Whitby Vampyrrhic (2 page)

By way of answer, he pointed at a piece of paper pasted to a municipal notice board.

His shy demeanour evaporated as he grinned. ‘Turn back now, Eleanor, if you're afraid.'

Two

Benighted Place

Their route took them further along Church Street: a thoroughfare lined with houses that faced each other across a street so narrow that they were almost close enough to kiss . . . or, maybe, bite each other, if they were so minded. Soon they reached a flight of stone steps that rose up a cliff face (the stairs always reminded Eleanor of a knobbly stone spine). They climbed these to the graveyard of the church, then they followed the path to the other side, which, in turn, took them by the vast towers and archways that formed the ruined abbey. To their left, the cliff edge. The ocean stretched away into the distance, a metallic blue in the late-afternoon sun.

Gustav Kirk, with the sack over his shoulder, headed for a clump of trees.

Eleanor eyed the man with new-found respect. ‘You're so shy, Gustav.'

‘I like to keep myself to myself,' he replied softly.

‘But you saw the council notice. You're not allowed into Hag's Lung Cave. It's dangerous.'

He shot her a grin again that raised a sparkle of delight in her veins. ‘You're right, we are alike. Every so often, the boredom here threatens to break me in two. The only way to beat it is to do something crazy. This morning I thought to myself, shall I run through the streets, yelling rude words? Shall I kick the mayor in the backside? Or should I raise Satan, just so I can talk to someone with interests outside of that town back there?' The grin widened. ‘Or shall I break into Hag's Lung and see what it's really like?'

‘You're insane.'

‘No. I'm inspired.' He laughed. ‘Then madness and inspiration are different sides of the same coin.'

I want to kiss him. Here's my soulmate.
But she must bide her time before making a move. And wasn't love merely a trap lying in wait for free spirits? Goodness! Her heart thrashed against her ribs.
Make conversation, or I really will kiss him.
‘Why do they call the cave Hag's Lung?'

‘Not been here before?'

‘Never.'

He led her through the trees to a bulge in the earth. Just as in a fairy tale, a timber door had been set into the earth. It was padlocked. Not just once, but four of them. Great rusty blocks of iron that locked their iron loops into corresponding lugs in the door frame. No one comes in, it seemed to say. Keep out. Go away. No entry. Not ever.

‘They call the cave Hag's Lung because . . .' Instead of completing the sentence, he touched his ear. ‘Listen at the door.'

Eleanor did so. She heard a faint breath of air blow through gaps in the timber. Air so cold it caused her breath to turn ghostly white. All of a sudden, the blood-chilling draught stopped; a moment later it started again. Only the air was being sucked inwards. It drew her long black hair with it.

‘My God! Gustav, it's breathing. The cave is really breathing!'

‘Actually, no. But geologists believe a tunnel connects it to the sea. The action of waves gushing into a cavity at sea level causes it to mimic respiration. It pushes air out – then sucks air in. Hence the name, Hag's Lung.' That grin again. ‘Nobody's been in there for fifty years. Until now.'

As the sun dropped towards the horizon, Gustav wielded the crowbar to snap each of the massive padlocks. Metal broke with the sound of gunshots. Eleanor flinched, covering her ears with her hands at the shocking punch of sound.

‘Strange things have been happening,' he told her as he worked the hasps free. ‘Did you read in the paper that old Mr Parks found Viking gold in his garden?'

‘Good. He deserves it. Have you seen how decrepit his cottage is? And his wife is crippled with rheumatism.'

‘And did you know he only eats half his dinner every night? The rest he offers to Tiw on the old altar stone up on the moor.'

‘Tiw?'

‘A Norse god – mysterious, unknowable. Tiw is more ancient than Odin and Thor. His origins lie in a horrific and violent spirit that haunted the tundra when mammoths still roamed.' He smiled as he threw open the door. ‘Tiw. Long gone. Forgotten. But we speak his name every week.'

‘Gustav, you're starting to frighten me.'

‘Tiw? He has a day of the week named after him. Tuesday.'

He lit a candle, set down the sack at the entrance, then went down into the cave.

I'm entering the jaws of a monster,
Eleanor thought.
But there's no going back.
Air blew into her face one moment, then was sucked in against her back the next. For all the world, it felt like being in the trachea of a huge creature that aspirated – and had done so for ten thousand years. Back to a time when a princess would be selected from the tribe that lived in these borderlands between mountains and ocean. A princess to be married to the god of this cave . . . by the simple act of opening a vein in her neck. Then tumbling her into the velvet darkness below.

Gustav stepped into the body of the cave. His candle revealed its dripping interior of black rock. There was something organic about the stone. It appeared slick with mucous. It smelt ‘animal' too. His voice shimmered from the walls. ‘There are other strange things, too. Can't you feel the tension in the air? Like an approaching storm? Flocks of seagulls have attacked the town. Then there was the creature that came into the harbour to break ships' moorings.'

‘A whale.' Her voice sounded tiny. ‘Just a lost whale.'

‘Believe me, something strange is happening to Whitby. Can't you sense it? As if the atoms in everything you touch are tensing. Almost like everything's going to explode.' He indicated a hole in the cave wall. At shoulder height, perhaps four or five inches in diameter, it was roughly circular. From the way the candle flame flickered, as he approached, this was where the air gushed in and out. Once more, she was struck how ‘biological' it all seemed, rather than geological. It made the earth a living, breathing thing. This was the airway, the throat, the channel into which it sucked life-giving oxygen, then expelled cold, damp vapour. A vapour that smelt of the sea, and of something else she couldn't quite place.

‘Do you believe the Viking gods are dead, Eleanor?'

‘If not dead, definitely replaced.'

‘Then they'd be angry. For thousands of years they were worshipped, then came Jesus Christ, so we slapped Thor, Odin and Tiw in their faces. We've spurned them.'

‘I'm going back outside. I don't like it in here.'

‘Scared?'

She glared at him with a blazing savagery. ‘I'm not scared of anything. My mother said I'd be too timid to leave Whitby. I'll show you who's timid.'

With that, she crossed the cave floor, then thrust her hand into the blowhole. Cold air gushed round it. Sucking then pushing. The force of it was extraordinary. The blast rippled her clothes, tugged at her hair, and chilled her body.

Triumphant, she turned to Gustav. ‘See? Am I frightened? Am I too scared to put my hand inside?'

His eyes gleamed at her in the flickering candlelight.

Her voice rose. ‘How's this for courage?'

Laughing, she forced her arm deep into the hole. She felt the narrow, rocky gullet enclose her limb tightly. She kept on pushing.

‘Eleanor!'

She didn't know whether he wanted her to withdraw or push harder.

But she forced her fist ever deeper. Just as her shoulder met the rock, her hand broke free of the other side. She flexed her fingers.

Her eyes snapped wide.

‘Eleanor, what's wrong?'

In both horror and wonder, she began, ‘I can feel—'

Then pain. Pure agony, a heart-wrenching agony that overwhelmed her as she screamed.

For, at that moment, a set of teeth bit her wrist. She felt their points slide through skin, through muscle, before stabbing into bone. Eleanor tried to push the mouth away that must lie at the other end of the miniature tunnel. Her fingers alighted on flesh; she felt a nose, eyes; this was a human face . . . or some creature that wore a face that might pass for human in an ill-lit place.

The candle went out. Darkness engulfed her. She heard feet scrambling away.

‘Gustav, don't leave me alone
 . . .
Please don't leave me!'

PART ONE

{
From
THE FILM & THEATRE GAZETTE
, January, 1942
}

One

‘What have we got to lose? It's either act in this film, or slave every hour God sends in a munitions factory making bombs. You do know that the chemicals in TNT turn your hair green? You'll never marry the man of your dreams with hair the colour of cabbage.'

‘But we have to go to Whitby to film it.'

‘So?'

‘Whitby's on the East Coast of England. If the Nazis invade that's where they'll come ashore.'

‘Don't you worry, Sally. I've protected you from rampaging men in the past: if the Nazis come, I'll do it again.'

At twenty-seven, Beth Layne was two years older than her friend, Sally. Ever since they'd met eighteen months ago, Beth had found herself in the role of friend, mentor and guardian. Sally Wainwright was a warm-hearted, amiable woman; she possessed an open face and a ready smile; however, she had the knack of attracting personal catastrophes as lovers gather wild flowers in spring.

Beth Layne, however, realized that her own relationships were often problematic for a different reason. Sally was
too
trusting. Whereas Beth tended to be more cautious in her dealings with people. Character traits in others came under her close scrutiny. Constantly, she found herself analysing conversations with acquaintances. To her own irritation, she realized that, unconsciously, she searched for hidden motives the moment someone developed emotional ties with her.
Does that make me a cynic? Am I overly suspicious of people who want to be friends with me?
Questions that would keep her awake at night.

This morning they waited in a screening room at Denham studios. Basically, the screening room, its ceiling and walls painted black, was a cinema in miniature, with twenty comfortable seats set in front of a ten foot by ten screen. In those seats, a dozen strangers. Beth knew these were the actors and actresses, aged between that magical ‘twenty-one to thirty-one' range reserved for youthful, romantic roles. They'd clearly replied to the same advertisement in the
Film & Theatre Gazette
. At present, they were all beautifully poised, nonchalant, even blasé about their surroundings – that untroubled, ‘Oh, darling, this is just so routine for we actor types.' Beth, however, sensed the undercurrent of excitement. Surreptitiously, everyone glanced at each other. No doubt envious of each other's looks, comparing footwear and hairstyles, and desperately worrying who would win the lead role.

Sally Wainwright also had a tendency to be incredibly gullible, so she whispered excitedly about a mystery famous actor, who was supposed to play the male lead. As the speculation had only been overheard on the bus ride to the studios, Beth dismissed it as simply the kind of garrulous rumour that flies from many a young actor's lips.

Sally's eager words were so breathy in Beth's ear that it tickled outrageously. ‘American, it must be an American; failing that a British actor. Or Australian.'

Beth shook her head, smiling. She was fond of Sally, but she could be so dizzy at times. Even so, Beth noticed the way other young hopefuls strained to hear what Sally murmured.

At that moment, Beth couldn't restrain herself. Just as would-be starlets in neighbouring seats imagined themselves playing opposite a world-famous star, the screening room door opened, and Beth uttered with shocking loudness: ‘
Cary Grant.
'

A dozen heads spun at once in the direction of the door; a dozen mouths gaped with astonishment. They were halfway out of their seats, eager to welcome the most handsome man in the world. Cary Grant. The king of fashion, the lord of elan. However, the man entering now walked with a stoop. Untidy strands of grey hair wormed their way from beneath a flat cap. All in all, he could have passed for Cary Grant's seedy-looking uncle.

Beth couldn't stop grinning. The expression on all those eager hopefuls' faces had been priceless. ‘Yes, Cary Grant,' she continued in a voice calculated to be heard around the room, even though she pretended to be chatting to Sally. ‘Definitely one of my favourite actors. Did you see him in
Bringing Up Baby
?'

Nearly everyone realized they'd been the butt-end of a joke. Half smiled in Beth's direction, as they recognized they had someone in the troupe with a sense of humour. The humourless, however, glowered.