The doctor was standing over him, his eyes red and moist. The cigarette in his hand was shaking wildly, sending flecks of ash scattering unheeded on the carpet.
Somehow Jim had got back downstairs, back into the huge armchair in front of the fire. Had it all been a dream? Were they still alive?
For a second his heart leapt in hope, then he saw the sadness in the doctor’s eyes. He didn’t want to hear what the doctor had to say.
“Mr. Kerr?” the doctor said, and that was all he had to say.
“They’re dead...aren’t they?” Jim asked, and when the doctor nodded, he dropped his head to his chest.
And that was when he heard the first of the voices...a high mocking laugh, far away, but still inside his head.
“The strain of the birth was too much for her,” the doctor said, and the laugh got just that bit shriller, just that bit louder.
“What do you mean...strain? She was bitten by a bloody vampire,” Jim said, shouting, rising from his chair only to be pushed back down.
“You’re distraught Mr. Kerr. Maybe I should give you something to calm you down.”
“I don’t need calm,” Jim said, still shouting. “It was a vampire.”
The doctor knelt beside him.
“Listen Mr. Kerr. You won’t get anywhere with this talk. I’ve already made out the certificates...and they both say natural causes. And if anyone asks, that’s what I’m going to say, that’s all I’m ever going to say. And I suggest you start believing that it happened that way...otherwise people will begin to question your sanity.”
The laughter in Jim’s head got louder, and was joined by more voices; a chorus of mocking that threatened to engulf him.
“I want to see the bodies,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “I need to see them.”
The doctor suddenly looked embarrassed.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible Mr. Kerr. They’ve been cremated already.”
Jim’s mind was refusing to take in what was being said and it took several seconds for it to sink in.
“Cremated? Come on...you don’t have a crematorium on the island.” He was close to anger now. “How the hell did you manage that one?”
“Nevertheless...they have been burnt. The people around here have their ways of dealing with such things.”
“You can’t do that,” Jim shouted. Tears ran down his cheeks and his fists were clenched like rocks. He wanted to strike out, to fight against something, anything that would ease the pain.
The doctor stepped back and raised his arms in front of his face as if to defend himself.
“I think you’ll find that I can Mr. Kerr. And the authorities around here will back me up. We can’t have the people on the mainland knowing our business, now can we?”
And Jim had found out the hard way. He’d tried the police, then the courts, and finally the media. But none of them believed him.
There was no evidence, he was clearly distraught over the loss of his family, and there was nothing at all disreputable in the doctor’s background. He’d turned to drink for a while, but that only made the voices laugh longer and harder…until the time he’d read reports of a mysterious death in a small village in Ireland that set him on his current path.
That one had been easy...it was weak and barely alive, just a bundle of skin and bone. He found it trying to take a newborn baby and he put it down with one bolt in the heart. It was dust soon afterwards. And he’d discovered that he felt good...better than he had since the deaths. So he’d started looking for clues, and he started learning.
Each time he put one down the voices were still for a while. But they always came back, and they were here now as he stood over the trapdoor.
Tears fell down into the blackness below and after a while he followed them.
~-o0O0o-~
The sun beat down on Margaret and Tony as they climbed the hill towards the grounds of the Hansen House, raising fine beads of sweat on Tony’s brow.
He remembered the last time he had been up here…how Billy had been laughing and joking, how full of life his friend had been. Unconsciously he slowed, so much so that Margaret managed to get several yards in front of him.
A heavy weight seemed to have settled on him; pressing down and making his legs feel like blocks of lead.
Above the trees at the top of the hill he could see the uppermost turrets of their destination. Although the sun continued to beat down, it seemed as if the house was bathed in deep shadow, the land in which it sat stuck in a time when it was always winter.
Tony shivered over his whole body and Margaret stopped, a look of concern on her face as she walked back to him.
“You don’t have to come you know,” she said taking him by the hand. “I’m a big girl now...I can handle it.”
But he did have to go. It was as if they were all behind him, pushing him onwards...first Billy, then Ian, and then the old man. Although it was broad daylight he was still haunted by them. Especially the first two...if he hadn’t been so persistent, so driven by the need to be noticed, then neither of his friends would have died. And if he hadn’t been in the graveyard then the vampire might not have been there, and the old man wouldn’t have died. He didn’t want to see anyone else killed...not anyone that was still alive anyway.
It was just that he didn’t know if he could do it. It had been hard enough the last time, even with Billy spurring him on. But now he’d have to go down into those cellars knowing what was waiting at the bottom.
He shook his head from side to side, trying to dispel the thoughts.
All the way from the teacher’s house he had been trying to deny what he saw, but the sight of the zombies in the streets had shaken him hard, almost as hard as seeing the old man killed. That had happened in the churchyard, a place he didn’t know very well, but these walking dead were in the middle of a street he walked along every day of his life. And it was broad daylight. Somehow that made it worse.
They had passed within a hundred yards of his parent’s house, but he hadn’t mentioned it...indeed he had purposefully looked the other way. If his mother had been turned into one of the walking zombies then he didn’t want to know...not yet. There would be plenty of time for rebuilding his life afterwards...once they had done their job at the house.
The teacher stopped on the road just a couple of yards ahead of him, and when he caught her up she was bent almost double and breathing heavily.
“Not as fit as I used to be,” she said, gasping for breath. “It’s at times like this that I really wish I’d learned to drive.”
She gasped for breath again, and Tony thought she would have some kind of asthma attack, but then she stood up straight, groaning as she pressed her hands at the flat of her back. Her face was red and her eyes were watering, but she no longer looked like she would keel over.
“Just give me a minute,” she said, “I’ll be fine.”
She didn’t look fine. She looked strained and gaunt; her eyes deep set in their sockets and her mouth only a thin line where it was set in determination. She dropped the sports bag from her shoulder and signed loudly. Tony noticed the damp sweat stains on her shirt, like saucers under each arm. It was hot, but it wasn’t that hot.
“I’ll carry it for a bit,” Tony said, already feeling guilty at not having offered earlier.
“Thanks,” the teacher said, “but it’s not the weight that’s the problem...it’s just the bruises.”
Tony suddenly realized that he didn’t know what had happened to the teacher the night before, nothing beyond the fact that something had happened in the house to make her believe her story.
But now wasn’t the time to talk about it...not here so close to the Hansen House.
That didn’t stop him wondering though, and it preyed on his mind as he picked up the sports bag. It was bulky and awkward to carry but it wasn’t heavy. Margaret had already started up the hill and he had to hurry to catch her.
“Miss Brodie?” he said, and she re
plied before he had a chance to finish.
“Call me Margaret...at least while we’re out of school.”
“Margaret,” Tony said, as if trying the syllables for size. “What happened to you last night?”
“Nothing I want to talk about just yet,” she said, “But I’ll tell you what...ask me after we’ve put a stake in the bastard.”
With that they started up the hill once more, her pace faster than Tony could manage so that he was almost running to keep up.
As they got closer to the entrance to the grounds Tony could see something that gave him a clue as to the night’s activities...he recognized the car which was parked across the front of the iron gates.
“Is that Mr. Baillies’ car?” he asked.
Margaret nodded. She walked over to the car and ran a hand over the roof, There were silver, glistening tears in her eyes.
“He’s still here,” she said almost to herself. “He didn’t get out.”
She suddenly looked as if she had lost hope, but then a hardness came to her eyes, a cold stare that Tony had never seen in her before. Her back straightened, and this time she didn’t even wince. She stepped around the side of the car and Tony saw that she was now wary and watchful, expecting attack.
She studied the gravel around the car, then stared fixedly into the rhododendron bushes on either side of the drive.
“If you see Tom Duncan, don’t talk to him,” she said.
“You mean Mr. Duncan...the math teacher? He’s one of them?”
“Yes...and he nearly got me last night,” Margaret said, and showed Tony the bandaged hand.
“But they don’t come out in daylight,” Tony said, and Margaret turned on him, suddenly angry.
“Don’t think that...don’t take anything for granted. Was that butcher dangerous? Was he?”
Her face was only inches from his and she was shouting.
Tony couldn’t help it...tears sprung from the corners of his eyes.
“Don’t go soft on me now kid,” she said, then seemed to relent and held him gently. “I’m sorry. But we have to be careful from now on.”
Tony nodded and wiped the wetness away from his eyes. He turned away from the teacher and gazed along the driveway to the house at the end.
“He’s in there, isn’t he?” he said. “The one who killed the old man.”
“Yes. I think he’s in there. And we’re going to get him,” Margaret said. And without another word she began to walk up the drive.
Tony took one last look at the car then turned and followed her.
~-o0O0o-~
In the dark bathroom Brian slept.
He didn’t see Donald Allan stand over the bath and stare down at him, and he didn’t see the black eyes turn deep blazing red, just for a second before the vampire turned away and buried his head in his hands.
~-o0O0o-~
The darkness descended with Jim as he climbed down the ladder, and a deathly quiet went with him. Only the rasping of his overcoat against the ladder broke the silence.
He could just see that there was more than one level...the ladder still going down through the floor below. He stepped off at the first level and took a large flashlight from his overcoat, using its light to cock and load the crossbow.
He stood, listening, as the dust he’d thrown up started to settle, and he made sure there was no movement before he himself moved...left foot first, an inch at a time.
The torchlight moved ahead of him across the floor...an extended oval that fattened as it reached the skirting board and thickened into a circle as it hit the wall.
The room was fifty feet by thirty feet and nearly twelve feet up to the rough timbers of the ceiling. It was also empty except for a few old wine bottles and the black scar from a small fire that ran up one wall. He sifted the ashes of the fire with the toe of his boot, but there was nothing there, just burnt wood and paper.
Jim swept the room twice, just to make sure, and tapped at the walls, searching for hollow areas, but he met only old brickwork.
When he turned back to the ladder he realized that he would have to use at least one hand for climbing. He switched off the torch and slipped it back into his pocket, taking care to make sure it wouldn’t fall out on his descent. He kept a tight hold on the crossbow as he put his foot on the first rung and began to descend, being careful to keep the bow away from anything that might jar it...it wouldn’t do to spear himself with a bolt down here.
The second level was the same...a bit bigger, a bit dustier, but still just as empty. He stayed for less time...the voices in his head were getting stronger...he was getting closer.
He reached the bottom at the third level. It was colder here, much colder, and he felt glad that he hadn’t left the overcoat outside as he’d originally intended.
He could see the condensation of his breath move in front of him as he stepped into the room.
This too was empty, but there was a feeling about the place, as if someone had just left. He took out the torch and swung the beam around, just to make sure, but he already knew he was alone.
But he had to be here somewhere...Jim could sense him.
He studied the room again, more closely, and this time he saw it...the darker patch of gray in the shadows.
As he got closer he saw that it was a door, one that was standing partly open.
His breath was coming faster now, and his heart rate was up, the blood pounding in his ears as he reached out and pushed the door.
It swung open without a sound…not even a creak from the obviously old hinges. On the other side there was only darkness, one that his torch beam struggled to pierce.
He could smell it now...above the scent of his own fear...the unmistakable taint of the bloodsuckers. But he had never felt it this strong before...not even in Wester Ross where he’d found a group of five together.
He double-checked the quiver to make sure the bolts were still in place and tested that the tension was right in the bow before he stepped into the darkness.
His torch beam caught something lighter, a rectangular plaque which told him he was in some kind of Navy bunker, which didn’t make him any the wiser.
The air was thicker here, almost cloying, meaty at the back of his throat and stinging in his nostrils. Even breathing through the mouth didn’t help...it felt like he chewed on a ball of cotton wool.
The light from his torch only penetrated five or six feet ahead of him, and all he could see was a flat floor. But when the corridor widened and the echoes told him that the room beyond was much bigger he knew that he was in the right place.
There were dark shadows on either side of him, stretching away into the blackness, and when he shone the torch over them he saw that they were beds. They reminded him of prison.
But it was more than just beds. On each of the bunks there was the black, amorphous shadow of a sleeping figure.
He approached the nearest one slowly and pulled back the sheet that covered it.
It was a woman...late twenties, early thirties at most. As the torchlight hit her face her eyes screwed up and she hissed like a snake, showing off the white fangs. But she didn’t wake.
Jim peeled the cover back, exposing her upper body. She wore a short nightdress, diaphanous and thin and leaving nothing to the imagination. The nipples that were straining against the material were gray and lifeless, like two pieces of plasticine made to resemble the real thing. Her mouth opened and closed as she breathed, each breath escaping with a soft moan that, in a live woman, would have been almost sexy. But to Jim she was nothing more than a piece of dead meat.
He placed the bow over her chest, pressing the point of the quarrel against her skin until it pierced the flesh leaving only a tiny, bloodless hole. Her chest rose and fell, slowly, but he knew that it was only an imitation of life...these things no more needed air than they needed food.
Her eyes snapped open and stared straight at him. He stared back as he pulled the trigger and the bolt went into her heart.
She jerked, just once, as if hit by an electric shock, but there was no blood and the staring eyes didn’t change expression.
Jim watched her for a long time. There was a hissing whistle that he couldn’t trace at first before he realized that it was internal gases escaping around the wooden shaft of the crossbow bolt. He pressed the bolt to one side with his left index finger. There was a sudden gasp, like a sharp intake of breath, then the room was quiet.
He breathed out and counted through the relaxation tricks he’d taught himself in the long days in prison, feeling tension drain from his muscles.
There was a grim smile on his face as he reloaded the crossbow and moved over to the next bunk, a grin which faded as he pulled the rough cover backward and looked down into the face of a three year old child.
~-o0O0o-~
The gravel crunched under their feet as Tony and Margaret made their way up the drive.
“Tell me about it,” Margaret said. “The last time you were here.”
Tony struggled for the words to start.
What could he say to an adult about the feelings he had on that day...he had even kept them hidden from himself.
“We were looking for Morlocks,” he said, and saw the anticipated amusement on the teacher’s face.
“I know,” he said wearily, “It sounds like a kid’s game. But we were bored, and we needed something to do.”
Margaret nodded gravely, as if she understood, but Tony knew that was an act for his benefit. Girls, even grown up ones, would never understand what went on in the minds of young boys with time on their hands.
“I can’t remember much about what went on in the house,” he said, aware that it was a lie. He could remember it as if it was a film playing in his head...it was just that he refused to run the projector. He knew it was all there...he could even tell the dark part of his mind where it was stored.
“The papers said that Billy ran away from home,” Margaret said, her voice soft, as if probing for a response.
“That was what his father wanted,” Tony said. “He never liked Billy anyway. But he didn’t run away...I left him in the cellar with that thing. And I got out. And I ran and ran, but it never came for me, and I thought that I had dreamed it all and that Billy really had run away, but I always had the book there under my bed to make sure I knew it was true. Then I did that stupid trick in the boiler room and it all came back.”
Eldren: The Book of the Dark Page 21
