Whitby Vampyrrhic by Simon Clark Page B

chairs, where she’d sheltered from the air raid earlier with her new guests. In the corner of the cellar, she tugged back an old rug she’d used to hide a line of gallon jars in thick glass. Pasted on each one, a label that bore a skull and cross bones sign. Beneath that the word:
DANGER!
Because of the war, everything (but fear and want) was in short supply. It had become increasingly difficult to acquire more stocks of the chemical, but she knew she must. So far she’d bought a dozen gallons on the black market. However, she reckoned on needing at least another dozen more, if she were to stand any chance of success.
    Donning thick protective gloves, she tugged the jars deeper into the basement, where she could lock them in the wine cellar. Until a couple of weeks ago, she’d not anticipated that the hotel would be opened up again to paying guests. At first she’d resisted; an official from the Ministry of Information, however, made it absolutely clear to her that if she didn’t make the hotel available to the film people it would be requisitioned anyway. That would spell disaster for Eleanor’s plans. In a matter of days, the place would be bustling with actors. She couldn’t even keep them out of the basement, because it served as the air-raid shelter. So, no time like the present to move her precious hoard.
    Eleanor had dragged five of the heavy jars to the subterranean store when she heard a voice.
    â€˜Eleanor . . . Eleanor . . . It’s me.’
    She paused only for a second. Then, taking a deep breath to steady her resolve, she continued her work. There was barely enough time to make the preparations as it was. Many a time, she’d find herself becoming increasingly moody, as she worried about all the jobs she needed to do in order to carry out her plan. The enormity of the task left her anxious, flustered, in fact so on edge that she wanted to yell at anyone who called at the hotel.
    Now that voice . . . She’d heard it at least once every twelve months for the last twenty years. It started just weeks after she visited Hag’s Lung Cave with that shy, dreamy youth. The one who loved nothing more than to find some sheltered corner of the beach to read his treasured books.
    â€˜Eleanor?’
    She continued working.
Go away
, she thought.
I’m busy. I’ll never get this done.
    â€˜Eleanor. I know you’re there. Why have you never spoken to me? For twenty years I’ve come back here in the hope you’ll discuss what happened.’
    She dragged more of the hefty jars full of that fiercely toxic brew to the storeroom.
    â€˜Eleanor.’ The voice shimmered from some other world, or so it seemed to her. ‘Do you remember what happened that night at the cave? You put your arm into the hole; something bit you on the wrist. When you fainted I carried you outside. Then I went back into Hag’s Lung. It was a stupid thing to do, but I wanted to know what lay beyond the hole in the cave wall. I widened it with the crowbar, then I put my eye to it to try and see inside. What a foolish boy I was, Eleanor.’ He paused. ‘Will you tell me about your wrist? What happened?’
    In the shadows of the basement, she couldn’t stop herself sliding back the sleeve of her pullover. On her wrist, eight open wounds. They’d never healed since she’d been bitten there twenty years ago. The punctures resembled tiny open mouths, with delicately pink lips. The holes, arranged so – :::: – extended deep inside the flesh. Most nights they itched . . . a furious itching.
    â€˜They bit me, Eleanor. But you were never infected. Not like me and the rest. Why do you think you’re immune, Eleanor?’ A pause. ‘Please talk to me.’ The soft, whispery voice continued until it resembled the throb of surf on the beach just yards from the hotel. ‘Please talk to me. I want to see your face.