Whitby Vampyrrhic (27 page)

‘Hear this. Return to your homes now. From sixteen hundred hours there will be an emergency curfew. You must return to your homes. Sixteen hundred hours is four o' clock. The curfew will extend until seven o'clock tomorrow morning.'
The precisely formed words, through a megaphone, were redolent of an army officer.

Gruffer, no-nonsense voices, cut through shouts on the bridge. ‘Clear the road. Go home. If you're not indoors by four, there'll be hell to pay.'

As if a switch had been flicked, the mob dispersed. Eleanor and Beth stood panting against the fence. Blood smeared Eleanor's face. The gruffer voices belonged to a dozen policemen, who didn't hesitate to shove aside any folk who chose to argue.

First over the bridge, a line of solid, large-booted Coppers. Trundling behind them, a drab green army car on which had been fixed a megaphone. The crisp officer's voice issued from this.
‘By order of the regional military commander: you must return to your homes. A curfew will be in effect tonight from four, until seven in the morning. Anyone flouting this is likely to be shot. I repeat: do not venture out of doors from four while seven. Anyone breaking the curfew will be deemed to have hostile intent. You will be shot on sight.'
Behind the car, a squad of soldiers armed with rifles.

Eleanor composed herself with a deep breath. ‘Just when you thought the paranoia couldn't get any worse. Now our own soldiers have us in their sights. Come on, let's get back while we can.'

‘Your face is all bloody, Eleanor. Let me clean it first.'

‘It can wait.' She lifted the bottle tops. ‘This work can't. We've got to fill the bottles tonight.'

‘What happens then?'

‘All hell breaks loose.'

Seven

Sally and Alec recoiled in shock at the sight of Eleanor and Beth half falling through the hotel door.

‘What on Earth happened?' gasped Sally, eyeing the dishevelled women. ‘My God, Eleanor, your mouth is bleeding.'

‘Here. Sit down.' Alec indicated the plush sofa.

Eleanor shook her head. ‘Just a nick. I'll be fine . . . no, Alec, don't fuss.' She allowed her voice to soften a little. ‘Thank you, Alec. I appreciate that you want to take care of us.' She checked the pack of bottle tops remained intact. ‘But I've a lot to do tonight. I'll splash some water on my face, then I'll be ready for battle.'

Sally's eyes darted anxiously from Eleanor to the hotel door that Beth securely bolted. ‘Battle? What do you mean? Beth, you must tell us what happened out there.'

Beth listened at the door. Heavy boots tramped past. Voices echoed along Church Street. Mixed with those, a commanding officer barking orders.

Alec spoke gently, ‘What did happen to you? Were you attacked?'

Beth checked on Tommy and the dog in their cosy den beneath the reception counter. ‘They're both asleep, still. That helps.'

Alec grew impatient. ‘Tell us!'

Eleanor's delivery was matter-of-fact, ‘The townspeople are frightened. They know something bad happened last night, only the military have suppressed news of their troops going missing.'

‘Now the authorities have imposed a curfew,' Beth added. ‘If anyone even pokes their nose beyond their door tonight, the soldiers will shoot on sight.'

‘But you've been attacked,' Sally wailed. ‘Who did that? The soldiers?'

‘No, they saved our necks,' Beth said.

‘Like I say,' Eleanor told them crisply, ‘the locals are frightened. So frightened that they've become paranoid. Because we dress and behave a little differently to them, they decided to gang up on us.'

Alec flared, ‘They should be reported. I'll telephone the police.'

‘You'll do no such thing,' Eleanor told him. ‘We don't want policemen nosing round here.'

‘Why?'

‘For obvious reasons.' Eleanor nodded across the reception area. She might have been indicating the sleeping place of Tommy, their Vampiric guest – then again, she might have been indicating the basement entrance. Beth knew that's where this formidable woman had stockpiled her arsenal of weapons. The ones that took the form of beer bottles half filled with that pungent chemical. Either way, Beth Layne understood perfectly that Eleanor didn't require any inquisitive policemen stomping about the place. Eleanor touched the corner of her mouth, where the blood seeped, and winced. ‘The long and the short of it, Beth and I were jostled by some very frightened, paranoid people. For them, it was out of character. Ascribe it to the madness of war. Now, I'll go give this old face of mine a scrub.' With that gesture of bravado, she sailed through the doorway to the kitchen. Always, but always, she clasped the bag of bottle tops – for her, they were more precious than gold coins.

Ascribe it to the madness of war?
Beth wasn't so sure.
Ever since we arrived here, I've noticed that the locals avoid you – as if you'll infect them with some dirty little bug. They fear you, Eleanor. Do they have some inkling about the nature of your old childhood friends? When Whitby folk are in their own homes, do they whisper rumours of vampires roaming the neighbourhood?

‘Beth . . . Beth, are you alright?'

‘Hmm? Sorry, I was miles away.'

Sally hugged her friend. ‘They didn't hurt you? The mob?'

‘Hardly a mob, Sally. A few people got jittery; that's all.' Beth deliberately underplayed the incident to put her friend at ease. ‘I could do with running a brush through my hair, though. That would be nice.'

Alec pressed a finger to the eyepatch, as he regarded her with his good eye. ‘Nevertheless, you've had something of a shock. I'll bring you a cup of tea with a hefty shot of rum. That'll have you firing on all cylinders again.'

‘Thank you, Alec.' Beth saw that the man cared for her, as he did for Sally and Eleanor. She would allow him his role of avuncular doctor, even if the medicine he prescribed was a shot of strong liquor.

The clock chimed three.

‘Not long until nightfall.' Alec headed for the kitchen. ‘These damned winter days. They're gone in the blink of an eye.' He pushed open the door. ‘I'll have the tea ready in five minutes, Beth. I want you to drink it while it's hot.'

‘Yes, doctor.'

The joke, small though it was, cheered the man up. ‘Then be a good patient. Have your wash and brush up, and be down here in two ticks.'

Beth headed for the stairs.

‘I'll come with you.' With each moment that passed, Sally became increasingly anxious, and when the army car passed along Church Street she gave a gasp of fear.

‘There is to be a curfew.'
The metallic voice pierced the door.
‘From four this afternoon, until seven tomorrow morning. During that time, you must remain indoors. There are no excuses. Observe the curfew. Those failing to do so will be shot on sight. I repeat: Shot on sight.'

In sheer despair, Sally wiped away a tear. ‘It's like the voice of a monster, isn't it? Now we're trapped here.'

Three fifteen. Shadows grew longer, somehow more skeletal, on the roads as the sun neared the horizon. Beth made quick work of washing her face and brushing her hair. Sally remained with her, afraid to let her friend out of her sight. Beth appreciated that the woman, despite her carefree, happy-go-lucky manner, could suffer bouts of nerves that left her frightened and childlike.

Once Beth had finished repairing her make-up and self-confidence, she and Sally headed for the kitchen. Alec Reed had brewed up that strong tea of his. In each of the mugs, he added sugar and rum.

‘No doubt you'll detest the taste.' He boomed the words, as if trying to dispel anxieties of his own. ‘But I guarantee it will restore you to the rudest of health.'

After forcing the concoction down her throat with shuddering politeness, Beth left Alec and Sally talking in the kitchen, while she delivered Alec's restorative to Eleanor. The open basement door provided a telling clue to the woman's whereabouts. In the old wine store Eleanor had already unpacked the silver bottle tops; now she was in the process of donning the heavy rubber apron that covered her from chin to toes.

‘This is Alec's special cure-all?' Beth held out the steaming mug.

‘Oh?'

‘Tea strong enough to hold a roof up, and a mighty shot of rum.'

‘That's good medicine.' Eleanor smiled. Taking the mug, she downed it in one. ‘Phew. If we ever run short of aviation fuel . . .' She scrunched her shoulders, as the potent cocktail hit her stomach. ‘Phew again. That's the kind of pick-me-up that could take a bomber to Berlin and back.'

‘I'm here to help,' Beth announced.

‘If you're going to work in this bomb factory of the damned – forgive my purple prose – you're going to need protective clothing.'

‘You've got a spare gas mask and rubber gloves.'

But if this stuff splashes you . . .' Eleanor indicated the jar of blueish liquid on the table. ‘Boof.'

‘There must be something I can do to help.'

‘Very well, my dear. Thank you. Another pair of hands would be extremely useful. I'm going to need at least a hundred of these bottles filling.' She shot Beth a telling look. ‘Don't worry, I will explain what this stuff is later. For the time being, consider it as a cure-all for vampires.'

They set to work. Beth donned rubber gloves and the spare gas mask. Because of the dangerous nature of the chemical, and because Beth lacked full protective clothing, she set out the empty bottles on the table for Eleanor to half fill with the blue spirit. When the bottles were relatively safe, with the metal cap in place, Beth then dunked each bottle into a tub of fresh water to ensure that any chemical on the outer surface of the bottle was washed away. In the confines of the vault, acrid chemical fumes accumulated to such a degree that a blue haze formed in the air. Despite the gas masks both women developed sore throats, their eyes watered. Yet neither paused in their labours. Beth knew this work had all the importance of a holy quest. She pictured the vampires in Hag's Lung. The soldiers' rifles had been useless against the creatures. If these bottles of blue were some kind of answer to that Vampiric menace, then Beth would do her utmost to help make this weapon – whatever it was, and whatever effect it would have on the bloodthirsty monsters.

The time: three forty-five. Alec had left Sally to gaze out through the dining room window at the sunset, while he ventured into the office that he'd been using to revise the film script. The streets were emptying of people; dusk fell over the town. Even the car with the megaphone had retreated into the distance. That unsettling, even menacing word, ‘curfew' had become a faint noise that seemed to shimmer in a ghostly fashion on the cold winter air.

Alec sat down at the desk. When thinking hard, he'd developed a habit of resting his finger lightly on his eyepatch. The good eye focused on the black telephone on the desk. This had become the only link to the outside world. The wire that ran from the body of the phone would carry his words to a world beyond Whitby. Even though he'd only been in this mysterious, isolated town at the edge of the sea for a few days, it seemed, weirdly, as if he'd spent most of his life here. Alec found it hard to visualize the faces of his family in Scotland. The country beyond the barrier of high, moorland hills could have been on the other side of the world. Alec was gripped by a powerful notion that he would spend the rest of his life in this seaside town – a dreamlike realm, where the normal laws of nature no longer existed. This was the kind of place where the impossible not only might happen, but MUST happen.
Whitby: a town of miracles and nightmares.

This telephone provided his only means of escape. Alec strove to marshal his thoughts. If he picked up the handset and dialled the number for the local police headquarters, what then? Did he possess the eloquence to describe what had befallen him and his three friends? Would they believe him, when he revealed that Vampiric creatures prowled this windswept port? He thought hard. Surely there would be an elegant, yet simple way to convince them?

‘The child.'

What if he delivered Tommy to them? One look at the Vampiric boy would prove to the authorities that he told the truth. Now . . . if he called the police and told them he'd found a lost child.
So, not exactly the truth, is it?
But what does it matter?
All he required was a couple of constables at the Leviathan Hotel, then to say in quite a straightforward manner, ‘Good evening, officers. If I could ask you to step through to the other side of the reception counter? Now . . . if you take a little peek at what's lying there on the blanket . . .'

Yes, that would do it.

Alec picked up the telephone.

The clock's ponderous tick . . . tock tightened Sally's nerves. That gulf between the tick and the tock became a silent vacuum that seemed to beckon demonic creatures into it. The echo of the tick and the thudding of the tock could have been a fist slowly pounding the door of a tomb. The occupant wanted out. It knew where it could find new companions.

Tick . . . Tock.

Every swing of the pendulum tightened that nerve inside her head. She paced the dining room. The white light, which had flooded over harbour waters to cascade in through the windows, had slowly transformed into a buttery yellow. Now, at last . . . the dying sun bled crimson rays into the room. Once the tables had been clearly illuminated; now a deepening pool of shadow drowned them.

Sally hated the sun. She hated its cowardice. It hadn't the courage to shine down over the town. It would slip beneath the blue hills, then it would slither around the globe to illuminate other people, in other towns, on the other side of the planet. Traitor sun; treacherous orb.