Whitby Vampyrrhic Read Online Free PDF Page A

of the studio, which would be around thirty feet above her head. Clouds hung there, or something that resembled clouds. Beth figured that a gauzy material had been suspended from roof beams to create the effect of natural cloud. And even as she gazed at it the light dimmed on this magnificent recreation of Whitby town. Perhaps one of the exterior doors was being slowly drawn shut?
    Now the gloom closed in. Shadows spilled from authentic-looking alleyways. Darkness crept along Church Street. It seemed as if a black mist engulfed the houses, until they became indistinct shapes that assumed the menacing aspect of hunched figures. Windows were dull eyes that watched. Just as if they expected a terrible fate to befall her. Now they were curious to what that fate would be . . . and how much she’d suffer before she died.
    Stop that
, she told her rogue imagination. This flu bug, or whatever it was, was clouding her mind. Her stride became increasingly unsteady. Her eyes blurred, so the already gloomy town became even more murkily indistinct.
No, not a town
, she thought.
This is a set made out of plywood and paper in a film studio.
She pushed at the door of a cottage, expecting it to flap open in that flimsy way that is the province of studio scenery. Only, this robust slab of timbers remained locked solidly shut.
    On impulse she rapped on the door, as if challenging it to be just a copy of a cottage door that would have been cobbled together in a studio workshop. Her knuckles rapped solid oak. A moment later she heard footsteps. The owner of the house had answered her call.
    But who owns a strange, goblin cottage like that? What would they look like? Would they welcome a stranger at dusk?
Not wishing to meet the denizen of such a weird little abode, she fled before the door could be opened. She rubbed her forehead. That sense of energy building inside the studio came back to her. A huge storm’s worth of charge. Something huge and violent and terrifying just about to break. Tiny, skittering objects ran across the cobbles in front of her. Rats. They had to be. Loathsome, disease-bearing rats.
    To avoid being in the rodents’ way, if they decided to rush back at her, Beth turned left into an alleyway that boasted the bizarre name of Arguments Yard. She passed through a narrow, echoing passageway to a tiny close lined with equally tiny houses. And at that moment Beth sensed eyes staring at her. Yet she didn’t see a single person.
    She moved deeper into the strangely named yard. Above front doors, house names had been chiselled into solid stone lintels:
Nag’s Cottage
,
North Star Lodge
,
Twixt Heaven & Hell
,
Jack O’ Bones
 . . . Beth felt herself drawn deeper into this narrow gulf. It seemed like a huge hand pressed against the back of her neck, pushing her forward. But forward to what? Her destiny? Her one true end?
    Her eyes tried to penetrate the gloom in front of her. Now that darkness had the rich velvet intensity of red wine. The harder her gaze tried to penetrate the veil of shadow the more the optic nerves compensated by conjuring purple patterns into her field of vision. They were slow moving shapes, twisting, undulating . . .
    I’m going to die in here
, she told herself.
I’m going to die and no one will ever know.
    Her normally cool, rational nature had abandoned her. Only a primordial occult terror remained: that instinct to imagine that monsters lurk under your bed, that there are phantoms in your closet, and that the man following you along the street at midnight is a killer with a bloody knife in his hands . . . and lustful eyes focused on your softly delicate throat . . .
    Then a figure stepped out of the shadows. A young man, his face as pale as ancient bone. Beth retreated along Arguments Yard, aiming to retrace her footsteps to the exit. She reached the passageway that led to the street. The top of the passage, formed by the upper story