Till You Drop

by Mat Coward

  Their last serious disagreement had occurred in this same room, about a month earlier. It had seemed to arise from nowhere, as arguments often will, in the shorthand communications common to those between whom there is great affection.

  "Look at you," Lanto had said, his voice loud and his face dark. "You revel in cynicism. You've almost given up the night."

  "I haven't given it up, that's crap," Orlandus had replied, his angry tone matching his cousin's. "I just don't need to feed as often as you seem to. I can get by with three or four takes a year, and so I do. Why put yourself out, why make work? And if it comes to that, I don't believe any of us need to feed quite so often. I don't believe you need to. You just do it because it's the done thing."

  "Which is only a clever way of saying," Lanto had answered him, "that I need to do what needs to be done!"

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning that we keep the ways of the night, because a tradition which is not maintained ceases to be a tradition. Meaning that when you're older, you'll perhaps understand - "

  The row had ended as it generally did, with reconciliation, and an unsatisfactory agreement to differ, and an excessive quantity of cold beer. But the truth was that Orlandus was largely responsible for putting into his friend's head the ideas which had somehow been crystallised by Lanto's confrontation with the alleyway muggers.

  "I'm sorry, Lo," said Orlandus now. "I don't mean to take the piss. If you think what happened was significant, you're probably right. I'm only trying to get it clear in my own mind what it is you are saying. After all, street crime is nothing new. Viciousness is nothing new. The rich taking cruel pleasures from the poor: technically, I’m not sure that counts as breaking news."

  "There is a new kind of fear, Orlandus," was all Lanto could say just then to express the troubles in his heart. And so they sat in silence for a while, watching cartoons on the television with the sound down, drinking beer and eating salty snacks.

  After an hour or so, Orlandus said: “A new kind of fear?”

  Lanto thought for a while longer, then put down his beer and pointed at the screen. “They have celebrities on that thing, paid millions of pounds a year to incite just what I saw the other night. Witty, chummy, easy-going - and spewing evil hate. And no-one’s allowed to disagree with them, because it means they can’t take a joke. And politicians, their supposed leaders, who make entire careers out of lying about unemployed workers or refugees.”

  Orlandus lit a cigarette. “There’s a lot of pure bastards on the box nowadays, I’ll grant you that.”

  Lanto shook his head. “The point is, this is official encouragement of evil and cruelty. They take people who are getting a helping hand and paint them as thieves, scroungers, with the specific intention that people will hate them. These TV presenters, the politicians, the news media, they deliberately incite people to hate the weakest amongst them; to fear most those who have least power to harm them. They intend that people will do what I saw them doing to that boy in the wheelchair. It’s not careless. It’s deliberate, calculated; it's a system, not a fault.”

  “All right,” said Orlandus. “I’m hearing you now.”

  "Are you a member of the MU, Orly?"

  The question astonished Orlandus, as much by its suddenness as its apparent irrelevance. "The MU?" he said. "You mean, like - Keep Music Live?"

  "What? No, don't be stupid, Orlandus, not the Musicians’ Union."

  "Oh, right!" said Orlandus. "Gotcha. You mean the Monsters’ Union. As in - Keep Fright Live. Yeah, well, I suppose I am. I mean, we all are, aren't we? Membership's automatic, conferred at birth ... or the nearest appropriate equivalent thereto."

  "Have you ever been to a meeting?" asked Lanto, finishing his beer, standing to put his coat on.

  "No," said Orlandus, "never have. Come to think of it, I don't even get a bloody newsletter."

  "Well then," said Lanto, switching off the TV. "Let's go."

  "Fair enough," said Orlandus. "Could be a laugh." He plucked his bomber jacket off the back of the sofa, and looked around for his cigarettes, lighter, cash. "Hold on," he said, as he wriggled his stocky, but somehow untidy body into the jacket. "This isn't a formal affair, is it? I mean, I don't need to fetch my swirly cape from the dry cleaners?"

  Lanto smiled. It was a thin smile, but only because it suppressed affectionate amusement. "Don't push your luck, Junior," he said.

  ***

  Outside the flat, Orlandus fished his car keys from his pocket.

  "No," said Lanto. "We'll take the Tube."

  Orlandus grimaced. "I wish you'd told me," he said. "I'm wearing my best shoes."

  They bought their tickets at the underground station, and rode the lift down to the platform. There they walked casually to the far end, where there were few passengers. After a quick look round to check that they weren't observed, Lanto, followed swiftly by Orlandus, slipped into the darkness of the train tunnel.

  "You obviously know where we're going," said Orlandus, as they crawled (though swam perhaps would be a fitter word) along the tunnel's ceiling.

  "The Old Library," Lanto replied.

  "Ah," said Orlandus. "I was about to say, 'But the Old Library's closed'. Because of public spending cuts. But of course, that's - "

  "Yes," came his cousin's voice, from a few feet ahead in the sooty gloom. "That's the whole point."

  About five minutes later, Lanto stopped. "This is it," he said, pointing to an obviously disused side-tunnel.

  "How do you know? Got a map?"

  "Here," said Lanto. "About half way down the wall, where the bricks have fallen away, see? There's a thin shaft. You'll have to go in feet first."

  "I always seem to, when I'm with you.”

  The gap was far too slim for a man to get into. Even for a bloodtaker, it was tight going. But the discomfort lasted only briefly, and the two emerged into a small room which seemed, at first breath, even dustier and more cobwebbed than the old tunnel had been.

  "Where are we?" asked Orlandus, brushing dust from his black jeans, and rubbing at a scuff on his expensive footwear.

  "I think it was the staff room," said Lanto. He smiled. "And considering the hygiene standards of the average Fearful, I don't suppose it looked much better when it was in use."

  "Oh, I don't know," said Orlandus. "I once went out with a librarian. She was sweet enough."

  The smile fell from Lanto's face, and his shoulders stiffened. "That was when you were young and didn't know anything."

  "That," Orlandus muttered, keen to avoid another argument, but determined to have the last word, "was exactly why I went out with her."

  "Come on," said Lanto. "Or are you going to spend the rest of the day preening yourself?" He opened the door, and they stepped out into a corridor, which almost immediately gave way to a large, many-windowed chamber, topped by a glass dome, its walls and floor covered with book shelves and freestanding stacks. Despite the windows, the gloom was virtually impenetrable; each piece of glass was filmed in the same thick, clinging dust which covered every surface.

  "Why don't we build our own libraries?" said Orlandus, running a long, pointed finger along the top of a desk which sat in the centre of the room. The desk was signposted ‘Reservations and Inquiries.’

  "Think about it," said Lanto. "If we did, what would they be like?"

  Orlandus chuckled. "Like this," he said. "I see."

  "So why bother building our own - libraries or any other communal buildings? When, hell knows, these days the Fearful provide us with an abundance of empty ones. And besides ... a closed library always has a certain, appropriate atmosphere, don't you think? The smell of decay, of hopes betrayed, of life abandoned."

  While he spoke, Lanto had been stalking the rows of old, rotting books, occasionally taking one from its place, glancing at it, and then shoving it impatiently back onto its shelf.

  "Do you know what you're looking for?" asked Orlandus.

  "I know what I'm looking for, but I don
't know where to look for it. I never could make head or tail of these bloody filing systems."

  "You mean there is one?"

  "Let's see if we can find the librarian," said Lanto, and as the words left his lips to skitter about the apparently random heaps of musty volumes, both bloodtakers saw, from the corners of their eyes, a tiny movement on the other side of the Reservations desk; not so much a movement, really, as a vague displacement of light.

  "Good Night, Cousin," said Lanto, formally. Good Night was always the correct greeting between Cousins, whatever the time, and as the apparition behind the desk became clearer, there could be no doubt that it was of the Nighthood. Translucent, its outline shimmering yellow, it stood nearly seven feet tall (allowing for the gap between its feet and the floor). In shape, it was recognisable as humanoid, but its morphology flowed and shivered, its limbs being spasmodically reabsorbed into its torso, its facial features twisting and weaving around the sole constant: a vast, cavernous mouth, a violently jagged, absurdly exaggerated gash, forever frozen in a soundless shriek.

  "A haunt," said Orlandus softly.

  "Naturally," said Lanto, with quiet approval. "What else, in such a place?"

  The more they looked at the haunt, the more solid it became, drawing physical permanence from the regard of its observers. Even then, however, its form gave no clue as to its sex, age or condition: no clothes were visible, no hair.

  "Good Night, Cousin," said Lanto again, his strong, dark voice booming in the forgotten room.

  The haunt made no verbal response - haunts might moan a little when the occasion demanded, but Lanto had never heard one speak - though it did seem to focus more attentively on the two bloodtakers.

  "We're looking for a book."

  "We're in the right place, then," mumbled Orlandus; adding, as his cousin half-turned to him to deliver a glance of annoyance, "Sorry - old librarians’ joke."

  "We wish to contact the Monsters’ Union," Lanto told the haunt. "I thought there might be a book here which would contain such information."

  The spectral librarian did not consult any indices or lists, but merely glowed for a moment, before moving away from them, towards the back of the library. Its motion suggested illusion, as if it didn't really travel in space, but rather existed first in one place and then in another, with only a slight disturbance of air to suggest its passage between them.

  The bloodtakers followed at a slower pace, and found the librarian hovering by a shelf which looked no different from any of its neighbours.

  "In your debt, Cousin," said Lanto, but even as he addressed it, the haunt began to flicker and fade, and within seconds was gone entirely.

  Orlandus took a book from the shelf. "I think he meant this one," he said.

  "It, not he," Lanto corrected him, absently. "Let me see. Yes, this is what we need."

  "It's not exactly what I was expecting," said Orlandus, a hint of disappointment in his voice.

  "Oh?" said Lanto, studying the contents page.

  "Well, you know what I mean, Lo - it looks very modern, very mundane. I thought it'd be more ancient, more ... I don't know, more Nighthood. Like the rest of them." He gestured at the book stacks they had passed on their way in.

  Lanto looked up and smiled. "A blood-writ tome, bound in the skin of a sorcerer, encoded by the wise ones of Ancient Egypt? Sorry, Orly, you'll have to make do with this. Most of those other books, the romantically dusty ones you were admiring, belonged to the Fearful. Abandoned along with the building. They're rotten because nobody wants them. Whereas this - " He slapped the cover. "This was almost certainly printed by a gremlin in Kentish Town, who wasn't going to waste a lot of fancy paper on a mere directory."

  "Well, well, you live and learn," said Orlandus. "Or learn, anyway."

  Lanto was engrossed in the book. "Hell, this doesn't sound very encouraging."

  "What's that?"

  "Well, I was assuming that we would come under the North London Branch."

  "Makes sense," agreed Orlandus.

  "Whereas, actually, there doesn't seem to be a North London Branch. Or a London Branch. In fact, from this, I can only suppose that we are members of South-East England."

  "I see what you mean," said Orlandus. "That's a big area. Perhaps all the old activists have died off."

  Lanto ignored, or didn't hear, the joke. "Royal Tunbridge Wells," he said. "That's where our Branch Convenor is to be found, apparently."

  "Don't know it."

  "Kent. Quite a pleasant spa town, as I remember."

  "That's okay, then," said Orlandus. "We'll take a picnic."

  "Hell's bells!"

  "What? Have the subs gone up?"

  Lanto held the book out towards him, his bony finger indicating a particular line of type. "What do you make of this name?"

  "That the Convenor?" said Orlandus, reading where he was bidden to read. "Ngggg. Ah, I see! Well I never ... "

  "No wonder the Branch is not found in the city," said Lanto.

  "A greyman, eh? Who'd have thought it! I do hope, Cousin," said Orlandus, "that that is not prejudice which I detect playing upon your venerable features?"

  "Not at all. Please try not to talk nonsense when you are in my company." Lanto slammed the book shut, and replaced it on its shelf.

  ***

  As a matter of principle, Josie always made at least a token attempt to recruit every new member of the nightshift at Aloon’s. She was used to lost causes: she was the borough rep for the retail workers’ union in an age when most of her colleagues were casuals, temps, spoke no English, were on 24-hour-only contracts, were so young they’d never heard of unions, or so old they couldn’t hear of unions. Or they were just so terrified of losing the job that they ran screaming from the very word union, apparently in fear that management might somehow hear that they’d heard it and therefore sack them as polluted goods. Or - and this was perhaps the largest group - the shelf-stackers working nights alongside Josie lived in such a state of absolute despair that the thought of trying to change things had never occurred to them, and could never occur to them even after it had been put to them.

  Point being, Josie didn’t give up easily. And about once a month she actually got someone to sign up.

  But this new trio … they were … well -

  “They look dead,” she said, and the look of disapproval that whipped across the face of her regional boss, Mrs Compton, told Josie that this was something newly awful, not just the usual awful; not just another bunch of illegals that the Royal Navy had managed to steal off the Germans.

  The pepper-haired bloke standing alongside Mrs Compton showed Josie his warrant card. “I’m Detective Inspector Pipe,” he told her, perhaps in case she couldn’t read. “I’m a Scotland Yard liaison officer to a new Fairness in Work scheme called Restart. I’m here, in part, to answer any - ”

  Josie ignored him. She had a more important job to do than listening to coppers, just now. She walked over to the three new workers, held her hand out. “Welcome to Aloon’s.” None of them shook her hand. Not to worry; cultural differences, possibly. “My name’s Josie, and I’ve been here longest, so, basically, we don’t have a supervisor as such, but if you’ve got any questions, I’m probably the one to ask.” No response. They did, literally, look dead; one of the women had thick scars all over her throat and arms, and the man’s neck stuck out at a weird angle. The other woman, the younger one, didn’t seem to have anything outwardly ruined, if you didn’t count what appeared to be a cry of agony frozen on her lips. “More importantly,” Josie continued, “I’m the local representative for the retail workers’ union. I don’t know if any of you are already members … ?” She always asked that of new colleagues, no matter how certain the answer; optimism of the will, her dad had taught her, and besides: take every opportunity to act as if union membership was the norm, and there was more chance that it would become the norm.

  “If any of them were members,” said the DI, “their cards will
have been cancelled. You’ll need to start from scratch.”

  Going by his face, Josie reckoned he was trying to be helpful. So she thanked him. “I interrupted you just now,” she added. “You were explaining about … ?”

  “Perhaps you could make the inspector a cup of coffee,” Mrs Compton interrupted, “while I get our new recruits settled in.”

  Josie almost fell over. Mrs Compton never had anything to do with the staff. She never stayed in the bloody building for more than three minutes if she could help it; she preferred to practice her management skills from afar.

  There wasn’t a staff room. There was a kettle, though, just inside the women’s lavs; far enough inside to be embarrassing, but not enough to be offensive. They took their coffees outside, so Josie could steal a ciggy-break on the firm’s time. Matter of principle. The back door was supposed to be locked at all times for security reasons - that is, to prevent staff passing nicked goods out to their mates. But Josie always made sure it was open, for old times' sake: the door had been a fire exit, back when there were things like fire regulations. Nobody ever came to check.

  “So,” she said. “What have you got to tell me? Nothing very lovely, I’m guessing.”

  DI Pipe took a long drink. “I’ve been doing an evening class,” he told her. “Expensive, but I think it’s worth it.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “I think so.” He nodded. “I like to know how things work. Where one fits in, in one’s own work, to the overall pattern.”

  Josie sipped her coffee. “Yes, I suppose that’s good to know.”

  “I came cross this quote in a textbook the other night. You’ll perhaps know it.”

  “Try me.”

  “Karl Marx: ‘Capitalism is the rule of dead labour over living.’” He drained his mug and handed it to her. “Your new colleagues,” he said. “They might take a bit of getting used to.”

  ***

  They compromised. Lanto agreed to travel inside the train, and by day, while Orlandus promised to leave his busker's guitar behind, and not to tell fellow passengers that they were going to Tunbridge Wells "for a nice picnic."