The School of the Undead

by Michael Woods

  Amanda hurried past the shelves of magazines, books, cards, drinks, snacks, sandwiches, sweets, paper, pens, files and plastic covers, apologising to whoever she had to push past to get through as she went. Then, after making two rounds of the store without catching sight of the boy, she finally found him carefully inspecting a packet of Haribo.

  She came up to the boy as cautiously as she could so as not to startle him, but she need not have worried. When she came to his side, he just casually turned to her and gave her a look that suggested her being there made no real difference to him at all.

  “Do you think I can still eat these?” he remarked.

  “Brenden,” said Amanda in a voice that she considered a little too harsh to properly engage with the boy. She gave herself a moment to compose herself and then she tried again. “Brenden, what are you doing out of school?”

  The boy shrugged his shoulders and then returned the sweets to the shelf.

  “I was going to go back home,” he said flatly, “but I didn’t have enough to get there. Even the coach was too much.”

  For the first time, he looked up at her and a flash of emotion passed across his face; as quickly as it emerged he pushed it down. Amanda placed her hand on the boy’s shoulder, not sure what else to do. She was keenly aware that despite his money troubles, Brenden might still not want to return to the school. What was worse, if he was determined not to go back, she was not sure if she would make him, not only as he could just cry out that she was a stranger trying to abduct him, but because part of her believed that he should choose what path he should take.

  “So what do you want to do?” she asked.

  “Am I in much trouble?”

  “No, Brenden, no. They were worried more than anything. They wanted to know where you were. That’s why they sent me, to see if I could find you.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “For finding me, that is. I guess I might be ready to go back.”

  Amanda gently led Brenden away from the sweets by resting her hand on the boy’s back and making him lead the way. Without any conscious decision to do so, she heaved a sigh of relief and, as she heard the breath escaping from her body, she recognised how glad she was that the boy had decided to return to the school without any need to be persuaded to do so.

  “Hold on, Brenden,” said Amanda. “Why don’t I get you a pack of Haribo for the journey back. I don’t know what they’ve told you over there at the school, but it’s fine to eat a bit. Just try not to overdo it. Wait here a sec, okay?”

  Brenden smiled a little and nodded eagerly.

  As soon as Amanda picked up the packet of Tangfastics that Brenden had been inspecting so carefully, she heard the boy cry out. She dropped the bag and ran over to the entrance of the shop where she had left the boy to find an unknown short, stocky man, who was dressed in a cream suit, with a tight grip on the Brenden’s wrist.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing!” called out Amanda, only drawing more attention to a scene that had already caught the eye of most of the shoppers in the store.

  “Oh my,” said the man, who instantly released the boy when he saw Amanda. “Do excuse me, I was looking for a lost boy, but clearly this young man is nothing of the sort.”

  Amanda pulled Brenden towards her to get him away from his recent captor, and at the same time, Brenden started to curl into a ball while rubbing at his wrist. With an easy grace and freedom of movement that seemed incongruous with his portly figure, the man swept up his fallen cream fedora and ivory cane and then proceeded to exit the store while ignoring the stares of all around him. As Amanda tried in vain to pull Brenden up from the floor, the idea blazed into her mind that perhaps she had just seen the very person she had been looking for in Radcliff.

  “Was it him Brenden? The man?”

  The boy looked up into Amanda’s expectant face, tears rolling down his cheeks, and then relaxed as the moment of his attack, which had just been so apparent in his mind, faded away.

  “No,” he spluttered. He tried to clear his throat and gain control of himself, he tried again. “No, it wasn’t him.”

  “Then who was that man?”

  ***

  Except for a few suggestions on what direction they should go in, no words passed between Amanda and Brenden as they walked back to her car. She could see that the boy was still very distressed from the incident in the store, and as much as she wanted to comfort him she felt that if she tried to help the boy she would only end up making things worse. She knew what was going on in his mind; he was battling with the scar of a memory left by his attack; an attack that had taken everything away from Brenden he had previously known. Indeed, in light of the circumstances, she believed the boy was holding up well: the tears were gone, and the only real sign to anyone walking by that anything was wrong was the occasional mumbled sob, something which Brenden was always quick to contain. So instead of trying to do anything that could hinder the boy from his own efforts, she just did her best to lead the two of them through the streets of Caldborough, while keeping an eye out for the attacker, should he return.

  When they finally reached the mostly empty grey car park, Amanda placed Brenden in her Clio as quickly as she could and strapped him in. Without asking him whether he wanted it or not, she put the radio on and, as Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney’s ‘The Girl is Mine’ provided a bit of background noise, she told Brenden that she had to make a call to the school to say that he was safe and found.

  To her mild irritation, the drizzle started again as soon as she got out of the driver’s seat. However, she did not want Brenden hearing her conversation with the deputy, so she would just have to bear it. She made her way to the navy blue doors of the pub, hoping that the building would provide her some protection against the rain, and retrieved her phone from her pocket.

  When she opened up the flip case, the phone immediately started to ring; the caller was unknown. She scanned around to see if anyone was watching her, but the only people she could see where those in the cars passing on the nearby road and Brenden, who was flipping through the radio channels in her car. It was just a coincidence, she was sure.

  “Hello?” she said tentatively.

  “Hello,” said a woman’s voice on the other end of the line. “I’m looking for Amanda.”

  “You’ve found her.”

  “Ah, good. This is Mary speaking.”

  “Mary?” replied Amanda, a little taken aback as the first idea to occur to her was that her friend from the Tunnels had found a way to call her.

  “Mary O’Hare, we met the other day.”

  “Oh sorry, of course,” Amanda said with more than a hint of disappointment.

  “I heard that you left town, and just wanted to know when you would be coming back.”

  “I’m sorry?” replied Amanda incredulously

  “Look, I think we might have got off on the wrong foot the other day. It’s just, well, the thing is, there was a reason why I’d didn’t want to talk to you. I was afraid.”

  “Afraid? Of what.”

  “I can’t tell you right now. Not over the phone, it’s too risky. We’ll have to meet face to face. Just call me when you get back.”

  “But, Mary, what this all about?”

  “I can’t say. Not yet.”

  The line went dead. Before she really realised what had happened, Amanda spoke a few pointless hellos into the phone. It had all been so abrupt and out of the blue, and it had raised so many questions, all of which remained unanswered, that Amanda was tempted to ring Mary back immediately to try and get some clarification. However, when she tried, Mary’s phone was engaged.

  She took her time getting back to the car, giving herself the space she needed to get her thoughts straight before returning to Brenden. She watched him, still flicking through the radio channels, as she approached, and when she opened the driver’s door she even managed a smile.

  “So what did they say?” asked Brenden.

  “Who?”

>   “At the school.”

  Amanda resisted the urge to swear in front of the boy and contented herself by tightening her grip on the steering wheel to let out her frustration at her own forgetfulness.

  “Oh, I couldn’t get through,” she lied. “But it doesn’t matter, we’ll be there soon enough.”

  ***

  Amanda had been waiting as patiently as she could in the deputy’s cupboard of an office for what had been a very long twenty minutes. A few times, she tried to occupy herself by examining some of the tired yellowing papers and carelessly discarded books that lined much of the floor of the small space around her, but most were in languages she could not understand. The ones that were in English – or French, of which she had a rather shaky, but sufficient grounding in – seemed to be in something akin to the academic language she remembered from her university days and was glad to have left behind. So, instead of inspecting what she presumed the deputy had just left around to impress anyone who had to suffer the claustrophobic space of his office, she had eventually pulled out her phone and tried to distract herself with a game.

  But it was no use, as much as she tried to concentrate on the vivid colours and repetitive actions of the game, her thoughts about the events in the store kept on returning to her, urging her to find the deputy so that she could determine what he knew about Brenden’s unknown assailant.

  She had seen the deputy when she had arrived back at the school and the man had been delighted - though, a little less surprised than Amanda had expected - to see that she had found the boy. Indeed, the deputy responded in such a way that Amanda strongly suspected that he had already been informed about the incident in the store, even though she had not informed anyone at the school about what had happened. However, she had no intention of bringing up her suspicions in front of Brenden as the boy was clearly exhausted and still more than a little shaken from his confrontation with the man in the cream suit. So, after asking if she could have a word with the deputy before leaving, she had let the man drop her off at his office before letting him return Brenden to the boy’s room.

  She went through her short meeting with the deputy one more time, and - after drumming her fingers on the man’s chipboard desk and fidgeting around in her seat - she shot up and made for the door determined to track the man down. She did not have to go far, as soon as she opened the door she revealed the very person she was looking for.

  “Ah, Amanda,” said the deputy. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”

  “That man in town!” said Amanda who was thoroughly fed up from the long day, the events in the town and from having had to wait around for the man before her.

  “Sorry?”

  “That man in Caldborough! Was he one of yours?”

  “Amanda, please,” replied the deputy while slipping into the room and closing the door behind him. “Look, it seems as if there’s been a little misunderstanding.”

  “A misunderstanding? What are you talking about? Is it, or is it not the case that the man who tried to pull Brenden out of a shop back in town is working for you?”

  “Now, Amanda, look. There’s no need to get hysterical.”

  Amanda drew in a sharp breath to take in the air she needed to tell the deputy, most probably with the aid of a number of expletives, that he was most definitely in the wrong. However, some part of her was just about strong enough to be able to hold the rest of her back by making it clear that she would regret getting on the deputy’s wrong side. Instead, she gave herself a moment to rein in her temper, even though she felt that she was justified in her feelings, before resuming the conversation with a different approach.

  “You say there’s been a misunderstanding,” she said with a controlled, firm voice. “What do you mean?”

  “You were quite right, Amanda, to suspect that the man in town was working for me. He was one of two people, other than yourself, that I sent out today to see if they could track down the boy. The thing is, the misunderstanding, that is… Perhaps my friend Tobias got the wrong end of the stick and was a little overzealous in his attempt to apprehend our boy. But I’m not sure what all the fuss is about, really. I accept that perhaps he could have gone about things a little differently – though sometimes an approach like Tobias’ is for the best as we can’t have our students out and about, letting their bloodlust get the better of them and endangering the townsfolk. If anything were to have happened, just consider what the consequences would have been for the school? But, you must see that all things considered, the boy’s back, safe and all is generally well.”

  “Look, I’ll admit that I’m exhausted from the day, but I assure you that I’m not just making fuss for nothing. As you said on the phone, many people here at the school don’t know about the world out there…”

  “Of course, that’s one of the reasons I sent you after the boy,” interrupted the deputy in an attempt to regain control of the conversation.

  “And I would say that if you think that all is generally well with the way that Tobias handled things,” continued Amanda without paying attention to the deputy’s interjection, “then I think you were right. Do you know what would have happened if that man had dragged the boy away? People could have called the police; they might have even tried to intervene to save the boy. Think of the consequences of that! He could have put the whole school in jeopardy.

  “But that’s not the only thing. Haven’t you thought about Brenden’s wellbeing in all this? What do you think this Tobias’ actions will have done to Brenden? I mean, the whole way back here he was in a state of shock. How long ago was it that the poor guy was attacked? And to have to go through something like that so soon. If you think that sort of treatment is acceptable, it’s no wonder he ran away.”

  “Fine, fine,” replied the deputy in a way that made Amanda believe he was not really engaging with what she was saying. “I’ll try to take on board what you’re telling me, but old dogs and all; and this man Tobias nearly always gets his man.”

  Though she felt that she should say more, Amanda was certain that it would be fruitless to continue on about the foolishness of the approach the deputy had adopted to find the boy. The dismissive tone in his voice and the referral to the positive qualities of Tobias made his true feelings clear: for him, Amanda’s concerns were needless. There was also something else behind her firm words, a degree of annoyance resulting from her realisation that the deputy had manipulated her. It was clear to her now why the man had not informed her about the others who had been engaged in the search for Brenden. If she had been privy to their approach from the start, she would have complained and caused a fuss. So, it had just been easier for the deputy to deflect her questions about the others. Surely this should have made her want to confront the man all the more, thought Amanda, but all it did was leave her with the desire to get out of his office.

  Silence hung in the room for some time as Amanda concentrated on avoiding saying something that she might regret. Meanwhile, the deputy took his time to rearrange the mess of papers on his desk. Though it seemed to Amanda that the man was doing nothing but moving the sheets from one place to another and back again, the effect created by his actions eventually seemed to calm the air between the two and - when he felt the moment was right - he started a new conversation in such a bright mood that Amanda almost forgot about her annoyance with the man.

  “So then, what have you found in Radcliff?”

  “Well…”

  “No wait, there was something I wanted to say to you. Even though I’m sure a bright girl such as yourself would conduct yourself with discretion anyway, I thought I better mention that you need to be a little careful about talking to others of your investigation; well, about anything that you might come across, that is. You’re still quite new to our community, you know, and I’m not quite sure if you realise how much of a village the world of the undead really is. It only takes a couple of misspoken words against someone here or there, and then that’s it! You’re done for unless
you get your neck down to the Tunnels. Even then, after you’ve had to give up on whatever life you may have carved out for yourself up here, once you’re down there, there’s a good chance that you’ll be ostracised and left to fade away in the darkness.”

  As the deputy went on, the air between the two vampires thickened once more as Amanda came to the conclusion that the man before her considered her to be a foolish child who deserved no respect from someone as important as himself. He could have just told her that he wanted her to keep her findings in Radcliff discreet, but this was not enough: he also needed to justify his request by backing it up with the threat that she could ruin someone’s life, perhaps even her own, without her even realising what she was doing. She shifted uneasily in her chair as she fought against the uncomfortable accumulation of feelings that were making her wish she had never agreed to take up the deputy’s offer to investigate Brenden’s case and that were pushing her to just get out while she was ahead. She fought as she still needed the blood from the school to stay in the living world and as she was aware that it would be a grave mistake to end up on the wrong side of the deputy, irrespective of her opinion of the man. As he had said, the world of the undead was a village and it would not bode well for her to displease one of its more influential members.

  “I don’t know what I can tell you,” said Amanda. “I certainly don’t think that I’ve found out anything that could affect anyone’s standing in the community. What can I even say? I managed to see three of the four vampires from the files you gave me – Mary O’Hare, Milch and Packard - and I don’t think that any of them could have attacked Brenden. I pretty much doubt that the last one on the list, the older woman, could be a real suspect either, not with the description that Brenden gave me. I’ve also not been able to find anything of any real importance from the interviews I’ve had with the other three. None of them seemed particularly pleased about my visiting them, well maybe apart from Packard, and they were all adamant that they knew nothing about the attack.”