Collected Stories (27 page)

***

One bright morning in early March the total population of the graveyard cottage was increased by one. The newly risen sun peeped in through the neatly curtained windows and gazed down upon what, it is to be hoped, was the first baby werevamp. It was like all newly born infants, small, wrinkled, extremely ugly, and favoured its mother in so far as it had been born with two prominent eye-teeth. Instead of crying, it made a harsh hissing sound, not unlike that of an infant king-cobra, and was apt to bite anything that moved.

“Isn’t he sweet?” Carola sighed, then waved a finger at her offspring, who promptly curled back an upper lip and made a hissing snarl. “Yes he is... he’s a sweet ’ickle diddums... he’s Mummy’s ’ickle diddums...”

“I think he’s going to be awfully clever,” George stated after a while. “What with that broad forehead and those dark eyes, one can see there is a great potential for intelligence. He’s got your mouth, darling.”

“Not yet he hasn’t,” Carola retorted, “but he soon will have', if I’m not careful. I suppose he’s in his humvamp period now; but when the moon is full, he’ll have sweet little hairy talons, and a dinky-winky little tail.”

Events proved her to be absolutely correct. The Reverend John Cole allowed several weeks to pass before he made an official call on the young parents. During this time he reinforced his courage, of which it must be confessed he had an abundance; sought advice from his superiors, who were not at all helpful; and tried to convince anyone who would listen of the danger in their midst. His congregation shrank, people crossed the road whenever he came into view, and he was constantly badgered by a wretched little boy, who poured out a torrent of nauseating information. But at last the vicar was as ready for the fatal encounter as he ever would be, and so, armed with a crucifix, faith, and a small bottle of whisky, he went forth to do battle. From his bedroom window that overlooked the vicarage, Willie Mitcham watched the black figure as it trudged along the road. He flung the window open and shouted: “Yer daft coot. It’s a full moon.”

No one answered Mr. Cole’s thunderous assault on the front door. This was not surprising, as Carola was paying Mrs. Cole another visit, and George was chasing a very disturbed sheep across a stretch of open moorland. Baby had not yet reached the age when answering doors would be numbered among his accomplishments. At last the reverend gentleman opened the door and, after crossing himself with great fervour, entered the cottage.

He found himself in the living-room, a cosy little den with whitewashed walls, two ancient chairs, a folding table, and some very nice rugs on the floor. There was also a banked-up fire, and a beautiful old ceiling oil-lamp that George had cleverly adapted for electricity. Mr. Cole called out: “Anyone there?” and, receiving no answer, sank down into one of the chairs to wait. Presently, the chair being comfortable, the room warm, the clergyman felt his caution dissolve into a hazy atmosphere of well-being. His head nodded, his eyelids flickered, his mouth fell open and, in no time at all, a series of gentle snores filled the room with their even cadence.

It is right to say Mr. Cole fell asleep reluctantly, and while he slept he displayed a certain amount of dignity. But he awoke with a shriek and began to thresh about in a most undignified manner. There was a searing pain in his right ankle, and when he moved something soft and rather heavy flopped over his right foot and at the same time made a strange hissing sound. The vicar screamed again and kicked out with all his strength, and that which clung to his ankle went hurling across the room and landed on a rug near the window. It hissed, yelped; then turning over, began to crawl back towards the near prostrate clergyman. He tried to close his eyes, but they insisted on remaining open and so permitted him to see something that a person with a depraved sense of humour might have called a baby. A tiny, little white—oh, so white—face, which had two microscopic fangs jutting out over the lower lip. But for the rest it was very hairy; had two wee claws, and a proudly erect, minute tail, that was, at this particular moment in time lashing angrily from side to side. Its little hind legs acted as projectors and enabled the hair-covered torso to leap along at quite an amazing speed. There was also a smear of Mr. Cole’s blood round the mouth; and the eyes held an expression that suggested the ecclesiastical fluid was appealing to the taste-buds, and their owner could hardly wait to get back to the fount of nourishment.

Mr. Cole released three long, drawn-out screams, then, remembering that legs have a decided and basic purpose, leaped for the door. It was truly an awe-inspiring sight to see a portly clergyman, who had more than reached the years of discretion, running between graves, leaping over tombstones, and sprinting along paths. Baby-werevamp on his hind legs and looked as wistfully as his visage permitted the swiftly retreating cleric. After a while baby set up a prolonged howl, and thumped the floor with clenched claws. His distress was understandable. He had just seen a well-filled feeding bottle go running out of the door.

***

Willie Mitcham had at last got through. One of the stupid, blind, not to mention thick-headed adults had been finally shocked into seeing the light. When Willie found the Reverend John Cole entangled in a hawthorn bush, he also stumbled on a man who was willing to listen to advice from any source. He had also retreated from the frontiers of sanity, and was therefore in a position to be driven, rather than to command.

“I saw ’im.” Willie was possibly the happiest boy in the world at that moment. “I saw ’im with his ’orrible fangs and he went leaping towards the moors.”

Mr. Cole said, “Ah!” and began to count his fingers.

“And I saw ’er,” Willie went on. “She went to your house and drifted up to the main bedroom window. Just like in the film
Mark of the Vampire
.

“Destroy all evil,” the Reverend Cole shouted. “Root it out. Cut into...”

“Its ’eart,” Willie breathed. “The way to kill a vampire is drive a stake through its ’eart. And a werewolf must be shot with a silver bullet fired by ’im who had only thought about sin.”

“From what authority do you quote this information?” the vicar demanded.

“Me ’orror comics,” Willie explained. “They give all the details, and if you go and see the
Vampire of ’Ackney Wick
, you’ll see a ’oly father cut off the vampire’s ’ead and put a sprig of garlic in its mouth.”

“Where are these documents?” the clergyman enquired.

Mr. and Mrs. Mitcham were surprised and perhaps a little alarmed when their small son conducted the vicar through the kitchen and, after a perfunctory “It’s all right, Mum, parson wants to see me ’orror comics,” led the frozen-faced clergyman upstairs to the attic.

It was there that Mr. Cole’s education was completed. Assisted by lurid pictures and sensational text, he learned of the conception, habits, hobbies, and disposal procedures of vampires, werewolves, and other breathing or non-breathing creatures that had attended the same school.

“Where do we get...?” he began.

“A tent peg and Mum’s coal ’ammer will do fine.” Willie was quick to give expert advice.

“But a silver bullet.” The vicar shook his head. “I cannot believe there is a great demand...” “Two of Grandad’s silver collar studs melted down with a soldering iron, and a cartridge from Dad’s old .22 rifle. Mr. Cole, please say we can do it. I promise never to miss Sunday school again, if you’ll say we can do it.”

The Reverend John Cole did not consider the problem very long. A bite from a baby werevamp is a great decision maker.

“Yes,” he nodded, “we have been chosen. Let us gird up our loins, gather the sinews of battle, and go forth to destroy the evil ones.”

“Cool.” Willie nodded vigorously. “All that blood. Can I cut ’er ’ead off?”

If anyone had been taking the air at two o’clock next morning, they might have seen an interesting sight. A large clergyman, armed with a crucifix and a coal hammer, was creeping across the churchyard, followed by a small boy with a tent peg in one hand and a light hunting rifle in the other.

They came to the cottage and Mr. Cole first turned the handle, then pushed the door open with his crucifix. The room beyond was warm and cosy; firelight painted a dancing pattern on the ceiling, brass lamp twinkled and glittered like a suspended star, and it was as though a brightly designed nest had been carved out of the surrounding darkness. John Cole strode into the room like a black marble angel of doom and, raising his crucifix, bellowed, “I have come to drive out the iniquity, burn out the sin. For, thus saith the Lord, cursed be you who hanker after darkness.”

There was a sigh, a whimper—maybe a hissing whimper. Carola was crouched in one corner, her face whiter than a slab of snow in moonlight, her eyes dark-pools of terror, her lips deep, deep red, as they had been brought to life by a million, blood-tinted kisses, and her hands were pale ghost-moths, beating out their life against the wall of intolerance. The vicar lowered his cross and the whimper grew up and became a cry of despair.

“Why?”

“Where is the foul babe that did bite my ankle?” Carola’s staring eyes never left the crucifix towering over her. “I took him... took him... to his grandmother.”

“There is more of your kind? Are you legion? Has the devil’s spawn been hatched?”

“We are on the verge of extinction.”

The soul of the Reverend John Cole rejoiced when he saw the deep terror in the lovely eyes, and he tasted the fruits of true happiness when she shrieked. He bunched the front of her dress up between trembling fingers and jerked her first upright, then down across the table. She made a little hissing sound; an instinctive token of defiance, and for a moment the delicate ivory fangs were bared and nipped the clergyman’s hand, but that was all. There was no savage fight for existence, no calling on the dark gods; just a token resistance, the shedding of a tiny dribble of blood, then complete surrender. She lay back across the table, her long, black hair brushing the floor, as though this were the inevitable conclusion from which she had been too long withheld. The vicar placed the tip of the tent peg over her heart, and taking the coal hammer from the overjoyed Willie, shouted the traditional words.

“Get thee to hell. Burn for ever and a day. May thy foul carcase be food for jackals, and thy blood drink for pariah dogs.”

The first blow sent the tent peg in three or four inches, and the sound of a snapping rib grated on the clergyman’s ear, so that for a moment he turned his head aside in revulsion. Then, as though alarmed lest his resolve weaken, he struck again, and the blood rose up in a scarlet fountain; a cascade of dancing rubies, each one reflecting the room with its starlike lamp, and the dripping, drenched face of a man with a raised coal hammer. The hammer, like the mailed hand of fate, fell again, and the ruby fountain sank low, then collapsed into a weakly gushing pool. Carola released her life in one long, drawn-out sigh, then became a black and white study in still life.

“You gotta cut ’er ’ead off,” Willie screamed.

“Ain’t no good, unless you cut ’er ’ead off and put a sprig of garlic in ’er mouth.”

But Mr. Cole had, at least temporarily, had a surfeit of blood. It matted his hair, clogged his eyes, salted his mouth, drenched his clothes from neck to waist, and transformed his hands into scarlet claws.

Willie was fumbling in his jacket pocket.

“I’ve got me mum’s bread knife here, somewhere. Should go through ’er neck a treat.”

The reverend gentleman wiped a film of red from his eyes and then daintily shook his fingers.

“Truly is it said a little child shall lead them. Had I been more mindful of the Lord’s business, I would have brought me a tenon saw.”

He was not more than half way through his appointed task, when the door was flung back and George entered. He was on the turn. He was either about to “become,” or return to “as was.” His silhouette filled the moonlit doorway, and he became still; a black menace that was no less dangerous because it did not move. Then he glided across the room, round the table and the Reverend John Cole retreated before him.

George gathered up the mutilated remains of his beloved, then raised agony-filled eyes.

“We loved—she and I. Surely, that should have forgiven us much. Death we would have welcomed—for what is death, but a glorious reward for having to live. But this...”

He pointed to the jutting tent peg, the halfsevered head, then looked up questioninglv at the clergyman. Then the Reverend John Cole took up his cross and, holding it before him, he called out in a voice that had been made harsh by the dust of centuries.

“I am Alpha and Omega, saith the Lord, and into the pit which in before the beginning and after the end shall ye be cast. For you and your kind are a stench and an abomination, and whatever evil is done unto you shall be deemed good in my sight.” The face of George Hardcastle became like an effigy carved from rock. Then it seemed to shimmer, the lines dissolved and ran one into the other; the hairline advanced, while the eyes retreated into deep sockets, and the jaw and nose merged and slithered into a long, pointed snout. The werewolf dropped the mangled remains of its mate and advanced upon her killer.

“Satanus Avaunt.”

The Reverend Cole thrust his crucifix forward as though it were a weapon of offence, only to have it wrenched from his grasp and broken by a quick jerk of hair-covered wrists. The werewolf tossed the pieces to one side, then with a howl leaped forward and buried his long fangs into the vicar’s shoulder.

The two locked figures—one representing good, the other evil—swayed back and forth in the lamplight, and there was no room in either hate-fear-filled brain for the image of one small boy, armed with a rifle. The sharp little cracking sound could barely be heard above the grunting, snarling battle that was being raged near the hanging brass lamp, but the result was soon apparent. The werewolf shrieked, before twisting round and staring at the exuberant Willie, as though in dumb reproach. Then it crashed to the floor. When the clergyman had recovered to look down, he saw the dead face of George Hardcastle, and had he been a little to the right of the sanity frontier, there might well have been terrible doubts.