by Matt Shaw
As expected, Judge Reiger had turned the town’s people against the vampires (which, in turn, would spread to the other ghouls) and the real killer was still out there – lurking in the shadows to kill again.
It was The Count who had taken Van Helsing away from the angry mob; away from Judge Reiger and the hangman’s noose. The Count could see the fight was coming his way. The fight was coming to his family and he would always stand up and protect them (that and the fact that the town’s people waging war was a bloody good excuse to rip apart a few more of the Normals that he detested so much). Instead of waiting for them to come to him - he, and his family, had taken the fight to the hall and, as it turned out, just in time to rescue Van Helsing.
“He killed your rich friend,” said The Count referring to Jeremiah Simpkins, “from the shadows, he plucked him and tore his head from his shoulders with a strength brought on from both adrenaline and determination…”
“I don’t understand. Why did you come for me? Why don’t you just go after him for yourself?”
“I rarely pay attention to anything that I see during my dreams,” continued The Count, “there’s so many dreams that it’s hard to keep up with them. It would be impossible to remember every tiny little detail. All I remember from the first was that it was only about the death of another pathetic, little human. Why would I pay attention to that? I don’t care how many of you die… the second time I saw him was when he went for your beloved music man and, again, I didn’t pay any attention to it. It was only when he went for the potion lady that I started to pay proper attention but by then it was too late.”
“What do you mean?” asked Van Helsing.
The Count beckoned to follow him from the room and ended up leading him down the windy stairs and into the large dining room where he had sat in their earlier meeting. There, on the large table where his earlier marmite sandwich had been, was the body of Igor (which incidentally actually smelt a little bit better now he was dead).
“As soon as they went to that shop I knew they were coming here but I couldn’t see why. The next thing I knew, the doorbell woke me from my slumber and he was here. When I realised he wasn’t here for me, I closed my door and left him to his own devices…”
“But you could have saved Igor.”
“And then I saw your meeting in the hall. I saw it going wrong for you and I saw you swinging from your neck – your body limp and lifeless; left to hang for the buzzards to eat as your killers then came for my family.”
“They wouldn’t have killed me,” said Van Helsing.
The Count smiled sweetly (well, as sweetly as a stone-cold killer can) at Van Helsing’s naivety.
“I still don’t understand why you stopped it from happening,” said Van Helsing, ignoring The Count’s smile.
“I have stopped nothing, merely delayed it. They’ll clean up their dead, lick their wounds and then they’ll come back and they’ll keep coming until they are all dead and we destroy your town.”
“You said it yourself – you will kill them and destroy the town. Why should I help you?”
“What other side will you join? I can kill you here. They can kill you there. You can kill yourself if you prefer – but either way, unless we join forces – you will not survive the night.”
“I’ve killed members of your family, why would you want to save me?” continued Van Helsing.
With no word of a warning The Count lunged forward and picked Van Helsing up by his throat, raising him high in the air. His face contorted to that of the Monster that Van Helsing had heard about on so many occasions. Van Helsing struggled in The Count’s strong grip but it was worthless to try.
“I’m not saving you! I could kill you with a simple twist. I am giving you an opportunity to save yourself – now will you take it or will I kill you now?” The Count eased the pressure off Van Helsing’s neck, slightly, allowing him to force out a sentence.
“I’ll take it,” wheezed Van Helsing.
The Count smiled and his face returned back to the appearance of an old man, “A wise choice,” and with that he threw Van Helsing across the room, into the hard stone wall. Van Helsing didn’t get up – instead he simply laid there; stunned.
“I like this town. I’m happy with the Treaty. I get to live here, in peace and quiet. I’m tired of roaming this miserable Earth looking for somewhere to call my home. If I kill the people of your town I am left with nothing. More monster-hunters will come, trying to kill my family and me. Any survivors that manage to escape me will, no doubt, flee the town and food will be scarce again with no visitors to eat. Tell me, Helsing, why would I want to ruin that? If you can find out who the killer is and expose them to your people, before any more of them die, then you have a chance of getting back into their good graces and avoiding this whole mess. Mark my words, though, they want you dead. They know you let Frankenstein escape. They know I have just saved you. They think you’re one of us. They think I’ve turned you and you are going to have to prove them wrong by finding the real killer before it is too late…”
“No pressure then,” said Van Helsing as he pulled himself to his feet – his whole body aching from the impact of the wall.
“Some of my family will watch over you…”
“I don’t want you killing anymore people,” interrupted Van Helsing.
The Count smirked, “Even when they hate you so much… Even when they want you dead… You still want to save them. It’s pathetic. My family will watch over you, from a distance, whilst you carry out your investigations. If you don’t want them to kill anyone – I suggest you aren’t seen whilst you work.”
Van Helsing limped to the body of Igor. As with the bodies of Herr Monika and Mrs. Rouble – there were two small holes in the side of the neck. For a moment it flashed through Van Helsing’s mind that, perhaps, The Count had killed Igor, using the opportunity of the killer to get rid of his staff member without having to worry about a possible tribunal. It was a silly thought.
“Why?” uttered Van Helsing to himself.
The Count walked over to join Van Helsing’s side, “I can tell you this much, it was for the vial around his neck.”
* * * * *
Van Helsing sat in The Count’s dining room, staring at the body of Igor. The Count, and the female vampire, had left him to his own private thoughts as he struggled to piece everything together.
Van Helsing knew that the killer took Igor’s life because he wanted the vial around his neck but that opened a new can of worms (not literally). The killer must have known Victor Frankenstein. There was only a select few individuals who were aware about the existence of the vials and what Victor had created as his final masterpiece, of which only a few existed. Victor had a couple with him. Van Helsing had one (to take if he ever needed Victor). And now the killer had one. Van Helsing wondered whether the other killings were merely a distraction to get his hands on the vial. But why would he risk getting caught when he could have simply gone straight to Mrs. Rouble’s shop first. And what was so special about Mrs. Rouble’s shop?
Van Helsing sat up. “It” (being the reason why the killer went to Mrs. Rouble’s shop first) clicked into place. The Count could see the killer until he went to Mrs. Rouble’s shop; the shop that sold magic potions. Van Helsing (and the rest of the town) thought the shop was nothing more than a gimmick. They all believed it was simply set up to try and get as much money from gullible tourists as possible. No-one ever believed that the potions actually worked. No-one ever thought that the potion that stopped the Evil-Eye from seeing you actually referred to The Count. More importantly, no-one actually ever realised that Mrs. Rouble was a witch. At least Van Helsing could feel slightly easier about her death now – after all, a witch is not the sort of person you want in your town no matter how quietly they try and live their life.
“Mrs. Rouble was for the potion and Igor was for his vial,” recapped Van Helsing to himself (and any readers who were still struggling to understand what was hap
pening).
But it didn’t explain why Herr Monika was killed, or Jeremiah Simpkins, and no matter how much Van Helsing thought about it - he couldn’t piece it together. His mind kept flicking back to the importance of the missing vial. A troubling thought suggesting that the killer’s next target was to be Victor Frankenstein. A troubling thought that pointed to Victor and the killer being friends. A troubling thought that kept whispering to Van Helsing that, if he wanted to stop the war that would destroy his town, he needed to see Victor Frankenstein…
Van Helsing sat back in his chair and pulled on a dainty silver chain that hung around his neck; a vial, similar to the one that Igor had, with purple liquid hung from the end of it.
CHAPTER NINE
VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN
VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN wasn’t the sort of person that liked to take things easy. When he wasn’t throwing together some strange concoction, or tweaking his Monster with the latest gadgets (like a Sat Nav system and MP3 player) he was busy scribbling down strange ideas in his notebook (“Scribblings From a Dark Place”) that he could implement within the coming weeks when he had more time to sit there and make them as opposed to write about them. Some of his ideas turned to nothing. Some ideas turned into something worthwhile (like a stair-lift for old people) and some ideas turned into something extremely bad (like AIDS).
The vial was one of the inventions that were both useful and bad. On the one hand it ended up saving Victor’s life but on the other hand, Victor knew that if it fell into the wrong person’s hands the results would be catastrophic. With that in mind, and after he was finished testing it, Victor made only eight vials in total. He and the Monster used two to get where they were today. He left one with Igor incase he ever wanted to join them. He left one with Van Helsing as a thank you for saving his life (and in case Helsing ever needed to contact him) and he took the remaining ones with him incase he ever needed them – and, to be honest, it was a good job that he did.
The vial itself wasn’t important. The vial was simply a container for the liquid inside; the important bit. With the liquid, Victor had invented a potion that allowed him (and others who drank it) to travel through time. One swallowed drop of the liquid would take you forward by one hundred years. If you threw the drop back up (because it did taste absolutely rancid) you ended up going back through time by one hundred years.
Interesting fact: Did you know that before Victor Frankenstein invented this formula, we all looked like giant walking, and talking, apes such as the ones that you may recognise at the start of evolution charts. Things changed when Victor tried to send a test subject forward in time. The test subject was a young man called Adam who agreed to the test because he was short of money and saving up for a new Sony home entertainment system.
Poor Adam guzzled the potion down only to throw it back up again. He belched and vanished in a purple puff of smoke never to be seen again. However, mere moments after disappearing, before Van Helsing and Victor Frankenstein’s eyes, both Victor and Van Helsing started to change appearance.
Their hair, which covered their bodies, fell from their bodies and they turned into what we look like today. Using a lot of guess work – Victor came to the conclusion that poor old Adam had gone back in time and set up a family with one of the early primates only to end up having relationships that would speed up the evolution process. Ultimately Victor came to the conclusion that, under any circumstances, you really shouldn’t sick the potion back up; a golden rule that echoed through Van Helsing’s thoughts as he pressed the vial against his lips and prepared to drink the amount Victor had instructed him to (before he had left, he had given Van Helsing strict guidelines to follow that would help him to join him).
“This is it,” thought Van Helsing before tilting his head back and swallowing the required amount. His heart skipped a beat as the foul taste hit home, and he thought he was going to sick it back up, before he suddenly disappeared in a puff of purple smoke.
Now I can’t tell you what happens when people fly forward in time. I haven’t tried any of this magic liquid myself, although I did desperately try to win some on EBay not so long ago so that I could get first hand knowledge of what happened during the process. Unfortunately my bid of ten pounds and thirty-three pence failed to secure a winning bid. Had I bid ten pounds and forty-six pence – it would have been a completely different story and I would have been able to go a lot deeper into the actual events that occur during time travel. Still – I failed and with my failure in mind…. Van Helsing disappeared from this time and simply appeared in another time, 2009, with a thump to the face that rendered him unconscious.
“Only human!”
* * * * *
Van Helsing slowly opened his eyes; blinking hard as they adjusted to the florescent light that illuminated the room in which he found himself chained to the wall.
“What the hell is this?” he demanded through a slurred speech as his senses slowly began to fire on all cylinders again.
“This is the future,” replied a voice that Van Helsing instantly recognised as being Victor. “I wondered what happened to you – one minute you were running through the pages of history slaughtering vampires and demons and the next… nothing; as though you simply disappeared.” Victor fell silent again as he pondered the situation. “Hmmm,” he said after a while, “I guess this means that this is my entire fault?”
“Victor?” muttered Van Helsing as he peered across to the shadows, at the far side of the room.
“How have you been?” asked Victor as he stepped from the darkness. “I’m terribly sorry about your welcoming committee – I didn’t plan it to be like that. No, no, no – I was going to leave you some money, some change of clothes so that you’d fit in with the time and a little letter detailing how you could find me but… well, things changed.”
“What’s going on? Where am I?”
“Shouldn’t that be – when are you?”
Victor walked over to where Van Helsing was sprawled on the floor and sat next to him, leaning his back against the brick wall.
“I suppose, with the rate in which vampire attacks were happening in the fourteen hundreds – this outcome was inevitable.” Victor turned to Van Helsing, “You know – when we planned to send me forward to escape my crimes – I’m not entirely sure that we thought everything through properly…”
“I don’t understand,” said Van Helsing, “let me out of these.”
“I can’t, my dear friend, I don’t have the keys. They do.”
“Then tell me who has the keys?”
“They do. The vampires… they won, Van Hesling. They won!”
(If this were a movie, as opposed to a damn fine book, there would be a dramatic music score here.)
CHAPTER TEN
ANOTHER BRIEF LESSON IN HISTORY
THE WORLD WHICH WE KNOW and sort of love so well is far from perfect, as I am sure you are aware and would agree. Famine is high (as I type this now I am proper hungry), crime rates in cities around the world are high (only yesterday in Martin’s newsagent did I witness a little tyke stealing a bar of ‘Chomp’) and people are killing each other in wars that are pointless, bloody and bloody pointless.
Yet, with all of this in mind, some of us are able to live a relatively peaceful life (unless of course you marry or have children in which case your lives become full of constant nagging, bickering and screaming).
Before I go any further I would just like to point out that I am one of the luckier people in that I am married but don’t have any constant nagging or bickering (although I may, from time to time, have the odd screaming fit but that’s not because of my wife – that is simply because I am bored and filling my quiet day). Still, I have seen many a married person that does experience the previously mentioned points…
If it wasn’t for the fact that a stranger, back in the late fourteen hundreds, caused a war between vampires and humans that spread from city to city, right across the world (causing humans to face near-exti
nction) – Van Helsing would have awoken in a world very much like the one we currently live in. Instead, when Van Helsing regained consciousness (which he seems to lose an awful lot) he awoke to find himself in a terrifying new world.
When Judge Reiger gathered his army – he attacked the vampires as best as he could (for someone so ill-prepared). His army consisted of townies, all of whom fighting in the belief that vampires were responsible for the death of some of the town residents; all of whom fighting with little, or no, combat experience.
The Count, and his family, didn’t have any trouble in killing the advancing townsfolk. With great ease, the vampires marched through the advancing attackers, tearing limbs off here and there before turning those who they deemed worthy enough of becoming one of them.
When the battle was over (after approximately one hour, twenty-seven minutes and thirty-four seconds – which, by the way, is a record for the shortest ever war) The Count knew that word would soon get to other cities – both close to their city and further afield. As word spread across the world – he knew it was only a matter of time before ‘monster-hunters’ came looking for revenge. He also knew that it would only be a matter of time before monster-hunters came looking for a ‘hero status’ that would be achievable if they would be the ones to defeat the escalating vampire population.
