‘Just sit and talk.’
‘No. Dr Dunstan has forbidden any company. She has to have complete quiet.’
‘How long for? I mean –’
Mrs Bishop drew herself up indignantly, as if he had been rude. ‘As long as it takes,’ she said angrily. ‘You’re all the same, you boys. Prying – asking questions – harrying folk. I’m not putting up with it, I tell you. I know my business – and how to mind it.’ Mrs Bishop slapped the lid back on to the paint tin and walked hurriedly away, her brush dripping paint on to the concrete floor.
‘I’m sorry,’ yelled Tim after her. ‘I didn’t mean to –’
But Mrs Bishop had disappeared round the corner.
Although Tim knew he had somehow mishandled the meeting, he couldn’t for the life of him think how he could have done any better. He felt desperately sorry for Mrs Bishop, all alone with her sick daughter, but what was he to do? He had no friends either.
Tim was so preoccupied with the problem as he ran out of the tower block entrance that he cannoned into a tall girl who was talking to a boy with a skinhead haircut and tattoos of snakes on his muscular arms.
‘You look where you’re going,’ said the boy aggressively.
‘Sorry,’ said Tim. He seemed to have spent all his time apologizing lately, and he was beginning to hate the hostile Grove Estate.
‘It’s the kid from Floor Ten,’ said the tall girl. She had dreadlocks and a pale skin, but her eyes weren’t unfriendly – they looked as afraid as Mrs Bishop’s. Tim wondered why.
‘Murder Row,’ said the boy.
‘What?’
‘They call Floor Ten Murder Row. Two bodies in eighteen months – each with their throats ripped out.’ He paused melodramatically. ‘They were dossers,’ he explained. ‘Getting a night’s kip – or trying to. We reckon that Mrs Bishop did it. She’s out of her mind, that one. Keeps her kid a prisoner. Real psycho.’
He paused for effect, while the tall girl added, ‘Social worker’s been up there and all, but Mrs B saw her off. She’s a monster, she is.’ She kept her eyes fixed on Tim, hoping to draw him out, wondering what he knew. ‘You seen Mrs B?’ she prompted.
‘Yeah. Just had a chat with her,’ Tim said casually.
The other two looked at him with new respect.
‘She was painting out some graffiti. Someone had written BEWARE next to FLOOR TEN, just above the stairs. She went bananas.’
‘Just a warning, like,’ said the boy. He was nervous now. ‘People shouldn’t hang around up there.’
‘That’s what she thinks,’ replied Tim briskly.
Mrs Bishop’s got everyone running scared, he thought, and as the first day at his new school drew to a close, Tim was beginning to feel nervous about returning to Floor Ten. But his dread wasn’t just to do with the mystery of Mrs Bishop but included the cheerless picture of his mother, who had no doubt been sitting indoors most of the day, mourning the loss of their home, and his father probably returning from a fruitless search for work.
The heat was intense when Tim returned, and the tower blocks shimmered in the haze of the late afternoon sun. Although it was cooler inside, there was a dankness which made him shudder. The lift was still out of action, and as he raced up the stairs he saw that a new message had been paint-sprayed over the staircase: WELCOME TO MURDER ROW. Mrs Bishop would have to get out her paintbrush again.
After a gloomy evening watching TV, with his parents quietly bickering, Tim went to bed but couldn’t sleep in the hot and sticky atmosphere of the sweltering night. Waking from a troubled doze at about three, he was so hot that he couldn’t bear to be in bed any longer. He got up, went to the bathroom, washed his face with tepid water and then wondered what to do. The thought of going back to bed was awful, and Tim went to the fridge, took out some cold milk and drank deeply. The desperate cry from outside made him almost drop the bottle.
*
For a second Tim waited, wondering if his parents had heard, but when no one stirred he ran to the door and opened it. In the gloom of the pale neon, he saw a figure slumped down at the far end of the corridor. As Tim hovered uncertainly in the doorway someone else emerged from the shadows and he recognized the boy with tattooed arms.
He paused and then ran over to Tim, his eyes bloodshot, the sweat standing out on his forehead. ‘If I hadn’t come –’ he whispered.
‘What happened?’
‘I heard a cry and came up. He was lying there.’
‘Who?’
‘That old dosser.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘No, but he’s been attacked.’
As they ran back down the corridor, Tim could see an old man staggering to his feet.
‘I was having a kip,’ he protested. ‘When I woke up someone had their teeth in me chest. Fought ’em off somehow …’ His voice petered out, his shoulders heaving and blood dripping from underneath his filthy shirt.
‘Look at that,’ said the boy with the tattoos. ‘Just look at that.’
Tim saw that Mrs Bishop’s door was wide open.
‘That wound needs stitches,’ said Tim. ‘It’ll go septic if you don’t go down to Casualty.’
‘I’ll take him,’ said the boy, who seemed very anxious to get off the tenth floor landing. He kept darting glances at the open door.
Grudgingly the old man allowed himself to be escorted away, leaving Tim standing alone.
*
Tim hesitated, watching the pale light flooding from the open door, listening to the silence. He wasn’t a particularly brave person but he did have a conscience. He couldn’t leave the situation unresolved like this, however terrifying the possibilities were. The heat was like a wall in front of him, and Tim was streaming with sweat, the fear pulsing inside him.
Tim managed a couple of steps towards Mrs Bishop’s open door and then paused, feeling sick with apprehension. She was in there, just behind the door, waiting for him. He tried to close his mind to the terrible thoughts but they kept recurring, pounding at him, making him want to run back to his own flat and bolt the door against the horror of it all. But despite all this, he slowly walked on.
At last he was at the open door, seeing a small hall just like his own. The silence seemed to bite deeper as Tim crossed the threshold.
‘Anyone there?’ he called softly, and then, a little more loudly, ‘Anyone in?’
But there was no reply.
He walked on, treading softly, the heat so intense now he felt faint. Through one open door he could see a kitchen, through another a very ordinary sitting-room with a reassuring calender showing a picture of Margate and a flight of ducks rising against the patterned wallpaper. The TV set had a copy of the Radio Times underneath it and everything was reassuringly normal. Feeling a little better, Tim came to the next open door.
A young girl with long brown hair lay asleep in the bed, curled up tightly on her side. Then suddenly she turned over, and in the dim glow of a night-light Tim could see the hair on her face and arms.
He screamed and the girl woke up, eyes widening in fear under her bushy brown eyebrows. But then strong arms caught him from behind and Tim struggled helplessly to free himself.
He staggered as he was released and flung aside, aware now that Mrs Bishop was standing over him in a dressing-gown, her eyes filled with hatred.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘The door was open,’ stammered Tim. ‘I thought something was wrong.’
He saw that Mrs Bishop was shaking with anger, a hammer clasped tightly in her right hand. Tim began to explain about the attack on the dosser, but while he was doing so, he was wondering about the girl in the bed behind him. She was far more frightening than the hammer. Why was she covered with all that brown hair?
‘Malcolm Hayes,’ muttered Mrs Bishop. ‘The boy with the tattoos. There’s something about him that – She shuddered. ‘They sent him away to hospital, but he keeps coming back. His mother can’t control him. I’m waiting for another killing.’
‘You mean –’ Tim couldn’t work out whether to believe her or not. And that girl …
‘He used to attack dogs,’ continued Mrs Bishop. ‘Hayes used to bite …’ But her voice died away.
Tim turned slowly to face the girl, who was now sitting up, staring at him in abject misery, staring at him through all that coarse brown hair.
Mrs Bishop was watching him. ‘She gets hot – that’s why we had the door open tonight. I was sitting up in my bedroom.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t sleep much nights anyway. She’s got such a weak heart, and she can’t speak either – and then there’s the – the other problem. I keep her close by me. That gang used to nickname her “the werewolf”.’ Mrs Bishop’s voice shook. ‘I’ve tried to have something done, but it just grows back.’ There were tears in her eyes now, and the girl turned over and buried her face in the pillow. ‘I’m all alone with her,’ said Mrs Bishop. ‘All alone.’
Tim slowly backed away. Then he turned and ran, stumbling over the mat in the hallway, desperate to get home and bolt his door, to feel safe and normal again. There was something quite appalling about the little girl’s imploring eyes peering through all that rough brown hair.
Next morning the old dosser was found dead in a skip. Tim spent a good deal of time with the police, explaining all he had seen and heard, and Malcolm Hayes, protesting his innocence, was arrested. Throughout his trial, Hayes claimed that Angie, the ‘werewolf kid’, had committed all the murders, but there was no supporting evidence and he was found guilty and received a sentence of life imprisonment in Broadmoor.
Just after the trial the Parker family moved to the country, where Tim’s father had found a job as caretaker to a school. A tied cottage went with the appointment – a far cry from the Grove Estate. Tim never saw Angie or Mrs Bishop again, but he often thought about them, trapped in their gloomy prison on Floor Ten. For the rest of his life, Tim reckoned he would wonder whether Malcolm Hayes had committed the murders – or whether there was more wrong with Angie and her mother than they admitted. He also realized he would never know.
There was a long silence after the story.
Eventually Talin, a girl from Eastern Europe, said quietly, ‘In my country, werewolves are part of the folklore – part of our lives. They are not so much of a rarity.’
7
The Stake
Rolec was a small, isolated village in the depths of the Carpathian mountains, penetrated only by a few hikers. The area hadn’t changed in centuries, and barbaric traditions of the past were still occasionally practised, obscured from national and even regional authorities. Things happened – dark things – that people would never accept in the rest of Europe.
Pliska Natek shivered in the bitter cold of the Transylvanian night. Black ice gleamed on the road that led to the village square, which was banked by piles of dirty frozen snow. A thin, sharp wind blew down from the mountains, darting unpredictably here and there, its searing coldness penetrating Pliska’s heavy coat.
‘Mother,’ she said softly. ‘Mother – can you hear me?’ On the other side of the snow-bound square, two men were hunched over a glowing brazier. They were guarding Elena Natek, ensuring that no one approached her until she was burnt at dawn. But they relented for Pliska. After all, she was barely twelve and Elena’s daughter – and they only had a few hours left together.
‘Mother,’ repeated Pliska. ‘Please speak to me.’
‘What is there to say?’ Elena was a small, delicate woman who had continually suffered from ill-health. Her husband had been killed long ago in a skiing accident, and Pliska was her only child. ‘That this should happen in the twentieth century …’ her mother continued. ‘There are laws to prevent it now.’
‘Not in Rolec,’ said Pliska.
Pliska could just remember another burning; she had been four at the time but the horror had remained with her. No doubt her mother could remember others.
‘They’re ignorant fools,’ said Elena, her voice a little fainter. ‘If only they had a proper religion to cling to. That’s what they need. Not all this superstition.’
Because her mother had stayed alone for so long – most widows remarried almost at once – Elena had often been suspected of being a witch, but over the last few months another wave of fear had hit the community. Some of the local people had been attacked and bitten, and last night Pliska’s home had been raided by the vigilante committee and incriminating blood had been found on Elena’s lips. Pliska knew that the blood came from the ulcer her mother had been suffering from for so long, and the doctor knew it too, but he was ignored because the blood group of the two recent victims matched that found on her mother.
Dr Taklin had protested that the group was a common type but there was nothing he could do in the face of local belief.
The police had become low-profile and were nowhere to be seen tonight. It was rumoured that they had gone into the mountains, purportedly to search for an escaped convict from another district, but Pliska knew that the officers would only return when all trace of the pyre containing the ashes of the corpse had been removed. They would then regard Elena as a ‘missing person’ and Pliska would be taken to the orphanage in the next town. Officially, her mother’s death at the stake would never have taken place.
‘Leave me now,’ Elena said. ‘Just leave me.’
‘I’ll never do that,’ replied Pliska. ‘Never. Why do they refuse to believe you …’ She began to sob.
Recently a large wolf had attacked her mother just behind the house one twilit evening. Elena had fought the thing off with a spade, but the creature had scratched her face in the struggle and to the locals this was final proof. Elena Natek had to be a werewolf.
‘I’ll not let you see me burn.’ Her mother choked back her grief. ‘As to the wolf – it’s what they want to believe and they’ll go on believing it.’
‘Why don’t they search for the wolf?’ Pliska raged. ‘The blood on your lips came from your ulcer. They all know that.’
‘They have to find a scapegoat,’ replied Elena. ‘Then they can live at peace with each other again.’
‘They’re hundreds of years behind the times.’ Angry tears began to well up in Pliska’s eyes again. ‘There can’t be many wolves left,’ she said. ‘Not now.’
‘There are a few. Deep in the mountains. We’ve had a hard winter and they’re hungry.’
‘Then why can’t they accept that’s what happened?’ Pliska raged again. ‘Igor and Stanislav were attacked by a wolf – a real wolf – not a human being.’
‘It’s just the superstition,’ replied her mother wearily. ‘Human beings are vulnerable. Don’t forget they all also believe that a werewolf must be burnt to death at the stake or it’ll become a vampire and prey on them for ever.’ She laughed miserably.
‘Another lie –’
‘But it’s the truth to them.’
‘Then I’ll give them the truth,’ said Pliska with sudden determination.
‘What are you going to do?’ For the first time there was alarm and not resignation in her mother’s voice.
‘Find that wolf.’
‘It’s too late.’
Pliska looked at her watch. ‘I’ve got four hours,’ she said.
‘Find the wolf in four hours?’ Her mother laughed brokenly. ‘You must be out of your mind.’
‘No,’ said Pliska firmly. ‘It’s the people of Rolec who are out of their minds. The wolf’s hungry – it’s bound to be around somewhere.’
‘How on earth are you going to find it?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Pliska, ‘but anything’s better than standing around in this God-forsaken square waiting for dawn.’
Pliska searched for at least two hours around the edge of the small village, but there was no sign of any wolf and she soon realized that, in her desperation, she had been very foolish. Looking for a wolf in the twentieth century, even in Transylvania, was like looking for gold dust.
Another half hour passed and,
with the frantic knowledge that time was slipping away from her, Pliska returned home. Running around in circles was not the answer; somehow she must attract the thing.
In the kitchen Pliska found half a chicken and some sausages. Would the smell of roasting meat bring the wolf to the cottage? She knew she had to try. Frantically searching for the barbecue, Pliska eventually found it in an outhouse. Her eye also alighted on a rusty axe and she snatched it up. Glancing at her watch yet again, Pliska felt a surge of deadening panic, for she knew she had just under an hour before dawn and her task seemed ludicrously impossible. But to give herself something to do, to keep busy at all costs, Pliska lit the barbecue and started a bonfire, much to the consternation of her neighbours, who were watching from behind their curtains. But at least they made no attempt to interfere with her preparations.
With only half an hour to go before dawn, the chicken roasting, the sausages burning and the flames of the bonfire beginning to die around her, Pliska gave way to her emotions and began to sob for the life of her mother – the life she knew she could no longer save.
Suddenly she heard a slight scuffling. When Pliska gazed out into the darkness she thought at first she could see one of the village dogs approaching, but then she realized it was too large – and too lean.
The wolf leapt, not at the chicken and the sausages, but at Pliska. She ducked, knowing that she had been incredibly naive. Of course, the food had only been an invitation and the dying flames were no longer sufficient protection – if they had ever been a protection at all. The wolf had been prowling, biding its time, and now she could see the savage delight in its eyes.
The wolf’s claws were within centimetres of her face, but it overshot Pliska and rolled on the ground beside the fire, the twisted snarl on its face filling her with loathing and horror. Snatching up the axe, Pliska lifted it high above her head and brought it down. The wolf twisted to one side and the axe caught its foreleg, slicing it off. As the animal writhed on the ground, Pliska seized the limb and, knowing that her time had almost run out, dropped the axe and raced back towards the village square as the first pale light of dawn began to silver the night sky.
Werewolf Stories to Tell in the Dark Page 5
