The vampire in my cellar. Living with an "Undead".

Moving to the vampire's Lair.

Where is a vampire when you need one?

Could there possibly be a vampire in the cellar?

Is it a burglar? Or might it be a vampire?

This definitely looks like a vampire.

A conversation with the undead.

The advantages of entering into a partnership with a vampire.

A special treat for vampire fans.

Some of you may remember the stories which I told you about the zombie Julian Faversham who shared my house a few years ago when I lived in Wimbledon in south-west London. It may spring into your recollection how closely I almost came to meeting my maker at the hands of my murderous housemate. Eventually, while in the process of eating the brains of a local detective police sergeant with an oversized desserts spoon, the zombie spontaneously combusted and there was nothing left of his mouldy form but a heap of grey ashes in the middle of the floor. The shock to my system was so great that I had to spend almost a year in a mental institution to recover my senses.

My life has moved on a bit since then. I've been discharged from the hospital and no longer live in my old residence in Wimbledon. I now reside in the county of Kent in the very delightful town of Gillingham. I moved there just over six months ago and I was very pleased with my new home. The house, as often happens, was partially furnished. There was a washing machine and a fridge in the kitchen, two large winged armchairs in the living room and a bed in one of the bedrooms that looked like it had seen better days. There was also a garden at the back of the property, with some tired looking, unpruned roses reaching their leafless branches to the top of the high wall, almost as if they were prisoners trying to escape from their junglefied prison. The neglected condition of the rear garden was only added to by the fact that the grass appeared not to have been cut for at least three or four years. None of this fazed me however. I've always been a keen gardener and I looked forward with enthusiasm to getting to grips with my unkempt environment.

The thing that attracted me most to this house, as opposed to other properties I viewed, was the cellar. Throughout most of my adult life I have lived in small flats, with the notable exception of the house in Wimbledon. The prospect of living in a residence with a big empty room under the floor rather tickled my fancy. All my adult life I've been a very private person and I've always been plagued by visits from a succession of concerned irritating relatives, who could just never understand somebody who preferred their own company. Barely a week went by without some sister, aunt, or old friend knocking on my door to enquire whether I was all right. They usually turned up just when I was about to watch my favourite television programme or sit down to my dinner. They almost always wanted to be fed as well. I decided to make my underground room into an extra living room. This way, I reasoned, that I would have a perfect refuge to retreat to if I saw one of the unwelcome visitors making their way in my direction.

The most importunate and annoying of all these uninvited intruders was my Aunt Irene. This persistent pest was not even a blood relative. She had been married to my Uncle Eric. I don't really know how he tolerated living with her, for he had always been a very quiet man and she was the direct opposite. When she did actually manage to gain access to any of my residences her booming voice used to shake all the windows. I would be reaching for the aspirin within 5 min of her arriving. In addition to almost earthquake causing vocal chords, she was possessed of a gargantuan appetite. She never went home without leaving both my cupboard and my fridge completely empty. If there were a nice cake or a packet of biscuits in my house, you could be certain that my gluttonous relative would leave with them tucked away inside her seemingly bottomless belly. It was principally with the intention of avoiding the company of this thunderous locust that I had decided to refurbish my cellar. The death of my uncle, which had occurred the year before my move, had served only to increase the frequency of visits to me. I guess she wanted to transfer her powers of driving people up the walls from her late lamented spouse to me. His gain, in dying, had become my loss.

The cellar of the house was completely empty apart from a long low chest which sat on its own against one wall. It was of antique style with strange carvings of serpents and goat-like heads on the lid and all over the sides. There was a note pinned to the lid informing me that the chest belonged to a former tenant called Jonathan Avery. The message further stated that it would be collected at some stage in the future. I was requested not to open it under any circumstances. Since I am by nature a very honest and reliable type of person, I immediately resolved to leave the strange chest undisturbed. I could always put an old tablecloth over it. It would serve as a placement for either my television or my stereo. So that is exactly what I did and I didn't give a further thought to it after that.

A week later, after I visited the local emporium to purchase some furniture and I had painted the walls of the cellar in my favourite colour of sky-blue, my refuge was ready for me to retreat to. All that was needed was for one of the annoying visitors to turn up so I could test the effectiveness of my bolthole.

That night I slept, comfortably for the first time, in my bed upstairs. There was little likelihood of any of the nuisances turning up in the late evening and I did have my cellar prepared for immediate occupation should any of them arrive during the day. It must have been just past 2 AM. I was suddenly awakened by the sound of a thud, closely followed by breaking glass, coming from my cellar. I was wide awake then and tremblingly alert when I heard the sound of feet coming up the stairs from my room underneath the house. My first thought was that I had a burglar. I assumed that somebody had climbed in through one of the windows without waking me and that he had been rifling through my property in the cellar and had knocked over the television, probably because he had been unable to find the light switch. Can you imagine my terror when I heard the footsteps, which had been coming up the stairs from the cellar, commencing the climb from the living room area to the bedroom where I lay petrified? I felt sure that my last moment had come. I had read enough newspapers and watched more than sufficient television news programs to know that terrified victims like myself were frequently strangled by psychopaths who had invaded their houses. I resolved not go quietly though. I did keep a rather large broom handle under my bed for use in such emergencies. So I jumped to the floor and positioned myself just behind the door in order to surprise whatever murderous fiend was about to try to take my life.

The door opened and the intruder entered my room. He whipped round quickly to face me before I had an opportunity to strike him with my weapon. The surprise I got when I saw his face caused me to let the broom handle fall to the floor. I had been an avid cinema goer in my earlier days and my favourite genre had been vampire movies. The features of Christopher Lee as Dracula were more than familiar to me. This creature standing in front of me could have been the great Mr Lee himself. His black hair was plastered back on his head like it had been coated with Brylcreem. His face was the same colour as the White Cliffs of Dover. His eyes, which were sunk deep in their sockets, were as black as the lowest pit of hell. The trails of dried blood that were sticking to the edges of his mouth and around his chin testified to his fiendish identity. A flash of intuition told me that this was no burglar. I knew in that moment what exactly the mysterious chest had contained.

To my great surprise the vampire, instead of jumping on me and proceeding to suck my blood, gave me a very courteous bow.

“Baron Axel at your service” he said.

“Forgive the intrusion. I mean you no harm. Rather I was hoping that we might be able to form an alliance with each other; something that might be mutually beneficial”.

“Do you mind if I sit on your bed. Climbing those stairs those rather take it out on my 400-year-old legs” he added.

“Why are you not attacking me” I asked. “Should you not be drinking my blood by now”?

“I am living in your house” was the reply. “It would be rather ungracious of me to attack my host. Besides I need my chest for sleeping during the day and your cellar is the perfect place in which to keep it”.

“So what is this mutually beneficial arrangement you're talking about” I enquired. “It had better be of very good use to me, otherwise you will find yourself with a sharp stake through your diabolical heart before too many days have passed”.

“You really are going to like this” he told me. “I've been listening from my hiding place to the constant comings and goings of the various pestilential relatives that disturb your solitude. I am quite old and I do not wish to go out and about in the town, or in the countryside, in order to slake the thirst for human blood, which I need to do to sustain my existence. I believe we can deal with two problems at once. You will be rid of the annoyances that make your life a misery and I will be able to get my sustenance from your dying visitors”.

This seemed to me to be an eminently reasonable proposal. Accordingly the deal was struck between us. I would not kill him and he would kill all my relatives.

Aunt Irene was bound to roll up before the end of the week. She would do for a start.

To be continued, if the author is not arrested, committed to an insane asylum, or murdered in the interim.

Find out what happens next here.

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