The bell rang again.
“Mary,” shouted Amanda from outside. “Are you there?”
The vampire, still seated at the telephone table, hunched down as if doing so would protect her from the situation unfolding around her. However, a sudden feeling of desperation, sharp as a knife, cut through her fear, forcing her to act. If she hesitated any longer, all could be revealed.
“Sorry, sorry,” said Mary when opening the door, looking just a little dishevelled. “I was busy in the kitchen.”
“No problem. Can I come in? It’s pouring down.”
After closing the door on the miserable day outside and hanging up the school investigator’s dripping raincoat, Mary found herself in the difficult position she had been worried about all day: she was with Amanda with no excuse to put off the conversation, the content of which Packard had yet to supply her with.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” proffered Mary in an attempt to stall any questions.
“No, I think I’m fine. You said that you were busy, so how about we just get to it. Then I can get out of your hair. I know my being here must be a bit of a nuisance.”
“Oh no, of course not,” lied Mary with a nervous laugh. “Are you sure? It’ll only take a minute. And, I don’t know, I think it might make me feel a little better, at least. I mean, it might take a little while for us to get through what I want to say. I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?”
Without waiting for a response, Mary made her way towards the kitchen, leaving a disgruntled Amanda behind her in the hallway. Just as Mary reached the kitchen door, to her great relief the phone started to ring. She spun around on the spot and, with a look of great relief, darted towards the living room.
“Oh, do excuse me,” said Mary as she rushed past Amanda in the hall. “I’ll just get that.”
Amanda leant back on the yellowing wallpaper of the hall, sighed deeply and noticed the house’s scent of stale tobacco for the first time since she had arrived. She could not understand at all why Mary had phoned her a couple of days before. The woman seemed so unforthcoming when it came to whatever she had called about that Amanda started to have her doubts about whether Mary had any real information to give her at all. However, the idea that Mary had nothing to tell also made no sense to the young vampire as why would Mary - who had been so short with Amanda when she first visited Balfour Lane - bring a school investigator back to her home for no reason?
“Speaking,” Amanda heard Mary say. A long pause followed, during which time Amanda assumed whoever was on the other end of the line was speaking to Mary. As Mary’s mumbled affirmations to whoever was on the phone drifted into the hall, the thought crossed Amanda’s mind that perhaps she had the opportunity, while Mary was distracted, to inspect the bathroom that she had been prevented from entering the night before. As quietly as she could, Amanda made her way into the kitchen and – just as she found herself standing before the bathroom door – then heard an unintelligible guttural scream that seemingly came from the room beyond; something which was quickly followed by the crash of something against a wall. Without hesitation, Amanda rocketed forwards to find out what was going on in the once hidden room.
Just as Amanda entered the bathroom, she heard the sound of the kitchen door fly open and smack against the wall.
“What’s going on? Don’t you dare go in there!” cried Mary.
Amanda slammed the bathroom door behind her, fumbled for a second for the sliding bolt lock – which she quickly recognized would not even be able to keep a child, let alone Mary, out of the room for long – before pressing her back against the door and holding onto its handle in an attempt to hold off the woman of the house for long enough to discover what was going on. She could feel her still beating, undead heart racing in her chest, but she nevertheless managed to examine the room before her as best she could from her defensive position at the door. To her surprise and slight disappointment, she found almost nothing out of the ordinary. All that was there was a slightly ugly, old fashioned extension bathroom. The only thing of any note was the head height, broken window that had been smashed the night before.
Amanda’s brief examination of the room was brought to an abrupt end when she felt the sudden sharp pressure against her hand as Mary attempted to gain access to the room.
“What are you doing in there? Get out!” shouted Mary.
“What’s wrong with you!” exclaimed Amanda. “There’s nothing here! What are you hiding from me? Tell me!”
“Get out! Get out! Get out!” screamed the woman as she released her grip on the handle and started to beat her fists against the door.
Amanda pressed herself all the harder against the wood of the door for fear that the enraged woman would burst through and attempt to tear her to shreds; she even glanced around for something to either hold the door or to defend herself with, but nothing of use was ready to hand. The woman’s pummelling of the door ceased, only to be replaced by the sound of feet skipping across the kitchen tiles. Amanda braced herself in the expectation of an impact, but when Mary threw her full force against the door, it was not enough. Amanda was thrown forwards and hurtled uncontrollably into the sink, before falling down to the floor. As she came down, hard, on the ground, she had just enough presence of mind to notice that the noise she created was not only suggestive of a substantial open space beneath the floor, but also that there was a suspicious slope to the floor in one of the bathroom’s corners.
Through hurling herself at the door, Mary briefly stunned herself, but she soon regained enough composure to make another rush towards Amanda, who was still sprawled out on the floor. As the woman approached at speed, with fixed determination and rage in her eyes, Amanda threw out a leg to protect herself and knocked a surprised Mary backwards into the bath. Knowing that her attack on Mary would not keep the woman away for long, Amanda seized the moment, got to her feet as quickly as she could and then lurched for the corner of the room. She reached down, grabbing the corner of the linoleum floor covering, but before she could pull it back, she felt Mary’s hands push their way through her arms so they could seize hold of her chest. Mary pulled with all her power, causing the two to tumble backwards. But Amada did not let go of the multi-coloured tile patterned covering, leading it to first come away from the ground and then tear under the two women’s feet as they fell.
After the two came to a painful thud on the ground, Amanda threw the large torn shred of flooring to one side, rocketed up to her feet and discovered what it was that had caused the floor to appear as if it were uneven: a trapdoor that had been partly jammed open.
“What are you doing?” cried Mary, who had still not managed to get herself off of the floor. “What the hell are you doing?”
With an effort to avoid Mary’s efforts to grab at her ankles and the folds of linoleum strewn about the floor, Amanda jumped over to the other side of the room to open the trapdoor. She had just managed to throw open the panel - something which released a foul stench into the air - when once again, Mary seized Amanda from behind to prevent her from finding out what was hidden in the formally concealed space beneath them. The woman dug her long nails into Amanda’s flesh with such force that a couple cracked. Amanda did her best to free herself by trying to force both herself and Mary to the floor, but all she succeeded in doing was to throw the both of them back against a wall.
Mary let out a gasp of breath as the two thudded against the wall, but she did not release her tight grip on Amanda. Amanda continued to try to wrestle Mary’s arms away from her chest, but the older vampire was just too strong and she had no intention of letting go.
“Release me!” shouted Amanda. “What are you hiding down there?”
“No, no!” responded Mary shrilly. “You can never know!”
Amanda frantically shook her body from side to side, forcing Mary to drag the both of them to the ground once more. This time, however, after they had hit the floor, Mary managed to maintain her hold on Amanda. Indeed, not only did she
keep her grip, she squeezed tighter.
“Let go of me?” choked out Amanda.
“I might not be able to kill you,” whispered Mary into Amanda’s ear, “but maybe I can still knock you out. I’m not going to those damned tunnels!”
The sound of creaking wood made the two women freeze. They both looked up to see the hairless, sickly-pale, round head of a man emerge from the opening in the floor.
“No, Peter,” gasped Mary.
After reaching the top of the steps, the man fixed his staring grey eyes on Amanda. With a steady determined step, he came towards her.
***
After hearing the distant, repeated cries of Mary for the school investigator to remove herself from the bathroom, Packard ended the call. All in all, he was very pleased with how things had unfolded. It would have been nice, he considered, to have been able to witness the events that were then taking place over in Balfour Lane, but he would just have to make do with the knowledge that things had been set in motion.
The man sat himself down in one of his green leather armchairs and wondered if it would finally be possible to get rid of the troublesome residents of Balfour Lane. He had long been aware of what Mary had kept in her basement and was willing to tolerate the presence of what she had hidden down there, but only as long as she managed to keep it within the confines of the household: it did not do to have a vampire, who was unknown to the school, wandering around the fields of Radcliff, especially one that was prone to the occasional public attack on the living. He was willing to accept that one attack that drew attention from the locals and the school could be overlooked – anyone could make a mistake – but two such indiscretions were beyond toleration.
He could not understand, either, how Mary had found herself in such a difficult situation as to not be able to provide blood for her man. As he had informed her only a few days before, he could have easily supplied her with what she needed at no monetary cost; she would have been in his debt, of course, but that was only natural. Furthermore, he did not understand why she had not just gone about the usual practice of any reasonable vampire and sourced what she needed from a neighbouring town or region herself, so as to avoid the suspicion of the authorities, both living and dead. As long as someone went about things in an organised way and constructed the adequate facilities – as Mary seemed to have the basics for in the form of her basement – then an individual could not only maintain a source for quite some time, but also avoid the messy business of creating a new member of the vampire community through performing the barbaric act of directly drawing blood from a source.
Packard’s phone buzzed on the table beside him, distracting him from his thoughts.
“He’s out,” read the message.
***
The man laid his hands on Mary’s own.
“Let go, Mary,” he said softly. “I’ve had enough of all of this.”
Mary could not believe that he asked this of her. After all they had been through, she wondered how he could now be so weak and short-sighted. Nevertheless, her grip on Amanda loosened, but for the time being, the school investigator did not try to get away as she had been petrified by the appearance of the man; she was in no state to escape.
“What do you mean, Peter?” she replied. “We can’t give up. There’s still got to be a way out of all this.”
“I don’t care anymore. I’m tired of hiding down there in that hole. I’m tired of being afraid of myself; afraid of what I might do if I get out again.”
Peter’s words swept the spirit to fight out of the already tiring Mary. She had worked so long to protect what they had established together, to protect Peter, that she had long forgotten about thinking over whether it was something either of them wanted to do. Her whole reason for being had just disappeared, something which allowed her to realise just how exhausted she really was. Her arms slumped to the ground, completely freeing the still stunned Amanda. Only half-conscious of what she was doing, Amanda got up.
“Peter?” said Amanda, softly, to the man who had now got down on his knees before Mary. “Did you attack a young boy? It would’ve been near the edge of town, not too far from here.”
Peter did not respond straight away. Instead, he just continued to look down at Mary, who was prostrate with shock and exhaustion. Amanda did not press Peter to answer but gave him the space to respond in his own time. Eventually, he turned to her with an expression of guilt and regret that told her what she wanted to know before he even said the words.
“Yes, it was me who attacked that poor boy.”
“Peter, no,” whimpered Mary.
“Was it also you who attacked another man, several years ago on a farm on Old East Lane?”
“Yes,” mumbled Peter, dropping his gaze, “it was me who killed Johann.”
Amanda surveyed the odd scene before her - the exhausted couple in the middle of torn and folded sheets on the floor - and could not believe that she had solved the case.
“I think…” started Amanda a little hesitantly, unsure how to broach the subject. “I think it would be best if we were to return to the school.”
Without a word of protest being spoken, Peter helped Mary to her feet. The man nodded to Amanda gently, suggesting that she should lead the way.
Chapter 6
A second, much louder knock was made on Brenden’s door, causing the boy – who found himself somewhere in the drowsy state between the waking day and sleep, with an inclination to move towards the latter - to turn over in his sheets and mumble something in response.
“Brenden?” came the voice of Amanda from the corridor, “are you getting ready?”
After slowly separating himself from half-formed dreams, Brenden’s memories of what had happened over the last few days began to crystallize in the boy’s mind. He remembered seeing him, the man who had haunted his existence ever since he had entered his second life, passing the deputy’s office. It had been Ms Halford who informed him that the man had been caught and that if he wanted, he could choose to watch as his attacker was brought into the school. He had fretted over whether to accept this offer, but in the end, he found that he had to go: he had to be sure that they had got the right man. When the man had passed the office, at first he believed that the school had made a mistake. The dejected figure that was passively guided down the corridor by Amanda could surely not have been the one who had killed him. But as he had focused in on the individual’s face, he came to see that his initial impression had been wrong; though there was nothing of the dread that haunted Brenden’s every night in the man’s eyes, the boy could see that they had the right person.
Then, he had just watched the man go by.
As he lay in his bed, he wondered why he had done absolutely nothing further on the following days to find out more about his attacker or what was to happen to the man. Though he would not admit it to himself, he knew the reason. For the most part, Brenden had just hidden himself away, keen to avoid having to face up to the unwanted looks and questions he expected waited for him outside his door. But now a day had come that even he felt he could not avoid: the sentencing of his attacker.
“Brenden!” called Amanda.
“I’m getting up,” responded the boy in a hoarse voice.
After quickly throwing on the shirt, trousers and shoes the school had provided him with, Brenden opened the door to reveal a slightly disgruntled Amanda, who was already tiring of her new task of having to take care of the boy. Quickly though, when she saw Brenden in his baggy shirt and overlong trousers, Amanda’s expression changed to one of concern. She was keenly aware of what it was like to feel the loneliness of being the new student at the school, separated from all those around through being the victim of an attack; but she could only imagine what it would be like for Brenden to have to relive the very thing that brought him to the school in front of all those he had come to know in his new life.
“Are you ready, Brenden?” she asked the boy. Brenden fumbled around with his belt and
attempted to hide the excess fabric of the shirt by pushing as much of it as he could into his trousers. Amanda was tempted to try to help Brenden in his struggle, but as the boy finished in his effort, she could see that it was a losing battle as the fabric soon spilt out over the top of the trousers; if only the school had provided him with a belt with enough notches.
“I guess we can go,” mumbled the boy.
“Come on. I think they’ll already be waiting for us.”
“Amanda?” questioned Brenden, with hesitation in his voice. “Why did you decide to stay?”
“What, here at the school?”
“No, you know, out there.”
“Oh, I don’t know whether there’s time for that now,” replied Amanda with only half her mind on what Brenden was saying. “Ask me later, okay. Now, we’ve got to get going.”
Within only a few minutes, Amanda managed to get Brenden to the deputy’s office, just in time to meet the silver haired vampire - unusually dressed in a new grey suit – as he was about to leave.
“Perfect, Amanda, you have our boy,” said the deputy without even acknowledging Brenden. “Everything should be ready when we get there. As they’ve already confessed to us, this is all just a formality; but such things need to be done nevertheless. Public forum and all that; lets everyone know that everything is above board, and of course that such actions will not be tolerated.”
“Have you managed to get in contact with Milch yet?” asked Amanda.
“Not yet, not yet. Shame he won’t get to see the sentencing, but that can’t be helped now. Anyway, I’m sure we’ll get to him in the end and clear the whole thing up.”
“I’m not sure how he’ll take the news,” replied Amanda. “When I spoke to him, he was so convinced that the man who killed him had to be from the Tunnels that he took personal offence at even the suggestion of any other possibility.”
The School of the Undead Page 17