2Earlier that same day, Sheriff Pat Garrett had also arrived in Fort Sumner on an afternoon stage, and, along with two associates of his, John Poe and Kip McKinney, had began to search for Bill throughout the town. How he knew Bill would be in Fort Sumner is uncertain, but an anonymous tip from a concerned citizen seems the most likely answer. Garrett was a thin, mustacheod man who looked like the law; stern and humorless, and he had been chasing Bill for quiet a while. Some folks might even say that the two were each other's nemesis.
By the time Bill had left the station at night, and parted ways with the mysterious Countess Zaleska, it was too late to do anything fun. All the saloons and dance halls were closed, so Bill began to head towards the house of the man he had come to see, Pete Maxwell. Pete was the brother of one of Bill's many lady friends and he knew that his door would be open to him if ever he needed a place to lie low, like now.
He wandered through the quiet, empty town alone until he came to the large, wooden, Maxwell residence with its white picket fence and second story veranda. He knocked on the door quietly. After a few minutes, Pete opened the door in his bedclothes, holding a lit candle.
"Billy?" he asked in a hoarse voice. Clearly he'd just been awoken.
"Yeah," said Bill, matter-of-factly.
In the low glow of the candlelight Bill's eyes glinted like cat's eyes and it spooked Pete for a minute.
"I didn't think you'd be here til tomorrow. It's so late," said Pete.
"Should I leave?" Bill asked, annoyed.
"No, no, come in," said Pete, opening wide the door and gesturing for Bill to enter.
Bill did so smoothly and silently.
After closing the door behind him, Pete turned to Bill.
"Are you hungry?" he asked.
As soon as Pete said that, Bill suddenly became acutely aware of the jugular vein in his friend's neck. The sound of it throbbing became louder and louder until Bill couldn't stand it.
"Are you okay?" asked Pete, noticing the odd look on Bill's face.
"What? Yes," said Bill, shaking his head and clearing his thoughts. "Am I what? Am I hungry?"
"Yeah," said Pete. "I just butchered a yearling earlier today and if you want your welcome to some of the meat."
"No thanks," said Bill. His appetite just having up and left him.
"Well if you change your mind, let me know," said Pete.
"Will do," said Bill.
"You can sleep in the far room down the way," Pete said, gesturing. To get to the room indicated, Bill would have to go back outside and down to the next door along the porch, since all the bedrooms were outside access only.
"Thanks," he said. "You're a real friend for helping me."
Pete just nodded.
"Say, I don't suppose you'd feel up to a game of cards or something before bed?" asked Bill.
"Too tired," said Pete. "But the Mexicans across the way always have a game going until all hours. You might try there."
"I know them," said Bill. He knew lots of people in Fort Sumner. "I'll try there and then come back and bed down here later."
"Suit yourself," said Pete.
Later that night as Bill played poker, he began to feel a queasy feeling in his stomach. As he looked around the poker table at the people he played with he started to become aware of the blood pumping through their bodies just like with Pete earlier. He began to sweat and twitch. He didn't know what was happening to him, but he knew he suddenly did feel hungry. Remembering what Pete had told him earlier about the meat, he excused himself from the game and took a butcher knife from the kitchen of his hosts.
"I'm just gonna go over to Pete's real quick," he told the Mexicans who just shrugged and continued playing cards.
As Bill made his way across the dusty courtyard to Pete's place next door, he realized he had headed out without putting his boots or hat on.
Where is your head at? He thought to himself.
As he approached the door to Pete's room he noticed two men sitting on the porch outside of it. He didn't recognize them, but when they looked at him it immediately gave him an eerie feeling.
"Don't be startled," one of them said and they both stood up and came towards Bill. Bill kept his eyes on them as he backed into Pete's room with the knife in his hand. Once inside he shut the door and walked over to Pete's bed in the dark. In a low voice he said "Pete…Who are those fellows outside?"
"That's him," was Pete's only response.
Bill walked closer to the bed and again asked "Pete?", then he saw the silhouette of a figure sitting at the end of Pete's bed. Bill moved back slowly, and said "Quien es? Quien es?" He had at least remembered to wear his gunbelt and so he reached down to draw his pistol. Before he could fire it, though, the shadowy figure fired two shots of his own. The second one missed, but the first hit Bill square in the heart and he fell to the floor with his gun in one hand and the butcher knife in the other. There was a short gasp of breath, and then Bill died.
Pete quickly lit the candle next to his bed, illuminating the small room and the face of Pat Garrett, the man who had just shot and killed Billy the Kid. His two associates, Poe and McKinney, came running into the room from the porch outside. Pete hopped out of bed and the four men stood over Bill's lifeless body, unsure exactly what to do or say. What is there to say when a legend dies?
News traveled quickly through the small town. Most of the neighbors had been woken up by the gunfire and soon the word of Bill's death was everywhere. Garrett allowed The Kid's friends to take his body across the plaza to the carpenter's shop to give him a wake. The next morning a Justice of the Peace, Milnor Rudulph, viewed the body and made out the death certificate, and afterwards, before the sun had completely risen, with the beautiful New Mexico landscape painted purple, pink, and orange, a mysterious European woman dressed in all black and wearing a black cloak joined the crowd of grieving mourners around Bill's body. She went up to him and looked down at The kid's face, which was as innocent in death as a little boy's, surrounded by candles and marigolds. While no one was looking she pricked her index finger with the sharp nail of her thumb, then she ran her finger along Bill's lips, painting them blood red, which gave him the appearance of life again.
Then she was gone.
Later that night after the funeral, in which Bill was buried with his boots on, after all the lawmen had left town and all of Bill's grieving friends and lovers had left the cemetery, the ground over Bill's grave began to stir. All of a sudden a hand pierced the Earth and shot out of the grave, then another hand. They scrambled and clawed at the dirt to gain some kind of support as Bill hoisted himself up and rose from the grave. He was filthy and confused and looked around himself at the empty graveyard like a lost child. But the graveyard wasn't completely empty, as Bill soon saw when his eyes, which could see in the dark as well as any nocturnal creature now, came upon the sight of Countess Zaleska astride a great black horse, her black cloak blowing in the cold night air. She reached out a pale, slender hand to him. At first he wasn't sure what to do, but then he shook himself free of the dirt like a dog would and went over and took the woman's hand. With supernatural strength she pulled him onto the horse behind her and he wrapped his arms around her waist, then she shouted, "Yah!" and the two of them rode off together in the moonlight while somewhere in the distance a haunting Mexican tune was being strummed out on an old guitar.
One week, and one long boat ride (of which there was no survivors) later, and Bill and the countess arrived in Transylvania where they took a stage coach up into the Carpathian mountains to the Borgo Pass until they finally came upon Castle Dracula, which was an enormous, gothic structure that towered over a small village on one side and a seemingly bottomless ravine on the other.
"Homey," said Bill, once the couple had stepped out of the coach.
The countess opened one of the castle's large, wooden doors and then lead the way inside. The foyer of the castle was enormous and covered with dust and spider webs as well as old crumbling furniture. Bill followed her in, noticing movement out of the corner of his eye, he looked over in time to see an armadillo creeping around under a sofa.
"Feels like home already," he said with a smile. A smile that showed two sharp canines now among the rest of his crooked teeth.
Sometime later the two were married. A Cult leader named Hjalmar Poelzig, who looked remarkably like Boris Karloff, presided over their nuptials, reading the ceremony from the pages of The Rites of Lucifer. If any of Bill's friend's had been there they would have laughed at the notion that The Kid had finally gotten hitched at the tender age of only twenty-one, but then they may have also found it funny that one of the most notorious outlaws that time would ever know, was also a vampire now and married to the daughter of one of the most notorious monsters time would ever see.
The End?
