by Lee McGeorge
Vampire "Untitled"
www.lee-mcgeorge.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Speartip
Copyright © Lee McGeorge 2012
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transferred, in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978-0-9546953-1-6
Speartip Publishing
Islington, London, N4
For Steve and Vincent
Special Thanks
Tony “Mad Dog” Shannon
Jo-Jeff Pip
Miss Seelumbur
Steve “Outpost” Barker
Emily Ford
and Lady Islington
Lee McGeorge
Vampire "Untitled"
PART I
When you move to live in another country you imagine it’s going to be fun, an adventure, exciting. That wasn’t what Paul McGovern was feeling and he’d only been in the country for three hours.
He’d been riding in a taxi, mostly across an endless snowy plain of barren land, travelling from the dirty, concrete and blocky world of Bucharest, towards something that at first looked idyllic. Snowy forests and mountains had loomed ahead of the taxi, sidewinder trails cut by snowploughs wound through twisting mountain roads. For a brief period it was a journey of scenic beauty; countryside vistas, mountains, pine trees dusted in snow, the stuff of Christmas cards.
The taxi pulled to a halt at the traffic lights and the driver killed the engine to conserve petrol. For a moment there was silence, then came the begging moan of a teenaged boy, painfully freezing in an icy wind. He was missing his right leg from the knee and remained upright thanks to a homemade wooden leg and an equally fashioned crutch under his arm. He held his hand to the taxi window, fingers burned red raw by the sleeting cold and wet, moaning for a donation. “Varog…” he mumbled, “Varog…”
The glass of the window was inadequate barrier and Paul stared forward uncomfortably. The taxi driver cursed a few words in Romanian; it sounded as though he was apologising about the beggar. Ahead of them was looming another random town of communist-era tower blocks that had been strangely planted amongst the mountain forests. Prefab buildings that dated back to the 1970’s or 80’s, perhaps earlier or later; it was impossible to tell.
The kid with one leg pressed against the window to pour more emotional blackmail onto Paul but the taxi driver got in first, shouting at him, crying some admonishment and shooing him away with a gesture; the universal hand signal that says ‘piss off’. Paul didn’t know who was more disagreeable, the beggar or the cab-driver who smelled of sweat and wet laundry. This had been a miserable taxi ride. Thankfully, it was almost over.
With the changing lights the car moved towards the tower blocks. As they got closer, they passed a church and the driver crossed himself repeatedly in Christian subservience until they passed. There were rosary beads hanging from the rear view mirror and a faded sticker of St. Francis on the glove box so Paul had already figured the driver to be devout.
The taxi turned in from the main roads to thread its way between the tower blocks and things started looking decidedly worse. The road itself must have been a dirt track that, in warmer times, had been worn into grooves of muddy tyre tracks. Now frozen solid they held haphazard shapes that varied in height by at least twelve inches so that the car would ride up the edge of a groove on one side and fall into the gully on the other, tilting the vehicle harshly before dropping back. The car suspension was getting its workout; in fact, Paul felt as though his seat itself was on springs and he found himself clinging to the handle over the door with one hand and to the dashboard with the other.
Without fanfare the taxi stopped and the driver pointed to a wide steel door at the base of a tower. “Aici,” he said.
“Here?” Paul asked. “This is it?”
“Da,” the driver responded with an affirmative nod, “Aici. Aici.”
Paul took a long breath as he looked out of the window at the tower block. In a world of soul destroying concrete, this building looked the worst; and for the next six months it was going to be home.
----- X -----
Two weeks earlier things had been very different.
Paul had sat outside the office of Jade Conway awaiting a good-news meeting that felt more nerve wracking than any job interview. His hair was short but thick, a dark chestnut colour to match his eyes and normally easy to manage, but for some reason on this day, this crucial day, it wouldn’t lay flat at the back and he’d stuck it down with too much wax. Now, as he waited for his appointment, his heart was beating fast and he was worried about his hairstyle.
“Paul.” Jade called his name in a way that dragged out the sound to make a musical note of affection. She was walking to him with arms outstretched and a huge smile. Kisses on both cheeks. If Jade had been a movie producer she would have been the stereotypical Hollywood fat-man with a big cigar; but it wasn’t movies she was into, it was books, and rather than a cigar her prop of choice was the horned rimmed spectacles on a chain one would expect to see on an old librarian. She was twenty five years old.
“This is you,” she had said, once safely holed up in her office.
She handed him a paperback anthology of horror stories aimed at teenagers. Skin Crawlers: Volume 3. Paul turned the book in his hands, instinctively holding it by the edges less he leave fingerprints on the glossy cover and opened it carefully so as not to crease the spine. The first story was his and took up just over one third of the anthology. The rest were shorts from other writers he didn’t know.
He felt warm, hot under the collar with the uncomfortable sensation he was on display. He was paranoid his hair was sticking up and he wanted to smooth it down. This wasn’t the first thing he’d had in print, far from it, but this was special, this was an achievement to be proud of, but all he could think about was the hair on the back of his head. A distraction? Nervous energy? He knew what it was; underlying the bad-hair paranoia was self-conscious worry about what other people would think. He’d been worried about it ever since he’d known his story was included in the anthology and it was a retarded, unwarranted, stupid fear. Typical. Here was a small and moderate success and all he wanted to do was withdraw and fade from view. What would other people think of him?
“Do you like the cover?”
Paul pressed down the hair on the back of his head. The cover was of a horse drawn carriage at night. Gaslight Victorian London. On closer inspection the carriage driver was revealed as a skeleton. Somehow the artist had imbued a murky night-time scene with a multitude of colours, greens and yellows for the mist, splashes of red details here and there. The cover was amazing.
“Do you like it?” Jade asked again. Paul nodded pressing his lips together. It was great. It was amazing. Brilliant. He was trying to hold a poker face and losing.
When he’d started university he’d sent a spec article to a computer magazine on the perils of buying a laptop, it went to print and the publishers threw plenty of jobs his way for their other publications. He wrote articles from fish-keeping to farming. They sent the data and he fashioned it into readable articles to pay his way through college, but this was artistic success and for the fir
st time in his life he knew this is what he wanted. He’d never given a name to it, or even gave it serious consideration, but he realised now that he wanted to write stories. His serious logical brain had coerced him to study English to become a journalist and he was already getting paid work as a copywriter, but in this instant he saw that his brain had acted as a sensible parent. “You can’t write fiction for profit,” it had said, “writing for an income, for a career, for the entertainment industry? Don’t make me laugh, journalism, that’s the career of a serious literate mind.” At least, that’s what his brain had said, guiding him away from foolish dreams of being the next JK Rowling or Stephen King. His brain had sensibly nudged him along the path of career and money and paying the bills; but now, holding a little taste of success and a paycheque in his hands, he wanted this more than anything else in the world.
“I have five thousand printed copies and they’ll be in shops in six weeks.” Jade said.
“Five thousand is good.”
“Most won’t go to shops. I’ve already pre-sold three thousand to schools and libraries. The target is for five thousand in paperback sales and twenty five thousand in downloads throughout the life of the marketing campaign. We’ve done similar on the other anthologies.”
Paul nodded as he tried to find something to say.
“There’s something else I want to talk to you about though,” she said taking off her glasses. Paul waited for her to continue. “Have you thought about writing something bigger?”
“You mean like a novel? I will at some point.”
“How about a series of novels?” she’d handed him the most pulpy trashy paperback he had ever seen. Shadowbeast. The cover was an image of a Bigfoot type creature with glowing eyes stalking through a forest. It looked as though it was painted by the same artist who’d done his cover. “This is doing really well. It’s now got five books in the series and has sold over ninety thousand copies.”
“Wow,” he said with genuine surprise. “I had no idea.”
“There are teenaged fans making websites about it and we’ve started putting a marketing plan together to see if we can sell a film option.”
“Oh, that’s brilliant.” This was what he admired about Jade. Twenty five years old, an independent publisher for only three years and already she was selling books by the hundred thousand. Film options? Jade Conway was going places. Even Shadowbeast. It looked unbelievably trashy, but the title, the cover artwork, everything drew you in. She knew what she was doing.
“So are you interested?”
“In what? Do you...” Paul thought before he spoke, “Do you want me to write a Shadowbeast episode?”
“No, not Shadowbeast. Vampires.” Jade leaned back in her chair. “I’m interested in creating another series that occupies the same universe as this. I’ve got tens of thousands of kids on an email database waiting to hear about the next Shadowbeast book and I’d love to maximise that fan base with a spin-off series. I want a new range of books that these kids will love as much as Shadowbeast and I’m thinking that vampires is the way to go.”
At this point she turned on the sex appeal by leaning forward and gripping the edge of the chair between her legs; her boobs squeezed between her elbows, sales pressure by cleavage. Hypnotits. “And I think, Paul, that you have the talent to do it. What I’m hoping, is you could write a compelling vampire story, a novella, with outlines for four or five sequels. I can’t advance on the first book but I can guarantee publication if the commercial viability is there. I’ll pay you a great percentage from the first book and if the sales go well I’ll commission and advance on the second and third books back to back.”
“So…” Paul fumbled for the words, “you want me to write a book and plan a series, but you’ll pay me…”
“I won’t pay you until the books are selling.”
“Ahhh, I see.” He then went silent, unsure how to weigh up the offer, unsure what criteria he should decide upon.
“Your imagination is quite unique. Your fiction writing really sparkles and I know we can make money from it.” Paul blushed a little at the flattery. “I’ve got a built in audience. So if you can write something appealing, I will go to hell and back marketing them. Write me a commercial vampire series and I promise you, I’ll drive it into profit.”
That was the clincher. No contracts were signed, no witnesses were present, but Jade was serious. She knew her stuff, she was determined and immediately he knew that this was an opportunity that, if turned down, he would end up regretting.
That was two weeks ago.
For a while his fear and rational brain had tried to thwart him. He was fresh from university, twenty one years old with student debt up to the eyeballs. He’d trained to be a journalist and now he was thinking of... doing what exactly?
Not looking for a job?
What would people think?
He’d spent that afternoon propping up a sleepy bar in central London. He called his very few friends for advice and they all told him to seize the opportunity. Bastards. What he wanted was someone to talk him out of it. He was scared, worried. What if he failed? How was he supposed to live with no income? What if he wasted time on this project then had to explain to a prospective employer that he had wasted time trying to be a novelist? He even spilled his guts to the barman who frowned and looked down on him. The barman cut through all the shit when he said, “You’re suffering a bad case of self-sabotage. It’s an amazing opportunity. You’re just looking for a way to fuck it up because you’re scared.”
The truth hurts when you’re a fool and a coward.
It was true, he was suffering a bad case of self-sabotage.
Missing this opportunity would be shameful and he knew it.
It was then a friend of a friend of a friend, who knows someone who knew someone else. An empty flat in Romania, a beautiful ancient city called Brasov, deep within Dracula country, land of the vampires. Super cheap. Live there six months for the same price as six weeks in London.
The stars were aligning, a lifetime ambition, a chance of a new career, the chance to live abroad in a faraway and exotic country. Everything was suddenly sparkling and that was how it had come about. And now Paul was pulling open the door to a communist era block of flats that was so heavy it required two hands to open. It was the sort of door you would expect to see on the loading bay of a warehouse.
It was dark and derelict. Concrete walls and floor. He could just about make out a staircase in the darkness. To his right he could see a timed light button. As he went for the switch the door slammed closed on the heavy spring throwing him into darkness. The smash of the door made a suspended echo that reverberated up and down the staircase. It was a sound effect from a horror movie, locked in, trapped, the sound was one hundred percent oppression.
His hand fished through the air, searching for the light switch. Although he was only in darkness for a second or two, it was the most ominous darkness. He was cold and alone.
“You’re just suffering from a real bad case of self-sabotage.” Paul whispered to himself as his hands made contact with the switch.
Bzzzzzzzzzzz – a green tinted fluorescent light flickered into life sounding like a wasp was trapped in the tube. The floor had a wide and deep puddle. The wall held mailboxes; a woodwork lattice once painted a light blue colour but now faded and broken. Some boxes were missing doors, others had been patched up and made secure with metal plates. It seemed as though some people took the security of their mail very seriously whilst others had simply given up and no longer cared.
“So this is home. I hope?”
The arrangement was that the landlady would be waiting in the apartment to greet him. That arrangement was made by a stoned, broken-English speaking Romanian back in London over a week ago. Throughout the taxi ride he’d worried that nobody would be here and he’d mentally planned contingencies of finding a cheap hotel and either finding new accommodation or flying home in short order.
Would the la
ndlady be there? It was time to find out.
He began on the stairs looking for apartment number 19, sliding his hand along the blue Formica banister until a crack in the plastic nicked his skin with the sharpness of a splinter. He winced and put the skin to his mouth. A moment later he wondered what strange and foreign bacteria lived on that sharp edge.
He could see up between the banisters all the way to the top of the building. It felt like an abandoned prison. Functional. Austere. Grey. From the outside the building looked blocky, but seeing the inside gave him the sense that it was all prefabricated. The stairs rose on the left then a landing on the right gave access to the apartments. Floors upon floors, staircases on the left, apartments on the right. There was no style or architectural flair. This building was manufactured in concrete slabs then each floor was stacked one atop the other. At no point had the designers factored in quality of living. They didn’t think to put a window or atrium into the stairwell or do anything to make it liveable, yet hidden in the misery was a cold beauty of efficiency. He thought on that for a moment as he sucked his splinter pricked hand, then absorbed the reality.
This place was shit!
----- X -----
The door opened with the slow, ominous creeping of a worn horror trope. He could easily imagine Lugosi standing on the other side as Dracula, or Karloff as the crazy mute butler in The Old Dark House, ready to welcome him into a place of horrors. Instead he was greeted by a fifty year old woman of barely five feet tall; she had orange hair beneath a cream beret and magenta lipstick which, when she grinned to greet him, had smeared a little onto her front teeth.
“Esti Powl? Powl England?”
“I’m Paul.” he replied pointing to his breastbone. “Paul.”
