The Reformed Vampire Support Group (8 page)

Suddenly her almond-shaped eyes snap open – even though it’s still only half-past three in the afternoon.

I’m not proud of this scene, which is complete and utter hogwash. There isn’t a vampire on earth who could be roused at 3.30
PM
, no matter what the circumstances. You could be dropped into the middle of a Viking massacre, and you’d still be as lively as an effigy on a tomb. Why? Because from dawn till dusk, whatever the time of year, a vampire is clinically dead.

If you examine me during the day, you’ll see no movement whatsoever: no heartbeat, no brain activity – nothing. I look like an extremely fresh corpse. As for what I feel like … well, it’s exactly like being anaesthetised. Exactly. You black out, and next thing you
know, you’re awake again. You don’t dream. You don’t hear things. You’re not subconsciously aware of time passing. You disappear, and then you come back.

What’s more, when you
do
come back, you feel just as tired as you did before you left.

So that’s what happened to us all, the day after Casimir was killed. I lay down in my isolation tank, and the others zipped themselves up in their sleeping-bags, and we lost consciousness until sunset. Then, just before six o’clock, we opened our eyes again. At which point we found out what had been going on during our absence.

Happily, my mother was still alive. In fact she had nothing whatsoever to report. The only person who’d come anywhere near our house was the postman, and he hadn’t even slowed down. ‘It was pretty boring,’ said Mum, who likes to keep busy. (She’s had a very active retirement so far, what with her volunteer hospital work, and her bridge club, and her pottery classes.) ‘I ended up watching a lot of soaps.’

Father Ramon, however, had been fully occupied all day. To begin with, he had gone to Casimir’s apartment, only to find that the police were there – having been notified of the broken lock by a nosy neighbour. While the priest had explained that he was ‘worried about his friend’, two uniformed officers had inspected the broken lock, peered at the shrouded windows, and opened up the coffin. ‘I hadn’t done anything with the ashes, at that point,’ Father Ramon admitted, when the subject was raised. ‘But it didn’t really matter.’ The police, he said, hadn’t seemed very concerned. After examining the coffin, they’d promptly decided that Casimir was mentally ill.

‘They were very nice,’ Father Ramon hastened to acknowledge, ‘but I could see what they were thinking. They were thinking that Casimir might have wandered off without telling anyone, since he
was obviously mad. They even asked if he could have broken the lock himself, because he’d forgotten his key.’

‘So what are they going to do?’ Sanford queried. ‘Are they going to report him missing?’

‘Not until tomorrow,’ the priest replied. ‘They told me to check with his friends, if he had any.’ Father Ramon was looking pale and tired, as if his brush with the law had depleted him. ‘The ash didn’t trouble them at all,’ he finished. ‘One of them suggested that Casimir might have tried to fake his own death, and the other one laughed. They wanted to know if Casimir went around collecting ashes because of his illness.’

In other words, they had refused even to consider the possibility that Casimir’s coffin really
did
contain his mortal remains. This was good news, of course, though it was also strangely depressing.

I find it rather hard to accept that I’m not supposed to exist.

Father Ramon went on to describe the rest of his day, which had been filled with vampire-related errands. On Sanford’s advice, he had paid a quick visit to Horace’s house – where he had found no broken locks or smashed windows. After feeding the guinea pigs (and selecting a few for our dinner), he had then checked Bridget’s old butcher’s shop on his way back home. Again, he had seen nothing suspicious. Sanford’s place had yielded a similar result; like Dave’s house, it bore no signs of forced entry.

This could have meant that our slayer had been busy at work all day. Or it could have meant that he didn’t have our addresses. As Sanford pointed out, it was too soon to tell.

‘We can’t go home yet,’ he declared. ‘We should wait until the weekend, at least. Unless we find him beforehand.’

‘And if we do?’ I queried. ‘What happens then?’

There was no immediate reply. My mother fished in her pocket for a cigarette; she was sitting at the kitchen table, opposite Father Ramon,
with a half-drunk cup of tea in front of her. Bridget was perched on another chair, knitting. Gladys was absent-mindedly rearranging fridge magnets, while Sanford paced and Horace yawned.

The whole room smelled of Mum’s shepherd’s pie, which was baking in the oven. I used to love shepherd’s pie. I used to love fried fish, too. And ice-cream. And coconut cake. But nowadays, even a whiff of cooked food just makes me feel slightly ill.

‘If we do find him, then we should persuade him to see the error of his ways,’ Sanford said at last, going on to concede that Casimir’s killer might have to be restrained while he listened to reason. Bridget fretted about this; she wondered aloud if we should also provide refreshments, as a gesture of goodwill. And I was about to say something caustic along the lines of ‘Why not just buy him flowers and chocolates while we’re at it?’ when a creaking, thumping noise indicated that someone was descending the stairs.

Soon Dave appeared at the kitchen doorway. He looked depressed, but that was nothing unusual. With his slouch, his pallor, and his mournful dark eyes, he always looked depressed.

We gazed at him in a state of high expectation.

‘No message,’ he reported.

Sanford sighed. My own stomach contracted; I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved. Mum said, ‘Huh?’

‘There’s nothing from Fangseeker.’ Dave propped himself against the doorjamb. ‘Horace didn’t get a response.’

‘To what?’ Mum asked, and I told her about our attempt to lure the online vampire fan into revealing something about himself. As I was doing so, George sidled into the kitchen. He was carrying a plastic bag; his expression was sheepish.

There were blood spots on his khaki sweatshirt.

‘Bathroom’s free,’ he muttered, when I had finished speaking.

We all exchanged glances.

‘Who’s next?’ asked Horace. Receiving no reply, he climbed down from his stool. ‘Then I’ll go,’ he announced. ‘Unless anyone’s feeling dizzy?’

No one was. My mother reminded him that there was a roll of zip-lock bags in the vanity cupboard, where he would also find the sponges and disinfectant. At this point she was on the verge of lighting up, because she normally doesn’t worry about smoking around vampires. (It’s not as if we’ll die of lung cancer, after all.) But then she remembered about Father Ramon, and put her cigarette away.

‘Incidentally,’ Horace drawled, as he rearranged his black lace cravat, ‘in case you make any decisions while I’m not here, just remember: I won’t be going to Cobar. So you’ll have to look elsewhere for a volunteer.’

Then he left the room, while the rest of us were still trying to work out what he meant.

The penny dropped soon enough. After a moment’s reflection, it dawned on me that Cobar
would
have to be our next step. Since one of our chief suspects was living on the west coast, and the other had vanished, Barry McKinnon of Cobar was now our most accessible target.

Cobar. As I inspected the pinched, pathetic faces encircling Mum’s kitchen table, I realised that there wasn’t a vampire in sight who had travelled more than a handful of kilometres in the past thirty years. We all looked bleached, like sightless underground fish, our pupils reduced to mere pinpricks by the meagre strength of a single overhead light bulb. There wasn’t one straight spine or well-padded contour among us. Even my mother gave the impression of being healthier than the rest of us, despite her age-spots and dowager’s hump and slightly arthritic joints.

I tried to picture any vampire of my acquaintance making a trip to
the outback and failed. Vampires congregate in cities for good reason. It’s not just because there’s less direct sunlight in a built-up area; it’s also because of the anonymity provided by an urban existence. After all, Sydney is full of junkies and alcoholics and creative people who don’t sleep, rarely eat, and like wandering around at night. But in the dusty streets of a country town, where the shops all close at five and everyone knows everyone else’s business, a vampire is going to stand out like a polar bear on Bondi Beach.

‘Couldn’t we just write a letter?’ I proposed, appealing to Sanford. ‘I mean, I realise this Cobar guy doesn’t have a listed number, but surely we don’t have to travel all the way to his house? Especially since he probably isn’t even
in
Cobar. He’s probably still here in Sydney, searching for us.’

‘I wouldn’t count on it.’ To my surprise, Dave sounded quite authoritative. ‘He might have come and gone. That might be why he didn’t try to kill anyone today.’ A pause. ‘Unless – you know – he just wasn’t in the mood.’

‘But—’

‘It’s not
that
far, Nina. I checked. Cobar is only about a day’s drive from here.’

‘And I don’t know if a letter is the best way to handle this,’ Father Ramon interjected. ‘The man who bought those bullets might not be the man who killed Casimir.’ He went on to point out that if our letter should mention vampires, and was delivered to the wrong person, then we might simply be making things worse for ourselves.

Sanford agreed.

‘Yes, we have to careful. Very, very careful,’ he said. ‘And fast, too. If we write a letter, it will take at least a week to get a reply.’ He pursed his lips as the sound of a high-pitched squeal filtered down from the bathroom. ‘What’s more,’ he added hurriedly, ‘we
can’t be sure of the outcome. We don’t know if this fellow in Cobar is still living at the same address, or if he gave away some of his bullets. We don’t know anything, really.’ Sanford had been contemplating the polished tips of his sensible brown shoes; now he raised his head and surveyed his dumbstruck audience. ‘There’s no alternative,’ he concluded. ‘Someone will just have to travel out there and investigate.’

I wish I could tell you that I reacted to this proposal like Zadia Bloodstone. I’d like to report that I nodded curtly and said, ‘Count me in’, adopting the kind of power stance that you can only pull off if you have a belt full of guns, grenades and nunchakus.

Unfortunately, I didn’t do anything of the sort. Instead I thought about getting stuck on a country road at sunrise. I started wondering how much light would filter into a locked car boot. And then I realised what was happening.

I was thinking like a vampire.

While the physical side of a vampire’s transformation only takes about thirty-six hours, the mental change is always a much more gradual process. Slowly, you stop resisting. Slowly, you lose your edge. You cease to engage with the outside world as your feelers retract. Your interests become hopelessly circumscribed; your energy trickles away. In the end, you care only about the state of your stomach and the latest episode of some moronic television series.

It occurred to me that, if I wasn’t careful, I would turn into a vampire. I mean,
really
turn into a vampire. Not physically, but mentally. Psychologically.

Even so, I couldn’t bring myself to volunteer for any kind of road trip. And neither could Gladys.

‘That’s crazy!’ she blurted out. Even my mum grimaced.

‘Bit of a tall order, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Hotel rooms get cleaned
every morning, and the blinds are always broken. I wouldn’t stick Nina in a hotel room – not unless it had a bloody big safe in it.’

‘What? Oh, no.’ Sanford was adamant. ‘There’s no question of
that
. No, no, we couldn’t risk using a hotel.’

During the pause that followed, everyone glanced towards the priest. I remember thinking that he was the perfect spokesman – that one look at his sober cassock and creased, pouchy, compassionate face would surely be enough to calm the fears of even the most rabid slayer. Besides which, he could drive a car.
During the daytime
.

He was the obvious choice of emissary.

Feeling all eyes upon him, Father Ramon ran a hand through his silvery thatch. ‘You want me to go? Is that it?’ he said. There were nods all round.

‘You can’t make him go by himself,’ Mum flatly objected. She stood up, then went to remove her shepherd’s pie from the oven. ‘You don’t know
what
he’d be up against. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be fair.’

‘Of course not.’ Sanford’s manner was stiff. ‘I wasn’t suggesting anything of the kind. Naturally, someone else would have to go with him. Someone who can drive, for instance. Someone like Dave.’

‘
Me
?’ said Dave, in faltering tones. Catching his eye, I thought he looked scared. Like a kid. Like a vampire.

Then all at once he squared his shoulders.

‘Okay,’ he rasped. ‘I’ll go.’

The rest of us gaped at him in astonishment. Before anyone could comment, however, Horace reappeared with a zip-lock bag full of dead guinea pig.

‘Where do I put this?’ he wanted to know.

While Mum was explaining that all guinea pigs had to be placed in the freezer until rubbish-collection night, I slipped from the
room. It was an act of pure cowardice. Being small, I was an obvious candidate for the outback road trip. Not only did I convey a distinctly harmless impression; I could also be folded into a car boot or suitcase during the day.

It was a prospect that appalled me.

So I muttered something about taking my turn, and went to fetch a guinea pig from under the stairs. I won’t describe exactly what I did with that guinea pig, because after so many years I’ve mastered the art of detaching myself from the whole repugnant procedure. I’ll listen to my iPod. Or I’ll take the radio into the bathroom with me, and concentrate on a talkback show. Or I’ll imagine something beautiful: like Zadia kissing a tall, handsome, teenage boy, for example, amid the crystalline formations of the cave in which she sleeps.

That night, however, I couldn’t distract myself from the misery of my situation as I stooped over the bath, a dead guinea pig in one hand and a plastic bag in the other. Bloody drool was dripping from my mouth. My hair was matted with blood and saliva. I was a mess. A joke. And not only that: I was useless. I’d ducked for cover while Dave had stepped up to the plate. For years I’d been accusing the others of being typical bloody vampires, and now that the chance had come to act – to be
involved
– I had piked. I’d done what most vampires would do: which is, of course, nothing.