99 Coffins

"99 Coffins" is a vampire novel written by David Wellington. It is a sequel to 2006's "Thirteen Bullets".

Plot

Laura Caxton vowed never to face them again. The horror of what the vampires did is too close, the wounds too fresh. But when Jameson Arkeley, broken and barely recognizable, comes to her with an unfathomable, unholy discovery, her resolve crumbles.

Arkeley leads Caxton to a tomb in Gettysburg recently excavated by a local archaeology professor. While the town, with its legendary role in the Civil War’s worst battle, is no stranger to cemeteries, this one is remarkably, eerily different. In it lie 100 coffins—99 of them occupied by vampires, who, luckily, are missing their hearts. But one of the coffins is empty and smashed to pieces.

Who is the missing vampire? Does he have access to the 99 hearts that, if placed back in the bodies of their owners, could reanimate an entire bloodthirsty army? How did the vampires end up there, undisturbed and undiscovered for 150 years? The answer lies in Civil War documents that contain sinister secrets about the newly found coffins—secrets that Laura Caxton is about to uncover as she is thrown into a deadly, gruesome mission of saving an entire town from a mass invasion of the undead. . .

Vampire nature in "99 Coffins"

The vampires in David Wellington's novel seem to lose all their human appearances once turned. Their ears become pointed, their hair falls out, all teeth become wickedly sharp, and skin color always becomes pale white, regardless of ethnicity and pigmentation in life. The vampire must remain in a coffin during the day, as their bodies literally die each sunrise, and flesh melts into a noxious fluid, with dead skin and maggots. They are put together when dusk comes, thus getting a new body at night. Physical damage, such as mangled ears, is repaired each morning, but atrophy due to blood-starvation is not.

The method of transferring the curse is very different from the "traditional" way. To transfer the curse one must accept the vampire's invitation to undeath, and then kill one's self to be reborn

Vampires also have the power to resurrect their victims from the dead to create undead servants. These "half-deads" quickly decay, and thus have weak and fragile bodies. In one scene, Arkeley tells Caxton, that the half-deads are "cowards" and are very easily frightened, though they seem to stand their ground despite massive casualties in later encounters. In combat, they typically use knives and other hand-to-hand weapons, as their hand-eye coordination is too poor to properly use firearms.

Vampires are nearly unstoppable. They exhibit increased speed and vastly enhanced physical strength (enough to twist open a steel padlock using bare hands). As long as they have a supply of blood, they can heal grievous wounds, including massive brain injuries, in seconds. The only way to kill one is by destroying the heart, over which an area of steel-hard skin. Arkeley himself uses a Glock 23 with cross-pointed bullets, which fragment within the target's body. It is suggested that a vampire with reserves of consumed blood in its body may be able to heal damage to its heart in time to prevent its death.

Release details

"99 Coffins" was released by Random House Books December 31, 2007.

External links

Author's Website [http://www.brokentype.com/davidwellington/]