by Simon Clark
‘Whatever it is,’ called Paul. ‘It’s getting closer.’
Ruth leaned towards a side window, trying to see what approached them.
Tony gave a deafening yell. ‘CLOSE THE DOORS! GET THEM CLOSED!’
Both he and Paul leaned outwards to grab the doors. The speed they moved at told Ruth they were panicky and scared. Before they could swing the doors shut a huge eruption of white foam flew upwards. Water splashed into the bus.
Then everyone was yelling at once. Paul turned to them, his eyes bulging with terror, as if they were going to explode from his head. A second later, his entire body jerked upwards. His shoulder caught the edge of the door frame, shearing his arm away. The severed arm fell into one of the seats, its fingers clutching at the fabric; blood gushed from the mass of torn meat and skin at the other end.
Ruth’s world descended into a vortex of screaming and violent movement. One after another, passengers were plucked from the bus. Through the open doors at the back was an explosive churning of water, foam and glistening, white spray. Ruth glimpsed a dark shape beyond the spray. Something enormous. Something that moved with brutal purpose.
Anita clung, screaming, to a seat. Until, that is, a tremendous force dragged her away. Ruth saw the girl’s false red nails still embedded in the upholstery even though she was gone.
The bus lurched as a massive object slammed into the back. Luke ran to the end of the bus to find out what was happening. By the time he reached the doorway he was the only person left on board with the exception of Ruth. All the others had been dragged away. Luke abruptly turned and ran towards her. His eyes were like blazing lamps, fear distorted his face – he’d bitten his own tongue, so it now resembled a bloody red stick that protruded from his lips.
‘RUTH! HELP ME!’
White spray jetted into the bus. This was like trying to see through a fog. And at that moment she could smell body heat … feel body heat – that didn’t make sense – only she was sure that an animal was near; one that radiated pungent warmth.
Luke had almost reached her when he stopped suddenly – just stopped, as if he’d slammed into a glass wall. Something had hold of him. She was sure she glimpsed hands gripping his body. Then he receded from her quickly, as if being yanked back by a rope. His body whipped from side to side. First his head cracked against the roof. Blood sprayed outwards, transforming the white mist into a crimson fog. Then his face slammed into a side window, shattering the glass – the force of the blow sliced away his face. It left a raw skull bone from which a pair of eyes bulged – like two white eggs that had been embedded in a slab of raw beef.
Ruth scrambled through the broken window. Shreds of Luke’s facial skin clung to the edges of the glass. Those shreds of flesh were sticky and wet.
Then she was running through the stream. Although she didn’t look back, she knew some thing followed. This was like running in a nightmare. The water came above her knees. It slowed her movements. More than once she fell. Behind her, a massive object moved faster. Gaining on her. When she broke free of the stream she ran as fast as she could.
But she knew she couldn’t outrun it. She heard its feet slap wetly against the road. She tried as hard as she could to run faster, but her feet slipped from under her. She went crashing down into the roadway. Ruth lay there, panting and helpless, as she waited for the horror to take her, too.
THIRTY-THREE
Jez Pollock came upon the scene of the attack late. Midnight had been approaching on that Saturday night when his conscience got the better of him. Earlier, he’d argued with his father because he wanted to join Owen and Kit on a trip into the woods. Jez’s father had insisted that he repair a stock fence. Cows had been escaping and wandering out on to a road. In a fit of temper, Jez had rushed work on the fence, simply bashing a few nails into the rails to hold them in place.
His parents had gone to stay with friends for the weekend, leaving him in charge of the farm. The farm itself had been suffering financial difficulties lately. If cows were lost then his parents would struggle to make ends meet.
So, after being nagged by his conscience, Jez had driven the truck up the valley to check on the fence and the cows. Since he was too young to own a driver’s licence, he stuck to the private farm tracks. It was only for the last couple of hundred yards of his journey that he’d have to join the public highway. He gambled there’d be no police patrolling that remote neck of the woods at this time.
Jez had just passed a sign for the ford crossing when he saw a remarkable sight. A young woman ran barefoot along the road. She ran with a wild kind of desperation … as if her life depended on it.
Before the truck’s lights fully lit up the scene, she’d fallen. Behind her, a vehicle seemed to be closing in. But this one had no lights … in fact, it was no vehicle at all. He had an impression of a dark object moving smoothly forward. Although he couldn’t identify what it was, instinct told him it would attack the woman. She’d balled herself up on the ground, trying to protect her head with her hands.
Jez slammed his foot down on the accelerator pedal. The engine roared, and the truck sped along the road like a missile. What he saw in the lights knocked the air out of him. Yet he kept his foot down hard on the pedal, the truck aimed squarely at the creature. The headlights blazed on the monstrous thing. He saw eyes … rows of diamond bright eyes.
The truck slammed into the creature at fifty miles an hour. Jez whipped forward, snapping the bone of his right arm in two against the steering wheel. Then his forehead impacted on the same part of the wheel. Jez blacked out. The sixteen-year-old never felt the final impact when the truck rolled sideways over the stock fence he’d repaired earlier, and came to rest wheels-up in the meadow.
THIRTY-FOUR
Eighteen-year-old Clarissa Prior waited for the minibus to return from the cinema. She’d met Paul last week. After teasing him about his mousy hair, he’d turned up at her house with his hair bleached a funny shade of yellow. Well, she’d found the sight of that yellow mop hilarious. Over the last few days they’d talked a lot as they’d hung out in Danby-Mask, watching the guys showing off in their cars as they drove up and down Main Street. Over the last couple of days talking turned to kissing.
Paul had told her about the trip to the cinema, and that a group of friends had hired a minibus. He wanted her to come, too. Clarissa would have done, but she’d already been committed, by her mother, to go to an aunt’s seventieth birthday party. So she’d done the dutiful thing and gone to the party for sandwiches, sherry and cake.
Clarissa knew that the minibus would drop Paul off at St George’s Church – right opposite where Clarissa lived with her parents. She made up her mind to surprise Paul when he arrived.
So, with her parents asleep, she tiptoed out of the house. The village seemed to be asleep, too. There’d have been complete silence if it hadn’t been for the steady click of hailstones hitting the roofs. Clarissa grinned. She’d have a story to tell Eden Taylor when they caught the school bus on Monday morning. ‘I’ve got a new boyfriend,’ she’d say. ‘He’s twenty and he’s called Paul.’ Don’t know about telling Ruth that he’s got funny yellow hair, though.
Paul had sent her texts throughout the evening. The last one said that he’d be arriving about twelve thirty. She checked her watch. Twelve thirty-nine. OK, a little late. Though Paul wouldn’t be driving, so she could hardly blame him. Well, OK, she’d blame him just a tad. She wanted to keep him keen. If she seemed the kind of girl who’d show up whenever he zipped off a quick text he’d take her for granted. She walked a few yards down the village street so she’d be in the right place when the bus arrived. ‘Surprise!’ she’d shout when she saw his sunburst hairstyle. Smiling, she pictured his expression of surprise turning to one of delight when she struck her casual, yet very sexy, pose under the streetlight.
Between two rows of cottages an alleyway ran back into the shadows.
‘Help me.’
The whisper startled her.
‘Who’s there?’ She heard a tremble in her voice. ‘What’s the matter?’
Shadows were thick and dark in the alleyway. Almost a fog of blackness. Hail fell, clitter-clatter – this could almost have been the tap of fingernails on wood.
‘Help me, my love …’
A figure stepped from the gloom. Clarissa gawped in horror. She felt her blood drain from her skull and down through her neck – even the crimson gore inside of her retreated from the awful sight. The man, the spectre, the demon … whatever he was, moved closer. Her eyes flashed from his bare feet to his white face. His eyes had fixed on her. She wanted to scream at the sight of those eyes – only she’d frozen there, unable to move, unable to cry out.
‘Help me live again.’
The man’s eyes were white – absolutely white. They bulged from his head. Each eye possessed a fierce black pupil. The eyes appeared to swell from their sockets as he stared at her, while the pupils shrank into concentrated points of cruelty.
She managed to turn in the direction of home. Too late. A pair of arms encircled her from behind. In less than a moment, eighteen-year-old Clarissa Prior had been dragged away into the darkness. After that, she felt a mouth press against her bare throat – a mouth that was large, and round, and wet. The last thing she felt was the agonizing stab of his teeth.
No … not the very last thing. The last sensation: the trickle of a single tear down her cheek.
PART TWO
(Doctor Edward Walton’s letter to his brother, 16 November, 1844)
Dear Jack,
Don’t believe the lies. I swear I am not to blame for that blasted monster breaking loose. Nor am I to be blamed for the creature’s attack on the congregation at Mottworth church. These are the plain facts: a man by the name of Olaf Bekk was delivered to the asylum by a group of gentlemen from the village of Danby-Mask. They had bound this blond giant in chains, and brutally – and even blasphemously! – secured him to the cart by hammering iron nails through his hands into the wooden boards.
One of Olaf Bekk’s captors made an extraordinary statement. As principal of the asylum I recorded what he told me in the admissions book. Mr Erasmus Bolter claimed that Olaf Bekk worshipped pagan gods, and had been struck down by lunacy. Moreover, Mr Bolter insisted that the Bekk family was subject to a curse, and if any of them left the valley of their birth they would undergo a bodily transformation and become a vampire creature.
I observed Bekk to be unconscious; his skin had become uncannily white, probably on account of blood loss due to his hands being nailed to the cart. It was as my attendants prepared to transfer the patient to the asylum that he awoke, and behaved in such a furious manner that his captors and my staff fled. I noted that he possessed no irises; indeed, his eyes were pure white with the exception of the pupils. Quickly, the man broke free of his chains. To him, they seemed no more of a restraint than if a spider had spun its web over his body. He then used his teeth to draw the iron nails from the cart’s woodwork. I tell you, my brother, what had arrived at the asylum as a man now departed as a monster.
Within a short space of time, he had run into town where he attacked the Christian congregation of the church. Many gentlemen and ladies of our noble borough were slaughtered by the monster.
Only after many hours of struggle, and many more casualties, did the bravest men overwhelm the monster. A strong fellow succeeded in removing Bekk’s head with an axe. Nevertheless, the headless body writhed for two days. The jaws still attempted to bite anyone who strayed too close, while those dreadful, white eyes burned with great fury. And I knew that Evil and Satan’s powers of darkness still haunt our God-fearing nation.
THIRTY-FIVE
Five hours ago Clarissa Prior had stood waiting for Paul to arrive. At that time she had no way of knowing that the minibus that carried Paul to Danby-Mask had broken down as it forded the stream. What Clarissa did know was that she had been attacked. She’d felt that wet mouth on her throat.
Now Clarissa Prior stood on the hillside. Even though the sun wouldn’t rise for another three hours she could see clearly. Bare winter trees stretched out before her. Threading its way through the black mass of the forest was the River Lepping. Hailstones glinted in the grass – pearls of ice scattered over the hillside. When she exhaled there were no longer any plumes of white vapour, even though a cold wind blew. She slipped off her coat and let it fall. It was no longer of any use to her.
At either side of her, silent figures gazed over the forest. They seemed to be waiting for someone, or something.
‘I’m Clarissa Prior,’ she whispered. ‘I’m eighteen. I go to Ravendale School. Next year I begin studying for my degree. I’m eighteen, I’m Clarissa … I’m alive.’
The man who’d attacked Clarissa stood next to her. Those egg-like eyes of his gazed across the valley. His lips were bloody.
Slowly, and with an utter sense of dread, she lifted her fingers to her neck. Her fingertips slipped inside the wound in her throat. She pushed her fingers in as far as the knuckles. The wound gaped open – a yawning mouth with sticky, wet lips.
‘I’m Clarissa …’ She paused. ‘What’s my second name? I’m sixteen … no, I’m eighteen. I’m alive … I am alive.’
The people standing at either side of her continued to gaze out across the valley. Just like her, they didn’t feel the cold. Her companions were young men and women. They resembled one another. Possibly from the same family? Each had white skin which revealed black veins. And each man and woman had identical eyes. There was no colour in them, just the fierce black dot.
She asked herself, ‘Why don’t I just walk away from them?’ However, she had no inclination to leave. This was where she needed to be. Was this her destiny? To stand here in the dark with these strangers?
‘I’m called …’ She’d forgotten her name. ‘I’m not old.’ She’d forgotten her age. ‘I’m not dead … please, God … tell me I’m not dead.’
The word VAMPIRE never entered her head. It would soon, though.
She examined the beautiful face of a blond-haired woman standing nearby. The stranger had not shown any sign that she realized that Clarissa was even there. None of them had. So none had reacted to what must be a shocking wound in her throat.
‘I’m not badly hurt,’ Clarissa murmured to herself. ‘I’m not like them.’
Slowly, almost as if she were in a trance, she raised her hand level with her eyes. Veins bulged underneath the bone-white skin. The veins were black.
‘I’m not like them.’ Although by now she understood these profoundly grim facts: she was exactly like them. And she wouldn’t be going home ever again.
‘Goodbye, Mum. Goodbye, Dad. Goodbye, Robbie. I love you …’
THIRTY-SIX
Tony opened his eyes. People carried him through the forest. Tree trunks drifted by. Nettles brushed his face. For some reason they didn’t sting. When he tried to lift his hands to push the nettles back nothing happened.
‘Put me down,’ Tony said. ‘I can walk.’
Nobody replied. Yet he heard whispering. A dozen people or more appeared to be having a furtive conversation.
‘Where are you taking me?’
Another voice abruptly asked the same question: ‘Where are you taking me?’
A second voice on the other side of him uttered the same words: ‘Where are you taking me?’
Tony recognized the voices. One was Luke. He was the guy who’d been driving them back home from Scarborough when—
BANG! The bus had been attacked. Something enormous had carved through the water. All that spray and: POW! People had been torn out of the bus. Screaming and blood and violence – he’d felt terrible pain. Powerful hands had grabbed hold of him … they’d torn him apart. That’s how that agonizing ripping of muscle had felt. He’d heard his joints come out of their sockets with a loud POP! After that, a crackle as his bones snapped. But that was a nightmare, wasn’t it? He’d lost consciousn
ess and had a bad dream, surely? He was OK now. He was being carried, though he knew he was capable of walking.
Tony looked to his right. Luke’s head was in profile, and maybe just a foot from his own. It swayed slightly due to the motion of being carried.
‘Where are you taking me?’ This was Luke’s voice.
Tony asked, ‘Luke? What happened?’
Luke turned to look at Tony as if he’d been startled by the voice. Tony would have flinched back in shock. Only he couldn’t move away more than a couple of inches from that disgusting thing in front of him. That disgusting thing was Luke. The skin of his face had been torn away. A pair of bulging eyes stared at Tony. The eyes resembled glass balls that had been embedded in raw beef. Tony knew that blood-red thing was comprised of the muscles, tendons, veins and bloody bones that lay beneath a human being’s skin. An accident, or deliberate mutilation, had robbed Luke of his face. If it hadn’t been for the familiar voice, Tony wouldn’t have been able to identify his friend.
But he’s still alive? Tony thought as waves of horror crashed through him. Why isn’t he screaming in pain? Doesn’t he know that his face has been torn off? Tony turned his head to the left. Anita, one of the girls from the bus, stared at the forest in a daze. All he could see of her was her face in profile, which was perhaps a foot away.
‘Anita, are you OK?’
She turned to him. Her eyes were fixed into the characteristic ‘thousand-yard stare’ of someone suffering from shock. The poor girl had been traumatized.
‘Anita?’
‘I was still awake when it happened to me. I saw everything … I felt everything.’ Her eyes locked on to his. ‘It got hold of my arms and tore them off. It broke me into pieces. I was still awake and I felt everything … every awful thing …’ Her voice trailed off to be replaced by broken-hearted sobbing.
At that moment, Tony noticed the sound of a fast-flowing river. What was more, it now seemed to him that he, Anita and Luke were somehow tied together. And still he couldn’t tell who carried them. Then the strangeness of the situation grew much stranger. He glimpsed bare feet beneath him to his left and right. The feet splashed down into water.
