by Simon Clark
‘And are we?’ Her eyes had grown large.
‘Yes. And we’re going to fight them together.’
‘But how?’
‘That we have to find out.’
‘But they’re indestructible,’ Bernice said. ‘Those things have been waiting in the cave for hundreds of years.’
Electra sighed. ‘David’s right. And we can’t stay holed up in here. It’ll only be a matter of time before they break into the hotel. And I’d bet a year’s bar takings that a crucifix and a few cloves of garlic won’t stop them.’
Black slapped the head of the hammer against his open palm. ‘I’ll go down there and take a crack at them.’
David said, ‘I really would enjoy seeing you break their heads with that thing, but I think they’re going to be tougher than that.’ He rubbed his jaw, thinking hard. ‘The real weapon to use against them is information. We need to learn more about them.’
‘We know they avoid bright lights.’
‘Particularly sunlight,’ Electra added. ‘And we know that the sunlight is comprised of more than visible light. The sun pumps out all kinds of radiation from the infrared to the ultraviolet. It’s possible that some forms of radiation might be harmful, even lethal, to them.’
‘Good point.’ David felt a tingle of optimism. ‘Maybe we can nail these things after all.’ He stood up and reached for his jacket.
Electra looked aghast. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To the hospital to see one George Alfred Leppington.’
‘You can’t,’ Bernice protested. ‘Not in the dark.’
David glanced at his watch. ‘It’s eight o’clock. That means there’s a good nine hours until daybreak. If we sit around here all night that’s nine hours wasted.’
‘But your uncle might still be unconscious.’
‘I think he was unconscious last time we saw him. My belief is something else was speaking through him. I want to find out what that thing was. And I want to find out what’s going to send those monsters screaming for their lives.’
Electra stood up, her face a picture of horror. ‘You can’t go out there. I won’t let you. Jack, if he tries to leave the room knock him down.’
Black moved to stand in front of the door. Trying to get past Black would be like trying to shove past a bull elephant.
‘Please don’t go, David,’ Bernice said in a small voice. ‘They’ll be waiting downstairs.’
‘I know,’ he said grimly. ‘But I’m the only person in this town they need to remain mortal.’ He looked from Bernice to Electra to Black. ‘They need me like this — flesh and blood.’
Electra said, ‘That’s what they say, but do you believe them?’
‘Well, shall we put it to the test?’
There was a long silence; David could hear the blood pumping through the veins in his neck up to his brain. For the first time in his life he had become so aware — so exquisitely aware — of the blood moving through his own body. There were tides in there and currents. After all, man is basically an aquatic animal — a creature of oceans — and he carries more than four litres of the equivalent of that ocean in the form of blood inside his body.
Electra gave a slow nod. ‘David’s right. He’s probably the only one of us, probably the only human anywhere on this planet, who won’t be harmed by them.’
‘For the time being,’ Black grunted. ‘Until you tell them that you’re not going to lead their maggot army.’
Bernice asked, almost fearfully, ‘And you will tell them that, David, won’t you?’
David gave a grim smile. ‘I see myself as staying a humble doctor, not a general, don’t you?’
Electra returned the smile — albeit a ghost of one. ‘Jack, open the door, please.’
‘Electra, wait.’ Bernice stood up, her hands clenched by her side. ‘What if they’re waiting outside the door?’
‘I set the burglar alarm when we came up. Let’s hope the infrared sensors would have detected any intruders — human or non-human.’
‘Right,’ David said, pulling on his leather gloves. ‘Wish me luck…oh, by the way, Electra, do you have anything that makes a very bright light?’
2
At the same time as David Leppington was zipping up his jacket in Electra’s apartment in the Station Hotel, Maximilian Hart was walking through the night-time town, its lights flickering as the gales tugged at the power cables strung along the valley bottom. There was a storm coming. Much would break before the icy blast.
A trio of burly figures blocked Maximilian’s way as he headed for the doorway of the mini-mart.
‘Well, as I live and breathe,’ one said with a grin. ‘Aren’t you going to say hello, Maxie boy?’
Maximilian stopped dead on the pavement; his face was as motionless as a rock; he became statue-like.
‘Surely you remember us, Maxie?’ said another one, taking a cigarette from his mouth. ‘You gave us money for cigarettes and a couple of bottles of grog. You come back with more of the old doh-rai-me for your pals?’ He held the glowing tip of the cigarette close to Maximilian’s earlobe.
They walked towards him in a line, their eyes glinting, their mouths grinning.
He moved backwards from them; a slow, plodding step.
One step.
Pause.
Two steps.
Pause.
‘What happened to your paper crown, Maxie?’
‘Oh, he’s not talking to us, are you, old buddy?’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Cat got your tongue?’
‘Why you got slanty eyes, Maxie boy?’
‘Mother get chased by a Chinaman?’
The three of them laughed roughly.
‘Come on, Maxie boy, we know you’ve got some money.’
‘Yeah, hand it over.’
‘Or this time we’ll kick your arse all over town.’
Maximilian’s face remained impassive. His oriental-shaped eyes that the Down’s syndrome had endowed him with looked left and right. The pavement was deserted. The wind blew fish-and-chips trays down the
street; a carrier bag, blown against his leg, briefly enclosed his calf and shin in a flimsy embrace before being taken by a gust of wind and blown high into the air.
One of the gang held a cigarette out under his chin. He felt the heat of the glowing tip against his skin, smelt the acrid tang of tobacco smoke. In front of him were three grinning faces that seemed so alien to him. So mysterious in their cravings and their speech.
Something thumped against his rump.
He glanced down; he’d backed up against a stretch of waist-high steel railings that separated pavement from road.
One of the youths looked at the other two. ‘Bad news, lads. Maxie doesn’t want to cough up.’
‘Then we’ll have to take it from him, won’t we, boys?’
‘OK, who’s going to stick their hands into his filthy pockets?’
‘You first, Jonno.’
‘You’re kidding! I’m not playing hunt-the-hot-dog-sausage with that spasmo.’
They all laughed.
The laughs turned to gasps of shock.
Maximilian watched as arms blurred past him at tremendous speed. Someone, standing behind him, had reached out to the three youths. The hands grabbed them by their jackets, then hauled them forwards, turning them round as they did so.
It all happened so quickly, but Maximilian retained the images. One moment the three youths were standing there; then they were dragged forwards, turned over so the backs of their necks lay across the horizontal bar of the fence, like they were prisoners being held down on the executioner’s chopping block to await the fall of the axe. Only they were held there, facing upwards at the darkened sky. Their throats bulged upwards, naked and gleaming in the street lights.
They gurgled, struggled, eyes staring in sheer terror.
Maximilian saw heads dart down at the throats, then the heads twisted from side to side like dogs gnawing at a bon
e. When he next saw the three youths, their throats were torn; blood pumped vibrantly out, squirting in jets as high as his shoulders. Then the heads came down again like pigs jostling for food at the trough. So many heads.
And the sound of hungry mouths eagerly feeding was loud in his ears.
He moved away from the fence, looking back at the cluster of people. Some he recognized — but only just, because their faces had altered. There were the Moberry sisters. And that one across there, joyously licking a thick smear of blood from his lips, that was Mr Morrow who worked at the slaughterhouse.
The others were strangers.
He backed away.
He wasn’t shocked. This was just another mystery. Like any one of the other mysteries that were paraded before his eyes each day. Like the man in black bringing white and brown envelopes to his house (Bills, fucking bills, his father would bellow). Or that time of year when people put trees, twinkling with lights, in their windows. Or when his father and his friends sat round a table, drinking that strange-tasting drink and staring at those pieces of card in their hands like they were the most important things in their lives. He turned his back on the scene and began to walk slowly away.
‘Not so fast, my young scamp,’ came a low voice, ‘not when there’s hungry mouths to feed.’ The yellow-haired man leaned forwards, reached out a gleaming white hand and squeezed Maximilian’s arm above the elbow. ‘Mmm…and such a juicy young chap as well.’
The things that had been the town’s men and women surged forward hungrily at Maximilian, their mouths open, showing the strings of spit in their mouths bloody from gorging so greedily on the three men.
‘No!’ Stroud held up his hand. ‘No. This one’s for our friends underground.’ He smiled that crocodile smile again at Maximilian. ‘Walk this way with me, old buddy. We’ll chat as we go.’
Stroud took Maximilian’s hand as if he was taking the hand of a child before crossing the road. T think there’s a fair old storm blowing up, don’t you?’ He smiled gently. ‘Say, how did you get that cut under your eye?’ He lightly touched Maximilian’s cheek, just below where the bird had pecked him earlier in the evening. It could almost have been a simple gesture of affection. ‘Mmm, it looks as if it could be quite sore. You know, I get the feeling you’ve had a tough time growing up here. I think people have ill-treated you for far too long. I was lucky, I suppose. I grew up pampered and probably more than a little spoilt.’ He spoke in a light, chatty way. ‘I was born in a little town in America. It was like one of those places you see on TV — although you Brits call it telly; such a wonderful invention it is, too. It should have made John Logie.
Baird a billionaire like Bill Gates — you know, the owner of Microsoft computer software? Windows? Never heard of him? No? Oh, well, not to worry. Anyway, I lived in a house made of white boards, with a porch and a rocking chair where my grandmother sat and scraped the skins of potatoes. I’m not walking too fast for you, am I? My parents were called Mark and Rebecca Stroud. They christened me Michael Luke — now there’s a handsome brace of Bible names, aren’t they?’
Hand in hand, they walked down the street in the near-dark. One figure blond-haired, tall, lean, almost willowy, light-footed as a dancer; the other short, dark, dumpy with a heavy plodding step.
Still talking in that gentle smooth-as-silk voice, a charming smile playing on his lips, Michael Stroud led Maximilian Hart up the hill to George Leppington’s house. And to the cave that now yawned dark and wide like a hungry mouth waiting to be fed.
CHAPTER 32
1
By eight-thirty that evening David Leppington had left Electra’s apartment on the first floor of the hotel. Jack Black went with him. The man’s head — shaved, tattooed and Frankenstein-scarred — turned from left to right, alert to anyone — or anything — that might have entered the hotel undetected by the alarm system’s infrared sensors mounted on the walls.
Black switched off the alarm system that had started its warning bleeps; both had triggered the sensors when they entered the lobby.
Black spoke in a low gruff voice, ‘I can come with you to the hospital if you want.’
‘No. I think you’d be safer here in the hotel with Electra and Bernice.’
‘But you still don’t trust me, do you.’ This wasn’t a question; it was a statement.
David stopped and looked at him sharply as a sudden realization pierced him through. ‘You can read my mind, can’t you?’
Black nodded. ‘Sometimes.’
‘What am I thinking now?’
‘You’re shit-scared.’
‘That’s an understatement.’
‘And there’s a jumble of other stuff.’
‘Such as?’
‘It’s more feelings than words. You’re scared for people — Electra, Bernice, the old man in the hospital. The people in the town.’
‘And there’s something else?’
‘Yes.’
‘What is it?’
‘Bernice. You like her. You get a warm feeling when you think about her. And you think about her a lot.’
‘You think I love her?’
Black shrugged, his forehead wrinkling as he considered. ‘Don’t know.’ He shrugged again. ‘Don’t know what love is.’
David paused and looked at the scarred man. ‘What am I thinking now?’
‘That maybe you’re starting to trust me. That you don’t think I’m such a savage bastard after all.’ Black’s ugly face split into a grin. ‘You still can’t stand the look of my mush, though, can you?’
David found himself returning the smile. ‘Give me time. None of us are perfect.’
‘You’re a good bloke,’ Black said. ‘That wouldn’t have stopped me wapping you one and taking your wallet. But you’re a good bloke. But you’re too hard on yourself, you know?’
‘Believe me, Jack, I’m no saint.’
‘Damn’ closest I’ve been to one. You care so much about people that sometimes it screws you up inside. Then it actually hurts you.’
‘Well, maybe that’s a liability rather than an asset. Everyone should be a little self-centred at times. What do you say?’
Again came the grin, warming the ugly face. ‘Me? I always put me first. Had to. My mother dumped me when I was a couple of weeks old.’ For a moment a faraway look came into his deep-set eyes. David thought he was going to say something else about what must have been a miserable, godforsaken childhood. But suddenly he asked, ‘Who’s Katrina West?’
David shot him a startled look. ‘Katrina West?’ He shook his head, puzzled: surely he hadn’t been thinking about her again? ‘She was an old friend. I went to school with her. Why? What’s wrong?’
Black scowled. The faraway look stayed on his face. ‘Funny. It came like, y’know? Really loud.’ He looked at David. ‘She’s thinking about you?’
‘What is she thinking?’
‘I don’t know, but it’s really strong like…powerful. Y’know?’
‘Katrina West is hundreds of miles away in a hospital. You mean you can actually read her mind, too?’
‘Just bits. It doesn’t usually work to order. But sometimes I can sort of home in on one person, just sort of tune into their minds like it’s a radio or something, y’ know? Sometimes I think I can read every mind in a whole city and then there’s just this great noise going boom, boom inside my head and I think my head’s going to just bust in two…’ His voice had risen in pitch and intensity. David saw the man swallow back down what must be a nightmarish experience. The blank expression returned to his face, reminding David of a concrete wall — hard, featureless, impenetrable.
They’d reached the kitchen. Ahead lay the back door of the hotel, locked and stoutly bolted. David checked the mobile phone, then slipped it back into his pocket. He’d asked for a light of some sorts and Black briefly vanished into a storeroom off from the kitchen. He returned carrying a big flashlight with a pistol grip and a glass lens as big as a saucer. It looked more like a quai
nt 1950s idea of a futuristic ray gun.
‘A million candlepower,’ Black told him. ‘Electra said the batteries have been on charge all day so it should last you. Need anything else?’ Black nodded at kitchen utensils hanging from a rack. ‘A knife?’
‘No.’ David shook his head. ‘I’m more likely to damage myself rather than the…enemy, I imagine we should call them.’
‘Ready?’
David nodded. ‘As I ever will be.’
‘You really reckon that they won’t touch you?’
‘That’s what I’m banking on. I think they need me as flesh and blood — at least for a little while.’
‘You’re the boss.’
David couldn’t read minds. But at that moment he knew that was how Black saw him. The boss. Some kind of reincarnation of the long-dead Chief Leppingsvalt. He believed, too, Bernice’s suggestion that they were those four people from the Leppingsvalt palace of a thousand years ago. On the eve of that great dark day of doom.
Black slipped back the bolts, then stood poised to turn the key in the lock as a prelude to opening the door.
David looked through the window into the courtyard. ‘Looks deserted,’ he said.
‘I’ll only open the door for a couple of seconds. Those things move bastard quick. OK?’
‘OK. Do it.’
It took just two seconds. Black opened the door, David slipped through into the night air, then the door was slammed shut behind him. The sound of the bolts being snapped home echoed from the buildings ringing the yard.
2
David zipped his jacket up towards his throat. Out there in the darkness his throat felt incredibly vulnerable; the skin unbearably sensitive; the breeze that swirled scraps of paper round the yard felt like cold fingers caressing the skin of his neck. Again he was acutely aware of the blood pulsing through his neck.
He glanced up.
Ragged pieces of cloud floated like ghostly rafts across the night sky. Here and there, clumps of stars pointed through with an icy clarity.
OK, David, he thought, here goes. First stop the hospital. Then find some way to rid this town of the nightmare plague of vampires.