The bald dome of a head emerged first, cast by the moonlight as dull ivory. Creed remembered the intruder in his house had been stoop-backed. The freak came out from the shelter and now its hands, with their extraordinary long fingers and nails, were visible; white and skeletal, they were nasty-looking things. Its huge eyes were almost luminous, as though moonrays reflected on something behind them, giving off an inner gleam; their pupils were like jet-black dots. Its mouth opened and the two long, jagged teeth that touched its lower lip did nothing to enhance the grin.
As it came out into the open, its thin limbs like sticks, their movement brittle yet weaving, Creed could not help thinking of a giant spider emerging from its hole. The analogy was hardly calming.
‘Ohfuckinhell,’ said Creed in a hushed voice.
The ‘thing’ loitered in the gateway.
‘You really are an extremely loathsome person,’ the man from the cemetery told Creed, and this time his words had a wintry sharpness to them, all weariness apparently shed.
The photographer was lost for riposte, obvious though it should have been; instead he turned to run. At least his mind did. In fact, his mind had already scooted down the Broad Walk and was clambering over the railings at the end, whereas his body had remained rooted to the spot. With some effort he looked down at his feet as if to reprimand them. They refused to take notice. His attention shot back to the two figures by the bandstand.
‘Let’s negotiate,’ he suggested, and wondered if they’d understood him. The words had sounded garbled even to him. ‘I can easily get the film and the prints for you, it’d be no problem at all.’
A tickling around his ankle caused him to glance down again.
At first he could see nothing amiss, but as something tightened over his foot, he bent slowly to take a closer look. Something else snaked around his other ankle and he examined that one, too.
He murmured something too agonised to be understood.
Where he stood the grass was growing at an amazing rate; it slipped over his shoes and up into his trousers. He could feel the tendrils curling around his legs. Creed stepped back in fright – or tried to.
The grass blades tore, but their initial resistance sent him stumbling backwards. He fell, landing heavily on his butt, then flattening out on to his back. He pushed himself up almost immediately and as he sat there, stunned by the impossibility of his fall rather than the fall itself, the grass began to weave through his outstretched fingers.
His cry was less contained this time. He tugged his hands free and scrambled to his knees; but even then he could feel the long tendrils of grass wrapping themselves around his calves. Creed jumped to his feet, snapping the blades as he did so, then hopped a peculiar kind of dance in the moonlight, afraid that if he stood still too long he would be (literally this time) rooted to the spot. That frantic jig at least had one positive effect: it released him from the fear that had gripped him so tightly.
The stooped, bald-domed figure was making its way towards him again, one hand outstretched, a long bony finger pointed at Creed as if singling him out in a crowd. The ‘thing’ still hadn’t spoken, nor made a sound of any kind.
The stench of its breath reached Creed well before the emaciated creature itself did, and it was foul, the odour of sewers filled with excrement and dead things, enough in itself to overwhelm the most stalwart of us.
‘Keep away from me, you fucker,’ our hero warned, raising a fist above his right shoulder and taking the stance – and resisting the urge to retch.
That almost fleshless digit, with its gnarled and twisted fingernail, stretched even further forward and sank into the material of Creed’s buttoned coat. Literally sank in, raising steam as it went. Creed screeched when he felt it piercing his chest.
He found himself running, the moment of deciding to pull himself free of that impaling finger and run like buggery completely lost to his thoughts because it was never registered as a conscious decision in the first place. There was no pain, although he clutched at the hole in his chest to stem the blood that must surely flow, and the speed of his flight was something to behold despite the clumsiness of his stride.
There were trees ahead of him, a dark brooding clump of them, and he knew that beyond was the Albert Memorial, and beyond that the lovely, busy Kensington Gore, where there would be cars and people and maybe even (oh please Mother of Christ) policemen.
His pace slowed, his rhythm became even more awkward. His legs became uncoordinated. He ran in the jerky fashion of Jerry Lewis in his prime, stopping, starting, slowing . . . There was something wrong with those trees ahead. He stopped running altogether.
There was definitely something wrong with those trees ahead.
Because they were getting closer . . .
He was standing still.
And they were getting closer . . .
Creed could barely shake his head in disbelief. The clump of trees was moving towards him like a black-shrouded army, their leafless tops swaying as if caught by a wind, their trunks seeping – that was the only word to describe the slow but fluid shadow mass – forward.
Creed was soon running back in the direction he’d come from, back towards the bandstand and the two figures that waited for him there, one of them – the stooped one – standing in a clear and glittering patch of grass, thin arms outstretched to welcome him home.
Creed skirted around the Nosferatu clone and tasted the foul air that soured the breeze. As he ran he imagined one of those taloned hands reaching after him. His footsteps suddenly became sluggish, as if he’d hit an invisible boundary where the atmosphere was congealed, dragging at the body, rendering each movement an exaggeration of effort. It was the stuff of nightmares, that frustrating feeling of helplessness, when limbs are leaden and the slow stalking beast is catching up. A battle of wills, no less, between pursuer and prey.
Creed tripped over something lying in the grass and even his head-over-heels tumble seemed lazy and unreal. The jolt when he struck dirt, however, was realistically painful. But it did him some good. His thoughts and his tempo became brisk once more, as though whatever mental link existed between himself and the plodding oddity had been broken. Terror was the key, of course, for there’s a fine line between paralysing dread and galvanising fright. Adrenaline rushed with full force again and Creed lifted the collapsed deckchair he’d fallen over and hurled it at the stoop-back, who was now only yards away.
A wooden corner hit the pursuer in the bony face and Creed was relieved to observe it stagger. At least the freak was normal in that respect.
The low mewling sound it made indicated its displeasure; those long, clawed fingers rubbed the bridge of its nose. Creed didn’t linger to find out if blood – whatever colour – was going to flow. He fled, his stride no longer hindered by treacly air.
He looked over his shoulder and moaned aloud on seeing he was being followed again. And furthermore, just glancing back had somehow re-established the sensory link. His legs began to feel heavy once more.
‘Oh shit,’ he groaned.
The great expanse of pond was ahead, still solid and unrippled under the deblemishing moonlight. For one brief and hysterical instant he considered running across its surface to escape – it certainly looked firm enough – but then another thought crossed his mind (this one equally hysterical). He knew from all the horror movies he’d seen and all the junk books he’d read that vampires would not, could not, cross water (the fact that it’s running water that these things weren’t supposed to traverse was a detail Creed didn’t care to remember right then, and that was not unreasonable given his excitable state).
He staggered across the wide path that bordered the pond and plunged into the water.
Its shocking coldness was almost equal to the shock of his visions by the bandstand – the grasping grass, the approaching trees, et al. – in its heart-clutching intensity. The sensation served to slap his consciousness into better shape.
The water reached his knees and t
hen his thighs in no time at all, and he turned to face the chaser, taking care not to slip on the pond’s greasy bed.
Nosferatu’s double had come to a halt on the grass before the concrete pathway and was watching him. Creed fancied it looked perplexed, but at that distance and with the moon behind it really was impossible to tell.
‘That’s fucked you, you bastard!’ he called back, elated at having outwitted the beast. ‘A little cold water’s bad for the complexion, right? It’ll shrivel you to nothing.’ (At this stage of the game, Creed honestly believed he’d been chased by a vampire.)
He chuckled then. Creed actually chuckled. But the chuckle eroded to a dry moan when the ‘thing’ scuttled across the path – and now its movement was fast, undoubtedly like the swift rush of a spider (a huge, spindly spider) when it closes the final ground between itself and the ensnared fly – and entered the water.
At this point Creed’s professionalism, the learned and earned instinct that had become second nature, came to his rescue. He remembered the Nikon inside his coat pocket.
His first thought was to save it from the water. The second was to get a shot of this fabulous (in the nastiest sense) creature. His third thought – and they were all in rapid succession, each triggered by the preceding one – was inspired by the Hitchcock film, the one where the leg-in-plastered James Stewart uses his camera flash to temporarily blind a wife-murderer who has come to his apartment to silence the only witness to the crime (Mr Stewart, himself), giving the police, who’d already been alerted, a little bit of extra time to get there and save him. (The thought obviously occurred much quicker than it takes to explain it.)
He reached into his pocket and offered a silent prayer that the Nikon hadn’t become waterlogged. He held the camera chest-high and aimed.
The ‘thing’ was already up to its skinny knees in the pond.
16
You’ve just suffered a dramatic pause.
This was to emphasise that dreadful heart-stopping second or so before Creed pressed the shutter release without knowing whether or not the water had ruined his equipment. At such a time, the apprehension can be quite unbearable, so much so that a certain reluctance to discover the truth of the situation may hinder the action – in this case, the movement of a finger – for longer than is necessary, and sometimes, in the most dire circumstances, completely.
Fortunately, Creed was too motivated by self-preservation to mull over the situation, although he definitely paused and it was dramatic.
He closed his eyes and pressed the release.
The flare on the other side of his eyelids informed him everything was working normally.
He opened up immediately and was delighted to see the thin one standing before him as if transfixed. Those big marble-like eyes were not closed, but were staring directly at Creed; yet, their expression was blank and unseeing. The creature seemed to be in a state of suspended animation.
The photographer did it again, and this time the flash of white light sent the ‘thing’ tottering backwards until it fell with a plop rather than a splash into the water. It sprawled, its domed head, from chin to ridged skull, above the waterline, for all the world looking like a Hallowe’en buoy floating on the surface. The eyes continued to stare sightlessly, yet somehow balefully, at Creed.
Its mouth opened wide in what might have been a snarl, although no sound emerged. Strings of spittle hanging from pointed teeth to lower lip reflected moonshine as the cadaverous head arched skywards.
That vision, in all the starkness of the silvery night, leaden water encasing the rest of the creature so that the head appeared disembodied, an entity in itself, was the most heart-wrenching sight it had been Creed’s misfortune to witness thus far.
And when the vampire ‘thing’ shot from the water as if propelled by some great force beneath, so that water spouted with it like a hot-spring geyser, Creed’s legs gave way and he, himself, fell backwards.
Instinct saved the Nikon once more, for he held it aloft as he collapsed; he also pressed the button by accident, flooding the area with light again. Thoroughly soaked and spluttering brackish water, he struggled to regain his feet and was halfway up when he saw the stoop-back bearing down on him as if arriving from the night sky itself.
Creed yelped and threw himself aside, almost going under this time, the ‘thing’ diving into empty water, the whole of its body, bald head and all, submerging. It was up in an instant and capering after its prey like an aquatic grasshopper. Creed was practising his own hopping, moving away from the madman, trying to get to the edge of the pond, but tripping and drenching himself every step of the way, the pair of them presenting a frenzied kind of moonlight ballet.
Claws snagged on the photographer’s clothing, but he managed to wrench himself away. And then he was down on his hand (the other one clutching the camera to his chest) and knees only a foot or two from the path around the pond, with the freak drooping over him, the stench of its foul breath rotting the air Creed was so earnestly inhaling. Flesh-skimped fingers entwined themselves in his hair and Creed cried out as his head was jerked back.
Above him, two pointed teeth gleamed.
‘Ahhhhgnhhh,’ Creed said.
‘Hhhhhssssuh,’ came the whispered reply.
The teeth began to descend, to come closer and closer, and to Creed it was as if they came on their own without benefit of jaw and face, for his concentration was upon them, them and them alone. He could feel those fangs sinking into his flesh long before they reached him.
Suddenly he did become aware of the features around the two teeth, for ivory flesh had turned pale yellow.
The ‘thing’ looked away from him, showing an inverted profile. Brighter yellow sparkled in one bulbous eye.
Creed’s neck snapped forward as his hair was released, and his nose dipped into the water so that he snorted bubbles.
Nosferatu’s double was clambering up the gentle slope of the pond’s edge, twiggy legs rising high in comic fashion to tread over the water. Creed saw the glaring headlights approaching through the park and was puzzled for only a second or so, for it quickly dawned on him that lightning flashes in a supposedly deserted park on a perfectly clear night had obviously aroused the interest of a patrolling cop car.
‘Oh thank Christ,’ he moaned to himself, then he, too, was scrambling towards the concrete bank, desperate to get away from there, too panicked to stay and explain himself to the nice policemen, too damned scared to stay in that Twilight Zone one second longer.
The fleeing figure had been picked out by the headlights, its shadow thrown incredibly long and fantastically weird across the grassland. It was making for the bandstand and the vehicle had left the roadway to head it off.
Unseen, Creed dragged himself from the water and loped off in his own direction, back the way he’d come, crouching low as if that would make a difference and endeavouring to merge into the darkness of friendly (hopefully) trees. Not once did he look back.
Very soon he was at the perimeter fence and clambering over, not caring if he were seen on the other side. Three young men of Mediterranean cast, who were either waiters on their way home after a hard night’s work, or tourists in search of some action, turned in surprise as the bedraggled figure dropped to the pavement almost in their midst. They avoided him, at first astonished, but then pointing and laughing, walking on and turning to point again, cackling some more. Glad that he’d made their night, Creed sploshed across the road, looking for the street in which the Suzuki was parked.
As he drippingly hurried along, he clutched a hand to his chest and wondered if the freak’s homicidal finger had done permanent damage. At least there was no pain – yet – and when he took his hand away there was no blood. He paused beneath a sodium light and looked down at his damp chest, picking at the material of his coat, holding up segments for inspection. The coat wasn’t even torn.
Squelching onwards, oblivious to the curious stares and comments he evoked from people he passed – o
ne youngish lady of nocturnal trade declared he was the wettest dream she’d ever seen – Creed found his way to the jeep and climbed in with feverish relief.
He switched on the interior light and examined himself again. Not a rent, nor a drop of blood. What the hell was going on? He hauled off the coat and inspected his shirt. Judas, he really was all right. But he’d seen the smoke or steam rising from the cloth, felt that wicked, bony finger sink into his flesh. Yet . . . yet he hadn’t felt any real pain, had he? No, he hadn’t. The fuckers had played games with his mind. That was it, that had to be it! They’d messed with his head, tonight and last night! It’d all been illusions. He hadn’t seen what he thought he’d seen. No rippling grave, no hovering head at the window, no bedtime bloodsuckers, no walking trees – and no finger burrowing into his chest! The bastards were trying to scare him to death! And they were succeeding!
Creed shivered. He was cold, but he was more frightened than cold. He switched off the light and sat there in the dark, watching the street, nervous that they might have followed him.
No, right now the park pigs would be questioning them. One of them, anyway – the stick insect couldn’t have escaped. But they might visit him later back at the mews. Oh Jesus. Enough is enough. Time to turn the story over to the news editor; let the newshounds, the ‘insighters’, the investigative journos – the penheads – look into it. He could give them enough to get going. And why not call in the police again? After all, he had been attacked, and that cadaverous creep had broken into his home. (He wondered how the freak was explaining himself to the cops at that moment in the park. That it had a fetish for ice-cold, moonlight dips? With luck they’d put it in a cell for the night. With greater luck they’d lock it up for good on the indictment that it was too grotesque to roam free.) Hell, let the Dispatch decide; the ed would know how to play it.