Her Vampyrrhic Heart

  ‘You’re dressed,’ Owen said.

  ‘Your talent for observation astounds me, Sherlock.’ He threw another paper clip. It bounced off the window pane into the bedpan. ‘Not bad, uh? I’ve invented my own physical therapy.’

  ‘I hadn’t expected to see you out of bed.’

  ‘You mean you thought I’d be dribbling and babbling nonsense.’

  ‘You do that anyway, so why change the habit of a lifetime?’

  Jez laughed, pleased that they’d returned to their usual banter. ‘I’m waiting to be discharged.’

  ‘Don’t you dare discharge yourself near me. I’ve only just cleaned these boots.’

  Again, Jez laughed, but his face then turned serious. ‘The police keep asking me questions. They want to nail me for causing the crash.’

  ‘But you didn’t though, did you?’

  Jez shook his head. ‘No … the trouble is I’m not sure what happened. I remember driving the truck at a big animal. I was convinced it was going to attack the woman.’

  ‘You’re telling me there really was an animal? I thought your brains were blasted by painkillers.’

  ‘Sometimes I really believe that there was this big brute … something really weird and alien, and it was the size of a whale, then …’ He shrugged. ‘I dunno. Maybe I dreamt it and the dream got mixed up with reality.’

  ‘Have the police told you any more about the cause of the crash?’

  ‘They’re puzzled. You can tell by the way they look at me they’re baffled.’

  ‘If they can’t prove what happened you’ll be in the clear.’

  ‘That’s what I’m hoping. They’ve admitted that they haven’t found traces of the bus’s paint on my truck.’ He sighed. ‘But it gets stranger, Owen.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘When the cops left, I trailed them down the corridor, so I could listen to them talking about me. One of them was telling the other what a state the minibus was in, and he said that he’d seen nothing like it before. He said that the metalwork wasn’t smashed inwards, like you get in a crash, but it had been ripped open and outwards.’

  ‘You do know that Kit and me believe you?’

  ‘Thanks, Owen. Do you want to write something rude on my cast?’

  ‘We did yesterday. Don’t you remember?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Are you in pain at all?’

  Instead of answering, he said abruptly, ‘I’m going to give up school and work full-time at the farm.’

  ‘Good idea. I might join my brother and become a pro diver.’

  ‘Nah, you’ll never do that. You’ve the brains to go to university. Kit will go off there, too. Of all things, he wants to get into police forensics. He’ll be investigating traffic accidents.’

  ‘I thought Kit might come along during the free period.’

  ‘He came earlier.’

  ‘Oh, how was he?’

  ‘Odd, but there’s madness in his family, isn’t there? He might have inherited the gene.’ Jez spoke as if he was joking but seemed uneasy.

  ‘Kit told me he’d got a girlfriend.’

  ‘Freya? He said the same thing to me, too. Apparently, she just showed up in his yard at night and they hit it off.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘That’s what he told me.’

  ‘It might be because of Eden that he’s acting weird.’

  ‘Who the freaking marmalade is Eden?’

  ‘My girlfriend.’

  ‘Crap! Something’s catching. I crash the truck into a field, and you two get girlfriends overnight.’

  Later, as Owen walked back to school, he was thinking about Kit. Here’s an idea, he thought. Why don’t we go out on a double date? Eden and me. Kit and Freya. That way we can all be friends, and Kit might stop being so cranky. Owen grinned. He couldn’t wait to suggest the idea of a double date to Kit.

  PART THREE

  (Regimental Testimony on the Battle of Lepping Forest as written by Colonel Fulton, Christmas Day, 1726)

  I deployed fifteen cannon on the river bank. Behind the cannon stood one hundred men armed with muskets. We had been summoned by the parish priest of Danby-Mask in order to destroy a beast that had been inflicting damage upon dwelling houses, and injury and death upon the villagers.

  Wisely, I had the foresight to bring a young wench from Whitby Gaol in order to bait my trap. Although the wench protested with most pitiful screams, I had her bound to a tree close by the river. More comely and voluptuous bait I have yet to see! My men laughed and readied themselves for a night of sport, for none had ever targeted their artillery cannon at a monster before. Although I candidly admit that we doubted such a creature’s existence. The local peasants are such a foolish rabble. I dare say they believe in witches riding broomsticks as well as a dragon that dwells in the valley

  Yet perhaps we were the foolish ones to scorn the notion of creatures born of black magic. For at midnight the river waters gave a formidable heave. The blackness yielded to a glistening of white foam. Upon my word, a leviathan burst forth. The creature heaved itself on to the shore. In the light of our lanterns I clearly saw its vile body. From beneath that vast form, which was the size of a whale, protruded human arms and legs, while studding its flanks like white pearls were dozens of human heads. They opened their mouths and emitted a serpent hiss that frightened my men. The wench screamed as the creature charged forth. Whereupon I gave the order to fire. Fifteen cannon roared. Fifteen cannon balls, I do declare, struck the beast with a sound akin to vast hands clapping together. The dragon seized the wench and tore her clear and free from where she’d been bound to the tree, before retreating into the river where it vanished.

  I hereby state that the bombardment of cannon balls did no harm to the creature. Subsequent rifle fire did not even appear to scratch its monstrous flesh.

  The parish priest later declared that the beast is called Helsvir. He further claimed it was constructed from cadavers by a pagan devil-god long ago.

  Last night my men battled with the creature again. Many brave soldiers were taken by this monstrosity known as Helsvir. There is no sign of the missing men. I therefore conclude that they have been joined with its body in some occult manner – and now good and brave Christians have been horribly merged with pagan flesh and bone.

  FIFTY-SIX

  The hospital sent Jez Pollock home at four o’clock. By five o’clock Jez sat with a plate of sandwiches in the living room. His mother insisted that he take painkillers with a glass of milk, fearing that the strong medication would upset her son’s stomach. His parents’ faces were the essence of worry. They fussed over him, trying to reassure their boy that he was not responsible for an accident that might have cost the lives of six people.

  His father’s manner, however, suggested that he believed the police would soon be pounding on the front door. ‘Why was a little bus like that trying to cross the stream?’ His father kept repeating this mantra in bewilderment. ‘Nobody uses the ford when the stream’s risen over the danger mark. You’d think folk would have more sense.’

  ‘Drink your milk, dear.’ This was his mother’s mantra. ‘Drink your milk; it’ll stop the painkillers from making you feel sick.’

  ‘I don’t feel sick,’ Jez told her for the tenth time. ‘If anything, milk makes me want to puke.’

  ‘Your mother’s only trying to make you feel better, lad,’ his father said patiently. ‘She’s doing her best.’

  ‘I’m seventeen next week.’ Jez pushed the glass of milk away. ‘I’m not your little boy any more.’

  ‘How’s the arm?’ His father pointed at the cast.

  ‘Itchy.’ The itch had become demonic. He wanted to scream at that irritating tickle. ‘You know, I’ve got to wear this thing for five weeks.’ Picking up a fork from the table, he jabbed it inside the cast to try and kill the itch. The sudden extra pressure against the broken bone triggered an explosion of pain. ‘Shit.’

  ‘Are you
alright, son?’ asked his father full of concern.

  ‘Am I hell! A busted arm? A ripped-up face? And I’m going to prison for killing those people on the bus!’

  ‘Your milk …’

  ‘I’m sixteen, Mam, I’m not a kid. I’m old enough to get married. And I’ve got the cops breathing down my neck, because I saved that woman from …’

  ‘From what son?’ His father glanced at his mother. Boy-oh-boy, the quantity of worry there. The sheer anxiety. ‘What did you save her from?’

  A sensation of panic engulfed Jez. He’d never felt this way before. Jesus, I feel like running away.

  Jez grunted, ‘I’m going for a lie down.’

  ‘Your milk—’

  ‘Dump it.’

  Bile rose from his stomach to burn his throat … he could taste the evil stuff, damn it.

  As he clattered upstairs his mother called up after him, ‘Try to rest, son. Call if you need anything.’

  I need a one-way ticket to Peru, he told himself, feeling hot, panicky and downright scared. The cops are going to pin the accident on me. They’re determined to have some poor bastard to blame … that poor bastard’s gonna be me.

  Jez sat on the bed, his clothes all wet from sweating. Beyond the window, snowflakes sailed by. He began to pace the room; a caged animal kind of pacing. Restless … irritable … unable to drain away excess energy … feeling the tension rise and rise to the point where he felt his skin would burst like an over-inflated balloon. Damn it! The cast became a God-awful weight – a great big coffin for his arm. I want to rip the damn thing off – this is torture! He kicked aside his slippers. A startled spider ran up the wall. Will I be doing this in prison? Pacing my cell? Wondering if the prison psychos are going to get me in the showers?

  The walls seemed to close in. He could hardly breathe. The pain in his arm grew worse. Beneath the cast, the itch crawled over his skin. An army of spiders in there – scurrying, crawling, biting … Jez longed to scream.

  ‘I’m going to die tonight. I’m going to die!’ He caught sight of his face in the mirror. The bruised oval set with glittering eyes made him flinch. He’d forgotten how beat up his face was.

  A flashback put him back behind the wheel of the truck again. The darkness. The road ahead. The woman running and running and running … stumbling … balling up on the ground – and that thing following her. No, more than following! Pursuing! Hunting! He’d driven at the monster as if the truck had become a missile. The engine roared. The monster had dozens of faces, dozens of arms, dozens of legs!

  Dear God, he started to remember. He really had seen an animal. And he had saved the woman. He’d crashed the truck into its huge, slimy body …

  The sound of a car sent him lurching towards the window. The police! They’re here to take me away. Panic and sheer terror sent his heart racing. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. I saved the woman …’

  A car came bouncing along the lane to the farm. He expected blue lights to start flashing … the wail of a siren. Standing there at the window, he held his breath as its headlights lit up the farmyard. If it’s the police, I’ll run. No way am I going to get locked up. The car swept up to the front door. Jez thought his heart would explode. His chest hurt, he felt pressure build in the back of his throat. Vomit getting ready to punch through his mouth.

  Jez sighed. He recognized the car. The Volvo belonged to Ken Hughes. Jez’s parents and Ken co-owned the milking depot just down the road. Two farms had gone into partnership to buy new equipment that would milk their herds more quickly and efficiently.

  ‘So … no police,’ Jez whispered. ‘Though I know they’ll come soon. They’ll fix the evidence so they can charge me with killing those people on the bus.’

  Shuddering, the sixteen-year-old ripped open a carton of prescription painkillers. OK, he’d taken a dose just five minutes ago, but he needed more. His arm hurt as if it was being gnawed by rats. Felt like sharp teeth crunching at that white stick of bone in his arm. He swallowed another couple of pills. They both stuck in his throat. Milk?

  ‘No way! Not frigging milk.’

  I’m seventeen next week. I’m old enough to decide what’s best for me. After a barbecue party at the farm during the summer he’d come across a bottle of vodka that still had a generous slop of spirit in the bottom. He’d hidden the voddy in a box under his bed. Bound to come in handy one day, he’d reasoned.

  Damn it, the day had come – he needed some of the hard stuff. He spun the cap off, then took a massive swallow of that hellfire spirit. The painkillers slid down his throat to join their companions, which he’d swallowed five minutes ago. Good. Double bubble. A pompous voice in the back of his head warned him of ‘exceeding the prescribed dose of medication’. Shut up, I need to kill the pain. In truth, though, he ached to dampen down this screaming anxiety. Need something to relax me. Pills and booze. Yeah, that should do it. Drugs and alcohol.

  To his surprise he blurted with laughter. He knew that mixing strong alcohol with prescription drugs was dangerous, very dangerous … deathly dangerous … yet he didn’t care. In the last thirty-six hours he’d gone through hell. If the next thirty-six hours were going to be hell, he wanted, absolutely wanted, pills and forty per cent proof liquor. Of course, they might kill him … but he wasn’t thinking clearly any more. Jez Pollock hadn’t deliberately chosen suicide. Yet he’d embarked on a deadly route to exactly that outcome.

  Snow rattled against the window pane – the sound of the soul-taker’s claws. Six forty p.m. Death approaching.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  That Monday evening, as the snow fell, Kit stared at the whisky on the pantry shelf. His mother had decided to go to the pub. She didn’t usually go out at night, preferring to drink at home. Only she’d heard her ex-husband might be there. So Mrs Bolter had put on a clean dress, brushed her coat, applied lipstick and hurried to the village, praying for a miracle. Kit knew that his mother hoped to win back the man she still loved with all her heart.

  Kit stared at the bottle of whisky. The amber spirit called to him now: because of what happened to Jez on Saturday night, and because of seeing Jez all bruised, his arm broken, and the threat of a police charge hanging over him. Then an argument with Owen, his other best friend, had turned violent. But worst of all: Kit had discovered a frightening darkness inside his own head. Over the years it had grown. Was it due to worrying about his mother’s fondness for the whisky bottle? Or wondering if he’d follow in his father’s footsteps as a violent thug? When Kit gazed into the mirror these days he saw that darkness behind his eyes. Maybe it was nothing to do with his mother’s drunkenness, or his father’s violent habits. He knew that a streak of madness ran in the Bolter family. The colour of that streak is black. Would the whisky help make the darkness inside his head vanish? At least for a while?

  A mouse ran from a hole in the pantry wall, across his foot and down a crack in the floor. What a dump. Living in a place like this infested with mice, rats, and oozing with damp would make even the sanest person want to flip.

  Kit opened the bottle and sniffed. Whisky fumes prickled his nose. Kit pictured himself drinking from the bottle. After that, he’d lie down on the sofa, his head lolling, his eyes glazed – just like his mother.

  With a savage shake of his head, he replaced the cap, and shoved the bottle to the back of the shelf. No … I’m going to fight this. I’m not going to be like those other deadbeats in my family. I’m going to make something of myself. I’m going to university. I’m … Oh, God.

  Straight away, he saw it through the kitchen window. His scalp tingled, shivers gushed down his spine, freezing his blood. There, through the glass, a pale oval framed by blond hair. Pure white eyes gazed in at him. The black pupils: cold drops of death.

  Freya. She’s come back, just like she said she would. Heart beating faster, he ran to the door and opened it. A tide of snowflakes rushed in.

  There she stood. Barefooted. Frightening. Yet glorious, and beautiful, and – someho
w – the woman he’d wanted all his teenage years. The fact that she wore no shoes in these sub-zero temperatures didn’t trouble him. Freya was the miracle he’d dreamt of. Another human being who had the ability to look into his eyes and recognize the darkness that lay behind them. Instinctively, he knew she understood how he felt. Here was a human being who would be his loyal ally. A friend in adversity. Without a shadow of doubt, he knew that in Freya he would find a meeting of hearts as well as minds.

  If a warning voice told him that Freya was a monster … a vampire woman … a creature blighted by a curse … well, so what … he ignored that voice. Because the harrowing events of the last twenty-four hours had caused madness to blossom in his own mind. This dead–alive creature standing barefoot in the snow … this woman with black veins showing through her white neck and staring at him with those lovely/nightmare eyes was his soulmate. His growing madness wouldn’t permit any contradiction of that belief. Freya is mine. I love her.

  This vision of impossible beauty moved slowly towards him. A snowflake landed between her dark eyebrows but did not melt. Skin that was colder than the snow itself wouldn’t melt the flake. How could it?

  ‘I didn’t think you’d come back.’ Kit’s heart beat faster, sending the blood racing through his neck.

  ‘I promised I would.’ She spoke softly. ‘You’re the only one who can help me.’

  Kit liked that feeling of exclusivity. ‘Of course I’ll help you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What would you like me to do?’

  ‘Promise me you’ll help me tonight.’

  ‘I promise.’ He smiled. ‘You can trust me.’

  ‘I know I can.’ She smiled back. The eyes gleamed as whitely as massive pearls. ‘When I first saw you I realized I could trust you. You’re nice. I like you.’

  ‘I like you.’ Sanity protested. However, madness beat sanity down with deranged ferocity. Nevertheless, Kit Bolter enjoyed a powerful sense of calm. OK … the calm before the storm, he realized at a deeper, suppressed level. The storm of madness and violence would break soon. Freya is Death in the shape of female beauty. That’s poetic, he thought. Byronic. The beautiful and the damned belong together.