The Vampire of Downing Street and Other Stories

by Amy Cross

  Trying desperately to open my mouth and call out, I manage to make a faint clicking sound with my tongue. It's not enough to get Dad to wake up, but it's a start, and after a moment I realize I can just about wiggle some of my toes. If I can just keep doing this -

  Suddenly the shadow's head turns, as if it's looking straight at me.

  I hold my breath.

  A moment later, I see the shadow move down a little, and then I hear the rasping breathing sound coming closer to one of my ears. Turning my eyes, I see a dark shape right next to me, and then I feel cold breath against my cheek. Terrified, I keep wiggling my toes, hoping against hope that I'll get more sensation in the rest of my body, but so far it isn't working at all. I can still feel the cold breath on my skin, but trying to move my body feels like trying to push the heaviest thing in the world. I manage to let out another faint click, but then I realize that making a noise will only encourage the thing to look at me.

  The bed creaks, as if the creature is coming closer. I try to scream, but I can't, and the shadow on the wall dips lower, and then out of sight.

  I can still feel its breath on the side of my face.

  Struggling, I try with all my strength to move my body. I'm wiggling my toes furiously, and after a moment I realize I can just above move my hands. Holding my breath, I push and push with all my might, and slowly my heavy limbs seem to be coming back to life, moving just a few millimeters at a time. I stare straight up at the ceiling, and my body feels like it's about to burst as I continue to hold my breath and hold my breath and hold my breath and fight to move.

  And then I feel it.

  Something sharp touches the skin on my neck, something sharp and wet. Slowly, it starts to move along my flesh, not pressing hard enough to cut me but still hurting, as if it's coming up with a plan. I try as hard as I can to cry out, but I still can't move my mouth at all, not even as tears start running from my eyes and I feel the claw pressing against the top of my ribs, pushing harder as if it might break through my skin at any moment and -

  Suddenly everything comes back, and I sit up violently, letting out a loud cry before tumbling over the edge of the bed and landing hard against the floorboards. Panicking, I scramble back up and look at Dad, only to see that he's moving already. A moment later he switches on the bedside lamp before turning and staring at me with a shocked, horrified expression.

  “Cally? What the hell are you doing?”

  Chapter Eleven

  He's in the bathroom.

  Waiting on the landing, I listen to the sound of Dad brushing his teeth. Since I woke up in the night, he's been telling me over and over that I just had a nightmare, and although he was sympathetic at first, I can tell that he's starting to get a little annoyed.

  It wasn't a nightmare.

  I don't know how I'm going to make him understand the truth, but I know it wasn't a nightmare.

  Reaching out, I knock gently on the door.

  “Can I come in?” I call out.

  He reaches out and opens the door.

  “I've decided you should go to school today after all,” he tells me, rubbing his shoulder as if he's in pain. “We need to get you back to a normal life.”

  “But -”

  “The decision's final, Cally. It'll be good for both of us.” As he steps past me, I spot a faint lump on the side of his arm.

  ***

  “So,” Chloe says, standing next to me, silhouetted against the sun, “I heard your mother went mad and got committed into a mental asylum and they've decided to just let her rot in there forever while the rats eat her face.”

  Looking up from the sandwich Dad packed for me, I briefly feel like I want to punch Chloe right in her stupid face, but then I remember how mad Mum was last time, so I force myself to hold back. When she gets home, I don't want her to be mad at me.

  “Yeah,” Chloe continues, “it's sad when stuff like that happens. I knew someone who went to a mental asylum once and she was never the same after she came out. They'd cut off part of her brain and put cotton wool in to fill the space. They'll probably do the same thing to your mother, it seems to be pretty much standard procedure.”

  “I don't want to play,” I tell her, hoping she'll just leave me alone.

  “Play?” She laughs. “What are you, a total moron? I didn't come to play with you, dick.” She tosses an old, torn hardback book onto the table in front of me. “My stupid brother told me to give you this. Normally I'd, like, just throw it in the trash, but he said he's gonna check later if I give it to you, and if I do, he's gonna buy me a game at the store on Friday. So, you know, I guess I can be bothered.”

  Picking up the book, I open it to the first page, only for a small photo to fall out. When I pull the photo up off the floor and look at it, I see that it shows the face of a smiling girl.

  “Is this -”

  “Mary Madison,” Chloe replies. “Yeah, Josh thinks you should have this stuff. He said there's something in the book you should read, too, something Mary found and shared with him right before she disappeared.” She pauses. “It's probably lame and stupid and only interesting to morons, but then I guess that means you'll love it, right?”

  With that, she turns and skips away, and a moment later I hear her laughing with her friends. Probably about me, but I don't care.

  Flicking through the old book, I quickly find that one of the page corners has been turned down. I open to that page, only to feel a shiver pass through my chest when I see the word Tenderling at the top. Below the word, there's an old black-and-white drawing of a creature that looks like a cross between a goblin and a baby, with a slightly-too-big head and long, thin limbs. I can't help shuddering at the thought that maybe this is what was in the bedroom last night, and that somehow it's hiding in our house. Looking down the page, I find some text, and although I don't understand all the words, they're enough to give me a basic idea.

  The Tenderling is among the most vicious of all the creatures to have emerged from the Underworld. Usually cowardly and lonesome, preferring to drain their victims as slowly as possible, they can nevertheless be provoked into acts of great violence if they feel threatened.

  Turning the page, I find more text:

  The Tenderling feeds on its victim by placing small stone-like objects under the skin, and by then psychically using those objects to drain all energy and emotions.

  The stones are usually inserted at night, while the victim is asleep, but after that the feeding stage is constant. Since Tenderlings are known for their greed, they will often return night after night, adding more and more stones in an attempt to get a bigger fix. One helpful analogy is to think of the Tenderling as an addict, constantly seeking another shot of human emotion.

  The victim will quickly start to feel the effects of the Tenderling's activities, but will be unlikely to know what to do. Most humans, for example, will gradually be worn down over a period of several weeks or months, although those who have already suffered depressive episodes might succumb more quickly.

  In some cases, a particularly hungry or desperate Tenderling might choose to kill as many victims as possible over a short period, and then enter a state of hibernation until it can feed again.

  As such, Tenderlings are such solitary creatures, and they can barely stand one another's company. It has not even been established how they breed, since they tend to kill any other Tenderlings they encounter.

  Below that text, there's another black-and-white drawing, this time showing the creature reaching into its own mouth and pulling out a black stone, which looks just like the pebble I found in the bin. Below this picture there's another, showing a slit in someone's arm, as if that's where the creature puts the pebble. Turning to the next page, I find more text:

  Dealing with a Tenderling is generally considered to be impossible. Once they attach their minds to their victims, even digging the stones out – which is a common response as madness sets in – tends to merely prolong the suffering.

  Ther
e are, however, a few unproven myths about fending off the creatures. One common superstition in the Underworld holds that a Tenderling cannot enter a room if its true name has been written above the door; another holds that speaking a Tenderling's true name out loud, to its face, will cause it to die.

  These superstitions remain unproven, and an encounter with a Tenderling is generally fatal for all concerned.

  The next section of the book seems to be about another type of creature, called a Trillyph, but I ignore that part and re-read the chapter on Tenderlings instead. Finally I turn to the front of the book again and check the title, finding it to be called 'Creatures of, and from, the Underworld' by someone named C.F. Farrow. A shiver passes through my body as I realize that someone actually wrote a book about these things, which means that they must be real. I guess I'd been secretly hoping that Dad was right and I was just being childish.

  Feeling a flash of relief, I realize that he has to believe me now. Once I show him this book, he'll have no choice but to move us out of the house.

  ***

  “Cally -”

  “And it says here,” I continue, reading from the book as we get out of the car, “that they feed on their victims using the little pebbles they put under your skin while you're asleep!”

  “Cally -”

  “And they drain your soul through the pebbles, and some of them do it quickly and others do it really slowly!”

  “Cally -”

  “And most people don't ever know it's happening to them. They just get drained more and more and then they die, and then I guess the Tenderling moves on to its next victim! So it's like -”

  “Let me see that,” he says, taking the book from my hands and examining it for a moment as we reach the front door. “Where did you get this? From a friend at school?”

  “She's not my friend,” I tell him, “she's the girl I had a fight with, but her brother used to know Mary Madison before she disappeared, and Mary Madison worked out that it was a Tenderling that was living in the house, and she told Chloe's brother Josh about it and then he had the book after she was gone, and then he heard that we were living here so he -”

  “Hang on,” he continues, opening the front door and leading me into the hallway, while still flicking through the book. “Cally, you do know this book is fiction, don't you? It's someone's jumbled, made-up idea of a joke.”

  “It's real!” I tell him, as I push the door shut. “It's real and now you have to believe me! That Tendering is the thing that killed Mary Madison and her parents, and it made Mum sick, and I saw it last night on top of you and it's going to get us next! It lives in the attic! If we went up there we'd see it, but we can't go up there because it might hurt us!”

  “I've been in the attic several times,” he replies, “there's nothing up there!”

  “Then you missed it! It's there somewhere!”

  Sighing, he closes the book. He seems lost in thought for a moment, as if maybe I've finally starting to get through to him. After a few more seconds, he turns to me. “Cally, this has to stop.”

  “Look at it!” I shout, trying to grab the book from him, although he holds it away from me.

  “This is confiscated,” he replies, “and we need to have a serious word about distinguishing reality from fiction.”

  “You have them!” I tell him, starting to feel frustrated as I realize that he still won't face the truth. “You have those lumps under your skin, don't you? Mummy had them and now you have them, because now she's gone it's started focusing on you instead!”

  “Cally -”

  “We can't stay here!”

  “Cally, I don't have lumps under my skin,” he replies, “and as for your mother -”

  “She has them,” I continue breathlessly. “Maybe she cut them all out already, but I saw them, and I found that one I showed you. The book says that even though people don't know when they've been got by a Tenderling, they often start cutting the pebbles out because it's the only thing they can think of!”

  He sighs.

  “It's in the book!” I tell him, almost losing my temper. “That means it must be true! Everything in books is true!”

  “Bullshit,” he replies. “No, wait... Ignore that word, but... Not everything in books is true, Cally. Some books are wrong, and some books are flat-out lying.”

  “No,” I reply, shocked that he still won't believe me, “they're not. They can't be.”

  “This bloody book,” he mutters, looking down at it. He pauses for a moment, almost as if he's starting to wonder if it could all be true. “She must have found a copy somewhere,” he says finally. “It's the only explanation. She found a copy of this book, or she read about it, maybe online, and it fed into her mental illness and now...” He glances at me, and again he seems thoughtful for a moment. “Either that or this is someone's sick joke, and it spiraled out of control. Cally, I think it might be a good idea if we get you to see someone. There's no need to be scared, it'll just be a psychologist who specializes in -”

  “What's a psychologist?”

  “A kind of doctor for your head.”

  “I don't need a doctor for my head,” I tell him, trying again to snatch the book from his hand, “I need us all to get out of this house and never come back!”

  “Maybe we should cancel the visit this evening,” he sighs.

  “What visit?”

  He pauses, as if he's not sure whether to say the words or not. “I spoke to your mother's doctor earlier,” he continues finally, “and he said it might be useful if we went to visit her this evening. She's not being sedated anymore, that was just for the first twenty-four hours, and he's hoping that a couple of friendly faces might make a difference, but...” He pauses again. “The kind of silliness in this book -”

  “I won't be silly around Mum,” I tell him, grabbing his hand and trying to pull him toward the door. “Please, let's just go and see her!”

  “Cally, I'm not sure it's a good idea.”

  “Please!”

  “You could set her back if you talk about this stuff.”

  “I won't! I promise!” With tears in my eyes, I realize that he's seriously considering not letting me go with him. “I want to see her!”

  Setting the book down, he follows me to the door. “I was going to make dinner first, but maybe we can just get something to eat on the way.”

  “I don't care about that,” I tell him as I open the door. “I just want to go and see her! I want to make sure she's okay!” I also want to get her to tell him about the creature, because then – finally – there's no way he won't believe us!

  ***

  “Remember what I said in the car,” Dad tells me as we make our way along the corridor. “Mummy might seem -”

  “I know,” I reply, hurrying ahead of him, “she might seem distant.”

  “And you mustn't upset her. If you upset her -”

  “I can see her!” I shout, spotting a familiar figure in an armchair on the other side of a large common room. There are other patients around, but I ignore them completely and run to Mum, putting my arms around her and giving her a big hug. As I hold her, however, I start to realize that she isn't hugging me back. She always hugs me back.

  Looking up at her face, I see that she's not even looking at me. She's staring out the window, watching the garden, as if she doesn't even know that I'm here.

  “Mum?” I whisper, still holding onto her. “It's me.”

  “Maybe give her some space,” Dad says as he catches up. “Cally, let's sit in these chairs.”

  “Why isn't she saying anything?” I ask, as he drags two chairs over. I keep staring into Mum's face, looking for some hint of recognition in her eyes, but there's nothing. I let go of her a little, but not completely. “Mum? Why aren't you saying anything? Are you mad at me?”

  “I told you she might not be herself right now,” Dad continues, taking my arm and gently pulling me away. “Do you remember? She's on a lot of medication, and normally th
ey wouldn't allow her to have visitors yet, but Doctor Wilder thinks it might help her to have some friendly faces around.”

  “But what's wrong with her?” I ask, as I reluctantly sit in one of the chairs.

  “Nothing's wrong with her,” Dad replies. “You shouldn't say it like that. Remember, she can hear you, even if she doesn't say anything. She's just recovering from what happened.”

  Looking over my shoulder, I see that there are a few other patients in the room. They're all sitting separately and alone, as if they don't want anything to do with each other, and they all have the same blank looks on their faces. I feel a shiver pass through my body as I realize that they seem like zombies, although I suppose I shouldn't say that word out loud. Still, I hate the idea that Mum might end up like one of them.

  “The house looks really good now,” Dad says suddenly, leaning toward Mum. He's smiling, but it's the fake smile he usually uses when Grandma comes to visit. “We're going to turn it into a project and make sure it's really nice by the time you come home. Aren't we, Cally?” He turns to me.

  I pause for a moment, before nodding.

  For the next few minutes, Dad continues to talk about really unimportant things, things I've never heard him talk about before like the weather and the traffic on the way to the hospital and even sport, which is something he usually hates. He knows Mum's really into watching Formula One, though, so he's read up on all the latest news and he's reading it to her from his phone. I guess he doesn't know what else to do or say, but it's weird to see him like this. Eventually he leaves longer and longer pauses, and I realize he's struggling to find ways to fill the gaps. He keeps going, though, as if he's absolutely determined not to leave yet.

  Eventually, however, he completely runs out of things to say, but still he keeps us sitting here, until a nurse comes over and points to her watch, which I think means we have to leave soon.