Visiting the house of a vampire

You really need to read this one first. Otherwise you won't get the story here.

http://christopheranton.hubpages.com/hub/thevampireinmycellar

A trip to Gillingham to see a vampire

Visiting Christopher Anton, and his vampire friend

Irene is invited to stay. Could there be a vampire there?

There was a vampire in the house all along.

A touching domestic scene in Saunders Street Gillingham.

The Gillingham vampire is a bit like this.

Mrs Irene Anton struggled up the escalator at St Pancras station. The bags, laden with food that she was carrying weighed her down. The Gillingham train was due to leave in about four minutes and she didn't want to miss it. That would mean a wait of another half an hour before she could get the next one and there wasn't a lot to entertain one at St Pancras station. She was on her way to Gillingham to visit her nephew by marriage Christopher Anton. The family were starting to get very concerned about him. Since that business in Wimbledon he had never been the same. Nobody had ever found out exactly what happened, but whatever occurred had left him almost a gibbering wreck. Everybody had hoped that the year he spent in the mental institution would have restored him to his old self. Sadly he had emerged almost as disturbed as when he went in. The move to Gillingham had not proven to be a good one either. The few times that any of the family had managed to see him there he was very unfriendly. She had asked his cousin Joe to call on him earlier in the year. Joe was a traveller in ladies underwear, so would be able to give a legitimate excuse as to why he was in Gillingham. When he knocked on the door however there was no reply. He waited for about ten minutes and he said he knocked about three more times. No Christopher appeared. Joe was not entirely convinced that there was nobody home as he could almost swear that he heard a door closing within the house just when he arrived outside.

Mrs Anton was even more concerned when she spoke to her sister-in-law, (Christopher's aunt), Mavis. Mavis had received a letter from her nephew which was couched in very insulting terms towards the whole family. It had more or less accused everybody of hounding him and it had went on to say how fed up he was of all these parasites descending on him and eating all his food. This was very strange because none of the family were like that. They rarely visited him and when they did they always brought something with them. It might be just a few pizzas to put in the oven for dinner but nobody turned up empty-handed. She preferred to bring along some nice cream cakes. There was a Marks & Spencer's at St Pancras and you could always get some lovely confectionery there. It really bothered her that the previously very friendly and hospitable Christopher had become so paranoid and mean. Whatever the problem was, Mrs Anton was determined to get to the bottom of it. She really loved Christopher, even though he wasn't a blood relative. Her bags were laden with delicious foodstuffs including his favourite Belgian chocolate Easter eggs. She was determined to get on the right side of her eccentric nephew, hoping in this way to draw him out. Perhaps she might be able to find out what his big problem was.

When the train arrived in Gillingham Irene made her way to Saunders Street. The bags of food were rather heavy and she regretted that she hadn't brought a shopping trolley with her. She certainly hoped that Christopher would be at home and would invite her in. It was downhill from the station to his house. It would be no pleasure for her if she had to drag all the shopping bags back up the hill to the station.

She was very pleasantly surprised then when the door was opened almost immediately. Christopher Anton appeared to be really delighted to see her. She was invited in and a cup of tea was put in her hand almost before she could say “how are you Christopher”. She glanced around the house as her host was fussing about milk and sugar. She did think it looked a little untidy. There were empty takeaway cartons strewn around the living room. Peeping out from under the television table were some empty plastic containers. Irene had worked for many years as a nurse in a hospital. She could recognise blood plasma bags when she saw them. “Why” she thought “would Christopher be keeping blood plasma in his house”? She hoped he hadn't developed some dreadful disease. Perhaps that was why he had become so reclusive recently? She decided not to ask him about them. Later on, when the cream cakes and the Easter eggs had done their work, he might volunteer the information she needed to hear himself.

When the tea had been consumed, along with some biscuits from one of Irene's bags, nephew and aunt stretched out beside each other on the sofa. There was a slight awkwardness in the atmosphere. Christopher had become a bit silent. It was almost as if he were awaiting an interrogation. At least that was how Irene felt it was. She couldn't stop her eyes being drawn to the blood plasma bags. She didn't want to say anything about them but they were just such an oddity in somebody's living room, that she couldn't keep her attention away from them. He must've noticed her straying eyes, because he brought up the subject himself.

“Those bags were left there by some paramedics who were attending to a carpenter who had been doing some work here for me. The poor man had an accident with his circular saw. He lost so much blood that he had to be given a transfusion right here on my living room floor”

Irene didn't really believe his explanation. As a nurse she understood that no paramedic would just leave used plasma bags behind in somebody's house. To do such a thing would be a sacking offence. She decided not to say anything further on the subject. While it was obvious that he was lying, she felt it better to at least go along with the deception. Perhaps later on he might confide the real truth to her.

Christopher Anton could not have been nicer to his aunt. When she mentioned that she was thinking of getting a train back to London at 10 to 10, he was most insistent that she stay the night.

“I haven't seen you for almost a year dear Aunt Irene. Stay for a day or two please. We can go to visit Rochester Castle tomorrow if you like”, he urged, when she mentioned about her train back to London.

She didn't need a lot of persuading. Since her beloved Eric had died in the previous year, she had been rather lonely. There was more than enough food in the Marks & Spencers bags to feed both of them. It would be nice to just rekindle the easy relationship that they used to have in the old days. Accordingly she readily agreed to stay. There were two bedrooms and a very comfortable small single bed in the spare room. She could look forward to being very comfortable during her night in Gillingham.

When it came to time to prepare the evening meal, the ever hospitable Christopher, took out some rather delicious looking pizzas from the chest freezer in the kitchen.

“These should make a very nice first course for us” he said. “Then we can finish off by sharing one of those delightful Belgian chocolate Easter eggs which I know dear Auntie you've got in your bags”.

So pizza it was and when the shared Easter egg had been washed down with some good-quality Earl Grey tea Christopher excused himself saying that he needed to attend to some mushrooms that he was growing in the cellar. He switched the television on for Irene and left her sitting in the living- room to watch “Coronation Street”. During a quiet part of the programme Irene could hear a snatch of some conversation that her nephew appeared to be having with somebody in the cellar. She thought he might have a telephone down there. He was saying something that sounded like,” she is staying the night”. Irene assumed that he was speaking to one of the other relatives. She was glad to hear, from that snatch of conversation, that he seemed to be on good terms with at least one other member of the family. Perhaps he wasn't really as disturbed as some people were making out.

The rest of the evening went pleasantly enough. The talk was mainly on inconsequential matters, such as the weather, or how Uncle Derek was enjoying his early retirement. Any attempt by Irene to steer the conversation round to more matters of a personal nature to do with Christopher himself, were regularly sidestepped. He just didn't want to open up at all it seemed. She still thought he was behaving a bit oddly. At one point, when he was in the kitchen after finishing the washing up, she saw his reflection in a mirror which was hanging opposite the open door. Her nephew was looking at the back of her head and the reflection of his face showed a countenance of great malevolence. She only saw it for a second or two and then he was back in the living room fussing about and asking whether she would like a low stool to put her feet up. Afterwards she thought she might have just imagined the look. People's faces, in repose, do sometimes look less than friendly.

By a quarter to midnight Irene was starting to feel very tired. The conversation between them was starting to peter off and when they each yawned almost simultaneously the decision was taken to retire for the night. Irene was asleep within five minutes of her head hitting the pillow.

She can't have been sleeping for more than an hour when the click of her door being opened left her suddenly very awake. Footsteps were entering the bedroom. She turned to face the doorway and when she turned the shock of what she saw almost stopped her heart. There was a man holding a candle by the side of her bed. Such a man as she had never seen before in her life and such a creature as she prayed she would never have to encounter again. The fiendish face that was outlined by the flickering flame of the candle was white, but like dirty snow, and the eyes, that looked like they could bore into the centre of her brain, were of a blackness that could have been painted from the palette of the devil. The creature’s mouth was open in a silent growl. There were two terrifying, gashing canines growing from the upper of his rotting gums. The horror from hell sunk his fangs into her fright frozen neck. The last thing she saw, before unconsciousness started to enclose her petrified being, was her nephew standing in the background holding a large hatchet. The look of sheer hatred, that she thought she had imagined earlier on, was clearly etched on his features. The final words she heard as the vampire started on the third pint of her blood was Christopher Anton saying “you take your fill my friend and then I will take her head”.

It is said, by those who really know about these things, that the decapitated head retains some capacity for thought for a brief period after it has been separated from the body. In the case of good kind Aunt Irene this was undoubtedly the situation. As her exultant nephew danced around the bedroom holding her, still bleeding head, which he had just taken off; while the unconsumed portion of her blood sprayed the headboard a vivid crimson, the very last thought that flickered in her expiring brain was “oh my God. He really is mad after all”.

There are daisies in the garden of the house in Saunders Street Gillingham but the gentle Mrs Irene Anton is not pushing them up. She is causing a slight unevenness, in the ground underneath the timbers of the decking instead. Her head is reposing between her knees. Christopher Anton enjoys spending the summer evenings sitting in his garden. Occasionally he listens for knocks on the front door. Perhaps another relative or a friend might decide to visit. In his box in the cellar the vampire snores gently.