His hair was brushed straight back, flecked with gray, but it was the expression on his features which filled Larry with a new dread. The cheeks were hollowed and the mouth was so red that it might have been smeared with lipstick. Strong white teeth were bared in either a smile or a snarl, Larry could not be sure which.
Yet it was the eyes which terrified him most—twin orbs that glowed redly, that seemed to bore into him and read his innermost thoughts. Larry swallowed. This time he would most certainly have fled but for the fact that his legs had suddenly gone so weak that he doubted whether they would be able to bear his weight much longer. He gripped the shelf, held on to it for support. Oh, what a fool he was to have returned to the shelter!
“Good evening,” the mysterious stranger flicked at particles of dust which adhered to his long cloak. His lips were stretched still further, revealing twin canine teeth that glinted in the stark light. “I trust you will forgive this intrusion. It is not by choice, I assure you.”
“That’s . . . that’s all right”, Larry stammered. It wasn’t, but he was not going to argue with this guy. The other had a hint of a foreign accent; doubtless, Jim was involved in this. Perhaps he had taken to smuggling illegal immigrants.
“What country is this?” Those eyes fixed Larry with an unwavering stare. He did not want to look into them but he found himself compelled to meet the other’s gaze.
“England,” Larry gulped. So the guy was foreign and doubtless he had traveled here inside that . . . Larry forced his eyes away, stole a glance at the coffin. The lid was propped open and he saw that the interior was lined with red velvet and silk. A nauseating stench wafted from it, like a rotting corpse had lain within. It probably had. Jim had dug the coffin up, dumped the contents and used it to transport this weirdo here.
“England . . .” The other’s eyes appeared to glaze over. “I knew that country . . . a long time ago.”
He’s cooked, Larry thought, crazy as a coot. Maybe it’s some kind of game to scare the shit out of folks. He started, eyed the stranger again and his guts balled. There was a similarity, more the attire and the posture than facially . . . a definite likeness to a character he had seen in a number of late-night movies, portrayed by a variety of actors. Well, if this stranger was acting out the part, that was why he looked so much like . . .”
“May I prevail upon your hospitality?” There was a smoothness that blended into presumption, adding to Larry’s unease. “I shall need a dwelling place during my stay in England.”
“My . . . mother doesn’t allow anybody to stay overnight. We don’t have a spare bedroom.” That was because all the rooms were piled with Larry’s junk. He never threw anything away.
“Oh, this place is more than adequate,” the man waved a hand. “Everything that I desire. And I will pay you handsomely for your hospitality.” His other hand delved into the folds of his clothing and reappeared with a shining coin held between two fingers. “On account, sir, and I will pay you more in due course. Go on, take it.”
Larry’s outstretched hand shook. The coin was unbearably cold, like buried treasure that had been unearthed. He guessed it was gold, but its markings were unknown to him. Whatever part this guy was enacting, at least his money seemed genuine. Larry felt a shiver running up his spine. He didn’t know what the coin was but it was certainly no fake. It cast a sinister reality upon this bizarre encounter.
“All right,” Larry’s teeth chattered when he spoke. “But only for a short time.” If necessary, he would call the police tomorrow.
“Of course.” Those huge sharp teeth flashed another smile. “Just until I . . . acclimatize. I shall go forth, explore this strange land and ascertain whether or not it is to my liking. If so, then I shall endeavor to find some place to live which is in keeping with the lifestyle to which I am accustomed in my homeland.”
Larry nodded. There were questions which he refrained from asking for fear of what the answers might be. This guy could doss down in the shelter overnight. Then tomorrow, in full daylight, he would reassess the situation.
He turned away, stumbled from the shelter, and made his way back indoors. Only then did he remember that he had still not collected his strip of drying negatives. They could go hang, literally. There was no way he was going back in there tonight.
Larry’s mother always retired for the night around ten o’clock. She would go upstairs, a step at a time, clutching the banister all the way, and then spend another hour undressing and doing whatever she did in her own bedroom. Larry rarely went to bed before the early hours—there was little point when there was nothing to get up for the following morning. Usually he watched a late movie or a video. But not tonight.
He had checked and rechecked that all the doors were bolted and locked. He was not in the mood to watch a film, certainly not one of those. He sat in the kitchen, glancing uneasily around. It was disconcerting to know that some nutter was camped out in the shelter, but at least the other couldn’t get into the house tonight.
Larry studied the coin which the stranger had given him. He was certain it was gold but its origin remained a mystery. It was very old and therefore likely to be very valuable. Even so, it was small compensation for having to tolerate this madness.
He made up his mind that he wasn’t going upstairs tonight. Somehow, asleep in bed, one was vulnerable. Far better to doze in the chair.
Larry slept fitfully. In his uneasy dreams he looked into those glowing red eyes, heard that awful hiss.
He woke up with a start and smelled his own sweat. He looked around the room but there was nobody there. It was that ongoing nightmare that had disturbed him . . .
Somebody was tapping on the outside of the window.
Larry blanched. He thought about going through to the hallway and phoning the police. But it might just be night moths flapping against the window, attracted by the light from within. In which case Larry would look like a bloody idiot when the Bill arrived.
The tapping continued, more insistent now.
Larry knew he would have to take a look, he couldn’t stand this all night. His legs were shaky as he heaved himself up out of the chair and crossed the room unsteadily. His trembling fingers rested on the frayed curtain. He didn’t want to look, he didn’t dare. Something made him.
Larry screamed as he stared into the sallow features pressed against the other side of the pane—as he looked into those bloodshot eyes and recoiled from an angry snarl.
He should have let the curtain fallback into place, and either returned to his chair or else gone through and phoned the police. He did neither. Just stared into those hateful, commanding eyes.
“Let . . . me . . . in.”
Larry obeyed, and then the tall imposing figure of his unwanted guest was standing over him in the kitchen, breathing foul fumes that made Larry want to retch.
“What is this place you call England?” the stranger demanded. He was clearly angry and disturbed.
“What . . . what d’you mean?”
“Where are the horses and carriages? What are those machines that hurtle by at unbelievable speed, apparently without horses to pull them? And larger ones, like monsters on wheels?”
Jesus, he was screwy, this one! “They’re cars,” Larry explained. “Cars and lorries. Driven by petrol.”
“Petrol?”
Christ, just where did you start? Larry didn’t know.
“I attempted to discover a town, where I might find what I seek.”
“The town’s less than two miles from here, straight down the main road, you can’t miss it. But everything’ll be closed now.”
“I need a woman,” the tall man was trembling with undisguised lust. “A comely wench. But I cannot, I dare not, enter this place you call a town with its strange bright lighting and carriages that travel without horses. I need your help, and I will gladly reward you.” As if by magic another of the strange gold coins appeared and was held up in front of Larry’s eyes. “Find me a wench!”
&
nbsp; “There’s a red light area in town. The prostitutes solicit at all hours of the night.” Larry knew that because he had driven around the streets once or twice. He just had not had the courage to stop.
“You’d find one easy enough if you . . .”
“Go and bring one back for me!”
Larry felt weak and scared for another reason now. Curb crawling was a dangerous occupation—there had been a big feature on it in the local newspaper.
“Go!”
“Give me half an hour and I’ll see what I can do.” Larry did not have a choice. His mother should be fast asleep by now. If he rolled the Mini down the drive and didn’t start it until he reached the road, he probably wouldn’t awaken her. His greatest fear was that a patrolling police car might stop him.
“Bring her to my abode—a whore who will be honored above all others, for she will have been singled out to become Count Dracula’s chosen one.”
So this idiot was acting out his Dracula fantasies, just as Larry had thought. He might even have made it as a ham actor in some low-budget movie, he was good enough for that. He looked and acted the part even if he was a bit grubby when compared with the professionals. He was scary, too. Which was why Larry was anxious to appease him. There was a tart who worked the lower end of Bingley Street. Only in her teens, but she’d been there on every occasion Larry had made a tour of the red light area. If she happened to be there tonight, then it should be quite easy to pick her up and bring her back here.
It was.
It was only the ten pounds up front that made Larry’s task relatively easy. The girl was clearly suspicious. She usually took her clients to a piece of waste ground if they were just after a quickie. A longer session, back at her place, cost more, but she didn’t like going off to an unknown destination. However, with the promise of a further payment, she reluctantly agreed. She called herself Sally Ann and had an escalating drug addiction to finance, which she was open about.
“What’s wrong with the ’ouse?”
She glanced behind her at the silhouette of the big house as she clutched Larry’s hand. She gave a gasp of fear when a branch of cold wet leaves touched her bare legs.
“I don’t like this.”
“It’s an annex.”
“A what?”
“An outside place where our lodger lives. He’s a very wealthy man and I’m sure you’ll be well paid.”
“Better ’ad be,” she shuddered. “This dump fair gives me the creeps.”
Sally Ann held back in the entrance to the air-raid shelter, but Larry pushed her forward. She gasped aloud when she saw her client. She might have screamed and tried to make a run for it, but his glowing eyes fastened on her, appeared to hypnotize her. He reached out, grabbed her wrist and dragged her toward him.
As Larry let himself back into the house he heard her muffled screams from below. Calling the police was out of the question now—he had become an accomplice of this strange man whose sexual fantasies led him to play the role of Count Dracula.
That’s what they were, Larry decided—sex fantasies, lived out to the extreme. The guy was just a dirty old man. All the same, it was both worrying and frightening.
There was no sign of life from the shelter next morning. Larry watched and waited, oblivious to his mother’s witterings.
“Larry, you’d better pop into town. We need some more bread and . . .”
“I’ll go tomorrow, Mother, we can manage until then.”
“You’d better do some cleaning, this place is starting to get dirty.” It was filthy, had been for weeks, but she only noticed it when it became very bad.
“I’ll do it later.”
He kept watch from the landing window which overlooked the rear garden. The shrubs and trees were so overgrown that the shelter entrance was hidden from view, but he would be able to see anybody leaving in the direction of the house. He just hoped, if that happened, that his mother wouldn’t hear them. But there was no sign of anybody, and he certainly was not going out there to look. The day wore on. The morning drizzle cleared and weak sunshine broke through the cloud formation. And still there was no movement from the shelter.
The afternoon was misty—in all probability a fog would roll in with darkness. Larry became increasingly uneasy. What was going on out there? Had they left via the rear garden, gone through the woods at the back? Had “Dracula” moved on to another abode and taken his comely wench with him—plied her with gold coins for her company and favors. If that was the case, good riddance to both of ’em!
“I’m going up to bed now, dear.” Larry’s mother leaned in through the kitchen doorway. “Don’t you be too late coming up yourself. I didn’t hear you come to bed last night and I lay listening for hours.”
“Mother, I’m turned fifty . . .” Oh, Christ, what was the point?
Larry decided to spend the night in the kitchen again. He was exhausted and yet sleep eluded him. He was kept awake by the nagging expectancy of another tapping at the window, pulling back the curtain to stare into the awful countenance of . . .
A tapping came on the window, fainter than before, not so insistent. Larry knew that he had to go and look. He steeled himself for the inevitable—those burning eyes and blood-red lips, a faint hissing that clouded the glass. Another demand, another whore.
But it wasn’t the strange lodger at the window. Instead, it was the prostitute who called herself Sally Ann, looking radiantly beautiful and smiling at him with full, soft lips.
“Let me in, Larry”, she mimed.
On this occasion there was almost an eagerness in his obedience. He put a finger to his lips and just hoped that his mother wasn’t awake and listening. At least the girl was alive and unharmed. His own worst deed was that of procuring a prostitute for another person. Mother would never survive the shame, and that might not be a bad idea.
“Where is he?” Larry asked as he let her into the house and locked the door behind her.
“Don’t you worry about him.” She stretched up on the balls of her feet and her soft lips brushed his own. “You’n me’ve got the whole night ahead of us, Larry.”
Larry had never really had a girlfriend before, just the odd one-night stand that had ended up in frustration and disappointment. All his attempts to get what he wanted most in life had been thwarted, either with lame excuses or downright refusals. Until now.
Sally Ann made the running. Her deft fingers removed his soiled clothing and she didn’t even appear to notice his unwashed body or his obesity. She flaunted her own nakedness, teased him, then finally came astride him.
Larry groaned his pleasure aloud. She didn’t have to do this, she wasn’t getting paid for it. So she had obviously taken a shine to him. Mother wouldn’t approve, but tonight was Larry’s night of pleasure and tomorrow could look after itself.
He knew he couldn’t hold back any longer and Sally Ann knew it too. Her beauty, her seductive smile, was a blur as he hit his peak. She writhed with him—they were like a duo of experienced ballet dancers who knew each other’s every move and went with it. Her lips found his then, slid a soft warm path down to his grimed neck. And bit deep.
It hurt, but he didn’t mind. He sensed the sticky warmth of his own blood. A love bite was a mark to be proud of when one had turned fifty.
They embraced again and he felt drowsy.
With the coming of daylight, she returned to her Master in his underground lair and Larry retired to his bedroom. Some time later his mother knocked on the door and inquired if he was all right.
“Just a migraine,” he answered sleepily.
“Then you stop in the dark all day,” she said. “I can cope.”
Truly he must remain in a darkened room throughout the daylight hours—not just today but every day from now on. Larry understood that only too well.
When darkness fell, he and Sally Ann would return to Bingley Street where there was work to be done. Her clients and his whores would swell the ranks of the undead whom the Master c
ould command from his small tomb on English soil. Here the Count would learn to cope with a society that was a far cry from the one he remembered. And that society, too, would change and adapt. It would take time, but nobody would be overlooked.
Perhaps even Larry’s mother would be granted eternal life in her twilight years. Larry cringed at the thought, but the decision was not his. He was merely a slave to the Master now.
JAN EDWARDS was born near Billingshurst, in the Sussex Downs. She moved to London in her teens, where she worked as bookseller for the Man Booker Prize instigator, Martin Goff.
She had many jobs from stable girl to horticulturist via motorcycle sales before qualifying as the first female Master Locksmith in Britain. She later returned to school to earn a BA in English Literature.
She is a past chairperson of both the British Fantasy Society and the annual FantasyCon. Her short fiction has appeared in publications as varied as Terror Tales of the Ocean, Visionary Tongue, Something Remains, The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Moriarty, and three volumes of the MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, among many other anthologies.
Her mainstream novel, Sussex Tales, won the Winchester Writers Festival “Slim Volume” prize, and her short fiction has been collected in Fables & Fabrications. Her latest book, Winter Downs, is a World War II crime drama. With Jenny Barber she has edited the anthologies Urban Mythic, Urban Mythic 2, and The Alchemy Press Book of Ancient Wonders.
A Taste of Culture
Jan Edwards
Dracula gradually becomes accustomed to his new surroundings . . .
He was hungry. But the first stand, crudely painted in garish colors, proclaimed its contents to be EARTH FRIENDLY. He averted his eyes. This was England. Roasting oxen and warmed bread—that’s how it used be at English country fayres when he had visited them in years past. Now it was all lentils and tofu and other vegetarian creeds that offended him deeply.
In the Footsteps of Dracula Page 38
