In the morning, she left before Wren was properly awake. He washed the bite, put two plasters over it and went back to bed. Having slept through half the day, he felt restless and disorientated in the evening. Towards midnight, he caught a late bus into Tyseley. The inert husks of derailed trains crowded the railway depot, like abandoned chrysalids. Asset-stripping in a crudely literal sense, two years after the sell-off. The whitewashed exteriors of old factories and workshops glowed faintly, picked out by the streetlamps. A stray dog foraged patiently in a litter bin. Here and there, lights behind closed shutters indicated night work—some of it, perhaps, the same kind of night work that Wren and his colleagues were involved in. There were no exposed windows, anywhere. Cars and vans drove along the Warwick Road, none of them ever turning off or stopping.
Wren knew his way around here by night better than in daylight. He walked down a side street between a Catholic church and a disused canal, the water glinting through battered railings. Where a flattened stone bridge crossed the canal, he could see a patch of wasteground with a boarded-up house and a weeping willow tree. A pigeon groaned from somewhere behind the tree. Wren thought suddenly of the Chinese willow pattern on bowls he’d eaten from as a child. It was colder than the previous night. He could smell burning wood. Was that a fire in the distance, or just a red security light in a factory yard? He stepped forward until he was under the tree, its long yellowish leaves touching him. Their ends were dry. The sound of machinery, like guitar chords, rose from the bassline of the distant traffic. And then, quite abruptly, the gentle movement of the willow leaves stopped. Wren felt a white breath pass over him, as if he were an image on a screen. There was a faint sound of cracking and tearing; then silence and a cascade of dry filaments, as the tree shed all its leaves at once.
~ * ~
When he told Schreck about his experience with the Velvet Underground song in the nightclub, the landlord smiled gently. “Oh yes. Lou Reed ... such a gifted boy. In those days. He was so real. David Bowie stole his thunder, of course—but it wasn’t the same. Bowie could change his image at the drop of an eyelash, but Reed could change his soul. You can hear it in those songs, the danger.” Wren didn’t tell him about Lucy or the dying tree. In any case, Schreck was away on business a lot of the time now, so Wren saw much less of him. It gave the tenant a chance to sort himself out. The inability to sleep normal hours was messing him up, and the dreams were starting to undermine his waking life. His GP referred him to a counsellor, who kept asking him about his parents. No, he thought angrily, I wasn’t abused. I wasn’t even scared of them. But when he thought back to how his parents had seemed—their heavy bodies, their violence towards each other, their nocturnal outcries of love or fury—it was hard not to think of Schreck, because Schreck made him feel like a child. A silent witness.
In October, his contract with the magazine publisher ended. He invited Alison round to his flat for a valedictory meal. Rather to his surprise, she accepted. That weekend turned out to be a slightly inconvenient one for Wren. Schreck and Matthews were both away, sorting out an urgent problem somewhere in North Yorkshire. Wren had been warned to expect a large consignment of hash at some point over the weekend. Schreck had given him the money and the key to the basement. In all probability, the deal had been engineered to test Wren’s reliability. It was petty stuff, in all respects: the cash, the weed and the arrangement. Taking the mediocre seriously was what life in the West Midlands was all about. He hoped it wouldn’t clash with Alison’s visit. Then again, maybe it would give him a chance to impress her—and even an excuse to get her stoned.
Wren spent hours cleaning the flat beforehand. His eyes had become used to a certain level of dirt and rubbish, and the flat seemed unfamiliar without it. He was surprised to discover some rusty stains inside the bathroom door, where the towel normally hung. He must have cut himself one night, probably when drunk, and forgotten about it. Alison turned up punctually at eight, wearing a blue-black coat he’d not seen before. The night behind her was still and clear, stars and streetlamps glowing as if painted in the doorway.
They shared a bottle of white wine and some mushroom pate, followed by grilled mackerel in garlic sauce. The Velvet Underground’s third album, the quiet one, unwound strands of melody from the black speakers at either end of the room. Alison glanced appreciatively round the flat. “This is a really nice place. Bit gloomy though. Like you spend all your time in here with the curtains drawn. All these records, posters, books. Most people, you see their flats and there are no books at all.” She smiled, her mouth resting a little tensely on her knuckles. Then her eyes narrowed. “The house is a bit creepy, don’t you think? It’s so featureless. Like a hostel or something. And there’s not enough light.”
“The landlord’s a vampire,” Wren said. “That’s why I put garlic in the sauce. To protect you.” Alison’s eyes widened in an expression of dawning terror. Then she cracked up, giggling hard, and almost choked on a fishbone. Wren jumped to his feet, but she waved him back down and coughed into her hand. “Are you okay?” he asked. She nodded. Her face was flushed; her pale blue eyes glittered with moisture. She ran a hand through her blonde fringe, pulling it back. They stared at each other. Feeling more scared than he could have imagined possible, Wren reached out and touched the back of her hand. She gripped his fingers. Lou Reed sang gently, bitterly, about loss and sin. Thought of you as everything I’ve had but couldn’t keep. As Wren stood up and came round the small table towards her, she lifted her face to kiss him.
They progressed from wine to cognac and mint chocolate-chip ice cream. The stereo fell silent. Wren felt somewhat at a loss for words. He’d anticipated making some convoluted verbal pass; but it had happened almost too easily. As if trying to regain control, Alison started to run through her past impressions of him. “At first I thought you were really cute. Kind of naive and impressionable. Then I got a bit scared. You were too intense, and I thought maybe you were a bit strange. The morbid things you used to come out with. Sometimes you’d come in looking really tired, and then be secretive about where you’d been. Like you were in trouble.” She laughed gently and kissed him. “But now, I think I’ve worked you out. This flat... it’s like a middle-class facsimile of a Gothic artist’s garret. You just want people to think you’re tortured and strange. It’s an image. Really you’re cute and naive. You don’t know anything about the dark side of life, except what it’s meant to look like. Do you?” She drained her brandy glass and gazed at him affectionately.
“You don’t know that,” Wren said. “You don’t know what I feel. You don’t always have to experience something to feel it. And maybe I have experienced things you don’t know about. What I’ve seen. Been part of. Crimes.” Shut up, he told himself. Maybe she wouldn’t take him literally. But why did women trying to mother him always make him feel violent?
Alison gripped his shoulders and pulled him against her. “I don’t believe you’ve even nicked bubble-gum from a corner shop,” she said. “You’re just turning ordinary guilt into a fantasy. Confess what you like, I won’t believe you.” They sat down on the bed together. He slipped a hand under the collar of her shirt. Then the doorbell rang.
A black van was parked outside. A small man in a leather jacket, with the makings of a beard, was reaching up to press the bell a second time as Wren opened the front door. “Mr Robin?” he said. “Wren, that’s it. Got some videos for Mr Schreck here. You gonna let me in or what?” Wren stepped back into the hallway. “Never do business in the hall,” the visitor said. “You really haven’t got a clue, have you?” Blushing, and thinking uneasily of Alison, Wren led the dealer upstairs to his flat. The man’s carrier bag contained three video cases. Two of these contained films. The third was packed full of brown fibres that looked like soil. It was labelled AIRPLANE. Brummie humour, you couldn’t beat it. Wren took the envelope full of banknotes from his own locked briefcase and handed it to the dealer. Alison looked on impassively from the bed. Wren had to go back d
own to unlock the front door. “Make sure the bitch keeps her mouth shut,” the man said on his way out.
Wren took a deep breath and returned to his flat, where Alison was cautiously examining the video case. “What do you do with this?” she asked, then laughed at the expression on his face. “I don’t mean what do you do with it, Richard. I mean what are you going to do with it, now. I assume you don’t own it.” They’d underestimated each other. Wren explained about his landlord and the basement. “Come with me,” he said. “You might learn something.” His need to make an impression was stronger than his instinct for secrecy. It was past midnight; no one would bother them.
The basement was actually a nuclear fallout shelter, adapted by a previous tenant from a more traditional cellar. There was a concealed entrance in Schreck’s flat, and another—which Wren had access to -in a shed behind the house. The interior of the shelter was lined with concrete and had about thirty yards of shelving, designed for storage of provisions against Doomsday. There was no food or water there now; but Wren supposed that, if Yeltsin’s successor decided to press the button, he and Schreck could spend their last few days smoking wacky baccy, watching porn videos and playing computer games. He led Alison downstairs in the darkness, walking quietly through the hallway to the back door.
Outside, the cold sobered him up rapidly. The shapes of discarded rubbish crowded the garden like a frozen menagerie. There were no herbaceous borders here. The shed was full of old newspapers and bits of damaged pottery. He cleared the tiny entrance to the bunker and keyed in the numbers Schreck had given him on the lock panel. Alison followed him down the steps. He flicked on the dim red light and looked around. Unmarked boxes and packages crowded the narrow shelves. The air was cold and still, more dusty than he remembered. On a low shelf, near the door, there was a row of video boxes. He added the box of cannabis to the end. A small, flattish cardboard box sat alone at the end of the shelf. It was unsealed. He flicked it open, prompted by the same bitter curiosity that had made him search through his parents’ bedroom as a child. What he touched, without seeing it, was some kind of mask, like the face of a baby or a cat. It crumbled at once. He shivered violently. “What’s up?” Alison said.
“Nothing.” He closed the box and turned, putting his arms round her. As they kissed, he saw a tiny red light winking above her shoulder. A hidden camera? Was Schreck recording this? Before he could react, Alison pointed to the far end of the room. “Look. What’s there?” A small door in the concrete wall, not quite shut. No handle; not even a keyhole. “Can we get through?” Despite all his recent experience, despite being nine years on from puberty, Wren felt a wheel turning within himself at the thought It was her idea. He stepped to the far wall and gripped the edge of the door. It was heavy, but it opened easily. There couldn’t be a room beyond it, he realized from the smell of fresh soil.
But there was. It was smaller than the first room, and had no light. In the vague red glow from behind him, Wren could see that all four walls were lined with shelves. On each shelf, there was a coffin. Wren felt Alison step past him. “What the fuck?”The light seemed to pull back, as if it were being repelled or absorbed by the darkness in the room. “Oh, my God. Who are they?” The air was crowded with translucent faces, or many copies of the same face. All mounted like paper masks on impossibly thin bodies. All staring.
It was cold in here, as cold as a deep freeze. Alison turned round. There were dark patches of blood on her cheeks, her neck, her raised hands. “Help me.” Something he could hardly see pushed him back into the doorway. “Please.” The, door closed on him. Wren crouched behind it for a long time, trying to hear. But there was no sound. The door fitted so neatly into its frame that it could almost have been part of the wall. It couldn’t be opened from the outside. When he stood up, his eyes were stinging. There was blood in his mouth.
~ * ~
After the bunker, the house seemed like a vast emptiness. Wren climbed the stairs numbly, entered his flat without switching on the light, and stood there for a moment. Then he began to remove his clothes. The cold of underground seemed to have followed him. It was the beginning of winter. He ran a warm bath, took a razor blade from the cabinet and half embedded it in the soap. Then he lay down in the water. The left wrist sliced open as easily as a fish. The right wrist was harder, because he’d cut a tendon or something in his left hand. He made two longitudinal gashes before hitting the vein. Then he rested his head between the taps and watched the blood spreading like two bright flames in the water. Soon he couldn’t feel anything but the faint trickle of water from his exposed feet. There was blood in the air now, darkening, clotting above his face. Then two eyes opened in the sky of blood.
Schreck. The landlord gripped Wren’s shoulders and pulled him up. The water seemed almost freezing. Gently, he took Wren’s left hand and lifted the open wrist to his mouth. Wren felt a tongue probe the edges of the wound. Then Schreck took the other wrist and drank from it. The comfortable haze of blood was receding, and a black emptiness was starting to take its place. Wren felt other wounds open: the old razor-cuts along his inner arms, and the bite-mark on his right shoulder. Schreck leaned over and kissed him firmly on the mouth. He seemed to have more than two lips. There are no revelations, Wren thought. Only more of the same. A monster disguised as itself. He put his arms round Schreck, and felt himself lifted easily from the red water.
Later, he opened his eyes to find himself in bed. Schreck was sitting beside him on the duvet. As Wren looked at him, the landlord picked up a glass and put it in Wren’s hand. It was neat vodka, Schreck’s own. The best. Wren felt his wounds sting as the alcohol opened up his circulation. Behind the drawn curtain and the leaded glass, it was daylight. Wren tried to smile. “What do you call a cunt with teeth?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and childish.
“I know. Dracula.” Schreck glanced at the small table near the bed, the two brandy glasses and crystal dessert bowls. “I’m sorry about her,” he said. “My little friends. She’s with them now.”
“Do you always turn your friends into versions of yourself?”
The landlord shrugged. “Doesn’t everyone?” He stroked Wren’s hand with a surprising tenderness.
They stared at each other for a while, like a couple making up after a row. Then Schreck asked: “Do you want her back?” Wren nodded. “I’m sorry. You can’t be with her. Not that way. You’re just not the type ... But there’s a whole world out there for you.” Schreck gazed at the curtained window. When he looked back at Wren, there were tears in his eyes. “Richard. I need someone who’s not like me. Someone to live for me, love for me ... and eventually, die for me. To feel the pain I can’t feel.” He stood up. “I’ll leave you now. There’s food in your fridge, booze in your cabinet. I’ve cleaned the bath. All you need to do is rest. If you want me, just knock on my door. I’ll wait.”
Then he picked something up from the floor and put it on Wren’s bedside table, next to the alarm clock. It was the cake of soap with the razor still in it. “Your choice,” he said. “There are many ways out. But remember, the real evil is the denial of need. Do what you have to.” The door opened and closed softly. Wren blinked at the drying wounds on his wrists. The power to heal. The power to harm. He sat with his arms wrapped across his chest, rocking himself gently. Father. Mother. He drank some more vodka and began to cry. He cried until his throat ached and his eyes were burning. When night fell, he was still crying. But he still hadn’t picked up the razor blade.
The leaves are falling as if from far away,
as if a garden had withered in space;
the way they fall is like saying no.
—Rilke
<
~ * ~
BRIAN STABLEFORD
Quality Control
BRIAN STABLEFORD taught Sociology for twelve years at the University of Reading before becoming a full-time writer in 1988. He has published more than a hundred books, including over sixty novels, sixteen collectio
ns, seven anthologies and thirty non-fiction titles.
His vampire fiction includes the novels The Empire of Fear, Young Blood and Sherlock Holmes and the Vampires of Eternity, as well as a number of short stories. He has also translated numerous works of French vampire fiction, including Paul Feval’s Vampire City and The Vampire Countess, Marie Nizet’s Captain Vampire and Ponson du Terrail’s The Vampire and the Devil’s Son.
Stableford’s recent titles include Alien Abduction: The Wiltshire Revelations and Prelude to Eternity. He has also completed a five-volume set of translations of the scientific marvel fiction of Maurice Renard, and a six-volume set of the scientific romances of J. H. Rosny the elder.
The author was the recipient of the 1999 Science Fiction Research Association’s Pilgrim Award for contributions to SF scholarship, and he has also been presented with the SFRA’s Pioneer Award (1996), the Distinguished Scholarship Award of the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (1987) and the J. Lloyd Eaton Award (1987).
Having observed the world and what’s happening to it, Dracula advances his plans to re-establish himself and his fellow vampires as the dominant species ...
~ * ~
BREWER HADN’T BEEN in the Goat and Compasses for nearly a year. He didn’t need to go into places like that nowadays; he always met his runners on safer ground. His legitimate business was booming and it didn’t seem politic to be frequently seen in a pub known to be favoured by dealers, pimps and other assorted riffraff. There were no big players on view now, though; it was only lunchtime.
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