The Vampire's Apprentice

By Michael Faunce-Brown

while exploring a country churchyard, thirteen year-old nicholas is ensnared by a vampire. the ruthless sir dashwood has a crypt full of almost bloodless youngsters in his "wine cellar".
needing a fresh supply, he forces nicholas into his service as his apprentice to ensnare fresh victims below.
a middle school expedition camps close to the churchyard offering a potential vintage. nicholas saves adrian from a cliff fall. when the vampire is ensnared and staked, nicholas escapes in the school bus only to fall, with adrian, into mr squires, a petty crook's hands and be forced to pick pockets or be delivered to the police. a skeleton army creates havoc and nicholas delivers squires to another vampire.
nicholas is due to arise again so beware of low flying vampires.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Faunce-Brown
• Release date: Mar 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458116161

Michael Faunce-Brown

Ex soldier, farmer and teacher of English and Maths. Writer and Producer of Fight Back, teen action movie, 82 minutes on DVD with Echelon.com Writer & Producer of 12+ Young Escapers Episode 1 (pilot) for TV producers to decide whether they want to make all 7 episodes. Playing in two musical duos. Written full feature film scripts in Action, Children's Action, Thriller, War and Horror genres. Produced several documentaries. Travelled to 40 countries so far.

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Copyright ©2010 by Michael Faunce-Brown

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The Vampire`s Apprentice

Chapter 1 Capture

A vivid splash of blood caused Nicholas to blink and look again. Blood in butchers` shops or on grazed knees, yes, but why on a gravestone covered in moss and half hidden by brambles in a forgotten corner of a churchyard?

Nicholas examined it more closely, only half believing his eyes in the poor light of a thundery June evening. It sure was blood, and fresh. It felt sticky in his exploring fingers and he shivered involuntarily as he wiped it off on the rough stone marking the final resting place of Thomas Rees, died from unknown causes at the age of thirteen, 16th of June 2010, Nicholas` own date of birth but a century earlier. He started at the coincidence.

‘I wonder where that came from?’ murmured Nicholas. ‘Perhaps a dog caught itself in the brambles?’ He shook back his straight black hair, his startling blue eyes searching for other clues.

A distant roll of thunder made him shudder again, as the air chilled with the promise of a storm. It rumbled closer, as if the gods had indigestion. He thought of going home, but having been told to find something to do with himself more constructive than watching tele or persecuting his younger brother, he was in no hurry to tear himself away from the sanctuary of the graveyard. At least no one was likely to disturb his privacy here. Anyway, what use were brothers if you couldn`t tease them and indulge in a minor form of torture, if only tickling them near to hysterics?

A shower of rain made Nicholas retreat a couple of paces into the shelter of an elderly yew by a large family vault. He rested on his haunches as the drops increased into a steady downpour, and nestled close against the side of the vault, getting only his knees wet and the odd drop on the end of his nose, which he caught with his tongue. He noticed that the blood was fast disappearing, diluted in the purifying rain.

As he was impatiently waiting for the storm to pass over and the odd flash of lightning lit up the gloom of the churchyard, throwing weird silhouettes of gravestone shadows against the wall of the vault, Nicholas imagined he could hear voices in the distance, children’s voices venting from somewhere near him. Risking a drenching, he peered over the top of the vault but could see no one. ‘Imagination,’ he whispered, but still the voices continued. They sounded like someone calling for help.

He shivered again, perhaps from the wet, and listened intently trying to fathom out where the children might be? Surely if there were several, some could go to the nearest house?

A crash of thunder followed immediately after lightning, which revealed the top of the vault as being askew. Nicholas was suddenly aware that the voices appeared to come from the vault itself. A shiver ran down his spine.

‘Perhaps it`s only someone caught inside,’ he thought, ‘a door slammed shut in the wind – the lock clicked’ and again he risked a soaking to investigate further.

As the rain beat down through his thin shirt, he saw in the next flash of lightning a small aperture where the lid of the vault had been pushed aside. The voices seemed a little louder and yet still distant. Nicholas stood on tiptoe, endeavouring to peer into the vault. Then he lifted himself onto the slate slab so he was able to squeeze his head into the pitch darkness of the tomb. No speck of light was apparent but gradually a faint glow reflected round a corner. The effect of the voices was multiplied many times, echoing round the chamber like some demonic nightmare. They had changed to what sounded hypnotically like: ‘Come to us, come to us,’ and boomed around in his head, taking over his mind.

Nicholas` first impulse was to extricate himself and run home but his natural curiosity took over and he conquered his fear. He seemed drawn into the darkness.

The voices were all of children indeed but varying in their strength and insistence. Two seemed stronger than the rest and he could just make out the words: ‘Help! Someone save us; set us free; ...........’pire has got us. Come to us. Free us.’

Then, as they were fading, possibly with the energy of the shouters, Nicholas heard a footstep by the tomb. He tried to pull his head out of the vault, glad that there was someone who might help him, and nearly broke his jaw as he forgot the narrow width of the aperture. He felt a slight trickle of blood as an ear started to bleed, caught on the edge of the slate slab.

As he gasped from the sharp pain, he heard a grating and felt the slab tighten round his neck, trapping him so he could not move. A soft, precise voice spoke close to his ear through what remained of the gap between slab and vault wall, sending a shudder through the boy that compared little with the cold penetrating his body from the downpour outside.

‘So I have a visitor, have I? An inquisitive young boy, judging by what is left of him up in this world. And what would you be wanting looking down into my mansion young man? A trespasser! You want to join the youngsters down there; is that it?’

Nicholas felt close to vomiting. The smell half paralysed his mind. He fought against waves of nausea, coming and going.

‘Who are you and what are you talking about? You`ve pushed the slab the wrong way. Let me out, please. I`m soaked.’

Nicholas was seized with an uncontrollable fit of trembling, more due to the cold, deathly voice, like nothing on earth he had heard before, than to the water trickling through his shirt and down the bare backs of his legs.

‘Let you out! Why! You`re on the way in, not out. So you`ve been listening to my kingdom, have you? I must give you a chance to sample it.’

‘Who are you? What do you me...an, Kingdom?

Nicholas pushed with all his might at the slab but with no effect. He was held firmly.

‘You can struggle away all you like, my young friend; wear yourself out. I don`t want you too strong for my purpose. I think you know who I am, if you have any brain at all.’

‘The blood... those voices... you`re not a vam...pire?’ The words came from Nicholas as if painfully extracted, one by one, like teeth. He could hardly dare say them, for fear by doing so, of making them come true.

‘Ah you have some intelligence, I see, my young friend.’ There was a hoarse laugh. ‘I must cover you up with my cloak and keep you from catching a chill, while I take my evening sup.’

Nicholas felt the raindrops ceasing and then, rather than warmer, a sudden chill alternating with heat as a cloak was laid over him. He braced himself for the inevitable bite.

‘It`s all right; I won`t hurt you. I`m a kinder vampire than some I might mention. To lose a little blood is good for you,’ said the voice in a hypnotic tone.

The boy, paralysed with fear, lay rigid, wondering how he could be bitten in the neck, trapped as he was? Perhaps he would get the opportunity of running away as the slab was slid open. He tensed. There might be a chance of talking himself free.

Sir Matthew Dashwood of Dashwood Hall, a tall, handsome figure with flowing black hair, had been born about 1556, so long ago he had difficulty in remembering. Mary had been on the throne and a vicious persecution of Protestants in progress. A vampire since his semi death escaping from being burnt at the stake, before he was twenty one, he had flourished over the centuries while others of his breed had dwindled away, and he put his lasting vigour down entirely to his taste for the blood of equally youthful victims. Always choosy in his menu, he could not stand the elderly and with the arrival of AIDS, the younger the safer.

The tourist season drawing to a close, he could anticipate a shortage of fresh victims. Finding this juicy young teen-ager so easy to trap, he could not believe his luck and his cruel lips bared in eager anticipation, an evil smile revealing razor sharp teeth. This would be the equivalent of a well chilled Mateus rosé wine. Boys or girls made no difference although it was the former who were in greater supply...more adventurous and likely to be out on their own.

‘Someone will see you and then they will hunt you down, you evil monster.’ Somehow Nicholas punched out the words through trembling lips. His cheeks were twitching and his body braced in anticipation.

‘I think not; it’s almost dark out here, although you might not appreciate that from where you are. Who would go out on a night like this? And who in their right minds would visit such a deserted and weed choked area of the churchyard, even in broad daylight?’

As if to emphasize the truth of what he was saying, there was another fierce clap of thunder, making the vault shudder. The voices had quietened as if they knew their master was near..

‘You really should have known better,’ continued the vampire,’ if you hadn`t wanted this to happen to you, but you did really, didn`t you? Face the truth. You knew I was getting short of companions and you felt sorry for a poor, dehydrated old vampire.’ He chuckled but somehow, Nicholas did not share the joke.

‘Can I go when you`ve had all you want?’

‘Oh yes, when I`ve had all I want.’ Sir Dashwood chuckled evilly. ‘And if you still want to, but you must stay with me till I decide when you`re ripe for release.’

‘My parents will miss me.’ Nicholas spat out the words as his final chance of forcing his captor to let him go.

‘They should have taken better care of you and anyhow, no one has found any of my other young friends. There’s always an explanation for their disappearance. Such a treacherous coast along here. Stop your chatter. It’s delaying my meal.’

Nicholas lay still like a rabbit hypnotized by a stoat. He was hardly in a position to resist in any case, but the cloak had a peculiar numbing effect removing any ability to move, almost as if he were joining a life in the past.

He suddenly felt a sharp bite in his arm, yet not too painful and then a slight tugging persisted as the monster started to drain his blood. He felt hazy as if floating on a cloud, dreamy.

Eventually the sensation stopped. The vampire had had enough. Nicholas felt his arm being released and the slab was pushed aside. He was lifted easily, as if weighing next to nothing, and carried semi- conscious down some dimly lit steps into the bowels of the earth. He was vaguely aware of a cage door being opened and some youthful voices, subdued and yet familiar near him, and then he must have fallen asleep. To what would he awake?

Chapter 2 Look Out Paul!

As the storm broke, Nicholas’ mother, Mrs Bates, a warm plump and normally good humoured woman, with flowing honey coloured hair, looked apprehensively at the rain bouncing off the patio and the lightning flashes dissecting the sky.

‘Where’s that young wanderer gone and hidden himself? Some weather to be out in!’

‘He should have been in by now for his tea,’ said the tall, lean Simon Bates, who shared his eldest son’s dark hair.

He hung his coat up to dry after a dash across the garden from the bus stop and dried his hair on a hand towel.

‘It’s not my fault if he gets mad when told not to torment Paul. I expect he’s just sheltering somewhere. No need to get alarmed. It’s not the first time he’s been out this late.’

Angela Bates’ face belied her calm tone. She was feeling every bit as concerned as her husband although her pride kept her from admitting it. One couldn’t keep on at the boys all the time and it was a relief when they were apart since they showed little brotherly love when together.

‘He is thirteen now, you know, and getting quite independent.’ Angela Bates sounded defensive. She resented her husband’s assumption that she had nothing better to do all day than watch over the boys.

‘Yes, just the age of that pair, who disappeared from the caravan site a few months ago. And then there was the Cooper girl, only a matter of weeks before that,’ said her husband.

‘Well, you know how dangerous those lilos are at sea, and on this coast in particular. The coastguards are always putting up warnings but people still ignore them. Besides, Nicholas doesn’t go near the sea.’

‘So he tells you, yet you don`t know half the time where he is, do you? Admit it,’ Simon Bates went on, ‘and there are some strange types hanging around these beaches in the tourist season. One can`t be too careful.’

‘What do you suggest then? That I tie him to my apron strings? If you`re so worried, why don`t you tell him to stay in sight of the house, and see what sort of answer you`ll get!’

Angela slammed the mixed grill onto the table so violently that a sausage almost landed in Simon’s lap. There was an uneasy silence for a moment while twelve year old Paul studiously looked at his plate between mouthfuls, and then chanced a furtive glance of sympathy at his father. Simon managed a half hearted grin at the boy and then went on eating.

Darkness fell early, accentuated by the heavy clouds and the thunder maintained an oppressive grumbling, as if loath to depart before everyone’s nerves were on edge. Still the rain fell, forming puddles in a cloak not so far away.

‘It’s too late. He should be back by now,’ announced Angela as the rain finally passed on and the thunder faded into the distance. ‘Call the police and ask them to do something,’ Her mind was telling her something was terribly wrong. The air seemed so heavy she struggled to breathe.

‘Shouldn`t we have a look for him first?’ Simon had the right instincts as usual but tired from work, was prepared to leave decisions to his wife.

‘Same old story. Where would we start? I`m sure something’s wrong. I felt it while it was thundering. Devil Drums, they used to call it,’ she shuddered, ‘and today it was the worst I’ve ever heard...As if something wicked was going on. Come on. Hurry up! Call the police,’ demanded Angela again.

‘No need for panic. Yes, I`ll ring now.’

Simon picked up the phone but hesitated. ‘You haven’t any idea where Nicholas might be, Paul, have you?’

Paul shook his head, keeping his thoughts to himself. After his last quarrel with Nicholas, who seemed to be growing rapidly away from him, Paul did not care much where he was. They had wrestled more seriously than ever before and whether he had meant to or not, Nicholas had hurt him.

‘Don`t you think I’ve asked the boy? Hurry up with that phone.’

Obediently Simon dialled, while Nicholas’ mother stared fixedly at the door, as if willing him to return.

Some thirty minutes later three police cars wailed into the village and a dozen large policemen, complete with a husky Alsatian spilled out to startle the inhabitants.

‘Look, Mum! They`ve got a dog.