Vampyrrhic

by Simon Clark

  Electra sipped her coffee. ‘That’s a very detailed description of what you’re now claiming is a dream or imagination.’

  ‘Just a facet of false-memory syndrome. Many people claim they’ve been abducted by space aliens. Psychologists now realize these so-called abductees genuinely believe they have been whisked off to a spaceship. And these so-called abductees are just as detailed in their descriptions — yes, the aliens had big, dark almond-shaped eyes, they wore silver rings in their ears, they had five fingers but no fingernails, they smelt of onions. Yes, the details are there, but it’s sheer imagination; they never were abducted by aliens — which shows the mind is a wonderful thing, doesn’t it?’

  Electra spoke calmly. ‘What else do you remember?’

  ‘That the clothes they wore were ragged. Where the fabric was ripped their bare skin seemed to gleam through a bluish white that was almost luminous in the lamplight. Their teeth seemed too big for their mouths, which resulted in them being unable to properly close their jaws. Oh…and there was one other thing.’ David held up a finger. I think this might be significant.’

  Both Bernice and Electra leaned forward, listening intently.

  ‘They were led by a tall guy.’ David paused thinking hard. ‘Jet-black hair, slicked back. He was wearing a long black cape and went by the name of Count Dracula.’

  David heard a grunt and the crash of the stool being kicked back. ‘He’s taking the piss,’ Black grunted furiously. ‘If he can take the piss I can take the fucking smile off his face.’

  David stood up, his skin turning cold as the blood drained from it. Shit, he’s going to attack me, he thought, looking round for a weapon. Although he knew as sure as jiggery you’d need a sawn-off shotgun to stand any chance of stopping that monster.

  ‘Jack.’ Electra spoke calmly, yet with complete authority. ‘Sit down.’

  ‘He can’t bollocks us around like that. He knows fucking nothing.’

  ‘No. He knows everything,’ she said calmly. ‘Only, at the moment, Dr Leppington is in denial. His rational side won’t allow him to believe.’

  ‘I’ll knock some bollocksing belief into him.’

  ‘No, you won’t, Jack. We can convince him, can’t we, Bernice?’ Black sat down, his face sour.

  ‘Jack. There’s some cigarettes in the drawer. No, the one to your left. Now…’ She turned to look at David. ‘Please, will you sit down?’

  David felt his face set in a grim expression. ‘I think it’s time I checked out.’

  ‘Please sit down, David.’

  ‘I’m checking out. Or are you and your friend,’ he stabbed a look at Black, ‘going to stop me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Will you prepare my bill, then? I’m going upstairs to pack.’

  ‘David, please.’

  He turned to look at Bernice as she spoke, still sitting at the table, her fingers knitted together in anguish.

  ‘David,’ Bernice said in a voice that was desperately close to pleading. ‘Please sit down and listen to what we have to tell you. I…I really need you to hear this.’ She looked up at him, her eyes huge and pleading. ‘I’m frightened. And I think you’re the only person who can help.’

  3

  David sighed deeply, then sat down. ‘OK. Say what you have to say. Then I’m going upstairs to pack.’

  Electra, still sitting at the table, moved the bowls to one side. A spoon fell from the bowl and clattered onto the floor with a high ringing sound. ‘Even in the midst of high drama we’re confronted with the mundane,’ she said obliquely and, without moving the chair, bent to pick up the spoon. ‘God uses the mundane to remind us of our lowly position on Earth.’

  David said dryly, ‘OK. Get on with what you want to tell me. There’s a train to Whitby in an hour. I’ll be on it.’

  Electra assented with a nod. Bernice’s eyes were large and scared; the expression childlike. David instantly felt protective towards her, regretting that Electra had somehow trapped her in this collective madness. Divine blood. Vampire armies. The destruction of the human race. OK, Mulder and Scully. Over to you. Fangs for the memory and all that. David adopted the expression of the doctor patiently listening to a hypochondriac’s list of imagined ailments.

  The time was a little after four-thirty. Jack Black pulled deeply on a cigarette, shrouding one end of the kitchen in tobacco smoke. The late-afternoon sun pierced it with a ray of light that reflected dazzlingly from the stainless-steel work surfaces.

  ‘David,’ Electra said in a quietly matter-of-fact voice. ‘In a few minutes I’m going to show you some…’ She tilted her head a little. ‘Something in the basement.’

  He gave a small, neutral nod.

  Electra continued, ‘Yesterday, David, I told you how my mother, God bless her, complained of hearing noises in the basement. That she was terrified of the place. And that one day she was found dead in the basement.’

  Again David gave the neutral ‘Go on, Doctor’s listening’ kind of nod.

  ‘Officially the cause of death was a heart attack.’

  ‘But you disputed that?’

  ‘The only person I told was myself. But I knew my mother died of fright.’

  David nodded. ‘And you mentioned that you hear noises from the basement?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Electra agreed. ‘You can sometimes hear them up as far as the second floor. A frantic hammering like somebody pounding on a door to be let in.’

  David said, ‘You’ve checked that it’s not kids playing a prank?’

  ‘Believe me, these aren’t children, David. The noises I hear are the same ones my mother heard, the same ones that frightened her to death.’

  ‘But does that prove the story about vampire armies waiting underground for the call to march out and…and do God knows what?’

  ‘No. But you realize what I’m doing.’ She pushed back a strand of the blue-black hair that had fallen across her eyes. ‘This afternoon I’m laying my cards one by one on the table. That is to say I’m giving you sufficient evidence to reach your own conclusions.’

  David spoke gently. ‘You’ve heard noises in the basement. I believe you, Electra, but what does it prove?’

  ‘Bear with me, David. Bernice. What happens to you?’

  Bernice hugged herself, looking cold. ‘I don’t sleep very well at night. More than anything I feel with a complete, utter conviction that the building — that the whole town is infected with something. There’s a sense that an evil force is just waiting to break out.’

  ‘Bernice. Can you tell David about the videotape you found?’

  ‘I found it in a suitcase in the Dead Box. That’s basically the room

  where Electra stores lost property or, more often, just simply abandoned property.’

  David felt himself nod again. ‘You mentioned it before.’

  ‘Well…in there I found a videotape, you know, one of those small camcorder tapes? On the tape is the rough edit of a travelogue an American was making. I only know that his name is, or was, Mike Stroud. Well, to cut a long story short, he was staying in a room in this hotel. My room, I think?’ She looked to Electra for confirmation. She gave a small, sober nod. ‘He was convinced, as I am, that at night something paced outside his door — up and down the corridor all night. He could feel that conviction working through his blood like it was a virus or something. I feel it, too.’ Bernice clenched her fists earnestly as she spoke. ‘I took to barricading my door with the chest of drawers. I sensed that thing outside my door — whatever it was — was reaching into my brain, calling me out into the corridor.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said after a deep breath. ‘This American, Mike, decided to catch this…this nightstalker on video. One night he set the camcorder to record what happened when he opened the door.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He did exactly that. He opened the door, then…’ She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Something grabbed him, dragged him out into the corridor.’ She swallowed. ‘David, I’v
e got the tape upstairs. I can get it if you want.’

  ‘Maybe later, Bernice.’ He rubbed his face and sighed. ‘Electra, do you know anything about this Mike…Mike?’ He looked to Bernice to supply the surname that had slipped his throbbing head.

  ‘Stroud.’

  ‘Mike Stroud.’

  Electra gave an emphatic Gallic shrug. ‘He checked in for three nights. Left after two without paying the bill. All I know, he was American, that he left a few anonymous belongings which I stored in the Dead Box. That was two years ago.’

  ‘You’re saying he disappeared off the face of the planet and no one ever asked about him or enquired after him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No friends or family or lovers?’

  ‘Not a soul.’

  Again David sighed. The throbbing in his head grew worse. ‘Has anyone seen anything…untoward…well, to call a spade a spade, has anyone seen a monster?’

  All three looked steadily back at him.

  ‘Well, has anyone?’ David pressed.

  ‘Only one,’ said Electra slowly. She pointed at David. ‘You’re the only one.’

  He shook his head, a smile of disbelief breaking out on his face. ‘Imagined? Dreamed? You name it.’

  ‘And there’s what happened last night,’ Electra said. ‘The couple from Room 101. What happened to them?’

  David sipped his coffee. ‘Electra. You yourself said they might have just got carried away with some sex game. Why change your tune?’

  ‘Because I realized last night I’d been denying the truth for far too long. Belatedly, I know it’s time I came clean and told people what’s happening.’

  ‘And what is happening?’

  ‘Guests have been disappearing from the hotel for years. For a hundred years we — the Charnwoods, that is — have been brushing it all under the carpet. We’ve tut-tutted, we’ve pretended it was just guests who skipped paying their bills. We stored away their belongings into the room under the stairs. Then we oh-so-conveniently forgot all about them.’

  ‘Didn’t the police become involved?’

  ‘Occasionally, although not as much as you’d think. If an adult goes missing and there’s not much to suggest foul play they don’t worry about it overmuch. If you don’t believe me, go into a police station and report someone missing.’

  ‘Well, what happened to the couple last night?’

  ‘Something — and I use the word accurately: not someone — something came into the hotel and attacked them.’ Electra looked him in the eye. ‘Something wanted their blood: literally.’

  ‘Oh, come on now,’ David protested. ‘You can’t be serious?’

  ‘Believe me, I am serious.’

  ‘But who — or what — wanted their blood?’

  ‘Those things you saw in the cave all those years ago.’

  ‘Vampires?’

  ‘Yes,’ Electra gave that sober nod. ‘Yes. For want of a better word: vampires.’

  ‘But really,’ David held out his hands, pleading for common sense. ‘Vampires?’

  ‘Vampires. Or if you prefer — vampire-like. That is, creatures that have certain qualities usually attributed to the vampires of folklore. Granted, these creatures here in Leppington do not originate from Transylvania. I doubt if they are troubled by garlic or by crucifixes. But, as I said, they are vampire-like. They move by night. They don’t grow old like we do, nor do they die. And they do feed on blood.’ David rubbed his temples while shaking his head. He said, ‘And these vampiric creatures took the couple from Room 101 last night to drink their blood?’

  ‘Not exactly, I think whatever beings came into the hotel were merely procurers. They took the couple to the other ones that live — for want of a better word — underground.’

  ‘Like they were rounding up cattle for a farmer?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Electra.’ David shook his head. Christ, this was weird…so weird…

  ‘And now your uncle has used dynamite to destroy the gate that has kept them caged for so long…’ She gave a slow shrug and left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘So you see, David,’ Bernice said in a frightened voice. ‘You’ve got to help us.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘It’s obvious. You’re the only one who can help,’ Bernice said. ‘You are the last Leppington.’

  ‘Wrong.’

  ‘Your uncle is in hospital, and it was he who set them free.’

  ‘There’s my father.’

  ‘And where is he?’

  ‘On a sailing holiday in Greece.’

  ‘I think he’s pretty much washed his hands of the whole town, don’t you?’

  David found himself shivering from head to toe. The rational side of his brain — that Johnny-come-lately frontal lobe, evolved over the last thirty thousand years — that was the seat of rationality and learning and logic and modern-day conscious thought was busily saying: David, don’t listen to this superstitious tosh. They’re barking mad, all three of them.

  They actually believe a ridiculous folk tale. Pack your bags. Leave town.

  But the old part of his brain, tucked deep inside his head, was braying out a different message. It spoke from his heart and his guts: Every word is true, David. You can sense the town is pregnant with evil. You saw those shambling white-faced things in the cave all those years ago. They’re real and you know it.

  Electra looked at him, those dark eyes reading his eyes. She knew she was winning.

  ‘Jack,’ she said calmly. ‘Tell Dr David Leppington here what really happened last night.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Everything,’ she agreed, ‘then we’ll take him down into the basement.’

  David listened to what he was told next. There was no melodrama: it was all matter-of-fact. Black might as well have been a TV weatherman describing a cold front moving down from the north or announcing squally showers over the hills. Jack Black was telling it how it was.

  4

  Black pulled on the cigarette, veiling his scarred and tattooed face with smoke.

  ‘Last night,’ he told David, I knew something was wrong. I had this feeling, here, right in the pit of my gut. Something told me I had to stay up on the top floor.’

  ‘He was standing guard,’ Electra explained. ‘Outside your doors. He probably saved your lives.’

  ‘You said something told you,’ David asked. ‘What, exactly?’

  ‘Just something right inside here.’ Black twisted his finger against his temple like his finger was a screwdriver.

  ‘Oh, there’s more to Mr Black than meets the eye,’ Electra told David. ‘He has some very recondite talents.’

  David raised a questioning eyebrow.

  ‘We’ll go into those later. OK, Jack, continue.’

  ‘You lot came out and started banging on about me going downstairs, remember?’

  David gave a nod.

  ‘You thought I was going to rob your rooms or some bollocks like that, didn’t you? Anyway. That bird from downstairs charged out of the lift. You took her into the room to clean her up and put her in a dressing gown and stuff. Then we got ready to go downstairs, right?’

  ‘Right,’ David agreed.

  ‘Only when me and her,’ he nodded at Bernice, ‘got in the lift someone pressed the lift call button from the basement.’ He spoke a little faster now. ‘I had the woman under my arm ’cos she’d flaked out on us. Bernice was stood behind me in the lift. Anyway, it went right down into the basement. The lift doors opened.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And it was dark. No lights on down there. Black as coal it was. Then out of the darkness I saw some figures coming at us. And it was us that they wanted. I knew that as sure as shit sticks to your fingers.’

  ‘What did they look like?’

  ‘Weird. Fucking weird.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘This Hill woman…’ he pantomimed looking at an unconscious woman in his arms, ‘I chucked he
r out at them. I thought better her than us.’

  David looked at Bernice. Her eyes glittered, her lips were pressed tight together.

  He looked back at Black. ‘You mean to say you threw her to them? So while they were busy with her it would give you time to get away?’ Black nodded as if it was the most natural thing in the world. ‘Aye. That’s right. The bollocking lift door took ages to close. I figured that if I lobbed her out and they got busy on her it would give the lift door time to close, then we’d be on our way back upstairs.’ He spoke with more than a hint of pride, as if it had been a job well done.

  ‘Dear God,’ David breathed. ‘Did you see any of this, Bernice?’

  She shook her head. ‘He held me to the wall — with my face to the wall…’ She held a trembling hand up in front of her face. ‘I couldn’t see anything. But…but I know he’s telling the truth now.’

  ‘You’ve been talking to Electra this afternoon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  David rubbed his face. It felt oddly stiff, as if the muscles had become rigid with shock beneath the skin. He began to speak; in fact he tried three times, but the words wouldn’t come out. He sighed, shaking his head. ‘Crazy…crazy…was all he could manage.

  Electra stood up. ‘Now, before it gets dark, I think it’s time we showed David what we have downstairs in the basement. This way, please.’ She paused. ‘Jack. Bernice. I think we all should see this.’

  David, in a kind of queasy daze, followed Electra from the kitchen, across the deserted lobby to the basement door.

  CHAPTER 27

  1

  David followed Electra down the stairs into the basement. He was followed by Bernice, then by Black, who looked even uglier in the naked light of the electric bulbs hanging from the barrel ceilings. The light shone through the stubble on his scalp and gleamed on his great bony skull, highlighting scars on his head that looked like the contour lines on an OS map.

  Electra led them along the barrel vault of the basement, talking in a low voice as if, bizarrely, this was some conducted tour of cruddy North of England hotel basements. ‘This is where we keep the beer for the bars upstairs. See the pumps and the pipes running up there. Apart from that, what you see is largely junk. Careful you don’t trip over the step.’ She took a torch from a shelf and shone it ahead of her to where the walls narrowed as they walked into a vault that was basically wedge-shaped.