‘What’s its name?’ I asked curiously. Aunt Jane had never liked cats when Uncle Alfred had been alive. ‘Nasty independent things,’ she had always said. ‘Got minds of their own.’
‘Her name, dear. Midnight.’
‘Where did you find her?’
‘Roaming in the forest. I advertised, but no one claimed her –so she’s mine!’ She paused. ‘As you may remember, I’ve never liked cats much, but this one – she seems to love the cottage. Always hiding upstairs, licking her lips.’ She laughed. ‘Maybe I’ve just got into being a lonely old woman, but sometimes, when I see Midnight running home, I rather enjoy the feeling that I’m protecting her.’
‘Well, she certainly won’t be able to protect you from a wild animal, will she?’
‘I can look after myself Aunt Jane sounded cross, so I changed the subject quickly.
We arrived on a rather cold autumn day and found the trees had turned to rustling gold. It was so beautiful and as deep and as dark as any fairy-tale forest might be. Deep and dark and mysterious – just like Midnight. She was really impressive, beautifully brushed and well cared for by Aunt Jane.
‘Now, you’re not going wandering out there,’ she said.
We knew we were, but we certainly weren’t going to tell her.
‘We’ll stay in sight of the cottage,’ I said reassuringly.
She looked doubtful. ‘Well, mind you do. And don’t go talking to that Barnes.’
‘Who?’
‘Silas Barnes. He works for the forestry. Only got a tiny place, him and his wife and children. Barnes would like to get me out. Have me evicted.’
‘How do you make that out, Aunt Jane?’ asked Fiona.
Aunt Jane gave her a particularly nasty look. ‘You saying I’m imagining things, young woman?’
‘Of course not!’
‘I can see it in his eyes. His greedy eyes. He wants me out and him in.’
It’s a pity that we disobeyed our aunt and didn’t stay near the cottage, because after about ten minutes of walking Fiona and I realized we were lost. The trees seemed to have grown even more thickly together, the light was shut out and we found ourselves wandering through the gloom of a dense, dark canopy of leaves. The forest was silent – a silence only occasionally broken by a soft scrabbling sound which came and went, as if something was crouched, watching us, waiting to spring. Then a man emerged abruptly from the trees.
He was tall and extremely thin, with a rough beard that partly concealed a long, livid scar which made him look particularly menacing.
‘You lost?’ he asked roughly.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ replied Fiona.
‘Make up your minds then.’ He grinned and the scar puckered. ‘You must be Mrs Atkins’ nieces.’
‘How do you know?’ I said coldly.
‘News travels fast in the forest.’
‘We’re just going for a walk.’
‘But we don’t know how to get back,’ Fiona chipped in, looking rather scared. ‘Can you show us?’ she asked nervously.
‘I wouldn’t go back to the cottage if I were you,’ he said gently.
‘What?’ I gasped.
‘I’d go home.’ The man wasn’t grinning now and his eyes were full of concern.
‘I’d like to point out,’ I said pompously, ‘that we’re visiting our own aunt.’
‘That’s why I’d go home. Why not come back to my place and I’ll call a taxi. There’s a good track down to the village.’
‘How dare you!’ I said, outraged that he should order us around like that.
But Fiona was interested. ‘What’s all this about?’
‘You know who this man is, don’t you?’ I interrupted. ‘He’s Silas Barnes – the man who’s trying to get Aunt Jane evicted.’
‘I’m doing no such thing,’ he said indignantly.
‘She thinks you are.’
‘That’s because she’s old and insecure.’ Barnes hesitated and then added, stumbling over his words, ‘She’s not as – as clear-thinking as she used to be.’
‘Of course she is,’ I snapped.
‘I’m afraid she’s not,’ he persisted. ‘She’s getting absent-minded – and that’s dangerous.’
‘She doesn’t want to go into a home.’
‘No. But the council have offered her a flat in a sheltered-housing scheme. With a warden. She’d be safe there.’
‘She wouldn’t like that.’ I was insistent. ‘Aunt Jane wants to keep her independence, and you know how she loves the forest.’
‘But she’d be safe,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t forget – there’s this thing wandering about. Attacking people. You two shouldn’t be around on your own like this. Didn’t she warn you? We don’t know what kind of creature this is – but it likes blood. What’s more, it needs the stuff. I’ve searched this part of the forest very thoroughly, but it’s clearly got itself some kind of hiding-place.’
‘Yes,’ said Fiona. ‘She warned us not to leave the cottage, but we thought it would be all right to go on just a little.’
‘Ah.’ He smiled at her again, a broader smile this time and I caught a glimpse of his ragged teeth. They seemed to be all little sharp points. ‘Come on – I’ll take you back to your aunt’s. Then we can collect your bags and get a taxi from there.’ He suddenly shivered and listened. Then he said urgently, ‘You will get your parents to talk to her, won’t you?’ Silas Barnes looked directly at me now. ‘She’s taking on too much. Adopting that damned stray.’
‘Midnight? She’s lovely,’ I returned. ‘Aunt Jane is lonely. Needed a pet.’
‘That thing? A pet? I’ve been wondering –’ he muttered, and then ended abruptly. ‘Come on then. I haven’t got much time, but I’ll see you back.’
‘There’s no need,’ I insisted.
‘Oh, but, Abby –’ began Fiona anxiously.
‘Shut up!’
Barnes gave me a reproving look and as he opened his mouth to admonish me, I saw those sharp little teeth once again. Wasn’t one of them a little longer, sharper than the others, or was it my imagination?
‘No,’ I snapped. ‘Tell us the way and we’ll go alone.’
Reluctantly he gave some clear directions. We walked hurriedly away, but when I turned round I could see that he was standing under one of the tallest of the trees, watching us. As we almost ran down the path I could feel the damp chill of the forest and could smell rotting leaves, moss and fir-cones. I had the uncomfortable feeling that the forest was breathing on us – and its breath was moist and fetid.
The shadows of the trees lengthened and darkened. Could we have come so far? Were we following Barnes’s directions properly, or had we got lost again? We’d trusted him not to get us lost a second time.
Fiona didn’t exactly try to raise my confidence. Hers had vanished long ago.
‘Didn’t he say turn right here?’
‘No, left,’ I replied angrily.
‘You sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘You never did have much sense of direction.’
‘And you don’t know anything about the forest,’ I retorted.
‘Do you?’ Then Fiona paused. ‘What was that?’
‘I didn’t hear anything.’
‘Sort of soft, scuttling, scratching sound.’
‘It’s nothing – the forest’s full of noises like that,’ I said scornfully.
‘It’s stopped.’
‘There you are then.’ I was still angry, but secretly I was also beginning to feel afraid. ‘Come on. It’s getting dark.’
‘Wait,’ Fiona insisted. ‘It’s as if – it’s as if something’s watching us.’
I stared at her. The smell – the breath of the forest – seemed to intensify as a little dagger of breeze stirred the leaves.
‘Suppose it’s Barnes? Maybe he’s following us,’ I said.
‘Who?’ asked Fiona stupidly. I looked at her witheringly. How could I have imagined tha
t we actually got along. She was thick, stupid – moronic.
‘Silas Barnes.’
‘Oh, him –’
‘Yes, him. Suppose he’s the murderer.’
‘I thought he was rather nice.’ I saw that she was staring at a patch of brambles. They were very thick and the berries looked almost obscenely ripe, swollen, purple; almost ready to burst.
‘I didn’t. Did you see his teeth?’
‘What about his teeth? Stop talking rubbish.’
I could have slapped her for being so unobservant. What was more, she was whispering for some obtuse reason.
‘What’s the matter?’ I snapped, annoyed to find that I was whispering too.
‘He is following us. I can see him through the trees.’
A wave of fear and anger swept over me. ‘Come on, Fiona,’ I said urgently. ‘What on earth are you staring at now?
‘See those eyes.’
‘What eyes?’
‘There in the brambles.’
Then I saw them. Huge. Yellow. Vicious-looking. Almost mocking us. The fear spread inside me and made me unable to move.
‘What is it?’
‘A cat,’ she said.
Midnight sprang out at us spitting, her huge, black, sleek body arched.
‘Stay where you are.’ Fiona rapidly took charge of the situation. ‘Don’t move.’
I knew I couldn’t.
Then, with a bound, she was running past us, her yellow eyes still mocking. Midnight disappeared down the path into the darkness.
‘That’s the way,’ I said. ‘I recognize that fallen log, don’t you?’ All my animosity and impatience with Fiona were lost as hope flooded through me. ‘We’re not that far from the cottage.’
Fiona didn’t seem exactly overjoyed.
When we arrived back and opened the front door everything at first seemed very normal. Aunt Jane was sitting in her chair and Midnight was curled up on her lap. But then I saw that the cat was still licking the blood from her paws.
‘I don’t think Mr Barnes will be bothering me again,’ said Aunt Jane.
‘I’m going back up to the hostel.’ Jane stood up and there was a relieved murmur of agreement.
‘But I haven’t told mine yet,’ said Colin. ‘There was this doll’s house that my friend Derek told me about. I must tell you.’
10
The Doll’s House
‘I’m stuck with it now. Can’t sell it. That wouldn’t be right.’
Uncle Ernie often told Derek that he couldn’t get rid of the antique doll’s house. He said it came from somewhere in eastern Europe and was ‘quite a collector’s item’. But Derek was surprised by the sudden loathing in his eyes when he looked at the dusty, shuttered windows.
Derek’s Uncle Ernie died last year and he left one extraordinary clause in his will: that the toy shop he had owned for so many years should not be sold and must remain closed and undisturbed for the remainder of Derek’s life – a perverse instruction, as the premises were on a prime site in a South London suburb. While his family consulted with solicitors as to how to break the will and sell the shop, Derek’s curiosity grew into an obsession. He just couldn’t understand why his uncle had come to such a decision.
They had always been close and Ernie would tell Derek the most wonderful stories of the toys he had imported from all over the world. He was more of a collector of antiques than a trader and his clients were almost always other collectors.
Derek always received the same reply whenever he asked questions about the doll’s house, but he often caught Uncle Ernie looking at it with hatred. As he grew older and more unwell, his uncle seemed to become increasingly anxious. Then, one afternoon, he gave Derek a key.
‘What’s this for?’ Derek had asked.
‘The shop. I don’t want it sold when I’m dead – it must gather dust and stay as it is. I just want to ensure that nothing happens – no vandals break in or anything gets damaged. I’m giving you the key as a sacred trust, Derek. The only other one will be lodged with my solicitors. Give it to your parents if you think something is wrong – and only then. Will you do that for me?’
Derek nodded, puzzled by his uncle’s vehemence.
‘And promise that you won’t come in here out of curiosity. There are some toys that I don’t want sold – just out of sentiment – and there’s one that should never see the light of day again.’
Derek crossed his fingers behind his back as he nodded this time, for he knew that he couldn’t make that promise. The collection was precious, and he couldn’t be locked out of it for ever.
A few months later, Uncle Ernie died and Derek was grief-stricken, but it wasn’t for a further six months that he was tempted to go and unlock the shop, mostly out of respect for his uncle’s wishes, but partly because he was afraid. Afraid of what, he often wondered. Was it just that he felt his uncle would be angry?
It was an early winter morning with a hard, bright sun when Derek finally decided to go inside. He hesitated for a long time and then quickly turned the key in the lock. All was still once he had closed the squeakingly stiff door behind him and the dust had settled.
The stillness was suffocating, and a rocking-horse’s eyes looked at Derek, seemingly in mute appeal. So did the stuffed animals, the clockwork trains and old Meccano models; all looked lost and desolate, covered in cobwebs. He shuddered as the spiders scuttled, disturbed for the first time in months.
Then he became aware of another sound – a soft squeaking that could have been mice. He wasn’t afraid of them; it was only the spiders that made him panic.
Then Derek realized that the squeaking was coming from the doll’s house. There must be a mouse inside, probably destroying the valuable interior, but when he tried to lift the cobwebby roof it wouldn’t move. As he wrestled with it, he dimly heard his uncle’s words in his mind: ‘There are some toys that I don’t want sold –just out of sentiment – and there’s one that should never see the light of day again.’
After a while he saw that a keyhole had been delicately cut out of one side of the doll’s house wall. Derek fiddled with it for a while and then idly pushed the shop door key into the hole – and found it fitted exactly. Wary of any spiders, he turned it and pulled up the roof to reveal the top storey, noticing the squeaking had stopped. But there was no sign of any mice at all. Instead, a miniature female doll was lying on a bed and the long, thin figure of a gaunt-looking male doll was leaning over her with a minute cup in his hand. There was a gash in her throat from which a steady stream of blood was flowing into the cup.
Derek stared down in horrified amazement and then examined the other bedrooms, where he saw more torn plastic throats. It must be a macabre mechanical toy of some kind, but despite the fact that it was evil-looking, whoever had made the house must have been a considerable craftsman.
He examined the roof for a while and then saw a label written in German. Taking out his diary and pencil, Derek scribbled down the alien words.
Locking the shop carefully behind him, he hurried down to the local library and asked Mrs Cole, the librarian, to help him translate. She was always helpful and rarely asked the boring questions that most adults asked. Using a German dictionary she rapidly translated the words. They read: This doll’s house belongs to the Munlarst children. It was made for us by our beloved father, but he is now so blind that he cannot see. When he is dead, he wishes the house to accompany him.
‘Accompany him?’ repeated Derek. ‘Why would he wish that?’
‘Perhaps he was a craftsman,’ Mrs Cole explained. ‘In the old days, the very old days, if a master craftsman died, the best example of his work would be buried with him.’
Derek was intrigued. ‘But the doll’s house couldn’t have been in the coffin, could it? Right now it’s in my uncle’s old shop.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Mrs Cole, leaning on her information desk and trying to remember something. ‘Munlarst.’
‘Yes?’ said Derek encouragingly.<
br />
‘Munlarst. Now where have I heard that name before?’ She continued to ponder while he grew more and more impatient. Finally she exclaimed, ‘Oh yes!’
‘Well?’
‘They were monsters.’
‘Monsters? The Munlarsts?’ He was amazed. What could she mean.
‘Well, not exactly monsters.’
Derek was in an agony of frustration.
‘It’s all coming back now. I remember reading it in Real-life Vampire Legends – years ago.’
‘Vampires?’ interrupted Derek.
She frowned. ‘Not quite so loud, dear.’
‘Vampires?’ he whispered.
‘Now I remember the reference. Stefan and Eva Munlarst were reputed to be not only real-life vampires in eighteenth-century Romania, but also sorcerers. Stefan had an official trade as a cabinet-maker, but then he suddenly went blind; it was rumoured he had been cursed by a rival, so he couldn’t see his victims and was unable to satisfy his thirst. Terrible old rubbish.’ She laughed heartily – a little too heartily for Derek.
‘Sorcerers?’ He felt ill. The gash in the doll’s tiny throat. Could it have been real blood? And as for the blind vampire …
‘Now don’t go filling your head with –’ Mrs Cole began, but with muttered thanks Derek had gone before she could finish.
However scared he was he knew he had to go back to the shop while the light was at its best. Derek looked at his watch. Just after midday. If he made the mistake of waiting till the afternoon, it would be too dark to see properly.
He hurried back down the High Street, unlocked the door of the shop again and hesitated on the threshold, his nerves screaming. Then, somehow, Derek forced himself to walk in.
He slowly opened the roof of the doll’s house and received an incredible shock. The man doll had disappeared, leaving the girl doll on the bed with those terrible markings on her neck. He tried to pull himself together, tried to remember that this was a toy. No more, no less. A macabre toy – a toy that manufactured artificial blood?
Who am I kidding, wondered Derek. Manufactured?
Vampire Stories to Tell in the Dark Page 7