Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction (18 page)

Simone withdrew a large torch from a shoulder bag.

“Keep the light on my feet,” Peter said and stepped through the doorway.

To his wife watching, it was as if he’d stepped through the nose of a broken skull.

Moving slowly, Peter could see that warped planks formed the floor. They were also rotten so that he tested them with the sword before shuffling forward. In some spots the wood gave, showing joists that rested on packed earth. The remains of a single iron bed occupied one corner. A broken fireplace with ancient ashes was set in the middle of one of the walls. One pile of wood suggested a chair. Another suggested a table.

Peter twitched his nostrils. “I smell rot and… corruption… and psychic decay.” He made a face. “It’s pretty foul.”

“Take care.”

Knowing the rotten spots, Peter again slowly explored the room. This time he held the sword parallel to the ground as he dowsed for psychic impressions. “Vampires live for a long time,” he said. “Especially if they can sleep in soil from their homeland.” But the blade didn’t move. “Strange, nothing. I expected the silver to react.”

“You think there’s a cellar?” Simone watched from the doorway. “Perhaps he’s buried under the planks?”

“Could be.” Peter, taking small safe steps, left the room for the weary grass. “But I don’t think so.” He sheathed the silver sword. “I don’t know what we’ve got here.”

“But we’ll find out at midnight.” Simone gripped his arm. As usual, fear and excitement were giving her strength. One eye was as black as obsidian. The other was speckled with silver.

“We’ve still got a few hours then.” Peter holstered his gun. “Let’s eat.”

They drove into town and over a long meal, they browsed the Internet.

Simone suddenly sat upright. “What’s this?” She pointed to a photo of a skeleton. A number of tools were also scattered around its shallow grave. She read from the website. “A miner was murdered, apparently for his gold. But there’s a note; the body was strangely desiccated.”

Peter studied the image. “Yep, Dimitri’s work.” He glanced out of the window. The moon was visible behind a veil of ragged clouds. “Let’s go back.” He rose and his face was grim. “I hope we can handle this.”

Simone shivered. “I hope so, too. But it feels quite different from anything we’ve ever met before.”

When they returned, the shallow dip that held the shack was as dark as a bowl of ink. Walking down to the house left trails of inky smoke that clung to the two, clutching fingers that tried to hold them back.

Peter rubbed his arms. “Getting colder.”

The inky black flowed in, out of, and around his body. The moon was a bleached white so that the timber walls gleamed as bright as an ancient skull.

Simone shone her torchlight through the doorway. “The chill is coming from inside.”

Peter put a finger to his lips. He could hear a
thump-thump
,
thump-thump
. His heart echoed the sound and it took all of his control not to run away.

Go away!
the house warned them.
Go away!

In Peter’s mind, the words were an inky, icy smoke dripping like blood. The air was deathly silent. No wind rustled the spare trees. No owls hooted. No night creatures disturbed the withered grass. Other creatures had shown more sense than they. The animals had heeded the warning and left.

Peter looked at his watch. “It’s almost the witching hour.”

“Vampire time.” Simone poised on the verge of change. “You think we’ll really see a vampire?”

“I don’t know.” Peter touched the scabbard. “The sword didn’t react.”

“Yes!” Simone clenched her fists and abruptly faced to the cloud-tossed sky. “Vampire, come! Vampire! Vampire!” Her eyes were silver orbs.

Peter, retaining more control, looked around. Despite the impression of being in an inky well, the white moon was still bright enough to show the green of the 4WD and the bone-white of the shack. Eyes half-closed, he lent against the vehicle’s bonnet and let his other senses take over. After an unknown time, he pointed towards the shack.

“Look,” he said. “Look but not with eyes alone.”

They both moved forward. A black shape was slithering out of the doorway.

“The python?” Simone said.

“It’s longer, bigger.” Peter dropped his hand to touch the comfort of the silver sword. “It’s almost like smoke, flowing smoke.”

“Shall we go in?”

“Not yet.” Peter shook his head. “Let’s wait and see.”

He held the sword, his hand shaking slightly. A storm cloud covered the moon and slowly moved aside. A howl came from somewhere—perhaps from the house—and his hair stood on end. There was a movement inside the shack. Peter swallowed but forced his hand to hold steady. Then a dark shape, unexpected despite his expectations, filled the doorway and Peter gasped.

This was no movie vampire. It was not slicked back hair and carefully tailored fangs. This thing would never have won any awards for looks. Human in shape, its form was constantly shifting as if it truly were made of smoke. The top of its head was flat but the front extended slightly into a snout. Its hair was thick, almost a kind of fur. The smoke-formed eyes did not change as rapidly as the body but maintained a bilious glow that gleamed with malicious intelligence. The creature opened its mouth and the white moon reflected from viciously curved fangs.

Unconsciously, Peter and Simone backed away.

Consciously, they stepped forward.

“Take the sword!” Peter passed it across. Then he took the safety off the gun. The vampire howled and waves of chill rode over Peter. “That head!” He cried through chattering teeth. “That’s dingo or fruit bat.”

“Or both.”

The creature sidled towards them. It started slowly as if the doorway that framed it also held it. Peter stared. From its smoky shape, thin and cobwebby strands of smoke attached it to the wood. For one step… two steps… three steps… the vampire-thing struggled forward. Then it was free and, with a surge like wind blowing over a forest fire, it rushed forward.

Peter braced himself. Simone raised the sword. He fired the gun. The flash of light headed straight for the body. But it had no effect. He fired again and again. Yet the silver bullets had no effect. At the last moment, he threw himself to the side. Simone swung the sword and cut the creature in half. But it refused to be cut. The sword flowed through smoke and the shape reformed.

The vampire fought towards them as they struggled to step back.

At the top of the dip, the creature halted. It had reached a boundary and could go no further. Peter and Simone stumbled further away, struggling for breath. They recovered to see that the vampire was still trying to get at them. It was like a wild dog at the end of its tether. Its human part cursed them, a strange tongue piercing their eardrums.

“We had no effect on it.” Simone was panting as if she’d just run a race. “What the hell is it?”

“What the hell, indeed. It’s so… so insubstantial. It’s almost like a… like a…”

“Like a what?!”

Suddenly, Peter bent, grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it at the creature. The dirt touched, almost. Almost and then they came flying back.

“Look!” Peter cried. “Our silver just goes through him. His bites and nails just go through us. But you saw what happened to those leaves and dirt. They came straight back. So what do you reckon?”

“It’s not real?” Simone spoke slowly. So slowly, she came to a stop. “It’s vampiric but not a vampire. It is not a vampire, it’s a… It’s a ghost of a vampire!”

“Yes! What we’re seeing—no, not seeing but sensing—is poltergeist activity.” Peter raced back to the 4WD. “He’s psychically sensitive to us and we’re psychically sensitive to him. Non-sensitives would get the chill and the dread, all right. They’d run but they wouldn’t see what we see.”

“So, we’re really in the shit!” Simone laughed wildly. “He’s like a very old teenage poltergeist. What the hell do we do?”

“You know what we have to do.”

“Yes, but it’s been a while…” Simone stopped speaking.

“And it’s bloody dangerous.”

Simone released another laugh, wild but not hysterical. “That’s what I’m here for. That’s what me ol’ granpa raised me for.”

“Okay.” Peter took a deep breath. “Then show me your face before you were born.”

“Corny, Peter, corny.” Simone laughed again, a sound that made the vampire fight even harder to get at them.

Peter, however, ignored the creature’s howls. He stayed very still and dived deep within. Subtle changes began to take place. Soon, Peter Pan was no more but Pieter Pantrowski resurfaced. This was not a person who might stay forever young. Indeed, the hardness of his face suggested that he had never been young. This was the face of a warrior. This was a Pieter who did not back down. This was his face before he’d been born.

Simone had also transformed. It began with her eyes: one becoming obsidian and the other again turning silver. Next, she’d stripped and wrapped a loincloth around her waist. Over her bare breasts, she drew lines using mud taken from the sacred part of her garden. Dots and swirls went over her face. This was what her granpa had taught her. This was dreamtime for warriors.

Simone took a spear from the back of the 4WD. Strange symbols were carved into its length. Curious hangings clacked and clapped to make disturbing noises. As she stamped her feet, she repeatedly thrust the spear at the vampire. Both of them were chanting magic incantations—Simone using high frequencies, Pieter using low.

More than human, they advanced towards the Dimitri-thing. He/it tried to sink his fangs into them. But this was no longer a physical attempt. The creature now knew that he needed to sink his psychic venom into their minds, into their spirits.

With his mixture of European and Javanese witchcraft, Dimitri had so far always been victorious. Yet these two kept changing their attack. First Pieter dominated with his European roots; roots that matched those of Dimitri. Then Simone dominated and her indigenous roots were older, deeper, and far more powerful.

As the battle was fought, the vampire’s smoky form went from black to deep blue and then to brown. It started to retreat. Snarling and spitting, it backed into the skull-like house. The place that was its sanctuary and that also was its coffin.

Pieter and Simone pushed at it, slowly but inexorably. At the doorway, the snout jaw opened wide and its fangs bit down towards Pieter’s shoulder. But it was held at bay by the spear penetrating its wispy flesh. The two continued with their purifying incantations and, finally, entered the house. The smoky figure howled and became even more insubstantial. They walked the whole of the room with their fierce chant. The wispy grey smoke was almost transparent. Then, under the purifying pressure of their chants, it burst into flames until it had completely vanished.

The room slowly lost its foul smell and chill. Yet still they continued. They maintained the exorcism until the first blush of pink touched the gathering of clouds. When, at last, they stopped, they heard a miracle. A bird landed on a branch of one of the dying trees and sang. A magpie hopped into the doorway and regarded them with curiosity. For the first time in a hundred years, birds flew around the shack.

Weary to the bone, they walked out and into the brightening day. After a few steps, they turned to look back. The shack no longer looked like a skull.

“It’s gone.” Simone’s eyes had lost their silver sheen.

“Moved on.” Tiny changes returned Pieter’s face to the soft features of Peter. “I thought we’d meet a vampire. I never thought we’d meet the ghost of one.”

“The ghost of a vampire.”

Simone looked at the trees. Their branches no longer seemed like the gnarled and reaching hands of the dead. They seemed like they might once more be ready to come alive.

About Barry Rosenberg

Barry was born in London but moved to Canberra, Australia, after completing a PhD in visual information processing. Becoming involved in meditation, he left research to concentrate on tai chi and meditation. Nowadays, Barry lives on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, where he combines writing with woodwork. He began writing poetry in 1975. Since the 1990s, he has been writing speculative fiction. In the past few years, Barry has had 3 novels published by small publishing companies and a dozen short stories.

Yamada’s Armada

Eeleen Lee

~ Singapore ~

Nicky’s memories were stained red long after the incident on Rig-One. But on that morning Nicky had no idea when he stood on the Double-Helix Bridge, squinting up at the linked hotel towers that loomed over Marina Bay, Singapore. He was just the new intern for the lifestyle magazine,
Neo Haven
, sent to interview the reclusive celebrity chef Hiro Yamada.

Nicky had the same amount of information about Hiro Yamada as most people living in Malaysia and Singapore—not much at all. After the Three Year Southeast Asian Firewall-Siege, these countries relaxed their myriad cyber-fortifications. Foreign news access was cut off in that time, although some internet connection had trickled in via pirate satellite relay. When the attacks finally ceased new regulations were implemented to ease strain on the fragile infrastructure.

In order to gain internet access and other communication privileges you had to earn them per month, along with your basic wage. Unlimited access became reserved for Movers or Shakers. Movers had to display social mobility or business acumen, whereas Shakers were Movers who later became famous. The famous few, like Hiro Yamada, were granted tax shelter and permanent residency in Malaysia and Singapore. The celebrity circus of Movers and Shakers was dubbed “The Game” in the definitive by its active players, whereas spectators inserted an expletive of their choice between the words.

The Game showed signs of missing one of its key players. Nicky had pored over his notes about Hiro Yamada the previous night: reclusive celebrity chef, dubbed with the epithet “Sugar Samurai” after his signature trick of spinning threads of sucrose so fine they split when dropped onto a blade of a katana.