A church bell rings. Below the wilted iron cross hanging at the cemetery's edge, it calls out to whatever faithful exist in this wasteland. Beneath the cross, beneath the steeple, beneath the heavy door guarding this sanctuary, Pastor Breybinder waits. The priest greets each of his parishioners with a smile and open hand. A warm face glows under pitted skin. The moment a pilgrim passes inside his chapel, though, the old man's eyes turn sharp, his gaze boring judgment into the unworthy. Breybinder is a hunched gargoyle perched at the entrance to his own mausoleum.

As the bell rings its last, Breybinder turns his back on the desert and locks the chapel's door. His weight on his cane, the man moves with uneven steps to the center of his temple. There, behind the altar, the shepherd rests in the company of marble saints and a golden crucifix. He thumps on a thick Bible propped before him. Dust stirs. Breybinder turns to his congregation and squints behind pearl whiskers.

"I spoke to the most honorable sheriff, and he promised to rid this land of sin!" Breybinder proclaims. "No more will we need to live under the shadow of death! No more harlots! No more vices! He will wipe this harsh Eden of evil! No more devils!" The priest lifts a hand, cradling an invisible cup. "We'll raise a pure society up from the ashes of Gomorrah, and through me, you will live forever! All you must do is believe!" The pastor produces a sterling plate from beneath his vestments. It shimmers. The old man holds up the polished disk. "Believe and offer what donations you can to help maintain this meager servant!"

Flashing a smile glistening with the same silver as the dish, Breybinder makes his way from the altar and passes his bowl to the dozen withered farmers scattered throughout the seats. Breybinder watches as, one by one, they search their pockets and drop what little sand-stained money they have onto the platter engraved with words they cannot read. Fervent murmurs. Breathless prayers. The chiming of nickels and dimes. One farmer stands. A middle-aged man with eyes and skin that have been drained by the desert, he's in a back row with his meek-looking wife and two emaciated children. The man lifts his hand.

"Yes?" The pastor calls out. "Mr. Sommers?"

"Pastor, I believe in your faith; however, our sheriffs have the habit of dying. What if Sheriff Donovan..." Sommers starts.

"If our Sheriff Donovan should fail, we must stand in his place!" Breybinder answers. "For, we are being tested! No longer can we be weak!" Breybinder ends his words with a nod, dismissing Mr. Sommers, but the man continues to stand.

"Another question," Sommers utters, his hand raised again.

"Yes?" Breybinder asks.

"Are we not taught to love our enemy? Are you proposing we fight?" Sommers shakes. "And, Pastor, if you are, my fists are old and my rifle's overcome with rust." The silver plate comes to Sommers. Pastor Breybinder remains silent as the farmer looks at the dish. There are only echoes in the chapel, and not until Sommers puts everything in his pockets on the plate does the pastor answer him.

"We are to love our enemies as our brethren! I invite them all into this church!" Breybinder pronounces. "We should speak to them with grace; however, if the devil's closed their ears to reason, we will have no choice but to open them with force!"

-

Duncan laughs. Stumbling from his casket in the undertaker's parlor, the demon holds his side. He points, cackles, and mocks a figure staggering about the black. Bernie the undertaker. The flesh's been eaten off his face, and twin wounds mar his neck. A pallid, awkward thing inside an expensive suit. Bernie groans as he lurches toward the coffins.

"Did you see him run? Did you see him? Did you see the sheriff?" Duncan snickers. He holds his head for a moment and then erupts at the creature. "And you! Look at you! Are you petting the thing that ate your face?" He is. Max the cat sleeps happy and fat cradled in the undead undertaker's arms. Duncan slaps his knee. He pokes Bernie. He leaks. He moans. The undertaker looks at his dried up body with what's left of his face. He blinks. He moans. He tightens his hold on Maxwell.

"What am I?" The undertaker croaks.

"An animated corpse," Egon answers. He emerges from his coffin, stirred by his partner's sharp laughs. Egon strolls to Bernie, sizes him up, and inspects his skin. He presses his fingers deep into the punctured flesh in the undertaker's neck. "A vampire."

"And not the prettiest I've seen," Duncan clucks.

"Am I like you?" Bernie asks. He squeezes his cat even more.

"You will be," Egon tells. "In time, your face will mend and become more beautiful than it ever was in life, and you will gain new emotions and more senses than you can count on your fingers."

Already losing interest in his new brother, Duncan drops his eyes to the floor. A smile rips across his face.

"Ha! The sheriff pissed himself!" Duncan laughs. Wheeling around, Egon punches his companion square in the jaw. Duncan falls. He roars. "Owww! You pushed me into the piss!"

"Will you behave?" Egon snaps. His boot finds a home inside Duncan's chest. He kicks him. He kicks him again. A bone snaps. Touching his brow, Egon shakes his head. "This is supposed to be a sacred event, the birth of another of our kind. This world is brand new to him, and we are ambassadors of our race." Egon lifts his eyes to the undertaker. "My name is Egon. I apologize for my partner, Duncan. You will learn very quickly to ignore everything he says. We came to this town to find our associate, Mr. Liam Macintosh, only to find his headless corpse in the graveyard. We stopped at your humble establishment to rest and never expected to find..." Egon sniffs the undertaker. "Liam's son." Egon leans closer. "Liam bit you, didn't he?"

"Yes..." The undertaker breathes. "I... He... He did... He was dead... On a table... And then he... He... My blood... And then... And then... And then... And then..." Already the color of snow, the undertaker somehow becomes whiter still. His arms press his cat against his chest. "And then... And then..."

"And then there was black. And then you went up to heaven. And then God would not let you in. And then you woke up in the very same spot where you died more alive than you'd ever been," Egon finishes the undertaker's story. "Don't be afraid. Given your profession, you spent your life acutely aware of death, and now that it's here, I think you'll find it sweeter than you could have possibly imagined." Egon lays a hand atop Bernie's rigid shoulder. "You've been given a gift. Liam could have drained you dry and left you to die, but he didn't. He mixed his blood with yours, creating you to join him." Egon drops his voice. "To avenge him."

"Avenge?" The undead undertaker coughs. "I've never... I've never done anything to hurt anyone! I couldn't! I can't! I'm not like you!" Only now pulling himself from the ground, Duncan lifts a piss-covered fist. He brings his knuckles into alignment and prepares to swing into the infant vampire's face. Egon, again, sends his partner down.

"Don't you dare throw any living ideals at us!" Duncan yells, trying to rise again. "Besides, I walked through your shop and have seen what you've done to the dead. You may not have killed before, but you're no stranger to dissecting your neighbors." Egon's foot keeps Duncan on the floor. "You'll find very quickly there's no room for principles in that undead head of yours!"

"While crude, my associate is right," Egon speaks. "If you don't feed daily, you'll be consumed by an anguish that will split your bones and fray your mind. You will kill to live. Very soon, you'll take lives as easily as you once took breaths." Egon touches his shirt, his fingers tracing his lungs beneath. His hand works its way up to his teeth. "Breathing as a human and killing as a vampire are very much the same thing. Both come as second nature, both are vital to survival, and as much as you might try, both are impossible to resist."

The undertaker shakes his head.

"Oh, come now," Egon smiles. "You've killed already. Simply look down."

Bernie does. The undertaker's eyes roll to his pet, cold in his arms. The animal, held tightly – too tightly – against his chest, dangles with the life crushed out of it. The undertaker makes a face. His skin twists. It contorts into a horrible shape. A grin.