The School of the Undead

by Michael Woods

  The first thing that Amanda dealt with was the easy job of clearing out Mary and Peter’s remaining supply of blood in the fridge. It came as a pleasant surprise to be told by the deputy that she would be permitted to keep whatever blood she found in the house. “A little perk of the job,” he had explained. However, as soon as Amanda opened the fridge, she found out why the school had not bothered to ask for the its return: there were only three bags, hidden away at the back of the otherwise empty plastic vegetable drawer in an old Tesco carrier bag. “Every little helps, I suppose,” she said to herself as she stashed the blood away in a cool box she had found beside the fridge: a necessity for any vampire.

  Once she had carefully placed the cool box next to the front door, Amanda returned to the kitchen. Slowly, she eased open the door to the bathroom and revealed the undulating mess of floor covering that she and Mary had created during Amanda’s previous visit to the house. It took a little more effort than she expected, but she collected the mass of ruined linoleum together and stored the results of her work in the corner. Her intention was to deposit the remains of the floor covering in the basement, but first, it would be necessary to enter the space that had hidden Peter away for so many years and clear out everything that evidenced the man’s years of self-imprisonment.

  As the trap door to the hidden basement below was still jammed open, Amanda was able to flip the thing open with her foot. The wooden boards of the hatch thwacked against the ugly green and brown tiles of the bathroom wall, but it managed not to break anything – fortunately, considered Amanda, who for a moment feared she had sent the surprisingly heavy trap door on a course to crash through a possibly plaster wall. These worries, though, were soon forgotten as her action of throwing open the hatch had the result of drawing up the foul air from below. The stench was such that without a second’s hesitation, Amanda retreated to the hall. Due to the excitement and tumult of her tussle with Mary, Amanda had failed to notice the extent of the smell on her previous visit, something which she now regretted as if she had - and if she had been aware of the petty amounts of blood in the house - she may have refused to take the job of clearing the house.

  Armed with an ageing bottle of air freshener spray, and with a scarf tightly wrapped around her face, Amanda returned to the bathroom and descended the steep homemade stairs that led into the dark space below the house. When she reached the floor below, Amanda found that the air turned out to be not as noisome as she expected, though she was still glad she had brought the spray, which she proceeded to use liberally.

  The space was a fairly cramped cube, with only just enough room for her to either lie down flat on the ground or stand up straight. The walls had been whitewashed and a single naked, low-watt light bulb illuminated the hidden room. Apart from the steep wooden staircase, the space in the room was occupied by a three-legged stool with an ancient television on top as well as the collection of restraints that Peter had put together over the years to prevent himself from escaping when he lost himself to his hunger. While trying to avoid thinking about what Peter must have gone through in the long lonely hours in front of his little TV, both when he was in the grip of his hunger and the many hours when he was just waiting for it to come, Amanda disconnected the set from a cable – which had been run through the house from the living room - and placed the sad little object in the bathroom above. For a moment, Amanda almost lost her grip on the set and feared that the thing would come tumbling down, crack her on the top of her head then smash on the floor. Fortunately for her, she just about managed to settle the thing on the bathroom floor above before anything happened.

  After breathing out a sigh of relief, a thought suddenly struck Amanda. She scrambled back up the steep steps and threw open the pile of linoleum she had carefully stacked in a corner. Even after as thorough a search of the floor covering as Amanda could force herself to conduct, she discovered that there was no glass in the sheets of the material. Nor could she remember having to deal with any glass as she collected the linoleum together. She inspected the now exposed floor boards but found no glass or other broken fragments either on them or in the spaces in between. It was only when she inspected the cracks around the edges of the room that she came across what she was looking for. In a few hard to reach places, she finally saw the little fragments of glass that Mary had been unable to collect together on the night before Peter had given himself up.

  As best she could, Amanda took her mind back to time just before her scuffle with Mary. She remembered a cry and the sound of something breaking. How could she have forgotten? A question suggested itself to Amanda that perhaps she was mistaken, perhaps her memories of the night of Peter’s discovery and of the night before had merged with one another, creating the false impression in her recall of the events that something had been broken on both occasions. But she rejected the doubt, she was certain that she had heard a smashing sound just before she had raced through the kitchen. Once again, she looked down into the hidden room and found the flagstone floor to be spotless. She also inspected the piece of hardboard that Mary had placed in front of the small pane of glass that had been broken on the evening before the woman had to leave her home. There was only one hole.

  All of this suggested that it seemed very unlikely that Peter had used something to attempt to break this window even further, returned the hardboard to its spot in front of the hole in the glass, then hidden away once more in his secret chamber. Indeed, how could he have replaced the floor covering over the trap door even if he had managed to perform all his other implausible tasks?

  Though very reluctant to do so, Amanda knew she had to return out into the rain. So as to save herself from having to find something else new to wear, before she exited through the kitchen door, she slipped back into her wet clothing. Once outside, to her relief, Amanda quickly discovered what she expected to find. Beneath the broken window, lying on the patchy lawn that came up to the house were the broken remains of a terra cotta pot. Though there was no way for Amanda to prove for certain that the pot had not been broken before she had even first visited the house, combined with the lack of any broken material within the house, it was enough evidence to fuel her suspicions that there had been a fourth person at the house that night. Furthermore, if her suspicions were right, this person had not only been in the garden on the night before she had discovered Peter, he had also acted in such a way to help Amanda uncover Mary’s secret.

  When she was back in the house and in her dry borrowed clothing, Amanda settled herself down on one of the living room’s sofas to ponder over why neither Mary nor Peter had made more of a protest over the fact that they had seemingly been given away. From what she had heard from the mutterings that had circulated around the school after the two had been sentenced, many believed that Mary held the opinion that Peter had given himself away. Furthermore, there were whispers that the two were not talking because of what Mary thought Peter had done. While it was difficult to take such gossip as evidence for what Mary may have truly felt, it was certainly clear to most of those gathered at the sentencing that the man had been glad to have been freed from his hole in Balfour Lane, so perhaps even in Mary’s eyes, he had motive. There was even the possibility that the two had not talked to each other about the issue, for fear of what they might find out, leading them to adopt the typical relationship defence of silence over the matter. Nevertheless, Amanda still did not think this explained why the two had not even mentioned the possibility of being given away to her, or to each other, on the journey to the school after they had been caught. All she could come up with was the idea that the two might just have been too exhausted and unconcerned with the details of how they had ended up at the school. The world they had existed in for so many decades - whether they held it dear or desired its end - had gone. How their life in Balfour Lane had come to be destroyed would, therefore, have been of minor significance: what was important was that this life was no more and that they were headed for the tunnels.

  T
he only thing that Amanda was fairly certain of was that she would most likely not find out the truth from either Peter or Mary. Ever since she had arrived at the school with the couple, Mary had maintained a distance from Amanda, either in keeping herself as far from her as she could or by adopting a cold silence whenever she could not avoid being in the younger woman’s company. Furthermore, since being freed from his home, Peter seemed happy to just follow the lead of Mary, and while he did respond to Amanda on the very few occasions when she was able to address him, he just deflected any questions she asked with simple apologies. Soon enough, the two would also enter the Tunnels, and whatever they knew - whatever they believed about what had happened to them during their last night in their former home - would be lost to the hidden and unknown world that Amanda wished she would never need to enter. Mary and Peter, and the whole of their case would then be all but forgotten, lingering on only as a faint novelty: a case of an attack that was solved. No one would care to investigate anything further and even if Amanda was right that someone had led her to discover Peter, it would be truly difficult to show that any injustice had been done.

  With the weight of disappointment at what she could not do for the couple upon her, and as she in no way felt inclined to face the task that lay ahead of her in the hole under the bathroom, Amanda struggled to remove herself from the O’Hares’ time-worn couch. Her usual drive to get done whatever job that was before her did not win out, and after a couple of half-hearted attempts to get up, she settled back down, slowly letting her head find its way to an arm rest. As she pushed away thoughts about how long it would take her to remove the smell of nicotine from her hair and clothes after returning to her hotel, Amanda noticed that something had been hidden behind the gold carriage clock that held pride of place on the mantelpiece. While her will to act had failed, her curiosity succeeded and she got up without the slightest hesitation. She slid the cream coloured envelope out from behind the clock and discovered that no name or address had been written upon it and that it had never even been sealed. Within the envelope, she found a small piece of folded paper, upon which was written a relatively brief note in an elegant cursive script.

  The task is simple. Call our young school investigator. Tell her to return to your home. Tell her you have something important to say to her. Tell her also that you were afraid to talk to her the last time.

  Forgive me for not telling you what to do to your face. I was worried you would convince me to stay when you called and I believe it is better for you to do this on your own.

  I’ll get back to you soon for what comes next. Be patient, be calm. All will be resolved soon.

  Your friend, S.

  Underneath the note, Amanda was not surprised to see her own telephone number. There was no doubt in her mind. Peter and Mary had been given away, and she was certain she knew who had done it.

  ***

  “Come now, Amanda,” said the deputy, as he leant forward so as to rest his head on a waiting hand. “What are you trying to do to me? The O’Hare’s will be off to their new home in the Tunnels in a little under 24 hours, and then the whole of this business will be done with. And anyway, what difference does it make who gave the game away? If anything, we should be glad that they did, whoever they are. They have managed to reveal two killers; two killers, mind, who between them have murdered three innocent people. Not only that, but they never managed to learn from their mistakes. If they were still out there, they would be not only a menace to the living but a danger to our own community.”

  “But,” replied Amanda without hiding the annoyance in her voice, “if this individual was able to reveal them, he also knew what they were hiding. If he knew, then why did he not share this information with us?”

  “Who can say? There are many number of explanations for why this man, or woman, acted in the way that they did. Oh, now you’ve got me joining in. Look, we don’t even know if there is a third party in all this. I mean, what evidence do you have? You admit yourself that you had a doubt in your mind about what you remember hearing…”

  “Then why don’t you let me ask the O’Hare’s?” interrupted Amanda. “We can see if my memories tie up with their own.”

  “Now, I don’t think that would do. They’ve got enough going on with leaving tomorrow. And anyway, they might not even want to discuss such things, especially if you’re wrong and that poor fellow Peter did indeed alert you to himself in an attempt to free himself from that dreary house.”

  While biting her lip to hold back her frustration, Amanda turned away from the sight of the all-too-concerned expression on the deputy’s face. Though she was not sure exactly why, the last couple of times she had met the deputy, she felt that the man was playing some sort of game with her.

  He was deflecting her questions - ones she thought were backed up with evidence she had collected while performing the very task the deputy himself had sent her out to complete – as if nothing more could be done, even though he was the very person who had the power to extend the investigation. If he so wished, the deputy could even probably delay the O’Hare’s going down into the Tunnels.

  “Why won’t you let me investigate a little further? I really think there is something else going on here.”

  “I just don’t think it’s worth our time, Amanda. You’ve achieved so much already in this case. Isn’t it just time to put all this grisly business behind us and move on?”

  “Look what I found in their home,” said Amanda as she laid the letter she had found behind the O’Hare’s mantelpiece down on the deputy’s desk.

  With a heavy sigh, the deputy picked up the small note. For a second, Amanda thought she saw the man’s eyes widen in shock. However, the reaction was curtailed quickly enough that Amanda was not sure what to take from the glimpse of the man’s true response.

  “Well, what is this?” replied the deputy flatly as he held the note out before him. He continued to wave the letter in the air until Amanda finally snatched it back.

  “I found it while clearing out the house in Balfour Lane. It backs up what I’ve been saying. This ‘S’ gives clear instructions to call me and invite me back to the house. It was when I went back to the house that all the commotion started, with someone breaking windows and street lights. I now believe all of this was done with the intention to reveal Peter’s hiding place.”

  “It seems to me that you might be reading a little too much into things,” responded the deputy with more than a hint of weariness in his voice. “And anyway, what did Mrs O’Hare have to say to you when you talked to her?”

  “Well, I didn’t actually manage to speak to her. The first time, she sent me away due to the broken window. The second…”

  “Then how can you be sure this ‘S’ person isn’t just a friend who wanted to push Mary to talk to you about something else entirely. These words could just be a bit of helpful reassurance from someone who didn’t even know what Mary wanted to talk about.”

  A surge of frustration built up within Amanda and almost burst out from her lips in the form of something she knew she would have regretted saying. She regained control just in time and managed to say something else entirely.

  “Then let me talk to Mary. Let me find out who left the letter.”

  “Come now, Amanda. We’ve been over this before. If we’re not careful, we’ll soon have ourselves trapped in a terrible circle of a conversation that will do nothing positive for either the situation or the school’s needs. They’re going down to the Tunnels tomorrow and, as I said before, I see no reason to trouble them further. Now, that’s the end of it.”

  Though Amanda wanted to say something more, to force the deputy to see what the letter meant, it was clear from the uncharacteristically stony expression the man wore that he would not listen to a further word she said. She felt as if she had failed. Failed the O’Hares even, despite their obvious guilt that meant they should be sent to the Tunnels. But what was worse than this was that she had failed to mention the name
of the one she suspected of composing the letter: who else could ‘S’ be but Samuel Packard? And if it was this man, which Amanda was all but certain of, then what motive could he have had to go to all the trouble of getting the O’Hare’s to reveal their secret instead of just taking the simple step of informing someone at the school? These questions would now go unanswered as the case was seen as having been resolved: soon enough, it would be forgotten.

  “But what about the author…” splurted out Amanda, she just could not let it go.

  “No!” interrupted the deputy, the intent of which he then reinforced by slamming his fist down on the cheap wood of his desk. The unexpected volume of the action silenced both Amanda and the deputy for some time. Eventually, the deputy took a long sigh to release a tension that had continued to build as the quiet continued. “As I said,” continued the deputy with a calm voice that was tarnished with a slight croak, “the thing is done with.” He dropped his eyes to one of the collections of papers that sat, piled up in a corner behind Amanda, reflected on something for a second, and then added hurriedly, “Perhaps it would also be best if you did not come tomorrow to see the O’Hares on their way. I believe that you’ll have enough on your plate anyway. With the news of your solving this case, you’ll have plenty of individuals at your door asking for assistance. Investigators who can actually dig something up are hard to find in our world, and due to the nature of how most of us have arrived here, there’s always another case to solve. My suggestion is that you take a little time, away from the school, and see if you cannot make use of this opportunity. Of course, the school is very grateful for all your assistance. I also hope that in the not too distant future, we will see you here again. But not, I may add, tomorrow.”