JAKE AND THE VAMPIRE

by

Mike Smail

Jake Taylor jabbed at his glasses, pushing them back up the slope of his snub nose, only for them to immediately begin to slip back down again.  With the light off, he was sitting in the darkness of his bedroom, squinting out through the window to keep watch on the house opposite, where the vampire lived.

            There was no one he could tell.  At twelve-and-a-half, no adults – especially his mum and dad – would believe him.  And if he told his schoolmates, they would laugh, and worse, would take the Mickey out of him for the rest of term, and probably forever.

            It was on Saturday morning when Jake plucked up enough courage to tell Cassie Palmer that the woman who’d recently moved into the big house across the street was one of the undead.

            Cassie lived next door to Jake, and although much older than him (by at least six months), they were the best of pals.  They enjoyed hanging out together, and talking about all sorts of stuff, including programmes on TV, like Buffy, Angel, and the X-Files, imagining that they were agents Mulder and Scully.

            “So why do you think that Mrs.  Pavlovich is a bloodsucker?”  Cassie asked through a mouthful of gum, as she sat on the edge of the decking and retied the laces of her Nikes.

            “I don’t think she is, I know she is,”  Jake replied.  She’s Transylvanian, and you never see her outside during the day.”

            Cassie grinned.  “My mum says that she spoke to her last week, and that she said she was from Russia.”

            “Get real, Cass.  She’s not likely to say,  ‘I’m a vampire from Transylvania’, is she?  Have you heard her talk?  She sounds the same as Dracula did in old movies.”

            Cassie hiked her shoulders in a shrug.  “It’s not much to go on,”  she said.  “I won’t be hanging garlic at my bedroom window or wearing a crucifix, just because she talks with a funny accent.”

            “It’s more than how she speaks,”  Jake said, taking his glasses off and wiping the grimy lenses on the bottom of his Bart Simpson T-shirt.  “I passed her on the high street one evening last week.  And you won’t believe what happened.”

            “So tell me,”  Cassie said, leaning forward and showing a little more interest.

            “Well, she smiled at me, but her eyes were cold and really weird.  It was as if she was looking at a plate of food.  She even licked her lips.  I think that if I’d bumped into her down a dark alley, she would have…you know, bitten me and sucked my blood.  As she walked along the pavement, past the Pizza Palace, I looked in the window, and…and she had no reflection.  She definitely isn’t human.”

            “You could be wrong about her,”  Cassie said.  “Vampires aren’t real, just make-believe.”

            “Says who?  That’s why they never get caught, because people don’t believe in them, or don’t want to.  I bet she spends all day in a coffin in the cellar, and then comes out at night to feed off people."

            Cassie gave it some thought, stopped chewing her gum, and blew an enormous bubble that burst with a loud pop.  “Okay,”  she said.  “Let’s just suppose she is a real vampire.  What do you plan on doing about it, huh?”

            Jake hadn’t planned on doing anything.  But he didn’t want Cassie to think he was scared, so said,  “Break into her house during the day and check it out.  If I don’t find a coffin, and there are mirrors on the walls, then I’ll have to admit that she’s probably human.  Maybe a serial killer or something.”

            Cassie shivered, even though the sun was warm on her back.  She imagined finding a coffin in a dark cellar, with a real live, or to be more precise, an undead vampire stretched out on top of a layer of soil from its homeland.

            “When are we going to do it?”  she asked Jake.

            “We?”

            “Yes, of course.  We’re a team, aren’t we?”

            “I suppose.  We need to make a stake and get everything else we’ll need.  I was going to sneak over there tomorrow morning and…and deal with it.”

            “You mean actually stick it to her with a stake through the heart?”

            “Yeah.  It’s the only way to kill a vampire.  Then you have to cut its head off.”

            “Yuck!  That’s gross.  And you have to use ash wood for the stake.  We’ll have to go to the park and find a fallen branch, or break one off.”

            “Why ash?”

            “Because I read it in a book.  It has to be ash, or it won’t work.”

            By teatime they had collected everything that any self-respecting vampire slayers would need to rid the Earth of a ghoul masquerading in human form.  They stashed the items in the shed at the bottom of Jake’s garden, behind a stack of wooden seed trays and plant pots, in Jake’s Wallace & Grommit backpack, which instead of school books, now held an eighteen-inch-long sharpened branch, that was as thick as Cassie’s wrist, a hammer, some cloves of garlic, a flashlight, and a small plastic bottle that they had filled with Holy water from the font in St Mary’s church.

            “I’ll meet you in the lane next to Mrs.  Pavlovich’s house in the morning,”  Jake said.

            “What time?”  Cassie asked.

            “Better make it early.  Let’s say, six-thirty.  Can you sneak out at that time?”

            “No prob.  See you then.  And don’t forget to wear a cross.”

At six-fifteen the following morning, Jake collected the VSK, as he called the Vampire Slaying Kit, from the shed.

It was freezing cold, and he was wearing a fleece zipped up to the neck, and was now having second thoughts over breaking into a neighbour’s house.  He didn’t know if he was brave enough to plunge a stake into someone’s heart and hammer it home.  Icy tendrils of fear were writhing in his stomach like live eels, making him feel sick.  He had to go through with it, though.  If he called it off, Cassie would think he was wimping out, and she would be right.

            Cassie was already there when he arrived.  Had she not turned up, then he would have been happy to have gone back home and minded his own business.

            “This is exciting,”  Cassie said, grinning at him as she folded a piece of Wrigley’s gum into her mouth.  “Let’s go and do a Van Helsing on the local neck-biter.”

            “Are you sure about this?”  Jake asked.  “It isn’t a game, you know.”

            Cassie frowned.  “You losing your bottle, Jake?  This was your idea, remember?”

            “Okay,”  he replied.  “I’m up for it.  C’mon, let’s go and get it over with.”

            They looked around, and when they were sure that the coast was clear, scaled the wall and dropped down into the garden.

            The house looked very much like all the old haunted houses in movies.  It was a large, rickety place that seemed to squat behind the six-feet-high walls, in large gardens that were full of long grass and stinging nettles, and trees that were dead or dying, with branches that reminded Jake of twisted, crooked fingers.

            Cassie suddenly felt ten degrees colder.  It was as if she had walked into a meat locker, like the ones that butchers’ kept frozen sides of animals in, hung up on hooks.  The house seemed to be more than the bricks and mortar it was built from.  It was in some way menacing, and she imagined that it knew they were there, and was watching them, waiting to trap them when they went inside.

            At the side of the old house, they found two wooden doors set horizontally among thick clumps of weed in a concrete surround.  The timber was rotten, and Jake quickly prised the rusted screws out of the hasp, that was padlocked to prevent anyone getting in.  Panting and puffing, he heaved one door up, took a deep breath and walked slowly and carefully down slime-coated stone steps into the darkness of the cellar.  Cassie followed him, staying close as he switched on the flashlight and shone its beam around the underground room.

            There was no coffin.  The chamber was empty, and whitewash blistered and flaked away from damp, crumbling brickwork.  Crossing the room, they climbed a flight of steps at the far end of the cellar and opened a door that led into a large dining kitchen.

            What now?”  Cassie whispered.

            “We search the house, find her, and do the business.”

            Tiptoeing up a wide staircase to the landing, Jake’s heart was pounding, and he realized that he was holding his breath.  The house smelled of decay.  Wallpaper was curling away from wet plaster, and the greasy carpet was tacky on the soles of his trainers.  He noticed that all the windows were cloaked by heavy drapes, obviously to keep out the light.

            As they entered a large bedroom, a voice from behind them said,  “Vot are you two children doing een my house?”

            Jake and Cassie spun round and gasped with fright, to be confronted by Mrs.  Pavlovich, whose large frame filled the doorway, blocking the only escape route.

            “W…We thought th…that the house was empty,”  Cassie stammered.

            “Yes.  We were j…just exploring,”  Jake added.

            Irinia Pavlovich’s laughter boomed in the gloomy room.  She reached out and flicked a light switch, and the dull glow from a fly-dirt spotted bulb cast a low light on the scene.

            “You nosy kids know very vell that thees ees my home,”  Irinia said, holding her hand out and beckoning Jake with long, milk-white fingers.  “Geev me the bag you haf on your back.  I vant to see vot you haf brought to my house.”

            Jake felt sick.  He wanted to bolt past the woman and escape, but couldn’t leave Cassie behind, so slipped off his backpack and handed it over as ordered.

            “Vot ees thees?”  Irania demanded, withdrawing the stake and some of the garlic bulbs.  “You theenk that I am a vampire, and haf come here to keel me, is that eet?”

            There was nothing to say.  Tears fell from Cassie’s eyes, and Jake thought that his parents would probably ground him for at least five years.  He had been stupid.  The woman was a little spooky, but how could he have thought that she was a…OH, JEEZ!  As he watched, the woman’s eyes began to glow, no longer black like chips of coal, but as red as fiery embers.  She snarled, and her lips drew back to reveal long, curved fangs.  She rushed at them, her arms outstretched.  Grasped Cassie by the throat, and brought her mouth down towards her neck.  She was a vampire.

            Jake had no time to think.  He just reacted, sprinted forward and kicked the vampire in the shin with all the force he could muster.

Irinia Pavlovich grunted, turned to him, and hissed like an angry snake.  “You vill pay dearly for zat,”  she said,  “After I haf sucked the lifeblood from your friend.”

Jake’s fear was suddenly overshadowed by anger.  No way was he going to stand by and watch this monster kill Cassie.  He looked around for a weapon, but knew that he would be too late to use anything he might find.

The window!  Just three steps to it.  He grasped a heavy drape with both hands and jerked it back to allow the full light of day to fill the room.

            The vampire shuddered, screamed, dropped Cassie to the floor and backed across the room to the door, its blistering hands up to protect its smouldering face.

            Jake rushed forward, pulled the sharp stake from the backpack, and lunged at the wailing monster.  His aim was true, and the point of the stake sank deep into the unbeating, but undead heart, to pierce it and bring an end to the thing that had appeared to be Mrs.  Pavlovich.

            The eyes of the vampire became sun-bright for an instant, and then dimmed, and the fallen body twisted, shrivelled, and turned to a pile of grey ash that then faded to leave no trace.

            Jake helped Cassie to her feet and they hurried away, agreeing to never mention what had happened to another living soul.

It was a couple of days later that Jake saw Cassie at the local library.

            “What is it, Jake?”  she asked him.  “You look worried.”

            “I am, Cass.  It’s Mr.  Brewster, the bank manager who lives three doors down from our house.  He’s a werewolf.”

            Cassie’s mouth dropped open to reveal a wad of gum.  And then Jake’s eyes twinkled and he couldn’t stop himself from giggling.

            “Only kidding, Cass,”  he said, before running off.

END

Halloween horror and fictitious monsters don't scare me.  What does is:  War, Famine, Disease, Poverty, Injustice, Discrimination, and the Pestilence of power-crazed Politicians.