October? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localised entirely within this newsletter!?

Midnight Quatermass 28: Trailer for the new book and the story you helped me with

Yes.

I started this QM a little later than normal and it’s already almost 1am. Tomorrow is pretty full so I need to keep this part a little shorter than normal. But, because I’m an idiot who just jumped into Substack without learning how it all works first, I only realised today that I can just go ahead and write posts here without emailing you all.

Also, because I’m an idiot, I tend to overthink how much a weekly email that you signed up for would maybe piss you off if it suddenly became more frequent. To that end I think I’ll write some extra stuff later this week and publish it direct to Substack without the email version. If that becomes a regular thing then I’ll start linking it in the ones that do land in your inbox. Maybe the stats on that will help me work out what the sweet spot is.

As ever this is an experiment so bare with me.

Speaking of experiments this week’s story is a little different. I decided to use a poll to get some feedback to see what some of you would like to see in the next tale and the results demanded a historical vampire western. Took me a while to hit upon an idea I liked and then there was a little research into dates and firearms etc. I’m not sure I’ll do this regularly, but I did enjoy the constraints. You’ll have to decide if the story below is worth a damn.

I’m not sure what the opposite of a historical vampire western is, but the stories in the tenth anniversary edition of John Carpenter’s Tales for a Halloween Night probably come close. Our own story made the new trailer and I believe the book is now on sale.

A few new things are starting to take shape so it looks like the end of the year will be pretty busy rather than slowing down which is the norm. We’re also still a few weeks away from Cooper’s feet hitting the floor once his vaccinations kick in, but he continues to be a delight. Today he actually ate Jaime’s homework.

A walking, barking cliche, but he’s cute enough to get away with murder.

Speaking of cute… I still haven’t seen ALIEN: ROMULUS, but I’m suddenly very annoyed that they didn’t upgrade Jones:

Could have given A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE a run for its money.

I am however all sorts of excited for the new Bong Joon-ho movie:

A few kind souls mentioned the choice of music and some very old Slingers stuff that was kicking around. So yeah, this is right in my wheelhouse.

Another old project staggered back to life this week, but I need to kick that one around a little more before doing with it something here.

Getting close to 2am. Story time.

Lord Fancypants and The Diablo Kid

Night in the wilderness fell fast and with it came the cold.

Ten years he’d been in this damned place and the weather still perplexed him. The days hotter than any he’d known drifting through Italy never mind back in London and the very same nights colder than anything he’d experienced in Scotland or Ireland. Even in Scandinavia, where he’d travelled and watched the sun never manage to set, nature still obeyed the seasons. But not here.

Too bloody hot or too bloody cold and with no real choice in the matter you were served both. All year round.

He got the fire going and his idiot mule wandered over to share its bounty. He couldn’t remember the mule’s original name. Something Mexican. But now it was Toby. Named for his old fencing master as they shared a proclivity for breaking wind and braying at the same time.

He’d eat and not worry over how low his provisions were and take just a drop from the bottom of his last bottle and then sleep til the sun scorched him awake.

Tomorrow would be a better day. He could feel it. This damn river would cough something up.

He’d used the last of the jerky to wipe up the last mouthful of beans when the voice came from the other side of his claim.

“Mind if I sit a spell?”

He squinted into the darkness until the figure revealed itself. A man, maybe just a man at that from his youthful appearance, lowered himself to the ground at the water’s edge.

“It’s a free country, friend. If you have no light of your own I can position old Toby here with a lantern to save our eyesight. Although I’d advise to stay downwind of him.”

The figure nodded.

“Much appreciated.”

The prospector lead the mule to the water where he drank happily while he hung the battered old lamp and turned the wick. He then used the light to swill out his plate in the river, keeping one eye on the man watching him.

“I don’t have enough food to share, but I have coffee if you’d like to join me. The river isn’t deep here. Hardly get your boots wet.”

The young man smiled.

“Appreciate it all the same, but I’m fine here. Lost the taste for coffee awhiles back.”

The older man sat back down and pulled an old blanket over his shoulders.

“Join me anyway. The fire’s benefit won’t stretch that far.”

The young man shook his head slowly.

“I don’t feel the cold.”

The older man poured his coffee and cherished the heat of the tin between his hands.

“Ah to be young forever. Alas one day you’ll find yourself on my side of a conversation like this wondering where that feeling went.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. A lot of young bucks get themselves killed early out here. I hope you’re not one of them hotheads chasing himself a reputation.”

The younger man laughed.

“Too late for that. I feat its the reputation that chases me.”

The older man sips his coffee thoughtfully.

“Already made a name for yourself have you? Would I have heard of you?”

The younger man takes off his dark hat and sets it down in his lap.

“Let’s talk about you first. Is it true you’re a lord or some such thing?”

The older man sighs.

“It seems sir you have me at a disadvantage. I know nothing of you, but you certainly have knowledge of me. Saloon talk no doubt.”

“They say you’re out here to rebuild your lost fortune.”

The older man scoffs loudly.

“To rebuild my stolen fortune. And I’m not a lord despite what those ne'er-do-wells may say. I’m a bloody duke. I lost my land, property and dignity, but I kept the goddamn title.”

“I’ll be happy to correct them if I ever get back to civilisation, but it’s a long walk.”

Another scoff.

“Civilisation. I assume you’re speaking of Carson City. I believe in progress sir, and I’m an optimist so I can say with some certainty that one day, many many years from now this fledgling country of yours will become civilised and amount to something. But today in the year of our lord 1849 the nearest point of true civilisation is 5,200 miles that way. So yes, a long walk indeed.”

The younger man smiled again.

“Sounds like you ain’t got much time for the country that gave you a new home, Duke.”

“Promise. That’s what you Americans and this country of yours amounts to. But I admit I’m torn between the idea that this ridiculous place was where our good God Almighty experimented with things like deserts and snakes and coyotes before creating England or that he created England first and when he saw how perfect it was he carried up all the leftover unnecessary nonsense and tossed it as far away as possible and then declared, Well, that can be America.”

The young man nods.

“You believe in god.”

He swills the last of the coffee around his mouth and swallows.

“I believe in gold. Now, you were going to tell me your own moniker so I can be all impressed.”

The young man drops his smile and brushes at his hat a little.

“They call me the Diablo Kid.”

The Duke can’t suppress the laugh and instantly holds his hand up in apology, shaking his head.

“I’m sorry. You surprised me. The Diablo Kid no less. Jesus, kid. Pull that shit on anyone else out here and you’re liable to get shot in the arse.”

The kid does not smile, but puts the hat back on his head and adjusts it just so.

“You mistake me for a liar, Duke.”

Smiling the Duke pours a second cup.

“God, you’re serious. The Diablo Kid. A ridiculous name fit for a ridiculous country that elevates killers of men, women and children. The same Diablo Kid that robbed the bank in Tucson then waited til the posse set out after him only to double back and loot the county armoury? The same Diablo Kid that shot up the infamous Marshal Taggert down Missouri way then put his head on a post with his own balls hanging from his mouth?”

The flames of the fire catch the kid’s eyes for the first time.

“The same.”

The Duke slaps his leg.

“Well now, no offence, I know you’re full of shit. The Diablo Kid’s nothing but a phantasm conjured up by newspaper serial writers in New York to thrill their readers. Those two events you just attempted to hang your name on happened fifty years apart at least. Now what do you say to that?

The flames in the kid’s eyes seem to freeze as he speaks. A trick of the light.

“I say you ain’t asked me my age.”

He points at the kid with his cup.

“Ha, that’d make you older than me and I can tell you started shaving maybe a week ago.”

The Kid shifts in place a little before settling down again.

“You know of the Mayflower Voyages?”

The Duke can’t keep the laughter from his voice.

“You are attempting to tell me that you came over ahead of me by some 200 years? With the bloody pilgrims? On the bloody Mayflower?”

“In a way. But it was the good ship Fortune a year later. And it was my momma who was ahead of you. But she carried me from your country to here and it was here that I was born in the Year of Our Lord, 1621.”

The Duke smiles as he gets to his feet and throws the dregs of his drink into the fire before walking over to the mule to rummage in the saddlebags.

“Now we’ve got a real campfire tale,” he holds up an almost empty bottle with a smile. “You want me to toss you a real drink?”

The Kid shakes his head.

“I don’t drink… rye.”

The Duke settles again and pours the remains of the bottle into the tin cup.

“Suit yourself. It’s not scotch, but it keeps the chill out. Go on. So you’re a babe in arms in a land of heathens. Your folks traded tools with the occupants of this land in exchange for eternal youth perhaps?”

A sad look crosses the Kid’s face.

“No, but they did for my people. I got kinda bitter and twisted over that for a while. I was hunting them the way they hunted buffalo, but one night in, oh, it must have been 1644, something attacked me where I camped and carried me away.”

The Duke holds the rye for a moment til his mouth burns and nods for the Kid to continue.

“What came back the next night sits before you. No longer the same man. No longer a man at all I guess. I’ve been criss-crossing this fledgling country as you call it ever since, although it seems old and worn to me now.”

The Duke looks down at the last swallow in his cup.

“Well, if you fail out here at whatever it is you do, son, I see a fine future for you in those newspaper offices I mentioned back east. If I had your--”

The kid looks sharply away from the Duke.

“You have company.”

The Duke turns and sure enough he can make out three men in the darkness. Each leads a horse quietly, not realising they’ve been seen.

“Who the hell is that creeping up on a friendly fire at this ungodly hour? Show yourselves, goddamnit.”

In reply a torch flares to reveal a tall broad man in a wide brimmed felt hat with a large moustache. He takes a moment to light the second man’s torch the light from which reveals that man to be one half of twins. The only visible difference between them being a nasty looking scar from chin to temple that seems to have been sown up by a surgeon’s horse.

“Evenin’, Fancypants,” says the moustache. “Talking to yourself all the way out here ain’t a good sign that your faculties remain where they started.”

The Duke is glad he has no rye left to offer these jackasses.

“Tim Dixon. Odd hour to be riding the land with those intellectual giants of yours,” he points with his empty cup across the river. “And I was talking to my companion over there. A genuine pilgrim no less.”

The twin holding the torch peers into the darkness then strides the shallow river to the exact spot the Kid had occupied just a moment ago. Nothing there now but a little brush and empty dirt.

“Pissing about in the dark like children,” says the Duke. “You spooked him.”

Dixon brings his own torch under his face, almost close enough to singe his filthy whiskers, the flickering orange light casting him in a demonic affectation.

“Or maybe he was a spook!”

The torch on the opposite bank is suddenly gone.

The abrupt absence of light draws everyone’s gaze and then the lost man screams once.

It’s loud, stark and abruptly cut off.

What follows is a low gurgling and the sound of a beast, eating.

The mule, spooked, takes a brisk walk further up river taking the main source of light with it.

Dixon draws his gun as the remaining twin, the one with the scar, blunders forward with his own piece drawn, shouting his brother’s name.

“Johnny!”

Dixon takes a step forward into the water so his torch throws a little of its light on the back of the advancing twin.

The Duke, for his part, has moved back to where his wagon sits in the darkness and reaches for his Hawken.

He turns in time to see a shadow pass in front of the remaining twin who suddenly stops calling for his brother and stands still as a statue until Dixon reaches him and puts a hand on his shoulder. It’s this that breaks the spell and the twin takes a staggering step backwards, causing Dixon to move aside.

The raised torch reveals the awful detail of the man’s head rolling backwards and falling into the river with a small splash as arterial jets of blood gush from the severed neck, dousing Dixon who shouts in horror, firing his Colt Walker.

Even from this distance the Duke can make out the Kid, lit by Dixon’s muzzle flashes, mouth bloody, eyes narrow, advancing slow on the man and taking no heed of the rounds hitting his chest and stomach.

Before darkness returns as Dixon’s dropped torch rolls into the river the Duke watches The Kid bring the larger man down in much the same way a mountain lion would bring down a black-tail.

Working quickly in the dark with a practiced hand, the Duke pours gunpowder into the muzzle of the Hawken, then the patch, then the lead. His eyes look straight ahead into nothing as he pushes the ramrod down to pack the barrel. Satisfied he brings the rifle up at the exact same time a small glow manifests across the river.

“I’m not as fast as you, but I don’t need to be. You got the drop on those numbskulls, but I am not them.”

The glow grows until the familiar idiotic gaze of Toby lumbers into view, lead by the kid who wipes his bloody face on his other sleeve.

“You have nothing to fear, Duke. I can’t get to you.”

The older man nods in agreement.

“Damn right you can’t. I assure you this shooter is more than capable of taking your bloody head off.”

The Kid shakes his head as the mule stops at the edge of the river.

“I wasn’t talking about your shooter. I can’t cross the river.”

This causes the Duke to lower his weapon a little.

“You really are a crazy son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

The Kid smiles and takes his spot on the ground. Blood drips from his chin.

“I really don’t know what I am, Duke. I was hoping maybe someone from a country as old as yours could tell me. I can no more walk in the daylight than I can cross this stupid stream. If I took you up on your offer of coffee and rye I’d puke blood for an hour straight and blood is the only thing I’ve found to sustain me. The fresher the better. Even that of these lumbering men who meant you harm.”

The Duke ponders this new information and allows the Hawken to rest at his hip, but still in the direction of the murderer.

“I don’t know what’s more absurd. That Tim Dixon, god rest him, meant me harm or that you’re a bloody vampire.”

The Kid looks up at the word.

“You know of vampires? I’ve read what I can over the years, but most of it seems to have been created by those same newspaper men back east. Silly tales to scare children. I did meet a farmer from Switzerland who seemed to know more, but our language was not compatible.”

The Duke shakes his head.

“I know as much as scared children perhaps. They drink blood, walk only at night, fear the cross and can not cross running water. An old wives’ tale more popular in the Balkans than the modern world. Why do you think these men meant me harm?”

The Kid takes his hat off once more.

“You’re the first to confirm that running water is part of the lore. Crosses hold no fear for me although I have burned down three churches and eaten the occasional nun.”

The Duke laughs.

“You’re a rum character, sir. I’m almost sorry you’ll hang for this.”

The Kid shakes his head as if talking to a child.

“I’ve been hung, Duke. Five times. It doesn’t take. I passed through Carson a week back and heard these men talking about a certain Lord Fancypants out in the wilds panning for gold to rebuild his lost, sorry, stolen fortune. Their plan was to give you time to find what you could then bushwhack you in the night.”

The Duke is getting angry, but allows the rifle to sag a little.

“Now I know those boys he rode with fell from the idiot tree and hit every branch on the way down, but Tim Dixon is too smart a man to sit in public planning robbery and murder.”

The Kid tilts his head slightly.

“My hearing is much improved than it was back in Plymouth. No one could hear them but me. I assure you that they meant you harm.”

The Duke looks at his rifle and then covers his mouth with his hand, never taking his eyes off the Kid.

The Kid watches him, cocking his head to the other side like a dog and waits a moment before continuing.

“If your hearing is so goddamn good then what am I mumbling to myself now, you demented sumbitch?”

Satisfied the Duke stows his rifle back on the wagon.

“Son. Of. A. Bitch,” he sighs. “Only an American could walk this earth for over two hundred years and still not learn to articulate.”

This brings a smile to the Kid’s bloody face.

“Can you at least wash your face in the river or will your head explode?”

The Kid leans forward and washes the viscera from his face in reply, before sitting back.

“My head has yet to explode.”

The Duke looks up at the canopy of stars overhead.

“There’s time yet. So you overhead this nefarious plan and rushed out here to save this certain Lord Fancypants. Is that it?”

The Kid shakes his head.

“Not at all. I boarded the evening stage from Carson and would have never thought of you and your troubles again had the journey unfolded as expected. Unfortunately men not dissimilar to your friend Dixon lay waste to the stage and it overturned five days ago. My fellow travellers were killed and the horses died or fled. I attempted to walk back, but the sun beat me to it. I’ve been making slow progress on foot from cave to cave when I saw your campfire and then realised who it was I was passing the night with. Lucky for both of us.”

The Duke sits down with the rifle across his lap.

“Seems the only thing luck has brought me is choosing this particular godless goldless river to pan. It kept you from me, but that’s about it’s worth. I almost wish Dixon had killed me just so I could see his face when he finds not a whit in my wagon and diddly-squat in my pockets to match.”

The Kid replaces his hat again, positioning it just so.

“Carson City is what, about a day and a half from here by mule and wagon?”

The Duke nods.

“About that. Although more like two days if I take my time to experience the scenery or I need to walk ahead of Toby less he gas me to death.”

“Like I said, lucky for both of us,” he looks up at the mule. “All three of us.”

The Duke laughs.

“So you, an honest-to-god monster, can’t cross this water, but you expect me, an honest-to-god idiot, to cross it and offer you safe passage back to civilisation just moments after I saw you kill three honest-to-god numbskulls. Is that your plan? Because if so I see quite a large flaw in it.”

The vampire stands and pats Toby.

“Do you know the parable of The Scorpion and the Frog, Duke?”

The older, no, the younger man nods.

“It’s more of a fable, but yes,” he squints at the vampire. “I believe I should be the one telling it to you although it’s a tad longer than a simple ‘Go to Hell’. It amounts to the same thing, right Mr Scorpion?’

The vampire rests his head against the horse’s face and smiles.

“You can call me William. Along with my hearing, my eyesight is also greatly improved. There is no gold in this river of yours, Duke. You may as well pack up your claim and believe me when I say no harm will come to you.”

The Duke shakes his head.

“And why would I trust you, William?”

The vampire turns to his new partner with a smile and for the first time the Duke can see the glint of two razor sharp teeth.

“Because the cave this particular scorpion has been sleeping in for the last two nights has more gold within than Toby here could carry over the course of a month.”

~

It takes them two days to reach Carson City.

William is trying to sleep in the back of the wagon, but the Duke refuses to shut up about the house and grounds he aims to reclaim once they arrive in England. They should arrive in Carson just as night falls, but right now the sun is at its zenith.

The Duke casually moves his hand behind him and drops something under the tarp atop his new friend.

“Ow! You sumbitch!”

The Duke laughs.

“Sorry about that. Thought that may be silver. Just wanted to test it.”

There’s a muffled grunt of anger from behind him as the small chunk of silver is kicked out to rest on the boards next to the empty rye bottle.

“Why do you think silver does that and not gold? I’m betting it’s something to do with Judas Iscariot and the thirty pieces of silver he took in exchange for Christ’s life. A solid symbol of corruption. Not that I’m suggestion you, an honest-to-god abomination, is in any way corrupted. But it is fascinating that Christ’s cross and any number of digestible nuns give you no pause. I know a library in Oxford that may hold the answer. I love London, but I adore Oxford. Wait until you see the…”

William closes his eyes and sighs.

Of all the 83,238 days that he has walked the earth today was going to be the longest.

Thanks for helping with that one.

Keep an eye on my Substack page for extra nonsense this week. Otherwise I’ll see you a whole week closer to Halloween.

Stay frosty,

Mike