Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

attraction for them because here, in America, they can feed on human blood without fear of discovery or reprisal. Without the inconvenience of living in darkness. I believe that this is especially true in the South, where those flamboyant gentlemen vampires have worked out a way to “grow” their prey. Where the strongest slaves are put to work growing tobacco and food for the fortunate and free, and the lesser are themselves harvested and eaten. I believe this, but I cannot yet prove it to be true.
Abe had written Henry about what he’d seen (and asking what it meant) after his first trip to New Orleans. He’d received no reply. With his departure from Little Pigeon Creek imminent, he’d decided to venture back to the false cabin and check in on his undead friend.
I found the place deserted. The furnishings and bed were gone, leaving the cabin nothing more than an empty room. On opening the door in the back, I found not a staircase leading down to the rooms below, but smooth, hard-packed dirt. Had the whole of Henry’s hiding place been filled in? Or had the whole been dreamed by me in my delusional state?
Abe didn’t stay in Indiana long enough to find out. He wrote something in his journal, tore out the page, and hung it on a nail over Henry’s fireplace.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WEST OF DECATUR, ILLINOIS
CARE OF MR. JOHN HANKS
New Orleans held little of the wonder it had the first time around, and Abe found himself eager to conclude their business and catch a steamer north. He stayed on for a few days to give his stepbrother and cousin a chance to explore, but barely ventured out, not wishing to happen upon another slave auction or wayward vampire. He did, however, stop by the saloon near Mrs. Laveau’s—not to drink, but to indulge the slim hope that he might run into his old friend Poe. It wasn’t to be.
Denton Offutt had been so impressed with the way Lincoln performed that he offered him another job upon their return to Illinois. Offutt saw the Sangamon River as a 250-mile stretch of opportunity. The frontier was booming, and towns were springing up all along its banks. Many believed that navigation would soon be improved, and that steamboats would soon bring passengers and goods through their backyards. Offutt was one of the believers. “Mark my words,” he said, “the Sangamon is the next Mississippi. Today’s settlement is tomorrow’s town.” If there was one thing Offutt knew, it was that every growing town needed a general store and a pair of men to run it. And so it happened that Abraham Lincoln and Denton Offutt returned to New Salem, Illinois, the scene of their infamous boat rescue, to stay.
New Salem sat atop a bluff on the west bank of the Sangamon, a tightly grouped collection of one- and two-room cabins, workshops, mills, and a schoolhouse that doubled as a church on Sundays. There were perhaps one hundred residents in all.
Mr. Offutt’s store being a month or more from opening for business, I found myself in the strange position of having far too much time, and far too little to do. I was much relieved, therefore, to make the acquaintance of a Mr. William Mentor Graham, a young schoolteacher who shared my love of books and who introduced me to Kirkham’s Grammar, which I studied until I could recite every rule and example by heart.
History remembers Abe’s towering intellect but forgets that, in those days, he was more towering than intellectual. Like his father, he had a natural gift for words. But when it came to writing them down correctly, he remained a victim of his limited schooling. Mentor Graham would help to correct this, and prove a key force in Lincoln’s ability to express himself eloquently later in life.
The cramped store at last stocked and ready, Abe went to work filling orders, tracking inventory, and charming customers with his natural wit and endless facts. He and Offutt sold cookware and lanterns, fabric and animal pelts. They measured out sugar and flour and filled bottles of peach brandy, molasses, and red vinegar from little barrels on the shelves behind the counter. “Anything for anyone at any time” as they liked to say. In addition to his meager salary, Abe received an allowance of goods and a small room at the back of the store. Here, he would read by candlelight and write in his journal until well after midnight.
And then, the candle having burned out, and the whole of the settlement having gone to sleep, he would don his coat and go out into the night