Vampire "Untitled" (Vampire "Untitled" Trilogy Book 1)

Vampire "Untitled"

www.lee-mcgeorge.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Speartip

Copyright © Lee McGeorge 2012

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transferred, in any form or by any means without the
prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and
without similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and
any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

ISBN 978-0-9546953-1-6

Speartip Publishing

Islington, London, N4

For Steve and Vincent

Special Thanks

Tony “Mad Dog” Shannon

Jo-Jeff Pip

Miss Seelumbur

Steve “Outpost” Barker

Emily Ford

and Lady Islington

Lee McGeorge

Vampire "Untitled"

PART I

When
you move to live in another country you imagine it’s going to be fun, an
adventure, exciting. That wasn’t what Paul McGovern was feeling and he’d only
been in the country for three hours.

He’d been riding in a taxi, mostly across an endless
snowy plain of barren land, travelling from the dirty, concrete and blocky
world of Bucharest, towards something that at first looked idyllic. Snowy
forests and mountains had loomed ahead of the taxi, sidewinder trails cut by
snowploughs wound through twisting mountain roads. For a brief period it was a
journey of scenic beauty; countryside vistas, mountains, pine trees dusted in
snow, the stuff of Christmas cards.

The taxi pulled to a halt at the traffic lights and
the driver killed the engine to conserve petrol. For a moment there was
silence, then came the begging moan of a teenaged boy, painfully freezing in an
icy wind. He was missing his right leg from the knee and remained upright
thanks to a homemade wooden leg and an equally fashioned crutch under his arm.
He held his hand to the taxi window, fingers burned red raw by the sleeting
cold and wet, moaning for a donation. “Varog…” he mumbled, “Varog…”

The glass of the window was inadequate barrier and
Paul stared forward uncomfortably. The taxi driver cursed a few words in
Romanian; it sounded as though he was apologising about the beggar. Ahead of
them was looming another random town of communist-era tower blocks that had
been strangely planted amongst the mountain forests. Prefab buildings that
dated back to the 1970’s or 80’s, perhaps earlier or later; it was impossible
to tell.

The kid with one leg pressed against the window to
pour more emotional blackmail onto Paul but the taxi driver got in first,
shouting at him, crying some admonishment and shooing him away with a gesture;
the universal hand signal that says ‘piss off’. Paul didn’t know who was more
disagreeable, the beggar or the cab-driver who smelled of sweat and wet
laundry. This had been a miserable taxi ride. Thankfully, it was almost over.

With the changing lights the car moved towards the
tower blocks. As they got closer, they passed a church and the driver crossed
himself repeatedly in Christian subservience until they passed. There were
rosary beads hanging from the rear view mirror and a faded sticker of St.
Francis on the glove box so Paul had already figured the driver to be devout.

The taxi turned in from the main roads to thread its
way between the tower blocks and things started looking decidedly worse. The
road itself must have been a dirt track that, in warmer times, had been worn
into grooves of muddy tyre tracks. Now frozen solid they held haphazard shapes
that varied in height by at least twelve inches so that the car would ride up
the edge of a groove on one side and fall into the gully on the other, tilting
the vehicle harshly before dropping back. The car suspension was getting its
workout; in fact, Paul felt as though his seat itself was on springs and he
found himself clinging to the handle over the door with one hand and to the
dashboard with the other.

Without fanfare the taxi stopped and the driver
pointed to a wide steel door at the base of a tower. “Aici,” he said.

“Here?” Paul asked. “This is it?”

“Da,” the driver responded with an affirmative nod,
“Aici. Aici.”

Paul took a long breath as he looked out of the window
at the tower block. In a world of soul destroying concrete, this building
looked the worst; and for the next six months it was going to be home.

----- X -----

Two
weeks earlier things had been very different.

Paul had sat outside the office of Jade Conway
awaiting a good-news meeting that felt more nerve wracking than any job
interview. His hair was short but thick, a dark chestnut colour to match his
eyes and normally easy to manage, but for some reason on this day, this crucial
day, it wouldn’t lay flat at the back and he’d stuck it down with too much wax.
Now, as he waited for his appointment, his heart was beating fast and he was
worried about his hairstyle.

“Paul.” Jade called his name in a way that dragged out
the sound to make a musical note of affection. She was walking to him with arms
outstretched and a huge smile. Kisses on both cheeks. If Jade had been a movie
producer she would have been the stereotypical Hollywood fat-man with a big
cigar; but it wasn’t movies she was into, it was books, and rather than a cigar
her prop of choice was the horned rimmed spectacles on a chain one would expect
to see on an old librarian. She was twenty five years old.

“This is you,” she had said, once safely holed up in
her office.

She handed him a paperback anthology of horror stories
aimed at teenagers. Skin Crawlers: Volume 3. Paul turned the book in his hands,
instinctively holding it by the edges less he leave fingerprints on the glossy
cover and opened it carefully so as not to crease the spine. The first story
was his and took up just over one third of the anthology. The rest were shorts
from other writers he didn’t know.

He felt warm, hot under the collar with the
uncomfortable sensation he was on display. He was paranoid his hair was
sticking up and he wanted to smooth it down. This wasn’t the first thing he’d
had in print, far from it, but this was special, this was an achievement to be
proud of, but all he could think about was the hair on the back of his head. A
distraction? Nervous energy? He knew what it was; underlying the bad-hair
paranoia was self-conscious worry about what other people would think. He’d
been worried about it ever since he’d known his story was included in the
anthology and it was a retarded, unwarranted, stupid fear. Typical. Here was a
small and moderate success and all he wanted to do was withdraw and fade from
view. What would other people think of him?

“Do you like the cover?”

Paul pressed down the hair on the back of his head.
The cover was of a horse drawn carriage at night. Gaslight Victorian London. On closer inspection the carriage driver was revealed as a skeleton. Somehow the
artist had imbued a murky night-time scene with a multitude of colours, greens
and yellows for the mist, splashes of red details here and there. The cover was
amazing.

“Do you like it?” Jade asked again. Paul nodded
pressing his lips together. It was great. It was amazing. Brilliant. He was
trying to hold a poker face and losing.

When he’d started university he’d sent a spec article
to a computer magazine on the perils of buying a laptop, it went to print and
the publishers threw plenty of jobs his way for their other publications. He
wrote articles from fish-keeping to farming. They sent the data and he
fashioned it into readable articles to pay his way through college, but this
was artistic success and for the first time in his life he knew this is what he
wanted. He’d never given a name to it, or even gave it serious consideration,
but he realised now that he wanted to write stories. His serious logical brain
had coerced him to study English to become a journalist and he was already
getting paid work as a copywriter, but in this instant he saw that his brain
had acted as a sensible parent. “You can’t write fiction for profit,” it had
said, “writing for an income, for a career, for the entertainment industry?
Don’t make me laugh, journalism, that’s the career of a serious literate mind.”
At least, that’s what his brain had said, guiding him away from foolish dreams
of being the next JK Rowling or Stephen King. His brain had sensibly nudged him
along the path of career and money and paying the bills; but now, holding a
little taste of success and a paycheque in his hands, he wanted this more than
anything else in the world.

“I have five thousand printed copies and they’ll be in
shops in six weeks.” Jade said.

“Five thousand is good.”

“Most won’t go to shops. I’ve already pre-sold three
thousand to schools and libraries. The target is for five thousand in paperback
sales and twenty five thousand in downloads throughout the life of the
marketing campaign. We’ve done similar on the other anthologies.”

Paul nodded as he tried to find something to say.

“There’s something else I want to talk to you about
though,” she said taking off her glasses. Paul waited for her to continue.
“Have you thought about writing something bigger?”

“You mean like a novel? I will at some point.”

“How about a series of novels?” she’d handed him the
most pulpy trashy paperback he had ever seen. Shadowbeast. The cover was an
image of a Bigfoot type creature with glowing eyes stalking through a forest.
It looked as though it was painted by the same artist who’d done his cover.
“This is doing really well. It’s now got five books in the series and has sold
over ninety thousand copies.”

“Wow,” he said with genuine surprise. “I had no idea.”

“There are teenaged fans making websites about it and
we’ve started putting a marketing plan together to see if we can sell a film
option.”

“Oh, that’s brilliant.” This was what he admired about
Jade. Twenty five years old, an independent publisher for only three years and
already she was selling books by the hundred thousand. Film options? Jade Conway was going places. Even Shadowbeast. It looked unbelievably trashy, but the title,
the cover artwork, everything drew you in. She knew what she was doing.

“So are you interested?”

“In what? Do you...” Paul thought before he spoke, “Do
you want me to write a Shadowbeast episode?”

“No, not Shadowbeast. Vampires.” Jade leaned back in
her chair. “I’m interested in creating another series that occupies the same
universe as this. I’ve got tens of thousands of kids on an email database
waiting to hear about the next Shadowbeast book and I’d love to maximise that
fan base with a spin-off series. I want a new range of books that these kids
will love as much as Shadowbeast and I’m thinking that vampires is the way to
go.”

At this point she turned on the sex appeal by leaning
forward and gripping the edge of the chair between her legs; her boobs squeezed
between her elbows, sales pressure by cleavage. Hypnotits. “And I think, Paul,
that you have the talent to do it. What I’m hoping, is you could write a
compelling vampire story, a novella, with outlines for four or five sequels. I
can’t advance on the first book but I can guarantee publication if the
commercial viability is there. I’ll pay you a great percentage from the first
book and if the sales go well I’ll commission and advance on the second and
third books back to back.”

“So…” Paul fumbled for the words, “you want me to write
a book and plan a series, but you’ll pay me…”

“I won’t pay you until the books are selling.”

“Ahhh, I see.” He then went silent, unsure how to
weigh up the offer, unsure what criteria he should decide upon.

“Your imagination is quite unique. Your fiction
writing really sparkles and I know we can make money from it.” Paul blushed a
little at the flattery. “I’ve got a built in audience. So if you can write
something appealing, I will go to hell and back marketing them. Write me a
commercial vampire series and I promise you, I’ll drive it into profit.”

That was the clincher. No contracts were signed, no
witnesses were present, but Jade was serious. She knew her stuff, she was
determined and immediately he knew that this was an opportunity that, if turned
down, he would end up regretting.

That was two weeks ago.

For a while his fear and rational brain had tried to
thwart him. He was fresh from university, twenty one years old with student
debt up to the eyeballs. He’d trained to be a journalist and now he was thinking
of... doing what exactly?

Not looking for a job?

What would people think?

He’d spent that afternoon propping up a sleepy bar in
central London. He called his very few friends for advice and they all told him
to seize the opportunity. Bastards. What he wanted was someone to talk him out
of it. He was scared, worried. What if he failed? How was he supposed to live
with no income? What if he wasted time on this project then had to explain to a
prospective employer that he had wasted time trying to be a novelist? He even
spilled his guts to the barman who frowned and looked down on him. The barman
cut through all the shit when he said, “You’re suffering a bad case of
self-sabotage. It’s an amazing opportunity. You’re just looking for a way to
fuck it up because you’re scared.”

The truth hurts when you’re a fool and a coward.

It was true, he was suffering a bad case of
self-sabotage.

Missing this opportunity would be shameful and he knew
it.

It was then a friend of a friend of a friend, who
knows someone who knew someone else. An empty flat in Romania, a beautiful ancient city called Brasov, deep within Dracula country, land of the vampires.
Super cheap. Live there six months for the same price as six weeks in London.

The stars were aligning, a lifetime ambition, a chance
of a new career, the chance to live abroad in a faraway and exotic country.
Everything was suddenly sparkling and that was how it had come about. And now
Paul was pulling open the door to a communist era block of flats that was so
heavy it required two hands to open. It was the sort of door you would expect
to see on the loading bay of a warehouse.