The Vampire’s Assistant. Darren Shan
playing tricks. He’d tell the wife about it when he got home and they’d have a good laugh.
He started walking again.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
There. Back to the familiar sounds. There was nobody else about. He would have heard more than a single branch snapping if there was. Nobody could creep up on Stanley J. Collins. He was a trained Scout Master. His ears were as sharp as a fox’s.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Cru—
Snap.
He stopped again, the fingers of fear tightening around his beating heart.
That hadn’t been his imagination. He’d heard it, clear as a bell. A twig snapping, somewhere overhead. And before it snapped: had there been the slightest rustling sound, as if something was moving?
Stanley gazed up at the trees but it was too dark to see. There could have been a monster the size of a car up there and he wouldn’t have been able to spot it. Ten monsters. A hundred! A thou—
Oh, that was silly. There were no monsters in the trees. Monsters didn’t exist. Monsters weren’t real. It was a squirrel or an owl, something ordinary like that.
Stanley raised a foot and began to bring it down.
Snap.
His foot hung in the air and his heart pounded quickly. That was no squirrel! The sound was too sharp. Something big was up there. Something that shouldn’t be up there. Something that had never been there before. Something that—
Snap!
The sound was closer this time, lower down, and all of a sudden Stanley could stand it no longer. He ran.
Stanley was a large man, but fairly fit for his age. Still, it had been a long time since he’d run this fast, and after a hundred metres he was out of breath and had a stitch in his side.
He slowed to a halt and bent over, gasping for air.
Crunch.
His head shot up.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
There were footsteps coming towards him! Slow, heavy footsteps. He listened, terrified, as they came closer and closer. Had the monster leapt ahead of him through the trees? Had it climbed down? Was it coming to finish him off? Was …
Crunch. Crunch.
The footsteps stopped and Stanley was able to make out a figure. It was smaller than he’d expected, no bigger than a boy. He straightened up, gathered his courage about him like a cloak, and stepped forward for a better look.
It was a boy! A small, frightened-looking boy, dressed in a dirty suit.
Stanley smiled and shook his head. What a fool he’d been! The wife would have a field day when he told her about this.
“Are you OK, lad?” Stanley asked.
The boy didn’t answer.
Stanley didn’t recognize the youngster, but a lot of new families had moved into the area recently. He no longer knew every child in the neighbourhood.
“Can I help you?” he asked. “Are you lost?”
The boy shook his head slowly. There was something strange about him, something that made Stanley feel uneasy. It might have been the effect of the darkness and shadows, but the boy looked very pale, very thin, very … hungry.
“Are you all right?” Stanley asked, stepping closer. “Can I—”
SNAP!
The sound came from directly overhead, loud and menacing.
The boy leapt back quickly, out of the way.
Stanley just had time to glance up and spot a huge red shape which might have been a bat, slashing its way down through the branches of the trees.
And then the red monster was on him. Stanley opened his mouth to scream, but before he could, the monster’s hands – claws? – clamped over his mouth. There was a brief struggle, then Stanley was sliding to the floor, unconscious, unseeing, unknowing.
Above him, the two creatures of the night moved in for the feed.
CHAPTER TWO
“IMAGINE A man his age wearing a Scout’s uniform,” Mr Crepsley snorted as he turned our victim over.
“Were you ever in the Scouts?” I asked.
“They did not have them in my day,” he replied.
He patted the man’s meaty legs and grunted. “Plenty of blood in this one,” he said.
I watched as Mr Crepsley searched the leg for a vein, then cut it open – a small slice – using one of his fingernails. As soon as blood oozed out, he clamped his mouth around the cut and sucked. He didn’t believe in wasting any of the “precious red mercury”, as he sometimes called it.
I stood uncertainly by his side as he drank. This was the third time I’d taken part in an attack, but I still wasn’t used to the sight of the vampire sucking blood from a helpless human being.
It had been almost two months since my “death”, but I was having a tough time adjusting to the change. It was hard to believe my old way of life was finished, that I was a half-vampire and could never go back. I knew I had to eventually leave my human side behind. But it was easier said than done.
Mr Crepsley lifted his head and licked his lips.
“A good vintage,” he joked, shuffling back from the body. “Your turn,” he said.
I took a step forward, then stopped and shook my head.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Do not be stupid,” he growled. “You have shied away twice already. It is time you drank.”
“I can’t!” I cried.
“You have drunk animal blood,” he said.
“That’s different. This is a human.”
“So what?” Mr Crepsley snapped. “We are not. You have to start treating humans the same as animals, Darren. Vampires cannot live on animal blood alone. If you do not start drinking human blood, you will grow weak. If you continue to avoid it, you will die.”
“I know,” I said miserably. “You’ve explained it to me. And I know we don’t hurt those we drink from, not unless we drink too much. But …” I shrugged unhappily.
He sighed. “Very well. It is hard, especially when you are only a half-vampire and the hunger is not so great. I will let you abstain this time. But you must feed soon. For your own sake.”
He returned to the cut and cleaned away the blood – which had been leaking out while we were talking – from around the man’s leg. Then he worked up a mouthful of spit and slowly let it dribble over the cut. He rubbed it in with a finger, then sat back and watched.
The wound closed and healed. Within a minute there was nothing left apart from a small scar that the man probably wouldn’t notice when he awoke.
That’s how vampires protect themselves. Unlike in the movies, they don’t kill people when they drink, not unless they are starving, or get carried away and go too far. They drink in small doses, a bit here, a bit there. Sometimes they attack people out in the open, as we had just done. Other times, they creep into bedrooms late at night, or into hospital wards, or police cells.
The people they drink from hardly ever know they’ve been fed on by a vampire. When this man woke, he would remember only a falling red shape. He wouldn’t