Vampyrrhic, Page 2

  Now the screen held that same sort of dreadful fascination.

  She watched as a man of about twenty-five appeared on screen to talk into camera with the hotel in the background. (My room’s that one on the top floor, she thought. Is that a face at the window? Pale, bloated, eyeless.)

  She focused on the man’s voice (American: words softly spoken, cultured, well educated; a good-looking man with neat blond hair and glasses). He spoke in a friendly way (I would have liked to meet him — not like dead old Mr Morrow dragging his bloated graveyard feet up and down outside my door).

  She concentrated on the young man’s words and the tormenting voice in the back of her head, at last — thankfully — faded.

  ‘Hello,’ the man on TV said. ‘This is day six of my journey around haunted Britain — an old country occupied not only by the men, women and children of a modern industrialized nation, but by the demons, dragons and monsters of folklore. Here I am in the market town of Leppington, little more than ten miles north-west of the seaside town of Whitby. The same fabled Whitby where Count Dracula made landfall in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel.

  ‘Leppington, population three thousand, built its prosperity on death. For more than a hundred years its biggest employer was the slaughterhouse and cannery, lying just across there behind the railway station. In 1881 Major Harding Leppington, patriarch of the Leppingtons, a family so inextricably linked to the town that they share the same name, won a contract to supply the British Navy with canned meat: back then the latest newfangled invention. Farmers out in the surrounding hills would drive their sheep and cattle right through the centre of the town, up the main street, past the church and the hotel behind me, across the market square, and funnel them through the big wrought-iron gates of the slaughterhouse. The beasts came in their thousands to be killed — in those days sheep, even cows, were hung alive by the back legs; then their throats were cut. After being left to hang for several hours to allow the blood to drain from their bodies into specially cut stone channels in the floor, the dead animals were moved through into the butchery hall where hundreds of furiously busy men cut them into small enough chunks to be cooked in what were basically cauldrons, fired by half a ton of coal at a time. These cooking vessels were so big that they would comfortably accommodate a small truck. Then the cooked meat went into the tin cans — which in those days were made of pure tin — and was sealed, cooled and then dispatched to Her Majesty’s ships where it could be safely eaten anything up to two years after the doomed animals last trotted across these cobblestones where I’m now standing. Colonel Leppington’s Clinical and Nutritional Meat and Gravy, as the product was snappily known, could be found in ships’ galleys anywhere from Alaska to Zanzibar.

  ‘So this is Leppington: the town built on blood. Long before communism the workers from Leppington’s meat factory were known as Reds. They could be seen walking home at night, red from head to clogged feet with the blood of the animals butchered that day.’

  Now there came a sequence of postcard-view shots of the town — the post office and minimart (formerly a leper hospital), the church, Saint Colman’s (founded AD 670, originally Celtic, then Roman, then Anglican, destroyed by lightning AD 681 and by earthquake in AD 1200 and damaged in the South Transept by Nazi doodlebug in AD 1945), with ancient gravestones depicting swordsmen fighting, riding or even mating with she-monsters — historians still argued over those etchings.

  Following the gravestones came shots of a river. ‘The River Lepping,’ ran the narrative, ‘believed to have been named in prehistory after a goddess, as is customary in Britain. In Scotland the Clyde is named after the goddess Clota, which is interpreted as ‘the Divine Cleanser’; the River Dee comes from Deva, meaning Goddess.’ There were more scenes of the Lepping: fast-flowing water creaming white around carsized boulders; a boy fishing optimistically for salmon.

  The narrator continued in his softly-spoken accents: ‘The name Leppington, a name of Norse origin, first appears in the writings of the Abbess of Whitby Abbey, one Saint Hilda, who lived around six hundred years after Christ. She’d already risen to fame by driving all the local snakes over the cliff, then finishing the job by cutting off their heads with her whip.

  ‘A whip-wielding nun, beheading the phallus-shaped snake? If that doesn’t leave you with one humdinger of a Freudian S&M image nothing else will. Anyway, in AD 657 she sent a letter to the local ruler, King Oswy of Northumbria. In it she wrote: “Leppingsvalt (as it was known then) is a nest of demons who prick the navel and sup the blood of God’s children. They have grown fat on the blood of innocents and prey on travellers, merchants and pilgrims alike. They are night-seers and necromantic in their arts.” She goes on in these outraged tones, even accusing the demon folk of Leppington of acting as cobbler and quartermaster to the Devil. She ends with a plea that Leppington, or rather Leppingsvalt be burnt to the very foundations and the earth seeded with salt. That is the old tried and tested way of destroying haunted houses. However — there’s always a big “however”, isn’t there?’ continued the good-natured voice-over while showing shots of Leppington’s Eatwell Cafe-Pork-’n ‘-cider pies our speciality’. ‘However, Leppingsvalt was home to more than two hundred tin miners — tin mining was a filthy, dangerous, and highly specialized job — and tin was vital to the King’s treasury. If he killed the miners — even though they were raving pagans with antisocial habits — he put a God Almighty hole in his own income. Therefore, shrewd old soul that he was, he suggested to St Hilda that, instead of massacring the townsfolk in the name of Christ, she should preside over the forcible baptism and Christianizing of the pagan inhabitants of Leppinsvalt, then oversee the construction of a handsome church and that would be that. So the mass baptisms went ahead in the River Lepping — which claimed the lives of three monks from Whitby Abbey during the process: the old gods weren’t going to give up without a fight. The church got built and, as I’ve mentioned before, quickly got itself struck by lightning. And amongst the Godfearing folk outside Leppinsvalt, now renamed Leppington, there were whisperings that the worship of the old gods continued in the tin miners’ tunnels. Those tunnels themselves have turned the rock under the town into something resembling a vast sponge that’s probably today more holes than rock. Which has led more than one surveyor to speculate that the whole town will tumble into one almighty great crater one day.’

  The head and shoulders of the blond narrator appeared on the screen again. He was smiling. ‘So, there you have it: this is Leppington. Built on blood. Last bastion of pagan worship.’

  The narration continued, showing local places of interest — a motte-and-bailey castle, the local museum (built and funded by the Leppington family with a floor devoted to exhibiting Colonel Leppington’s mummified animals), the site of the local gibbet where many a rustler and highwayman had dangled…

  Bernice lay drowsy now, comfortably warm, relaxed to the point where she allowed her head to rest on the pillow so the TV appeared to lie on its side as she watched. The light from the bedside lamp seemed muted, leaving the shadows in the corner of the room to grow yet darker. Maybe the voltage had dipped again. It happened frequently enough in this out-of-the-way town tucked up in the hills of North Yorkshire. The rain fell gently with a rhythmic whispering sound that came and went like the relaxed breathing of a sleeping child. She allowed herself to relax with it.

  Safe and warm in my bed…safe and warm…

  Sleepily, she let her eyes take in the room: wardrobe, mirror, shadows — softening and deepening yet more as the voltage diminished. The yellow pool of light from the lamp. Blue curtains. On the wall over the bed, the portrait of a white-robed girl ankle-deep in a river. The spidershaped crack in the glass panel above the bathroom door — funny place for a window: To admit daylight, I suppose; not for seeing through; her shoes lined up against a wall, the black patent-leather ankle-boots she had bought yesterday with the pointed toes and a high heel, deliciously high, almost a stiletto; a good buy, she thought, quiet
ly pleased; a very good buy.

  Safe and warm in my bed…everything’s all right now. I’ll sleep soon. She yawned luxuriously, then snuggled deeper in the warm bed. The voice of the narrator on TV, butter-soft, soothing — the words stroked her ears all the way deep inside. A nice voice. Comforting, warm, friendly…

  After a while, the scene dissolved from views of the town to an interior scene. The man sat on a bed in a gloomy room. She guessed he’d filmed this himself, simply by leaving the camcorder running on something the height of the chest of drawers she’d pulled in front of the door; then the man had walked into the camera’s field of vision, sat on the bed and begun to talk. He talked even more softly, yet the sense of wonder shone through his voice.

  ‘You know, I’ve never ever believed in the supernatural,’ he said in a whisper. ‘Not until now. The time’s a little after three in the morning; outside it’s pitch black. In here, it’s…it’s as if the whole building, the whole hotel, is charged with an electricity of some kind. I have the strangest dreams at night. I know…’ He smiled into the camera, the lenses of his glasses filling with gold when they caught the light of the bedside lamp. (A lamp like this one, thought Bernice, drowsily lifting an eye to it; funny, I never noticed it before.) ‘I know dreams aren’t evidence of the supernatural…but, Jeez, this is so exciting I don’t know where to begin. I’ve covered alien abductions in Arkansas, werewolves in Russia, spooks from New York to Timbuctoo — all poppycock, balderdash, cockamamie nonsense. I heard it all, but I never believed, never felt anything, never had that creature gut feeling here’ — he pushed his two fists against his stomach — ‘that it, or any part of it, was true. Until I came here, to a little English town called Leppington. Now…now, just watch this.’

  The scene cut from the room to darkness. ‘This is just raw footage,’ the narrator continued. ‘No fancy cutaways, no dissolves or tripod work -just honest-to-goodness raw footage as it went into the can.’

  5.Ghosts on Film

  Bernice watched the screen. She saw a tilting image of the hotel room door as whoever held the camera hurried towards it. A hand appeared in shot, grabbed the handle, twisted, then yanked open the door. The soundtrack consisted of excited breathing. Then the camera was out in the corridor (of this hotel, she thought, dreamily; he was staying in my hotel).

  ‘I saw it. I saw it. Hell, stay focused, Mike. It’s two in the morning. ‘I saw it just twenty minutes ago,’ panted the man’s voice off camera. ‘I sensed there was someone outside my door. Opened the door and there it was. Nothing more than a shadow of a man. A tall figure, moving along this corridor like a cat. That’s not just a…a simile. The sensation bowled me over; took my breath away — but I had the impression this was part man, part animal — lithe, fast, very fast. My God, I was scared, physically terrified like I’d tripped and fallen flat on my face in front of a speeding truck. The logic side of me said: OK, Mike. You’ve seen it. Now lock yourself in the room. Believe me, what I saw is bad; it is one bad son of a bitch. But there’s part of me that said: Follow. Go on, follow, follow, follow! I couldn’t stop myself. I had to follow it as it…watch it, Mike, here’s the stairs.’ Scenes of a grand staircase descending to the hotel lobby and reception desk. Now deserted. ‘My God, it’s got so cold in here. This is July, for crying out loud. But it’s cold as ice. Just look at that.’ The camera turned so the cameraman — Mike — could film his own face. The face was out of focus and round as a full-moon. He blew his breath out. Vapour streamed from his mouth. ‘Cold or what, eh, folks? Now, Mike, watch the stairs, watch the stairs. Last thing I want to do is trip and break my fool neck. Now, where’d he go? Where’d he go?’ The picture jiggled less crazily now that he was walking. ‘Upstairs, downstairs, in my lady’s chamber…wee willie winkie. Where’d you go?’ More shots of the dining room, the bar with the shutters down, the door to the Dead Box beneath the stairs. ‘Where’d you go? Oh, and for pity’s sake don’t jump out and shout “Boo” at me.’ The man was trying to be humorous but Bernice heard the tremor of fear wobble the voice.

  ‘Oh, man…oh, man…damn. He — it — has gone. Vanished. Damnit, damnit. But you’ll notice all the doors to the outside are shut and locked. Did he run through the wall? Or just dematerialize there in the middle of the pool room? Or maybe he shrunk himself down and ran into the jukebox. Probably filed himself away between Kula Shaker and REM … good heavens, I’m rambling. I’m rambling because this has — as the English say — knocked me for six; I’m shaking like the proverbial leaf.’

  Cut to: The hotel room. Mike sitting on the bed, calmly talking to camera. ‘What you saw on the videotape just then was me, Mike Stroud, chasing the figure. Now, I need to backtrack a little here so I can explain what happened. First time I was aware of someone, or something, moving up and down outside my room door, I went out into the corridor, looked, saw this huge shadowy man-shaped figure slip like a cat down the corridor. Scared the hell out of me. But the strange thing is I wanted to run after it. Something inside of me yelled: Run, run, run! Chase it! Don’t let it get away! I felt enormous excitement. Like I was part of this wild race, and I was caught up by the enthusiasm and the sheer, sheer exhilaration. I followed, then lost it. A moment later I went back to my room for the camcorder…

  (On the television, behind Mike, I can see the spider-crack in the glass pane above the bathroom door. And there’s the portrait of the girl, ankle-deep in the river, Bernice thought lazily. The room is mine)

  The narrator continued, ‘All fired up, I raced back to my room, grabbed the camcorder, then waited. It’ll never come again, I thought. Jesus, my first experience of the paranormal and I’ve blown it. Why don’t you keep the camcorder ready, just in case? Now you’ve probably lost that once-in-a-lifetime chance to film a supernatural event. But, listen to this, folks, it did come again. Within half an hour or so. You’ve seen the results.’ The man spoke in quiet awe, not quite believing what he’d seen. ‘It was as if there was a sixth sense kicking in inside here.’ The man pressed the flat of his hand against his chest. ‘I didn’t see it completely — a huge shadowy figure. It’s what I felt so strongly, as if I knew absolutely it was part man, part animal. There was something almost familiar about it. If I close my eyes I can see its bare feet on the carpet; I can feel its bare feet on the carpet, too, as if they are my bare feet. But at least you can see it on tape. I’ve captured something there, haven’t I?’

  Bernice remembered what she’d seen on TV: the walls of the corridor speeding by, swinging shots of the carpet, the doors of the other rooms on that floor, the landing, the stairs, receptionist’s desk, dining-room tables laid for breakfast with white cotton table cloths. And always just ahead of the light, in the shadows, something fleeting. A sense of movement — quick and feline and oh-so-dark.

  6. 1:15 A.M.

  The rain sighed outside. She felt sleepy. The man talked on screen. She heard his rising excitement as he made plans to stay awake at night, camcorder charged and ready. As soon as he sensed the thing pacing outside in the corridor, he’d swing open the door —

  — and then he’d have the figure on tape.

  And this time it would be filmed properly; viewers would see it standing there, slap in the centre of the screen; they’d marvel at whatever face it possessed; Joe Public would look into the eyes of a supernatural being; they would shiver, they might recoil in horror, but they would behold that face in nothing less than awe. And he, Mike Stroud, one-man TV crew, would have brought that unique piece of tape to the world. Proof of the paranormal.

  What would he do then? There’d be documentaries and books aplenty to flow from that kind of material; talk shows; Larry King on CNN; worldwide syndication rights.

  Bernice listened to his plans with a kind of cosy collusiveness, as if he was speaking to her — only her. Nobody else. I, Bernice Mochardi, am his special friend and confidante. That pleased her; the feeling in her stomach was the same as when she knew she was falling in love with a man.

&
nbsp; Her eyelids grew heavy. She was so deliciously sleepy.

  …the magazine syndication rights alone would be enormous. A creature of English folklore captured on film to — wait, wait.’ He jumped up from the bed, lenses of his glasses flashing, as he looked from side to side. ‘It’s here. It’s back. I can feel it…sense it; it’s outside. Right-oh, people. Here goes.’ He hurried towards the camera, then behind it, moving out of the field of vision. The picture jerked as the camera was lifted — jolting shots of the portrait of the girl in the river, the blue curtains, the spider-legged crack in the pane above the bathroom door.

  (He stayed in my bedroom, slept in my bed, warm skin against cool, cotton sheet.)

  She watched the TV as the picture showed her the closed door expanding to fill the screen as he approached it with the camera. Then he must have paused.

  Was he unsure what to do next? Did he wonder just what in Heaven’s name stood on the other side of the door? Was he afraid? Yes, he must have been. Any normal human being fears the unknown.

  The picture juddered, then became rock-steady as he placed the camera on — what? A tripod? The chest of drawers?

  In any event the picture of the door filling the screen was steady, perfectly focused. She saw him approach the door.

  He opened it.

  There was a blur of movement.

  No sound.

  He tossed one look back at the camera.

  The movement so violent his glasses flew from his face.

  The expression on his face went beyond the knowable. A kind of wide-eyed snarl of terror.

  A split second later he vanished through the door as if yanked through on the end of a rope of elastic. The door slammed shut with tremendous force.

  Yet, oddly, the microphone picked up no sound.