by Amy Cross
“You think Patrick would do that?”
I nod. “He has a temper,” I say. “He doesn't always make the right decision”.
“I thought he was long gone?” Shelley asks. “I thought you said he'd run off with this baby you had, and there was no way he was ever coming back?”
“Maybe I was wrong,” I say.
“Plus,” Shelley continues, “you said he just used you so he could get the baby, in which case, why would he get jealous?”
“I was wrong again,” I say. “Maybe I was wrong about everything. Maybe he's still around, and maybe he saw me with Adam and he couldn't control himself”.
There's silence between us for a moment. “Yeah,” Shelley says eventually. “Maybe. Or maybe Adam just had an accident and you're reading too much into it”.
I glance over at Shelley's sometime-boyfriend Rob, who has shown up in his usual goth wannabe vampire outfit. “What's he doing?” I ask.
“Same as us,” Shelley says. “Mourning Adam”.
“And what's that in his mouth?” I ask.
Shelley looks at him for a moment. “It's an ice cream. He likes ice cream and he's hungry. Do you want him to be sad on an empty stomach?”
Rob turns to look at us. To his credit, he does look genuinely distressed about Adam's death, even though the pair of them didn't really know each other very well.
“I have to find Patrick,” I whisper to Shelley.
“You've been saying that for months,” she whispers back.
“I have to find out if he killed Adam,” I say. “And I have to find out if there's really a baby, and if there is, where is it? If it's real, then I'm it's mother and... You understand, right?”
She puts an arm around me. “Course I do. Kind of. I mean, the mothering instinct is a bit of a mystery to me, but I'll help you. If Patrick's out there somewhere, we'll track him down. I don't know how, but we will. Okay?”
I nod. “I know where to start,” I say calmly.
“It's not a cave full of bats, is it?” Shelley asks.
I close my eyes for a moment. “I don't think he actually turns into a bat, Shelley”.
Then again, what do I know? I've never really got to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Patrick. Who he really is, where he came from, what he wants... I don't know what powers he has, and I don't know what limits there might be to those powers. All I know is that he seemed to have feelings for me once, and then he showed that it was all a lie, and now... I hate myself for thinking this, but does Adam's death prove that Patrick loves me?
“This is it,” I say, staring down the dark tunnel. “This is where he lives”.
We're standing in the woods, at the entrance to Patrick's home. At least... it used to be Patrick's home. I'm not sure if he ever comes here any more. It seems so long ago that I'd come here looking for him.
Shelley sighs. “You really think he'd come back here? After everything that's happened?”
“I don't know,” I say. “But if we're going to find him, we have to start somewhere. Do you know anywhere that vampires tend to hang out?”
Shelley shrugs. “Cemeteries?”
I start walking along the tunnel, and Shelley follows. “This is his home. Think about it. He's been hanging about this shitty little town for so long, there must be a reason. He could go anywhere, do anything, but he's chosen to stay in Dedston. Why?”
“Maybe he likes meatballs,” Shelley says.
I give her a puzzled glance.
“There's a place on Hanmar Street that serves the best meatballs I've ever tasted,” she says. “Okay, I know it's ridiculous. But people do weird shit for weird reasons. You can't always second-guess them”.
“There's got to be a reason,” I say. “Think about it. You're a vampire, hundreds of years old, and you decide to spend your days stuck in this place. Surely you'd go somewhere else”.
We reach the end of the tunnel and finally we're in the cavern where Patrick and Vincent's house sits. It's an old house, and – according to a legend that I'm not entirely sure I believe – it fell through from the street above many years ago, landing down here. Rather than go to the expense of hoisting it back up, the owners simply had the hole in the ground filled in, and they built a new house, leaving this one to rot. Fortunately, there are enough cracks to let in just enough light for us to be able to see our way around. Though back when Patrick and Vincent lived here, there were usually torches burning as well.
“It doesn't look like anyone's been here for months,” Shelley says.
“Maybe he wants us to think that,” I say as we reach the house. “Maybe this is all part of his attempt to put us off his tracks”.
“Do we have to go inside?” Shelley asks.
I turn to her. “I'm going in,” I say. “You can go back if you want”.
“No no no,” she says. “I'm coming with you. I just... If we die today, I'm blaming you, okay?”
“I'll blame me too,” I say, pushing the door to the house open and stepping inside. The hallway is dark and quiet. It really does seem very undisturbed. “I saw a ghost in here once,” I say. “Upstairs. Except it wasn't a ghost, it was me”.
“That makes sense,” Shelley says. “And thanks, your little ghost story totally didn't make me even more terrified than I already was”.
I head through to the study. This is where Vincent healed me when I first came down here. At the time, I barely questioned how he managed to fix my wounds and save me from death so fast. Now I can't help wondering what kind of tricks he knew.
“I'm going to be really brave and go look through here,” Shelley says, heading into the next room. “Really, really brave”.
I take a look at the papers on Vincent's desk. He was always reading, always studying books. Again, I never really questioned his behaviour at the time, but now I can't help wondering what he was reading, and why he seemed to be studying things so urgently. I pick up one of the books and read the title from the spine: A Heliographical Cartography of the Known World Along the Equator. Looking at the other books, it becomes clear that they're mostly full of maps and accounts of journeys. All except one: a small, old book titled A History of Neratovice. I open it to take a look inside.
“Fuck!” Shelley shouts out, stepping backwards from the next room. She turns to me, her face as while as a sheet.
“What?” I ask, putting the book down.
“That old man who died here,” she says, her voice trembling. “He's in here”.
I frown. “What do you mean?” I ask, going over to her. “Vincent?”
“Yeah,” says Shelley. “He's in that fucking room right there. I didn't see him at first 'cause it's dark, but he's in there”.
I step through, and I immediately see what Shelley's talking about. In the corner of the room there's what appears to be a small bed, and Vincent's body has just been left there. I'd assumed that Patrick took the body and buried it somewhere, but apparently he just left Vincent where he died. The body looks thin and gaunt, but the eyes are still open and staring up at the ceiling. He doesn't seem to have started to rot or anything, and it's almost as if he could turn at any minute and start talking, except that his eyes seem glazed over and the pupils are almost white.
“At least he doesn't smell,” Shelley says from the other room.
“Yeah,” I say, staring at the body. Vincent used to answer all my questions, he used to tell me what was happening. I'd give anything to be able to speak to him again, to ask him what to do. When Vincent was around, Patrick was different: he was more thoughtful, he was kinder, he seemed less angry and more in control. But since Vincent died, Patrick has seemed unstable, and he seems to be doing things that Vincent would perhaps have prevented him from doing. When Vincent was alive, I wasn't scared of Patrick. These days, I'm terrified of him.
“There's no baby here,” Shelley calls out. “There's nothing here. He knows you'd come to look for him at the house, there's no way he'd be stupid enough to come back”.
“Sophie,” Shelley calls out. “Come here”.
I stare at Vincent's body. Should we bury him? Or is this what he wanted? It seems cold and uncaring, but perhaps it's what vampires do? I probably shouldn't interfere, but it seems wrong to just leave him here like this. It almost looks as if he's waiting for something, as if he's waiting around for the right moment to... To what?
I stare at his eyes. He's dead. He's definitely dead. So why can't I shake this uneasy feeling?
“Sophie!” Shelley calls again, with added urgency in her voice. “Can you get over here right now?”
“What is it?” I call back.
“There's someone here”.
I turn to look at the door. “What?”
I wait for her to answer, but she doesn't. I rush over to the door and find that Shelley isn't in the next room at all. Going through to the hallway, I still can't find her.
“Hey!” I call out. “Where are you?”
Nothing.
Then -
“In here!” she calls out from another room.
I hurry through, not sure what I'm going to find. Sure enough, Shelley isn't alone. But the person – or thing – with her doesn't look human at all. It also looks horribly familiar, like a nightmare that has crawled from my dreams and is standing before me. But I know this nightmare man's name all too well...
2.
The snow falls gently. Too gently. Up here, far from Dedston, there's no-one about, just trees standing tall. But the calm and peacefulness also brings danger, and I have to be constantly on my guard. There are animals around, creatures that know nothing of the world I inhabit, creatures that might be so hungry that they would try to take things that don't belong to them. Wolves, cougars, eagles... I have to keep an eye on the snow, to learn to watch out for certain tracks that might indicate that there's danger ahead. Awareness, as ever, is the key. As long as I know what's coming, I can defend our home against anything. But I'm tired. I want to sleep. And it's at times like this that I know I might make a terrible mistake, the kind of mistake that I once believed it would be impossible for me to make but which I now understand so well. Also, I am still injured. I need time to repair my body, but I have no time to spare.
I don't dare to venture far from the cave where we have made out home. While we wait for our visitor, I have to gather food and wood. The wood isn't too hard to find, but food is more difficult. There are rabbits up here in the mountains, and a few other creatures, but they're so small and fast it's hard to catch them. Sometimes I long for a bear to wander into view. A bear would be much easier to take down and use for food. But the bears seem not to be here this year, so I'm left to hunt for smaller prey. The food I manage to bring home is barely enough for the two of us. With my injuries still slowing me, I am seriously handicapped.
I need time to heal. I need to rest. But so far I've been unable to do anything other than care for the child. The truth is, I'm totally unprepared for the responsibilities that come with a child. I struggle along as best I can, but I'm undermined by the knowledge that everything I do is wrong. This child is suffering due to my inability to look after it. If I don't do something soon, the child will be irreparably scarred. Though I am the child's father, I have no idea how to deal with this situation.
So I do the only thing that I can possibly do.
I tell the child to be patient.
And then I wait.
And then, on the third day, our visitor arrives, forcing her way through the blizzard. I haven't seen her for so long, it's almost emotional when she appears and leans down to help me. Almost. We say nothing to one another, because there is nothing to say: she knows why I have called her here, and she has been waiting for this moment for many, many years. Although she sees my injuries and offers to help me heal, she understands when I ignore her concern. She knows that she is not here for me, that I am not worthy of her assistance. She recognises the sin in my eyes, and she sees that my comfort is not what is important right now.
I lead her to the cave and show her what she has come to look after. She falls to her task with ease, with a kind of gracefulness and tenderness that I have long been conspicuously lacking. I am instantly relieved, as if finally I can afford to relax and allow her to take control. In truth, I have not been very good at this latest role into which I have been cast. Once again, I have proven myself to be a bad father. But I suppose there is no surprise there. All fathers are bad.
The child cries all night, but eventually the visitor is able to soothe its tears. For the first time in more than a year, the child seems happy. I can only hope that my parenting failures didn't cause any lasting damage, that one day the child will be able to forgive me. Perhaps that is all we can look forward to as we get older: forgiveness from our children for the sins that we have caused in others.
Now that there is someone else to look after the child, I can go and heal my body. In the weeks since I was crushed by the collapsing hospital, I have been walking with various broken bones and tattered strips of flesh. I'm sure my appearance has traumatised the child and will lead to many nightmares. Now I can finally cocoon myself in the darker recesses of the cave, to rest and regenerate my body. It will be a long process, taking many days, perhaps even a couple of weeks. But when it is complete, I will be strong again and I will be able to get back to the task at hand. It has been many years since I last felt strong.
Just as well, because when I was at the hospital I sensed something. Or rather, someone. My mistake has come back to haunt me. I should never have listened to Sophie and Vincent. They persuaded me to show leniency to someone who should have been allowed to die. And now the dark tide is turning. When I'm healed, I must return to Dedston and finish this fight once and for all. It's the only way I can show Sophie the truth.
So I sleep. Hidden here in the darkest recesses, I close my eyes and I feel my body start to attend to its scars and wounds. As I begin to dream, I find myself sighing at the first moment of beauty in many years, even as the ghosts of old wars swarm into my mind. They want revenge for the pain I have visited upon them. Perhaps I will let them have just one night of torment before I rebuff them. After all, they have fasted for so long, wracked with agony and unable to do anything but scream. I imagine they are angry that they were so easily bested, that they were driven from this world. Yes, I will let them have my soul tonight, just for a few hours. I will awaken soon enough. And then I can dream of her, of the possible life we could have had together before I chose to accept my destiny and set us all on the road to death. This is all that runs through my mind as I allow my mind to fall into more nightmare dreams.
Here I am, in the snow, recovering from my sacrifice.
3.
Despite his burnt face, his round white eyeballs, his torn body and the blood that seems to be constantly oozing from his unhealed wounds, he is instantly recognisable. Though I thought he was dead, it seems obvious now that I never saw his body. A long time ago, I saw this man try to kill Patrick, and then I saw Patrick take his revenge by ripping this man's neck out. I begged Patrick to show him some mercy, but I always assumed Patrick had ignored me and had killed him anyway. But he's alive, so I guess Patrick listened to me after all.
“Dexter Logan,” he says in his thick Southern accent, reaching out a black, burnt hand for Shelley to shake. “Mild-manned reporter. And va
mpire aficionado”. Despite his injuries, he still has that distinctive southern accent.
Shelley shakes his hand. “Crisp,” she says, grimacing a little. As she withdraws her hand from his, little flakes of burned skin fall to the ground.
“Forgive me,” Dexter says, “I've had a bad couple of years. Lost a lot of skin, blood, stuff like that”.
It's so strange seeing Dexter again. After all, he helped me meet Patrick in the first place, and for a while I thought he was a friend. That was before he tried to cut me up in an attempt to draw Patrick out into the open. There was always something dangerous but also pathetic about Dexter, but I was sure he was dead. I saw Patrick kill him. Or at least, I saw Patrick take Dexter away to kill him, and I assumed...
“It's rude to stare,” Dexter says, smiling at me. As he moves his face, I can hear his dried, burnt skin crinkling.
“You were at the hospital,” I say, staring at him. Suddenly it hits me: back in the psychiatric hospital, in the basement, the man I saw in the shadows was Dexter. “I saw you, but I didn't realise it was you”.
“Ah,” he says, “so that's why you were so rude. I just thought you didn't like me very much”.
“There's that too,” I say. And it's true: I neither like or trust Dexter. He's dangerous.
“Do you want some cream for that... body?” Shelley asks him, staring at Dexter's burnt form.
“I've learnt to live with the pain that the vampire inflicted upon me,” he replies. “It's good for the soul to suffer, yet to remain righteous”.
“We were just leaving,” I say. I reach out and grab Shelley's arm, to lead her away.
“We want the same thing,” Dexter says suddenly. “We want to find the vampire and rescue that child. Neither of us can do it alone, but together we have a chance. You have no loyalty to the vampire any more. Whaddya say? You finally ready to help me?”
I turn to him. “What child?”
