by Matt Shaw
“So,” said The Count after a minute’s silence, “have you killed any of my children recently?” The Count referred to all other vampires as his ‘children’ as, with a single bite, he gave birth to them (not literally). He liked to think of himself as a father figure to all other vampires – if you hurt one of them, you hurt him (again, not literally – he just gets a little bit grumpy about it).
In his current ‘get-up’, looking like an elderly man, The Count looked more like a granddad than a father – possibly even a great-grandfather. His skin was so wrinkled and eyes so grey and lifeless that, if you didn’t know him, you would struggle to think of him as the cold-hearted killer that he actually was.
“I could ask you the same thing,” said Van Helsing.
“I was unaware that you had any offspring, Van Helsing,” replied The Count with a smirk. He was well aware that Van Helsing didn’t have any offspring – only a pet iguana called Frederick. The Count knew very well what Van Helsing did mean though.
Van Helsing squirmed a little in his seat whilst Judge Reiger couldn’t help but smile at The Count’s comeback.
“I know why you are here,” said The Count, already bored with watching Van Helsing squirm. “You want to know if one of my children is responsible for the death of the music teacher.”
Judge Reiger frowned, wondering how The Count could possibly know why they had come to see him considering he rarely left his castle. It was this talent though (seeing things without actually being there) that made Van Helsing uncomfortable. Well, it was that talent and the talent he had of shape-shifting and eating people but that made everyone uncomfortable. Not many people knew that the Count was a psychic.
“Did they?” asked Van Helsing pointedly. He just wanted to get the answers he came for and leave as promptly as possible.
“You call yourself Sheriff? Tell me, Sheriff, what crimes have you actually solved recently? It seems to me that you spend more time accusing people than actually arresting them.”
Van Helsing ignored him, “You didn’t answer the question.”
The Count leaned forward and smiled at the two of them. His fangs grew down and out of his mouth – the tip of the left one catching the light showing off the sharpness, “The front teeth, lips and tongue are highly specialized, with the former used to trim the surrounding skin of the host, acting like scissors. Then a piece of skin is removed by the razor-sharp V-shaped front teeth, much like using a spoon to scoop ice cream out of a cup. During this process our saliva, which contains an anticoagulant, is released and the resulting wound bleeds freely, enabling the vampire to feed using grooves in its lower lip and under its tongue. The grooves form a straw-like structure enabling us to suck the blood rather than lapping it like a dog.” He sat back and allowed his teeth to retract a little.
Van Helsing sat back defeated. He didn’t say anything. He knew what The Count was getting at.
“I’m confused,” said Judge Reiger quietly to Van Helsing – hoping that one of them would be good enough to fill him in with what he was obviously missing. The Count smiled to Van Helsing before gesturing for him to explain.
“Vampires drink blood,” said Van Helsing.
“Well, yes, we know that much,” said Judge Reiger impatiently.
“We drain our victims,” continued The Count – his eyes flashed red before returning to their dull grey colour as though the mere thought of drinking blood turned him on.
“Again, thank you for the lesson on how to be a good vampire – but we know that! Lord knows you’ve left enough of our people completely empty in the past!”
“When Mr. Hyde threw the cleaver at me; it missed and landed in Herr Monika…”
“Yes, very fortunate, but we aren’t talking about that now…” interrupted Judge Reiger as he continued to make himself look particularly stupid.
“I took the cleaver to protect us,” continued Van Helsing, ignoring Judge Reiger’s pathetic attempt at being clever.
“More like to protect you,” said Judge Reiger.
“When I took the cleaver out of Herr Monika – blood spurted everywhere…” continued Van Helsing.
“Oh…” and at last the penny dropped for Judge Reiger. Vampires drink blood. They drain their victims. They don’t leave any blood left in the bodies and, if they do, it certainly isn’t enough blood to cause a ‘spurt’ from any of the orifices. The Count gave Judge Reiger a small round of applause for catching up.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” asked The Count, enjoying his moment of making Van Helsing look stupid.
“If you can see everything, do you know who the killer is?” asked Van Helsing.
The Count smiled. He knew but he’d never say. He’d never help one of the Normals. He stood up, “Then, if there is nothing else, I bid you good day.”
With that, he turned and walked from the room – leaving both Van Helsing and Judge Reiger alone again. All they had learnt was that the killer wanted to make it look like a vampire kill. Well, that and the fact that the walk to The Count’s castle was a knackering one.
The burning question was – why did they want it to look like a vampire kill? Well, that and the other, more obvious, burning question – who was committing the bloody murders in the first place?
CHAPTER FIVE
DEAR DIARY
(Extract taken from Van Helsing’s diary)
Dear Diary,
My sincere apologies for leaving it so long since our last chat but I haven’t had anything of interest to say. You probably aren’t aware, what with being a book and all, there is a killer on the loose in my town; a dangerous rogue of the most despicable kind.
The town’s folk look to me for guidance; expecting me to bring the killer to justice but I’m not sure if I can. They only made me a sheriff because I managed to slay one of the vampires and now everyone expects me to be this superhero monster-killer. If only they knew the truth. If only they knew that, in truth, I was nothing more than a lowlife coward who just happened to get lucky on that damned evening. Would they still want me to be their hero? Somehow, I doubt it but then, could they do any better themselves? It’s not as though you go to a special school to learn the tricks of the trade. It’s not like they show you how to identify and catch the bad people that plague our streets. Speaking of which – who is this madman currently plaguing are streets and why would they go out of their way to make it look as though a vampire was responsible for their crime? It could have ended in an all out war between us and them. It could have ended with a bloodbath; our bloodbath no doubt.
I just hope that the killer has achieved what he set out to do. I hope that the murder of Herr Monika was the one crime that he wanted to commit and that the death of Jeremiah was simply down to the competition. One can hope. The death of Herr Monika is a tragic loss to our town but at least it would mean the killer would once again fade into the shadows from whence he came. At least he would be done and, in time if not caught, the people would forget.
One can live in hope… Hope is all we have.
Van Helsing
CHAPTER SIX
THE TRAGIC TALE OF IGOR
Chillington Arms Hotel
1, The Square
January 16th
Dear Igor,
Thank you for your recent application for the role of ‘Front of House Manager’. Unfortunately, on this occasion your application has been unsuccessful.
Once again we thank you for your time and wish you luck in your search for employment.
Best Regards,
H. A. Lourelle
ONE OF MANY REJECTION LETTERS
RECEIVED BY IGOR, SINCE LOSING
HIS JOB WITH FRANKENSTEIN
IGOR didn’t have it easy when Victor Frankenstein left him. He had devoted his entire working life to Victor who didn’t have much time to hang around, when the time came for him to leave, and write Igor the glowing reference that he so rightly deserved.
Throughout his happy employment, Igor wo
uld always get out of bed at some silly o’clock in the morning to prepare his master’s clothes and breakfast. If there was time, when the first chores were done, he would often kill the ‘quiet time’ before Victor awoke by doing housework – such as polishing the body parts that Victor had collected from the graveyard the previous night (to make his Monster).
No sooner had Victor woken from his slumber – he used to fill the rest of Igor’s days with various tasks such as preparing meals, fetching the newspaper from the front porch and popping off to the local supermarket to get the weekly shopping in. To you and me, Igor didn’t have the best job in the world. The wages were minimal and he often ended up doing overtime for free. He didn’t even get a day off in lieu.
With Victor out of his life for the foreseeable future and Igor’s debts mounting up rapidly (that damned Littlewoods account certainly piled on the interest each month), Igor didn’t have any choice but to leave his master’s town and seek employment elsewhere – anywhere that would accept him. Unfortunately, as explained, with no reference for the one job that he had – Igor struggled to get an interview.
Victor did leave Igor with the means to join him (a small vial that Igor wore around his neck) in his new safe destination, but Igor didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to run away. He wanted to make it work here and now. He didn’t necessarily like it where he was but he figured it was ‘better the Devil you know’ and so set his mind about finding a new job to succeed in.
At first he only sent applications to jobs that he believed he was worth – head waiter in a fancy restaurant, head butler in the finest of hotels and even manager of Toys R Us. As each of the applications were turned down, Igor was forced to lower his sights with applications to the local refuge collection team, a small part-time job in different hotels and even a Saturday job in McDonalds – all of which were also turned down.
Lack of experience would definitely be one of the reasons for his applications to keep getting turned down but another reason would have been his looks for, to put it nicely, Igor was definitely a minger. He had a funny hunchback, missing teeth, long hair down the side of his head with nothing on top and a serious case of halitosis. If that wasn’t bad enough – he stank. Igor only owned one suit and that was all he wore. He wore it to bed. He wore it to work. He sweated during the hot summer nights. He sweated during his work. When working for Victor, his role didn’t include doing his own laundry.
To be honest, it’s a shame that Igor never got to interview stage as, face to face, he was actually a lovely chap; always quick to offer a marmite sandwich.
Having been made bankrupt by a local court, for non-payment of his Littlewoods account, Igor stumbled from town to town living off rats, cats and leftover fish and chips – drinking from dirty streams, puddles and abandoned cans of cider. It was during these ‘wandering times’ that Igor happened across The Count’s advert in the local rag ‘The Transylvanian Times’.
Igor had heard about The Count and didn’t really wish to work for him. He had enough of working for people that were deemed ‘shady’ – he was fed up with the negativity that the role brought with it. Because people had hated Victor – they had also hated Igor.
Weeks went by and the advert remained in the newspaper, in the same column space as when Igor originally saw it; second from the left next to the advert seeking Ann Summer’s party representatives. Each time Igor saw the advert; he grunted and tossed the paper to one side.
During his time in town, Igor tried desperately to fit in with the locals, make friends and find love. When he wasn’t scavenging for his food, or setting up his evening’s shelter, he spent his time in the park – talking to the parents who were playing with their darling little children. The father would push the child, on the swing, and Igor would grab the swing when it swung towards him, shouting ‘boo’ to the child before sending them swinging back to their worried father. The mother would roll the ball towards their child and Igor would intercept it before dribbling it around the park and booting it through the make-shift goal, before getting chased away by the angry mother who was left comforting their crying child.
No matter how hard he tried; he couldn’t get any friends. If anything – he only managed to get upset people and it wasn’t long before he realised that the only thing he had left to do was to apply for The Count’s job; which he duly did. Between you and me – Igor only got the job because there were no other applicants.
Igor was nervous on his first day of employment. He had seen the castle in the distance and knew that it would be hard work to keep it look nice (well, as nice as you can make a castle look) and he was worried about how his new master would treat him. As it turned out, The Count treated Igor well. He paid him well. He fed him well. The Count didn’t eat normal food, he only drank blood. Even so, he always ensured the refrigerator was always well stocked so Igor could eat well. At first Igor thought The Count was simply fattening him up – but, when the months past, he realised he was just treating him well.
After a few months it soon became apparent to Igor that he would rarely see his master. When his master was awake, Igor slept. When his master slept, Igor busied himself around the castle doing random odd-jobs that are of no-importance to this story and (honestly) quite dull so we’ll just skip them. Because of the Peace Treaty, Igor didn’t even have to venture into the town to kidnap a virgin for his master’s snack! Life was definitely easier but even with the full stomach, the good wages, and the somewhat easy lifestyle – Igor continued to feel lonely. All he wanted was a friend, or someone to love him and it was this ‘wanting’ of love that ended up killing him (sorry if that dramatic, over-the-top statement ruined it for you)…
* * * * *
In our bright and colourful world, that is so full of joy and wonderment (cough), there are groups of individuals known as escorts that offer companionship to grown-ups who are seeking friendship (and sometimes more) for a set amount of money that’s agreed before the appointment is made. Sometimes escorts offer services that lead to a more intimate form of companionship – although, in their adverts they normally make it sound as though you are simply paying for their time and, should anything ‘naughty’ take place then it was simply a matter between two consenting adults (in other words – you are not paying for the more intimate services).
Igor didn’t bother booking any of the escorts that offered the possibility of the more intimate appointment (otherwise known as the true girlfriend experience). This wasn’t because they charged too much or because he didn’t fancy the opportunity of getting closer to one of them; it was just that he had always been turned down at the time of booking due to his poor personal hygiene. There was no sane woman, alive or dead, that wanted to snuggle up close to him.
Instead, Igor always booked with the one agency in town that permitted him to see their girls. None of the girls offered anything ‘naughty’, they just offered friendship. It was a false friendship, and Igor knew this, but it was better than nothing and he knew that beggars couldn’t be choosers. Although if they could be choosers then he probably would have chosen a tall, size twelve, red headed girl – preferably called Hermione (for no reason other than he happened to like that name).
Everyone in town knew Igor used the agency. Even if people didn’t know Igor – they still knew he used the agency. Anytime Igor made a booking (after the first appointment, for the ladies had no idea what he was like until after they had met him the once) the girls involved had to first go to the local tavern to get blind drunk to help them go through with the appointment.
The first time they went to the tavern to get drunk, they got in such a state that the barman enquired as to why they were drinking so much and so they told him. They told him everything that they had to put up with; his smelly mouth, stinking arm-pits and general mustiness. They painted such a picture of pure stench that it made the barman feel nauseous and he too had to drink to put it out of his mind and then, when his regulars asked why he was drinking so much
– he told them. He painted the very same picture that was so beautifully described to him. Before long, the whole town was getting pissed. It did very little to help Igor’s public image but it made a huge difference to the profits of the local tavern.
Just as he had done so many times before, Igor booked a lady to come and spend the afternoon with him, whilst his master slept in his comfortable king-size coffin. It was a special occasion (his birthday) and he didn’t want to spend it alone.
Flicking through the local ‘rag’ (posh term for ‘paper’) he chose himself his dream girl; a size twelve, red headed lady called Hermione. He had never seen the girl in the paper before but just seeing the drawing of her in the paper was enough to convince him that he simply had to book her.
It was just a shame that the advert was a fake.
* * * * *
