Till You Drop

by Mat Coward

  “Not at all, love. You can’t find out if you don’t ask, see?”

  “How does it feel? To be - like, dead. And then, not?”

  The old woman watched Josie smoke her roll-up right down to the end before answering. “Not right, love,” she said, as Josie stubbed the fag out. “That’s how it feels: not right.”

  ***

  "We went about it all wrong, of course," said Lanto.

  "Of course," agreed Orlandus.

  "Starting at the top. That was, with hindsight, a classic error."

  "With hindsight," Orlandus nodded, easing the top off another bottle. "And I'll tell you another thing," he added. "If that was LBW, I'm a greyman." They were watching the IPL on television with the sound turned down.

  "To build a house," said Lanto, "you start at the bottom, not at the top. And that's where we should have started."

  "With the foundations," said Orlandus.

  “Not the roof," said Lanto.

  "The bats in the belfry," said Orlandus. Lanto didn't laugh at that, so Orlandus added: "Of course, in fairness to ourselves, we didn't realise that we were going to need to build a house. We thought the house already stood, and just needed new carpets and bit of repointing. Whatever that is."

  Lanto sighed, stood, paced around the sofa. Dug his hand into a bowl of honey-roasted peanuts. Swigged his beer from the bottle.

  "I hate metaphors," he said.

  "Whatever they are," said Orlandus.

  "And incidentally, the man was clearly out."

  "What?" cried Orlandus. "He was halfway down the - "

  "First rule of cricket," said Lanto. "The umpire doesn't make mistakes."

  Orlandus grunted, took some peanuts and some more beer. "Well," he said after a while. "I just hope you don't take the same antediluvian view of union organisation as you do of the laws of cricket."

  ***

  "Your plan has merit, Cousin," Ngggg told Lanto, the next day as they sat once again in the greyman's hut. "But it is not without difficulty."

  "I recognise that, Cousin," said Lanto.

  "Chiefly this," the greyman continued. "That those of my kind who remain in this land are scattered. We are not the zombies of the Fearful's imagination."

  Orlandus guessed that he meant, also, of the bloodtakers' imagination, but was avoiding saying so out of courtesy to his guests.

  "Though we are - if you will accept the inexactitude of the term - at our happiest when in groups, circumstances in recent times have not made this option either practical or entirely safe."

  "Nevertheless," Lanto insisted gently. "A meeting could be arranged? It is possible?"

  Ngggg stared at nothing with his opaque eyes, and thought for a long moment before answering. "Your reasons for pursuing this course you have only hinted at to me. But I believe I understand them better than you might think. And I share your concerns. But tell me this, frankly: your aim is nothing less than to recreate the International Brotherhood? The Monsters’ Union?"

  "Well," Lanto began, "I would rather say that - "

  "Forgive me, Cousin," interrupted Ngggg. "A one word answer would serve best."

  "Then the one word," said Orlandus, "is yes." As he spoke, he realised that even between the two of them, the bloodtakers had not so bluntly described their intentions.

  Lanto nodded; first at Orlandus, and then at their host.

  "Which being the case," said Ngggg, "I will do all that is in my limited power to assist you in your mission."

  "We are grateful, Cousin," said Lanto.

  "Gratitude is not appropriate in matters of solidarity," said Ngggg. He clapped his hands; the greyman's laugh. "You have, if you will forgive me, Cousins, much to learn about the philosophy of unionism."

  "And we have a wise teacher, Cousin," Lanto said with a small bow of the head.

  "Come again in seven days. I shall have news for you then." Ngggg spread his arms - a long, labour-intensive process. "News, Cousins, for better or for worse."

  ***

  Lanto and Orlandus spent the next two days in the Belsize Park flat, making lists.

  "You're not putting him down!" scoffed Orlandus at one point. "He's the biggest reactionary I've ever met!"

  "That is not the point," Lanto admonished, not for the first time. "He is one of us. He is Nighthood. He is a bloodtaker. It is not for us to pick and choose our allies; if anything, it is for them to pick and choose us."

  "Yeah, but Lo, I mean! Percival - he's the guy who won't wear a watch because the measurement of time is a Fearful concept. Remember that night you were supposed to be meeting him to go preying? You almost got arrested for loitering in Piccadilly Circus, and he turned up three days later wondering where you were!"

  "You accuse the union's old leadership of snobbery, Orly. Let none have the chance to turn that word against us."

  Orlandus put down the notebook he'd been writing in, and looked deep at his cousin. "The old leadership," he said. "Is that what they are from now on? Because if that's what we're saying, then you do realise what it means? You do understand the implications?"

  "Ngggg was right," Lanto replied, "both in what he said and in what he left unsaid. There is no place in this matter for dilettantism. We must be honest and open about our intentions from the start, and that means starting by being honest with ourselves."

  "Wow," said Orlandus, consciously destroying the drama of the moment. "Then it's revolution - nothing less." He chomped on a fistful of cheese footballs. "We'll end up with stakes through our hearts, you know. That's what happens to revolutionaries, Nighthood or Fearful."

  Lanto's only reply to Orlandus's half-serious, half-mocking speech was a sharp, apparently unconnected question. "Have you ever met a man-made?"

  "Never," Orlandus replied.

  "Then that is a new experience we both have to look forward to."

  "One of many, I suspect," said Orlandus. "I mean, think about it, Lo. How many friends do you have who are not our kind?"

  "Less than you have, I'm sure," said Lanto, who thought he could smell a disagreement on the wind.

  "It's true, I know plenty of people amongst the Fearful. I drink with them, play music with them, have sex with them. But I'm asking you about friends, Lo. And I'm not talking about the Fearful; what I'm getting at is, how many Nighthood do you know who are not as we are?"

  "Well, how many do you know?" said Lanto crossly.

  "This isn't a bloody competition, Lo!" said Orlandus. "I'm not having a go at you. I'm just saying - for all this talk of a ‘Nighthood’ and ‘Cousins’ and all that one-for-all, us-against-the-world stuff we all grow up with, the fact is that we - we bloodtakers at least, and I suppose it’s the same for the others, though I don't actually even know that - we stick to our own."

  "A good point, Orly. Yes, a good point." As much from relief that an argument was not, after all, brewing, as from concern at his cousin's words, Lanto devoted a moment's serious thought to Orlandus's concerns. "In fact, following your logic a little further, we don't even know whether others of the Nighthood consider themselves Cousins at all. All we have in common, perhaps, is that we are different to those ... to those who are different from us."

  "But then," said Orlandus, enjoying this impromptu dialectic much more than he had enjoyed the dull making of lists, "isn't that the definition of a race? A tribe? A class?"

  "Perhaps," smiled Lanto. "You have read more deeply in the classics of Fearful philosophy than I have. Or at least," he added, opening another beer, "you have watched them in cartoon form on the internet."

  "The question then arises, of course," Lanto continued, settling back in his chair, lighting a cigarette to go with the beer, visibly relaxing, "which are we? Race, tribe, or class?"

  "I would say," began Orlandus - and then paused, so that he might work out what he was going to say before he said it. "I would say that we wish to be a nation, that in fact we are probably a tribe - and that what we need to be is a class."

  "And
somehow," said Lanto, his good mood weakening as he became steadily more aware of the immense difficulties ahead, "we must convince others of this. Others who are almost as different from us, and from each other, as from the Fearful, and who have nothing in common but a common enemy."

  "Nothing?" echoed Orlandus, incredulously. "But you're the one who's always on about history, Cousin! Don't you know that a common enemy is the most powerful unifying factor there is?"

  "Only," cautioned Lanto, a finger raised against Orlandus's enthusiasm, "only when and if the allies recognise that they have an enemy in common."

  "True," said Orlandus. "But don't be downhearted. We have Ngggg on our side, and that is a bonus not to be underestimated. With him we have an in to the greymen - one less community to worry about. Now, if we can only find ourselves a tame shitter ... "

  "It's not the moonhowlers who worry me," said Lanto, stubbing out his cigarette and returning to his lists; the interlude was over.

  "Who then?" asked Orlandus. "I suppose the man-mades might have divided loyalties, but - "

  "Nor the man-mades," said Lanto. "Nor any of our distant Cousins. The ones that will give us the most difficulty, I am sure, are the self-appointed aristocrats of the Nighthood. Us; the bloodtakers."

  ***

  Chapter Three

  "You'll smell them before you see them," said Lanto.

  "That's no way to speak about our allies," Orlandus teased him.

  Lanto grunted. "Merely stating a fact," he said. "Moonhowlers have a certain scent, a strong scent, which is unmistakable."

  "And when did you gain your expertise in the subject?"

  "I told you,"" said Lanto. "In Tunbridge Wells, during the war. The woods there were ... "

  "Infested with them?"

  "Occupied by them," said Lanto.

  "And you became chums?"

  Lanto stopped walking, and turned to face his cousin. His eyes lit red in the moonlight. "Does it ever occur to you, Orlandus, that your desire to discover prejudices in me reflects something in your own heart?"

  "Sorry, Lo," said Orlandus, as they walked on again. "Truth is, I'm nervous. As you have often pointed out, I have led a sheltered existence - I have met more Fearful than I have shitters."

  "And for blood's sake, don't call them that!" barked Lanto. "They are Nighthood, and you will treat them with respect."

  I wasn't going to say it to their faces, thought Orlandus. If we ever find any, that is. "And Hampstead Heath," he asked, after a while. "Why here?"

  "There has been a colony of moonhowlers on the Heath since before the Fearful came here."

  "But I thought - I mean, what do they feed on? I would expect to find them in more agricultural areas. Cattle, sheep, you know."

  "Moonhowlers are not bloodtakers," Lanto replied. "Their feeding is less ... physical than ours."

  Orlandus laughed, but kept his laugh quiet; his nervousness had not yet been altogether dissipated by conversation. "Don't tell me they're vegetarians?"

  "They will take flesh, it's true," said Lanto. "But more for the effect of doing so than from any metabolic need. Why do you think we call men the Fearful?"

  Orlandus had never really considered the question; any more than he had wondered why an apple should be called an apple. "Because they fear, I suppose. We scare them, they fear us. That's what they're for; that's their job. And ours."

  "Just so," said Lanto. "Well, then; the job, as you put it, of moonhowlers is to give fear to the Fearful. And from that, they take their sustenance."

  "They eat fear itself?" said Orlandus.

  "Fear itself is enough; the flesh is ... "

  "Optional?"

  "Yes; if you like."

  Orlandus puffed his cheeks, and stopped walking. "Look, Lo, can we stop here for a while? Have a cigarette, a sit-down - I don't doubt your word when you say we'll meet our hairy Cousins round here eventually, but it could be a long night, couldn't it?"

  "The best sort," replied Lanto, but he sat down next to Orlandus on a convenient rock, and accepted a cigarette from him.

  From where they sat, they had a view across much of north and central London, its artificial lights sparkling like campfires. "I love London," said Lanto.

  "I know you do," said Orlandus. "But I've never quite understood why. I love it, too, but you - well, I mean, it's very much their city, isn't it?"

  "Don't you believe it. This is our city. Always has been. It could have been designed for us. Not just its topography, its architecture - but its spirit. There is more real fear to the square mile in London than anywhere else I've ever been."

  "Perhaps we should try New York," said Orlandus, a smile in his voice.

  "Not the same thing at all. For real fear you need real history. Centuries of unfortunate progress, millennia of living and dying and shivering in the night."

  "How true, Cousin, yes, true; you have the feel of the place." The bloodtakers jumped at the sound of the voice, a high, rasping tone, which came from the bushes behind them. Orlandus realised that, indeed, he had noticed the smell first; but had noticed it without taking note of it. An urbanite, he half-expected the outdoors to smell of shit, anyway.

  "We wish you the night," said Lanto, a little uncertainly.

  "Oh yes, the night," said the voice. "All of that and more of the same."

  Lanto blinked. Orlandus frankly gaped; he had never heard any Cousin reply to the traditional greeting with anything other than the orthodox form of words.

  "We would speak with you, Cousin," said Lanto; it could only be a Cousin, a moonhowler, surely, with that smell. Or a Fearful outcast sleeping rough ... ? No; no, this perfume was unmistakable. "And to speak with you, we would first see you."

  Without sound, the speaker was before them. No bushes rustled, no footsteps fell; he was simply there. Like a wolf, thought Orlandus, who had seen wolves on television. But like a man, too. Perhaps four or five feet tall, muscular in a wiry, almost undernourished way, with large features on a small face, surrounded by scruffy whiskers. How could even the most primitive Fearful fear such a creature?

  And then the moonhowler opened his mouth, and Orlandus understood.

  It wasn't so much the teeth, rampantly carnivorous though these appeared; nor the blackness of the gums; nor yet the violent, taunting redness of the oversized tongue.

  It was the throat. Dark and undulating, impossibly long. A slimy road to hell.

  "Bloodtakers," the creature said. "Don't get many of your kind up here. Or rather, they come here, yes yes - but they are not usually so neighbourly as to seek us out." Its voice added to the impression, created by its body, of a cheeky urchin - a cheeky, cheerful, rule-spurning, homicidal urchin.

  "You knew we were looking for you?" asked Lanto.

  "Been following you since you got here. Knew what you were, straight away. Bloodtakers have - no offence, Cousins - a most distinctive scent."

  "Well, nice to meet you," said Orlandus, deciding that informality was the order in this company. "I'm Orlandus, the elderly gent is Lanto."

  The moonhowler laughed at this - a high, staccato laugh, sounded on the in-breaths only. As he laughed, he hopped around jerkily on one foot, his body spinning in tight circles.

  And then he stopped laughing. "Elderly gent," he said. "Do you know the lifespan of a shitter?"

  Lanto coughed. "I - no. No, I'm sorry, I don't," he stammered.

  "We are elderly gents at seventeen winters. Or we would be, in the unlikely event that any of us survived so long."

  "I'm sorry," said Lanto again.

  "Not your fault," said the moonhowler, laughing some more. "I am called Shrak. And yes, it is good to meet you. Yes yes. You are welcome. And all that is in it, Cousins. Isn't that what I should have said?"

  "What you actually said," replied Lanto, his élan returning, "was more than acceptable, and received with gratitude and pleasure. It is your comradeship we seek, Cousin, not evidence of your good manners."

  "That so?" said
Shrak, and he opened his throat wide to emit a long, fetid exhalation, its music somewhere between a growl and a yawn. "Then, Cousins, you must be two very unusual bloodtakers. Or else liars, come to trick us."

  "Not the latter, Cousin, I give you my word," said Lanto, quickly.

  "Possibly the former," said Orlandus. "But certainly not the latter. We wish to speak to you and your Cousins about the union. The Monsters’ Union."

  Shrak stared at them, drool dripping quietly from his jaws. Eventually, he said: “I will hear what you have to say, Cousins.” He smiled. “After all - Yes! - if I don’t like your words, I can always eat your throats.”

  ***

  Many great houses abut Hampstead Heath, and it was to one of these that Shrak led them.

  They approached the four-storey Victorian building via the lawn at the rear, which was darkly ringed with old trees and shrubs. As they came near to the house itself, Shrak - who had been scampering until now - slowed to a stroll and began to howl. Or, it would have been a howl, thought Orlandus, if it hadn't been so quiet.

  A shadow at the side of the house, at ground-level, stirred, and a second moonhowler appeared briefly, framed in a small opening by pale light from behind.

  "It's a cellar," said Orlandus. "That's not a door, it's a trap for tipping coal."

  Shrak made no comment, as they followed him through the trap, down a wide plank which served as a staircase, and into the lair of the Hampstead moonhowlers.

  There were, as far as the bloodtakers could tell, in light which was dim even by their standards, about a dozen of the monsters, lounging - perhaps even sleeping - in the corners of the cellar. The cellar itself was clearly big, covering, Lanto guessed, the entire spread of the house above. It was made up of one large room, divided only by the supporting structures of its upper storeys.

  "Nice place," said Orlandus, hoping that the moonhowler's earlier informality would not be out of place now that he was at home. "What do you do with the rest of it - rent it to students?"