by Simon Clark
Christ, sounds easy if you say it quickly enough, doesn’t it?
He glanced back at the hotel. Black stood in the kitchen, looking through the window; he gave a single nod, which David guessed meant good luck.
And Christ, would he need it. He felt completely vulnerable. Now even the flimsy safety of the locked doors and windows of the hotel seemed preferable.
His hand tightened around the pistol grip of the flashlight.
For whatever use that would be.
These creatures didn’t like light. But now the flashlight seemed about as potent a weapon as a handful of celery sticks.
The idea of pointing it at a vampire and saying ‘One more move and I’ll let you have it’ seemed ludicrously absurd.
David felt a darkly sour tide of laughter quivering up through his stomach. Go back to the hotel, David; take a full bottle of whisky up to your room and get totally and gloriously and stupendously arseholed. You’re on a fool’s errand. This won’t work. You are going to die.
No, scratch that.
You’re going to do worse than die. You will be undead like them. You will be Nosferatu. One of those bastard children of the night, howling for another fix of blood.
At that moment he thought of Bernice. Her large trusting eyes. The image brought with it a flood of warmth through his veins.
Do you want to see Bernice fall into the vampires’ claws?
Do you want to see her like that thing locked in the basement?
Do you want to see her with her breasts gnawed raw and bloody?
Do you want that?
Do you?
He knew the answer. No. Did he, hell. He liked the girl. And Christ, yes, there was an emotional bond with the woman who was old before the two of them were even born.
In a past life she had been his bride-to-be.
And in that past life he’d failed her. She’d died bloodily.
So, now, David Leppington, he thought. Now’s the time to correct the past mistakes. It’s time to atone for the sins he’d committed in that previous existence.
Gritting his teeth, he held the pistol grip tight in his hands and rested his finger on the flashlight button, ready to switch it on if he saw anything.
He pulled the car keys from his pocket, then resolutely advanced across the courtyard.
The breeze blew more strongly; it made a fluting sound around the caves of the outbuildings; the sounds merged with the deep roar of the River Lepping that lay beyond the courtyard.
The car lay in front of him, a sleek black form with silvery letters spelling out Station Hotel on the passenger door.
He thumbed the key button — the lights flashed as the doors unlocked and the alarm disabled itself.
Then he paused a dozen paces from the car.
A shape seemed to swell up from its roof.
He stared into the gloom, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dark.
He breathed deeply. He saw something that would be embedded in his mind forever. Suddenly his Adam’s apple seemed too big for his throat; he swallowed the lump that grew there as hard as stone, while his eyes took in the nameless thing that was as heart-breakingly sad as it was monstrous.
A child stood on the roof of the car. David guessed it was little more than two years old. And clearly the same child that Stroud had used in his theatrical display earlier. The cot sheet patterned with teddy bears and stained with drying blood was gathered round the child’s shoulders like a cloak. The child wore pyjama bottoms; it was bare-chested.
David couldn’t stop his eyes travelling up the body, taking in every sickening detail.
There was very little blood considering there was a gaping rip in the child’s throat; it formed a three-cornered tear and a loose triangle of skin the size and shape of a slice of bread cut from corner to corner hung down on the child’s chest.
The wound itself was (not surprisingly) bloodless and as white as paper. The windpipe was exposed; it looked like a piece of white plastic hose.
The child’s hair was stuck up on end as if gelled there. It presented a cartoonish picture of someone being frightened by a ghost — the hair was vertical.
David realized with a shudder that the child had been licked clean of its blood. Every spurt, every trickle from the torn throat had been greedily tongued from the skin; the monsters had even licked the blood from the child’s hair like dogs licking clean a feeding bowl. Now the creatures’ saliva had dried, pasting the child’s hair upright into that picture of cartoonish fright.
David moved slowly forwards.
The child, standing there, cloaked in its teddy-bear pram sheet, grinned and hissed. A tongue — an incredibly long dog-like tongue — flickered out through the lips. The two little eyes burned brightly in the gloom.
It did not blink.
The stare was that of a snake about to strike.
David moved towards the car, the flashlight gripped in one hand like a pistol.
The little creature watched him with those eyes that behind the glassy brilliance were dead and cold; the breeze fluttered the teddy-bear-patterned sheet. David saw the ribs turning the little bare chest into a series of ridges. The chest itself heaved, palpitated as its undead heart furiously pumped whatever flowed through its veins.
David paused as the thing hissed loudly and bared its teeth.
‘You know who I am,’ David said calmly, trying to avoid looking directly into its eyes. ‘You know I am Leppington. You can’t touch me. I am —’
The toddler suddenly cocked its head to one side and said, ‘Inviolable.’ The voice was unnaturally guttural and dark.
David nodded, grim faced. ‘Inviolable,’ he agreed. ‘You know you must not touch me.’
The little child pushed out its bottom lip as if it was about to cry. ‘Want a kiss — want a little kiss.’ The voice was sweet and childlike now.
David looked up as if he’d been slapped.
That was it!
These vampires weren’t individuals. They were nothing more than ventriloquist’s dummies worked by some dark implacable intelligence.
The child was dead after all. What he saw was a mere pretence of life. And whatever animated the child was now tormenting David by having it speak baby talk.
David blanked himself to the disgusting thing on the car roof.
He opened the door.
‘Papa, papa — baby cold, baby hungry. Don’t leave me up here, papa.’ The child sang the words in a tiny innocent voice while holding out two arms to be lifted off the car roof.
Quelling the paternal instinct that automatically welled up inside of him, David climbed into the car, expecting at any second that the tiny body would launch itself at him, jaws snapping hungrily at his throat.
As calmly, as deliberately as he could, he sat in the seat and closed the door. Don’t let these things spook you.
They’re playing mind games with you; they want to confuse you; disorientate you; they don’t want you to think clearly or rationally.
He pushed the key home and turned the ignition.
The engine purred into life. He flicked the plastic stalk on the steering column and the lights flashed on, illuminating the brick walls of the outbuildings.
So far, so good.
As long as a vampire horde don’t come charging across the courtyard and turn the car over.
Nice and easy does it.
‘Papa, don’t leave me up here,’ came the voice through the roof of the car, ‘I’m frightened. I’m frightened.’
David engaged first gear.
At that moment the little toddler voice suddenly morphed into guttural laughter. The puppet master had changed its strategy.
The upside-down head of the child appeared on the other side of the windscreen. It grinned hugely. The eyes burned into his.
Then it began to beat its forehead at the glass.
The sound was heavy, somehow wet-sounding. Someone could have been slapping a big fish at the glass for the noise it made.
The guttural laughter continued as the child beat its forehead against the windscreen. Bruises appeared on the forehead, blossoming outwards, filling the skin with dark shadows.
David wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
It beat harder.
The skin split.
Now gobs of liquid — a mixture of clear and white bubbles appeared on the glass. The thing was bleeding but it didn’t bother it one bit. It still chuckled and grinned rapaciously.
David accelerated, then braked hard. The tyres screeched on the cobbles.
The child vampire slipped forwards off the car roof, bounced down onto the bonnet, then slid off the end onto the ground. The sheet fluttered in the breeze.
Feeling sick to the pit of his stomach, David paused, his foot over the accelerator pedal.
Should I drive forward? Run the thing over? Crush it beneath the tyres?
He took a deep breath, gripped the steering wheel hard in one hand, then threw the car into reverse.
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t run one of the monsters down.
Savagely he reversed the car in a great sweeping circle across the yard, tyres spinning, engine roaring. Then he slammed it into forward gear.
Seconds later, he was speeding the car along the deserted street in the direction of the hospital.
3
David drove through deserted streets. The breeze pushed at branches, making the trees shift restlessly. A sense of nervous anxiety had been transferred into everything.
The air was restless. The trees shuddered. Phantom rafts of cloud fled through the night sky.
He saw nothing on the way to the hospital. That was, he saw none of those foul creatures.
With the time only just approaching nine, lights shone from the houses; here and there he glimpsed the flicker of a reflected TV screen in the windows. For most people in Leppington it was just another Sunday night in early spring. They were content to settle down into armchairs and sofas, tickle the cat under the chin, microwave popcorn, open a bottle of wine, light another cigarette or any other of the myriad activities people indulge in on Sunday nights in front of the television.
The infection’s only just begun, he thought. Perhaps no more than a dozen people out of a population of fifteen hundred are directly affected. If he acted quickly enough he could cut out the vampires like he could excise dead tissue from a wound.
Briefly, the idea of going to the police flitted through his mind. But that would be a non-starter; he knew he was the only one who could stop this now.
He pulled into the hospital car park and switched off the engine. It was long past visiting time; however, he’d been told he could visit his uncle whenever he wanted.
Now, that’s always a bad sign, he told himself, as he climbed out of the car and shut the door after him. The old man was in a side ward, too. That meant the doctors were taking a pessimistic view of George Leppington’s prospects of recovery.
David entered the hospital, passing quickly along the corridors painted that insipid mint-green that’s the livery of many a municipal building.
He entered his uncle’s room to find him lying on his back, his hand resting loosely on the blankets covering his chest. On the bedside cabinet was a cupful of what looked like pink lollipops. Instead of the boiled sweet that formed the head of a lollipop, these had little cubes of pink sponge; the nurses would moisten these with cold water and swab out the mouths of unconscious patients. If a mouth is allowed to become over-dry it’s likely to fall prey to fungal infections like thrush. Soon the comatose patient’s breath smells overripe, like a pedal bin left unemptied too long in the middle of summer.
George was breathing deeply, the rhythm steady and even. If it hadn’t been for the bandage around the top of his head anyone would have thought the old man was merely asleep.
As David approached the bed he had an inkling what would happen.
It happened with all the suddenness of a switch being thrown.
The old man’s eyes opened wide as if someone had reached down and dragged back his eyelids. The eyes were wide, staring; they could have belonged to a man who’d died of fright.
‘David. You believe now, don’t you?’ The old man’s voice was a soft whispery rasp.
‘Yes, I believe.’ David sat on a chair beside the bed. ‘I’ve seen those creatures; I’ve talked to them, too.’
The old man, still lying flat on the bed, his head on the pillow, nodded with the satisfaction of a man who knows when a prediction has come true. The eyes stared at the ceiling. Again David was struck by the notion he wasn’t so much speaking to his uncle as to something that spoke through him.
Suddenly we’re all damn’ puppets, he thought angrily. And there are two forces at work here. Evil is at work through the vampires. Evil speaks through their mouths. But what’s this that speaks through the old man’s mouth? Is it the voice of Good?
David shook his head as he looked down at his uncle. He just didn’t know any more. All he did know was that two opposing forces were meeting head-on in this little town. Two titanic forces — unimaginably powerful and enduring. And the town’s people had become those forces’ puppets to enact their will. Go on! Pull the string. PULL THE STRING!
The sudden rage that crackled through him left him grinding his teeth and clenching his fists.
‘David,’ his uncle rasped, ‘you know what you must do now?’
David had to breathe deeply to quell the rage before he could speak. ‘I know what I’m supposed to do. But can you really expect me to somehow take control of this vampire army and march it against the rest of the world?’
‘It’s what you were born to do. I groomed you. You remember now?
All the stories I told you? All the times I talked with you?’
‘I remember. But I can’t do it.’ He clenched his fists again. ‘I won ‘t do it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re expecting me to lead a vampire army out and — and what? Topple governments? Create some kind of empire where everyone will worship dead gods?’
‘Dead gods? No, gods that have been merely awaiting their return to pre-eminence.’
David’s mouth went dry. His mind spun. ‘You’ve dropped me in the deep end, haven’t you, uncle? You blew up the steel fence in the cave to release them, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. There was a danger that if you were given the choice you might refuse to follow your destiny.’
‘That I might decide that it’s crazy, so fucking crazy to lead these blood-sucking monsters out into the outside world?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re damn’ right, too.’
His uncle still stared at the ceiling, his eyes wide. ‘I did consider this eventuality. After all, your mother always fought against your destiny. That’s why she took you away from the town.’
‘And thank God she did.’
The old man smiled. ‘But I knew you would come back. And I knew I had to give you your chance to become king.’
‘But what now? What if I don’t choose to take charge of this vampire army?’
‘There will be bitter disappointment. In many more quarters than you know — or can even understand. But this eventuality has been prophesied.’
‘What? That this vampire army would rampage out of control across the country?’
‘Yes. It was foretold many times.’ The old man smiled again, the dried traces of blood around the eyes cracked. ‘You’re familiar with the word “pyrrhic”?’
David nodded, his face stony.
‘It is used in conjunction with the word victory,’ continued the old man. ‘And the phrase “pyrrhic victory” comes from a certain King Epirus from ancient Greece who defeated the Romans at Asculum in
279 BC. Even though King Epirus — or Pyrrhus — won the battle, so many of his soldiers were killed that it rendered the victory valueless.’
‘So,’ David interrupted, sensing time was running short. ‘A pyrrhic victo
ry means a victory not worth having. Why is this relevant?’
‘Because the old gods will be content with a pyrrhic victory. They are, shall we say, philosophical about the idea that when the vampires are unleashed upon the world they personally will gain nothing; that they will see mankind perish.’
‘But what good is that to anyone?’
‘Because even the gods have a limited lifespan. Even though it be tens of thousands of years. For centuries they have awaited Ragnarok, which is the day of doom when the gods will be destroyed and replaced by a new order of deities. Don’t look so puzzled, nephew. We are the children of the old gods. When they die we die with them. The new gods will bring into being their own race of mortal beings on this Earth.’
‘So the vampires will be merely destroying the human race in order that it will be replaced with a different species?’
‘If you like, nephew.’
‘But if I take charge of this army and lead them to create a new empire for these old Teutonic gods, then humankind will survive?’
‘Yes. You realize the choice is yours.’
‘Christ. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.’
The old man licked his lips; his mouth looked dry as paper. ‘But you would destroy your army of dead warriors if you could?’
‘Lord, yes.’
‘But your destiny is already written. You only have two choices.’
‘I know. Take command of this filthy army, or leave it to run riot across the face of the planet, turning every man, woman and child into the same kind of abomination as them.’
‘What have you decided?’
‘I’ve decided to destroy them.’
‘Impossible.’
‘Maybe. But I’ve got to try.’ He looked at the old man lying there, head swathed in bandages that were stained brown with dried blood. The eyes stared at the ceiling — they were wide and gleaming. ‘Uncle George,’ David said gently but firmly. ‘Will you tell me everything you know about these creatures?’
‘I can. But it will do you no good. They have lived in the caves beneath the town for more than a thousand years. You can’t kill them.’