by Simon Clark
‘Half past nine.’
Tom noticed that she’d piled logs into the huge fireplace. They blazed up the throat of the chimney so powerfully that they filled the room with a golden light as well as warmth.
‘Here.’ She handed him the coffee. ‘I found some brandy; that’s gone in with three spoons of sugar.’
The coffee tasted syrupy sweet. Immediately, the brandy shot fire through his veins. ‘Phew. Now that’s what I call medicine.’
Just as he finished speaking there was a tremendous crash of breaking glass.
‘Damn,’ she hissed, ‘he’s come back again.’
‘Again?’ Tom lurched to his feet. ‘You mean that guy’s tried breaking in here?’
‘When you were passed out in the chair he was doing his best to smash down the front door. Now he’s gone round the back.’
June sped towards the kitchen, Tom followed. Even before they made it through the kitchen door the lights suddenly died. Some of the firelight filtered through the doorway, however. In the gloom, he made out the back door. Set in the door itself were glass panels. One had been smashed. A pale hand reached through the broken pane, trying to reach the key in the lock. Whipping the key out, she threw it to Tom. She began dragging a stout timber dresser towards the door. Plates trembled on the shelves of the dresser, and then one after another they began to topple. To the sound of smashing crocks, Tom helped June shove the dresser against the door to act as a barricade.
On the other side of the kitchen window a face loomed from the darkness. Soon that pale oval was just inches from the glass. Tom quickly dragged down the blind.
She spun round to Tom. ‘Who’s out there?’
Instead of answering, he shoved the heavy kitchen table across the floor, adding its weight to the dresser.
‘Why are they trying to kill you?’ she demanded
‘They never tried this before. It’s got to be something to do with you.’
‘ME!’ Her reaction was one of total shock. ‘What has you being attacked got to do with me?’
‘I wish I knew.’
‘Tom, who’s out there?’
Once again he didn’t answer. This time because the sound of pounding came from the other room. Tom ran back into the lounge. The timber door shook as fists pounded on it from the other side. Thankfully, June had remembered to turn the key in the lock. Even so, he didn’t waste any time sliding across a pair of thick iron bolts.
‘Keep an eye on the door in the kitchen,’ he told her. ‘There’s a chance he might be able to break through.’
‘What about the windows?’
‘They’ve all got bars over them.’
‘Even upstairs?’
‘This place is built like a fortress.’
Once more he went from window to window, pulling down blinds and drawing curtains, sealing them from prying eyes.
Meanwhile, June’s eyes flashed with fear. ‘Why don’t you want them looking in?’
‘It’s not just that. I don’t want you seeing them.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I want to keep your reason intact. We’re going to have to rely on our wits tonight if we’re going to survive.’
‘Riddles … riddles! Why don’t you give me plain, straightforward answers?’
‘Because there are no plain, straightforward answers. You’ve landed in the middle of the mother and father of all mysteries.’ He added more wood to the fire in order to provide light rather than heat. ‘You’ve stepped across a threshold where the real world can be turned upside down and inside out. A place where death doesn’t mean the dead stop moving.’
‘Now you really are starting to frighten me.’ She backed off until she reached the wall. ‘Are you insane?’
‘I wouldn’t be as terrified as I am now if I was.’
Another crash filled the lounge as a heavy object struck the door. A second crash came from the kitchen.
‘Now there are two of them,’ he told her. ‘More will be here soon.’
‘What should we do?’
‘Prepare for a siege. Whatever happens we can’t let them get in.’
June swallowed. ‘Did I tell you that I’m too young to die?’
He admired her ability to make a joke in the face of being surrounded by … OK, use her word: MONSTERS. The house had been surrounded by monsters, they were under siege, and he didn’t know whether they’d make it until morning. Within a few hours, they might be dead … or worse than dead. Much, much worse than dead.
SEVENTEEN
Tom Westonby had almost been drowned an hour ago. He’d been attacked as he’d walked June Valko back to the car. Right now, he assessed the situation – and the danger they faced.
As he lit candles dotted about the room, he ran through the facts. ‘So we’re under siege here.’
June shuddered. ‘At least this place has got thick walls and bars over the windows.’
‘The downside is they seem to have cut the power. We’ll keep a big fire going – it kicks out plenty of light. We’ve food and drink, of course. And as soon as it’s daylight I’ll get you out of here.’
June sounded puzzled, ‘How can you be sure that these siege guys will leave when it’s light?’
‘At least I do know that much.’
‘So you know who they are?’
‘Yes.’
Once more she appeared baffled. ‘Then why won’t you tell me who’s out there?’
‘I was going to explain when we met up again.’
‘Tell me now.’
‘OK. They’re vampires.’
‘Pardon?’
‘There’s no subtle way to tell you. All I can do is hit you with the brutal truth. The man that attacked me is a vampire. The people who have put us under siege are vampires.’
Those blue eyes of hers gave the front door a sideways glance. He knew she was calculating her chances of making a dash for the door in order to escape from Tom – a man she clearly had decided was a lunatic.
‘Don’t even consider trying to escape,’ he told her bluntly. ‘You wouldn’t last two minutes out there.’
‘Vampires … you said vampires. That’s …’ her voice dried for a moment. ‘Unusual.’
‘You don’t believe in vampires?’
‘Does anyone outside a psychiatric ward?’
‘I didn’t believe in vampires once. I do now.’
‘Tom. I’d like to phone the police. Will you let me do that?’ She eased the phone from her jacket pocket.
‘My plan was to explain everything methodically.’ Something rustled against the other side of the front door. ‘But as you know only too well circumstances have changed. You need to hear the truth, and quickly, because the truth might save you.’
‘OK.’ Her finger got ready to hit some phone numbers.
‘Don’t do that.’
‘The police will put an end to this. They’ll arrest those guys out there.’
‘No, those guys out there will attack the police. You’ll have the blood of innocent police officers on your hands.’
‘I’m sure they can handle all kinds of trouble, Tom.’
‘Even the police can’t defeat vampires.’
‘There’s no such thing as vampires, Tom.’
A thud against the door made her flinch.
He said, ‘Now’s not the time to give you the full Bekk family history, or how and why the family is cursed. But this is the condensed version: the ancestors of the Bekks were Viking invaders. They came to England from Denmark over a thousand years ago.’
‘Is that so?’ She was clearly humouring him.
He added wood to the fire, which blazed in that vast cavern of a fireplace. ‘The Bekk ancestors made a pact with the Viking gods. The gods would protect them, providing they stayed loyal to the pagan faith. Consequently, the Bekks were protected from hostile Englishmen by a monster that the Viking gods made out of dead bodies.’
‘Why are you trying to frighten me?’
; ‘I’m not trying to scare you. I’m giving you information that will improve your chances of survival. Forewarned is forearmed. Do you understand?’
‘I really am scared now.’
‘Listen. Although the Bekks were protected, they were also cursed. If one of them moved away from the valley for long enough, or married someone who didn’t worship Viking gods, then that person gradually turned into a vampire.’
She shot Tom a startled glance.
‘That’s right,’ he told her. ‘If any Bekk man or woman shunned their family heritage they were transformed into something that wasn’t human.’
‘No.’
‘So can you work out what I’m suggesting?’
‘No. Stop it.’
‘Your father moved away from this valley and married your mother. Then he went missing after coming back here.’
‘You’re insane.’
‘That means he’s probably outside right now. He’s one of those things laying siege to the house. Your father is a vampire.’
June began punching numbers into the phone at frantic speed. Tom launched himself at her and snatched away the phone. She fought back, her eyes blazing with sheer ferocity. With all her strength she tried to throw him off balance.
‘You liar!’ she screamed. ‘I should have let him kill you!’
Although he didn’t want to hurt her, he gripped her wrists tightly to prevent her from attacking him.
Both suddenly froze. They’d heard the sound of something sliding over a hard surface followed by a crash. Straight away, the sound was repeated.
‘Those are tiles being broken,’ he hissed. ‘They’re on the roof.’
‘Whoever they are, they aren’t vampires … they’re not … they can’t be.’
‘They are vampires. One of them is likely to be your father. What’s more, it was almost certainly your father who attacked me by the river. Until tonight the vampires never even approached me. You see, June, your father misunderstood when I grabbed hold of your hand. He thought I was attacking you.’
Her eyes fixed on his face. Yes, there was horror there. He saw hope, too. The woman had begun to believe that she might have found her missing father.
Before he could speak again, he heard another sliding sound. Only this time it seemed to come from inside the house. He turned round just in time to see something plunge down the throat of the chimney and into the fire. A pair of bare feet crashed into the burning logs, sending up a shower of sparks. Both he and June stared in shock. For there, in that pyramid of flame, crouched a figure.
The man remained crouching there, staring out of that vast hearth at them. His eyes were completely white … no sign whatsoever of a coloured iris … instead a fierce black pupil in each eye fixed on them. Oblivious to the searing heat, he stayed there, bathed in flame.
She gasped. ‘Tom? Is that my father? Jacob Bekk? Is that him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why doesn’t he come out of the fire? It must be killing him.’ She held out her hands, ready to help him step out of the murderous heat.
‘June! Stay back!’
‘He’s burning!’ she cried. ‘My God! He’s burning!’
The ragged clothes the creature wore ignited. Even his skin seemed to catch light. Yet still he crouched there. Not moving. Not making a sound. All he did was stare into her face.
Then he moved. For a terrifying moment Tom thought he’d attack them. But with the speed of a cat, the vampire climbed back up the chimney, his hands and feet scratching and scraping the stonework as he went.
Tom opened the window blind. The vampire hit the dirt outside the house with a thud. Sparks flew. The vampire burned brightly. Even so, he didn’t give any sign of being in pain. Instead, he raced away into the night. As he ran, he resembled a fiery comet that flew just above the ground. June stood beside Tom, watching the fireball race through the trees until it dwindled to a spark of light that grew smaller and smaller before vanishing completely.
‘Was that my father?’ June’s eyes swam with tears. ‘Was it him?’ Trembling, she sat down on the sofa – there she spoke the words that shocked Tom to the core: ‘If it is him, how do I find him again? And how can I take him back to my mother?’
EIGHTEEN
At the same moment that Tom Westonby and June Valko watched the fireball dwindle as it raced away into the darkness, Owen Westonby had to remind himself why he sat there in Kit’s house. Kit had told Owen and Jez that the mysterious pod was an automatic camera. But waiting for the battery to be charged so they could find out what the device had filmed had become a kind of torture. As Jez neatly put it, ‘This waiting around is boring the bones out of my arse.’ For a while, they’d amused themselves by throwing to one another a dried-up orange that Owen had found on the floor behind the sofa. But that soon lost its entertainment value.
‘That’s it.’ Jez headed for the door. ‘I’m not waiting for Kit any longer. I’m going home.’
Before he reached the door, however, Kit appeared. ‘I need to be quick. The battery’s been damaged; keeps losing its juice.’
‘It better be worth it,’ Jez grunted. ‘The last bus goes in twenty minutes.’
‘This’ll only take two …’ Kit plugged the lead from the pod into the TV. ‘Trust me, what you’ll see is worth it.’ As he’d done before he used a chopstick to activate the mechanism inside the damaged cylinder. ‘Here goes.’ Kit sounded excited. ‘We have lift-off.’
The TV screen flashed from black to blue. Following that, an image of trees appeared with the river flowing in the background. At the bottom of the screen a clock recorded the time and date.
‘Why’s the picture weird?’ Jez wasn’t convinced that this would be worth his time.
‘The camera had been set up to operate automatically at night when an animal triggered the sensor. The image looks odd, because the camera’s on a night setting. It’s using infrared as a light source, so it’s basically a flat, black and white image. If there’s any light at all, it’s exaggerated to the point where it becomes a brilliant glare.’ Kit talked like an enthusiastic teacher presenting a fascinating science experiment. ‘See the flashes on the river? That’s moonlight being reflected in the water.’
Owen studied the TV screen. ‘So every time an animal comes in range it sets the camera running?’
‘Yup.’ Kit pointed at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. ‘You can just make out a fox there. Notice the high angle. Someone must have fixed the camera to a tree trunk at about head height.’
The fox glanced in the direction of the camera. Infrared mode made it look as if electric lights had replaced its natural eyes. An effect of the moonlight being reflected from the animal’s eyes, of course. The fox paused to scratch its ear with a back leg then scuttled off. More shots followed. They captured glimpses of creatures that made the forest their home. A pair of badgers rooted through fallen leaves. A boar trundled past, snorting loudly. After that, shots of roe deer, a water vole, more foxes, and a stag heading down the river bank to take a drink. Each creature possessed those unnaturally bright electric light bulb eyes as a result of the night setting on the camera exaggerating the natural moonlight.
‘Maa … annn …’ groaned Jez. ‘I live in the countryside. I see animals like this every day.’
‘Wait.’
‘I’ve had enough, I’m going home.’
‘Any second now.’ Kit’s eyes fixed on the television, completely absorbed by the images.
The screen blinked as the camera cycled through to the next shot. At first nothing appeared other than the black and white view of trees and the river. Owen heard something, however. Crunching. Rustling. The sound of a large animal shouldering its way through the trees. The sound grew louder, then a loud crunch: wood snapping. After that, an altogether more mysterious sound came from the TV.
‘Is that whispering?’ Jez took a close interest now. ‘Can you hear whispering?’
Kit nodded. ‘Lots of people
whispering, that’s what I thought, too.’
The sounds grew even louder. A tree creaked as some hugely powerful force pushed it aside. And yet Owen still didn’t see what caused the sounds. Not for another five seconds, that is. Suddenly the camera shook. The tree to which it was fixed must have been subjected to a violent shaking.
After that, it arrived. A huge, humpbacked silhouette. If the camera had been placed at head height then this creature, whatever it was, must stand higher than a human being. The whispering intensified. As if a dozen people whispered furiously amongst themselves. Apart from the black silhouette, the body that passed in front of the camera was featureless. That is until pairs of bright lights sprang from it. For all the world, it looked as if bright light bulbs had been embedded in the beast.
‘Tell me if I’m wrong,’ Kit said quite calmly and slowly, ‘but am I right in thinking those are eyes? Lots and lots of eyes.’
NINETEEN
Calm after the storm …
That’s how this time felt to Tom Westonby. Earlier that night a figure had climbed down the chimney and had remained in the fireplace as if the flames were no more harmful than warm bathwater. After staring into the face of June Valko the creature had scrambled up the chimney again. Now here they were, in the calm after that extraordinary event – that is to say, an extraordinarily disturbing and frightening event.
The fire still burned brightly, filling the living room with light. June sat on the sofa, a mug of coffee in her hands. The woman gazed thoughtfully at the burning logs in the fireplace, no doubt still haunted by what she’d experienced tonight. Tom occupied an old leather armchair. An outsider might have thought Tom and June were relaxing there – a contented couple, sleepy and ready for bed. Tom knew they were anything but sleepy. Yes, they were emotionally and physically exhausted. However, neither would allow themselves to fall asleep tonight. Too much had happened. June must be in turmoil – her world had been turned upside down.
In a low whisper she asked, ‘Will he be dead? Because he was there in the fire, wasn’t he? The man … the thing … that you said was my father.’ Her expression suggested she was mentally replaying what she’d witnessed earlier. ‘A man wouldn’t be able to stand in all those flames and not be hurt, would he?’