Whitby Vampyrrhic (6 page)

Benjamin Green awoke. He swayed gently. A stillness enfolded him. Cool air played over his face. After the turbulent, flaming hell of the plane, a seemingly indestructible serenity eased his mind. On opening his eyes, he saw first of all that his parachute had caught in the branches of a tall tree. The ground lay ten feet beneath his dangling boots. Moonlight illuminated the side of a valley that ran down to a sparkling river. In the distance, he could make out the ruins of Whitby Abbey, bathed in silvery radiance.

The plane had gone, of course; it had probably crashed on the hills. At least the bodies of Guy and Pat would be recovered for their funerals.

‘You've done it again, Benjamin, old buddy,' he said aloud. ‘You've cheated old Mister Death.'

Then he looked down to see four upturned faces. Immediately, he knew they weren't right. Strike that. They weren't even human. Their eyes were pure white, except for tiny black pupils. This imbued their gaze with a ferocious curiosity. The moonlight revealed the gaunt figures to be human-like, yet the way they stood, and the aura they radiated, was nothing less than demonic.

From his boots, blood dripped. It wasn't his; he knew that. Blood from his comrades had soaked his flying suit during the homeward journey. Now it pit-patted on to the dry soil below the tree.

The creatures stared at the drip-drip of crimson. This was a wonderful sight. It enchanted them. Then something triggered their cravings. They fell on to the blood to lap at it like thirsty lions at a waterhole. That taste excited them. They shivered with pleasure. Gasps erupted from their lips. A moment later, they leapt to their feet; they tried to reach Ben's feet to drag him from where he dangled in the tree.

Yet, they couldn't quite reach. They leapt upwards, yet always fell short.

‘Get away from me!' Ben pulled his revolver from its holster.

But the idea of firing on them appalled him.
What if these are patients from a lunatic asylum? Yet their faces . . . Surely, these things aren't even human?
Confusion swirled through his mind.

Then the branch above him dipped. He glanced up to see one of the men had scaled the tree. The climber didn't bother trying to untangle the parachute harness. Instead, he simply worked his way along the branch that it had wrapped itself in. The creature's weight on the branch forced it downward. Benjamin descended with it.

The creatures below grabbed his feet. Now he did fire. The bullets pecked holes in white flesh.

The creatures flinched, but their bloodlust overrode any sensation of pain.
Him!
That's what they wanted. Nothing else mattered.

Seconds later, their combined weight broke the branches that had snagged the parachute. The instant he struck the ground, the monsters' teeth sank into his body. Hard, sharp incisors punctured his skin. The heat of their mouths burnt through the fabric of his flying suit. It felt like hot metal being pressed to his flesh. Then they sucked hard at him. Their mouths pulsated. He felt it distinctly. They were draining his blood. Waves of darkness swept through him. His limbs sagged; he could no longer fight back. Powerless to even attempt an escape, he lay limp on the ground. The pilot's friends lay dead in the mangled wreckage of the aircraft up on the moor. Soon they'd lie in peaceful sleep within the embrace of Mother Earth. But Benjamin Green would be denied even that final reward.

PART TWO

{
Extract from a letter to the Whitby priest, Father Donald Mercer, circa 1941
}

One

Beth Layne thought,
We travel in darkness. We arrive in darkness.
The train journey had taken the best part of ten hours. As soon as the winter sun had set during the afternoon the train's conductors had closed all the blackout blinds in the carriages. For all they could see of the world outside, they might have been confined to a cave deep underground. At least her demands had been met by Alec Reed. Beth travelled in the company of Sally Wainwright, so sparing her a friendless journey into the north of England.

After changing at York station for the train that would take them to the Yorkshire coast, they'd had the compartment to themselves, apart from a grey-haired soldier, who spent most of the time shooting coldly disapproving glances in their direction.
Maybe our clothes are too brightly coloured for his Puritan tastes
, Beth told herself.

Sally had tried to make conversation with the soldier. ‘We're going to Whitby to act in a film. But first we'll be finding the locations. Have you ever been to Whitby, sir? Can you tell us what it's like?'

He'd found her questions so shocking that he'd pointed at a poster on the compartment wall. Above a cartoon of Hitler and Mussolini hiding under a café table, where a pair of women talked about their husbands' military postings, glared a stark warning: CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES!

The frosty soldier left the train at a place with the intriguing name of Robin Hood's Bay. After that, they were alone in the compartment for the next twenty minutes until panting, hissing, and spitting, like a bad-tempered mule, the loco hauled them into another station.

The conductor walked along the corridor calling out, ‘Whitby. End of the line. Whitby. End of the line.'

‘End of the line.' Sally giggled nervously. ‘I hope that isn't an omen.'

Lamps inside the station building were so dim as to be near useless. Several passengers from the other carriages bumped into one another or into the pillars that supported the roof.

Sally exclaimed, ‘It's so dark I can hardly see my hand in front of my face.'

‘Then best not put your case down or you'll never find it again.'

Silhouettes milling round them, searching for the exit, were little more than phantom shapes in the gloom.

‘Make your way to the red lantern,' came an authoritative male voice. ‘You'll find the exit that opens on to Station Square. There are no taxis so you'll have to walk.'

Sally groaned, ‘My case weighs a ton. And do we know where the hotel is?'

‘Just a five-minute walk, or so Alec's memo tells me.' Beth's heart sank. Being dumped in a strange town at midnight, with all the street lights blacked out, threatened total disaster. ‘Excuse me.' She approached a silhouette that appeared to be in uniform. ‘Sir. Can you tell me the way to the Leviathan Hotel?'

‘Do you know Whitby?'

‘No.'

‘Then God help you.'

‘Pardon?'

‘The Leviathan got shut up at the start of the war. You might as well wait here for the next train back to wherever you came from.'

‘We're not on vacation. We're here to work.'

‘You're a long way from America.'

Do I detect a note of sarcasm?
Forcing herself to remain calm, she pressed on, ‘Sir, my friend and I have been instructed to go to the Leviathan Hotel.'

‘Your funeral. The place has been closed these last two years.' He turned to another figure. ‘George. Get those mail bags on the train. She's running late as it is.'

The man began to move towards the locomotive, which gushed steam out on to the platform.

Beth persisted. ‘Excuse me, I know you're busy. But will you
please
give me directions to the Leviathan Hotel?'

Even though darkness left her blind to her surroundings, she knew the man didn't even turn to face her when he snapped, ‘Exit the station, turn right, then right again over the harbour bridge. If you find Church Street, you're as good as there.'

‘Church Street?' Beth shuddered, recollecting that strange incident this morning, when she'd wandered into what she'd believed to be a film set of Whitby. There'd been a mock-up of Church Street, or at least she'd believed she'd seen one.

Sally tugged her arm. ‘Come along, Beth. Let's get out of here. Oh, I've dropped my umbrella. I can't even see it on the ground. Damn this place. It's as dark as Hades.' Her voice quivered.

‘Don't worry, Sally.' She squeezed her friend's hand. ‘I'm here. We'll get you safely to the hotel, just you see.'

‘But the man said it was closed.'

‘He must be mistaken.'

‘Beth, I hate it here. It feels all wrong. Like a bad dream . . .'

‘Look, I've found your umbrella. Come on, it's time we found a nice warm bed. We'll feel better in the morning.'

They left the station to find mist creeping through the town. Turning right, as directed, they followed a road that ran alongside a river. Bitterly cold air nipped at their exposed faces. A spiky ocean scent filled Beth's nose. To avoid drawing the attention of enemy bomber pilots, the town had been completely blacked out. No lights showed through the windows. Street lights had been extinguished. No cars ran along the streets. The few people who had disembarked from the train had already vanished into alleys that led off the main road.

As they walked, arm in arm, lugging their baggage best they could, Beth tried to make out some of her surroundings. To her right, a greasy-looking river oozed towards the sea. It carried tree branches: skeletal arms that thrust outwards from its glistening surface, seemingly grasping for a route back to life, not the deep, dark grave that was the waiting ocean. Rags of mist ghosted over the waters. Although darkness engulfed the place, Beth formed an impression that they were at the bottom of a narrow, steep-sided valley. Box shapes emerging from the valley slopes, suggested a profusion of houses. Yet they were chaotic somehow. As if a demented god had flung an entire town into the valley. Now they were tenanted by a mysterious people, who accepted the crazy, higgledy-piggledy nature of their borough as being normal.

Through this ghost town of a place came a forlorn groan.

Sally stopped dead. ‘Oh, God, what's that?'

‘It's just the foghorn.'

‘Thank goodness, I thought it was sea monster.'

A church clock announced the midnight hour.

‘Sally. Don't let your imagination run away with you, or I'll end up seeing demons again.'

‘
Seeing demons again?
What do you mean, “again”?'

Beth gently tugged at Sally's arm to get her walking. ‘Oh, just me and my overactive imagination. Anyway, it's too late at night for spooky stories. Come on, let's find that hotel.'

‘Knowing our luck it will be a witches' lair. They'll boil guests' heads for soup, and fry fingers and call them sausages.'

‘And human beings will become human beans.'

‘Idiot.' But Sally's tone had become lighter. ‘Just remind me, are we really going to be acting in a film?'

Beth saw an opportunity to raise Sally's spirits. ‘You signed the contract, didn't you? You'll be seen in cinemas here and in America. All over the place. And people will cry, “Wow, who is that beautiful brunette? She must come and star in our movies in Hollywood.'”

‘It's amazing. Only, I'm sure I'll forget all my lines. What is it? What's wrong?'

‘We've found the bridge. And we've got our welcome party, too.'

‘What do you mean?'

Beth nodded at the bridge. Around a hundred feet long, built from iron, with latticework fences, the structure spanned the river. Clearly, the bridge had a formidable mechanism that would cause it to swing open when ships needed to pass upstream. But the bridge itself wasn't the problem. Something else blocked their way.

Sally had seen it, too, for she gripped Beth's forearm. ‘Maybe we can find another way across. I don't like the look of this.'

Ghostly strands of mist veiled the lone figure on the bridge. Again the foghorn cried out, long and low.

‘It's just a person,' Beth insisted. ‘They're not here to do us any harm.'

‘How can you be sure?'

‘Come on . . . we'll be alright.'

‘Beth, I'm scared.'

‘Sally, we must only be a minute from the hotel.' She stepped out on to the bridge. The figure at the other end took a step, too.

Beth paused. The figure halted. Beth took another step. The figure moved forwards too, as if this was a game to mirror Beth's advance across the bridge.

‘They won't hurt us.' Beth spoke firmly, yet her heart clamoured. Only too vividly did she recall her encounter on the film set earlier that day. Those swift demonic figures. But all that had been imagination, hadn't it? No mock-up of Whitby had been built in the studio. Probably she'd fainted, then dreamt the whole thing. Her hand went to her head, where a lock of her hair had been caught in the passageway to Arguments Yard. The pain had been real. Her scalp still stung.

The foghorn cried out to the eternal once more. Its sound shimmered over the blacked-out town to die alone in the wilderness beyond.

‘Where is everyone?' Sally uttered. ‘Surely there must be some people about – going to work, that kind of thing, and why aren't there policemen out on patrol?'

‘Keep walking,' Beth ordered. ‘We're not going to be stopped from crossing over to the other side.'