by Andy Maslen
“Oh, Caro. I had a nightmare. Such a dreadful one. I was dying. Bleeding. From my – oh!”
She looked down, following my inadvertent eye movement, and saw my hand pressed over her chest with the tissues, which were already turning red as the blood soaked through.
“You weren’t dreaming, Luce. There was someone here, a girl. She attacked you.”
“Oh, God, Caro, it felt so utterly odd. There was no pain, not exactly anyway. It was, you know, arousing. But I felt something horrid was happening at the same time. How bad is it?”
She peered down at my hand and I gently lifted it away along with the bloody tissues. The punctures hadn’t clotted at all and blood started flowing freely the moment I released the pressure. They weren’t large at all, hardly bigger than a typed O, but the blood just wouldn’t stop. I wiped it away with some more tissues and got Lucy to press down on the holes with her index and middle fingers.
“What am I going to do, Caro? I can’t lie here all night like this. I don’t want to bleed to death from my boob. And who was she? What was she doing here? And how did she get into my room?”
Her voice was rising and I didn’t have any answers.
“She must have climbed in through the window,” I said. “Maybe she was a druggie. Or, I don’t know, a member of one of those weird cults that set initiation tests. I prosecuted a case last year where this married couple were running a sex cult from their suburban semi. It was really just a perverted swingers’ club but they’d devised all these rituals and tests and one of those involved blood drinking. They got sent down for five years each.”
“But what about me? I’m bleeding and it won’t stop.”
“I can find out where the nearest A&E is if you like? Take you there.”
“What? And haul my poor bleeding boob out and tell some leering consultant I’ve been sucked by a bloody sex-pest? No, thank you very bloody much! I told you Norfolk was full of weirdos, Caro, but you had to have your road trip, didn’t you?”
Then she burst into tears. I didn’t blame her. She’s always ready with the waterworks and usually it’s part of the ever-fascinating Lucinda Easterbrook One-Woman Show. But tonight I felt she had every right to cry – and to blame me, if I’m totally honest. I had cajoled her into coming with the promise of seeing David – a promise I’d not kept. Which was another problem.
“Come on,” I said. “I’ve got an idea. You’ll have to put something on and come into my room.”
She pulled on a thin grey vest with spaghetti straps, and a pair of knickers, then replaced her fingers over the wounds, and together we left her room, wedging the door shut into the cracked frame. Amazingly, nobody had come upstairs to investigate. Then I remembered that the landlady had said they were quiet except for us and, “seein’ as ‘ow the old man and me is sound sleepers, you can have a party in your room if you really want to”. I sat Lucy on the edge of the bath and rootled about in my sponge bag. Right at the bottom I found what I was looking for. A little blue plastic cylinder with faded and scratched print on it: my faithful styptic pencil. I “borrowed” it from David when we first moved in together. They’re magic at stopping bleeding if you cut your leg – or worse – shaving. The only drawback is they sting like crazy. Lucy saw it and her eyes widened as she realised what it was.
“Oh, no, Caro. Please tell me you’re not going to do what I think you are.”
“Sorry, Luce, but I can’t think of anything else. I know what you mean about A&E but we have to stop that bleeding. I mean it’s not gushing or anything, but it is still coming out.”
“OK. But I’m going to scream. I used one on my armpit once and I shrieked so loud the stage manager came in to my dressing room, said he thought I’d been stabbed. The dirty bastard just wanted to catch me in my undies, if you ask me. But anyway, mustn’t keep you from your task, Doctor Murray. Go on then.”
I gently pulled the straps off her shoulders and dragged the vest down around her middle. Then she took a deep breath, let it out through her teeth, squeezed her eyes shut and gripped the edge of the bath with her free hand. I gently lifted her other hand away from her breast, which was still bleeding from the punctures, though it did seem as if it had slowed a little. I wetted the tip of the sandpapery white stick in a drip of water in the sink and pushed it against one of the holes. Through her clenched teeth, Lucy let out a suppressed squeal of pain. Then I moved it to the other hole and repeated the process. I dabbed away the blood and was relieved to see that the flow had slowed further. It was more of a trickle now and after another application of the styptic pencil, it stopped altogether. Poor Lucy was squeezing tears out between her crinkled eyelids and I watched as a single drop slid to the end of her long dark eyelashes and dropped onto her vest, which turned from pale to dark grey.
The punctures had eventually stopped bleeding, and although the skin around her nipple was crusted with a mixture of drying blood and the salty residue from the styptic pencil, it otherwise looked fine. No swelling, and the discolouration where Lucy’s assailant had sucked blood to the skin surface as well as out through the punctures had faded. I picked a makeup remover pad from the plastic sleeve in my cosmetics bag and made her hold it in place over the punctures. Then I secured it with a couple of clear plasters that I always keep in my sponge bag, along with paracetamol and anti-indigestion tablets. Careful not to dislodge the improvised dressing, or cause Lucy any more pain, I eased the vest back up and replaced the thin straps over her shoulders.
“There,” I said. “Good as new.”
“Thanks, mate,” she said, gingerly pressing where the pad showed through the material of her vest. “Do you really think she was just some crackhead or tweaker looking for kicks?”
“Tweaker? Where do you pick up this language, Luce?”
She laughed. A good sign. Not a hysterical noise either, a proper, earthy Lucy Easterbrook special. The one that has the male talkshow hosts falling over themselves to serve up another easy question. “So, Lucinda, Oh, OK...So, Lucy, what made you accept this part? How did you find it working with a notoriously demanding director?”
“The question is, Caro, why are you surprised? Everyone knows about tweakers since Breaking Bad. Hello? Meth addicts? You must have run across a few in court?”
The conversation turned to nicknames for druggies and I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. We were going to be fine. I poured us both a brandy, another essential component of my travel kit, which we drank from the tea cup – “tea and coffee facility’s in all rooms” – and the cling-filmed plastic tumbler in the bathroom.
I checked the time: 3.00 a.m. We needed to sleep. Lucy read my mind and turned to me. She held my hands in her lap and leaned close to me. “Please can I sleep in here tonight?” she said.
“Of course. Come on, it’ll be like Guides.”
We climbed under the duvet and she cuddled up behind me. Was her attacker really a drugged-up cult member or rural swinger? I wanted, desperately, to believe that. The trouble was, I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing that horrible distorted mouth, or the naked woman crawling down the outside of the building. Shock, I decided. I’d probably not fully woken up and fitted an admittedly scary event into a surreal narrative stimulated by Ariane’s ravings of a few days earlier. With this alternative explanation jumbling around in my brain, I fell asleep to the sound of Lucy’s snores in my right ear. It seemed like only seconds before my phone alarm went off at seven.
11
Diary of an actress: the life of Lucinda Easterbrook, 12th October 2010
I am NEVER going back to bloody Norfolk! First I didn’t even get to see David. Then, some crazy tweaker attacked me in my hotel room and bit me on the boob! She’s still sore! I don’t think Caro was best pleased by her meeting with Peta Velds, either. The woman has poor David virtually locked up in his lab like the Count of Monte Cristo. We discussed all sorts of mad plans on the drive back to civilisation. I genuinely think Caro wants to pull him out of there dressed in
black ninja gear. Her, obviously, not David. I’m finding it hard to concentrate for more than a few seconds. I think my assailant – Caro’s word, not mine – must have give me an infection when she bit me. I have a ringing in my ears and my mouth tastes funny – coppery, like when you bite your tongue.
I’ve been constantly hungry too – even after we stopped for lunch. I had a burger and Caro laughed when I asked for it rare. The silly little thing behind the counter just stared at me. And the oddest thing: for a split second I wanted to bite her. It was an urge, almost sexual. It started in my belly like a squirming thing trying to get out, like snakes wriggling around inside me. And I just wanted to lean across the brushed steel counter, grab her round the neck and bite her till she bled. Then it was gone. Caro was giving me one of her looks, all wide, questioning eyes and pursed lips. She asked me about it in the car.
“What was all that about?” she said.
“What was all what about?”
“With that poor girl who served us? You looked at her like she’d beaten you to a part in a film.”
“Nothing! I just wish these places would be a little more flexible and not serve their meat cooked to shoe-leather.”
Now it’s late. But I’m not sleepy. In fact, I think I’m going to go out. Caro would be horrified; she’s convinced I’ll be mugged if I leave the flat after seven. But I feel itchy all over. And hungry.
12
[draft post] Ramblings of a free-revving mind – David Harker’s blog, 12th October 2010
Now I’m free of interruption from Caroline I can get on with what I’m doing. Peta Velds is the perfect employer. She gives me the money and equipment I ask for then leaves me alone. I find her single-mindedness impressive. At first I wasn’t sure about being kept in the laboratory but now I see it’s for the best. There are too many distractions out there and anyway, as Peta says, plenty of people would rather see us shut down. Cancer charities make millions in donations, but as Peta says, how much of the money really goes to scientists and how much is just spent on marketing and gala dinners for major donors? Then there’s the medical profession. If, no, when we find a cure for skin cancer, that puts a lot of rich and powerful people out of a job. Will they stand by and let us do it? Obviously not!
Peta makes sure I have everything I need for my personal life as well as my work. I have a small apartment within the facility here and she herself has a private dining room. She invited me there last night to talk over my work and what we can achieve together. The food was amazing. I had a rare steak – really amazing flavour, too. I asked her what the cut was. She just gave me this enigmatic smile and said it was a cut from “the old country”. Actually what she said was, “We butcher our beasts differently where my people come from”. It doesn’t matter – the flavour was really intense. Peta didn’t eat anything. I thought it was a bit strange and I asked her if she wouldn’t be joining me. She said her condition means she has to have a special diet. I asked her what condition.
Peta suffers from a rare chromosomal disorder called Reiser-Strick Syndrome. It affects one in ten thousand people, but that’s still 7,000 sufferers worldwide. Sufferers can’t tolerate direct exposure to sunlight. It cause rapid fatal cancerous mutations in their skin cells. She referred to sufferers as her “family”, I guess it’s a way of coping and maybe of sharing information that could lead to a cure. Kind of crowd-sourcing. Plus she’s got the wealth and the connections to see it through.
Does it matter if she has a personal angle for funding my research? No! Why should it? It just makes her a more motivated patron.
13
Police Report, Reporting officer PC H. Singh, 5643, Pimlico PS, Met. Police, 3.17 a.m. 14th October 2010
On patrol on Embankment with PC R. Mayhew, heard groaning under bench. Investigated. Found a male, aged approximately 50, covered in cardboard, most likely vagrant. Refused to give name.
Male was bleeding profusely from wound to right side of neck. Stopped bleeding by applying manual pressure and called ambulance.
Male told PC Mayhew and I that he had been offered a hot meal by a female. His words, “a real looker”. Then without warning, female had attacked him, lifting him bodily from bench and dropping him over the back, where female proceeded to bite him on neck.
At this point it became apparent victim was drunk or on drugs, as he started spinning us a tale about how she was drinking his blood “like a f***ing vampire”: victim’s words quoted directly.
Ambulance arrived within five minutes and victim was handed over to paramedics for treatment. Only other point of note: paramedics said this was the second homeless person they’d picked up with neck wound in past few days.
14
London Ambulance Service NHS Trust, Patient Transfer Report, 15th October 2010
Unit G54
Paramedics: J Hudson, P Baker
Date/time: 15th October 2010; 03.25.
Destination hospital: St Bartholomew’s
Description of patient’s injuries/condition
Patient is white male, age 25-30. Unconscious at scene.
Severe trauma to neck on both sides; deep lacerations through skin, fascia and muscle. Jugular vein and carotid artery shredded; haemorrhaging difficult to stop, applied manual pressure but ineffective – no clotting evident.
Massive blood loss assumed, as blood pressure 80/40. No blood at scene. Very little blood staining to victim’s skin or clothing.
No defensive wounds on hands. No other offensive wounds.
Patient carried no ID, cash or possessions: assumed homeless.
DOA.
Death pronounced by Dr GF O’Rourke.
15
Caroline Murray’s Journal, 16th October 2010
After the disastrous trip to Norfolk, I was more convinced than ever that Peta Velds had some sort of hold over David. His manner when he came into her office was so different to how he is normally. And the dreadful business with that girl who attacked Lucy. While we were there, I was able to sustain the idea that she was just some local druggie out for some kicks. But looking back, I knew she wasn’t even human. Not the way we think of that word. Yes, any old pervert could drink someone’s blood, but the way she moved, the way she climbed down the wall. That was beyond any rationale I could come up with. I decided I needed to make contact with Ariane again. But in the end, I didn’t need to: she came to me.
I arrived back at the flat to see a familiar figure waiting on the doorstep. No leather this time. Instead a long red velvet dress. Her hair was up, too and she was wearing a tiara. As I said, mad.
I didn’t bother with pleasantries, I just unlocked the door and gestured for her to go in ahead of me. Once I had dumped my bag and kicked my shoes off I poured two glasses of wine, handed one to her and then flopped into a chair.
“You look nice,” I said. “Fancy dress party?”
“Dinner. With the Crown Prince of Temesvár. His title is only honorary these days but the old ways are a comfort. I came as soon as I knew you were returning from Norfolk.”
“Wait. Are you having me watched?”
“‘Protected’ is the word I would choose, Caroline. And, since you ask, yes, I am.”
“This is outrageous. I should call the police. I don’t even know your full name. Who are you?”
I felt my nerves fizzing in my stomach and I could sense my blush starting. I swigged some of the wine. She took a big breath and let it out in a sigh.
“My name, Caroline, is Van Helsing.”
“What? Wait a minute. As in Bram Stoker, Dracula, all that?”
She nodded, sipping now, and looking at me steadily over the rim of the glass.
“Abraham Van Helsing was my great-great-grandfather.”
“OK,” I said, standing up. “I think you’d better leave, now. This was obviously all a huge mistake on my part.”
“Sit down,” she said, sharply, and I felt my legs fold under me as if I was a wet behind the ears junior barrister being rebuked by
a County Court judge.
I tried to find a way to articulate the thoughts that were swirling around in my head. It was hard. I had let a madwoman into my flat and now I was apparently powerless to get her out again.
She leaned across the gap between us and laid her hand gently on my knee. It was warm.
“We talked about evolution last time we met, you remember? So, the distant ancestors of the O-One evolved. Into vampires.”
“I beg your pardon? You’re telling me these, these, people are vampires?”
I do believe I laughed at this point, probably more from tension than anything funny. The woman was clearly delusional and now I was pouring wine for her in my sitting room.
“Yes, Caroline. They are. Night hunters. They gradually disappeared from view as their aversion to sunlight metamorphosed into a fatal reaction. That’s when they began to hunt at night, when their victims were sleeping. As nocturnal predators they could move more easily among us and as they did so they passed from the world of reality into the world of myth, of story. The vampires developed into seven main families. They run themselves like corporations. Or criminal gangs. And there are seven equally old families who have pledged to find and destroy them. We call ourselves cutters.”
“Should I ask why?” I said, dabbing at the corners of my eyes, wanting and simultaneously not wanting to hear the answer.
“Can’t you guess? We sever the vampires’ bloodlines. If you can destroy the mother of the family the others die – there is a link between them we don’t understand. But the children can only live while the mother does.”
