Her Vampyrrhic Heart, Page 2

  ‘FASTER! FASTER!’

  The other youth, a green cap scrunched down on his head, forced himself so tightly against the bodywork he seemed to be trying to weld himself there, so he became one with the vehicle – and could therefore avoid the very real danger of being hurled from its back as they hurtled through the forest.

  Sixteen-year-old Owen Westonby grinned down at his friend who clung there in terror. ‘Isn’t this brilliant? Isn’t this the way to feel totally alive?’

  ‘Shit! We’re going to be totally dead if he crashes.’

  ‘Come on, Kit! Live dangerously! Whoooo!’

  The Whoooo came about because the driver had just hit a bump in the road that sent the truck flying into the air.

  Kit screwed his eyes shut. ‘Oh, God. Oh, God. I’ll never do anything bad again!’

  The motor roared. Owen gripped the steel bar that ran along the top of the cab. He faced forward, feeling the blast of cold air in his face, and loving it – dear God, loving every moment of this amazing ride. A ton of steel lurched under him. He bruised his knees every time another lurch sent him crashing forward. Who cares? This is Fan Tastic! This is the best antidote in the world to boring school.

  Owen Westonby and Kit Bolter had called on their pal, Jez Pollock; he lived on a farm a couple of miles from the village. Jez’s parents had gone out for the evening, so they took their chance for some fun. Jez had fired up the big old beast of a pickup: then they went for a little drive in the countryside.

  With the Pollock farm sprawling between moorland and the river, they’d been able to stick to private roads without using a public highway, where there was a danger they’d be spotted by cops. Here the dirt tracks ran through dense woodland. This is where the excitement lay. This is where they got their hard-earned teenage kicks.

  Owen diced with death. Standing in the back of the truck meant that his head was eight feet above ground level. All of which put him nicely at decapitation height. Branches scythed out of the darkness in front of him. He liked to play chicken, ducking at the last second. More than one strand of his blond hair remained sticking to a tree limb as they hurtled by.

  Feeling a tug on his leg, he glanced down to see Kit Bolter’s terrified eyes. ‘THIS HAS GOT TO STOP!’ yelled Kit. ‘We’re gonna be killed!’

  Owen glanced forward to see a huge branch emerge from the blackness. He ducked just in time. From the cab Jez signalled his glee by sounding the horn.

  Then two things happened at once.

  First: Kit screamed. ‘I’ve lost my cap!’ The green headgear fluttered away.

  Second: the truck swerved. The sheer violence of the manoeuvre flung Owen from its back. The next moment he lay on the ground. Snowflakes drifted down to land on his face. The bellowing truck vanished. Silence returned to the forest – the kind of silence that had haunted this mass of ancient trees at night for the last ten thousand years.

  Then the sound of running feet and voices.

  ‘Look at what’s happened to Owen.’

  Kit Bolter’s voice rose to a squeal. ‘You’ve killed him, you idiot. Look at his eyes. He’s stone dead!’

  Branches rustled as a breeze sighed through this frozen world.

  That’s when Owen sat up, threw back his head and laughed so much his ribs hurt.

  Kit yelled, ‘Jesus, Owen! That’s not funny. I thought you were dead!’ He stomped off to retrieve his green cap.

  Jez held out his hand. Owen grabbed it and hauled himself up to his feet.

  ‘You pulled a massive swerve there, Jez. It was fantastic!’

  ‘I didn’t do it deliberately,’ said the towering youth. ‘Something crawled out in front of me.’

  ‘Crawled?’

  ‘Yeah, kind of crawling.’

  ‘You mean, like a hedgehog or something?’

  ‘Nah, it was huge. Big as an elephant.’

  Owen stared at the youth’s serious expression. However, Jez couldn’t hold it in any longer; laughter blurted through his lips.

  Owen laughed, too. ‘You had me believing you then. I thought you were going to say you’d nearly hit our famous dragon.’

  ‘Right … the dragon.’ Jez grinned. ‘You know, when I was a little kid, my mother used to tell me stories about a dragon living in the forest – the woman gave me nightmares.’

  Kit returned with the cap back on his head again. ‘Did anyone mention our neighbourhood dragon?’

  ‘Jez nearly smacked into it, that’s why he swerved.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, really, Kit.’ Jez pinched the green cap and put it on his own head. ‘You can’t drive down a road here without smacking into ’em, and getting dragon blood and giblets all over your car.’

  The three friends spluttered with laughter.

  As suddenly as they started laughing they stopped.

  ‘What was that?’ Kit asked.

  ‘Dunno.’ Jez tilted his head, listening. ‘I heard it, though.’

  There was another crash.

  ‘Something’s out there,’ said Owen. ‘It’s smashing up the forest.’

  Kit stared anxiously into the gloom. ‘This is actual wilderness out here. The forest has existed since the last Ice Age.’

  ‘You astound me, Holmes.’ Jez adopted a loud, theatrical voice. ‘Do you declare that to be a mammoth of woolly appearance out there?’

  ‘Animals that were thought to be extinct are being found all the time.’

  ‘Did they pipe Wikipedia directly through your arse into your brain?’ Jez climbed into the driver’s seat. ‘A cow’ll be wandering about in there or something.’

  Owen took the green cap from Jez’s head and put it on his own. ‘Kit. This has stretched out of shape, because your brains have grown too big.’

  Jez started the engine. ‘Hop in the back. My dad’ll be back in twenty minutes. If he finds out I’ve been driving this he’ll kill me.’

  As the truck headed back to the farm, this time at a slower speed, Owen Westonby kept his eyes fixed on the trees behind them. For a moment, he thought he saw a shadow moving through the gloom. A tree swayed as if some massive body had pushed against it.

  ‘When I fell back there, I think I took a knock on the head,’ he called to Kit over the engine noise. ‘I’m sure it’s making me see things.’ He grinned at his pal, who still held on tight despite the slow speed. ‘OK. Use this to keep your brains warm.’ Owen plonked the green cap on to Kit’s head, and then settled down to enjoy what remained of the ride.

  FOUR

  On a cold November morning Tom Westonby stepped into the river despite there being snow on the ground. Here the river ran through a ravine. Winter had robbed the trees of their leaves so branches formed a mass of black spikes against the sky.

  Tom wore a thick-skinned ‘dry suit’, which differed from the traditional diver’s wetsuit. As the name suggested, the suit kept his body dry; what was more, he’d donned layers of thermal underwear – although deeply unattractive to behold, they did keep him warm. The river’s temperature stood just a few degrees above freezing. Without the dry suit the cold would kill him.

  After twisting the aqualung valve to start the flow of air, he pulled down his face mask before moving deeper into the river. Within seconds, the black water had risen over his head, and he swam from a world of light and sound into another world entirely – this was a silent, alien place. Strands of weed floating by. Fish ghosting from the darkness to stare at the intruder. He switched on the helmet light. A cone of yellow illuminated rocks carved by the current. These natural sculptures resembled strange creatures. More than once Tom Westonby found himself half-believing that they were the remains of ancient statues. They even seemed to possess faces with deep-set eyes.

  Tom allowed the current to carry him downstream. If he remained in the water for long enough, the flow would eventually take him to Whitby and the open ocean. As he drifted, he took photographs of different species of fish, or interesting features such as unusually deep chasm
s. An electronic instrument package attached to his belt automatically recorded his route, depth and speed. Tom had been hired by Yorkshire Woodland Heritage to survey the river that ran through the forest. They needed an accurate chart of the riverbed in order to assess if the channel was changing its course, or if there were archaeological remains, sunken boats, the bones of prehistoric animals or anything that might be of scientific importance.

  What especially interested Tom Westonby were the underwater caves. He’d found ten so far. To explore these tunnels running away into submerged cliffs was incredibly dangerous. Even so, he had ventured inside to shine his flashlight into these tomb-like caverns. Anyone seeing him would probably surmise that his scientific curiosity had been aroused by what he might find. But Tom Westonby knew exactly what he searched for when he swam through that liquid darkness. The man looked for his long-lost bride.

  FIVE

  The River Lepping carried Tom Westonby half a mile downstream. Six feet above him, the surface resembled crinkled silver foil. Ten feet beneath him, the riverbed consisted of pale sand and dark boulders that had been deposited here long ago when the Ice Age glaciers had finally melted. There were rumours that gold coins lay scattered at the bottom of the channel. When he saw a gold disc beneath him he swam down to retrieve it. Instead of being precious metal, the disc turned out to be nothing more than the metal cap from a shotgun cartridge. Not that finding gold would mean much to Tom Westonby – no, he searched for an infinitely more valuable treasure.

  His underwater survey had been straightforward this morning. During the forty minute journey the Diver’s Instrument Package, known simply as DIP, automatically collected GPS information and other readings much in the way an aircraft’s Black Box operated. On his return home, he’d connect the DIP to the computer by USB cable, and upload the data to the Yorkshire Woodland Heritage computer in Bradford.

  When he’d won the contract to do this work it meant he’d be his own boss. He liked it that way, because he needed to remain living here in the forest. With every day that passed his determination to bring Nicola Bekk home grew stronger and stronger. Some might call it obsession. He called it LOVE.

  A ping in his earpiece warned that he’d ten minutes of air left in the tank. Slowly, he ascended to the surface, hearing the rush of bubbles past his helmet. The PIP GPS would tell him where to restart the survey tomorrow; however, he liked to get a fix on his location with his own eyes. When he broke free of the water he saw trees overhanging the river. The bank to his right consisted of heaped-up boulders, so he chose the one to his left, which would allow him exit across a gentle slope of sand. A tree, with two upright branches forming a Y shape, grew at the water’s edge. That would provide a good marker for when he started the next leg of his survey.

  Tom waded through the shallows. As he did so, he pulled his face mask away, together with his helmet. He glimpsed his reflection in the shallows: a rubber-suited man, loaded with heavy air tanks and a weight belt. Now a twenty-minute walk faced him. Not that he minded. He loved the forest. What was more he sensed Nicola’s presence here. Often he’d get such a strong feeling that his lost bride could see him somehow.

  Once more he noticed his reflection. This time he focused on the face: a twenty-eight-year-old man with dark hair. Nicola had vanished from his life five years ago, and sorrow and grief had aged him. His eyes were dark and melancholy, and haunted by those memories from half a decade ago that began so happily when Nicola danced into his life. That precious time with Nicola had ended the night the village had been flooded, and tragedy and horror had changed his life for ever. Tom saw shadows gathering behind his eyes. Darkness was coming. He could feel it. As if storm clouds approached. He could almost smell terror in the air. The signs were present. Bad dreams every night. Perhaps some primeval instinct warned of danger. Whispers of death. Predictions of disaster.

  ‘Hey. Are you ever going to get those stinking bones of yours out of the river?’

  The voice wrenched him away from those morbid thoughts.

  He saw a figure on the river bank. ‘Owen? Are you allergic to school?’

  ‘I hoped for a “Great to see you, bro”.’

  Tom smiled. ‘Great to see you, bro.’ He stepped clear of the water.

  ‘You’re right, school is pissing me off.’

  ‘They’ll suspend you if you keep skipping days.’

  ‘I’m in the clear today,’ said the sixteen-year-old. ‘The heating’s busted so they sent us home.’ He flicked snow from a branch. ‘Isn’t winter wonderful? It frees us from the tyranny of school and mind-shagging boredom.’

  ‘So you came and found me.’ Tom unbuckled the aqualung. ‘I’m touched.’

  ‘Nah. I’m meeting Kit and Jez. I saw you floating face down in the river, so I thought I’d check if you were dead.’

  ‘I’m touched again.’

  ‘Touched in the head, more like. Who’d go scuba diving here in winter?’

  ‘It’s work, Owen. There’s bills to pay.’

  ‘Aye, and beer to be bought.’

  ‘You’re sounding more like Jez every day.’

  Owen held out his hand. Tom took it and allowed his younger brother to help him to a rock where he could sit down and prise off his flippers. Tom liked Owen. They got on well together, and Owen was one of the few people who could make Tom laugh again.

  Tom noticed a mark on the teenager’s face. ‘Someone took a swing at you?’

  ‘Uh, the bruise? You should see my back. It’s every shade of purple, and then some.’

  ‘Someone has attacked you?’ The thought of his brother being beaten up immediately fired up Tom’s anger.

  ‘No, I fell off the back of Jez’s truck.’

  ‘Damn it, Owen. Have you been riding with that idiot again?’

  ‘Hey, Jez is OK.’

  ‘No, he’s an IDIOT. Everyone knows he takes off in his dad’s truck and drives like a maniac. He’s going to get the attention of either the cops or a coffin-maker.’ He stood up. ‘Now you’re making me sound like Dad, but I don’t want you getting hurt.’

  ‘I’m fine. Westonbys are made out of iron and steel.’

  Tom pointed at Owen’s bruised face. ‘But we still break if we take a hard enough knock.’

  Tom wore thick rubber bootees so the woodland paths wouldn’t be a problem. Owen walked with him. He didn’t seem annoyed that Tom played the caring big brother role. He took Tom’s concern in his stride, just as he’d taken falling off the truck in his stride. Owen was easy-going … sometimes too much so. Tom didn’t want him drifting into a lifestyle of heavy drinking and drugs, which could become the fate of teenagers in rural villages. Often, the biggest danger in isolated communities is boredom.

  Owen suddenly paused. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’ He swung his rucksack from his shoulder. ‘It’s interesting, but I haven’t a clue what it is.’ He pulled out a steel canister about the size of a Thermos flask and handed it to Tom. The thing had been crushed almost flat.

  ‘Where did you get it from?’

  ‘I found it upstream.’

  Tom peered through a split in the casing. ‘There are wires and circuits inside.’

  ‘Do you think it fell off a plane?’

  ‘Could have done. It’s hit the ground hard … or something crushed it.’ Tom handed the canister back.

  ‘What do you think it’s for?’

  Tom shrugged. ‘Could be from a weather balloon. Are you going to hand it in?’

  ‘To the police? Nah. Kit’s good with this kind of thing.’

  ‘Kit Bolter?’

  ‘Yeah. Kit’ll find out what it’s for.’ Owen grinned. ‘Don’t you love a mystery?’

  ‘I used to.’

  Owen shook the device.

  ‘Make sure that thing doesn’t blow up in your face,’ Tom told him. ‘RAF jets practise bombing runs over the moor.’

  ‘A bomb? You really think so?’ Owen smartly tapped the canister against a tree. ‘Shit,
it’s a dud.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘Are you having dinner with us on Sunday?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘I’ve got a job checking a wharf downriver.’

  ‘You never come across to see Mum and Dad these days.’

  ‘Maybe next week.’ Tom continued walking as Owen pushed the canister back into the rucksack. ‘Let me know when you find out what your gizmo is.’ Although he didn’t really believe that the object contained explosive. If anything, it probably came from an old television or microwave oven. Some people aren’t ashamed at dumping crap in a national park.

  Owen laughed. ‘If you hear a loud bang a couple of hours from now you’ll know exactly what it is.’

  Before going their separate ways Owen looked Tom up and down and shook his head. ‘You know, anyone bumping into you out here is going to be scared witless. When they see you dressed in a black rubber suit they’ll think you’re either some kind of monster or nuts.’

  Tom tried to sound light-hearted. ‘There are more frightening things than me out here, Owen.’

  Owen laughed, taking the comment as a joke. ‘Yeah, monsters galore. See you later, Tom.’

  ‘See you later, Owen.’

  Tom Westonby headed in the direction of home. As he walked he wondered what on earth he could do next in his search for Nicola Bekk.

  SIX

  Tom Westonby switched on the TV as he warmed up some chicken soup for lunch.

  Local news covered a major fraud case in Sheffield. A moment later, the scene changed to one of Whitby harbour. The newsreader spoke over stock footage of boats and a view of the famous swing bridge: ‘In Whitby, the mystery of the woman who lost her memory, and whose boyfriend is currently missing, has yet to be solved. Local police found Rose Dawson wandering near the harbour in the early hours of Friday morning last week. Despite the cold weather, Miss Dawson was dressed only in a T-shirt and jeans. She had a cast on one leg as a result of breaking a bone in a recent accident. Miss Dawson is unable to remember how she came to be in Whitby or tell the police anything about the whereabouts of her boyfriend, Mr John Cantley. Anyone having information about the couple is asked to contact Whitby police.’