“At first I thought you were really cute. Kind of naïve and impressionable. Then I got a bit scared. You were too intense, and I thought maybe you were a bit strange. The morbid things you used to come out with. Sometimes you’d come in looking really tired, and then be secretive about where you’d been. Like you were in trouble.” She laughed gently and kissed him. “But now, I think I’ve worked you out. This flat . . . it’s like a middle-class facsimile of a Gothic artist’s garret. You just want people to think you’re tortured and strange. It’s an image. Really you’re cute and naïve. You don’t know anything about the dark side of life, except what it’s meant to look like. Do you?” She drained her brandy glass and gazed at him affectionately.
“You don’t know that,” Wren said. “You don’t know what I feel. You don’t always have to experience something to feel it. And maybe I have experienced things you don’t know about. What I’ve seen. Been part of. Crimes.” Shut up, he told himself. Maybe she wouldn’t take him literally. But why did women trying to mother him always make him feel violent?
Alison gripped his shoulders and pulled him against her. “I don’t believe you’ve even nicked bubble-gum from a corner shop,” she said. “You’re just turning ordinary guilt into a fantasy. Confess what you like, I won’t believe you.” They sat down on the bed together. He slipped a hand under the collar of her shirt. Then the doorbell rang.
A black van was parked outside. A small man in a leather jacket, with the makings of a beard, was reaching up to press the bell a second time as Wren opened the front door.
“Mr. Robin?” he said. “Wren, that’s it. Got some videos for Mr. Schreck here. You gonna let me in or what?” Wren stepped back into the hallway. “Never do business in the hall,” the visitor said. “You really haven’t got a clue, have you?”
Blushing, and thinking uneasily of Alison, Wren led the dealer upstairs to his flat. The man’s carrier bag contained three video cases. Two of these contained films. The third was packed full of brown fibers that looked like soil. It was labeled AIRPLANE. Brummie humor, you couldn’t beat it. Wren took the envelope full of banknotes from his own locked briefcase and handed it to the dealer. Alison looked on impassively from the bed. Wren had to go back down to unlock the front door. “Make sure the bitch keeps her mouth shut,” the man said on his way out.
Wren took a deep breath and returned to his flat, where Alison was cautiously examining the video case. “What do you do with this?” she asked, then laughed at the expression on his face. “I don’t mean what do you do with it, Richard. I mean what are you going to do with it, now. I assume you don’t own it.”
They’d underestimated each other. Wren explained about his landlord and the basement. “Come with me,” he said. “You might learn something.” His need to make an impression was stronger than his instinct for secrecy. It was past midnight; no one would bother them.
The basement was actually a nuclear fallout shelter, adapted by a previous tenant from a more traditional cellar. There was a concealed entrance in Schreck’s flat, and another—which Wren had access to—in a shed behind the house. The interior of the shelter was lined with concrete and had about thirty yards of shelving, designed for storage of provisions against Doomsday. There was no food or water there now; but Wren supposed that, if Yeltsin’s successor decided to press the button, he and Schreck could spend their last few days smoking wacky baccy, watching porn videos and playing computer games.
He led Alison downstairs in the darkness, walking quietly through the hallway to the back door.
Outside, the cold sobered him up rapidly. The shapes of discarded rubbish crowded the garden like a frozen menagerie. There were no herbaceous borders here. The shed was full of old newspapers and bits of damaged pottery. He cleared the tiny entrance to the bunker and keyed in the numbers Schreck had given him on the lock panel. Alison followed him down the steps. He flicked on the dim red light and looked around. Unmarked boxes and packages crowded the narrow shelves. The air was cold and still, more dusty than he remembered. On a low shelf, near the door, there was a row of video boxes. He added the box of cannabis to the end. A small, flattish cardboard box sat alone at the end of the shelf. It was unsealed. He flicked it open, prompted by the same bitter curiosity that had made him search through his parents’ bedroom as a child. What he touched, without seeing it, was some kind of mask, like the face of a baby or a cat. It crumbled at once. He shivered violently.
“What’s up?” Alison said.
“Nothing.” He closed the box and turned, putting his arms round her. As they kissed, he saw a tiny red light winking above her shoulder. A hidden camera? Was Schreck recording this? Before he could react, Alison pointed to the far end of the room.
“Look. What’s there?” A small door in the concrete wall, not quite shut. No handle; not even a keyhole. “Can we get through?”
Despite all his recent experience, despite being nine years on from puberty, Wren felt a wheel turning within himself at the thought It was her idea. He stepped to the far wall and gripped the edge of the door. It was heavy, but it opened easily. There couldn’t be a room beyond it, he realized from the smell of fresh soil.
But there was. It was smaller than the first room, and had no light. In the vague red glow from behind him, Wren could see that all four walls were lined with shelves. On each shelf, there was a coffin. Wren felt Alison step past him. “What the fuck?” The light seemed to pullback, as if it were being repelled or absorbed by the darkness in the room. “Oh, my God. Who are they?” The air was crowded with translucent faces, or many copies of the same face. All mounted like paper masks on impossibly thin bodies. All staring.
It was cold in here, as cold as a deep freeze. Alison turned around. There were dark patches of blood on her cheeks, her neck, her raised hands. “Help me.” Something he could hardly see pushed him back into the doorway. “Please.” The door closed on him. Wren crouched behind it for a long time, trying to hear. But there was no sound. The door fitted so neatly into its frame that it could almost have been part of the wall. It couldn’t be opened from the outside. When he stood up, his eyes were stinging. There was blood in his mouth.
After the bunker, the house seemed like a vast emptiness. Wren climbed the stairs numbly, entered his flat without switching on the light, and stood there for a moment. Then he began to remove his clothes. The cold of underground seemed to have followed him. It was the beginning of winter.
He ran a warm bath, took a razor blade from the cabinet and half-embedded it in the soap. Then he lay down in the water. The left wrist sliced open as easily as a fish. The right wrist was harder, because he’d cut a tendon or something in his left hand. He made two longitudinal gashes before hitting the vein. Then he rested his head between the taps and watched the blood spreading like two bright flames in the water. Soon he couldn’t feel anything but the faint trickle of water from his exposed feet. There was blood in the air now, darkening, clotting above his face. Then two eyes opened in the sky of blood.
Schreck. The landlord gripped Wren’s shoulders and pulled him up. The water seemed almost freezing. Gently, he took Wren’s left hand and lifted the open wrist to his mouth. Wren felt a tongue probe the edges of the wound. Then Schreck took the other wrist and drank from it. The comfortable haze of blood was receding, and a black emptiness was starting to take its place. Wren felt other wounds open: the old razor-cuts along his inner arms, and the bite mark on his right shoulder. Schreck leaned over and kissed him firmly on the mouth. He seemed to have more than two lips. There are no revelations, Wren thought. Only more of the same. A monster disguised as itself. He put his arms round Schreck, and felt himself lifted easily from the red water.
Later, he opened his eyes to find himself in bed. Schreck was sitting beside him on the duvet. As Wren looked at him, the landlord picked up a glass and put it in Wren’s hand. It was neat vodka, Schreck’s own. The best. Wren felt his wounds sting as the alcohol opened up his circulation. Behind the drawn
curtain and the leaded glass, it was daylight. Wren tried to smile. “What do you call a cunt with teeth?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and childish.
“I know. Dracula.” Schreck glanced at the small table near the bed, the two brandy glasses and crystal dessert bowls. “I’m sorry about her,” he said. “My little friends. She’s with them now.”
“Do you always turn your friends into versions of yourself?”
The landlord shrugged. “Doesn’t everyone?” He stroked Wren’s hand with a surprising tenderness.
They stared at each other for a while, like a couple making up after a row. Then Schreck asked: “Do you want her back?” Wren nodded. “I’m sorry. You can’t be with her. Not that way. You’re just not the type . . . But there’s a whole world out there for you.” Schreck gazed at the curtained window. When he looked back at Wren, there were tears in his eyes. “Richard. I need someone who’s not like me. Someone to live for me, love for me . . . and eventually, die for me. To feel the pain I can’t feel.” He stood up. “I’ll leave you now. There’s food in your fridge, booze in your cabinet. I’ve cleaned the bath. All you need to do is rest. If you want me, just knock on my door. I’ll wait.”
Then he picked something up from the floor and put it on Wren’s bedside table, next to the alarm clock. It was the cake of soap with the razor still in it. “Your choice,” he said. “There are many ways out. But remember, the real evil is the denial of need. Do what you have to.” The door opened and closed softly.
Wren blinked at the drying wounds on his wrists. The power to heal. The power to harm. He sat with his arms wrapped across his chest, rocking himself gently. Father. Mother. He drank some more vodka and began to cry. He cried until his throat ached and his eyes were burning. When night fell, he was still crying. But he still hadn’t picked up the razor blade.
The leaves are falling as if from far away,
as if a garden had withered in space;
the way they fall is like saying no.
—Rilke
BRIAN STABLEFORD taught Sociology for twelve years at the University of Reading before becoming a full-time writer in 1988. He has published more than 100 books, including over seventy novels, sixteen collections, seven anthologies and thirty non-fiction titles.
His vampire fiction includes the novels The Empire of Fear, Young Blood, Sherlock Holmes and the Vampires of Eternity, and Vampires of Atlantis: A Love Story, as well as a number of short stories. He has also translated numerous works of French vampire fiction, including Paul Féval’s Vampire City and The Vampire Countess, Marie Nizet’s Captain Vampire and Ponson du Terrail’s The Vampire and the Devil’s Son.
Stableford’s recent titles include Eurydice’s Lament, The Mirror of Dionysius, The Darkling Wood: A Scientific Fantasy, The Devil in Detail, Portals of Paradise, and Tangled Web of Time.
The author was the recipient of the 1999 Science Fiction Research Association’s Pilgrim Award for contributions to SF scholarship, and he has also been presented with the SFRA’s Pioneer Award (1996), the Distinguished Scholarship Award of the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (1987), the J. Lloyd Eaton Award (1987), and the Special Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Award (2011).
Quality Control
Brian Stableford
Having observed the world and what’s happening to it, Dracula advances his plans to re-establish himself and his fellow vampires as the dominant species . . .
Brewer hadn’t been in the Goat and Compasses for nearly a year. He didn’t need to go into places like that nowadays; he always met his runners on safer ground. His legitimate business was booming and it didn’t seem politic to be frequently seen in a pub known to be favored by dealers, pimps and other assorted riffraff. There were no big players on view now, though; it was only lunchtime.
He found Simple Simon propping up the bar, looking no fatter and no more prosperous than he ever did, but not looking like a boy on the brink of starvation either. Brewer still thought of Simon as a boy although he must have been well into his twenties by now. Clearly, he was still working—if not for Brewer then for someone else.
“Hello, Simon,” Brewer said, taking the youth by the elbow and leading him away from the bar to a booth in the corner. “It’s been too long, hasn’t it?” While Simon thought about how to answer that he went back to the bar and ordered a couple of pints.
When Brewer carried the tankards over to the booth and set them down Simon had the grace to look slightly guilty, but he didn’t look scared. Brewer had never mastered the delicate art of terrifying his pushers, preferring to represent himself as a man who was as gentle and trustworthy as his product. Sometimes, he regretted his laxity. There was always the chance that some under-terrorized imbecile would grass him up if the police put the screws on tight enough.
“It’s okay,” he said, staying in character. “No threats. I only want an explanation. You owe me that much, at least.”
“An explanation of what?” Simon asked, although he knew full well.
“An explanation of why you haven’t picked up your supplies lately. I know you too well to believe that you’ve decided to straighten up, so you’ve obviously found an alternative supplier. You don’t have to tell me who it is, but I need to know what it is you’re peddling. I thought I had the kind of product that wouldn’t easily be outdone. If my recipe book is out of date I really ought to catch up. It’s not the money, of course—it’s a matter of professional pride.”
“It’s not better,” the youth muttered. “Not really. It’s just different. New.”
“You’re telling me you’re a fashion victim? Some new designer product hits the street and you feel like you have to switch brands in case your mates think your habit’s passé?” Brewer tried hard to imply that it was unbelievable, but he knew that it was only too likely.
“It’s not like that,” Simon said, uncomfortably. “It’s just . . . people can be very persuasive.”
“You mean they threatened to break your legs if you didn’t ditch my stuff and start selling theirs?”
“Not exactly,” the boy muttered, unable to muster enough conviction to tell a convenient lie. The trouble with Simon was that he was vulnerable to the mildest forms of persuasion, provided he was approached in the right way.
“It’s okay,” Brewer lied, hoping that he didn’t sound too convincing. “It was bound to happen. It’s the hectic pace of technological innovation—not to mention the money that’s being poured into neurochemical research. I’m only one man, and I can’t be expected to create and supervise the psychotropic revolution by myself. There’s room for everyone in a boom market, no need for conflict. This is 1999, after all—we’re not Jurassic crack dealers, are we? I just need to know what’s going on. Is there any reason why you shouldn’t retail my products as well as theirs?”
Simon shrugged awkwardly. Plainly there was.
Brewer wondered whether it might have been optimistic to assume that his new rivals were men like him: civilized people with degrees, well-appointed laboratories and a serious interest in the next phase of human evolution. Maybe the old-time crack dealers were trying to get back into the game. If so, he shuddered to think what their quality control must be like. He stared over Simon’s shoulder and let his eyes wander while he wondered how much trouble he might be in.
His wandering gaze was suddenly arrested and held by a trim figure easing its way out of a booth on the far side of the room. His attention would have been caught even if he hadn’t recognized the face lurking behind the opaque sunglasses, but the shock of realizing who she was intensified his reaction considerably.
Simon looked around to see what Brewer was staring at, but turned back quickly, as if he were afraid to look upon such a startling profile.
“Does she come in here often?” Brewer asked.
“Sometimes. Still counts a few of the working girls as friends. They say her old man doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t keep tabs on her during the day.”<
br />
“Must be the laid-back type.” Brewer used the sneer to cover up an unexpected stab of jealousy. For nearly a year Brewer had supplied Jenny with happy pills in exchange for sex, but she had been using too many other things, and she had never quite come off the game. He had dumped her when she had gone far enough downhill not to be special any more. In his experience, nobody ever climbed back up that kind of hill once they’d started to roll, but Jenny now looked extra special—far better than she ever had before. That was difficult to believe, given that she must be at least Simon’s age, with the sweet succulence of innocence far behind her.
“So laid-back he’s creepy,” Simon said. “You want to go say hello?” He didn’t really think he was going to be let off that easily, but there was a distinct note of hope in his voice, doubtless encouraged by the intensity of Brewer’s stare. He wouldn’t have got off that easily, either, if the girl hadn’t got up from her seat at that very moment and started for the door, waving goodbye to her erstwhile friends—who looked after her with naked envy, but rather less hatred than might have been expected.
Brewer didn’t spare Simon another glance, but he said “I’ll be back” in his best Schwarzenegger drawl. He left the pint he’d hardly touched on the table.
It wasn’t difficult to catch up with Jenny; she wasn’t hurrying.
“Can I offer you a lift somewhere?” Brewer said, as he drew level with her.
She seemed genuinely surprised to see him. Perhaps she’d been too deep in conversation to see him enter the pub and perhaps she hadn’t glanced in his direction while she made for the door. She stopped and turned to look up into his eyes. Her own eyes were hidden by the dark glasses but he imagined them blue and clear, as radiant as her complexion.
“I don’t know, Bru,” she said, blithely. “Which way are you going?”
“Any way you like,” he said. “It’s my afternoon off.”
In the Footsteps of Dracula Page 47
