Jamie Carpenter jogged across the wide concrete landing area in front of the hangar, then cut on to the grass, heading towards the long runway that sliced through the centre of the vast circular base. He sprinted across it, his feet pounding the tarmac, his arms pumping, his mother’s face looming large in his mind, his heart heavy with worry.
He bore right and darted between two of the long metal huts that lined this side of the runway, hit open grass and accelerated, running towards the high wire fence in the distance and the bright red laser net beyond it, the giant projection rippling above him, hanging in the clear sky like a painted cloud.
But as he approached the fence he saw something that seemed totally out of place. About fifty yards inside the high wire wall a circular section of the grass, perhaps twenty feet in diameter, had been dug up and replaced by a rose garden.
A waist-high red brick wall ran around the edge, with an opening facing away from the fence and back towards the base. Inside, a thin path of wooden boards widened into a semi-circular area against the back wall, flanked on both sides by roses of every conceivable colour: red, white, pink, yellow, even a purple so dark it was almost black.
Jamie slowed his pace and walked through the gap in the wall. He was immediately overcome by the scent of the flowers, the subtly different aromas of the many varieties mingling into a heady, pungent smell so rich and luxurious that it took his breath away. He wandered down the narrow wooden path, intoxicated by the garden’s incongruous beauty. At the back of the garden Jamie could see a small bronze plaque set into the brick wall. He crouched down in front of it, and read the words that had been engraved on it, in simple, elegant lettering.
IN REMEMBRANCE OFJOHN AND GEORGE HARKERWHO DIED AS THEY LIVED: TOGETHER
Jamie sat down next to the plaque, his back to the wall, and closed his eyes. He sat there for a long time, the scent of roses in the air, feeling more alone than he had ever felt in his life, wondering where his mother was, wondering whether she was even still alive.
Some time later, he could not have said how long, he heard the soft crunch of footsteps coming across the grass. From his low vantage point he couldn’t see beyond the walls of the garden, and so he waited for whoever was approaching to present themselves.
The head that appeared above the low brick wall was greyish-green, with a shock of black hair combed comically neatly into a side parting, and two thick metal bolts emerging from the neck below. Frankenstein stepped through the entrance to the garden, turning his enormous frame sideways so he would fit through the gap, and walked along the wooden path, the thump of his feet against the boards deafeningly loud, an ominous sound at odds with the gentle smile that regarded Jamie as the monster approached.
Frankenstein wore a dark grey suit, the white shirt open at the collar, the huge metal tube that he had fired in Jamie’s living room again hanging from his right hip. He sat down next to Jamie without a word, seemingly perfectly content to enjoy the garden and the morning sun that was bathing it in warm yellow light.
“How did you find me?” Jamie asked quietly, his gaze focused on the roses in front of him, rather than on the man beside him.
“Infrared sensors in the ground,” Frankenstein replied, his voice irritatingly cheerful. “You left a nice red heat trail on the monitors. Wasn’t hard to follow.”
Jamie grunted.
“So you found me. What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you, Jamie. There are things you need to know. Things that are going to be hard for you to accept.”
“Like what?”
The monster looked away, and when he spoke, it was in a soft voice.
“A long time ago I made a promise to protect the Carpenter family. One of your ancestors saved me, and in his memory I’ve kept my word for more than half a century.”
“Saved your life?”
“Yes,” Frankenstein replied, then looked at Jamie. “But that’s not the story I want to tell you now. That one’s for another time.”
“But—”
“Don’t ask me. I’m not going to tell you, so let’s not waste our time.”
Jamie looked at the monster. Frankenstein was regarding the teenager with something that seemed close to love, and he wondered what had happened to provoke such loyalty. Suddenly Frankenstein’s fury in the hangar made sense; he had let Jamie get away from him, in a place where anything could have happened to him.
“OK,” he said. “So is that it? I’m guessing it isn’t.”
“I’ve concluded that the best way for me to continue to honour that promise is to tell you what I think you need to know. I think it’s too late for your life to ever go back to being normal, if it ever was. Would you agree?”
“Yes,” said Jamie, simply.
Frankenstein nodded, and began to talk.
“My suspicion would be that your father never really told you very much about your family. Am I correct?”
“He told me I had an uncle who died when he was very young. And that my granddad was a pilot in World War Two. That’s about it.”
“Both those things are true. Your Uncle Christopher died at birth, when your father was six years old. And John, your grandfather, was a highly decorated pilot. He flew a Hurricane during the Battle Of Britain. Did you know that?”
Jamie shook his head.
“He was a fine man. By 1939 he’d been out of the RAF for nine years. But he re-enlisted the day Britain declared war on Hitler’s Germany, against the wishes of your great-grandfather, who is the man with whom this story really begins.”
“I don’t know anything about him,” said Jamie. “I don’t even know his name.”
“His name was Henry Carpenter. He was a good man as well, at least the equal of his son. And everything that has happened to your family for the last one hundred and twenty years, everything that happened to you and your mother yesterday, can be traced back to the fact that he worked for a truly great man, a legend whose name I suspect you will know. Professor Abraham Van Helsing.”
Jamie laughed; a short, derisory noise, like a dog’s bark. He didn’t mean to, and the monster swung him a look of deep annoyance, but he couldn’t help it.
Come on. Seriously.
“Van Helsing wasn’t real,” he said, smiling at the monster. “I’ve read Dracula.”
Frankenstein returned Jamie’s smile.
“Believe it or not,” he said, “that will make this considerably easier.”
“I’ve read Frankenstein too,” said Jamie quickly, before he lost his nerve.
“Good for you,” said the monster. “Might I be allowed to continue?”
“OK,” said Jamie, disappointed. It had taken all his courage to mention Mary Shelley’s novel.
“Thank you. Now, there are certain truths that you are simply going to have to come to terms with, and the quicker the better. Professor Van Helsing was real. The Dracula story, and all the people in it, is real; it happened almost exactly as that lazy drunk Stoker wrote it down. The vampire seductresses who distract Harker from his escape plans are fictional; the wishful thinking of their author. As is the Count’s ability to turn into a bat, or a wolf, or anything else for that matter, and the happy ending that Stoker attached. None of the men who survived ever returned to Transylvania, for reasons I’m sure are understandable. But the rest is close enough. All of which means, in case you need it spelling out for you, that vampires are real. Although that shouldn’t be too hard for you to believe; you met two yesterday.”
Jamie