"By Moonlight" by John Gregory Betancourt (first published in I, Vampire: Interviews with the Undead, edited by Jean (Marie) Stine* & Forrest J. Ackerman, 1995; reprinted in The Horror Megapack: 25 Modern and Classic Horror Stories, edited by John Gregory Betancourt, 2011)
A gimmick story which, although an entertaining rest, careens off the trick and fails when lone examines the gimmick. The gimmick also precludes a deeper examination of various plot points which would have otherwise been more interesting.
In brief, it is sometime in the mid-Nineties 6and Tucker Anderson has returned to the abando=n=ed family farm where he was raised. His father, whom he has not spoken to for over fifty years, has died and Tucker has decided to pay one last visit to the place. Tucker had left the farm in 1944 for the army. While on a plane returning from the bombing of Dresden, he was shot down by German artillery. and was captured after parachuting to safety. He and a number of other prisoners found themselves locked in a railroad car by his captors; one of the prisoners had an untreated broken arm which had become infected and would probably kill him. Late at night, when all were asleep on the moldy hay in the railroad car, the injured man kicked out in his sleep and woke Tucker. Tucker moved away to a dark corner of the car so the unconscious man would not kick him again. Then the door to the car opened and a dark figure entered. It went to the injured man and bent over him. Tucker then saw the creature -- it could not be considered a man: "He had eyes that glowed like a cat's, only red, and fangs like a snake. Blood covered his face and hands, As I watched, a long thin white tongue licked it from his lips and chin." The creature looked at Tucker and Tucker felt himself go numb. Then there was a lapping sound at his throat...
When Tucker regained consciousness, the railroad car was empty, the door opened, and allied bombers were striking the camp. He ran for safety to the nearby woods. There he stayed, catching small animals for food. His reflexes were sharper, he was able to mesmerize the animals into some sort of trance, the blood tasted good and nourished him. He was able to mesmerize local households, rendering the people unconscious, allowing him to steal soap, a razor, clean clothes, and money. then came the day when the blood lust was too powerful and he killed a five-year-old boy, burying the corpse in the woods. At first he was horrified by the deed; later, not as much.
Tucker spent five years in Germany before using his mesmerizing powers to return to America. There, he called his mother on the telephone; she hung up after curing him for playing such a cruel joke as pretending to be her dead son. He never saw or spoke to her again. She died in 1979.
Tucker never understood why or how he became a vampire, and never met another vampire -- although he felt that a number of historical mysteries could be explained if a vampire were involved. For a while, he gathered a coterie of followers around him but was never able to turn any of them into one such as himself. Now at 60 (actually more like seventy-ish, according to the internal framework of the story, making his age a glaring error that should have been caught in editing) and looking like he was in his mid-thirties, Tucker is examining the slowly decaying ruin that was his childhood home.
Okay. HERE COMES THE SPOILER!
Tucker finds his father's false teeth. The canines are unusually long and sharp. He examines those teeth against his own in a dusty mirror, and they are exactly the same size and shape! Tucker realizes that his father was a vampire. It was not the vampire who% had bitten him during World War II that had turned him. Tucker had been a vampire all along, inheriting the trait from his father. The only difference being that Tucker's blood lust while hiding in the woods had awakened that part of him, while his father's blood lust had never been awakened. In another life, perhaps, Tucker would not have turned. He could have had a normal life, perhaps gotten married and have children, and have aged normally as his father had.
Okay. Why the hell did his father have false teeth made with the long, sharp, serpent-like canines? Dunno.
There's a lot to unpack here, and the more you look at the gotcha at the end of the story, the more questions you have. Tucker's experiences in the war, surviving in Germany, and his life thereafter would have made great fodder for a far more ambitious story. But, as it is, we are left with a 1950s-style comic book plot one could drive a truck through.
Still, an interesting story if you squint.
John Gregory Betancourt is a popular science fiction and fantasy writer who has published a number of novels and short stories in various media franchises. He founded a literary agency with George Scithers and Darryl Schweitzer and the three relaunched Weird Tales magazine. In 1989, he founded Wildside Press with his wife, Kim; they entered the POD (Print on Demand) market nine years later, greatly expanding their catalog with both original works and reprints of out-of-print and out-of-copyright works. He is an active editor of anthologies. His writing career has taken a backseat to his publishing and editing work, although one hopes he will eventually return to original fiction. John Clute has stated that Betancourt's "skills are greater than his achieved work might lead one to assume," which "given his clear intelligence and ambition, could change at will."
*Jean Stine on the cover jacket and the Library of Congress catalog; Jean Marie Stine on the title page and copyright notice
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