“Rats,” he said. “You scared of rats?”

“No,” she lied.

They went down.

She counted the steps—thirteen of them. Didn’t they say that the old English gallows had thirteen steps? Only of course that was going up, not down.

(Ben had mentioned Psycho; what was that line from the book, not Hitchcock’s movie? You’ve made your grave and now you have to lie in it. Only it wasn’t a grave, it was a bed. Or Poe: My God, I had walled the monster up in the tomb!Or nameless hoodlums on a Washington, D.C. street: We’re going to kill you anyway.)

They stepped on the hard-packed earth floor, and Mark held the candle up. The ceiling was low; the top of Susan’s head nearly brushed the cobwebby beams. In the glow of the candle they could see moving shadows in the darkness, and every now and again the ruby glint of an eye. There was an old table covered by a piece of oilcloth, and beside it stood an opened crate, with aluminum retaining bands snapped. The smell of rot and putridity was thick in the throat, nearly overwhelming.

“Take your cross in your hand,” he said.

She fumbled it out of her blouse and held it tightly. Closed in her fist, it seemed to be the only warmth in a cold world. She began to feel a little better, a little comforted. She looked down at her tightly curled hand and saw a faint, luminous glow escaping between her fingers in rays.

“It’s glowing,” she whispered.

“Yes. We don’t have to worry about the rats. Come on. This way.”

They began to walk forward, single file, toward the long southern spread of the cellar. She could see that it took an L-turn up ahead, and knew that whatever they had come for would reach its culmination beyond that turn. She looked aside and felt her blood cool in her veins.

The rats were everywhere, seemingly millions of them, two and three deep, squirming over each other in their eagerness. She saw some as big as small cats. Their beady eyes stared at them with cold impudence. They had left a small pathway for them, about two feet across, and were closing in behind them as the Red Sea had closed behind Moses.

One of them darted forward and nipped at Mark’s foot and without thought she thrust her crucifix at it, hissing. The rat squealed and scrabbled off into the darkness, a brown elastic sock fiber hanging from its jaw.

They stopped at the cellar’s elbow-bend. “Remember,” he told her. “Don’t look at his eyes. No matter what happens.”

“Yes…all right.”

He took her hand again. “I’m scared,” he said. “I couldn’t ever do this again.”

“It’s too late to go back, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I…I think it is.”

“Then go on, Mark. We’ll do what we have to.” She was stunned by the calmness which seemed to flow from her own voice.

They were around the corner, and a warm carrion breeze immediately whiffed out the candle, plunging them into utter, womblike darkness. She screamed; was unable to help it. In her ears was the sound of the rats, squeaking and rustling and drawing closer with tenebrous eagerness.

“Hold your cross up!” Mark shouted.

She did.

Its glow spilled forth with an effulgent, unearthly radiance that was brighter by far than the candle that now lay at Mark’s feet. It spilled off these crumbled brick walls with a frosty luminescence which was deeply comforting. The rats squealed and scampered.

Mark, also holding up his cross, was looking around. “Judas Priest!” he muttered.

Hubert Marsten must have been a bootlegger indeed, Susan thought. They stood at the mouth of what must once have been an extensive wine cellar (Poe again: For the love of God, Montressor—!), full of casks covered with dust and cobwebs, and lined with crisscrossing wine holders. From some of these, ancient magnums still peeked forth. Some of them had popped their corks, and where sparkling burgundy had once waited for some discerning palate, the spider now made his home. Others would have turned to vinegar. Still others might be good, still waiting…waiting for…

She shifted her eyes up. The wine cellar opened out to an underground dais, freshly hung with circular velvet drapes. Unlit black tapers stood about. On the far wall, a cross with broken arms hung upside down. Obscene statues stood to either side of the main podium—and on it rested a huge coffin of banded oak, and on top of it was an embossed coat of arms with a wolf rampant, and one word:

SARLINOV.

This was it, then. True—all true. The word echoed dismally into the depths of her mind, as if through channels of fog. She felt waves of faintness sweep over her, and her cross wavered. She felt frozen in indecision, unable to move. It would be so much simpler, so blessed, to just wait here…wait here until the world turned into hisnighted sphere above them.

“Now!” Mark shouted at her. “Now!”

“No,” she whispered weakly. “I can’t. Let me alone.” The scene wavered and danced in front of her eyes, as if seen from behind a burning haze of heat. The statues which flanked the coffin, statues she faintly recognized as the Holy Family in unthinkable postures, seemed to writhe and move.

“Our Father, who art in Heaven…” he began.

“No…no…”

His hand flashed out, and her head rocked back. One eye watered and twitched.

 

This section is from Father Callahan’s chapter, when he is talking to Matt Burke. This scene was omitted from the final novel but still carries peripheral interest.

“I’m not going to say no, not at this point,” Callahan said. “But I want you to understand my position. Let me make three points, and then I’ll ask you if you have changed your mind. Agreed?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. One: During the black plague which covered Europe during the Middle Ages, vampire hysteria was roughly equal to the flying saucer hysteria of a few years ago in this country. People in many cases observed the unquiet dead writhing on the carts of the dead-wagons that went through the streets, collecting plague victims, and in many cases, a traveler passing a cemetery would see a hand clawing up through the earth, followed by the mud-clotted, wild-eyed face of what the illiterate, frightened ‘man-in-the-street’ of the day quite reasonably took to be an Undead. In the countries of Eastern Europe, the peasants recently converted to Catholicism besieged their priests, begging them to do something about the vampires that were abroad in the countryside. Most priests had never heard of such a thing, but were loath to admit it. Many of them, therefore, blessed the rite of vampire-killing forthwith. Are you following?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then imagine you are Joe Smithov, a typical Romanian peasant. You are stricken with the black plague, and for two weeks you thrash in a delirium of fever. At last it breaks, and you plunge down into a cooling, restorative unconsciousness. At this point you are pronounced dead by an unlettered country quack who held a mirror in front of your mouth for four seconds and then felt for your pulse by pressing his ear to your stomach. Still unconscious, you are piled into a rude coffin by frightened relatives, and carried to the local graveyard, where you are buried in a shallow pit. Later, you awake to the horror of all horrors: buried alive! Perhaps you scream. Perhaps you are able to pull away one of the boards and thrust an arm up through the loose earth, waving wildly. And then…blessed rescue! You hear the shovels, then see the good light of day again. Instead of stale air, the fresh, sweet breeze of God’s heaven. And then…what’s this? A delegation with an ash stake, tied with ceremonial red ribbons. Two men hold you down, screaming and begging. A third places the stake against your chest. A fourth holds a mallet, ready to send your blood-sucking soul back to Father Satan. And behind this delegation, who should you see with your dying gaze but the village priest, reading the rite of exorcism and sprinkling everything in sight with holy water! Fade out. Not pretty, is it?”