The June Special Guest Story is by
Simon Clark
Please feel free to visit Simon HERE
VAMPYRRHIC PAY-PER-VIEW
by Simon Clark
“If something has four legs, a tail and barks, it’s a dog, right? If something spends the hours of daylight in a grave and consumes blood, then surely we’re talking VAMPIRE… aren’t we?”
We sat in front of the computer screen. The male voice spoke in that deep, resonant manner redolent of TV commercials for beer. Onscreen, a photograph of a cliché female vampire: a beautiful woman, raven black hair cascading down over an artfully torn dress that revealed just enough bare skin to get my friend sweaty and excited. All of this made me uneasy – no, more than uneasy. Frankly, this scared me.
“Murray,” I said. “Why do you want to talk to a vampire?”
“Can you think of anything better to do?”
Photographs of the beautiful woman flowed across the screen.
“Look at what they’ve done to her, Murray. Someone locked her into a cell.”
“What do you expect? She’s a vampire. If she isn’t locked up she’ll attack people in the studio.”
The iron bars that formed the cell had been bolted to slimy brickwork.
“That’s no TV studio,” I told him. “That’s some stinking basement.”
“Shush… have another.” He handed me a bottle. “We’re next.”
“Murray. Let’s take these beers outside.”
“This will be amazing. I actually get to meet a vampire online.”
“It’s got to be fake. Shell be an actress… I hope to God she is an actress, because what they’re doing to her is illegal.”
A male voice rumbled from the computer. “Enter your credit card details now. Then select how long you want to talk to Carenza. $100 buys ten minutes. $150 buys twenty.”
“Damn it, Murray.” The beer went the wrong way down my throat. I choked out a heck of a lot of beer froth with the words: “$100! They’re ripping you off. This is fake – mega fake!”
“This isn’t fake.” The voice came from the PC, not Murray, who busily typed his house number and street name into the billing address box.
I stared at the screen as a man’s face filled it. His shaved head gleamed. He had the mean eyes of one of those guys who hurt people for a living. A real leg-breaker for hire vibe.
“He can see us.” Murray sounded excited. “Look, our webcam’s on. He sees us! We see him!”
I rolled my chair back. Okay, maybe I’d drank so many beers my brain wasn’t working like it should, but I really believed the hoodlum could reach out of the PC and grab me by the throat.
“Do it!” Murray sang out. “Show me the vampire!”
“One moment, sir. I’m waiting for your credit card to go through.” The man’s mobster face was replaced by a rotating egg-timer.
I whispered to Murray, “Don’t go any further with this.”
“I’ve paid my $100.”
“Please, Murray. It’s not right; you’re going to end in all kinds of trouble.”
The hoodlum reappeared onscreen. “Payment accepted. Thank you, sir. Now I’ll introduce you to Carenza. Queen of the Vampires.”
The man we saw via the webcam moved to one side. We both gasped when we saw what was in the background. The beautiful woman, with the luscious black hair, stood behind the bars of that evil-looking cell. What we saw must have been filmed using something like a phone or tablet computer, because the image wobbled as the guy picked up the device and carried it toward the cage. This gave the impression of Carenza’s face zooming into close-up behind the bars. The prisoner’s eyes were a striking almond shape and black as night-time. She wasn’t frightened. She wore a neutral expression, neither welcoming nor hostile. Perhaps she’d resigned herself to being confined to that dreary basement with the wet walls.
Mobster man spoke off-camera. “Say hello to your guests, Carenza.”
“Good evening, gentlemen.” Her voice purred with sultry eroticism.
“Murray, you’re being conned!” I wailed. “She’s not a real vampire. It’s all fake.”
The online mobster snarled, “You want proof? I’ll show you proof.”
I can still vividly recall every detail of the shocking scene that followed (put your hands over your ears for the next few seconds if you don’t like descriptions that are too gruesome… and downright nasty). He continued to film the woman in her cell. As he did so, he opened a window blind high up on the wall (it must have been one of those basement windows set just above ground level). The setting sun fired a beam of light into the basement. The mobster told us to keep watching, and get our money’s worth, “because Vampyrrhic Pay-Per-View never issue refunds.” He ordered the woman to stand in the daylight. A vertical strip of red sunlight fell onto her upraised face. I couldn’t stop myself from yelling in horror at what I saw next. Where the red glow of sunset touched one side of her face a vertical line of skin, corresponding where the light fell, instantly puckered. Skin bubbled, shrivelled and shrank. It was like watching a plastic mask burn. Carenza threw back her head, arched her back, and screamed.
“There’s your proof, gents. Natural daylight is death to a vampire. Okay, that’s enough.” He closed the blind. Within seconds, the skin healed itself. The woman’s face was unmarked and stunningly beautiful once more. “Okay, what’s the first question you want to ask her?”
What we’d seen had shocked us so much we just sat there, saying nothing.
“Get your hundred bucks’ worth, guys.” He smirked. “After all, for the next ten minutes she’s all yours.”
Murray couldn’t speak, so I asked, “Carenza? You really are a vampire?”
In that sexy whisper she said, “Yes.”
“And you’re Queen of the Vampires?”
“Are these banal questions the ones you really want to ask?”
Murray gulped his beer in one huge, terrified swallow. Man, he really needed that alcohol. This was his tenth beer of the night – he swayed as he stared at the tempting, voluptuous figure onscreen. Tempting for him, that is. I wanted out of Murray’s basement. Talking to a caged vampire froze my blood. I admit it, I was scared.
Off-camera, Mobster man said, “Nine minutes left.”
I asked, “You really do drink human blood?”
“For goodness sake.” Carenza lost patience. “I’m a vampire. Yes, I drink blood.” Her tongue caressed her lips. “Won’t your handsome friend ask me an intelligent question?”
Murray blinked. “Me? You want me to ask you something?”
“I’m looking at you, aren’t I?”
“Carenza?”
“Yes?” She purred with sexual intensity. “Ask me anything your heart desires.”
“How long have you been a prisoner?”
“Who said anything about me being a prisoner?” She curled her fingers around one of the vertical iron bars. “Haven’t you noticed? The lock is on my side of the cage. And I have the key.” She touched a key that hung from a red leather belt that tightly cinched her waist. “I’m not the prisoner here. I’m free to roam.”
“Eight minutes left.”
So Mobster man is the captive, not the other way round, I told myself. A mortal slave to the vampire queen, no doubt.
“Please,” she murmured with a come-hither look into the camera, “ask questions that excite me. Be inventive. Take me by surprise.”
“Okay, I will!” Murray suddenly became animated. “CAN YOU SHOW ME YOUR WORLD!”
The woman moaned with pleasure. “Ohhh… now that is a lovely question. The best ever.” She smiled warmly. “Follow me, boys.”
Shivers poured through me. “How can we follow? We’re watching you on a computer.”
“Where there’s a will there’s a way.” She extended her hand from between the bars. “Give me the phone.” Mobster man obeyed. We saw the picture tilt and turn as she took the device. “Now, come with me… I’ll show you my secret realm.” Her red lips formed a delicious smile. “It’s the world below your world.”
She carried the phone, and we watched what she captured for us. We saw it all live as images were streamed from the device to the computer in Murray’s basement.
And this is what we saw:
Brickwork – dull and wet. A glimpse of Mobster man beyond the bars – prisoner of the vampire queen. Suddenly, in front of us, an iron door. Her slender fingers pushed it open. The camera seemed to float through the air as if it were a spirit.
“Darling boys, you asked to see my world.” There was pleasant laughter in her voice. “And so you shall.”
I tugged Murray’s arm so hard that beer spilt from the bottle onto his lap. He never even noticed – the temptress enchanted him.
“Murrray,” I whispered. “Don’t watch anymore.”
“We’re seeing things no human being has ever seen.”
“We’re seeing things that no human being is MEANT to see. This is forbidden, blasphemous stuff.”
“I want to see where she takes us.”
“Pull the plug. We could go to a bar instead. Meet girls – living, warm-blooded girls.”
“Not scared, are you boys?”
“Not me, Carenza!” Murray sounded eager to please.
“Tell your jittery friend he will see marvellous things tonight. Sexy, exciting things.”
This made me reconsider exiting the basement. “Sexy, exciting things?”
“Just follow Carenza.” She turned the phone to reveal her friendly, smiling face. “Keep watching… this is my world.”
The phone’s camera revealed a pool of shadow. Moments later, that gloomy void opened out into a huge cavern. There seemed to be no end to the place. Its smooth walls were carved from bedrock, and… oh! … people. Thousands of people. As Carenza walked they turned and bowed to their queen. Then they went about their work.
“They’re miners.” I gasped. “Look! Picks, shovels, drills, trucks!”
Sometimes we glimpsed faces in close-up. They possessed inhuman, glittering eyes, lips parted revealing sharp, vampiric teeth.
I stared in amazement. “Blood-suckers! A race of blood-sucking vampires living underground.”
Carenza explained: “We’ve been hunted by your kind for centuries. So we decided to create a world beneath the surface. It’s always dark here. And our enemies can’t find us. At last, we’re safe.”
I pictured Carenza, queen of the subterranean vampires, walking regally through the never-ending cavern, her long, black hair swishing as she proudly tossed her head. She’d hold the phone in front of her at the height of that noble chin of hers. We saw from her point of view. Trucks clatttered along railroad tracks. They were full of male and female vampires. I glimpsed tunnelling gear: heaps of picks, hammers, sacks of cement – everything those creatures required to build their underground city, their necropolis, their realm of the undead.
For the first time, I asked an intelligent question, “Carenza, if you’ve got all this construction going on, why do you need Murray’s one hundred bucks?”
“My darling boy, all this costs money. We have mortal intermediaries who buy construction materials from builders’ merchants on the surface.”
I gawped at a dozen bulldozers chugging along a subterranean highway. “It must cost millions.”
Murray nodded. “The hundred dollars I paid wouldn’t even cover the cost of filling up the tank of just one of those bulldozers.”
“You are perfectly correct, Murray. Then I’m sure you’re perfect in other ways, too.”
He blushed with delight.
“Considering that we’re building catacombs that extend beneath the Atlantic all the way from America to Europe, then our need for liquid cash is as insatiable as our appetite for blood.”
I whistled. “You’re going to have to spend an awful lot of time entertaining pay-per-view clients.”
Steps appeared in front of Carenza. We watched from Carenza’s point of view as she climbed the staircase, which rose up through a shaft in the roof of the cavern. I checked the time onscreen.
“Hey, Carenza? What’s happening?” I felt cheated. “There’s one minute left on the pay-per-view clock. You promised to show us something sexy.”
“I did, didn’t I, boys?”
“So…” Murray licked his lips. “When are you going to deliver the goodies?” He eyed the enticing lines her shadow cast on the wall.
I whispered in his ear, “Don’t get any weird ideas about Carenza becoming your girlfriend.”
He elbowed me in the chest. “Shut up.”
I realized what Carenza was doing. She’d hooked two boozy fools (us!) with salacious promises of vampiric erotica – now she’d demand we buy more pay-per-view time. “This is a rip-off,” I said. “We’re not going to waste any more money on seeing stupid caves.”
“Don’t worry, boys. Carenza always keeps her promises. You wanted to see sexy, so I’ll show you sexy.”
She reached a metal trap door set in the cave’s roof, which was just inches above her head (or so I judged from the camera angle).
I was getting all argumentative. “And I still don’t see how you appearing on a webcam for $100 a time’s going to pay for Vampire Grand Central down there.”
“Boys, my darling boys, you don’t think I’m the sole performer on Vampyrrhic Pay-Per-View? There are thousands of us providing online entertainment.”
Murray was drunk. No doubt about it. Drunk as a skunk on payday. “Hey… a promise is a promise. You said you’d show us something sexy.”
“And I’ll keep that promise. Trust me, you’re not going to believe your eyes.” She held the phone at arm’s length. This way the vampire could film herself standing just inches beneath the steel trap door. “Okay. Get ready. You’re just about to see me in the flesh.”
I snorted with disbelief. “How you going to do that? We’re watching you on the computer. You’re nowhere near this…” My voice died the moment she knocked on the metal trap door.
“Here I come, boys.”
I turned down the volume on the computer’s speakers. She knocked again.
We both heard that tap of her knuckles against the trap door. The sound came from the steel slab set into the floor of Murray’s basement.
“Oh, God,” I groaned. “Oh my, dear God.”
“Carenza’s coming up, boys. You’re going to see her in the flesh.” The sound of her voice came from beneath our feet.
Onscreen, the vampire queen pushed open the trap door. In Murray’s basement, the steel slab began to rise. I could see through the gap. And there, gazing back at us, were a pair of beautiful, almond-shaped eyes.
*****
That’s it. I’ve told you the story of what happened to Murray and me. What’s that? You want to hear what happened next? You want to know what Carenza did when she climbed up into our basement?
Of course, I can tell you. I can reveal events of such intensity they will shock you. But your time is up. Please enter your credit card details again. A further ten minutes costs only $50.
Oh, and be sure to carefully enter your billing address. That’s the full address with house number and street name. Here at Vampyrrhic Pay-Per-View we value your custom. And we’d love to keep you with us – late into the witching hour.
THE END
Simon Clark, written May 1, 2013
See The Tower youtube HERE
SIMON CLARK lives in Doncaster, England with his family. When his first novel, Nailed by the Heart, made it through the slush pile in 1994 he banked the advance and embarked upon his dream of becoming a full-time writer. Many dreams and nightmares later he wrote the cult zombie classics Blood Crazy, Darkness Demands, This Rage of Echoes and The Night of the Triffids, which continues the story of Wyndham’s classic The Day of the Triffids. His revival of the wickedly ambulatory plants won the British Fantasy Society’s award for best novel.
His work Humpty's Bones won the British Fantasy Society’s award for best novella in 2011.
Simon has returned to the much-loved Vampyrrhic mythology with His Vampyrrhic Bride and Whitby Vampyrrhic. He has also published The Midnight Man, a story of murder, madness and ghosts, featuring Vincent Van Gogh in the most turbulent year of his life; and Ghost Monster, about opening graves in a cemetery for an archaeological dig.
He has also written The Tower and Stranger, both available now on Kindle and pictured below.
Simon also experiments in short film, one of which, Dear Simon, Where Do You Get Your Ideas From? has been featured in the UK’s Channel 4 ShortDoc series, and earned the accolade ‘the ultimate in TV democracy.’ He also created Winter Chills for BBC TV. More films, with tips on writing horror fiction, plus articles, stories and Simon Clark news can be accessed at his website.
Simon’s Website HERE
See all of Simon's books HERE.
