Much of the message sounded distorted by poor signal and background noise, meaning that I caught only every other word, but I could just about make out a person’s name and the words dead. The blood drained from my face, my legs buckled beneath me and I slid down onto the kitchen floor.
When I got to the end, there was one word that was crystal clear and sharper than all the rest. It was then that I understood what the caller was trying to tell me. The word was vampire.
My head involuntary hurled forward and the vomit splattered across the kitchen floor. Great Sophie, one more mess to clear up.
I listened to Mickey’s message several times, but could still only pick out every other few words. The signal was awful and it sounded like he was calling from a moving train. From what I could make out his brother had been killed by a vampire. I wasn’t sure when or where it had happened, but it would certainly explain why Mickey hadn’t been in touch. I felt guilty for moping over him, and for being angry at him for not replying to my calls and messages. But I still wasn’t in a better position to know what had gone on; the voicemail had been too garbled.
After I had cleaned up the vomit from the kitchen floor, I grabbed a pen and notebook and went through the voicemail options on my phone, jotting down the number which Mickey had called from. I didn’t recognise it and it definitely wasn’t the one he’d given me in Antwerp. As I thought, he’d got himself a new phone and judging by the number it was from a UK provider. There was a good chance he was in Ireland then. I dialled the number, but it went straight to voicemail. I didn’t want to leave a message if I didn’t have to. I decided I’d try again later.
In the meantime, normal service had to resume. I needed to get over to my Mum’s place and check on her. If we had a new pack of vamps on the loose, I wanted to make sure she was okay. Mum was in fine form, having spent the morning getting a spare set of keys cut for the newsagent for me. There was a small office in the back that we were going to share and she wanted to make sure I could access it whenever I wanted. She also handed me over a couple of small boxes of glasses and fancier kitchenware which I’d left in her garage and which she thought I'd want now I was settled.
"Now you’re a bit more settled, "she said, "you may as well have them."
Settled? That felt like a joke now, I suspected that I was never going to be safe and settled again. "Thanks, Mum," I replied the plastic boxes stacked in my arms.
I loaded them into my car and headed back into the house to share some soup and a sandwich with her. Despite being a grown woman, she insisted on feeding me every time I called, irrespective of the time of day or if I'd already eaten. We’d fallen back into this relaxed routine as soon as I moved out and I hoped it wasn’t going to be disrupted by anything like the end of the world or by my sudden conversion to the realms of the undead.
"I heard off Mickey today, do you remember him?" I asked, dipping my turkey sandwich into the tomato soup.
"Mickey? Do you mean that lad you met on holiday? I didn’t know you were still in touch with him?"
"No, well, I haven’t been. But I’ve just heard his brother has died."
"Oh no, how horrible for him. He was quite young wasn't he? Shocking, really terrible, poor lad, oh and his family, how sad. How do you feel about it, are you okay?"
"Oh yeah, I guess. He was a really nice kid. I don’t know the details, but I’m going to try and get hold of Mickey and see how he is doing."
"Yes, you probably should. But don’t take on too much."
"What do you mean?"
"When someone loses someone they care about, they can do crazy things. They don’t always make the best choices and they’re not always sensitive to other people’s feelings. Be a friend, but don’t read anything more into it. I don’t want you to get hurt."
I reached across the breakfast bar and threw an arm around her, squeezing her as tight as I could.
"Trust me Mum," I told her, "I’ve got better things to spend my time worrying about than men."
Reassured, she patted the hand that I had placed on her shoulder and gave me a peck on the cheek. We ate the rest of our meal in silence and then watched the early evening news.
When I returned to my place, I found that Tom had finished all the jobs we’d discussed. He was a fast worker and I was pleased with the outcome. You would never have been able to tell it had been a crime scene less than twelve hours before.
I decided to try Mickey’s number again. There was still no answer and I became increasingly frustrated with every subsequent try. I checked my email on my laptop to see if he’d tried to make any further contact that way, but there was nothing.
Given that he had contacted me first, I didn’t feel too uncomfortable emailing him, despite my previous resolution to not bother again. I could rationalise his absence from my life now. He was probably in shock, in mourning. Hell, if he had decided to cast me off without a second thought, he needed me now and that was what was important. Now was not the time to lick my wounds.
Michael, I am so sorry to hear about Sean. He was a lovely lad. I didn’t get your entire message, but please get in touch if you need anything. I’ve moved back to Wales now, but I’ve updated my signature – it’s got my new address. Take care and my sincere condolences to all the family. Sophie
I typed in my new address at the bottom and pressed send.
I couldn’t imagine what he was going through, but I knew it would be awful. His brother was dead, his best friend gone. If that wasn't bad enough, it was at the hands of a vampire. I didn't know how or where, even if they'd made it out of Antwerp alive. Had the vampires come back? The ball of worry and foreboding twisted in my stomach like a fist trying to bury itself into my ribcage.
I sat at the kitchen table for a long time. Eventually, I took a shower and suddenly aware of how tired I was, went to bed, my baseball bat held tightly in my right hand.
I got up the following morning and immediately felt relieved that the house was still standing around me. Nothing creepy had happened during the night. I checked my mobile phone more times than I sane person should, but there was nothing. No messages from Mickey.
The next few days passed without incident. I took the opportunity to unpack the rest of my boxes, spring clean the areas which had so far been left unattended and planned a 'to do' list for work. There were a few tenants I’d yet to property meet and it took me the best part of two days to get around them to make checks on the properties. All was well and it was a reasonably quiet couple of days, aside from being on "high alert" whenever there was a strange bump in the night.
By the time my "admin day" came around, I’d decided that I was probably safe from any more vampire attacks. As I had the keys to the office, I decided to take in some of the paperwork and get a head start on some of my "to do" list. It mainly consisted of getting together a list of auction houses, creating a cohesive database of all our tenants and dealing with any anomalies in our previous letting agents dealings.
It was strange to be feeling so chirpy considering the terrible news I’d had the few days before, not to mention having to scoop up supernatural remains from my kitchen lino, but there was a small part of me which was doing somersaults over hearing from Mickey again. I was glad that he was okay, well - alive, and that we may have the opportunity to renew our friendship. Although I couldn’t even begin to understand what it would be like to lose a sibling, we’d shared some incredible experiences together which nobody else could possibly understand. I wished that he was with me that I could hold him, comfort him, but there was nothing I could do, nothing but hope he was okay -nothing to do, but wait.
It was close to ten when I arrived at the newsagent shop and the high street was seeing its first customer of the day. Foot flow had dropped over the past year, but the regular shoppers still came into town most weeks; mainly pensioners who preferred to shop in the market, or busy parents who only had time to pop in for a few bits. It was practically dead on the weekend though, when people he
aded off into Cardiff to do what I generally referred to as "proper" shopping. I loved Bethel, though. It was my home. But there was no escaping that it was a poor relation commercially to the big cities, most of which could easily be reached within a forty-minute car journey
I swung through the shop door carrying a box file of papers under one arm and my handbag under the other. I had a cardboard cup holder in my hand containing four coffees. I wasn’t sure who would be working, but I thought it was good form to bring drinks on my first official day in the "office." Admittedly, it wasn’t much of an office, but I felt it was important to retain some sort of professional etiquette. One coffee for her, one for me, one for Mum when she came in, and one as a spare just in case.
Business was quiet as usual, but as we didn’t have high rents to pay, it was sufficient to keep things ticking over.
Michelle was on the till, hiding behind multi-packs of chewing gum, stacks of newspapers and a small portable television which she was watching. Michelle told me she’d drink the extra one as she was the only one in today, and as she was trying to quit smoking, it would give her an extra distraction. Apparently caffeine is to smoking what methadone is to heroin. She’d been trying to stop smoking since I can remember, one day she might even be successful.
"Have you heard about the body?" she asked, over the mound of double knitting.
"What body?" I asked, furrowing my brow, alarm bells ringing my head.
"Apparently, they found a body in the tip?"
I virtually passed out.
"What? When?” I asked. You have got to me kidding me. I dumped it yesterday and it’s already been found. Well done Sophie.
"Look, "she exclaimed, waving a copy of the Gazette in front of me. They’d obviously found the body early that morning, or pretty late the previous night. I tried to focus on the headline text being waved around in my face. It wasn’t easy until I grabbed a corner between my fingertips.
IRON AGE MAN FOUND IN LOCAL MUD FLATS.
I chuckled, snorting my coffee up my nose in the process. It burned. Whoever had found that the rubbery old corpse had thought that it was some sort of historical relic. Good luck to them, I wasn’t going to tell them any different. That could keep the council funded by school trips for years. Perhaps things were finally starting to turn in my favour, albeit in a kind of weird, surreal way.
Shoving the newspaper under my arm, I carried my papers through the shop and into the small office. It wasn’t much to look at; a large desk, two three-drawer filing cabinets and a safe which was about three feet high and made out of solid metal. In the corner was stacked a pile of newspapers from the previous day, bound up and tied with string. They’d been scored with a knife so they could be sent back to the distributor.
I’d never had my own office before and although it wasn’t exactly swish, it was comfortable. I put my small laptop on the desk, sat back in the desk chair, sipped my coffee and began to read.
There wasn’t much in the way of detail, but the newspaper article didn’t indicate that there was anything suspicious about the archaeological find. At the same time, it didn’t give me much comfort either. I’d hoped that the content of the skip in which I’d dumped the corpse would have been automatically incinerated. I hadn’t considered what I would do if it had gone straight to landfill. Thankfully, it did look like only part of the body had been discovered, but that wasn’t much consolation. Perhaps when they found the rest, they’d change their mind about it being an archaeological find. If I allowed myself to worry though, I’d end up having a breakdown and I was determined to keep it together. Okay, I had been attacked by a vampire in my kitchen, but maybe I’d be lucky, maybe it would be an isolated incident. What am I thinking? I’d move back to Wales and somehow everything would be okay? That vampire would be afraid of valley folk?
I decided to close the paper and push it to the back of my mind. Right now, life was reasonably okay. As far as I knew, none of my neighbours were vampires and nobody wanted to turn me into one. One lone vampire was surely nothing to worry about? Vamps had probably been walking around for years without them bothering me, I’d just have to try and get on with it. If that was the best argument I could rationalise in my head, then so be it.
The following week passed without incident and without any word from Mickey. It made me angry; he'd dropped a bombshell and then gone off grid again. The moments of frustration quickly passed when I remembered what he was going through and I tried to show more compassion.
I went into the office most days as I liked the company - Michelle, Mum, customers. I needed to have some ordinary conversation to stop me losing it. I’d stay for an hour or so, make any phone calls and watch the latest instalment in the mud flat man saga on the regional news with Michelle or my Mum.
The rest of the time was spent visiting tenants, doing property inspections, collecting rents from those who still preferred to pay in cash and going to estate auctions. We didn’t have any immediate plans to add to the portfolio, but it made sense to keep an eye on the market and see where it led.
I also called in to see Tom with a card and some money to thank him for doing the repairs so quickly. He refused to take the money, insisting that I could consider the minor repair as a welcome home present. I’d guessed he would take that line, so came prepared with a crate of beers which he did accept so his lads could have a drink when they finished work on Friday.
It was late into the Friday evening, around two weeks after the message from Mickey and my vampiric intruder, when I heard a banging on my front door. It took me a while to figure out where the noise was coming from, as visitors usually head straight for the kitchen door. It's the closest to the car park and what should technically be the front of the house is hidden well away around the rear, down a dark alley.
Bang. Bang.
Whoever it was, they weren’t going to give up though, they hammered so hard at the door that I thought their fist would come right through it.
Bang. Bang.
I’d been huddled up on the sofa watching a re-run of an old detective series when I’d first heard the banging. It might have been proceeded with a more polite, gentle knock, but with the rain lashing down outside, I’d never have heard it. I switched on the hall light and went to the front door after first checking the kitchen one.
I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry when I saw who stood in front of me. His black hair had grown even longer than when I'd last seen him, and it was scraped back off his face. Sodden, the rain dripped from his curls, down his neck and shoulders and onto a poor excuse for a jacket. His baseball boots squelched as he shifted his weight from one foot to another in an effort to keep warm. His hands were red raw from the cold and latched onto a rucksack, which had seen better days.
Reaching out, I pried his fingers from the bag’s strap and swung it through the door and into the hall. It landed with a wet sounding thud and I nudged it with my toe towards the piping hot radiator.
"You better come in Michael," I instructed and closed the door behind him.
Mickey sat in silence for a little while as I set about making a percolator of coffee and found a tin of soup in the cupboard. I found a pan, warmed it through and placed the bowl of oxtail in front of him. I wasn’t sure if he liked it or would want it, but he was soaked through, cold, and looked like he hadn’t eaten properly in a long time. I cut two large slices of bread from the tiger loaf I’d bought the day before and set it down on a small plate next to him. Once the first cup of coffee had dripped through the machine, I set a mug of it on the table, next to a bowl of sugar and a small jug of milk. I then poured myself a smaller cup and sat down.
"I’m sorry for turning up like this."
"Eat," I ordered.
"I’m fine, really," he asserted, shivering. "I just needed to see you. We need to talk."
"Eat first." I pushed the bowl of steaming soup in his direction. "Then we’ll talk".
I leaned back into my pine chair, sipped my coffee and
watched him wolf down the soup and bread in silence. Halfway through his meal, I nipped into the small utility room next to my kitchen, picked up a clean towel from the radiator and wrapped it around his shoulders while he ate. He smiled at me whilst simultaneously trying to slurp his soup and take the worst of the rain out of his sodden hair.
When he had finished his meal, he finished drying his hair, rubbing vigorously with the towel with both hands. I gently took the towel out of his hands, wiping the drips from the back of his neck and the longer hair at the nape of his neck. I had the urge to bend down and kiss the top of his bed. I settled for placing a hand on his shoulder, which he reached up and held with one of his own.
"I wanted to call you," he said quietly. I didn’t reply. Now was not the time for recriminations. "It was just with Sean, there wasn’t time. There wasn’t the right time."
"I understand," I assured him.
I wasn’t sure if I did, but frankly, I didn’t care. He’d been through too much. I’d been through too much. There were bigger things to worry about than who should have done what to whom when. The important thing was that we’d somehow managed to find each again that he needed a friend and he’d chosen me. I was grateful for his company, for the friendship that he could extend. I was honoured that, in his time of grief, he would turn to me for help. I would say anything he needed, give him whatever he needed to get through this. He deserved that. We both did.
He held my hand tightly as he dropped his head and looked away from me. His shoulders bobbed up and down. It didn’t take a genius to know he was crying. He was broken and I felt tears form in the corners of my eyes.
Without me asking, he told me everything that had happened. He described how he and Sean were close to getting out of Antwerp altogether when the attack happened. All the plans were in place. They'd even told Maggie that they were going to be leaving. It was only a matter of weeks and they’d have had enough money to book a flight. They even helped Maggie advertise for replacement staff. There hadn’t been any trouble at all since I left, but then some men came in. The men were different from their usual customers. They’d come in and sit in a corner, quietly, not even drinking most of the time.
Sophie Morgan (Book 1): Relative Strangers (A Modern Vampire Story) Page 26