by Amy Cross
“Need a coach ticket?” a scruffy-looking man asks me, holding out some leaflets. “Buy from me, get half off the price.”
I shake my head and walk on, before stopping and glancing back at him. He's already talking to someone else, to some girl who seems to be falling for his scam.
“Hey,” I tell the girl, heading over to her, “he's trying to trick you. You won't end up with a real ticket.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” the guy shouts angrily. “Get out of here, idiot!”
“You need to go to the ticket office,” I continue, “that's where -”
“Fuck off!” the man yells, shoving me back against the window of a fast food restaurant. For a moment, as he steps toward me, I think he might actually be about to get violent. “Leave your nose out of other people's business!”
He turns away, but the girl has already hurried off, heading toward the ticket office.
Figuring that I've at least helped one person avoid that fate, I make my way toward the office at the far end of the building. I know this is a long-shot, but it's my last chance to learn the truth and I figure I'll be able to find some way to persuade these people to give me what I want. Frankly, I'm feeling a little desperate, and my search so far has come up with nothing. Reaching the door, I tell myself that if this doesn't work, I have to give up and go back to London.
“Break for one hour!” a familiar voice calls out nearby. “If you're not back on the coach in exactly one hour's time, we leave without you! Okay?”
Turning, I spot the same bus driver from the other night. He looks even more pissed-off and irritable than before, as passengers file off the coach and he clambers back into his seat. I know I should go into the office and ask one of the managers, but after a moment I realize that it can't hurt to try a more direct approach first.
“Hey,” I say as I reach the bottom of the coach's steps, “can I ask you something?”
“We leave in one hour,” he snaps, barely even glancing at me as he studies his clipboard. “No exceptions.”
“You drove the coach from here to Paris the other night,” I continue. “I don't know if you remember me, but I paid for the ticket of a girl who was having problems.”
He studies the clipboard for a moment longer, muttering under his breath, before finally turning to me. “What are you talking about?” he asks, clearly annoyed. “Who are you?”
“There was girl,” I remind him, “and you were going to toss her off the coach, but I paid for her ticket. I just wanted to know if you remember that happening at all. It's important.”
He frowns.
“I'm busy,” he says finally, with a sigh. “This is my break.”
He reaches out and hits a button on the dashboard, but I step inside before the door swings shut.
“Get off my coach!” he yells. “What the hell do you think you're doing?”
“I've been everywhere,” I tell him, feeling as if I have to somehow persuade him to help me. “I've been to the ferry company, but no-one there remembers seeing her coming onboard with me. I've been to the hotel in Paris, but they wouldn't let me look at their CCTV footage and they said someone else had been arrested for the desk guy's murder, I've been everywhere searching for some kind of proof that she was real and now this is my last chance. Please, I just need you to tell me that you remember her.”
He stares at me for a moment, and then he glances toward the terminal, almost as if he's a little nervous.
“Please,” I continue. “Just try to -”
“I don't remember anything,” he replies, interrupting me. Reaching over, he hits the button on the dashboard again, and the coach's door opens behind me. “Now get out. I'm taking my break.”
“You have to remember her,” I tell him. “You were going to throw her off, and then I bought her a ticket. That can't happen every day, it must have stuck in your mind.”
He shakes his head.
“Please -”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” he says firmly. “Now get off my coach before I call security.”
“What about the security footage from the coach's cameras?” I ask. “Maybe if you could let me -”
“No!” he shouts. “Off! Now!”
I want to argue with him, to beg him to help, but finally I step back down and the doors immediately swing shut. That guy was pretty much my last hope, and now I've run out of options. I've retraced my entire journey all the way back from Dublin to Hamburg, and it's as if every trace of Madeleine's existence has been carefully wiped away.
Either that, or she simply never existed in the first place.
Turning to head back to the street, I spot the scam artist still trying to fleece unsuspecting tourists. He casts a dark, angry glance toward me as I hurry past, but after a moment I stop and look back at him.
“What do you want?” he snaps. “Go on, fuck off!”
“Do you remember a girl a few days ago?” I ask, stepping closer. “Dark hair, maybe she seemed a little confused. She might have mentioned something about taking a late-night coach to Paris. I'm not certain, but she might have given you money, thinking she was buying a ticket.”
“Listen,” he replies, “I'm not talking to any cop, okay? I'm just an honest -”
“I'm not a cop!” I say firmly, feeling a sense of panic in my chest. I just need one scrap of proof that Madeleine was real. “I need to know if you remember her. Come on, you can't have conned that many people over the past few days.”
He eyes me with a hint of suspicion, and then finally he holds his right hand out.
“What?” I ask.
“You want to know what I remember,” he replies, “so first you pay me.”
I can't help sighing. “You've got to be kidding.”
“Time's ticking, my friend. You must be desperate to be asking around like this. It just so happens, I do remember the little lady you're asking about.”
I'm tempted to give him a few euros, but I'm pretty sure the guy is trying to screw me over.
“Forget it,” I mutter, turning to walk away. “Enjoy your -”
“She had a necklace,” he continues. “A little silver thing shaped like a crescent moon, hanging right down to the gap at the top of her titties. You can't blame a guy for remembering something like that, can you?”
I stop for a moment, before slowly turning back to him.
He grins, with his hand still outstretched. “See? Now if you want more, show me how much you value the information.”
Reaching into my pocket, I pull out a small bundle of notes and pass them to him. He snatches them quickly and counts them, and I realize that in my haste I accidentally gave him way too much. I can't help feeling like a fool as he stuffs fifty euros of my money into his pocket.
“You remember her?” I ask cautiously. “You remember the necklace from the other night?”
“Sure, man,” he replies, “but that's not all.” He eyes me with a hint of suspicion. “What's this about, anyway? If you're just after pussy, I know where -”
“What else do you remember?” I ask, stepping closer. “I paid you! Now tell me!”
“I remember her being here the other night,” he continues. “She seemed... confused, would be the polite way to put it. Frankly, I was kinda wondering whether she'd taken a little something mixed in with her drink, if you know what I mean. But that's not the reason she's fresh in my mind. The reason she's fresh in my mind is that I saw her again, not more than ten minutes ago.”
“What do you...”
I pause, before looking around at the crowd. For a fraction of a second, I actually think that I might spot Madeleine. Hearing the man starting to laugh, I turn back to him.
“Are you sure it was her?” I ask.
Nodding, he points toward the coach that's just pulling out. “She was talking to that guy. The little ratty dude with the mustache.”
I look over, just in time to see that the coach is being driven by the same man I spoke to
a few minutes earlier. He doesn't even look this way as he turns the wheel.
“She didn't get on the coach,” the guy continues. “She seemed to be asking him for something, and then she slipped him some cold, hard cash, and then she headed off. Looked to me like she was buying a favor. She even looked at me for a moment, like she recognized me, but then she kept on going. Disappeared right into the crowd.”
I watch as the coach pulls away. It's too late to go after the driver now, but I can't help thinking back to his absolute insistence that he didn't remember Madeleine. For a moment, it occurs to me that maybe she's been one step ahead of me ever since I left Ireland, removing every scrap of evidence that she ever existed and finally getting to Hamburg so she could pay the coach driver to keep his mouth shut. Then again, that's just the kind of rabid idea that someone with an unstable mind might come up with in order to justify his delusions.
Still, as the scam artist continues to laugh at me, I hurry around the side of the building and watch as the coach disappears into the distance.
Turning, I head back to talk to the scammer some more, but to my surprise I find that in the space of just a few seconds, he appears to have completely vanished. His leaflets are on the ground, as if he dropped them suddenly, and a moment later I spot a faint smear of blood on the wall, leading all the way over to a metal service door. I step closer, and for a moment I think that maybe I hear a faint chewing sound coming from the other side of the door, but then a nearby coach blasts its horn and I realize that I'm probably just being jumpy.
Hurrying away, heading to the taxi rank so I can get a ride to the airport, I tell myself that my earlier suspicions were correct. Madeleine wasn't real. She can't have been.
Epilogue
Eighty years later
“Is this the place?” Hayley asks, looking out the window as the limousine slows at a gate. She turns to me, her eyes wide with shock. “It's a mansion! We're going to a mansion!”
I watch as the gate opens, and a moment later the limousine turns and crawls along a driveway that twists through a small forest. Turning, I look back and watch the gate swinging shut behind us.
“Come on, Gramps,” Hayley continues, “you must know someone rich!”
“I'm afraid not,” I reply. “This is as much a mystery to me as -”
Before I can finish, I break into another coughing fit. Hayley hands me a handkerchief and pats my back. By the time I've recovered, the limousine has made its way along the driveway and has come to a halt outside a huge house, and I watch as the driver climbs out and steps around to open the door next to me.
“Just one moment,” he mutters, pressing some buttons on the side.
Slowly, the wheelchair ramp starts to slide out, ready for me to leave the car.
“Why would someone who lives in a place like this,” Hayley continues, with a hint of awe in her voice, “send a car to bring you here? Come on, Gramps, seriously, you must have some idea!”
“I honestly don't,” I reply, still looking out at the huge house and finally, after a few seconds, spotting the faintest hint of a figure at one of the windows. A shudder runs through my chest. “There's no-one I can think of.”
***
“Are you sure my grand-daughter can't come through with me?” I ask as my electric wheelchair carries me along the corridor. “I know she'd love to see the whole of the house.”
“I've been instructed to keep her entertained in the drawing room,” the butler replies calmly, stepping ahead of me as we reach a set of double-doors. “She will be quite alright.”
“Instructed by who?” I ask.
This time, he doesn't answer. He simply opens the doors and steps back.
“Who am I here to see?” I continue.
I wait, but he doesn't reply. Clearly, he has been instructed not to answer.
I hesitate for a moment, looking through and seeing a grand room with a large chandelier hanging high above. Finally, realizing that I might as well see what this whole fuss is about, I steer my chair through, and the doors immediately swing shut behind me, leaving me alone in the quiet room. Or at least, I seem to be alone. I drive to the center, until I'm beneath the chandelier, and then I stop again, looking around at the ornate furniture, and at the oil paintings on the wall. I've never been a rich man, and I can't imagine why someone would even want to live in such a huge house. The heating bill alone must be enormous.
“I traded up,” a familiar voice says suddenly.
I freeze, not daring to turn as I hear footsteps coming closer.
“Eventually I decided I needed certain comforts,” she continues. “Please don't think any less of me. Sometimes I think I've betrayed my roots entirely, but...”
She steps around me and stops, and slowly I look up to see her face again, after all these years. She hasn't changed at all. She still looks as young as that night when I first met her on the coach.
“You remember me, don't you?” Madeleine asks, with a faint smile. “Please, tell me I didn't wait too long to call for you. You look so old, Ben.”
I reach for the control panel on my chair, ready to reverse.
“I've kept track of your life,” she continues. “I wanted to know how things went for you. If anything really bad had happened, I would have stepped in to make sure you were okay, but I'm told that you've done well for yourself. A journalist, I believe?”
Her smile broadens.
“Editor of a newspaper? Establisher of a charity in your sister's name? Champion of -”
“What do you want?” I ask suddenly, trying not to panic. I suppose, deep in the back of my mind, I half-suspected that I might find Madeleine here waiting for me, but I pushed those thoughts aside. What I'm seeing now is simply impossible.
“Oh, your voice...” She pauses. “You're so old, Ben. I thought it wouldn't bother me, but...”
She tilts her head slightly, as if she can't quite believe what she's seeing.
“So do you believe in me now?” she asks. “You seemed to think, back in the day, that I was some figment of your imagination. You said that, remember? During our conversation on the ferry? I assume you've thought about me occasionally over the years, so I'm curious... Now that you're at the end of... Well, now that you're getting on in years and you've had more time to ponder the matter, I wanted to bring you here and ask you one final time... Do you believe in me now?”
I stare at her for a moment, still utterly shocked to see her again after all these years.
“Yes?” she continues. “No? Come on, man, you must have an answer for me. I've waited so patiently.”
Reaching for the control panel again, I tap to put the chair into reverse.
“Leaving so soon?” she asks. “Relax, your grand-daughter is quite alright. I wouldn't hurt her, I promise. And you're perfectly safe as well. If I wanted to kill you, I'd just do it.”
She pauses, as if she's waiting for me to say something.
“You still can't do it, can you?” she continues. “Even after everything you saw when you were younger, and even seeing me now like this, you can't bring yourself to believe in what I am.”
She turns and walks over to the far side of the room, where she takes two glasses from a cabinet and sets them on a table.
“Drink?” she asks, reaching under the table and picking up a bottle of wine. “I usually have someone pour for me. It's a perk of all this wealth, although I don't really like to -”
Turning my chair, I start driving back toward the double-doors.
“Why can't you believe that I'm real?” she asks.
Damn this chair, it's so slow. I feel like such an old fool, driving away like this.
“I think it was your sister's death that opened your mind, Ben. You saw her ghost, didn't you? Even if you don't want to admit it, you believe it was really her that night, a week after she'd died. And once that possibility had taken root in your thoughts, you just happened to bump into me on the coach and... Well, you were in a perfect state to
notice me, even if you didn't quite understand why. You were briefly alive to the possibilities. You weren't a stubborn old man.”
I tap at the control panel, but my hands are trembling.
“You saw me, Ben,” she continues, starting to sound a little irritated. “You saw me when I was weak, you felt me in your mind while you slept, you saw me getting stronger and stronger, you saw me in my element once I was drinking blood again, and now you see me today, but you still can't let yourself believe in me. Why not?”
Finally getting to the doors, I reach for the handle.
“I'm not dying,” she adds. “Marston didn't manage to take back his gift, and he won't get the chance again. In fact, there's been no further sign of either Sheffield or Marston, so I assume they're still down there in the dark soil. Then again, I suppose it didn't help that I bought that patch of land and had a rather large chunk of concrete built on top. Do you think they're insane by now?”
I hear the sound of a cork being pulled from the wine bottle.
“They must be,” she continues. “I think they've lost their minds, especially with the weight crushing down onto them. I'm almost tempted to dig them up temporarily, just to check. But I won't. I don't want to tempt fate. I would so love to hear their agonized screams, though.”
I pause for a moment, before slowly turning back to look at her as she pours us each a glass of wine. There's a faint smile on her lips.
“I understand why you can't bring yourself to believe that I'm real,” she says finally. “The mortal mind just isn't prepared to contemplate such possibilities.”
She sets the bottle aside and picks up the two glasses, before making her way back toward me.
“We're all around you, you know,” she continues, “and yet you don't ever see us. Why? I guarantee you, every mortal in this world has encountered a vampire at some point, and all of them... They refuse to see us. I think it's because you're too scared to admit that we're real. I think the human race is simply programmed to not believe in the existence of anything more powerful than itself. You want to believe that you're the peak of all life on this planet, and when faced with evidence to the contrary, you pretend that we're just illusions. You simply choose not to see us. Isn't that remarkable? Instead, you read books about us, to help maintain the idea that we're just fiction. It's the only way you can ever possibly feel safe.”
