Whitby Vampyrrhic

by Simon Clark

  Then Tommy, followed by a skipping Sam, hurried to the dining room.

  ‘Don’t open any curtains, Tommy,’ Beth told him. ‘We’re not allowed to let any light out. It’s the law now.’

  Tommy accepted this without question. Before she could switch on the lights in the pitch-black room, he wove through the chairs and tables. Another of his talents. He sleeps all day. He doesn’t need food or drink. And he can see in the dark.

  Quickly, he crouched by the radio to turn the shiny brown knob. Seconds later, valves glowed through the vents. Voices burst from the speaker. It seemed like a comedy show. There was something garishly out of place about the play’s banter. Beth realized that her tenseness of mood, and the disturbing situation she found herself plunged into, made the broadcast grate on her nerves.

  A Scottish husband and wife were arguing.

  ‘So, Peggy, where do you expect my uncles to sleep the night afore the wedding?’

  ‘They can sleep in the blinking coal-hole for all I care.’

  ‘There’s a war on, Peggy.’

  ‘Well let them kip down with flipping Hitler. He’s as mad as a hatter – he won’t mind.’

  Tommy knelt before the radio, his arm round the dog’s neck. Those alien eyes of his fixed that brown Bakelite box full of voices. Once again, she recalled family dogs from her childhood that had to be put to sleep when they were too ill to continue with their lives. She knew it would be a kindness to release whatever remained of Tommy from that cold shell. But when? And how? And did she have the courage? Those were the questions that plagued her when Alec put his head through the doorway.

  ‘Beth. Eleanor’s ready for the demonstration.’

  ‘I’ll be right along.’

  Beth watched Tommy stroking Sam. The boy is suffering, too. It would be cruel not to.

  Three

  Beth Layne left Tommy listening to the radio. Thoughts weighing heavy on her mind, she descended the steps into the cellar. Alec and Sally were there. The man kept adjusting the eyepatch, as if he found it impossible to find any degree of comfort with it. Sally shot frightened glances in the direction of the iron grate in the floor. A cool draught, which carried odours of the sea, oozed from it. Beneath the grate, a pit of shadow. A blackness that suggested that ghostly forms would find it to their liking. A lair from which to strike.

  Eleanor stepped into the light of the single, naked bulb. She had donned the rubber apron and was fastening the buckles up her back. ‘Ah, good, everyone’s here. Then let’s make this quick. We might be running short of time.’

  Sally appeared happier that Beth had joined them. ‘Here, let me, Eleanor.’ She fastened the buckles for her.

  ‘Thank you, Sally, you’re a dear. Will you bring me the gauntlets, too?’

  Alec said, ‘You don’t have to do this, you know?’

  ‘Of course, I do. You must learn the vicious nature of this chemical.’

  ‘No, I mean you don’t have to fight this battle yourself.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘The police.’

  ‘Even if the police believed me, there is a curfew.’

  ‘So? Wait until morning?’

  ‘My dear Alec. We don’t have the luxury of waiting until morning. Those creatures attacked last night. They’ll do so again tonight.’

  Alec clenched his fists in exasperation. ‘Damn it, woman. Why didn’t you go to the authorities before now? You’ve known about those monsters for twenty years.’

  Sally finished buckling the apron. ‘Don’t be hard on Eleanor, Alec.’

  ‘Don’t be hard on her? Ye Gods. Why wait until now, Eleanor? Were you frightened of telling the truth? Did you think the police would arrest you?’

  Eleanor’s eyes flared. ‘Alec. I’m afraid of nothing! Yes, I prevaricated. But until recently Gustav and the rest were, to all intents and purposes, inactive. They didn’t attack people. Yes, they might have slaked their thirst on animals, but humans? No. Absolutely not.’

  ‘What changed them?’

  Beth knew the answer. ‘The war – that’s what changed them, Alec. Temptation was placed in their way. I know, strictly speaking, they’re not like movie vampires: they don’t fear crucifixes or sleep in coffins, but they do crave blood.’

  ‘And they suppressed that craving,’ Eleanor added. ‘But when men are tumbling out of the sky from exploding aircraft, or sailors being washed ashore from wrecked naval ships, with the blood still in their veins, then what are the wretches supposed to do? How would an alcoholic cope with a crate of whisky being delivered to his door every day?’

  ‘They’re monsters, Eleanor. Not humans with addiction maladies.’

  ‘Gustav Kirk is, at heart, a good man. He tried to stop the others attacking innocent people. He denied himself human blood.’

  ‘But it was Gustav Kirk who attacked the army sergeant in Hag’s Lung.’

  ‘That was when he was sprayed with the man’s blood. Momentarily, he lost control.’ A tear rolled from Eleanor’s eye. ‘Gustav tried so hard.’

  ‘As you tried so hard with Gustav,’ Alec murmured.

  ‘What do you mean? Tried so hard with Gustav?’

  ‘Tried not to fall in love with him?’

  ‘I don’t love him.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No!’

  Alec gave one of those if-you-say-so shrugs.

  Eleanor took the rubber gauntlets from Sally. ‘I know that I can’t just sit back and hope the danger will go away. The reality is this: vampires have invaded our world. There are more trapped in the sump cavern. Soon they will escape. If they do, the town will be overwhelmed. Whitby will become Vampiric. My parents accused me of being timid, of lacking courage. I proved them wrong. I will prove to you that I will act, without concern for my own safety, to destroy the vampire menace. But I need your help. So I will demonstrate the weapon I have devised.’ She stepped back into the shadows. ‘Wait here for a moment, please. But do stand well back. This will be dangerous.’

  Eleanor headed through a doorway into the basement wine cellar.

  Beth whispered to Alec, ‘We’re in this together. We’ve got to stand by Eleanor.’

  ‘We could still phone the police.’

  ‘During a curfew?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You really think they’ll send men here to the hotel?’

  ‘If they won’t, then I’ll go to authorities in the morning. I’ll tell them everything.’

  In the cold tones of a prophet of doom Sally uttered, ‘By then, who will be left among us to reveal anything?’

  Beth pressed her lips together. A chill that seemed unearthly in its intensity forced its way up her spine. The breeze blew harder from the grate. With it came the whisper of the sea – a sound like conspirators drawing up plans of attack.

  A moment later, the strange silhouette of Eleanor in the long rubber apron appeared. Although she wore gauntlets, she didn’t bother with the gas mask this time. In both hands, as if she carried an offering for the gods, she approached with a glass bowl, the kind you might eat strawberries from on a summer’s day. In the bottom, a little of the blue liquid. Eleanor set the bowl on the stone floor. She noticed that Alec had glanced at the table, and now clearly wondered why she’d gone to the trouble of putting the bowl at her feet.

  ‘This is X-Stock.’ Eleanor indicated the blue liquid. ‘In chemical terms, it’s a cousin of Hydrogen Peroxide. Alec, you asked yourself why I didn’t put the dish on the table. If I had, and spilled it on to the wood, you wouldn’t live long enough to know the answer.’

  Sally ventured, ‘The chemical will react with the wood?’

  Both Alec and Eleanor showed surprise at Sally’s knowledge of chemistry.

  ‘I’m not all about make-up and movies, you know.’ She blushed. ‘I remember my chemistry lessons at school. Mr Patterson dropped a tiny piece of potassium in a bucket of water and it sort of danced on the surface, flashing and shooting out sparks. It burnt a hole in
Mr Patterson’s necktie.’

  ‘This stuff is volatile . . . incredibly volatile,’ Eleanor told them. ‘It’s what scientists would describe as hypergolic. Meaning it reacts with organic matter. Wood, cotton, wool, skin, muscle, bone.’

  Alec nodded. ‘Hence the rubber apron and gloves.’

  ‘And they have to be a specially treated synthetic rubber at that.’

  Beth eyed the blue liquid. ‘So you’ve put X-Stock into the bottles? You plan to use them to bomb the vampires?’

  ‘Forget wooden stakes and crucifixes. The only way to deal with our Vampiric friends here in Whitby is by beheading, or dismemberment, or incineration.’

  Sally shuddered. ‘And I don’t expect you’ll persuade one of those things to stand still long enough for you to chop off its head?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Alec frowned. ‘Are you sure this chemical will work?’

  ‘Once you see it in action you will agree wholeheartedly that X-Stock is the perfect vampire killer.’ Eleanor adjusted the apron’s rubber collar so it was raised high enough to cover the bottom of her jaw. ‘I read the kind of books that my contemporaries don’t. I love books about ancient civilizations, exotic islands, faraway places, and I like to read about experiments in rocket travel. I came across a journal of the British Interplanetary Society; they planned to build a rocket fuelled by X-Stock. There would be a tank of this blue liquid, which would be sprayed into a combustion chamber; there it would hit another spray of fluid; this would be kind of organic soup. The resulting chemical reaction should blast a rocket into space. Anyway, enough of the theory. Sally?’

  Sally shrank back. ‘You don’t want me to touch that blue stuff, do you?’

  ‘Hardly. But I’d like one of the hairs from your head.’ Eleanor gave a grim smile. ‘Or at least one that’s already adrift.’

  Sally, wide-eyed and apprehensive, plucked a stray hair from her sleeve, then handed it to Eleanor.

  ‘Everybody stand back,’ Eleanor warned.

  Then she released the hair from her gloved fingers. It drifted down towards the bowl of blueness. The whisper of surf, echoing up the tunnel, grew louder. Did some unseen intelligence experience their sense of anticipation, too? Beware, one and all, Tiw is watching. The impression of being spied upon whispered along Beth’s taut nerves, as her gaze fixed on that single hair floating down towards the bowl. Everyone held their breaths. Apart from Eleanor, nobody knew what would happen next.

  The second the strand touched the X-Stock its molecules attacked the organic molecules of the hair. With a loud pop that hurt Beth’s ears, the hair vanished in a ball of white flame. Sparks shot from the bowl as far as the basement ceiling. By the time the pungent smoke had cleared there was no sign of the hair. Only that deceptively tranquil blue liquor remained.

  ‘Imagine half a pint of that fluid hitting a human being,’ Eleanor told them. ‘Or, rather, one of the vampires. It doesn’t just melt flesh – the stuff ignites it.’

  ‘Ignites?’ Sally exclaimed. ‘It explodes it!’

  Eleanor gave another of her dry smiles. ‘My dear, I couldn’t have put it better myself. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll put this dish somewhere safe.’

  Soon Eleanor was back. She eased off the heavy gloves.

  From Sally’s expression she only too clearly envisaged the damage the X-Stock could inflict. ‘Eleanor? Are you sure you can’t use those white powders of yours to cure the vampires? After all, they worked on that bite on my arm.’

  ‘It’s far too late, I’m afraid. The physiognomies of the infected people have changed too much. The vampirism is embedded into their bodies at a cellular level. Sally, would you be a dear?’ Eleanor turned her back in order to display the buckles running down her spine. Sally quickly went to work, unbuckling the garment. With a sigh of regret, Eleanor explained her plan. ‘Tonight. The vampires will return to the hotel. I’m sure of it. I’ll open the gates to the backyard. They will try and enter through there. We station ourselves at the upper windows. Once the vampires are inside the yard, we throw the bottles down on to them.’

  ‘Will that work?’ Beth asked.

  ‘You saw what the X-Stock does to organic matter. Whatever the vampires really are, biologically speaking, I can’t say for sure, yet they are still bones and meat covered with skin.’ She shrugged herself free of the apron. ‘Now, I suggest you go to the kitchen and make plenty of coffee. It’s going to be a long night.’

  Sally and Alec went upstairs, leaving Beth alone with Eleanor.

  ‘You go along, too, Beth. I’ll just finish up here.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about Tommy.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘We have to do the same to him, don’t we?’

  Eleanor appeared shocked. ‘Douse him with X-Stock, you mean? But he’s harmless.’

  ‘Yes, harmless, but Tommy is trapped in that monster. Don’t you see it? There’s the ghost of a little boy locked inside that thing.’

  ‘You do know what the chemical will do to his body?’

  ‘Tommy is a prisoner inside an abomination. If we are humane, we will stop him suffering.’

  ‘You are a brave woman with a good heart.’ Eleanor squeezed her arm. ‘I wish to God that you’d come here years ago. I could have done with a friend like you.’

  ‘So? Tommy?’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘When shall we do it?’

  Eleanor crimped her lips together until she reached a painful decision. ‘Go upstairs now. Ask Tommy to come down here. Say we want to show him something.’ Her voice became more strained as she added, ‘Beth, I’m warning you. The effects of this chemical on the boy will be . . . well, I don’t have to describe how terrible, do I?’

  Four

  ‘Tommy. I want to show you something I’ve found in the basement.’

  Tommy sat on the lobby carpet, where he rolled a ball for Sam. Both boy and dog had been so engrossed in the game that she’d watched for a while. That had been the moment when the dreadful enormity of what she’d planned became a reality. Soon he’d walk down the basement steps with her. Somewhere down there Eleanor would wait for him. What then? Dash a bowlful of the X-Stock into his face? Strangely, Beth felt absolute calm. This is what I must do. The child would be free of the monstrous body. No more searching for parents who were long dead. No longer spending his days lying in some hole in the earth. To release the boy would be humane.

  So, when she uttered the words: ‘Tommy. I want to show you something I’ve found in the basement’ they left her lips as normally as telling someone supper was ready. Yet, in the back of her mind, she wished that she was so distraught that she couldn’t continue with this plan to escort the boy downstairs to his destruction. However, she acted as if nothing was amiss, and she found herself hating her cool single-mindedness. Is this how those Nazi fanatics feel when they line up innocent civilians and shoot them? That it’s just a job of work?

  She held out her hand. ‘Come on, Tommy.’ Oh, and the words spoken with such a pleasant smile on my face. Just who’s the monster here? ‘Leave Sam there with the ball.’

  ‘What have you found?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  The slight figure ran gladly towards her. He trusted her and suspected nothing.

  ‘Wave to Sam.’

  ‘Bye, Sam, see you soon.’

  ‘Lead the way, Tommy. Careful with those stairs. They’re steep.’

  She closed the door after them. In the basement, Eleanor stood facing the wall. Her arms were in front of her; she must have something in her hands. That ‘something’ would bring this existence of Tommy’s to an end.

  Keep going, Beth. Stay strong. Don’t stop now. Tommy won’t suffer any more.

  Tommy and Beth descended to the floor level. Beth found that she held her breath. Her chest tightened. One hand went out to rest on Tommy’s shoulder. She might have to physically guide him to the centre of the basement.

  She had taken no more than two s
teps when Eleanor turned her head slightly towards them.

  ‘Don’t come any closer,’ she hissed.

  ‘Eleanor?’

  ‘Get out of the basement.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘He’s back.’ Although she didn’t turn around fully, her eyes slid sideways to indicate the grate.

  Tommy continued walking. ‘Wasn’t there something you were going to show me?’

  Beth whirled to the shelves. She darted to an old toy truck, lying amongst a jumble of bric-a-brac. ‘Here, this is it. I found this wagon and thought you might like it. It’s got all dusty, so take it to the kitchen and give it a wipe with a cloth.’

  Eleanor still didn’t turn around fully. She growled, ‘Beth, get him out. You, too.’

  Beth whispered to Tommy to go back upstairs. But Beth didn’t leave. As soon as the boy had gone, she approached the grate.

  Eleanor groaned, ‘Oh, Beth, for God’s sake . . .’

  A starkly white figure stood beneath the iron grate. The single light bulb gleamed on the skin; shadows from the bars formed a heavy black + pattern on the face of the man. He stood panting there. Some enormous passion gripped him. His eyes could have been eggs planted there in the sockets. They bulged with manic intensity. The pupils were tiny black dots – nothing less than a mad ferocity blazed from them.

  ‘Eleanor . . .’ he hissed. ‘Eleanor . . .’ The whisper of the ocean fused with the voice, sustaining it, and transforming into something that seemed to ghost from a tomb. ‘Eleanor . . . look at me . . .’

  Eleanor remained with her face to the wall, not looking back; in fact, at that moment, it appeared no force on Earth could make her turn around to gaze on that abomination.

  ‘Eleanor. It’s me: Gustav. I need you, Eleanor.’ He raised his hand through the grating, until the bars were level with the wrist, and the fingers flexed gently, as if they were sensory organs that could taste what emotions stained the air of the vault. ‘Eleanor. I’m here to warn you. The others believe you intend to harm them. Their instincts tell them there is danger . . . and that you are the source of that danger . . .’