Alec and Sally were happy to be doing something as down-to-earth as fixing up a dog’s bed. As they chatted about what blankets they could use from the laundry store, it seemed as if each strove to repress memories of the night’s events. Eleanor suggested that they put the bed under the reception counter; Sam might feel reassured if he were closely sheltered by its wooden structure.
Sally chuckled, ‘It will be like an indoor kennel.’
Now that Sam had begun to recover, Tommy had taken to exploring his new surroundings. He’d seen Alec switch on the light in the foyer. So Tommy found a light switch in the dining room. He flicked it on and off. From his wide-eyed expression, he clearly found the way that he could plunge the room into darkness, then fill it with light again was marvellous – nothing less than a miracle. He worked the switch up and down: click . . . click . . . click . . .
‘How does it do that?’ he asked.
‘Is this first time you’ve seen an electric light, Tommy?’ Eleanor asked.
‘Leck Trick. Is that what’s making it go on and off?’
Eleanor shot Beth a tired smile. ‘Even though he doesn’t look it, I’d say our child of the night is much older then any of us.’ Then the smile faded. ‘But what are we going to do with him?’
‘His dog will need at least a few hours to recover.’
‘But we can’t let him roam about the hotel tonight.’
‘You can’t turn him out, surely?’
‘No, Beth. But he’ll have to be locked somewhere secure.’
‘You can’t keep him prisoner.’
‘It’ll just be for tonight. Though what will happen to him at sunrise, I just don’t know.’
Tommy still switched the light on and off. By now, the dog kept his head raised to watch his companion with a steady, untroubled gaze. Clearly, the pair were devoted to one another.
‘You know,’ Eleanor began, ‘he is like a real human boy. Because he’s become so damn annoying with that light switch.’
Beth saw that Eleanor was smiling, rather than being genuinely irritated. ‘Tommy,’ she called. ‘Leave that and see what I’ve got here. See this box? It’s called a radio. Listen what happens when I twist this knob.’
A light glowed behind the tuning dial. Tommy skipped across the room, excited to see such a thing. ‘What will it do, Miss?’
‘Wait a moment. It needs to warm up. Ah, here it comes.’
Over a faint hiss, a cultured male voice emerged from the speaker. With perfect diction it declaimed, ‘After the four o’clock news, there will be a gramophone recording of a new poem by Mr Dylan Thomas. Following that, the BBC night service will continue to broadcast a selection of light orchestral music for your enjoyment.’
Tommy exclaimed, ‘There’s a man in the box!’ He rushed to the radio and put his eye to the ventilation slots in the side. ‘He’s in there, Miss! I can hear him. But how’d he fit himself in that little cabinet?’
A recording of Big Ben’s chimes rang from the device. Tommy started back in astonishment. ‘And there’s a church clock in there, too.’
As Alec gently picked up Sam to carry him to the bed they’d made for him, a siren warned of incoming enemy aircraft.
‘I’ve heard that sound before!’ Tommy forgot the radio now. ‘When that engine starts its shouting, you see black crosses in the sky not long after. What are they?’
‘They’re flying machines, Tommy.’
‘Flying machines? Nah! There isn’t such a thing.’ He ran to the window to yank back the blackout material. On high ground, above the harbour, searchlights shot their beams upward. As if the gods of war brandished fiery sabres in the night. The narrow blades of light reached up to pierce a thin layer of cloud a mile above the earth. Carefully, the searchlight operators scoured the sky for Nazi bombers. Once the invaders were revealed, the anti-aircraft gunners would open to fire.
Sally switched off the dining-room chandelier, lest the glow pouring through the gap that Tommy had created in the curtain draw the attention of enemy pilots.
‘Why’s the town changed so much?’ Tommy asked, as he marvelled at columns of light that seemed as if they would sear heaven itself. ‘I’ve seen carts that shoot along roads without horses pulling them. They roar like lions. Now you’ve shown me Leck Trick light. And a box full of voices and sounds.’ He turned, so he could see the adults in the gloom. His face, a ghost-white smudge of a thing, set with eyes that lacked an iris. The little-boy-lost look had leeched away. They were in the presence of an inhuman creature. One that must have roamed Whitby and its surrounding hills for half a century or more. This was sixty pounds or so of muscle, skin, bone and hair that was no longer a child. And all the time, something that resembled a boy’s voice flowed through lips that should have been rotting in a grave. ‘Miss? Why has the world changed so much? It doesn’t seem real to me any more.’
The world hasn’t changed, Beth thought. You have. You aren’t human any more. You are undead. You are Nosferatu.
The four mortals were subdued. They headed down into the shelter of the hotel basement for the duration of the air-raid alert. Maybe it was because they were tired. Or perhaps it was because they knew that what they harboured in the hotel wasn’t a lost boy. This Vampiric creature would never grow into a man. He would forever remain this diminutive figure. One doomed to search for his parents. The dog had survived this time. But eventually Sam would grow old and be no more. The boy’s love couldn’t render the animal immortal. One day, Tommy would be friendless again. Come to that, might the boy still be wandering Whitby’s night-time streets a hundred years from now? By then, Beth and her companions, here in the basement, would have left their lives behind. They’d be at rest in their graves, shrouded in eternal darkness. For them there would be absolute peace. Tommy, however, would still be restlessly searching for his family. And still trying to make sense of a world that became increasingly strange to him.
As they sat on chairs in the cold subterranean air, Beth found her gaze drawn to the boy’s face. He was that vulnerable, lost child, and, simultaneously, he was profoundly inhuman. A night creature. Just as Eleanor had avoided being transformed into one of the Vampiric ogres, so a quirk of biology had prevented him from lusting after human blood. When Tommy had marvelled over what would be new technology to him – the electric light, wireless broadcasts, and aeroplanes – Beth had found herself believing this could have been some chirpy ten year old getting excited over something new. Yet, in retrospect, the voice emerged from something that resembled a corpse. His skin, although starkly white in the main, displayed patches of deathly blue. Black veins ran up from his hand to the sleeves of his jersey. Rooted in prominent blood-red gums, small white teeth. The white eyes blazed. Centring each, a fierce, black pupil that seemed so non-human and so utterly alien.
Tommy had found a toy soldier amongst old crockery on a shelf. He played with it quietly; the normal action of a youngster. But there was something terrible about his face. The expression wasn’t childlike at all now. And, at that moment, Beth stiffened as the revelation struck: What I’m seeing here isn’t a Vampiric boy. This is the body of a vampire that is haunted by the ghost of Tommy. The child’s spirit possesses the body of a monster. Only, he hasn’t realized it yet.
Beth gazed at the gaunt face. And she asked herself: if she had the opportunity, would she end Tommy’s existence? This poor, lost soul. Wouldn’t it be kinder to destroy him? If a way could be found that was quick and painless? For a long time those questions occupied her mind.
At ten to five that morning the siren’s ‘all clear’ rose up through the cold night air to reassure Whitby’s citizens that the air attack wouldn’t happen – at least not tonight. Any debate of where Tommy should be placed resolved itself when he climbed under the reception counter to snuggle up against Sam. The dog happily licked the boy’s ear, as the pair settled down for the rest of the night.
Tommy said in a worried voice, ‘I shouldn’t be here. But I’m not leaving S
am.’
‘Where should you be, Tommy?’
‘Before the sun starts to come up I run back to . . .’ He found it hard to express himself. ‘The place. In the dark. It’s where I sleep. It doesn’t seem as if I should be there, either. It’s like I dream I’m in the ground and . . . and I know I really am under the rock.’ The reality of his condition obviously threatened to overwhelm him, because in a sudden change of tone he deliberately shrugged off his growing anxiety. ‘I don’t understand it. But my dad will explain it all when I find him.’ He snuggled on the blanket until his face rested alongside Sam’s head.
‘Tommy,’ Eleanor said gently, ‘I need to lock the doors now. I have to lock the door at the top of those stairs, too. So don’t try and leave this room, will you?’
He accepted all this as normal. ‘I’ll be good. Thank you for making Sam better. I got really frightened tonight when the soldier threw him.’
Alec and Eleanor shot Beth a glance that demanded just what happened to you and Sally tonight?
As for Sally, she seemed ready to fall asleep there and then in the lobby. Her clothes bore their own testimony to the night they’d endured. The poor girl still had flecks of white ash from the shed blaze in her hair.
Beth shrugged. ‘No doubt we’ve got a lot to talk about. Only, not tonight, huh?’
Alec nodded. Even so, for a while they were reluctant to leave Tommy and his dog. However, both lay in the snug confines beneath the reception counter. The timber sides and top provided the pair with a miniature house of their own.
‘Come on.’ Eleanor yawned. ‘We can safely leave them. I’ve locked the doors to the dining room, office and kitchen. And I can lock those twin doors on the first floor landing, so Tommy and Sam . . .’ She could have added ‘will be locked in the lobby’ but, with graceful sensitivity, she concluded the sentence with, ‘So both of them will be safe and sound.’
That said, the four wearily climbed the stairs. Not much of the night remained. Normally, Beth would have wondered what surprises the coming day would bring. Only, this time she was acutely aware that the next nightfall lay only a dozen hours away. This prompted troubling thoughts: So what terrors will tomorrow night bring? What nightmares? What dread . . .
Two
Alec Reed woke in total darkness. Luminous markings on the travel clock on his bedside table gleamed a faint spectral green. It told him it was half past twelve. Whether that was thirty minutes beyond midnight or midday he had no way of knowing.
Usually, the first sensation to reach him on waking was the itch in his injured eye. The bomb explosion, which claimed the lives of his colleagues, had sent a sliver of glass flying through the air to nearly detach his eyelid from his face. Slowly, new cells knitted themselves into his flesh. In his imagination, the pricking resulted from dozens of miniature needles that sewed the wound shut from within.
As he lay there, one finger lightly touching the swollen flesh above his eye, he became acutely conscious of the flow of blood through his own body. The stuff of life. This was the miracle liquid on which all animals depended. Alec had read somewhere that blood resembled the make-up of ocean waters to a remarkable degree. It had the same saltiness; it contained elements in suspension, such as iron, zinc and magnesium.
So – vampires?
Alec Reed lay in the darkness of his hotel room, and he replayed the events of last night. He recalled his utter disorientation from the affects of the drug (damn that woman, Eleanor, he didn’t know whether to slap her or kiss her; her beauty made that red stuff in his veins flow faster. Yet what a reckless act? To add narcotic to their drinks?). Pay attention, Alec, he told himself, you’re letting your mind wander (and it would be nice to wander Eleanor’s way; was she lying in her bed, right now?). Come on, focus your thoughts. Consider the vampires. They went berserk last night when blood spilled from the shot soldier. They crave blood like an addict craves drugs. But is it the liquid they want? Or might it be something else? The traces of metal in the blood? Or might they have found a way to feed off electrical currents in the human body? Alec sat up. A bead of liquid trickled down his cheek in the darkness. That bloody eye again. He kicked away the blankets, then, by guesswork alone, walked to where he judged the window should be. His outstretched hand felt the fabric of the blackout curtain. Quickly, he swished it aside.
‘Ah . . .’ At least he’d solved whether it was just after noon, or gone midnight. Sunlight crashed into the room. Its brilliance made him screw up his good eye. At last, however, he found himself looking out upon Whitby harbour on a bright February day. Fishing boats lay alongside wharves. Hoards of men, clad in bright yellow oilskins, hoisted baskets of glittering fish ashore. The mass of houses on the far side of the River Esk climbed up the hillside, seemingly ready to float away into the calm blue sky.
What a beautiful place, he told himself. But what an accursed town . . . considering what threatens it. Nothing less than a tide of people flowed along the waterfront road. As he gazed on the scene, he found himself rehearsing what he’d tell the police this afternoon. Because he’d ultimately realized that this war against those night creatures wasn’t his alone (or Beth’s, or Sally’s, or even the formidable Eleanor’s). But do you mention the word “vampire” to a solidly down-to-earth desk sergeant? No, don’t tell it. Reveal it. He’d explain he found something troubling in a cave up on the cliff top. Then he’d show the police officers the aftermath of the battle in Hag’s Lung between vampires and soldiers. What then? Well, that would be up to the police. And Alec Reed would be free of this particular nightmare at least.
Three
Oblivious to Alec Reed’s plan to reveal what he knew about the creatures to the police, Eleanor descended the hotel stairs a shade after half past twelve. She unlocked the doors on the first floor landing, then descended the remaining steps to the lobby.
Sam sat beside the prone figure of Tommy. The boy’s face gleamed a dreadful white beneath the reception desk. His eyes were closed. Whether he breathed or not was difficult to tell. Then again, he didn’t look that much different from her brother, Theo, by day. She knew full well that the substance known as Quick Salts, with which she dosed her brother every evening, had prevented his transformation after the attack by the Vampiric Gustav Kirk twenty years ago. Often she wondered if Theo would transform fully into a vampire if she stopped administering his medicine. Not that she ever intended to conduct that particular experiment. The consequences were too dreadful to contemplate.
The dog didn’t resent her touching Tommy’s face, in order to check that he was deeply unconscious. Nor did Sam object to being let out into the yard to answer the call of his own decidedly canine nature. Eleanor served up the remains of an old mutton stew for Sam, which he wolfed down hungrily. Clearly, the bang on the head hadn’t caused lasting injury. And when she rubbed the fur on his neck he responded by wagging his tail and watching her with bright eyes.
‘You do know that you’ve found a strange master, don’t you? Tommy isn’t like other little boys.’ Sam pricked up his ears and tilted his head to one side as she spoke. ‘Right, you go look after Tommy. I’ve got work to do.’
Sam quickly made himself comfortable by the comatose form on the floor – a starkly pale, boy-shaped thing. One of the clan of creatures that Eleanor had, at last, decided to burn from the face of the earth.
Four
Sally Wainwright climbed out of bed, just as the hallway clock struck one. For a while she stood at the window. Sunlight, wonderful nightmare-banishing sunlight – it cascaded through the window into her room. For a while, she watched the bustle of normality outside. Women in long skirts all seemed to be hurrying to their own personal destinations somewhere along Church Street. Nearly everyone carried a basket or bundle of sorts. Men moved more slowly, or stood in groups smoking cigarettes and talking with grave expressions. In an alleyway, a dozen clothes lines criss-crossed between houses. From them fluttered sheets that were a brilliant crisp white in the sunshine. A boy of
around seven rolled a bike wheel along the roadway. Its steel rim clattered on cobble stones. When it bounced off the side of a handcart, being pushed by an elderly man, he snatched off his huge floppy cap and tried to swipe the tyke with it.
Sally watched all this. Yet memory dragged her back to last night, when the solider had attacked them. They’d been trying to hide in that shed where the fish were being smoked. Recollections of the conflagration made her flinch. When she’d opened her eyes in bed a few minutes ago, she’d hoped it all had been a terrible dream. But the tingle on her wrist drew her attention to the bite. She couldn’t hide from reality. There really had been those creatures in the cave. She and Beth had been pursued by the pack of vampires. The Vampiric soldier had followed them into the shed. What’s more, she knew the dog and the boy creature would be downstairs.
She checked the wounds beneath the bandage. There they were: puncture marks that formed a pattern of dots like so :::: Thankfully, they were healing. At times, she’d convince herself that she’d be transformed into one of those awful leering, ravenous things. With something close to a sob, she let her face rest against the cold glass. ‘I just want to make my film. That’s all. Please God, make those monsters go away.’
Because she knew that soon they would return. And next time, she and her friends might not make good their escape.
Five
Beth found there was plenty of hot water, in wartime Britain, a commodity that had become a rare luxury. The odour of the grim cave known as Hag’s Lung still clung to her skin. Not to mention a sprinkle of ashes in her hair from when she’d set the shed alight. So, with growing anticipation, she ran a deep bath, added some of her precious supply of purple bath salts that she’d bought from Harrods before the war, then she gratefully immersed herself into steaming water. A sigh of pleasure gusted from her lips. Magically, or so it seemed to her, the grim odours of last night were washed away in a second. For the next fifteen minutes she leisurely, yet thoroughly, soaped her smooth skin. A hand mirror allowed her to check for anxiety lines around her eyes (thankfully, there were none). Then she fully immersed herself three times for good measure. When she finally emerged from the bathtub, it felt more like a rebirth than simply a good scrub up. After she’d towelled dry, dressed in an A-line skirt, together with a flatteringly figure-hugging yellow sweater, she felt ready to face the world – and all its nightmares.