into something utterly horrific. Her face twisted into a demonic visage, the fangs growing and sharpening, the face darkening, misshaping like some terrifying creature out of the deepest nightmare. Her body thinned, her breasts shrank a little as her nipples grew smaller, and then she turned into something that merely hinted at humanity.
Black and grey fur erupted all over her body, coating her, covering her with its rodent warmth. Her ears widened and lengthened to a ridiculous size as her back muscles expanded and thickened behind her, huge wings growing out from that cancerous-like mass of muscle. She looked like a merging of woman and bat, something not human but vaguely resembling so, but her eyes still glowed that unholy vermillion light in the darkness of the night.
To add insult to injury, her nipples lit up like molten embers in the dark, glowing much like her eyes, and this just cut into Billy, because it was clear she was the physical embodiment, the absolute representation, of everything his ma had warned him about when it came to women.
She bent over, picked up her clothes and shoes, and rolled them up into a little ball. She beat her huge wings after that, kicking up dust and dirt and even ashes from the burned book, and then she took off skyward into the night, becoming a monstrous silhouette in the light of the gigantic full moon that resided above the rundown, cursed manor in the distance.
“That can’t be good,” said Billy quietly.
He watched Frances’ flying form disappear into the night before he muttered an ugly curse. He shook his head, sighed, and finally resolved himself to the situation. He was alive and relatively unhurt, and right now, that’s all that mattered.
“Well, that was a real downer, man,” he said. “The boys are never gonna believe this…You know what, I’m gonna tell Richie…Yeah, I’ll tell Richie. I mean, I gotta tell somebody. He thinks I’m looney anyway.”
The Book of Chains Copyright © 2025 bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott
Note: The image for this story was generated via artificial intelligence courtesy of OpenAI and modified courtesy of Canva.com.
