Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

like a mouse who has taken a cat for its tutor.”
Early autumn came, and with it an end to Abe’s stay. He and Henry stood outside the false cabin in the morning sun—Henry with his dark glasses, Abe carrying a few belongings and food for his journey. He was already weeks overdue at Little Pigeon Creek, and likely to get a thrashing from his father for coming home without the money he’d promised to earn.
Henry, however, saw fit to remedy this with a gift of twenty-five dollars—five more than I’d promised my father. Naturally, pride demanded I refuse this gift as too generous. Naturally, Henry’s pride demanded I accept it. I did, and thanked him profusely. There was much I had thought of saying at this moment: Thanking him for his kindness and hospitality. Thanking him for saving my life. For teaching me how to preserve it in the future. I thought of apologizing for the harshness with which I had first judged him. However, none of this proved necessary, for Henry quickly extended a hand and said, “Let us say good-bye, then say no more.” We shook hands, and I was off. But there was something I had forgotten to ask. Something I had wondered since we first met. I turned back to him: “Henry… what were you doing at the river that night?” He looked strangely stern upon hearing this. More so than I had seen him the whole of my stay.
“There is no honor in taking sleeping children from their beds,” he said, “or feasting upon the innocent. I have given you the means of delivering punishment to those who do… in time, I shall give you their names.”
With that, he turned and walked back toward the cabin.
“Judge us not equally, Abraham. We may all deserve hell, but some of us deserve it sooner than others.”

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
FOUR
A Truth Too Terrible
The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves.
—Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to George Robertson
August 15th, 1855

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
I
My dear sister is gone….
In 1826, Sarah Lincoln had married Little Pigeon Creek neighbor Aaron Grigsby, six years her senior. The couple had moved into a cabin close to both of their families, and within nine months announced that they were expecting a child. Shortly after she went into labor, on January 20th, 1828, Sarah had begun to lose an unusual amount of blood. Rather than fetch help, Aaron had tried to deliver the baby himself, too frightened to leave his wife’s side. By the time he’d realized how grave the situation was and run for a doctor, it was too late.
Sarah was twenty years old. She and the stillborn baby boy were buried together in the Little Pigeon Baptist Church Cemetery. On hearing the news, Abe sobbed uncontrollably. It was as if he’d lost his mother all over again. On hearing the details of his brother-in-law’s hesitation, Abe’s grief was joined by rage.
The no-good son of a bitch let her lie there and die. For this I shall never forgive him.
“Never” turned out to be only a few short years. Aaron Grigsby died in 1831.
By the time he turned nineteen, Abraham Lincoln had covered nearly every inch of every page in his journal with ink (in ever-smaller lettering as he neared the end). It held seven years of remarkable records. Insights into his disdain for his father. His hatred of vampires. Accounts of his earliest battles with the walking dead.
It also held no fewer than sixteen folded letters between its pages. The first had arrived barely a month after Abe left Henry’s cabin and returned to Little Pigeon Creek.
Dear Abraham,
I trust this finds you well. Below is the name of someone who deserves it sooner. You will find him in the town of Rising Sun—three days upriver from Louisville. Do not construe this letter as an expectation of action. The choice is yours, always. I merely wish to offer the opportunity for continued study, and provide some small measure of relief for the injustices done you, as you will no doubt seek their redress on your own.
Beneath this was the name Silas Williams and the word “cobbler.” The letter was signed only with an H. Abe rode to Rising Sun a week later, telling his father that he was off to Louisville to look for work.
I had expected to find the place plagued by a rash of disappearances or pestilence of some sort. However, the people seemed in excellent spirits, and their town in excellent