these things happening…I don’t know, but they make a guy almost afraid to sleep at night,” Cliff said.
By that point, Luke was barely even listening. All he could think about was Anne and what he was going to do about her.
33
Belief, like true faith, i s never an easy thing to acquire. And especially for a guy like Luke who was a diehard agnostic that only believed in that which he could see and touch. Guys like him needed to have a truth rubbed in their faces before they could accept it. He knew this to be true and made no apologies for it. It had gotten him this far, but he knew he was at the point where he had to begin accepting that there were forces at work in the dimly lit corners of the world that no man could really know or understand.
After he left Cliff Corbett and Bob, he went home and tried to sort it all out in his head. He tried to make sense of the senseless. He tried to encapsulate those things he knew and those things he feared and vaguely suspected, and apply some real world concrete logic to them in hopes of disproving them once and for all. But even as he did so, he knew he would need definite proof before he would start to believe in certain things. The problem was that gathering proof on the existence or nonexistence of the undead was a very dangerous gambit. It was like trying to prove that a rattlesnake would indeed bite you by sticking your hand in its lair or proving that a bullet would indeed kill you by firing one through your head.
All day long he fought against him self.
He sipped whiskey and his hands shook and his heart pounded. He balled his hands into fists and swore under his breath. The part of him that was inclined towards belief (and this on very circumstantial evidence) proclaimed that the only proof he needed was over at the Stericki house. It was lying upstairs in bed, a leech that had destroyed her own husband and was now working her way through the neighborhood. A leech that, perhaps, had hastened the death of Sonja and Megan and surely brought about that of Nicole Corbett. If he wanted proof, real proof, all he had to do was go over to the Stericki’s. Anne—or something that looked like her—would be there and if he looked up in the attic and poked around under beds and in closets, he would find Alger, too, waiting for the sun to set.
The rational, logical part of him laughed at this, of course. It was TV crap, horror movie nonsense and comic book shit. Vampires? Really, Luke, REALLY? I thought you grew out of that shit. I’m embarrassed for you, pal, I really am. This was the practical, real world Luke Barrows, a guy who’d gotten by on his wits, had gone to college and served in the Marines and worked a job and gotten married and raised a kid and never, ever once had seen a shred of evidence concerning the supernatural or bogeymen in the night. This was his hardheaded self. It wanted to take the other part of him, the part that believed, out in the alley and kick the shit out of it until it started making sense and started living in the real world.
His rational mind was in denial, complete denial.
His instinct was living in fear of what it felt creeping ever closer.
The former told him to get real and the latter told him he better wake up and smell the fucking coffee or he was going to end up with a set of fangs in his throat one night.
By sunset, he was wired like a fusebox, just sick to death of fighting against himself. Belief and disbelief were battling for control of his soul and he was caught in the middle of their well-trodden battlefield. By around ten he couldn’t take it anymore. So, it was not that surprising that he did the first fool thing that he thought of. The first impulsive, suicidal thing that jumped into his wee little agnostic brain.
He was going to face his fear.
He was going to give it the old acid test.
He was going to find out whether or not he had any reason to be a weak-minded superstitious peasant.
34
H e bundled
By that point, Luke was barely even listening. All he could think about was Anne and what he was going to do about her.
33
Belief, like true faith, i s never an easy thing to acquire. And especially for a guy like Luke who was a diehard agnostic that only believed in that which he could see and touch. Guys like him needed to have a truth rubbed in their faces before they could accept it. He knew this to be true and made no apologies for it. It had gotten him this far, but he knew he was at the point where he had to begin accepting that there were forces at work in the dimly lit corners of the world that no man could really know or understand.
After he left Cliff Corbett and Bob, he went home and tried to sort it all out in his head. He tried to make sense of the senseless. He tried to encapsulate those things he knew and those things he feared and vaguely suspected, and apply some real world concrete logic to them in hopes of disproving them once and for all. But even as he did so, he knew he would need definite proof before he would start to believe in certain things. The problem was that gathering proof on the existence or nonexistence of the undead was a very dangerous gambit. It was like trying to prove that a rattlesnake would indeed bite you by sticking your hand in its lair or proving that a bullet would indeed kill you by firing one through your head.
All day long he fought against him self.
He sipped whiskey and his hands shook and his heart pounded. He balled his hands into fists and swore under his breath. The part of him that was inclined towards belief (and this on very circumstantial evidence) proclaimed that the only proof he needed was over at the Stericki house. It was lying upstairs in bed, a leech that had destroyed her own husband and was now working her way through the neighborhood. A leech that, perhaps, had hastened the death of Sonja and Megan and surely brought about that of Nicole Corbett. If he wanted proof, real proof, all he had to do was go over to the Stericki’s. Anne—or something that looked like her—would be there and if he looked up in the attic and poked around under beds and in closets, he would find Alger, too, waiting for the sun to set.
The rational, logical part of him laughed at this, of course. It was TV crap, horror movie nonsense and comic book shit. Vampires? Really, Luke, REALLY? I thought you grew out of that shit. I’m embarrassed for you, pal, I really am. This was the practical, real world Luke Barrows, a guy who’d gotten by on his wits, had gone to college and served in the Marines and worked a job and gotten married and raised a kid and never, ever once had seen a shred of evidence concerning the supernatural or bogeymen in the night. This was his hardheaded self. It wanted to take the other part of him, the part that believed, out in the alley and kick the shit out of it until it started making sense and started living in the real world.
His rational mind was in denial, complete denial.
His instinct was living in fear of what it felt creeping ever closer.
The former told him to get real and the latter told him he better wake up and smell the fucking coffee or he was going to end up with a set of fangs in his throat one night.
By sunset, he was wired like a fusebox, just sick to death of fighting against himself. Belief and disbelief were battling for control of his soul and he was caught in the middle of their well-trodden battlefield. By around ten he couldn’t take it anymore. So, it was not that surprising that he did the first fool thing that he thought of. The first impulsive, suicidal thing that jumped into his wee little agnostic brain.
He was going to face his fear.
He was going to give it the old acid test.
He was going to find out whether or not he had any reason to be a weak-minded superstitious peasant.
34
H e bundled
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