"You are too young to fall asleep forever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead."

Siegfried Louvain Sassoon
The Dug-Out
1918

"Are you finished trying to get free yet?" the rasping voice asked, more pronounced than the young man ever heard before.

Fully awake, the terror of his plight rushed headlong into the brain of Lou Patterson and he screamed.

The elderly man, dressed in tan slacks and a well-worn flannel shirt, sat watching Lou yell. He never changed his dour expression for the duration of the sound. When the screams halted and the attempts to move ceased, the old man spoke again. "Holler again if you feel up to it. No one can hear you, but I won't fault you for trying. I yelled when I was in that dark dungeon in Germany contracting this illness."

Lou's eyes bulged as he looked the room over. This was neither dungeon nor a complicated torture chamber equipped with the latest in modern S&M technology. It was a simple fruit cellar buried underneath the home of…

"Old man Smith!" Lou cried, his dry voice trembling.

The aged man with only slight tuffs of gray hair on the sides of his head displayed a toothless grin. "You remember me, huh squirt?"

The shaggy haired young man of almost twenty years nodded his head frantically, gazing down. He glared at the leather restraints that kept him suspended on the cushioned surface at a 45-degree angle. "Yeah, sure I do."

Withered fingers drummed on the small workbench beside the restraining table. When old man Smith moved in a lawn chair, his face winced. Quickly, his left hand massaged his ancient spine. "Damn, kid, you never get used to that pain. Arthritis? Huh. Thought that was a joke when I was a kid to hear tell of it. Guess I could have gotten stuck with the gout! You will never have to worry on getting it! So you do remember me kid. Take a good look. What is it you recall the most?"

Lou stared into the sunken eyes of the skinny man who held him prisoner in his fruit cellar and closed his eyes.

* * *

In the memory of Lou Patterson, he was five years old and out trick or treating with pals from down the block. His older brother Harry was supposed to be watching them, but being a teen-ager, Harold dumped his little brother a few blocks from home. Back in 1975, no one really worried about sending their kids out for treats, especially in their neighborhood in Kempton, Pennsylvania. Hard-working class folks lived there and the homes were friendly, if not cluttered with a few old rustic monstrosities that needed torn down. It was at one of these massive homes built before the Civil War that Harry and his bunch of pastel wearing buddies decided to throw eggs.

Lou, Danny and Scott peeked through the wrought Iron fences at the manor home. They watched as Lou's brother and others trying to prove their manhood by creeping up close to Old Man Smith's mansion. It was the typical home kids would think haunted: Three stories, Gothic, gray and decaying. Lou giggled as Harry flipped up eggs at the second story landing, performing hook shots that Lew Alcinder would've been jealous of.

The five year old received his first taste of terror at the behest of old man Smith. Out of the cellar doors burst of the old man in the darkness, wearing grubby brown pants and a cuffed green flannel shirt. The appearance of the bent, emaciated man was enough to invoke screams of terror from the five year olds. The teen-aged boys ran and so did Danny and Scott, yet Lou held up as his brother flew past the old man waving a cane sporting a metallic handle.

"God damn kids! Come on back here! You have no respect for your elders!"

Harry scatted out of the yard and almost fell down as he passed his little brother. Grabbing the tyke by the collar of his Lone Ranger costume, Harry shouted, "C'mon! He'll get us!"

Lou watched Old man Smith, hips aching as he moved, barely able to shamble out into the yard and thought, That old guy couldn't catch a cold!

But the partial moonlight was enough for Lou to recall what was important...

* * *

"You don't look any different," Lou muttered, trying to push against the bonds across his chest, having no success.

The left side of old man Smith's face tightened. "Bright kid for that hair cut ya got!" A withered hand waved at Lou abundant, head-banger locks. "Going to have to shear those off, kid."

"My hair?"

"Bound to get lice or something. I hate to clean up after those little bastards. Ticks are worse. Blood suckers."

Old man Smith struggled to his feet, shambled over to the angled restraining table, and then turned to the darkness beyond. His hand switched on a small light that revealed the rest of the room to Lou.

On a standard workbench were several bottles and a few small vats. Lou saw a FED-EX box, wrapping papers, order sheets and some partially popped layers of bubble-wrap. The young man swallowed, thinking part of this nightmare would be flavored with a mini-mad-scientist lab, but something felt wrong about that idea.

Old man Smith grabbed the bare skin of Lou's left forearm. "You probably aren't the purest subject, but you'll do. I hope you last longer than the last one. Christ, getting easier to trap young men these days. I think your generation isn't devolving as far as common sense goes. Must be the dope, eh? It that where you got your courage to come here? With some it is the booze!"

"I…" Lou choked and his eyes flared as his captor lifted a syringe from the bench.

"So tell me, sonny," Old man Smith uttered, visibly fighting down the shaking of his hands. "When did you punks start the stories?"

* * *

Lou recalled that too. He was nearly a teen-ager, about eight years earlier when his best pal Scotty Ranman, disappeared on Halloween. Scotty took the dare and snuck in the massive home of Old man Smith. No one saw him again.

The authorities called in at the behest of several hysterical kids did their job. They searched the home of one John Smith. They found nothing, but Old man Smith received some much-needed publicity. It was then that John Smith revealed himself to be a hero of World War One, his father before him a Civil War hero at Little Round Top in Gettysburg. The decrepit old man, nearing ninety, certainly was unable to terrorize children physically. The VFW held fundraisers and volunteers came out by the dozens as the town fixed up the old man's home. In time, everyone apologized to the aging hero. An invalid and refusing to leave his home, John Smith accepted their thanks, but simply wanted solitude. His home became a landmark on Historical walking tours.

But Lou remembered the scream from the cellar. Danny heard it. It sounded like Scotty when they were little kids when the beehive fell on his head. It was a scream of terror and pain. No matter how much praise or pity imparted to the aging veteran, Lou and Danny knew better. They were not sure how the old fart did it, but they were positive their buddy was no more.

Two years afterwards when little Abigail Princeton vanished from her yard a block away no one even considered investigating the mysterious John Smith. Lou and Danny, a bit older and cockier, considered raiding the home…but teen girls infatuated their minds. In time, both boys took jobs and the old man's house a few blocks away became a dim joke. No one went near it on Halloween, however.

A few years passed and the bones of what the authorities believed to be those of Abigail Princeton appeared. They turned up in a dumpster several blocks away from the house. Danny Chappell got roaring drunk and decided that enough was enough. His girlfriend claimed Danny was bound for the home. The next morning his 1984 Buick Regal was indeed in front of John Smith's home. But again, there was no trace of him inside the old Veteran's mansion.

* * *

"You killed ‘em all!" Lou wailed as the John Smith attempted to stick the hypodermic in a vein on the boy's arm.

"They sort of wasted away, your pals," Old man Smith chuckled as he licked his gums, concentrating hard on the needle. "There we go! Hot damn!"

"Are you gonna eat me?" Lou whimpered.

Giving him a testy expression, Smith spat, "What are ya, a pervert? I don't have the teeth to chew you…" His mouth turned upwards into a toothless smile. "…Or bite you!"

Lou shrieked again as it all dawned on him. "Oh Christ! You haven't aged in fifteen years have you?"

"Longer than that," John Smith mumbled as he taped over the tiny outlet to make sure it never left. He then attached a tube to this outlet and let gravity take its course. The I.V. bag slung low to the table awaited and blood started to creep out of Lou's vein.

"Impossible…"

Smith pulled up his lawn chair and coughed once. "Sure. Keep repeating that. We have plenty of time to flesh this all out. Your drunken buddy Danny was a boring little communist shit. Three years is a long time to listen to that clap-trap."

Lou slammed his sweaty hair back on the table and wept. "Three years? He was your prisoner for three years?"

Old man Smith nodded. "Why do ya think you are wearing the adult diapers? I can't go chase down a new victim every time I need one. Some friends of mine sent me this new elixir better than plasma that I mix with blood. Almost as tasty as paint thinner, but it works the same. I don't need very much and kid, you got blood to burn. Every time you can give me a pint, I'll take it. The I.V. in your other arm will keep you alive and well fed for me. I don't have much strength to feed you by mouth after changing your diaper."

"Oh God, just kill me…"

"Stop whining, kid. I can't drink that much anymore. Stop moaning! Your generation is the worst yet. You were so stoned that you never saw the trip wire at the bottom of the stairs. Even an old, feeble thing like me got the drop on you! When my grandson died in the Great War, I think they stopped making good kids. Yeah, that was my grand-baby-boy that was the hero, sonny. I got this peculiar illness of vampirism when I went over to Europe to try and find his body. My desire for revenge on some Krauts led to my own downfall. I was a fool trying to get the Baron turned General in that castle! Stupid me. He had the last laugh. Huh. I heard tell the SS got him a few years after that. Weird. Them guys weren't scared of nothing! Anyways, I made it back to America. Sunlight affliction comes later in the game. I'll explain it all later. After quite a while, it was easy to slide sideways in time. How many John Smiths do you think there are?"

Lou cried and cried, his tears drenching his cheeks.

"Kid, I know it is bad," John Smith said gently. "Wish things didn't have to be this way, but I never asked for this problem. All those pussies out there dreaming about becoming a vampire! Hell, kid, it sucks, no pun intended. Course, might have been better if I wasn't made one at age ninety!" The shrunken hands dumped the fresh blood in a glass beaker and then added a large measure of a black fluid. After much stirring, the old man sampled it. "Ahhh! Better than sex, kid, and nearly as bad tasting."

"God…"

"Can you read well? I hope so. My eyes are terrible. Danny used to read to me after he got over the shock. I love that there Shelby Foote Civil War trilogy! Hell, kid, this will be educational for you. I got an extension arm to hold up the books so you can see ‘em good. Don't worry about the diaper changes, hell, after a while on that I.V. ya won't need it. You'll get used to it and my sense of humor. Hey! Want to know the meaning of terror, punk?" The old man giggled and held up another long tube, and tried to steady his hands. "Think Catheter insertion!"

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