The Midnight Hour Read Online Free PDF Page B

there.” She spun on her heel, putting every ounce of drama into the turn she could muster. “You wouldn’t understand my perception of beauty.”
    Paul shook his head. “I guess not.”
    She mumbled as she returned to the sanctity of her bedroom, “I was so sure it was red…”
     
    The first that had fed began to revive, slowly uncurling, writhing on the ground, preparing to lift themselves on the air once more. And as they did they registered that the feeding had been good and that there was more in the immediate vicinity. Much more.
    Signals began to flow from the creatures, thoughts, messages sending out across the fields, away from the town. Back to the swarm.
     
    Janet sat at her dressing table, retouching her makeup in the mirror. She glanced towards the scarf where she had discarded it, over the back of a chair.
    “Cheap dyes. Fade so fast. Disgraceful.”
    It barely had any colour at all now. Indeed, she almost felt she could see the chair through it. So pale. Hard to believe it had been such a deep red when she found it.
    She turned back to the mirror.
    The scarf moved.
    She saw it in the reflection. A small movement, perhaps more of a slip than a movement. Fascinated she watched, expecting it to slide off the back of the chair at any moment.
    Instead it writhed.
    She let out a small cry of surprise.
    The now translucent ribbon tensed, gathered its strength, and leapt.
    The moment before it wrapped itself around Janet’s neck, a row of ice-like needles sprang from within its twisting form, and as it made contact with her flesh they punctured her skin, some stabbing into her muscles, injecting her with a paralysing venom, others opening her arteries and veins, sucking blood. And along its whole length it oscillated, rippled, massaging and masticating the flesh around the wounds.
    Janet was able to scream once before the venom took everything but thought and pain and fear away from her.
     
    Paul turned from pressing garlic cloves when he heard the short scream.
    What had she done now? Smudged her lipstick?
    “I’m coming,” he called. “Hang on.”
    He pushed open the door to her room, already preparing the comments he would make. She would panic at the slightest change in her appearance. He sometimes dreaded the thought of still being here with her when the wrinkles really began to show.
    Any words died before they were spoken as he saw his sister, sprawled across her dressing table, her limbs jerking spasmodically as if dancing to some unheard arrhythmic music. And something pulsed around her neck.
    Her scarf.
    It was no longer pale pink but a deep, blood red, and it not only pulsed, it writhed, it shivered, it rippled around her neck.
    It drank!
    He knew, although it was nothing like the creatures in his books and DVDs, he knew it was a vampire. It was sucking the blood from her neck, just as it had sucked the blood from Mr Malone. It’s colour was his sister’s blood, filling it’s otherwise colourless body.
    He thought of Mr Malone.
    He thought of something hitting his van windshield, leaving a greasy smear as it slid off.
    He shuddered.
    He ran to his sister.
    Fighting down his revulsion, his fear, he grabbed at the creature, his fingers slipping off the gelatinous body. He held a vague hope that the garlic on his hands might have some effect, but it seemed as ineffective as his own fingers.
    He tore at the thing, scratched at it. It showed no sign that it even knew he was there.
    Crying out in rage, in frustration, he pounded on it with his fists. The body, solid with blood, barely gave beneath his knuckles.
    He needed a weapon.
    As his sister’s limbs grew still he ran for the kitchen, grabbing up the largest knife he could find.
    When he returned the creature had gone. A slight trail of blood smeared across the floor to an open window.
    His sister was dead.
     
    Detective Greenbaum recognised Paul Walker as he left the police station.
    The younger man was running towards him. He seemed