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  MARTIN

  Martin is a shy boy, troubled, withdrawn. His parents are dead. He is drawn to women—women alone in their houses at night, women he sees on trains, in the supermarket. Martin wants to be close to them, but only when they are dead, when he can have their blood. First, he gives them a shot of painkiller, then he takes out his razor . . .

  His uncle thinks Martin brings the curse from the Old Country and arranges mirrors, crucifixes, garlic necklaces, even an exorcism. Martin taunts him with fake fangs and a cape.

  Is he vampire or psychopath?

  MARTIN is the chilling story of a very modern terror that finally must be stopped—by any means.

  “George Romero has done it again . . .

  . . . Martin, an eerie, sardonic updating of the vampire legend should secure his reputation as a modern master of the horror film.” —Washington Post

  “George Romero has a talent for bringing out the ‘normal’ aspects of horror and vice versa. Martin, Romero’s modern gothic reverie, plunks its surgically equipped vampire down in the seedy daylight world of a Pennsylvania mill town, where middle-class routines harbor violence and isolation as profound as anything dreamed up by Martin himself.” —Unicorn Times

  The director George Romero made a spectacular debut in 1968 with his now classic horror movie, Night of the Living Dead. Martin is his newest Gothic novel and his fifth film.

  “Romero is intent on describing the behavior of a young man, misunderstood and desperate in his search for love.” —Le Monde

  “Romero achieves an uncanny rapport with his troubled bloodsucker. An outstanding Gothic original.” —Village Voice

  “A nervewracking study of modern American adolescence.” —London Film Festival program

  “Unrelenting and truly frightening [with] a very witty script, and the dialogues have a natural humor that even Hollywood can’t buy these days.” —Soho News

  First Day Books edition 1980

  First published in hardcover by

  Stein and Day / Publishers

  Copyright © 1977 by Braddock Associates

  ISBN: 0-8128-7020-4

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

  Stein and Day / Publishers / Scarborough House

  Briarcliff Manor, New York 10510

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would particularly like to thank my friend and Producer, Richard Rubinstein for helping to make “MARTIN” a reality. In addition special thanks are due to:

  Jay Acton • Michael Aranson • Ben Barenholtz • Christine Forrest • Lee Goldberg • Michael Gornick • Barney Guttman • Katherine Kolbert • Marvin Lieber • Al Rogal • Ron Rosen • Donald Rubinstein • William Rubinstein • Donna Siegal • Stewart Snodgrass • Vince Survinski • Buddy Wechsler

  George Romero

  But first, on earth as vampire sent,

  Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent:

  Then ghastly haunt thy native place,

  And suck the blood of all thy race;

  There from thy daughter, sister, wife,

  At midnight drain the stream of life . . .

  Wet with thine own best blood shall drip

  Thy gnashing tooth and haggard lip;

  Then stalking to thy sullen grave

  Go—and with the ghouls and afreets rave,

  Till there in horror shrink away

  From specter more accursed than they!

  Byron, The Giaour (1813)

  Chapter One

  In a darkened room, an inert form lay on a neatly made narrow bed. The slight body seemed almost weightless and barely made an impression on the rough gray blanket. A gentle, childlike voice spoke confidentially to another presence in the room:

  “I knew I’d be on a train, and a train is a good place, so I didn’t do anything before I left Naptown.”

  The voice spoke haltingly, as though unsure of the words and unfamiliar with the sensation of tongue and lips moving. The room was very still; not even sounds from the outside interrupted the atmosphere of deathly quiet. It reeked of a sweet pungent odor—incense or melting wax. The speaker continued, with the limited vocabulary of a child or slightly retarded person:

  “I did it a lot of times in Naptown, though. A lot of times. I was in Naptown a really long time. Maybe that’s why I decided to wait for the train.”

  A passing car shed a stream of light through the aged and cracked window shades. The form on the bed reacted to the illumination by covering his eyes with a thin pale hand. The hand remained there until the headlights passed, and then returned to the figure’s side. The body stiffened, and the speaker was quiet once again. His mind, however, was as active as the clacking wheels of a speeding train, and it transported him to another time, in a not-so-distant past.

  • • •

  Joe Costello ran his hand through his thinning gray hair and looked out the window at the passing countryside.

  “The only reason I’m losing my hair,” he thought, “is because I ride these God-forsaken trains all over the country for that crummy cheap company of mine.” He was on his way home to New York City, via Pittsburgh, because his boss had had a brainstorm in the middle of the night. Awakened from a deep sleep in his fleabag hotel, Joe had rolled over the soundly sleeping body of his young companion of the evening to reach for the phone. He almost died when he heard Murphy’s voice, crisp and clear as if it were nine in the morning.

  “Get your ass out of bed and get into Pittsburgh for a nine a.m. meeting with Snyder at Associated,” Murphy barked at him long-distance. “I think we can clinch this deal before the bastards know what hit them.”

  Now, as the wheels turned vigorously, trying to get the train’s sleeping cargo into the station with a semblance of precision, Costello resettled his bulk into his seat and glanced around the seemingly empty car. But as he rubbed his bloodshot eyes he saw that he was not alone. Across the aisle, he noticed a slender form. The only movement was from the young man’s hands. His eyes were intent on a game of solitaire before him on the table. A single light from above the seat glinted off the laminated surface of the cards.

  To the right of the deck, which was spread out before the young man as if it were a feast, lay two candy bars, a few crumpled candy bar wrappers, and three paperback books: Mathematical Teasers and Brain Teasers; The World’s Tuffest Crosswords; and Solitaire and Patience Games.

  At the sight of the young man, so deeply immersed in his game, Joe Costello felt a slight chill. He pulled at the collar of his wrinkled sharkskin suit jacket as if warding off some evil spirit. He tried not to look at the strange yet alluring figure illuminated against the window. An occasional outside light flickered across the young man’s face, making him appear as if he were in an old-time movie.

  Joe returned to the legal-sized papers with his blue chicken scratch. It was late and the writing appeared as strange as Egyptian hieroglyphics. As Joe wished he were back in the rumpled bed, smelling his woman’s sweet odor and hearing her moans of pleasure, he sensed he was being watched. The young man pierced him with his haunting eyes and then glanced deliberately at his watch.

  “The little bastard wants the car all to himself,” Joe thought. “What could a guy like that want to do.” He assessed him as if he were a piece of merchandise: about eighteen or nineteen years old; five foot ten; slight build; neat but cheap dresser; short fifties haircut. “Looks like a hick,” thought Joe. “Maybe the kid’s lonely, first time out in the big city.” He noticed that the young man’s hands were shaking but attributed it to nervousness or the chilly car.

  Joe Costello never had any kids of his own. Never married since he was on the road all the time. Liked his freedom, he would tell his drinking cronies. But he felt very fatherly toward this stranger
and didn’t understand why. Maybe it was his innocent, unlined face, or his frightened yet strange eyes.

  Joe poured the last of the cold coffee from its warmer into his cup and tried to read the Associated file once again. He couldn’t get the kid out of his mind and had a feeling that the silent figure across the aisle was focusing his attention on him while trying to appear involved in his solitary game.

  Suddenly the young man drew his shaking hand across the neatly arranged cards and scattered them on the floor between the seats. The rapid and unexpected movement threw Joe off guard. The young man picked up the candy bar next to the deck of cards and ripped into it so viciously that he tore half the paper away with his teeth. Joe was getting more and more nervous. “Maybe the damn kid is on drugs,” he thought frantically. “What the hell can I do?”

  He’d only seen drug addicts on TV police shows. Yet this one looked so pure. “He’d probably started with marijuana and gone on to the hard stuff,” Joe surmised.

  The young man was starting to breathe deeply as though trying to get his organs synchronized. His body responded and gradually the shaking subsided.

  As Joe was lulled into a peaceful mood by the boy’s studied breathing and the train’s monotonous movement, the train lurched and the lights blinked out.

  “Shit,” Joe’s voice broke the silence.

  He could see the cardplayer relax and welcome the darkness. The young man turned his head toward the passing countryside, his profile caressed by the fleeting lights.

  After a few minutes in the darkness, Joe grew restless.

  “Shit!” he spat out again, more vehemently than the first.

  The young man turned his head toward Joe haughtily, as if chastising him for his language. As he stared at the somewhat disheveled figure of Joe, the lights blinked back on. Their sudden return startled the young man and for a moment his eyes searched Joe’s as if he were a trapped deer before the kill.

  “Railroads, right?” Joe said to ease the awkwardness. He knew his salesman’s job well, and he knew talking could ease the pain of a social situation.

  But the young man didn’t respond. He kept his eyes down and gave no indication of having heard or wanting to respond to the comment.

  Joe continued, oblivious to the young man’s reticence, and reassured by the comforting sound of his own voice reverberating in the dimly lit, isolated car.

  He waited for the response. Anything, a grunt, a nod of the head. He was disappointed when he didn’t get any. Getting out of his seat, he stood in the aisle near the young man and stretched. He raised his arms above his head, dislodging his shirt from his cheap imitation alligator belt and exposing his hairy girth.

  The young man collected his cards and started to deal them out again.

  “You play any two-handed games?” Joe asked persistently.

  The young man looked up. Joe took it as a response and continued.

  “A little poker . . . rummy?”

  A painful expression crossed the cardplayer’s face. His lip started to quiver, but the effort was too much so he simply shook his head.

  Joe started to sweat. “This kid’s a weirdo,” he thought. Then he caught himself. “What if he’s mute?” he thought with horror.

  The kid reached for his candy bar, took another bite, and fixed the solitaire tableau with glassy eyes.

  In his nervousness, Joe reached for a paperback. He could hardly focus on the title.

  “Crosswords?” he mumbled weakly.

  He felt sorry for the kid, all alone on a midnight train, possibly sick or handicapped.

  The young man reacted as if Joe had pried into his most personal secrets. He bore his eyes into the back of the big man, but Joe was deeply engrossed in thumbing through the book to hide his embarrassment over finding, in crude childlike handwriting, the ink legend: This book belongs to Martin Mathias, 209 Warren St., Indianapolis, Indiana, 46203.

  “Indianapolis, huh?”

  The young man, Martin, gestured frantically for the return of his book, yet he would not utter a word to discourage the intrusion.

  Joe, spurred on by the immediate reaction he had finally elicited from his silent traveling partner, laid his victim out on the operating table and dug a little deeper.

  “Hey, the big race and all that. You go to the race?”

  Anger crossed the young man’s face like a sudden storm. With twitching hands, he reached for his book.

  “I guess everyone in Indianapolis goes to the race, right?”

  Martin reached for the book and tore it out of Joe’s hand with uncharacteristic strength. Extreme rage overtook his once placid face, replacing it with a demonic expression. He looked like a cobra about to strike.

  His yellow, glowing eyes told Joe in no uncertain terms to take off.

  “Hey, well, fuck you, huh?” Joe uttered.

  Even Joe’s even-tempered nature wasn’t going to take rejection from a punky snot-nosed junkie. “Even if he is mute,” thought Joe. He gathered up his papers, stuffed them into his worn briefcase, and turned to leave the car. The train rattled as it went over a switch in the track. Joe turned for one last look.

  The young man still had the intense belligerent stare plastered across his face, but his body shook uncontrollably as if he were a puppet on a string.

  The older man took a reconciliatory step toward the younger one.

  “Are you all right?”

  But the ferocious expression frozen on Martin’s face told him all he needed to know, and he turned on his heel, yelling over his shoulder: “Yeah, well, like I said, fuck you, punk. Fuck your ass!”

  “The last time I try to make friends with a weirdo,” Joe thought to himself as he rushed toward the next car.

  • • •

  The shrill, insistent ringing of the telephone woke Martin. He reached for the instrument near his bed and put it to his ear. He could make out two voices, one high and one low, engaged in an argument. With a precise motion, he gently replaced the receiver. A few moments later, a door down the hallway slammed. Martin immediately picked up the receiver again and started to dial the now familiar number. When the other voice answered the phone Martin started to speak in a low, monotonous, yet childlike way; without pause, as if the conversation had not been interrupted:

  “I didn’t want to be so shaky, though. I hate when I get shaky. When it’s been a long time since I did anything, I get shaky.”

  Martin felt the customary sensation starting in his fingertips. He grasped the phone with both hands to steady himself. He could feel a tingling in his legs as well, but kept talking, trying to keep his mind off his body’s messages. As if in a dream, the images from the train kept impinging on his mind. He could see the receding back of the businessman as he was swallowed up by the next car. Then he remembered how frightened he had been, how conscious that at any moment the businessman might return with the conductor and ruin all his plans. He had to move quickly because the shaking was getting more and more intense. He had jumped up from the table and darted down the aisle toward the man’s former seat, switching off the light and then returning quickly to his seat. Then he gathered up his belongings and stuffed them into the old duffel bag that had been Uncle Palonis’s. “I must be quiet,” he thought to himself, and took all articles which would signal his arrival out of his pockets: his pen, cigarettes, a lighter, keys and loose change were put into his tweed sports jacket hanging from the overhead rack. He removed his shoes, even though they had crepe soles, because he wanted to be sure of his footing, to feel the floor beneath him.

  A thunderous roar, almost like a wave breaking on a beach, broke Martin’s concentration as the train went through a tunnel. His entire body began its erratic dance as his hands twitched uncontrollably. Taking a few deep breaths, he tried to calm himself, to tell himself that relief was not far ahead, that there was an end in sight—for now.

  Martin reached up and clicked off the light above his seat. The car was now in total darkness, except for the fe
w flickering lights from the fleeting landscape. Reaching into his duffel bag, Martin pulled out a slender black leather case which he slipped into his back pocket. He searched around in the duffel bag for a few precious seconds, always aware that the businessman or conductor might return, and finally found what he was looking for and put that in his pocket as well. His frail body was tossed aside by the swaying of the car as it made its mad race toward the station. In the wavering light, a strange expression crept into his face, an expression not of anger, but of determination; an expression of such demonic proportions that its significance was only known to one other person besides Martin—Cuda Zindarich.

  Martin moved through the club car with the grace of a prowling cat. The next car was a Pullman lined with draped sleeping berths and filled with the sound of even, peaceful breathing. As Martin moved stealthily down the aisle, he came across a man’s hand, hanging limply from between the drapes, as if suspended by a string from the ceiling. He avoided it assiduously, afraid that the lurching movement of the train would throw him against the hand, waking its owner and causing further delay in his plans. He managed to get through the car without incident. When he reached the breezeway between the Pullman and the next coach, a sleeper, he paused to catch his breath, which had been labored and controlled as he maneuvered through the last car. All the while the shaking had been getting worse. “I’ve got to get through to the next car,” Martin thought desperately. “I’ve got to get to her before the shaking gets worse.”

  Quietly, he opened the door to the sleeper and gazed down its length. All the doors of the private sleeping compartments were closed, and in the dim overhead light it gave the impression of a morgue vault.

  Moving to a door marked “nine” about midway through the corridor, Martin paused and pressed his ear close. All that could be heard was the incessant and rhythmic clatter of the wheels against the track. Then, looking up and down the corridor as if at a street crossing, Martin stood silently in the shadows. Sure that he was alone, he slipped into a public washroom at the end of the sleeper corridor. He locked the door and leaned against the wall. Staring at his shaking hands, he focused on the black bag and the strange paraphernalia which it contained—a sterilely wrapped, disposable hypodermic needle, and a small serum vial. He unwrapped the syringe, stuffed the crumpled papers in his pocket, and filled the chamber with some fluid from the vial. After stuffing the vial into his pocket, he held the needle in the air and, with the dexterity of an expert, forced the bubble out with the plunger until a hairstream of fluid squirted out. Leaning against the wall, he smiled in sweet anticipation of his act.