Whitstable Read Free Page B

him quietly here at his side until they found him, rather than let him wander off again on his own. He really didn’t want this responsibility, and he certainly didn’t want company of any sort, but it seemed he didn’t have any choice in the matter.
    “I said I’m not a vampire.” The boy interrupted his thoughts. “But I know somebody who is. And if they get their own way I’ll become one too, sooner or later. Because that’s what they do. That’s how they create other vampires.” The child turned his head sharply and looked the man straight in the eyes. “You said so.”
    Quite right: he had done. It wasn’t hard to recall rewriting on set countless scenes of turgid exposition on vampire lore so that they didn’t sound quite so preposterous when the words came out of his mouth.
    “Who is this person?” Cushing played along. “I probably need to take care of him, then.”
    “He’s dangerous. But you don’t mind danger. You’re heroic .”
    Cushing twitched an amused shrug. “I do my best.”
    “Well it has to be your best,” the boy said with the most serious sense of conviction. “Or he’ll kill you. I mean that.”
    “Then I’ll be as careful as possible. Absolutely.”
    “Because if he finds out, he’ll hurt you, and he’ll hurt me.” The words were coming in a rapid flow again. “And he’ll hurt lots of other people as well, probably. Loads of them.” The boy drew up his legs, wrapped his arms round them tightly and tucked his knees under his chin. His eyes fixed on the horizon without blinking.
    “Good gracious,” Cushing said. “You mustn’t take these type of pictures too much to heart, young man.”
    “Pictures? What’s pictures got to do with it?” The abruptness was nothing short of accusatory. “I’m talking about here and now and you’re the vampire hunter and you need to help me.” The boy realised his harsh tone of voice might be unproductive, so quickly added, sheepishly: “Please.” Then, more bluntly, with an intense frown: “It’s your job .”
    It’s your job—Vampire Hunter.

    You’re heroic.
    You’re powerful.
    Cushing swallowed, his mouth unaccountably dry.
    “Where’s your mother and father?”
    “It doesn’t matter about them. It matters about him !”
    The boy stood up—and for a second Cushing thought he would sprint off, but no: instead he walked to a signpost of the car park and picked at the flaking paint with his fingernail, his back turned and his head lowered, as he spoke.
    “My mum’s boyfriend. He visits me at night time. Every night now. He takes my blood while I’m asleep. I know what he’s doing. He thinks I’m asleep but I’m not asleep. It feels like a dream and I try to pretend it isn’t happening, but afterwards I feel bad, like I’m dead inside. He makes me feel like that. I know it. I can’t move. I’m heavy and I’ve got no life and I don’t want to have life anymore.” He rubbed his nose. His nose was running. Bells tinkled on masts out of view. “That’s what it feels like, every time. And it keeps happening, and if it keeps happening I know what’ll happen, I’m going to die and be buried and then I’ll rise up out of my coffin and be like him, forever and ever.”
    Something curdled deep in Cushing’s stomach and made him feel nauseous. He obliterated the pictures in his mind’s eye—a bed, a shadow sliding up that bed—and what remained was a bleak, dark chasm he didn’t want to contemplate. But he knew in his heart what was make believe and what was all too real and it sickened him and he wanted, selfishly, to escape it and pretend it didn’t exist and didn’t happen in a world his God created.
    He felt a soft, warm hand slipping inside his. Helen? But no. It belonged to the little boy.
    “So will you?”
    “Will I what?” In a breath.
    “Will you turn him to dust? Grey dust that blows away like you did with Dracula?”
    “Is that what you want?”
    The boy nodded.
    Oh Lord… Oh God in