Scary Tales to Tell in the Dark

by Anthony Masters

‘So he doesn’t see any other children?’

  ‘Not one.’

  After that, I tried to catch Larn’s eye. He looked away the first time, but the next day he smiled. It was a strange smile, a kind of twist of the mouth and he didn’t show his teeth at all, but I thought it was a smile nevertheless.

  The following day he smiled again, and when the old chauffeur opened the bonnet to check the oil, I was amazed to see Larn wind down the window and wave an envelope at me. I grabbed it quickly and shoved it in the pocket of my jeans, smiling back at his funny twist of a smile and wondering if his lopsided look had something to do with his wasting disease. He was ten, according to my uncle, and he was certainly small for his age. He had dark, rather oily-looking hair and his eyes were deep-sunk, like feeble little coals that were hardly alight at all. His face was chalk white and there were pouches under his eyes.

  Once the limousine had gone, I went inside and opened the envelope. A note inside read:

  Dear Friend

  Thank you for smiling and taking an interest in me. My parents are dead, murdered by my evil chauffeur. He is keeping me prisoner and gradually starving me to death so that he can gain possession of my inheritance – which will pass to him when I’m dead. He takes me out in the car every day so no one will become suspicious. Please will you come to the house and rescue me. I somehow know you can do it. I am ill – always have been – but he makes me worse. Archie is killing me. I’ve got my wheelchair so you won’t have to carry me. Don’t tell anyone you’re coming, particularly your uncle. He will think it too dangerous and perhaps tell the police. If they come they won’t find anything, but Archie will keep an even closer eye on me and my last chance will have gone.

  Yours sincerely

  Larn Donovan

  PS Enclosed is the key to the side door of Shamrock Hall. Come tonight. Please don’t let me down.

  I stuffed both key and crumpled letter back into my pocket and thought hard. This just sounded ridiculous! It couldn’t possibly be true. It sounded too much like the plot of a bad thriller. But despite the dangers, it would be an adventure – and life with Uncle Sean was pretty unadventurous. Besides – I needed a friend, and Larn looked as if he would be a very interesting one.

  I turned the whole thing over and over in my mind, but I knew I really had no alternative; I definitely had to go. So that evening I told my uncle I was going out for a walk by the sea. He had something wrong with his leg and couldn’t walk very far, so he was usually quite happy to let me out on my own, but tonight perhaps he had picked up some of my tension.

  ‘Be careful,’ he said, ‘and be back by nine.’

  I readily agreed and set off for Shamrock Hall, trying not to show how nervous I was.

  The house was on top of the cliffs overlooking a boiling, treacherous sea. Turreted, with long, narrow windows like slits in the black granite walls, it was an off-putting sight.

  I avoided the front door and went round to the one at the side. The key turned in the lock immediately, letting me into a darkened corridor that smelt of mildew and old polish. I walked as quietly as I could towards a distant light and soon found I was standing outside a small room that overlooked the sea. The door was open and, sitting in a couple of chairs around a small open fire, I could see two people – a man and a woman. They were dressed in evening clothes and beside them, on a small table, were brandy glasses.

  I watched them for a while, noticing that another passage opened out of the room on the other side and that there was no way round. Somehow I had to get past without them seeing me; an almost impossible task. After a while I registered something: both the man and the woman were sitting incredibly still; they didn’t seem to move a muscle. The more I looked, the more still they seemed, and I began to wonder if they were actually human at all and not simply tailor’s dummies. But their stillness made me feel I had a chance of getting past them, so swiftly and silently I stole across the grey, moth-eaten carpet towards the far door.

  As I passed I couldn’t stop myself stealing a quick glance at them, and as I did so I felt a stab of fear, for even in the half-light of the shadowy lamp I could see that they were grinning at each other in an extraordinary way. I paused behind a small sofa and took a slightly closer look. Immediately the reason for their strange immobility was quite obvious: their throats had been cut from ear to ear.

  I stared at the two of them, transfixed by the sight. They had obviously been dead for some time, for both the bodies were very decayed and withered and when I looked rather more closely they looked so crumpled that I had the strange impression that all the blood had been drained out of their bodies. They presented such a macabre, horrifying sight that I was more numbed than terrified, although as I hurried past them I was all too well aware that they must be Larn’s parents. I knew there was nothing I could do for them; I had to find poor Larn as fast as I could and get him out of the house.

  As softly as possible I hurried along another passage and up a flight of stairs to where I could dimly hear the sound of music. A huge oak door was half-way open and inside I could see a large uncurtained window that overlooked the sea. Sitting in a chair, facing the moonlit, raging surf, was Larn, but he looked ominously still.

  ‘Larn,’ I whispered.

  There was no reply.

  ‘Larn!’

  He turned round suddenly and I muffled a scream. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Sorry, I was asleep.’ He wiped away some red stuff from around his mouth.

  ‘We’ve got to go,’ I said in a panic. ‘Quick, before Archie comes.’

  ‘But where can I stay?’

  ‘At my uncle’s house.’

  ‘What about your uncle?’ He seemed to be having last-minute second thoughts.

  ‘He won’t mind. Come on!’

  ‘All right, but I must get my parents’ photograph first. It’s in their room.’

  ‘I saw them,’ I faltered.

  ‘Yes ’ There was a sob in his voice. ‘I can’t leave without taking their photograph; I couldn’t bear to be parted from it.’ His dark eyes looked up at me appeal-ingly and I knew that I had to wait.

  ‘Where is Archie?’ I whispered.

  ‘Down in the kitchen.’

  ‘Let’s go fast ‘I urged him. ‘Where’s your wheelchair?’

  ‘No need for that,’ said Larn, and he ran ahead without betraying any sign of physical weakness. I had already noticed that his cheeks were flushed and he seemed to look much better, but no doubt he had been resting. ‘This way,’ he said as I puffed and panted up the stairs after him.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘My parents’ bedroom.’

  We came to yet another corridor and ran down its length to a big door at the end. He pushed it open and beside the bed I could see the soft light of another shadowed lamp.

  ‘Come in.’ He stood by the door, smiling as I hurried into the room.

  There was someone sitting up in the bed.

  I screamed and stood there, stock-still. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘That? That is Archie.’

  He too had had his throat cut, but much more recently, and there was blood all over the pillow and the duvet.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ I whispered, and noticed with horror that again the corpse looked as if it had been completely drained of blood. I turned to Larn, who was licking his lips, his long, thin tongue darting in and out of his mouth.

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Yes.’ Larn smiled, and this time he showed his teeth.

  I stood there frozen and completely unable to move. ‘Your teeth,’ I whispered, gazing at them in terror. The long fangs were stained a brilliant crimson.

  ‘Yes, they’re very sharp.’ Still smiling, he began to walk towards me. ‘Very sharp.’

  It all came to me in a flash. ‘You never wanted to escape from here, did you, Larn?’

  He shook his head. ‘I wanted to invite you here.’

  ‘You killed your parents – and Arc
hie, didn’t you?’

  ‘I suddenly became thirsty.’

  ‘Thirsty?’ I stared at him, bewildered now. ‘Thirsty for what?’

  ‘Thirsty for blood,’ he said quietly. ‘All this time I’ve been ill, I’ve never really known why. But a few weeks ago I realized what it was: I was ill because I didn’t have blood. Then my teeth grew and I knew it was time.’

  ‘First your parents –’

  ‘There wasn’t anyone else,’ he said quietly. ‘We’d always been alone here together, so there was no one else – except Archie, but his blood was old like theirs. I want young blood – your blood.’

  He came nearer and I could see the sweat standing out on his forehead.

  ‘Keep away from me!’ I moved aside as Larn continued to advance.

  ‘Come on, don’t make it difficult.’

  I was so blind with panic that I couldn’t think what to do. Then, when he was centimetres away, I ducked and caught him in the stomach. He went down like a collapsed balloon as I sprang for the door. Somehow I twisted it open and charged off down the corridor, down the stairs, down another flight – and then realized with jarring horror that I was lost in the labyrinth of Shamrock Hall. I ran up one corridor and down another, my panic rising, realizing that Larn would know the house so well, he would catch me; it was only a matter of time.

  I could hear Larn’s steps and see the light of a swinging lantern close behind me now. Hoping to evade him, I ran down the cellar steps, and with a sickening jolt of terror immediately realized that I had almost certainly trapped myself. I crept on down as softly as I could, and heard a scampering sound in the labyrinth of dark cellars below me. Rats! I almost screamed aloud, but somehow stopped myself. Outside the thick walls of the cellars I could hear the thrashing of the surf and I knew I was trapped. Rats below me, the cruel ocean outside and a vampire child behind me. What was I going to do?

  I crouched down by the stairwell, hardly daring to breathe, waiting for him, knowing he would come. Sure enough, I saw the wavering light and heard him begin to descend. He was just alongside me when I jumped on him, and as he dropped the flickering light on the cellar floor I saw the soft brown bodies and beady eyes as the rats rushed off in all directions.

  We rolled about in the dust, his teeth snapping at my neck and his eyes dilated with a terrible fury. As we struggled I saw an old bottle lying on the floor and I hit him on the head with it as hard as I could. He went limp and I pushed him away from me, but as I did so I caught the smell of burning. Larn’s lamp must have landed on a pile of rags, and angry red flames were already consuming them and climbing up the walls of the cellar. What was I going to do? Leave him? Surely that would be the best, the most logical thing to do. But I simply couldn’t leave him to be burnt to death.

  Slowly and painfully I began to drag him up the cellar steps while the flames roared at us, sending out great clouds of filthy, choking smoke. Somehow, coughing and gasping, I managed to get him to the top of the steps, but by then I was so exhausted that I sat down, leaning my head against the wall.

  Seconds later he had his teeth centimetres from my neck, his innocence replaced by wild demonic fury.

  ‘Blood,’ he yelled over and over again. ‘I’m so thirsty. You must give me blood. Your blood.’

  I brought up my legs and caught Larn in the stomach again. He toppled backwards, as if in slow motion, down into the seething, crackling flames below.

  This time I knew there was no chance of rescuing him, even if I’d wanted to; he was simply a ball of fire.

  I managed to find my way out of Shamrock Hall and just stood there on the cliffs, watching the flames gradually taking hold, and the house slowly burning to the ground.

  ‘Didn’t you even tell your uncle?’ gasped Tim.

  ‘No.’ Abby shook her head. ‘As I told you before – I never told anyone.’

  The door suddenly opened and they all gasped in surprise as light from the doorway flooded the sleeping-bags.

  ‘You lot still awake?’ asked Tim’s dad. The only reaction was a loud, protracted snore and total silence.

  This electronic edition published in July 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

  Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  Copyright © Anthony Masters

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  ISBN: 9781448205028

  eISBN: 9781448204588

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