I’m late, she told herself. I’m too late; they’ll have left without me.
Those urgent thoughts pulsed through her mind. She moved faster: a lonesome figure gliding through this remote Yorkshire town that is a desolate and eerie place at this time of night. Above still glistening rooftops that burned with silver dashes of moonlight, she glimpsed the range of dark, forbidding hills that formed an unbroken wall as if to keep Leppington town an eternal prisoner.
Thoughts darted fiercely, prompting her to break into a run. I’m going to leave here. You can’t keep me forever. Once I find them they’ll take me with them. I need never return to this godforsaken graveyard of a place ever again.
She turned a corner in the street, and then paused. Standing there, dwarfing the surrounding buildings, looking for all the world like a huge tombstone thrusting up out of damp earth was the Station Hotel. No lights showed through windows in its Gothic face. It was unlikely that there would be any hotel guests … after all, who would willingly stay in such a grim building with its morbid adornment of gargoyles and its glowering faces carved into lintels? If by slim chance there were any guests they’d probably chosen to escape their surroundings in sleep.
A figure appeared in the shadows of an alleyway to her right. She could see palely gleaming arms. They were bare, she noted. Their skin showed as an icy blue colour patterned with thick, black veins. There was no face – at least none she could see as it was so deeply swathed in gloom.
Whoever the stranger was they watched her. Cold waves of fear washed through her body. She backed away from the figure as it took a step forward.
The hotel was only a hundred paces away. I could run for it. Perhaps he wouldn’t have chance to catch me….
As she tensed, ready to flee for the hotel she heard the man speak. The voice had a diseased quality to it, as if the vocal chords had been rotted by some necrotic infection. ‘Go back to where you came from. You don’t belong here. Go back … Go back….’
The moment she turned, ready to run, she stumbled, falling to her hands and knees in a pool of water that covered half the road. For a moment she froze there, shocked by both the fall and the appearance of the loathsome stranger. Dazed, she looked down into the water. The hard, gleaming disk of the moon was reflected there. And, as she watched, another pale object appeared to float alongside it. She saw a face – a terrible face that made her gasp. Its skin had the appearance of candle wax; there were blue tints dappling its strangely broad forehead. While the eyes—
That stare made her blood creep, as if turning it to ice in her veins. Breaking free of that hypnotic gaze, she leapt to her feet and ran toward the Station Hotel. The abrasive road surface would be ripping the bare soles of her feet but she couldn’t stop now.
He’s following me, she thought. I know he is. I mustn’t look back. An access led down the side of the looming Gothic structure to the rear yard. She took it, her feet either splashing puddles or slapping down on nineteenth-century cobblestones. Please be there. Don’t leave without me. Only when she was round the corner of the hotel did she glance back. The courtyard was empty. Here, moonlight glinted on the cobbles. It insinuated images into her mind of walking across the scaly back of some primeval monster. Even as she crossed the ground to a lighted window at the rear of the hotel it seemed to twitch beneath her feet, as if her imagined monster slept only fitfully and would soon wake to roar out its fury at her for disturbing it.
It will only be a moment before the man from the alley finds me here. Oh God, those eyes … Her stomach muscles writhed as if a fistful of worms slid through her intestine. Those evil-looking eyes. There had been no colour to them – only a glistening white like the boiled flesh of an egg. Worse, in the centre of each eye a tiny black pupil glared with such ferocity her legs had nearly folded under her. She knew if she looked into those eyes again she’d never break free of their hold.
She glanced about the gloom-drenched courtyard; still no sign of the figure that had frightened her so much. Yet shadows seeped along the ground, as if spreading stains of blood crept toward her. Irrationally she thought: I can’t let those shadows touch me. They are poison … No … She swayed, dizzy. No, that doesn’t make sense. That’s a mad thought. Only— She turned her back on the areas of darkness flowing across the cobbled surface, devouring the bright licks of reflected moonlight. Even to look at those shadows made her uneasy. What was important was to get inside the hotel. Now, that is a beautiful image. Of her standing in the brightly lit hotel kitchen, the door locked solidly behind her, seeing familiar faces. Of not being alone. Alone she couldn’t handle anymore. Alone is a cancer of the spirit. Alone is debilitating … loneliness has the relentless, erosive power to grind away at confidence, at physical strength. Just for a moment recollection of the loneliness that she had endured roared over her in a great black tide. Its grim currents carried a diffuse but permanent cloud of terror. Every time she awoke she dreaded being engulfed by this awful feeling that soon something terrible would happen to her. Only she’d be powerless to seek help … or even find anyone who could offer comfort and companionship if disaster struck.
Maybe this is what I’ve been dreading? Perhaps the sense of foreboding was a premonition of the stranger waiting for me in the alley? That I’ve always known that one day – one night! – I’d find myself alone here, and come face to face with the man who will take my life.
A sudden scraping sound made her flinch. She glanced back. Saw nothing but shadow and the gloom-filled void of the archway in the wall that led out onto the river-bank. Now she could hear the hissing roar of the river itself. All this rain had swollen it, engorging the body of water into flood. Only now the sound of the river was like a voice calling her to it.
No. No! She pressed the palms of her hands against her ears. It’s this weird little town. It has that effect on you. The longer you stay the more it insinuates strange ideas into your head. For some reason when she closed her eyes she imagined that a labyrinth of tunnels ran beneath the houses. And in these tunnels swarmed pallid, maggot-like men and women that lusted for human blood – and the warmth of a human body; one they could wind their vein knotted arms around. Blood and body heat – beneath the skin the pair are brother and sister. The tangible embodiment of this intangible thing we call Life … Now her eyes were closed and she tottered forward until she leaned against the hotel wall with her face pressing cold brick that possessed the damp, clammy touch of a dead hand. Images flew through her mind of pallid, naked forms that swim through deep waters. The River Lepping roared beyond the yard wall. And she imagined a hundred faces floating up through the swirling flood to cry out to her. Angry voices that demand she leave this place while she still can.
No. I will not let this town put those thoughts into my head. I am sane. I am rational. I will not think about vampires.
Vampires? Even to think the word made her eyes snap open. Vampires? Why did I use that word? She shuddered to the roots of her bones. If she didn’t find another human being to talk to right at this moment she realized she would lose her mind. Above her head, cloud drew cobwebby strands across a ghosting moon. Even the little light it cast into the yard was dying now. She must get inside the hotel. She must find human company.
Feeling her way along the wall, she reached the window that formed a block of shining yellow in that unyielding membrane of brick. Once more, her mind spun out strange ideas: Yes, the wall is a membrane. At one side are light, life, companionship and safety. While on this side….
Then she’d reached the window. For a second the brilliance of the electric light inside dazzled her. Screwing up her eyes, she brought her face close to the glass and peered in. A dresser full of blue plates. An antique-looking stove. A Yorkshire range in black-painted iron. Brass kettle. Belfast sink. A wall clock showing half past midnight. But where was … ah, there!
Angling her head to one side, she made out the vast kitchen table that dominated the room. Around it sat five men and women. They were
holding a conversation – an intense one. Those that weren’t speaking listened solemnly. Inside was full of light; a beautiful, brilliant, Pentecostal light; it suppressed shadows; it didn’t yield before things that creep out of the night. The air inside would be warm; it would smell pleasantly of soap and the lingering after-aroma of freshly cooked food. She saw bottles of wine. Every now and again the men and women would sip from a glass.
It looked wonderful. She wished she sat in their company drinking that red wine —a delicious rouge colour; she could imagine how it would taste; its velvety softness. Her tongue ran across her top lip while her eyes roved over the people at the table. An elegant woman dressed in black had long hair that was a gunmetal blue. The way she held herself suggested an aristocratic ancestry. The man sat beside her was in his thirties. His eyes were soulful, caring, yet touched with melancholy. Three other people, in their late teens or early twenties, she guessed, sat across the table from him.
Suddenly she realized she could hear the sound of approaching footsteps. It must be the stranger from the alleyway. It has to be. He’s followed me here. She glanced to the corner of the building, expecting the loathsome figure to appear at any moment. Nothing yet. But the slow footfalls sounded louder. Quickly, she tapped on the windowpane with her fingernails. The group inside still talked. Some serious subject that involved them deeply. She tapped again.
Why don’t they hear me?
She glanced to the corner of the building. The sound of footsteps grew louder. Oh no … she could see a strange, humped shadow looming across the cobblestones. Her pursuer must be walking along the access to the yard now; the streetlights were behind him, throwing the grotesque shadow forward.
Heart pounding, she rapped on the window. This time it was loud enough for the men and women to snap their heads round to look in her direction. She saw their eyes widen. One of the women screamed.
‘Please, let me in. I’m being followed … please, he’s nearly—’
Then from behind a pair of hands grasped her shoulders. She rolled her eyes down to see fingers that were bloated like raw sausages; the skin was a sickening mix of grey and blue tints, while the fingernails were ragged, purple things. So cold as well … the fingers had the feel of raw meat taken from a refrigerator. That cold seeped through her clothes into her own skin, chilling the blood that ran through her veins, oozing into every secret place of her. She tried to cry out, but shock had locked her throat tight; all she could manage was a hoarse gasping sound. The powerful hands dragged her away from the kitchen window. In seconds she’d been hauled through the gateway onto the river-bank. Here there were no lights. It was merely a strip of muddy ground from which bulged malformed growths of bushes and willow trees that loomed over black river water. Even though she struggled, the grip on her shoulders was so powerful she could not turn round to see her attacker’s face.
… Oh, but she remembered it though. That dead white face. With colourless eyes centred by a fierce black pupil that seemed to burn holes through her heart….
Despite her terror she realized that the door to the hotel had opened.
A voice called, ‘Who’s there?’
Once more she tried to cry out, only she was too breathless from the violence of being dragged through the witch tangle of branches to the water’s edge. The River Lepping roared at her now. A full-blooded sound that vibrated her body.
But even though the sound pounded her ears she heard only too well what the man breathed into her ear with that toxic voice.
‘Why didn’t you listen to me? I said you don’t belong here.’
‘Please,’ she choked out the word. ‘Don’t kill me … please don’t kill me.’
‘Listen carefully to what I’m about to tell you.’ The man held her so her face almost touched the water’s dark surface. She saw two faces reflected there. Both blue-white; cheeks patterned with black veins. Two faces with white staring eyes punctuated by fierce black pupils. ‘Don’t you understand?’ he hissed. ‘You’re already dead.’
With the word dead, dead, dead reverberating in her ears he threw her into the river.
First of all she struggled to keep her head above the flood waters of the Lepping, while trying to swim to the bank. Then the words of the vampire sank deep enough into her mind for her to accept the truth. ‘You’re already dead.’
Fierce currents rolled her onto her back. She floated downstream looking up at the moon through overhanging willows. Silver-edged clouds floated high in the sky. They moved with the flow of the night winds, she moved with the flow of the night river. Just like those clouds she had no control over her direction.
I’m already dead, she thought. I don’t need to swim. Understanding seeped coldly through her. I don’t need to breathe. Because I am dead … At last she surrendered to the power of the river. It floated her by rocks, rolled her over, spun her in its grave eddies then its remorseless undertow pulled her down under the black waters, down to the bottom of the riverbed that was an expanse of slick mud. Being unable to breathe made no difference to her. She did not drown. Could not drown. Pale shapes swam in front of her face. For a moment she thought they were softly swollen fish then she realized they were her own hands floating backward and forward in this cold body of water.
There’s no point fighting this, she told herself. I might as well let the river carry me into the sea. I’m truly lost now. Even if I could climb out I can never return home.
Once more her face broke the surface. For mile after mile she floated on her back, passing under bridges, beneath trees that arched over the water, between meadows. Above her the moon shone down; in her imagination it became a hard, round eye gazing dispassionately at the woman in the water, knowing she was doomed and coolly observing what fate would eventually befall her; she was nothing but a piece of driftwood now. Lost to her family, humanity, and God. Once the stream carried her by a house on the river-bank. There was a light burning in the upstairs window – a little block of yellow radiance. Music ghosted from the house, too. A melancholy song that eerily echoed her journey through a night-time countryside that seemed haunted by the ghosts of all those tomorrows she’d never now experience.
Presently the flow carried her away from the house and the music; soon it was lost in the distance.
She closed her eyes. It only seemed for a moment, and then she realized that she lay on solid ground. Opening her eyes, she sat up and looked round. Moonlight revealed that she’d been washed up on a beach. Oddly, it was tempting to lie there, and not to even attempt to walk ever again. Only the water receded as a retreating ocean tide a dozen miles away reduced water levels upstream. As if walking in her sleep, she rose to her feet. There, on higher ground, almost engulfed by hawthorn was a tumbledown cottage. Strangely, she felt herself drawn to it. Maybe the river brought me here because I was meant to see it, she thought. Perhaps I’m here for a purpose. The moon was bright enough to show her a path that ran through waist-high nettles and hemlock. It appeared to lead directly to the cottage that stood half hidden from view alongside this remote stretch of river. With her bare feet whispering through the plants, she glided almost dreamily to the gate that led into a garden grown wild; where roses ten feet high nodded huge heads of pink petals.
Seconds later, she approached one of the windows. The panes were cracked; some were partially covered by a green skin of moss. Slowly … slowly as if she knew someone – or some thing – waited for her in the cottage, she leaned forward to look through one of the panes.
Inside was the kitchen of a long since abandoned house. Abandoned by human occupation, that is.
Sitting round a rotting table on decaying wooden chairs were five figures. Five beings that were men and women once. Some wore ragged clothes; a pair was near naked. The women possessed long manes of hair that poured in tangled coils of glossy black down their backs. Their skin was a deadly white with tints of blue. A cold, cold colour that sent a shiver down her spine. They sat at the table without moving. The ma
les possessed powerfully muscular arms that were tracked with black veins. The faces of male and female alike were waxy mask-things that revealed no expression. It was their eyes that confirmed what they were.
Like those of the stranger who had thrown her in the river their eyes possessed no iris, so they revealed no colour. What they had were tiny black pupils that lent them such an air of ferocity. All the time she watched the gathering in the derelict cottage they did not move. They did not even blink or shift their gaze from the barren tabletop.
She realized if she moved with enough stealth she could leave this damned and desolate place without attracting their attention. Yet, just for a second, she saw herself sitting at that table with them … waiting with those festering dead-alive carcasses until the end of time. These were the abandoned scraps of their race, rejected by their fellow vampires. They had no purpose. Perhaps even the vampire lusts only burned dimly inside the stone cold muscle they called their hearts. Pitiful, ugly, lonely creatures that had failed even to die.
Taking a step back, she glanced over her shoulder. Her only escape from here would be the river. Not that it could kill her now. But then would it be a comfort to her either? All that waited for her in the water was a drifting existence without companionship of any sort. Once more that great dark tide of loneliness swept over her. She tottered, almost losing her balance. Could she face that again? The malignancy of solitude. How it corroded her sanity. Made every moment the most miserable, the most unbearably grim unit of time. And that moment of unyielding unhappiness would be replaced by another just as bad.
A mere thirty paces back to the river … then she would escape that gathering of animated death in the decaying cottage. Just thirty paces … she could cover that distance in twenty seconds.
This time she didn’t hesitate when she moved. Turning, she tapped on the window.