The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

I was reading the Radio Times, as I made my third coffee of the day and saw a piece on it being VE Day. Next to the article was a picture of Honour Blackman, dressed as a despatch rider. “Doesn’t she look like you used to dress Dad?” I’d asked, showing him the picture.



“Yes, similar I suppose… though somewhere there’s a photograph of me…” he had responded, obviously curious as to which of the many photo albums he and Mum had it was in.



Then much later in the day, as I came in from weeding and watering, there was Dad waiting with an album I had recognized, open at a picture of him, dressed as he had been at fifteen, a despatch rider for the local homeguard.



“Do you recall it was Debbie who got that album together…” I had said, suddenly remembering just how good my first fiancée could be, at times.



‘This Is Your Life’, we’d called the book; though truth be told, to do my Dad justice, the book would have gone into several volumes, methinks…



And, thinking back on Dad, as it rains while I write; I recall…



“It’s going to rain,” Dad had said, looking up to the chipped tile I had pointed out, looking up from the back garden, sometime late on 2014.



“Maybe,” I’d replied, looking toward the source of his irritation, wishing that I’d not pointed it out. The fellow’s an obsessive and, worse then me I think.



“Got to attend to that…” he’d muttered, walking away…



Well, we had phoned round. But although the job was small and, Dad had the requisite tile, none would come out without surveying the job first.



He’d even phoned the guy who’d seen to our roof and, he’d said the same.



“You shouldn’t let him up there,” One fellow had said to me, sounding as old as my Dad, which meant that he’d understand what I’d say to him next, “Try telling your Father of nearly eighty seven what to do, it isn’t gonna happen…”



Well, the inevitable happened and, Dad got his ladder, bass full of the tools he’d need and yet again, went up on the roof, in his slippers.



Needless to say, the job had not been quite as straight forward as he’d hoped and as tools slipped away and, his frustration grew, Dad had carried on working.



He’d had to take up three rows of tiles, in a kind of pyramid downward from the one he removed. And, ‘quel surprise’, he’d finished the job seventeen minutes before it had begun to rain…

Stars Fallen





The three teens had walked through the dark wood, in the early hours of the morning, each of them having told their respective parents they were staying with friends.



The plan had been simple, so Jo pitched; Jo being the name Joanne much preferred.

“Let’s check out the field behind the woods, where the meteorite thing fell…”



With her were the two many called her shadows, the twins Ben and John.



Identical twins, the teens both had pale complexion, freckles and tight wool-like red-hair and blue-eyes. But, there the similarity ended. John was a foot taller than Ben.



The two young men smiled easily enough and, both were intelligent: yet it was their friendship with Joanne Masters that defined them, at times.



With short blonde hair, worn in a boyish cut; and wearing clothes that never included a dress or skirt, it was she more often than not, who organised their adventures.



It was Jo who led the way through the woods, followed by John then Ben.



“I can’t see anything on this side,” she said, her head turned to the lads, arm outstretched, her right finger indicating where she meant, “Perhaps we’ll find something over there?”



And she began walking again, through the long grass and meadow flowers, all wet, after a heavy rain.



“We’ll be hard-pressed to see anything, in this light…” John hissed through clenched teeth to his young brother, who continued to smile, as he has since seeing Jo earlier…



It was mid-spring, a cloudless night with a pale full moon in the sky; so combined with their small torches, they’d had enough light to negotiate this far…



And now, just ahead from where Jo ran to, the area glowed green…



“Now that doesn’t look good to me,” John muttered, increasing his pace, at Ben’s urging.



“I’ll tell you if we find something buried in the ground, I’m not going to be the first to investigate!” Young Ben proclaimed suddenly, his arms crossed



Jo, then John turned in unison and both said the inevitable, expecting the obvious; “Why?”



“Well,” he told them with a solemn face, “I’ve seen War Of The Worlds!”



Laughter followed the remark, then Jo snapped, “We have to move, now…”



As the trio ran on, all around the small field dark shapes loomed inward; or so it seemed to the wide-eyed youngest, as he ran after the other two. Ben found the grasses to longer and wetter than they had been and, he quickly lost his bearings.



Stopping he listened and heard his brother call, “Ben, keep up…”



Then, as the lad slowly rose on bloodied knees he heard screams; but did not see the luminescent green light; or the black tentacles that had left the dark a moment, to strip the desiccated flesh from John and Jo…



He did hear their brief screams though, cut off as groans became screams… And…



To his shame, he wet himself, moments before choosing to run, to the safety of home and his Mothers loving arms…



It was as he stripped his top off prior to a shower before bed that Ben looked at the colour, as it hit the floor. With black humour, the youngster muttered, “And the fella in the red shirt didn’t get it either…”



The next day the search had begun, an ‘inch by inch search’, so the police had called it…Yet no-one had noticed the tentacles moving in the dark… and… the search had finally ended, when a torch, trainers and backpack were found by the canal…



*



For millennia the intelligence had travelled the cosmos, in its rocky prison



Those who had trapped The Malevolence within its sarcophagus of rock had died, satisfied in the knowledge that they had saved the inhabitants of many worlds…



And, as the rock travelled on it’s journey not all that felt the influence of the green light emitted by The Malevolence was affected by it: yet that which was, was changed dramatically…



Yet, now The Malevolence had found landfall, on Earth…



And, having read the minds of its first prey, a form had been adopted, as it found its way, on its new home…