The Best New Horror 5

by Ramsay Campbell

  Three women from the Japanese legation entered the dining room, causing a sensation with their kimonos, wigs, and plastered faces. I wondered if there were Japanese vampires, and if the painted Japanese ladies felt the same male energy from all those soldiers. Were those Japanese women’s lives as constrained as mine?

  “The heat is making me uneasy, Aunt Mildred; I will go and stroll on the terrace.” Under my parasol, I let the sea wind cool my cheeks; I stared over the sandy lawn, over the sea.

  “Miss Wentworth. Have you come to see my sheets?”

  “By no means, Count Zohary.” He was sitting at one of the little café tables on the terrace. Today he was in undress uniform, a brownish-gray. In the sea light his blond hair had a foxy tint. Standing, he bowed elaborately, drawing out a chair. “I would not give you the satisfaction of refusing.” I inclined my head and sat down.

  “Then you will satisfy by accepting?”

  “Indeed not. What satisfaction is that?” I looked out over the sea, the calm harbor. While yachts swayed at anchor, the Star Island ferry headed out toward the shoals, sun gleaming off its windows and rail. I had seen this view for years from Aunt Mildred’s house; there was nothing new in it.

  “Come now, turn your head, Miss Wentworth. You don’t know what I offer. Look at me.” On his table was a plate of peaches, ripe and soft; I smelled them on the warm air, looked at them but not at him. A fly buzzed over them; he waved it away, picked up a fruit, and took a bite out of it. I watched his heavy muscular hand. “You think you are weary of your life, but you have never tasted it. What is not tasted has no flavor. I offer everything you are missing – ah, now you look at me.” His eyes were reddish-brown with flecks of light. He sucked at the juice, then offered the peach to me, the same he had tasted; he held it close to my lips. “Eat.”

  “I will have another, but not this.”

  “Eat with me; then you will have as many as you want.” I took a tiny nip from the fruit’s pink flesh. Soft, hairy skin; sweet flesh. He handed the plate of fruit to me; I took one and bit. My mouth was full of pulp and juice.

  “I could have your body,” he said in a soft voice. “By itself, like that peach; that is no trouble. But you can be one of us, I saw it in the square. I want to help you, to make you what you are.”

  “One of us? What do you mean?”

  “One who wants power,” he said with the same astonishing softness. “Who can have it. A vampire. Eat your peach, Miss Wentworth, and I will tell you about your Dracula. Vlad Draculesti, son of Vlad the Dragon. On Timpa Hill by Braşov, above the chapel of St Jacob, he had his enemies’ limbs lopped and their bodies impaled; and as they screamed, he ate his meal beside them, dipping his bread into the blood of the victims, because the taste of human blood is the taste of power. The essence of the vampire is power.” He reached out his booted foot and, under the table, touched mine. “Power is not money, or good looks, or rape or seduction. It is simple, life and death; to kill; to drink the blood of the dying; but oneself to survive, to beget, to make one’s kind, to flourish. Komura and Witte have such power, they are making a great red storm, with many victims. I too have power, and I will have blood on my bread. Will you eat and drink with me?”

  “Blood –?”

  He looked at me with his light-flecked eyes. “Does blood frighten you, do you faint at the sight of blood, like a good little girl? I think not.” He took a quick bite from his peach. “Have you ever seen someone die? Did they bleed? Did you look away? No, I see you did not; you were fascinated, more than a woman should be. You like the uniforms, the danger, the soldiers, but what you truly like, Miss Wentworth, is red. When you read about this war in the newspapers, will you pretend you are shocked and say Oh, how dreadful, while you look twice and then again at the pictures of blood, and hope you do not know why your heart beats so strong? Will you say, I can never be so much alive as to drink blood? Or will you know yourself, and be glad when the red storm comes?” He tapped my plate of peaches with his finger. “To become what you are is simpler than eating one of those, Miss Wentworth, and much more pleasant.”

  “I wish some degree of power – who does not – but to do this – ” He was right; I had been fascinated. The next day I had come back to the scene, had been disappointed that the blood was washed away. “This is ridiculous, you must wish to make me laugh or to disgust me. You are making terrible fun of me.”

  “Drink my blood,” he said. “Let me drink yours. I will not kill you. Have just a little courage, a little curiosity. Sleep with me; that last is not necessary, but is very amusing. Then – a wide field, and great power, Miss Wentworth.”

  I swallowed. “You simply mean to make me your victim.”

  “If it seems to you so, then you will be my victim. I want to give you life, because you might take it and amuse me. But you undervalue yourself. Are you my victim?” For a moment, across a wide oval in front of the hotel, wind flattened the water, and through some trick of light and wave, it gleamed red. “See, Miss Wentworth. My parlor trick again.”

  “No – I often see such light on the water.”

  “Not everyone does.”

  “Then I see nothing.”

  By his plate he had a little sharp fruit knife. He picked it up and drew a cut across his palm; as the blood began to well, he cupped his palm and offered it to me. “The blood is a little sea, a little red sea, the water I like best to control. I stir it up, Miss Wentworth; I drink it; I live.” With one finger of his right hand he touched his blood, then the vein on my wrist. “I understand its taste; I can make it flow like tide, Miss Wentworth, I can make your heart beat, Miss Wentworth, until you would scream at me to stop. Do you want to understand blood, do you want to taste blood, do you want your mouth full of it, salty, sweet, foul blood? Do you want the power of the blood? Of course you do not, the respectable American girl. Of course you do; you do.”

  He took my hand, he pulled me close to him. He looked at me with his insistent animal eyes, waiting, his blood cupped in his hand. I knew that at that moment I could break away from his grip and return to Aunt Mildred and the Lathrops. They would not so much as notice I had gone or know what monstrous things had been said to me. I could sit down beside them, drink tea, and listen to the orchestra for the rest of my life. For me there would be no vampires.

  The blood, crusted at the base of his fingers, still welled from the slit he had made in his palm. It was bright, bright red. I bent down and touched my tongue to the wound. The blood was salty, intimate, strong, the taste of my own desire.

  The white yacht was luxuriously appointed, with several staterooms. We sailed far out to sea. Count Zohary had invited the Lathrops and my aunt to chaperone me. On deck, Mr Lathrop, a freckled man in a white suit, trolled for bluefish and talked with Count Zohary. I heard the words Witte, Sakhalin, reparations; this evening there was to be an important meeting between the plenipotentiaries. Aunt Mildred and Mrs Lathrop talked and played whist, while Lucilla Lathrop’s crocheting needle flashed through yards of cream-white tatting. I began still another piece of cutwork, but abandoned it and stood in the bow of the boat, feeling the sea waves in my body, long and slow. In part I was convinced Count Zohary merely would seduce me; I did not care. I had swallowed his blood and now he would drink mine.

  Under an awning, sailors served luncheon from the hotel. Oysters Rockefeller, cream of mushroom soup with Parker House rolls, salmon steaks, mousse of hare, pepper dumplings, match-sticked sugared carrots, corn on the cob, a salad of cucumbers and Boston lettuce, summer squash. For dessert, almond biscuits, a praline and mocha-buttercream glazed cake, and ice cream in several flavors. With the food came wine, brandy with dessert, and a black bottle of champagne. I picked at the spinach on my oysters, but drank the wine thirstily. In the post-luncheon quiet, the boat idled on calm water; the sailors went below.

  Mr Lathrop fell asleep first, a handkerchief spread over his red face; then Lucilla Lathrop began snoring gently in a deck chair under the awning,
her tatting tangled in her lap. Mr Lathrop’s fishing rod trailed from his nerveless hand; I reeled it in and laid it on the deck, and in the silent noon the thrum of fishing line was as loud as the engine had been. Aunt Mildred’s cards sank into her lap. She did not close her eyes, but when I stood in front of her, she seemed not to see me. Alone, Mrs Lathrop continued to play her cards, slowly, one by one, onto the little baize-colored table between her and my aunt, as if she were telling fortunes.

  “Mrs Lathrop?” She looked up briefly, her eyes dull as raisins in her white face, nodded at me, and went back to her cards.

  “They have eaten and drunk,” Count Zohary said, “and they are tired.” A wave passed under the boat; Aunt Mildred’s head jerked sideways and she fell across the arm of her chair, limply, rolling like a dead person. I almost cried out, almost fell; Count Zohary caught me and put his hand across my mouth.

  “If you scream you will wake them.”

  Grasping my hand, he led me down the stairs, below decks, through a narrow corridor. On one side was the galley, and there, his head on his knees, sat the cook, asleep; near him a handsome sailor had fallen on the floor, sleeping too; I saw no others.

  The principal stateroom was at the bow of the ship, white in the hot afternoon. The bed was opened, the sheets drawn back; the cabin had an odor of lemon oil, a faint musk of ocean. “Sheets,” he said. “You see?” I sank down on the bed, my knees would not hold me. I had not known, at the last, how my body would fight me; I wanted to be not here, to know the future that was about to happen, to have had it happen, to have it happening now. I heard the snick of the bolt, and then he was beside me, unbuttoning the tiny buttons at my neck. So quiet it was, so quiet, I could not breathe. He bent down and touched the base of my neck with his tongue, and then I felt the tiny prick of his teeth, the lapping of his tongue and the sucking as he began to feed.

  It was at first a horror to feel the blood drain, to sense my will struggle and fail; and then the pleasure rose, shudders and trembling so exquisite I could not bear them; the hot white cabin turned to shadows and cold and I fell across the bed. I am in my coffin, I thought, in my grave. He laid me back against the pillows, bent over me, pushed up my skirts and loosened the strings of my petticoats; I felt his hand on my skin. This was what I had feared, but now there was no retreat, I welcomed what was to come. I guided him forward; he lay full on me, his body was heavy on me, pressed against me, his uniform braid bruising my breasts. Our clothes were keeping us from each other. I slid the stiff fastenings open, fumbled out of my many-buttoned dress, struggled free of everything that kept me from him. Now, I whispered. You must.

  We were skin to skin, and then, in one long agonizing push, he invaded me, he was in me, in my very body. Oh, the death pangs as I became a vampire, the convulsion of all my limbs! I gasped, bit his shoulder, made faces to keep from screaming. Yet still I moved with him, felt him moving inside me, and his power flowed into me. I laughed at the pain and pleasure unimaginable, as the sea waves pulsed through the cabin and pounded in my blood.

  “Are you a vampire now, little respectable girl?” he gasped.

  “Oh, yes, I have power, yes, I am a vampire.”

  He laughed.

  When I dressed, I found blood on my bruised neck; my privates were bloody and sticky with juice, the signs of my change. I welcomed them. In the mirror, I had a fine color in my cheeks, and my white linen dress was certainly no more creased than might be justified by spending an afternoon on the water. My blood beat heavy and proud, a conquering drum.

  I went on deck and ate a peach to still my thirst, but found it watery and insipid. It was late, toward sunset, the light failing, the sea red. In the shadows of the water I saw men silently screaming. I desired to drink the sea.

  Mr Lathrop opened his eyes and asked me, “Did you have a pleasant afternoon, Miss Wentworth?” His eyes were fixed, his color faded next to mine. Lucilla’s face, as she blinked and yawned, was like yellow wax under her blonde hair. Flies were buzzing around Mrs Lathrop’s cards, and Mrs Lathrop gave off a scent of spoiled meat, feces, and blood. “Good afternoon, Aunt Mildred, how did you nap?” She did not answer me. Oh, they are weary, I thought, weary and dead.

  Count Zohary came up the stairs, buttoning his uniform collar gingerly, as if his neck were bruised too. To amuse him, I pressed my sharp cutwork scissors against the vein of Aunt Mildred’s neck, and held a Parker House roll underneath it; but he and I had no taste for such as Aunt Mildred. I threw my scissors into the blood-tinged sea: they fell, swallowed, corroded, gone.

  Under a red and swollen sky, our ship sailed silent back to the white hotel. Count Zohary and I were the first to be rowed to shore. Across the red lawn, lights blazed, and outside the hotel a great crowd had assembled. “In a moment we will see the future,” he said.

  “I saw men dying in the ocean,” I answered.

  We walked across the lawn together, my arm in his; under my feet, sea sand hissed.

  “Count Zohary, perhaps you have friends who share those interests that you have taught me to value? I would delight to be introduced to them. Though I know not what I can do, I wish for wide horizons.”

  “I have friends who will appreciate you. You will find a place in the world.”

  As we entered the even more crowded foyer, Count Sergei Witte and the Marquis Komura stood revealed, shaking hands. From a thousand throats a shout went up. “Peace! It is peace!”

  “It is the great storm,” said Count Zohary. For a moment he looked pensive, as though even vampires could regret.

  He and I gained the vantage point of the stairs, and I looked down upon the crowd as if I were their general. Many of the young men were dead, the Americans as well as the foreign observers. I looked at the victims with interest. Some had been shot in the eye, forehead, cheekbone; some were torn apart as if by bombs. Their blood gleamed fresh and red. The flesh of some was gray and dirt-abraded, the features crushed, as if great weights had fallen on them. Next to me stood a woman in a nurse’s uniform; as she cheered, she coughed gouts of blood and blinked blind eyes. Outside, Roman candles began to stutter, and yellow-green light fell over the yellow and gray faces of the dead.

  But among them, bright as stars above a storm, I saw us, the living. How we had gathered for this! Soldiers and civilians; many on the Russian and Japanese staff, and not a few of the observers; the eminent Mme N., who bowed to me distantly but cordially across the room; by a window a nameless young man, still as obscure as I; and my bright, my blazing Count Zohary. The hotel staff moved among us gray-faced, passing us glasses of champagne; but my glass was hot and salty, filled with the sea of blood to come. For the first time, drinking deep, I was a living person with a future.

  That autumn I was in New York, but soon traveled to Europe; and wherever I went, I helped to call up the storm.

  MARTIN PLUMBRIDGE

  The Exhibit

  MARTIN PLUMBRIDGE was born in 1965 in Brentwood, Essex, and spent three years at Bangor University in North Wales doing his English Literature dissertation on Robert Aickman, Ramsey Campbell and Clive Barker. He describes himself as “the eternal student”, and his interests include watching films and listening to the sort of music that is classified as “independent” – on vinyl.

  He has worked as a bookseller, including a year’s stint at Foyles in London, and his only other published story appeared in Fear just before the magazine ceased publication. “The cheque, sadly, bounced,” laments the author. “I’d like to say that I’m working on a novel, but I’m not. Not yet, anyway.”

  He reveals that the story which follows “. . . came to me during a visit to Great Yarmouth. I’m not sure why. There’s a waxworks there, but I didn’t go in. A couple of my friends did, but I don’t recall them saying much about the experience. And it isn’t as if they’ve never been the same since. In fact, oddly enough, they’ve always been the same since . . .”

  EVERYWHERE BRIGHT PAINTED letters shouted promises of FUN and PLEASUR
E, as though all you had to do to get them was queue up at a counter somewhere. FUN, Suzie imagined, would turn out to be pink and fluffy like candy floss, PLEASURE a cool, green syrup-like pine-scented bubble bath. Both would disappoint when taken home.

  Her father was more easily pleased. She had already been obliged to accompany him in a game of crazy golf, wincing at his loud laughter and groans every time he missed a shot. She had won, not being fooled by the supposed craziness, the seeming obstacles – wooden rocket ship, windmill, water jump – which in fact were little more than cosmetic. Coolly, she negotiated each hole in no more than four putts. Her father, pretending dismay, was delighted, as though she had won for him. “Damn her! The new Arnold Palmer!” Now she stared out over the pier railings at the grey, troubled sea while her father shot at two-dimensional German tanks behind her. “Ohhh!” he exclaimed every time he missed, “Oh-Ahhhh!” He was the only holidaymaker to have responded to the blunt invitation of the gallery’s sour looking proprietor, but it didn’t faze him, nothing did. Not the atmosphere of desertion, not the determinedly grey sky, not even her.

  She wished that she had gone shopping with Mum after all, instead of succumbing to the bittersweet pleasure of disappointing her expectations.