“That’s what she said ..?” Lassie blinked and frowned. “She’ll help
us?”
“I know! Crazy, huh? We were
scared of her an’ she’s on our side. She’ll
keep the others off our backs so long as we give the weedy guy a good
show. No really wild stuff, Skip.”
“Aw, man! Where’s the fun?”
“We can scare him but not too
much. We have to let him believe he’s
investigating us. I said you’d go along
with it. Don’t let me down, guys. Please.
I have this feeling that .. we break these rules, she won’t be on our
side anymore.”
“What’s in it for us?” Lassie
inquired.
“Beyond the chance to .. be ghosts for
one night? To have fun? The weedy guy will tell me – us, if you’re
interested as well – what it’s like to be in TV. And .. if we want, she’ll help us go on. She said we can do whatever we want on the
other side. It isn’t scary at all. But, you screw her over, that’s our help
down the toilet. We have to do very
little, just be ourselves, and we could win the jackpot. We foul up, we lose a lot more.”
He watched them.
Lassie looked at Skippy. “What d’you think?”
“It’s better than being stuck in the
storeroom all night. Okay,” he nodded.
“Count me in,” Lassie agreed.
“One condition, guys.”
“Here we go. Always a catch,” Skippy muttered.
“No cakes.”
“Aw, man!”
*****
Merlin looked at them. Derek’s eyelids were drooping. Alex was more asleep than awake. Nick was sitting hunched with weariness and
staring blindly out the window at the snow.
Rachel was fading fast. Bert, on
the other hand, looked reasonably alert.
She eased forward. “Hey, you’re all dropping where you
sit. It’s eleven thirty. Get some sleep.”
“But – ” Derek began, rousing himself.
“But what?” Merlin shook her
head. “Derek, I’m fresh. And Bert seems okay. We’ll stand the watch. Or .. don’t you trust us to keep you
unmolested?”
Four sets of tired eyes drifted onto
Bert’s thin face. They trusted her, now
they just had to decide if Bert had it in him.
“I’m working for the Luna Foundation
tonight,” Bert declared. “I’ve been
briefed on my duties. What to ask if I
see ’em again. As Alex said, they chose
me once, they could do it again. I’m
not scared, Derek. Please, let me
help. I’ve got Peri with me.”
“A minor character but an important
one,” she winked.
“If you don’t get some sleep, you
could have an accident tomorrow. We
could all end up back here .. forever,” Bert pointed out. “Watching nothing but sport on TV.”
“I don’t have a problem with that,”
Nick yawned.
“I do. I’m into drama, remember?”
Nick yielded the argument .. for
now. He was too tired to say anything
more. In the morning, however, he
resolved to get to the heart of this particularly thorny little matter.
“All right,” Derek agreed. “It’s a valid point .. about not repeating
the same mistake,” he added quickly, not wanting to be drawn into any further
debate on the merits of drama versus sport.
“Peri, I leave you in charge.
Wake me in .. three hours.”
“Me too,” Nick ordered.
“You can let me sleep thru,” Alex
smiled. “I’m not as tough as the guys.”
They each chose a booth and lay down,
using coats as blankets and a crooked arm for a pillow. Within a handful of minutes, they were well
under.
“We’ll sit down there,” Merlin said,
indicating the far end of the diner.
Bert hurried along just behind her,
like a faithful hound. “You think they
will choose me again?”
“Oh, anything’s possible, Bert,” she
replied. “You’d be surprised at how
often the impossible takes place. There
are miracles going on all the time.”
They sat in another booth, opposite
each other, and lapsed into the silence so typical of two people at that time
of the night. Morning seemed an
eternity away. The night stretched
long, filled with a bitter chill and soft feathery white.
“Will you wake them?”
“Nah.” She lit a cigarette and shook her head. “Not if they’re driving later.
They’ll need to be alert an’ three hours after a day like today isn’t
enough.”
“Won’t he shout?” Bert frowned.
“I expect so but it won’t
matter.” Merlin angled her head. “If I did it deliberately just to be ..
nasty, I’d deserve to be shouted at and Derek would feel justified in shouting. But I’m not. I’m ignoring Derek’s order because it’s what he says every
time. I know it, and so does he. The guy’s very dedicated, Bert. He puts himself out there for his people
even when he’s tired or under a whole lotta stress. Sometimes, yeah, it’s the right decision and, in those instances,
I won’t fight with him. This time, it
isn’t. We have ghosts here. They’re harmless. Derek doesn’t need to be here, none of ’em do. We can handle this.”
He nodded but not in a way that said
he was convinced.
“We can handle this, at least until daybreak,” Merlin insisted.
Bert nodded again. “It’s just .. well, I’m kinda programmed to
obey orders. If I don’t, I could lose
my job. And .. Derek is .. inspiring. You all are, in different ways. I feel so ashamed of the way I just rolled
in an’ treated everyone.”
“You were obeying orders.”
“Sure, but … ”
“You didn’t wanna lose your job.”
“I still don’t. I believe in this idea. There is
a market for shows like Spirits - The Inheritance. It has so much potential, now more than ever. I have learned so much since I walked thru
that door. My God, I’ve seen a ghost! It scared me! It scared
me at the time an’ it scared me when Alex explained. All my ideas have been overturned. I feel like .. I’ve got a new start. New horizons. I can put so
much more into the show now. And, by
the time all this has filtered an’ settled, it’ll be more again. The characters will be three-dimensional,
real, and not stereotypes. I just have
to persuade my bosses at Quadrangle to back me.”
“Tonight’s events should give you the
words to paint a very intriguing picture,” she remarked.
“For sure! I’m energized again. For
the last few days, I’ve felt sidelined.
I was slowing down, losing my inspiration, thinking I’d made a mistake
with the whole project. I mean, I’ve
visited several places and, yeah, I knew why I was there but .. it was
boring. I can’t work anything from
boring, Peri! There’s been no romance
like in The Ghost And Mrs Muir. No
comedy like in Blithe Spirit, or Caspar.
No fabulous effects like in the Poltergeist movie. But now, here, in this diner of all places,
and in a snowstorm .. I’ve gotten everything I wanted. There are
such things as ghosts. Wow! Just .. saying that is a complete departure
for me. Convincing my bosses, that’s a
different question, but I’ll know the
truth even if they think I’m a total basket case.”
Bert fell silent for a moment. “But the important thing I’ve learned
tonight is that every ghost story has a sad beginning. People have to die first. You don’t get ghosts when people die of old
age, in their sleep, peacefully, all the loose ends tidied away. There has to be .. some kind of disaster or
catastrophe. It isn’t romantic or funny. I just hope I can get the writers to do
justice to that fact.”
“I’m sure you will. If you tell them what you’ve just told me ..
they have to see it your way.”
“I hope so. I really do. Can I ask
you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Does the Luna Foundation really hunt
leprechauns?”
Merlin hesitated. “Who told you they did?”
“Derek an’ Nick.”
She shrugged. “Probably before my time. It certainly investigates reports of
elementals.”
“And what about educating poltergeists
to fix automobile engines?”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Alex,” Bert replied.
“If you find what they like doing,
it’s possible to coax them to give their services.”
“And incubuses?”
“Incubi ..? Sure. Elementals again.”
“So those stories they told me earlier
are all real?”
“I was asleep, Bert. I didn’t hear them but they have the ring of
truth about them.”
“Can you tell me any stories?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll get some coffee,” he said,
eagerly scrambling up.
*****
Skippy pulled back from the wall, his
dark brown eyes gleaming in the dim light from the bare, single overhead
bulb. “Guys, she’s gonna tell a story.”
Lassie’s face fell. “I really wanna hear it. If we keep real quiet, do you think she’ll
let us listen?”
“We got a show to put on,” Flipper
pointed out.
“And we got all night to do it. Please?” Lassie begged. “Flip, tomorrow .. yeah, we may find
ourselves in some wonderful new place but, the way our luck has run, chances
are good that we’ll still be here an’ facing another twenty years of the last
twenty years. A re-run. We need something to .. keep us going. Brain food.
Things to talk about when we’re alone.
C’mon, is it so much to ask?”
He halted. “No. No, it isn’t. And I think she’ll let us .. provided we
stay quiet.”
Together, they drifted thru the wall.
*****
Bert sat down again. “I’ve put on a fresh pot, in case the others
wake up.”
Merlin was staring into the middle
distance and he twisted round to look over his shoulder. There was nothing there. She, however, could see all three ghosts. Flipper, she recognized. The other guy with the shoulder length dark
blond hair and brown eyes must be Skippy.
The girl, as yet, remained nameless.
She was very young, a sun-kissed brunette with hazel eyes, slim and with
an air of sad resignation about her.
The three were in the next booth, kneeling on the bench seat and
watching Merlin in turn.
“Something wrong?” Bert asked.
“No.
Not at all. Just thinking which
story to tell you. What would you like
to hear?”
Bert frowned. “Are vampires real? I mean .. could Buffy be based on actual
fact? Is its success due to some ..
deep rooted subconscious knowledge that it’s right to be afraid of these
creatures?”
“I don’t know about that, Bert, but
vampires do exist.”
“They do?” he whispered, his eyes
widening.
“Sure. There are many different kinds, some are .. regular men an’
women. There are emotional or spiritual
vampires, the kind who feed on the emotional and spiritual energy of their
victims. You must have met them. The people who put others down, make them
feel bad an’ then they feel good. Not
your average neck biter. Anyone in big
business can become a vampire like that.
But they aren’t the kind you wanna hear about, are they? There are vampires who feed on a victim’s
physical energy. It’s like .. their
batteries are constantly draining so they need a top up from others. That kind isn’t a regular flesh an’ blood
creature, it’s more an elemental. They
get called vampires because of the way they have to hunt an’ feed.”
“Oh, I remember! There was an X File with a guy who was a fat
vampire. I don’t mean he was
overweight, he sucked the fat from his victims.”
“Aren’t they called cosmetic
surgeons?” Merlin frowned.
“C’mon, be serious,” he scolded. “His victims died. And it’s TV. It isn’t
meant to be real.”
“Then why go to all this effort to get
accurate research?” she asked. “Isn’t
The X Files serious drama?”
“Yeah and this was a serious episode
.. but vampires who suck fat don’t exist.”
“Until tonight, you would’ve said the
same thing about ghosts.”
Bert glared at her then sat back. “Are there really fat sucking vampires?”
“Bert, there are more weird an’
wonderful things in this world than the most brilliant creative writer could
imagine. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.”
“Because you’ve looked for them.”
“S’right.”
“But there are no mutant humans, are
there? No ordinary looking people with
super special powers.”
“Of course not,” she responded. “That would be pushing weird an’ wonderful
just too far.”
“Okay. A vampire story,” Bert decided.
“The regular kind, like in Buffy.”
Merlin sipped her coffee and lit a
cigarette. Her audience, all four of
them, settled back to listen.
“Once upon a time, there was – ”
“Is this real?” Bert cut in. “Only you started it with once upon a time.”
“All right, I’ll start it another
way. Back in the Thirties, just outside
San Rafael, people were suffering from an outbreak of anemia. The doctors were baffled. They prescribed iron tablets – standard
treatment – but their patients weren’t getting better. They were getting worse. Then it became more than just anemia and its
associated problems of tiredness an’ lack of energy. Blood pressure was low.
They started passing out at any kind of activity. Very thirsty too. Losing weight but not getting thinner. One by one, they had to go to the hospital and they only started
to improve with blood transfusions. The
lost weight was down to a reduced quantity of blood in their bodies. They were like people who’d been in a really
bad accident .. yet there were no wounds such as you’d find associated with
such severe trauma. Slowly, they got
better and were released only to get worse again. One doctor made the remark that, if he didn’t know better, he’d
say they were being used by vampires.
But, of course, he did know
better so he continued looking for another explanation. Fortunately, his remark was overheard, was
repeated, several times, and it came at last to the attention of .. well, I
guess you could say the local vampire slayer.”
Bert eased forward. “Not a sixteen year old girl in High School
..?”
“No.
A thirty nine year old man whose nickname was Ox because he was as
strong as one. He had a wife and a
twelve year old son called Peregrine. He
left them at home and drove up to San Rafael all on his own and thus began the
Great Showdown of Thirty One.”
“Wow … ” Lassie whispered, resting her
chin in her hands.
“Y’know a group of lions is called a
pride? Well, a collection of vampires
is called a nest. Nests are actually
quite rare because the vampire is a solitary creature. He or she doesn’t much like similar company
because the food has to be shared. And
they travel around a lot. They don’t
like the sun an’ only come out at night.
They are incredibly charismatic.
Their voices can hypnotize, not to put you into a trance as such, it’s
more to make you very relaxed and amenable to suggestion. Vampires rarely kill. Dead food is no use to them. Similarly, they rarely turn others into vampires
because that just creates competition.
The usual scenario is a lone vampire, living somewhere in a medium sized
town or a big city, feeding regularly an’ then moving on before anyone notices
that they’re not getting any older. A
group of humans suffering from anemia isn’t likely to be noticed. But, sometimes, they come together an’ form
a nest. And that’s when havoc breaks
out. It’s like great white sharks. A lone killer, feeding on seals or fish or
whatever, isn’t really noticed. A group
of great whites feeding on a whale carcass .. feeding frenzy. They lose control .. unless the nest is like
this one was. This nest was formed with
young vampires .. ten, fifteen years since they were turned .. congregating
around one much older vampire. We’re
talking .. a hundred years minimum, often a lot more. He or she directs them but, while the hold over them is total,
the control isn’t so great. So, when a
town becomes infected with a nest, people get very sick which is due to the
feeding frenzy but they don’t die which comes down to the hold over them. Making sense?”
Bert nodded. “And because so many people are getting sick .. it’s noticed.”
“Right. So, in one way, nests are a good development because people
realize they have a big problem.”
“Whoa. The Lost Boys.”
“I like that movie!” Merlin
grinned. “That’s exactly the kinda
thing which happens. So Ox drove up to
San Rafael to look into the reports of a lot of sick people. He had his suspicions and his sense of
suspicion was a finely tuned instrument.
Getting into the hospital to examine these victims was difficult so he
tracked down some who had been released.
Ox had a certain way with him and people felt safe talking with
him. They let him examine them.”
“They all wore scarves,” Bert said.
“No, they didn’t. That’s why the doctor who made the original
crack was joking. And, back in the
Thirties, well, the Count Dracula movies hadn’t been made. Buffy hadn’t even been imagined. The only vampire horror movie was, I think,
Nosferatu, that silent, black an’ white movie.
They may have read Bram Stoker’s book but, really, vampires weren’t
everyday considerations – another reason why nests could be both so successful
an’ so devastating. Ox discovered the
puncture wounds on the forearm near to the inner elbow, and on the leg, near to
the ankle. Some were old an’
healing. Some were obviously
fresh. When he asked how they’d gotten
them, they couldn’t remember. That was
a common reply. These were people in
their middle twenties up to late fifties.
Vampires rarely go for the young, unless they’re starving, nor do they
attack the old because their blood is thin an’ tastes funny. They like adults, in good health, with good
recuperative powers. They can provide
food for a long, long time.”
Skippy leaned forward too, caught in
the unwinding story.
“What did Ox do?” Bert whispered.
“He didn’t hide. He took a room in a hotel and he walked
around, visiting the bars. Generally,
he put himself on show. Here I am, he said
without saying, a fit, healthy, strong as an ox, right age human male, come get
me.”
“An’ did they?”
“It took a few days. Ox’s sense of suspicion was very sharp, but
so is a vampire’s. People who just turn
up, they ask why. Vampire hunters have
been around almost as long as vampires so they are cautious of strangers. Have you ever seen an ox plowing a field?”
“No.
Well, on TV,” Bert replied.
“First thing you see is the
strength. Second thing .. an’ you don’t
actually see it, it’s more an impression, is that they are very patient. They could go on plowing that field
forever. Ox lived up to his name in
both ways. He was like a rock. He kept to the same patterns, he did nothing
to spook anyone. He just waited. An’, eventually, their suspicion turned into
acceptance, an’ then into hunger. One
night, apparently on his way back to his hotel, he was ambushed.”
Bert’s eyes were wide.
“Vampires don’t feed in public. Even a starving vampire will take its victim
somewhere quiet where they won’t be disturbed.
Public places are .. public.
Someone could walk by an’ raise the alarm. So Ox was gently led back to the nest. An’ that’s where he found out just how bad the situation was
because it was there that he first saw just how many were in the nest.”
“How many?”
“Around twelve, plus their leader.”
“And that’s when he pulled out a stake
an’ drove it thru the leader’s heart,” Bert declared.
Merlin shook her head. “No, he didn’t do that. He couldn’t.”
“He couldn’t? Why?” Bert demanded. “In all the movies an’ TV shows, and even in
popular fiction, you kill vamps with a stake thru the heart. Or fire.
Beheading. Holy water, if you
have enough of it. Yet .. he
couldn’t? Didn’t he have any of those
things?”
“He had the weapons. He was forbidden to act. These vampires had only been feeding. No one had died. And, more importantly to Ox, no one had been turned. Feeding is an act of survival. We all feed. No one comes to kill us,
do they?”
Bert stared at her. “But .. people were getting sick.”
“People have gotten sick all thru
history. It’s unfortunate but a fact of
life. The black rats which carried the
bubonic plague and decimated the population of Europe .. way back whenever it was. Yeah, it was nasty but the rats didn’t hold
a conference an’ say we should do this.
The rats did what rats do, and the rest was unfortunate. Similarly with these vampires. They were doing what vampires do – surviving. And survival is not evil.”
“So .. what did Ox hope to accomplish
there?”
“He wanted to talk with them. Get them to change their attitude. Move on.
Split up. Try to hold down a
job,” Merlin shrugged.
“Turn them into respectable members of
society?” Bert exclaimed. “But they’re
vampires!”
“An’ Angel isn’t a detective? What about Forever Knight? He was a cop working the night shift. I’ve seen a movie on late night TV where the
doctor in the local ER at night was a vampire.”
“But, at the risk of repeating myself,
that’s TV.”
“Bert .. it isn’t unknown in the real
world, okay? In fact, hospitals are
good places for them to work. Who
misses the occasional unit of O positive, huh?”
“My God .. that’s .. unbelievable!”
“Sometimes the truth is. But, anyway, back to Ox – ”
“I will definitely think twice about
going to the hospital next time I have to.
And I will sleep during the day while I’m in there. Come night, I will be wide awake. No one’s gonna take a bite outta me.”
“They don’t have to. Hospitals have lots of blood. It’s like a convenience store for them. Vampires have wised up to the fact that it’s
the twenty first century. But, back to
Ox .. unless you have something else to say?”
“No.
What did Ox do?”
“There he was, in the nest, surrounded
by all the vampires. They stood in a big ring with Ox in the middle. They were laughing, really laid back. Ox pretended not to know what they
were. He said that it was very nice of
them to invite a stranger in town back to their party. And they laughed harder, saying he was the
guest of honor. He asked what they
meant by that .. and that’s when they showed their teeth. But Ox just nodded his head and said he’d
figured as much. At that point, the
level of party spirit dropped very quickly and a small argument broke out with
one faction saying I told you so an’ the other denying it. It happens a lot when vampires get together
in groups. Remember, they’re usually
solitary people. Together, they
argue. They can’t help it, it’s how
they are. It’s a great tactic, used
thru history to wonderful effect – divide an’ conquer. If this had just been an ordinary group, Ox
could probably have said something at that point and made good his escape or it
would have become a bloodbath, but they weren’t an ordinary group. They had a leader. And he was older, an’ a lot more cunning. He drifted forward from the shadows an’ the
younger ones fell silent, moved apart to let him thru. Ox faced him bravely.”
“He got killed, didn’t he?” Bert
whispered.
“He tried to reason with the
leader. He said that, as no one had
died, there wasn’t really anything he could do to stop them. But then he said he was a special kinda guy
and, if the feeding went on, others would come an’ they wouldn’t be so
understanding.”
Bert was shaking his head. “The guy was either an idiot or a wuss. How did he ever expect to persuade the
leader? The leader was centuries
old. He’d survived however many
attempts to kill him, not to mention all the history he’d lived thru.”
“That’s why Ox knew he stood a better
chance with the leader than with the younger ones. The kids .. they were still living the high life. They thought they were cool. But the leader .. he had lived thru history. A
lot of it. He had survived attempts to
kill him .. or rather to end his existence seeing as he was already dead. And
he had control over the others. If he
told them to move on, split up, get a job, they’d grumble but they’d do
it. However, dealing with the leader
was a lot more intense. One slip, one
false move or wrong word … Ox knew he
was walking a very fine line. A lot of
futures depended on him because the other thing he wasn’t allowed to do was
tempt them to cross the line.”
“What does that mean?” Skippy
whispered to Lassie who shook her head an’ shrugged quickly.
“Excuse me?” Bert queried.
“Ox couldn’t, not now he was in the
nest, strut around, stretching his neck an’ bragging about how good his blood
was. He couldn’t provoke them into an
attack. He could walk around the
streets inviting approach and contact, an’ an escort back to the nest but, once
there, he had to let them choose what to do.
In the interim, he told their leader that, really, it would be the
wisest thing they could do if they moved on to another town, split up into
smaller groups or as individuals, an’ to try to fit in with society. No one could damn them for doing that. They’d be left alone to survive as best they
could.”
“What did they say to that?” Bert
asked.
“The younger ones thought it was very
funny. After all, they were cool. Ordinary people worked an’ then they got to
retire. These vampires were immortal. If they got a job, they’d never get to
retire. What was fair about that? The leader, though, was silent. Maybe he saw the sense in Ox’s words. Technology was taking over. Communication was improving every day. In ages past, news of things like vampires
traveled slowly, taking hours, days to reach the next town. Now, it could be all over the state in
minutes. Their safe anonymity was
disappearing. They might be immortal
but they weren’t immune to change.”
“He bought the idea?” Bert gasped.
“Yeah, he did. He told the others that, within three days,
they all had to be gone. They couldn’t
travel together. They could leave in twos
an’ threes but then they had to separate.
They had to find ways to adapt, to fit in, and then they would be safe.”
“That’s incredible! I mean, Angel has a soul so he’s good. But to actually get real life vamps to adapt
to their society .. that’s amazing!”
“Truth is often stranger than
fiction,” Merlin remarked.
“So .. they let Ox go an’ everyone
lived happy ever after, most of them for a very long time.”
“Not quite,” Merlin commented and
paused to light another cigarette. “The
leader gave out his orders and the others .. pretty much decided he’d totally
lost it. They said that, maybe, he’d
had enough of being a free spirit an’ living off others but they’d only just
gotten started an’ there was no way they were gonna go back to being regular
Joes stacking shelves in grocery stores or pumping gas or any other kinda
boring job. He could do it if he wanted
but they were happy right where they were.
Remember that good tactic I told you about?”
“Uh huh,” Bert nodded.
“It worked again. The leader got very angry with them, saying
they were being dumb an’ shortsighted, that they should thank Ox for giving
them this advice. The others responded
by saying Ox was a jerk, he’d only given the .. advice to save his own
neck. He was good for nothing except as
supper .. an’ they were hungry. The
leader said they weren’t to feed on him, that he would personally protect Ox if
they tried.”
She paused again. “That divided ’em even more. The leader was important to them, even if,
at that moment, they were arguing with him.
Vampires are .. basically old fashioned. Their attitudes are dated, they seem to be fixed in the time they
died an’ came back. The older ones ..
are like your grandparents – they don’t understand the way young people are an’
they detest the lack of manners. Yet
the young ones have a vast amount of respect for the older ones because they’ve
seen so much. There’s an inherent
hierarchy which somehow goes to the bone an’ it’s all based on age.”
“God, yes, that is so true in my
profession,” Bert muttered.
“Well, in this case, the leader was
telling them they had to do something which was fomenting a rebellion .. which,
cos they were kids, seemed right an’ yet it seemed very wrong because he was an
elder an’ they respected him. When he
said he’d protect Ox, the younger ones splintered into furious rows. A couple changed their minds an’ agreed to
obey. Three changed their minds but
with reluctance. Around five maintained
there was no way they were going into the employment market. The remaining two couldn’t decide an’ sat on
the fence. During all this, the leader
told Ox to leave. He said he’d deal
with it.”
“So .. he left? He believed him?”
“He knew he wasn’t lying, let’s put it
that way. Ox might have looked slow an’
patient but he wasn’t dumb. He knew he
wasn’t safe. He slipped out an’ he
hurried to the end of the alley an’ he waited there. The noise behind him was .. almost enough to wake the dead. The rows had developed into a physical
fight. And then .. there was
silence. Yet it was more than just
silence. It was .. shocked. Appalled.
Ox knew instantly what had happened.
They’d killed the leader.
Vampires don’t do that. It’s a
huge crime in their community. They had
just branded themselves as outcasts.
There was no way they’d ever get another leader; no one would trust them
ever again. There was no way they could
remain in town. Ox had done his
job. He’d saved the people from further
predation. He didn’t leave. It was after midnight an’ they were
hungry. He knew they’d leave the nest
an’, in a few minutes, they came boiling out.
Maybe it was the smell of his blood which attracted them .. kinda like
the smell of fried onions an’ hot coffee will do it for us, but they came
howling toward him. An’ Ox knew that,
now the leader was dead, there was no control.
He would be killed. He might
even be turned.”
“Did he run?” Flipper breathed.
“What did he do?” Bert murmured. “Did he run?”
“He hadn’t provoked them into an
attack .. and he had the right to defend himself. Now he was free to use his weapons .. an’ he did. They were so frenzied, they couldn’t stop,
even faced with a calm, competent .. vampire slayer. As their comrades were extinguished, the ones following after
just kept coming until they were all gone.
Ox went back to his hotel an’ had to sit outside till dawn because there
was no night porter an’ the place was locked up. Then he got his bags an’ settled his account, an’ drove home to
his wife an’ his son.”
She sat back. “End of story.”
“Wow .. that was great. Thank you.
You told it .. like it came from the heart.”
Merlin shrugged. “Just something I heard,” she replied. When I was a kid, my Dad often told me about
my great grandfather’s exploits.
“So .. now what do we do?” Bert asked
as the three ghosts sat up.
“It’s twelve thirty. You feeling tired?”
“No.”
“Then .. I think we should get on with
the investigation, don’t you?”
“Us?
Investigate these ghosts?”
“Derek left me in charge with you as
my backup. Any reason why we shouldn’t
investigate?”
Bert thought about it. Then he shook his head. “Absolutely none.”
Continue to Chapter
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