Midnight Rising(8)

The young man nodded. “Oh, yes. There are maybe hundreds of caves and several abysses too. Most of them are still being documented.”



“Dylan saw an old stone coffin in one of the caves today,” Janet blurted innocently as she sipped her beer.



Goran chuckled, his expression dubious. “You saw a what?”



“I’m not sure what I saw.” Dylan gave a nonchalant shrug, not wanting to tip her hand if she had truly discovered something significant. “It was pitch-black inside, and I think the heat was playing tricks on my mind.”



“What cave were you in?” the young man asked. “I know it, maybe.”



“Oh, I don’t remember where I was exactly. It doesn’t really matter.”



“She said she felt a presence,” Janet piped in again. “Isn’t that how you described it, honey? Like a…a dark presence coming awake while you were in the cave. I believe that’s what you said.”



“It was nothing, I’m sure.” Dylan shot a pained scowl across the table at the well-meaning, but aggravatingly chatty older woman. For all the good it did. Janet gave her a sweet little matchmaker’s wink as Goran leaned down next to Dylan at the table.



“You know, there used to be talk of evil in those mountains,” he said, his voice lowered to a confidential, if amused, tone. “Many old legends warn of demons living in the woods.”



“Is that right?” she asked drolly.



“Oh, yes. Terrible beasts that looked like humans, but were not human at all. The villagers were convinced they were living among monsters.”



Dylan scoffed lightly as she lifted her glass. “I don’t believe in monsters.”



“Neither do I, of course,” Goran said. “But my grandfather does. So did his grandfather before him and all the rest of my family who farmed in this area, going back hundreds of years. My grandfather owned the property at the edge of the woods. He said he saw one of these creatures just a couple of months ago. It attacked one of his field workers.”



“Is that so.” Dylan glanced at the barkeep, waiting for a punch line that didn’t come.



“According to my grandfather, it was just after dusk. He and Matej were bringing some equipment into the barn for the night when Grandfather heard an odd sound coming from the field. He went to look, and saw Matej on the ground. Another man was bent over him, holding Matej’s neck to his mouth—bleeding him from the throat.”



“Good Lord!” Janet gasped. “Did the poor man survive?”



“Yes, he did. Grandfather said by the time he ran back inside the barn to get something to use as a weapon against the creature, Matej was lying there alone. There were no marks on him except a bit of blood on his shirt, and he had no memory of the attack at all. The man who attacked Matej—or the demon, if my grandfather’s account can be believed—has never been seen again.”



Janet clucked her tongue. “And good riddance! Why, it’s like something straight out of a horror movie, isn’t it?”



Nancy and Marie looked equally aghast, all three women evidently buying Goran’s tall tale—hook, line, and sinker. Dylan remained skeptical to say the least. But in the back of her mind she wondered if her story about an empty mountain crypt littered with old human remains might be even juicier with a firsthand account of some kind of demon vampire attack. Never mind the fact that the alleged victim couldn’t corroborate with either memory or physical evidence; her boss at the paper wouldn’t hesitate to go to print on the word of a superstitious, likely vision-impaired, backwoods old man alone. Hell, they’d gone to print on far less than that before.



“Do you think I could talk to your grandfather about what he saw?”



“Dylan is a journalist,” the ever-helpful Janet, to no one’s surprise, felt compelled to explain. “She lives in New York City. Have you ever been to New York City, Goran?”



“I have never been there, but I should like very much to see it one day,” he replied, glancing at Dylan again. “You are a journalist, really?”



“No, not really. Maybe someday. Right now, the stuff I write is…I guess you could call them human interest stories.” She smiled up at the bartender. “So, do you think your grandpa would be willing to speak with me?”



“He is dead, I’m sorry to say. He had a stroke in his sleep last month and never woke up.”



“Oh.” Dylan’s heart clenched with true remorse, her hunger for a story taking an immediate backseat. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Goran.”