Whitby Vampyrrhic

  Beth looked in on Sally. Her friend showed her that the bite wound had begun to heal nicely, which relieved them both. They chatted mainly about that, rather than the events of the night before. They knew that topic would be chewed over at length today by everyone in the hotel – everyone that could claim to be mortal, that is. And they still wondered what would become of the boy. Sally, golden-hearted as ever, hoped he could be moved to one of the big London hospitals, where some kind of cure could be effected.

  Beth didn’t contradict her. Yet what cures vampirism? Those Salts of Eleanor’s? Maybe. Leaving Sally to do her hair, Beth went downstairs. Alec shouted a ‘hallo’ from the kitchen where, true to his Scotsman roots, he’d boiled up a huge pan full of porridge oats. ‘Hot and salty – just how my countrymen like it,’ he claimed with gusto. ‘Want some?’

  Beth declined.

  Beneath the reception counter, Tommy and Sam lay on the blankets. The dog watched her with bright eyes.

  ‘Feeling better, Sam?’ She felt a surge of relief at seeing the dog so perkily alert. Tommy lay in the shadows. He never moved, or even showed any sign that he’d noticed her. Beth decided not to venture closer. Only too sharply did she recall her observations last night. 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. More than ever, Beth Layne believed that in some mysterious way that she couldn’t yet explain, Vampiric flesh had replaced the skin and muscle of the boy. However, the once mortal Tommy had provided the mould that had shaped the monstrous physique. She knew if she offered her theory to Alec and Eleanor it wouldn’t sound convincing. I will try to do so soon, she thought. It’s important that they perceive Tommy as being inhuman, not some tragic lost boy.

  Outside the front door of the hotel, lay the everyday world. One filled with sunlight, and the sounds of people living their lives. Quick footsteps, chatter, and even a peal of girlish laughter passed through those stout timbers. Yet, at that moment, Whitby and its population of human beings seemed impossibly remote. As if that step of a few inches from the hotel to the street had become a yawning gulf a million miles wide. Those men and women, with all the regular fixtures of life – gas bills, bank accounts, dentists’ appointments, brothers, sisters, parents, jobs; all the rivalries, all the ambitions for the future – those people could have been simply the imaginings of a dying god; one who populated this strange town with ghosts. Even though the clamour outside the door appeared lively as it was noisy, Beth feared that if she were to pull open the door she’d find a suddenly deserted street outside. One that carried wind-blown leaves and nothing more.

  A clunk of jars came from the basement door. Grateful to the sound for diverting her from some such troubling notions, Beth headed to the steps. ‘Eleanor? Is that you down there?’

  Beth descended into the basement. A stream of cold air carried the sound of lapping waves through the grating in the floor. Seconds later, Beth froze as a figure emerged from the shadows. Clad in glistening black, and wearing a rubber mask that concealed the entire face, it advanced, the eyes invisible behind disks of glass. It reached up and swept the gas mask from its face.

  ‘Eleanor! You nearly scared me to death!’

  ‘Sorry. I have to wear this, or, for me, it literally will be death.’ She sucked in a lungful of air.

  ‘It’s that rubber apron. I saw it in your room.’

  ‘One and the same, Beth, my dear.’

  ‘What on Earth are you doing?’

  ‘Come and see for yourself.’

  ‘You’re not making bombs, are you?’ Beth tried to make a joke of it to put herself at ease. This was shocking, to say the least: the appearance of that formidable woman in the black rubber apron, with its fastening of chunky metal buckles up the back, industrial gauntlets, and to reinforce the alien creature effect: a gas mask.

  ‘Watch what I’m doing. And, Beth, watch carefully.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, if anything happens to me, then you must finish the job.’

  ‘Eleanor, don’t say such a—’

  ‘Don’t smother me in platitudes, kindly meant though they are. You saw those things last night, and you saw what they can do to armed soldiers. What do you think they’d do to you, or me, or to any of our friends, if they had the chance?’

  ‘Eleanor—’

  ‘Watch me. Remember every step of the process. Because, if you make a mistake, it will kill you.’

  Beth followed Eleanor into a disused wine cellar. Empty racks lined the walls in this windowless cell. In the middle, a stout timber table dominated the space. Standing on the table, at least twenty clear bottles that would be large enough to contain a pint of beer. Also on the table, a gallon jar. A pale blue liquid half filled it. An acrid chemical stench floated on the air; its fumes bit into the back of Beth’s throat.

  ‘Stay just outside the doorway,’ Eleanor ordered. ‘The air’s fresher out there. And if I spill this stuff you won’t get splashed.’

  ‘What in God’s name is it?’

  ‘I’ll be explaining everything to you and the others later this afternoon. In the meantime, watch carefully.’

  ‘Eleanor? You’re not making bombs are you?’ Again, a desperate attempt at a joke to try to alleviate the sense of danger.

  ‘No, not bombs.’

  ‘Thank heaven.’

  ‘No, these will be infinitely more destructive than mere bombs.’

  Eleanor pulled the mask down over her face. The prominent rubber snout that housed a compartment for filters, which would prevent destructive gases reaching the wearer’s lungs, seemed somehow wolf-like. Eleanor checked the gauntlets were pulled up over her arms, then she set to work.

  The table top had been covered with a sheet of copper. Clearly, Eleanor didn’t want whatever dwelt in that big glass jar to come into contact with the wood. But why? The old table looked fit for the firewood. It certainly wouldn’t fetch money as an antique.

  With an air of absolute concentration, Eleanor placed the spout of a grey metal funnel into a beer bottle. Then, taking great care, she gripped the gallon jar. Slowly, she tipped it so the blue fluid streamed out into the funnel. When the bottle was half full Eleanor stopped pouring, set the jar down, then picked up a hammer from the shelf behind her. She also held a metal cylinder that was the same size and shape as the cardboard tube found in the centre of a toilet roll. Eleanor placed the tube upright on the bottle, which she’d half filled, then gently, but firmly, tapped the top of it with the hammer. When she removed it, Eleanor saw that the bottle was now sealed by a metal cap. It looked the same as those flat metal caps that seal ordinary beer bottles.

  As meticulous as a surgeon at work in an operating theatre, Eleanor repeated the procedure: carefully half fill a bottle with the blue liquid, then seal it shut by hammering a metal cap into place. In crates to the woman’s left, dozens of empty beer bottles. In crates to her right, bottles that boasted a silver cap. Beth knew for sure that those were no simple containers of honest-to-goodness Yorkshire ale.

  Beth stood at the doorway. Conscientiously, she studied Eleanor’s labours. One by one, the woman poured the chemical into the bottles. The deliberate actions resonated with those of a master armourer, crafting the weapons of war.

  And what kind of war? While the armies of the world clashed on the battlefields of Africa, Asia and Europe, here in this remote corner of England preparations were made for another conflict. A hidden, secret war.

  Beth Layne pictured those vampires that she’d glimpsed through the cave wall. Dozens, maybe hundreds of them, swarmed in the confines of the sump cavern. Naked body slithered over naked body. They didn’t have room to stand, or spend time alone – she was sure of that. Just how she knew, she couldn’t say, but images of those imprisoned vampires swarmed in her mind . . . of them writhing together in the crushing embrace of the cavern. Oh, she knew what they wanted. They craved a taste of blood. For there was none in that stone prison. Their minds must
beat with that single word: BLOOD. It would reverberate inside those naked skulls, like the pounding of a huge drum: BLOOD. BLOOD. BLOOD. BLOOD.

  How they’d ache for just a sip. They must dream of a single drop of that exquisite red stuff on their tongue. BLOOD. BLOOD. BLOOD. A river of glorious crimson being pushed by the heart through a fantastic cat’s cradle of arteries, veins, capillaries. And the sump cavern vampires must think constantly about the people of Whitby. Here are thousands of men, women and children, who are vessels to that glorious, velvety red liquid.

  The hammer clanged down on the table, then Eleanor strode through the doorway, dragging the gas mask from her face. ‘I’m out of bottle caps. Will you come with me for more?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We need to be quick. The sun will set in a couple of hours. Grab your coat. I’ll meet you in the lobby.’

  Eleanor worked her hands free of the rubber gauntlets. That done, she closed the door of the wine cellar before snapping shut a hefty padlock to lock it.

  ‘If you find yourself doing the bottling, keep that blue liquid off your skin. Off anything organic. Got that?’

  Beth nodded. ‘But what—’

  ‘I’m giving a lecture on it later, my dear. And I’ll give the three of you a vivid demonstration, too.’ She turned round. ‘Can you unbuckle me? Thanks.’

  A moment later, Eleanor hung the apron out of sight behind a brick buttress. She stowed the gas mask and gloves there, too.

  Before they headed for the steps, Eleanor turned to Beth. ‘I can tell from your treatment of Sam that you’re a dog lover.’

  ‘My family have five of them back home on the farm.’

  ‘There must have been times that you had to have an old dog put to sleep to spare it any suffering?’

  Beth nodded. ‘When you run out of medical options, it’s the humane solution.’

  ‘It’s taken me too many years to reach the same kind of decision. I have to destroy something I love, too.’ Her eyes glistened. ‘And I still don’t know if I can go through with it. Oh, I seem strong to those people out there.’ She nodded in the direction of Church Street that thronged with people. ‘But this is breaking my heart, Beth. And yet I know it’s the right thing to do. Dear God, it hurts.’ She grimaced. ‘Gustav and some of his pack were my friends a long time ago. You loved the dogs that you were forced to say goodbye to. I’m going to have to say goodbye to people that made life, back in my schooldays, worth living.’ She took a steadying breath. ‘The universe . . . this big old universe: sometimes it can be a cruel place, can’t it?’

  Six

  The act of stepping through the front door of the hotel into a turbulently busy Church Street felt so much like jumping into a fast-flowing river that Beth Layne found herself holding her breath. The narrow confines of the street, barely fifteen feet wide and lined by tightly packed cottages, channelled the flow of hundreds of town folk. This afternoon they all seemed in a rush. Maybe that could be blamed on the shortness of the winter’s day. By late afternoon it would be dark. Already a hard sunlight cast long shadows. No doubt these people longed to finish their errands before day yielded to night.

  Beth followed Eleanor in that speeding current of humanity. Children chased each other, shoving by the adults. Those adults, aplenty, carried baskets of groceries; a chimney sweep armed with sooty bristles on poles set off bad-tempered grumbling, when he brushed against the women’s clean coats. Eleanor tried to toss back some comment or other to Beth but the hubbub drowned her words.

  As Beth did her best to avoid losing sight of Eleanor in the crowds, she caught snatches of conversation from the locals.

  A man with a fishing net over his shoulder called to his mate: ‘Saboteurs! That’s what they’re saying. Slowitt’s kipper shed got burnt down last night.’

  The mate laughed harshly. ‘Why would Hitler bother himself attacking a shed for smoking fish?’

  ‘Oh, go stuff yourself, Hardacre. You always praised Hitler before the war.’

  ‘You filthy liar.’

  The men jostled, but the flow of people carried Beth away.

  At last, Church Street disgorged into a broadly open area at the junction with Bridge Street, near the Dolphin Inn. Here, at last, Beth could walk without being crowded, or wincing from sharp elbows being driven into her sides, albeit by accident. Clearly, however, rumours of last night’s events made the atmosphere spiky and nothing less than fraught. The army would keep facts about the attack on the soldiers a secret, considering wartime conditions made nearly everything a military secret. Then the authorities probably couldn’t find any bodies; presumably the Vampiric soldiers would have hidden themselves in their new lairs. Nevertheless, just enough information had leaked out to spark off speculation of all sorts. As Beth crossed the swing bridge with Eleanor, she heard rumours about Nazi parachutists landing in the abbey ruins, or pro-Hitler Black Shirts trying to set fire to the town. If only you knew the truth . . . Beth merely had to close her eyes for the night horrors to come streaming through her head. How Gustav and his clan had pounced on the soldiers in the cave.

  ‘Up this way,’ Eleanor nodded at a steep lane that ran from the waterfront. ‘As soon as we’ve got what we need, we’ll get back to the hotel.’ The woman appeared uneasy. ‘The people are jittery. When they’re like this it can spark of trouble.’

  Here, on Whitby’s West Side, the streets were a little broader. It also boasted modern stores that sold wireless sets and fashionable clothes (although availability was extremely limited due to the rationing). Through busy streets, squads of soldiers would hurry by. Until yesterday, the troops that guarded the town tended to saunter about in quite a relaxed way. Although they couldn’t know exactly the fate of their comrades, they’d know that some tragedy had occurred. Consequently, the soldiers moved briskly with grim expressions on their faces.

  Cold currents of air blew from the sea, as the pair climbed the steep incline. A wall poster flapped, inviting people to attend a special screening at the Whitby Picture House: The Turn of the Tide – a portrayal of local fisher folk by Leo Walmsley. A freshly pasted strip of paper across the poster screamed: CANCELLED! Up ahead, groups of boys hurled taunts at one another. A man swore at a horse that was reluctant to haul coal up the steep gradient. Down in the harbour, boats sounded their horns in short-tempered bursts. This air of fractious nerves and heightened tension added to the sense that a storm was about to break. But what kind of storm? Beth asked herself. The entire neighbourhood is nervy. People are eager to dole out theories of what happened last night, then they get themselves into a flaming temper when they’re not taken seriously by their friends. If you ask me, the town’s set to blow its top.

  Eleanor led the way into a general supplies store to collect a bag full of bottle tops. They resembled hundreds of blank silver coins. She checked them.

  ‘No, I ordered the plain metal ones,’ she told the storekeeper, who clearly didn’t like the woman from the way he eyed her with distaste.

  ‘They are the plain ones,’ he insisted.

  ‘No, these have a cork lining on the inside of the cap.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So that’s not what I ordered.’

  ‘Miss Charnwood. I don’t see the difference between the—’

  ‘There’s a world of difference, Mr Filby.’

  ‘But I don’t see—’

  ‘Mr Filby. Indulge me. I ordered metal caps without cork, just plain metal. That’s all I want.’

  He clicked his tongue. Obviously, he thought Eleanor Charnwood was being awkward for the hell of it. ‘There’s a war on, Miss Charnwood, or hadn’t you realized?’

  Eleanor scowled. ‘I know perfectly well there’s a war. But you supplied me with plain bottle tops, just two weeks ago.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t got any now. Take them or leave them.’ Shrugging, he went to arrange brown earthenware bowls on a shelf. Beth noticed he also used his thumb to wipe out prices chalked on the sides. That done, he beg
an chalking higher prices – much higher.

  Beth whispered, ‘Won’t these do?’ she indicated the silver disks in the bag.

  Beth, if that stuff I’m bottling comes into contact with the cork . . . well, you’d remember the results for the rest of your life.’

  Once more, Beth asked herself what, exactly, was the nature of that witch’s brew that was being decanted into the beer bottles.

  ‘Sorry, I couldn’t help you, ladies.’ As Mr Filby chalked inflated prices on the crocks, he smirked to himself. ‘But I can order more for you. The special corkless ones that is.’

  ‘You disgust me, Filby.’ Eleanor’s voice rose. ‘You’re a spiv, a cheat, a swindler. You’ll sell me the ones I need at an inflated price, won’t you?’

  ‘Consider it a favour I’m trading with you at all, Miss Charnwood. Especially, as most decent folk will have nothing to do with you. Now, I will bid you good day, ladies. Please close the door on . . . wait, you’re not allowed behind the counter.’

  Eleanor had slammed back the timber flap, then gone to search the shelves.

  ‘I’m warning you, Charnwood. I’ll have the police on you!’

  He rushed across, undoubtedly intent on dragging the woman out of the shop. Beth stood in his way.

  The man raised his hands to push Beth aside.

  ‘Mr Filby. Don’t you dare touch me.’

  ‘But that woman isn’t allowed behind the counter. It’s private.’ This time he tried to circle Beth. Smartly, she stood between him and the counter. His face went from red to purple. ‘Get out of my way!’