The Vampire Megapack. Nina Kiriki Hoffman

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      COPYRIGHT INFO

      The Vampire Megapack is copyright © 2011 by Wildside Press LLC. All rights reserved.

      Cover art © S. R. Nicholl / Fotolia.

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      “Mrs. Amworth,” by E. F. Benson, was originally published in 1920.

      “Lost Epiphany,” by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, originally appeared in Saint-Germain: Memoirs. Copyright © 2008 by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “Weeping Willow,” by T. A. Bradley, originally appeared in Horror In Words. Copyright © 2009 by T. A. Bradley. Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “The Greater Thirst,” by Marilyn “Mattie” Brahen, originally appeared in Dreams of Decadence #2. Copyright © 1996 by Marilyn “Mattie” Brahen. Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “Clarimonde,” by Théophile Gautier, originally appeared in 1836 in La Chronique de Paris. Translation by Lafcadio Hearn.

      “Waiting for the Hunger,” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, originally appeared in Doom City. Copyright © 1986 by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “Kvetchula,” by Darrell Schweitzer, originally appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, Summer 1997. Copyright © 1997 by Darrell Schweitzer. Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “A Vampire,” by Luigi Capuana, originally appeared in 1906. This version has been edited and the language modernized for this publication.

      “Omega,” by Jason Andrew, originally appeared in Horror Carousel #6. Copyright © 2008 by Jason Andrew. Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “Accommodation,” by Michael R. Collings. Copyright © 2012 by Michael R. Collings. Original to this anthology.

      “The Art of the Smile,” by John Gregory Betancourt, originally appeared in Weirdbook #30. Copyright © 1997 by John Gregory Betancourt. Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “Renfield’s Syndrome,” by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, originally appeared in Apprehensions and Other Delusions. Copyright © 2004 by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “The Pimp,” by Lawrence Watt-Evans, originally appeared in Weird Tales #315 (Spring 1999). Copyright © 1999 by Lawrence Watt-Evans. Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “Runaway,” by Darrell Schweitzer, originally appeared in I, Vampire. Copyright © 1995 by Darrell Schweitzer. Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “Sympathy for Vampires,” by John Gregory Betancourt, originally appeared in Horrors! 365 Scary Stories. Copyright © 1998 by John Gregory Betancourt. Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “The Secret of Kralitz,” by Henry Kuttner, originally appeared in Weird Tales, October 1936.

      “The Fourth Horseman,” by Peter Darbyshire, originally appeared in On Spec, Summer 1998. Copyright © 1998 by Peter Darbyshire. Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “Cravat of the Damned,” by Zach Bartlett, originally appeared in The Absent Willow Review, September 2009. Copyright © 2009 by Zach Bartlett. Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “Help Wanted,” by Michael McCarty and Terrie Leigh Relf, originally appeared in A Little Help From My Fiends, Copyright © 2009 by Michael McCarty. Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “Siren Song,” by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, originally appeared in Horror Garage #6, copyright © 2002 by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Reprinted by permisison of the author.

      “An Authenticated Vampire Story,” by Franz Hartmann, originally appeared in The Occult Review, September 1909.

      “Dracula’s New Dress,” by Ray Cluley, originally appeared in Fem-Fangs. Copyright © 2010 by Ray Cluley. Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “Dracula’s Guest,” by Bram Stoker, originally appeared in Dracula’s Guest and Other Weird Stories (1914).

      “The Bats,” by David Anderson, originally appeared in 2011. Copyright © 2011 by David Anderson Reprinted by permission of the author.

      “The Room in the Tower,” by E. F. Benson, originally appeared in 1912.

      “Four Wooden Stakes,” by Victor Rowan, originally appeared in Weird Tales, August-Septemer 1936.

      MRS. AMWORTH, by E. F. Benson

      The village of Maxley, where, last summer and autumn, these strange events took place, lies on a heathery and pine-clad upland of Sussex. In all England you could not find a sweeter and saner situation. Should the wind blow from the south, it comes laden with the spices of the sea; to the east high downs protect it from the inclemencies of March; and from the west and north the breezes which reach it travel over miles of aromatic forest and heather. The village itself is insignificant enough in point of population, but rich in amenities and beauty. Half-way down the single street, with its broad road and spacious areas of grass on each side, stands the little Norman Church and the antique graveyard long disused: for the rest there are a dozen small, sedate Georgian houses, red-bricked and long-windowed, each with a square of flower-garden in front, and an ampler strip behind; a score of shops, and a couple of score of thatched cottages belonging to labourers on neighbouring estates, complete the entire cluster of its peaceful habitations. The general peace, however, is sadly broken on Saturdays and Sundays, for we lie on one of the main roads between London and Brighton and our quiet street becomes a race-course for flying motor-cars and bicycles.

      A notice just outside the village begging them to go slowly only seems to encourage them to accelerate their speed, for the road lies open and straight, and there is really no reason why they should do otherwise. By way of protest, therefore, the ladies of Maxley cover their noses and mouths with their handkerchiefs as they see a motor-car approaching, though, as the street is asphalted, they need not really take these precautions against dust. But late on Sunday night the horde of scorchers has passed, and we settle down again to five days of cheerful and leisurely seclusion. Railway strikes which agitate the country so much leave us undisturbed because most of the inhabitants of Maxley never leave it at all.

      I am the fortunate possessor of one of these small Georgian houses, and consider myself no less fortunate in having so interesting and stimulating a neighbour as Francis Urcombe, who, the most confirmed of Maxleyites, has not slept away from his house, which stands just opposite to mine in the village street, for nearly two years, at which date, though still in middle life, he resigned his Physiological Professorship at Cambridge University and devoted himself to the study of those occult and curious phenomena which seem equally to concern the physical and the psychical sides of human nature. Indeed his retirement was not unconnected with his passion for the strange uncharted places that lie on the confines and borders of science, the existence of which is so stoutly denied by the more materialistic minds, for he advocated that all medical students should be obliged to pass some sort of examination in mesmerism, and that one of the tripos papers should be designed to test their knowledge in such subjects as appearances at time of death, haunted houses, vampirism, automatic writing, and possession.

      “Of course they wouldn’t listen to me,” ran his account of the matter, “for there is nothing that these seats of learning are so frightened of as knowledge, and the road to knowledge lies in the study of things like these. The functions of the human frame are, broadly speaking, known. They are a country, anyhow, that has been charted and mapped out. But outside that lie huge tracts of undiscovered country, which certainly exist, and the real pioneers of knowledge are those who, at the cost of being derided as credulous and superstitious, want to push on into those misty and probably perilous places. I felt that I could be of more use by setting out without misty and probably perilous places. I felt that I could be of more use by setting out without compass or knapsack into the mists than by sitting in a cage like a canary and chirping about what was known. Besides, teaching is very bad for a man who knows himself only to be a learner: you only need to be a self-conceited ass to teach.”

      Here, then, in Francis Urcombe, was a delightful neighbour to one who, like myself, has an uneasy and