by Simon Clark
Kit shouted, ‘Hey …’
‘By ourselves,’ she added.
‘Hey,’ Kit shouted from amongst some bushes. ‘I’ve found where the camera pod had been fixed to the tree. Something ripped the bolts right out of the trunk.’
Owen wasn’t listening to Kit. No, he heard his heart again, pounding away. This time he was certain Eden would hear it.
‘How about tomorrow?’ He spoke in what he hoped was a laid-back way, but was absolutely terrified she’d say ‘No’. ‘There’s a bus at twelve. We could get something to eat down by the harbour.’
‘Yes … that sounds nice.’
His heart whooshed into overdrive. Those blue eyes of hers seemed to light up the whole forest … no … the whole world.
‘Hey, guys, did you hear me?’ Kit’s voice was getting lost in the forest, receding, becoming less important – that’s what it seemed like to Owen Westonby. Because right at that special moment Owen stood there with the amazing Eden Taylor, and she’d just said ‘Yes’ to a date. Kit tried shouting even louder to get himself noticed: ‘The camera pod was torn off its mounting. Something big came through here. Something huge!’
TWENTY-SIX
Tom Westonby peeled himself out of the diver’s suit in a bathroom at the angler’s club house. He’d finished the inspection dive at the jetty and had been able to report to the guy who’d hired him that the structure was basically sound. After showering, he changed his clothes and packed his aqualung, mask, rubber suit and assorted diving equipment into his van. The representative of the angler’s club that owned the jetty paid him his fee in cash.
Tom waved his farewell as he drove away in the direction of Leppington where he’d arranged to meet up with June Valko. After her experience with the vampires last night, he knew that the time had come to tell her the whole story regarding the flood five years ago, and about the vampire-like creatures that haunted the wood, and the truth about Helsvir – this was the monster guardian of the Bekk family that had been stitched together from corpses by the Viking god Thor. If it hadn’t been for the fact that June Valko had seen a vampire with her own eyes (and possibly her own father at that) climb down the chimney to stand there in the blazing fire, Tom knew he wouldn’t have been able to convince her that he spoke the truth.
A sign up ahead read LEPPINGTON. He drove into the market town determined to explain to June as clearly as possible his mission in life – and that mission is to find Nicola Bekk, and to bring her back home. However, he needed to overcome two major obstacles. One: he didn’t know where to find Nicola. Two: Nicola was a vampire.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Tom Westonby parked in the yard behind the Station Hotel in Leppington. When he stepped out of the van he shivered. A cold North-Easterly carried flakes of snow, but it was more than the icy breeze making him shiver. He realized that when he saw June Valko today they wouldn’t just discuss the past. They’d plan what they were going to do in the future. The main part of that plan for June would be somehow finding and communicating with her father. Considering that the man had become an inhuman creature, a vampire, that was nigh on impossible.
Just as impossible as me being reunited with Nicola Bekk, he thought grimly as he walked towards the hotel.
Leppington was bigger that Danby-Mask. Whereas his home village consisted of quaint cottages built from yellow stone, Leppington consisted mainly of red-brick buildings. The place had a tougher, industrial feel. Across the road stood the huge slaughterhouse. Next to that, the formidable railway station, while facing the railway station stood the equally imposing Station Hotel. Over a hundred years ago whoever had built this hotel clearly wanted to dominate the town. It was as if they were bluntly stating: ‘I’m staying here for ever, so get used to it.’ The streets were busy with pedestrians, rushing to do their Christmas shopping before the snow really started to fall. In this part of England, a blizzard would lead to the moorland roads being closed, leaving travellers stranded.
Tom passed through the big entrance doors and headed across plush carpet towards the lounge bar. It was ten minutes to three; already daylight was fading. The main bar at the front of the hotel buzzed with people. However, the residents’ lounge was deserted. Good; he could talk to June without anyone overhearing. After all, he had a shocking story to tell.
Tom headed for the counter with its long line of beer taps. Nobody appeared to be serving. He could use a large mugful of hot coffee right now. Even though he’d worn the dry suit for the dive, the sheer coldness of the River Lepping had seeped into his veins. He glanced up at a small TV screen fixed to the wall and saw his own image there as he stood at the counter. There must have been another screen showing the identical image elsewhere in the hotel, because a woman breezed through a door. She appeared to be in her thirties and had thick, wavy red hair tied back with a green ribbon.
‘Good afternoon,’ she said cheerfully. ‘What can I get for you?’
He realized he was hungry, too. ‘Good afternoon. I’d like a large coffee, please.’
‘Milk or cream?’
‘No, thanks, just as it comes. Are you serving meals today?’
‘Right up until five o’clock. Bar menus are on the tables.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You’ll have to excuse me if I’m slow at this.’ She gazed at the elaborate coffee machine for a moment. ‘We’ve only just taken over this week.’
‘Has Electra sold the hotel?’
‘You know Electra Charnwood?’
‘I’ve met her a few times when I’ve had meals here.’
‘Electra’s taken a year off to go travelling. So this is a baptism of fire for me and my husband. We’ve never run a hotel before.’ She grinned back over her shoulder. ‘But don’t let that put you off eating here. We haven’t poisoned anyone yet.’ She turned her attention back to the coffee machine’s controls. ‘I think it’s this one … wait … ah, yes, that’s it, we have lift-off.’ The machine began to gurgle.
‘I’m meeting one of your guests at three. I’ll see if she wants to eat, too.’
‘A guest, you say? That must be Miss Valko. We only have one person staying with us at the moment.’
‘That’s her. June Valko.’
‘She’s beautiful. Such amazing blue eyes.’
‘Oh, we’re not meeting on a date.’ He realized the woman wasn’t being nosy. In fact he found himself liking her. Being so reclusive meant that he didn’t see many smiling faces. ‘She’s interested in local history.’ That seemed an understatement – of course, he wasn’t going to come right out and tell the manageress of the Station Hotel that he and June Valko intended to track down June’s inhuman father and Tom’s vampire bride. The truth would lead to all kinds of complications.
The manageress chatted pleasantly. ‘See the poster on the wall?’
‘The movie poster?’
‘That’s the one. My grandmother starred in the film. It was shot in Whitby during the Second World War.’
The framed poster showed a beautiful woman and a handsome, strong-jawed man standing face-to-face with the silhouette of Whitby’s ruined abbey behind them. Searchlights picked out planes in the sky. Bold letters proclaimed:
THE MIDNIGHT REALM
Starring Beth Layne, George Crofton & Sally Wainwright
~ Written & Directed by Alec Reed ~
‘They defied terror from the skies!!!’
‘Is that your grandmother on the poster?’ Tom asked.
‘Beth Layne.’ The woman nodded. ‘She moved to Hollywood in the 1950s to appear in a television crime series. It ran for over ten years. Ah … there she blows.’ Freshly brewed coffee trickled from a chrome sprout. ‘It always worked faster when Electra was in charge. But we finally got there.’
‘Thank you.’ Tom handed over the money. He knew he hadn’t thanked her for the coffee alone; he’d been grateful to occupy this bright, normal world for a while with a friendly human being. Five years of living a solitary life as a recluse is
n’t healthy. He realized that fact, just as he realized that as a twenty-eight-year-old he should be living life to the full. But he felt to the depths of his heart that somewhere out there was Nicola. One day he’d find her. He’d bring her back home. That was a certainty.
The manageress said she’d take the food order in a few minutes, and vanished back through the door. Tom stood at the counter, sipped his coffee and relished the normality of it all: being in this warm room with its seats upholstered in red velvet made such a pleasant change from the rustic stonework of the cottage. The sounds of people laughing and enjoying one another’s company drifted from the main bar. He savoured the conviviality of the place. The friendly atmosphere. The air of genteel comfort. This world was far away from his world of vampires and a savage monster created by embittered and vengeful gods.
Tom Westonby glanced out of the window. Dark clouds gathered there. They were ominous, somehow dangerous-looking. Already the forces of nature were getting ready to inflict a withering storm. Tom sensed that there were other forces at work, too. These were definitely not natural. They were the supernatural entities that occupied their own realm parallel to this one. The gut feeling that dangerous times lay ahead filled him with a sense of foreboding. In his mind’s eye, he could see Death getting ready to step into his world once more. But who would Death claim this time? June Valko? His brother, Owen? Or would he, Tom Westonby, feel its icy hand upon his heart?
At three o’clock June Valko walked into the room. He nodded and she nodded back. They had no need for small-talk. The time had come to plan what they’d do next.
Hail struck the windows. The falling ice sounded as if Death itself tapped on the glass pane with fingers of bone. The breeze blew harder, drawing a long, sobbing cry from the chimney pots. Tom Westonby shivered. The real horror was just about to begin …
TWENTY-EIGHT
June Valko sat facing him across the table. The pair were alone in the hotel lounge bar. Despite it only being only a shade after three o’clock on that Saturday afternoon, darkness had already engulfed the town.
Tom asked, ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘I ordered in the other bar, but thanks anyway.’ She leaned forward, plaiting her fingers together on the table as if about to say a prayer. ‘Tom, I’ve been thinking. You shouldn’t go back home. That house in the woods is too isolated.’
‘I have to be there.’
‘Why?’
That’s when he told her in more detail about Nicola, and about what happened five years ago. How he’d first met Nicola after seeing her barefoot in the garden pond at his parents’ house. Following that there had been a hurricane of a relationship. June listened carefully when he explained that Nicola’s mother had revealed the history of the Bekk family, and the fact that any Bekk moving out of the area or marrying a partner who didn’t worship the pagan Viking gods would trigger an ancient curse. Then had come the most horrific part: Tom described Nicola’s transformation from a beautiful, healthy woman into a vampire after their wedding on the night of the flood.
He said, ‘Nicola’s skin turned unnaturally white, the veins on her neck stood out in dark lines, like roads on a map. The colour bleached out of her eyes, so they were just plain white. The pupils remained, but they became these strange, fierce black dots that were so alien-looking.’ He shivered. ‘Nicola said she must leave me, because she was frightened of losing self-control. You see, what scared her most was realizing that she’d eventually see me as prey, and that she’d attack me.’
‘What happened next?’
‘The flood water had surrounded the church where we’d been stranded all night. Meanwhile, Nicola’s transformation was accelerating. At any moment she might have attacked me.’ He gazed through the window without even seeing the street outside. Instead, memory pulled him down into that terrible graveyard of the mind, where horrific memories lie buried – but they’re never buried quite deep enough. All too easily they can rise up to cause torment and pain. In his mind’s eye, he saw his bride waiting anxiously at the edge of the floodwaters as she desperately called out to Helsvir. ‘Do you remember the carving in my house? The one of the creature called Helsvir? According to legend he was created by the Viking gods to protect the Bekk family. Nicola wanted the creature to take her away. She realized she had to travel to some place from which she couldn’t easily return. Because if she did come back she might not be able to stop herself from hurting me … or even turning me into one of those creatures you saw last night.’ He gave a melancholy smile. ‘I wouldn’t mind becoming one of those things. At least I’d be with Nicola. In fact, we could be together for ever. We’d be immortal.’ His mouth went dry. ‘That’s what I need, June. To be with Nicola. I don’t want to be alone any more. Being there in the cottage by myself is a living death.’
June reached across the table, took his hands in hers, and squeezed them – a gesture of absolute compassion. He felt her sympathy and the warmth of her humanity. And after not holding hands with another human being for so long he thought the emotion would shatter him.
‘I’m sorry for taking so long.’ A young waitress hurried in with a glass of orange juice. ‘It’s the Christmas shoppers. We’re rushed off our feet. Would you like to order your meal?’
‘Hungry?’ he handed June a menu.
‘Food’s fuel,’ she replied. ‘Something tells me we’ll need to keep our strength up.’
The waitress suspected that they had erotic activity in mind, because her cheeks went pink. ‘Today’s special is a casserole made with black pudding.’
‘Black pudding?’ June echoed.
‘Black pudding is a kind of thick sausage,’ explained the waitress. ‘It’s made from blood – pig’s blood, I think.’
‘Blood pudding.’ Tom shuddered as the notion of blood cuisine sank in. ‘No thanks. I’m not a vampire yet.’
The waitress chuckled politely at the joke. He found himself laughing as well. Such a strange laugh, too. It had its origins so deep inside him that his stomach muscles seemed to be shaking the laughter free. Soon he laughed so hard that tears rolled down his face, and then he realized he wasn’t laughing at all. He wept for the girl he loved. He wept at the frustration of not being able to find Nicola again – even though he suspected that sometimes she was near to him. Sometimes hidden in a shadow of a tree, perhaps, or the inky darkness of the river, or even the night time cry of a fox.
Before the waitress realized that his laughter had turned to grief he wiped his eyes, and said, ‘June, what would you like?’
June met his gaze and understood what he was really feeling. ‘I’ll steer clear of the vampire special, although I’m sure it’s delicious. Uhm … mushroom pizza, please.’
Tom brought his voice under control. ‘The Leppington Premier Burger. Thanks.’
The waitress tapped the order on to a tablet. ‘Do you want slaw, fries and extra bacon?’
Tom smiled. ‘Why not?’ Outside, clouds of hail swept by the window – a parade of deathly, white ghosts. ‘I’ll have a pint of Black Dog ale, too. And would you let them know at reception that I’ll be booking a room for tonight?’
The waitress left them alone again. June’s electric blue eyes were bright as she stared at him, as if wondering what this brooding man with all that volcanic, pent-up emotion was planning.
‘You’re going to stay the night?’ she asked. ‘Here, at the hotel?’
He nodded. ‘We’ve lots to talk about. Besides, I was going to ask you to do me a favour.’
‘Oh?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Oh, I see … at least I think I do …’
TWENTY-NINE
Kit Bolter returned to the house he shared with his mother. Hailstones stung his face, which made him even angrier. Why had Owen brought that girl? Kit had been unable to concentrate on his forensic examination of the area where Owen had found the camera pod. Kit had played gooseberry to Owen and Eden Taylor: the bottom line was he felt so uncomfortable with the girl making goo-goo eye
s at Owen.
When hailstones slammed into his eyes they made them water.
‘Damn it, Owen, you went and ruined the afternoon.’ He hunched his shoulders against the cold. ‘She’ll be telling her friends about us … they’ll be laughing.’
Kit had found some interesting clues. But Owen hadn’t given a crap. All he’d wanted to do was talk to Eden. Kit shook his head. This afternoon should have been great. The two of them exploring and finding those fascinating marks on the trees where something huge had scraped away the bark. Angrily, he kicked open the gate. His mother stared out of the window at him; her eyes were vacant, and he wasn’t even sure if she realized that her son was there.
Normally, Kit Bolter would do anything to protect his friendship with Owen, but bringing that smirking girl on their own private adventure had been a stab in the back. So he made a decision. I’m going to confront Owen. I wasn’t going to do this, but he’s forced my hand. I’ll tell him that there are rumours that Tom Westonby killed my uncle. What’s more, some people are saying he murdered Nicola Bekk and hid her body. Let’s see what Owen Westonby has to say about that.
Kit pushed aside any suspicion that he was becoming overwrought, or even irrational. No, Owen’s brought this on himself. Kit couldn’t wait to see the expression on Owen’s face when he said, Hey. Didn’t your brother kill my uncle? Or would it have a more devastating impact if he said: Owen, I heard your brother murdered his girlfriend?
Whichever accusation he went with first would be fantastic. Owen would be so shocked that he wouldn’t give Eden Taylor a second thought. SHOW TIME!!!
THIRTY
In the Station Hotel, Tom and June ate their meal in the lounge bar. After that they talked. They discussed the attack on Tom again, and how he’d nearly been drowned by the menacing figure. Tom also explained that he’d discovered how the vampires had cut the electricity to the cottage. Not that there was much of a mystery attached to that particular incident – the electric meter was fixed to a wall outside the property. There was also a mains power switch. The vampire had simply flipped the switch and plunged the cottage into darkness. Tom had rectified the situation by flicking it back into the ‘on’ position again.
