Whitby Vampyrrhic by Simon Clark

infuriating man would send her crazy!
    So, as the clock hands crept beyond a quarter past two, Mary stood in a calf-length nightdress in the cold winter air in the rear yard. This row of houses backed on to the cliff, which soared eighty feet or so above her, to the graveyard. The night lay still after the air raid (such attacks didn’t discourage Harry from playing darts; his new monotonous refrain was, ‘If Hitler wants my darts, he’ll have to cut my bloody fingers off to get ’em’). She inhaled the chilly sea air. If she got herself cold enough, then even the
clump
of darts, coming from downstairs, might not seem that bad once she’d slid beneath warm bedclothes.
    Mary smoothed the white cotton of her nightdress. At forty years of age she had an enviable figure. More than once, it had occurred to her if Harry’s dart obsession grew too much she’d be able to find another husband.
    Mary moved around the tiny yard, which was enclosed by high walls. The moon had emerged once more. It revealed the bulbous swellings in the rock face. She blew into her numbed hands.
This is insanity
, she told herself.
I can’t let Harry drive me outside. Even yard dogs have kennels. Here I am, freezing in a nightdress.
Probing fingers of air slid around her bare legs. Her skin went bumpy across her chest. Shivers darted down her backbone. The cold grew just too intense. She couldn’t stand it any more. When she exhaled, a gust of white blossomed round her head.
    As she crossed the yard towards the cottage door, she happened to glance upwards. Moonlight had emphasized those raised bumps in the cliff face. The rocky protrusion seemed to hang directly above her head.
    Then the rocky outcrops did something they’d never done before. They moved.
    Mary Tinskell stepped into the centre of the yard, staring upwards; only, the harder she stared, trying to identify what those shadowy bumps were, the more the cold made her eyes water. Was the cliff falling? Images flashed through her head of boulders crashing down on to her cottage.
    Yet the moving objects made no sound. She blinked until her eyes were clear. Her vision snapped into sharp focus. Those objects clung to the cliff face as they swiftly climbed downwards.
    And they descended towards Mary in the yard.
    She moved backwards, keeping her gaze locked on the four figures climbing down the cliff. But they climbed head first. And with such speed. Twenty feet above her one of the climbers paused. It raised its head to look at her. She saw a man, wearing pilot’s goggles. His face was smeared with a dark liquid. Moonlight made the goggle lenses shine silver. Yet she knew with absolute certainty that he stared at her.
    Mary spun round, then raced for the door. Only to find it blocked by a figure. This one she recognized. Dressed in a white shirt, and wearing a striped tie round his waist like it was a belt, was a man she’d seen often in her youth.
    â€˜Gustav Kirk?’ Her heart raced. ‘But you went missing twenty years ago.’
    He took a single step forwards. Behind her came soft concussions as the cliff climbers dropped the last few feet into the yard.
    â€˜Don’t you dare touch me.’ Mary had detected the predatory menace in their postures. ‘Don’t you dare!’
    The figures approached, eyes ablaze with ferocity, their faces smeared with a rich, dark liquid that could be nothing else but blood. In the moonlight, there seemed precious little colour to their irises. If anything, each eye simply contained a fierce black pupil.
    Gustav reached out to touch the side of her neck. The cold-as-ice sensation of his fingers on her bare skin did it. In an explosion of movement, she raced through the alleyway to Henrietta Street beyond. If the back door was blocked, she could beat on the front door to alert her husband.
    Yet the creatures anticipated her move. And yes they were creatures . . . They were