Abraham Lincoln_ Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahame-Smith [118]
“She won’t think anything of it.”
Most historians agree that these are Abraham Lincoln’s last words.
Booth quietly climbed the staircase and stood outside the box, waiting for the one line that he knew would get a huge laugh.
A laugh big enough to muffle the sound of a pistol.
Onstage, Harry Hawk stood alone, delivering a spirited soliloquy to the crowd. Booth held steady, waiting, as Hawk’s voice boomed through the theater. He crept forward, leveled the pistol at the back of Lincoln’s head, and carefully… carefully pulled the hammer back. If Abe had been ten years younger, he might have heard the click—might’ve reacted with the speed and strength that had saved his life so many times before. But he was old. Tired. All he felt was Mary’s hand upon his. All he heard was Harry Hawk’s booming voice: “Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal; you sockdologizing old man-trap!”
The audience roared. Booth fired.
The ball entered Abe’s skull, and he slumped forward in his rocking chair, unconscious. Mary’s screams joined the deafening laughter as Booth produced a hunting knife and turned to his next target—but instead of General Grant, he was met by the young Major Rathbone, who leapt from his chair and came at him. Booth plunged the knife into Rathbone’s bicep and made for the railing. Clara’s screams joined Mary’s as laughter gave way to murmuring and people turned their heads toward the commotion. Rathbone grabbed Booth’s coat with his good arm, but couldn’t hold on. Booth leapt over the railing. But as he did, one of his riding spurs snagged the Treasury flag that Edmund Spangler had put up earlier in the day. Booth fell awkwardly to the stage, breaking his left leg, twisting it grotesquely at the knee.
FIG. 6E. - A BLACK-EYED JOHN WILKES BOOTH FIRES THE FATAL SHOT AS MAJOR HENDRY RATHBONE REACTS
Though injured, the consummate actor couldn’t resist a flourish. He pulled himself to his feet, faced the audience, which had begun to panic, and yelled, “Sic semper tyrannis!” The state motto of Virginia. Thus always to tyrants! With that, John Wilkes Booth left the stage for the last time.
Like the speech to his conspirators, it was a moment he’d probably rehearsed.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
VI
At roughly the same moment, Lewis Powell ran out of Secretary Seward’s front door, screaming, “I’m mad! I’m mad!” Although he didn’t know it yet, his mission had been a failure.
Herold, the nervous pharmacist, had done his part. He’d led Powell to Seward’s mansion. Now he watched from a safe distance as Powell knocked on the front door just after ten o’clock. When a butler answered, Powell delivered his own carefully rehearsed line: “Good evening. I have medicine for the secretary. I alone am to administer it.” Moments later, he was on the second floor, only a few yards from where his ailing target slept. But before he could slip into Seward’s room alone, the secretary’s son Frederick approached.
“What cause have you to see my father?”
Powell repeated his carefully rehearsed line, word for word. But the younger Seward wasn’t convinced. Something was amiss. He told Powell that his father was asleep, and to call again in the morning.
Lewis Powell had no choice. He drew his revolver, pointed it at Frederick’s head, and squeezed the trigger. Nothing. The gun had misfired.
I’m mad! I’m mad!
There was no time. Powell bashed Frederick’s skull with the gun instead, sending him to the floor, blood pouring from his nose and ears. Powell then ran into his target’s room, where he encountered a screaming Fanny Seward, the secretary’s daughter. Ignoring her for the moment, he drew his knife and brought it down on the old man’s face and neck, again and again and again, until he rolled onto the floor—dead.
Or so Powell thought. Seward was wearing a metal neck brace as a result of his carriage