Her Vampyrrhic Heart

  Tom returned to the living room. Mrs Valko slept in the armchair by the fire. June sat on the sofa.

  ‘Anything?’ she asked as he went to the living room window.

  ‘Nothing.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘Nothing but trees that is. You know, sometimes I find myself believing that the vampires can turn themselves into trees and stand there watching us. Does that sound too weird?’

  ‘The entire forest is weird. There are weird vampires lurking out there. No wonder you have weird ideas, Tom Westonby. Coffee?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Mrs Valko muttered in her sleep.

  June’s eyes held a gentle fondness as she gazed at her mother. ‘The only time she does speak is when she’s asleep, though I can never make out any actual words.’

  He guessed what was on her mind. ‘Your father might not come back. Remember, he turned into one of those vampires over twenty years ago. The ones that transformed a long time ago are even less human than the more recent converts – if “converts” is the right word.’

  ‘He climbed down the chimney and stood there in the fire so he could see me. I’d be happy if he just came and knocked on that door.’

  ‘We couldn’t let him in. It would be too dangerous.’

  She sighed. ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you still believe that your mother will be …’ He searched for a sensitive way of finishing the sentence.

  ‘Miraculously cured?’ June’s smile was a sad one. ‘I don’t know. All I do know is that this is my mother’s last chance. The doctors can’t make her heart better. What I have done, I guess, is bundle up all the bits of faith, hope and optimism I’ve got left, and gambled on this one slight chance. If she just catches a glimpse of her husband then that might fix something inside, and she’ll get well again.’

  ‘I hope it works. I just didn’t want you to think that I’d open the door and let him in. Something tells me that inviting a vampire into the house would end in disaster, don’t you agree?’

  June gave him an appraising glance and knew he was being deadly serious. ‘So, keep the vampires out?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know, as I’ve sat here, I’ve been imagining what I’d do if I saw him from the window. In my mind’s eye, I see myself waking my mother. Walking her to the window then pointing him out. I can even hear myself saying, “Look, there’s your husband, Jacob Bekk – he’s my father, isn’t he?” Of course, I then imagine my mother standing up straight, there’s a big smile on her face, and suddenly she’s talking happily. She’s seen him with her own eyes, and that’s a big enough miracle in its own right – her heart heals itself.’ She tried to laugh, although it sounded more like a sob. ‘Don’t we humans delude ourselves? Lots of us have impossible dreams of becoming rich and famous. How many of us loyally love someone when actually they don’t give a damn about us?’ Her blue eyes fixed on the fire; crackling logs sent torrents of yellow sparks up the chimney. ‘So maybe I am deluding myself that a man, who isn’t even human any more will appear outside the house, and then my mother will see him and be cured. Tall order, huh?’

  ‘No more than me believing Nicola will come back. She turned into a vampire five years ago, and still I expect to see her standing at that door one day.’

  ‘Maybe that separates us from the animals?’ June walked towards the kitchen. ‘We humans spend half our lives expecting that impossibly wonderful things will happen to us. I’ll get the coffee.’

  Tom returned to his vigil at the window. Moonlight fell on to the forest, creating an ethereal, luminous glow. Heartless winds from the Arctic sent a pulse of movement through the trees, giving the impression that all those claw-like branches and gnarled trunks were shuddering into life.

  June called out from the kitchen, ‘I’ve found some cake. Hmm, lemon drizzle. Would you like me to cut you a piece?’

  In the chair by the fire, Mrs Valko muttered in her sleep. ‘Jacob,’ she droned. ‘Jacob’s coming.’

  The breeze made the gargantuan oaks dance to a tune as old as time itself. That ice-cold river of air poured across the roof, drawing out a forlorn-sounding cry from this lonely house, where so many generations had lived and died.

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  Two miles from Skanderberg cottage lay Pollock’s Farm. Inside the farmhouse, a barely suppressed violence crackled in the air. Owen Westonby and Eden Taylor stood at one end of the living room. Kit Bolter sat on the sofa at the other. One of the first-aid dressings had come free from his cheek. It swung about as he whipped his head this way and that, getting angrier and angrier. Meanwhile, Jez Pollock paced the room; he had the pent-up rage of a cornered bear.

  Owen spoke loudly: ‘Kit, I asked you a question: how did you fake it?’

  ‘I didn’t fake the video.’ Kit touched play on the phone before holding it up, so they could see the eerie figure of the woman on-screen. Beyond her moved a massive shape that appeared studded with human faces. ‘How could I fake something like that? Do I carry CGI around in my pocket? Because that’s what I’d need to put a monster like this one on film!’

  ‘Kit, you’ve acted so freaking weird ever since—’

  ‘You met her!’ Kit jabbed a finger at Eden. ‘It’s like you’ve turned into a different person.’

  Jez hugged his broken arm against his chest. The orange cast now appeared grubby and chipped. ‘Owen, if you insist that animal’s a fake that means you’re saying that I must have smashed into the bus. You’re saying I’m to blame for people dying.’

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘Why won’t you believe that footage with your own eyes?’ Jez furiously kicked a leg of the table, making a tremendous crash that caused Eden to flinch with shock. ‘That monster’s my alibi!’

  Owen yelled back, ‘I’m just saying it takes some believing! The thing’s the size of a dinosaur! How come nobody’s ever noticed a dinosaur, with human heads growing out of it, tootling through the village?’

  Kit was back to his old self now. He didn’t even seem aware of the gunshot wounds that still oozed blood. He stood up so he could brandish the phone. The screen showed the creature pushing the woman across the ground. ‘I filmed this two hours ago. The girl’s Freya. She saved me from being attacked by that big ugly bastard.’

  ‘I shot her,’ Jez added. ‘The pellets blasted her face and she wasn’t even hurt; she just got up and ran over there to—’

  ‘See!’ shrieked Kit. ‘Jez saw her!’

  Eden raised her hands. ‘Guys. Emotions are running high. Why don’t—’

  Jez and Kit both yelled at her with such ferocity she must have expected that they’d start punching her.

  ‘Shut up, Eden!’

  ‘’S nothing to do with you!’

  ‘You shouldn’t even be here!’

  ‘Nobody invited you!’

  ‘Keep out of this!’

  ‘Bitch!’

  Owen’s rage exploded. ‘That’s my girlfriend! Don’t you dare talk to her like that.’

  Kit finally crossed over into hysteria as he screamed, ‘Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!’

  Eden saw what Owen intended. ‘Owen, don’t!’

  Owen lunged at Kit, savagely pushing him back down on to the sofa. The phone flew out of his hand to smack against the wall. Kit howled in pain.

  Jez barked, ‘You idiot! My alibi’s on that phone!’

  The sixteen-year-old lurched forward, swinging the arm with the cast. It slammed against Owen’s head with a loud CLUNK. Instantly, Owen rounded on his friend, grabbing the front of his sweater. The next second, Owen and Jez fell on to Kit who was struggling to get up from the sofa. The sofa rolled backwards, leaving all three in a jumble of arms and legs on the capsized furniture. What was more, all three were yelling, swearing and threatening to spill blood.

  Eden took a deep breath. With surprising calm, she said, ‘Stop this. All three of you, stop it. You’ll end up killing each other. Owen. Let go of Jez’s arm.’

  Grunting like a wounded pig, Jez scrambled
free. He barged Eden aside before stomping upstairs. Kit scrambled on all fours to the end of the room to retrieve the phone.

  In a small, hurt voice, he cried, ‘You’re a thug, Owen. If you’ve busted my phone …’

  Owen lurched to his feet, panting. He was horrified to see the carnage he’d caused. The sofa had tipped over, in turn upending a little table on which a china figure of a milkmaid had stood. The delicate head now lay five feet from the milkmaid’s body.

  Eden grabbed the sofa and tried to heave it upright. Trembling, frightened by his own outburst of violence, Owen helped Eden with the sofa. He saw tears in her eyes.

  Kit sat hunched against the wall as he wiped the phone with his sleeve. ‘I didn’t fake the video. It’s real … I filmed that animal in the forest. It’s the same one that’s on the wildlife camera that you found. Freya’s real, too. She’s a vampire.’

  ‘You really screwed up your brain, Kit. Monsters? Vampires?’ Owen gave an exaggerated performance of searching under the sofa cushions. ‘Wait, I’m sure I saw a werewolf under here. Or maybe it was a goblin?’

  ‘Screw you!’ Kit jammed his middle finger up into the air. ‘Screw both of you!’ He scurried through into the hallway.

  Owen threw his hands up and turned to Eden, ready to appeal for her take on this madness of giant creatures and vampires, only words failed him. Sighing, he flopped down on to the sofa.

  With a quiet efficiency, she lifted the table back to its feet, collected the two parts of the broken figurine and studied them closely. ‘A clean break,’ she declared. ‘Some glue should fix it.’ Eden put the body and the head down on to the table.

  Owen watched her straighten the cushions on the sofa. After that, she sat down beside him. For perhaps five minutes she said nothing. Waiting for me to calm down, he told himself. Now she’s seen the bad side of me, will she tell me we’re finished?

  At last she began to talk. Eden had a talent for speaking with a calm authority, much in the way a doctor would gently explain a complicated medical condition to a patient. ‘Owen, we moved around a lot when I was a child. I don’t think I had a friend for longer than six months before we moved again. When you told me about Jez and Kit being your friends from when you first started school I was envious. That’s a friendship to hold on to. It’s something of value.’

  ‘Eden—’

  ‘Please, just listen to what I have to say.’ When he nodded she continued: ‘Owen, you told me that the three of you have been loyal friends for years. People even called you the Three Musketeers, because you went everywhere together. But what’s happened in the last two days is like a bomb hitting the three of you. Jez had that awful accident. He’s broken his arm. The physical pain must be terrible … probably more terrible than we can imagine. Jez also worries that he’ll find himself in court, facing a charge of causing death by dangerous driving. He might go to prison.’

  Owen nodded again.

  Eden rested her hand on Owen’s knee as she spoke in those gentle tones. ‘Tonight, for reasons we can’t understand yet, he accidentally shot Kit. Luckily, Kit’s not badly hurt, and I’m sure we don’t have to involve doctors or the police. Both Jez and Kit are in turmoil. Their lives have exploded. They’re experiencing terrible emotional stress.’

  ‘And I ended up fighting both of them. I’ve been an idiot, haven’t I?’

  ‘No, not an idiot. You’ve experienced shocks, too. Listen, Owen. All three of you have suffered. All three of you are behaving in a way that is contrary to your natures.’

  ‘You mean, we’ve gone crazy?’

  ‘Yes, you’re crazy.’ She smiled. ‘You’re acting this way because you care about each other. But you’re all in such emotional turmoil you can’t deal with this explosion of events just yet. In a few hours, everything will seem different. You’ll get over it.’

  ‘You know, you are the wisest person I’ve ever met.’

  ‘I don’t have close friends like you do, Owen, so I spend a lot of time on the outside, watching how friends relate to one another.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘my ex-friends aren’t going to talk to me now, are they? They’ll hate me.’

  ‘If you don’t make up with them now, and you stop being friends, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.’

  Owen nodded, digesting what Eden had just told him. ‘OK. Here goes.’ He stood up and went to find Kit.

  Kit Bolter was in a back room that served as the farm office. Slowly, he moved his feet as he sat on a swivel chair, turning himself round and round. He studied the phone in his hand. Owen noticed that most of the dressings had fallen off during the ruckus. The pellet wounds in his face were red and wet.

  ‘Kit?’

  His friend didn’t answer. Gently, he wiped the screen with a tissue.

  ‘Is the phone alright, Kit?’

  ‘It’ll live.’

  ‘How’s your face?’

  ‘It’s the one I was born with … I’m stuck with it.’

  ‘The cuts, they’re still bleeding.’

  Instead of looking up, he studied the phone. ‘Go on, Owen, spit it out.’

  ‘Spit what out?’

  ‘What I need to hear.’ He didn’t look up, neither did he smile.

  ‘The video isn’t fake. The monster’s real. The girl is real.’

  ‘Freya.’ Still, he didn’t make eye contact with Owen. ‘Say her name.’

  ‘Freya’s real.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘I’m sorry about nearly busting your phone, and I’m sorry if I hurt you.’

  ‘Doubly excellent.’

  ‘Do you always have to speak like Professor Bullshit?’

  Kit raised his eyes, grinning as he did so. ‘Now I’ve successfully concluded my sulk I’ll say that your apology is officially accepted.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to go crazy like that; it’s just all this—’

  Kit held up his hand to silence Owen. ‘Pal, mate, buddy, friend. We’ve gone through emotional hell this weekend. Is it any wonder that we’ve got so cranky? Listen, I’ve been running complicated equations. I’ve calculated with complete accuracy that the friendship that you, Jez and me have has the tensile strength of nine point six billion tons.’

  Owen stared at Kit as he twirled round on the swivel chair.

  ‘Owen, you can laugh now, that’s supposed to be a joke.’

  Owen laughed with relief, rather than at the typically idiosyncratic Kit Bolter joke. He held out his hand for Kit to shake. Before Kit’s hand made contact, Owen playfully ruffled the kook’s hair.

  Kit laughed, too. ‘Now go and smooth things over with Jez.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Oh … Owen. I shouldn’t have called Eden a bitch. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You best tell her that yourself. But I’m sure everything will be OK. In the meantime, I’ll ask her to put more dressings on those war wounds you’ve got there.’

  ‘Eden’s alright. If anything, I got frightened that you’d stop wanting to hang out with Jez and yours truly.’

  ‘There might be plenty to be frightened of out there in the world, but never get frightened about the Three Musketeers splitting up.’

  After having a quick word with Eden, Owen headed upstairs.

  Jez stood at the window. His eyes were fixed on the landscape outside. The fields glittered under a blanket of snow in the moonlight. The familiar world now resembled an alien landscape.

  ‘Jez,’ began Owen.

  ‘You don’t have to apologize. I’m the one who’s gone berserk this weekend. Ramming the truck. Shooting my friend. If things come in threes, you better start running now. I’ll probably blow you up or something.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have yelled at you. And I shouldn’t have said that Kit’s video was fake.’

  ‘Takes some swallowing though, doesn’t it? How many other places in Yorkshire have dinosaurs, or whatever the hell it is?’

  ‘We’ll take the phone to the police. Let them work out what the
beastie is.’

  Jez held the broken arm to his chest as if nursing it. ‘I do remember driving the truck at an animal. Huge it was. I rammed it, because I knew that thing was going to attack the woman lying in the road.’

  ‘In which case, it might already have attacked the minibus passengers.’

  ‘If it did, I’m in the clear, aren’t I?’

  Owen nodded. Jez sat down on the bed. All the strength had been sucked from him; he looked absolutely exhausted.

  Owen asked, ‘And you saw Freya, too?’

  ‘Yup. Blasted her with the shotgun from that window. I thought she was going to pounce on Kit. Of course, my aim’s crap.’

  ‘Kit’s going to be alright.’

  ‘So we’re all friends again?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  Jez held out his hand for Owen to shake. When Owen shook it Jez started to speak.

  ‘Owen, I’ve been thinking. Remember in physics when we were told about when the universe was formed?’

  ‘Sure. Big Bang and all that stuff.’

  ‘I remember what amazed me was that after the Big Bang scientists say that there might have been thousands of universes created within a matter of seconds. For some reason, we can only see one now, and that’s our universe. So where did all the others go?’

  ‘Nobody knows.’

  ‘What if they continue to exist? You know, like pages side-by-side in a book? What if creatures can come from those universes into ours?’

  ‘You think that animal might have come through some kind of portal?’

  ‘Maybe. Think about what happens in history. Every few hundred years really amazing things happen. You know, like monsters and miracles and gods that human beings see, but then these amazing things vanish again and they become myths.’ Jez spoke with complete seriousness. ‘What if in different parts of the world a portal or doorway opens to one of these universes and strange creatures come through? We wouldn’t be able to understand what they are. I mean, they’d be inexplicable, wouldn’t they? What if they’re watching this world and plan to invade us?’