Chapter 10 – A Triple Threat
It was one of those strange things that roused her from sleep, a sound barely audible, like a drop of water onto a carpeted floor or a cat’s paw landing on the windowsill. It was a struggle for her to fight through the blanket of warmth slumber had placed over her, but once she was woken in one way or another, it would take time for her to rest again. As her mind emerged from the black space that she usually found in her dreams, Danni’s hand unconsciously reached for her glasses, looking for what might be the cause of the sound. Stretching out her ears, she thought it might be the snow melting off the roof or perhaps a smattering of January rain, but it didn’t have the rapidity of water falling. Then she thought a window or a door was being blown by the wind or perhaps the pipes were groaning as they cooled. When was the last time she had fed the heating?
Lifting her head from her pillow, unsure of when she had put it back down, Danni slipped her feet out under the warm covers only to hiss when they touched the floor. Too long! It had been far too long since she had fed the heating. Wrapping herself up in her dressing gown, she fastened it tightly around herself and covered her head with the hood. She felt around for her socks and pulled them on as well, refusing to even think about putting her bare feet back on that freezing cold floor again. The cold weather was not her friend, not when she looked at the clock and found that it was 4 in the morning.
“What unholy sadistic force of nature makes someone get up this bloody early?” She asked into the quiet. Then she heard it.
It wasn’t the pipes, nor a window or door or even the snow outside. It was the same sound she had heard all afternoon yesterday when the village ladies had paid her a visit. Those were shoes. She swore she could hear the unmistakable sound of feet treading on floorboards. A shiver crept over her spine like a trail of ants crawling under her skin, bringing goosebumps over her flesh that had nothing to do with the cold. Searching for her glasses, as her questing hands had knocked them from the bedside table, she stopped only when she caught the clink of glass being placed on the counter. Someone was downstairs and they were in the kitchen!
‘What if it’s one of those thugs Elizabeth spoke of yesterday?’ Danni thought, reaching for the first solid thing she could find and when her hand closed around something, she tucked it into her dressing gown pocket. Her vision wasn’t perfect, hence the need for glasses, but it wasn’t so horrendous that she was blind without them. Not after she had spent so much time memorising the layout of the house. Her hands found the doorway and, weapon in pocket, she crept down the stairs, her feet sure and silent unlike the intruders who were now somehow getting louder. The further she went, the more she heard. Feet on the floorboards, glasses being moved, then… voices.
One by one, her feet found each of the steps in turn. Each time, she prayed that it would not creak under her weight and give away her presence. When all she could detect was the sounds of whoever was standing in her kitchen, she blessed the house and the forces that held all other noises. Pulling her weapon close into her hand, the bristles pressing into the pads of her fingers told her that it was a hairbrush she had foolishly grabbed whilst being unable to see it. Stepping down from the final step, her eyes caught sight of a beam of brilliant light coming from the kitchen and mingling around in it were what looked like three shadows. Her eyes were beginning to burn from sleep and trying to focus made her head start to throb, but she soldiered through it. She had faced worse during her long nights at Uni spent before a glowing laptop screen. Of course, then she hadn’t been outnumbered by three strangers.
Wrapping her gown closer around her, she lifted the hairbrush high and lurched forward, throwing it with a screech like a crazed chicken about to be strangled.
“Ow!”
“What the-?”
“Fuck!”
Blinking dazedly, she squinted at the intruders. Instead of the single figure, the solitary thug she imagined having jimmied open her window to creep inside and do goodness knows what, her vision focused just enough to reveal three men clad in what looked like cloaks or… maybe they were just thick winter coats. One was rubbing his head, a second had the opened-eyes look of a deer in headlights and the third was trying and failing to stifle a laugh behind one hand.
Though she was unarmed, having thrown her only weapon and being without a phone, Danni seized all her courage and stood at her full height, aiming her best impression of her mother’s glare at the men. “GET! OUT!” She demanded at the top of her voice.
The three stared at her in silence as if they had any right to be stunned by her sudden appearance.
“Didn’t you hear me?” She knew she didn’t cut much of an intimidating figure clad in her dressing gown and thick socks, but she refused to let them look down on her. “Get the hell out of my house before I call the fucking police!” Could she? Her phone was upstairs, still connected to its charger. But they didn’t know that. Maybe she could bluff them out?
Rather than sprint for the door or window or whatever hole they had used to get inside, they only continued to stare at her, breaking it only to exchange looks between the two of them. She had to struggle to see their expressions, blinking furiously in the hopes her vision was clear, only to see one of the men approaching her, hands up in the universal gesture of ‘I mean no harm’.
Yeah right!
“Are you bloody deaf? Get the hell out!” She wished that she had thought to grab a poker or something heavier than her hairbrush to keep any of these invaders at bay.
“Our apologies lass, we never intended to wake you up. We were just looking for shelter and-!”
Why was she even listening to a word of this?
“Get out! Right now!” She ordered again, wondering if she made enough noise, someone in the village would wake up and come to her rescue. “I don’t care what story you try to tell me; I want you out!” She jabbed a finger at the door, pulling her dressing gown tight around her throat. Her every instinct was telling her that this was suicide. They were three tall, well built, grown men who had somehow crept inside her house without a sound and she… was barely out of university, wrapped in her pyjamas, dressing gown and socks, weaponless and defenceless against them. Her eyes turned towards the door. Now that was an option.
“We only wished to find shelter lass, on this coldest of nights. Please accept our sincerest apologies, we never intended to scare you.” The man insisted again, but his companion, the one she had managed to hit with her hairbrush was scowling at her now.
“She should apologise to us!” This one had a noticeable accent in his words that Danni could place that made his words come out with a pronounced hiss. “She threw a bloody hairbrush at me! I’m going to have a bruise!”
The third of the group, having been silent until now as he had covered his grinning mouth with his hand, now lost the battle against containing his own mirth, suddenly doubled over with the force of his laughter. He attempted to speak, but whatever meaning he had intended to purvey was lost amongst the rampant giggles coming from his mouth.
Giving his companions a glare, the first spoke again. “I understand you must be confused by all of this but if you take a seat, we can explain.” He gestured to the table, but Danni refused to even consider it.
Instead of moving towards the table, Danni slid one foot after the other, edging towards the door, a new plan taking form in her sleep-addled mind. If she could make it outside, she could run down to the village and make such a ruckus, someone had to help her. At least, that was what she hoped would happen.
Undeterred by her hesitancy, the man tried again, keeping his hands up in the hopes of de-escalating this situation. “I promise that every word I say is the absolute truth if you will give us a moment to explain.”
“You need to leave! I don’t want to hear whatever truth you think I’ll believe, I want you out!” She insisted, but her resolve was beginning to crumble from the combination of tiredness and the throb forming behind her eyes.
Stepping forward into the light, the man cleared his throat, still trying to maintain some form of civility. “We are humble travellers making our way across the countryside. As we were walking through the village, a vicious cold wind forced us to seek shelter, and we saw that you had opened the window for us. Please believe us when we extend our sincerest thanks for your hospitality.”
The words were English, plain English. She knew these words. She had a piece of paper that stated plain to see that she had spent three years of her life proving that she knew and could use them. There was no discernible accent nor lisp or lilt that might obscure his statement or its meaning. Then why did her mind struggle to comprehend these words like a toothless hamster trying to chew on leather?
“I… beg your pardon?” She asked, her head dipping as if weighed down by the sheer insanity of what he had just said.
“The window. You left it open.” He pointed to the tiny kitchen window and, true to his words, it was hanging open. But that didn’t make sense. She knew that Elizabeth had closed it before she had left… only now did she give herself a mental slap for neglecting to follow through with the rest! But, that moment of pure idiocy aside, she realised that something else was amiss. That window was tiny, barely big enough for a bird to swoop through. As tall as these men were, the shortest of them reaching what looked like 6 feet in height, they were all too broad in the shoulders and chest to be able to fit through there. Reaching behind herself, she carefully tested the door, and her fingers felt the key. Had they noticed it when they had broken in? Giving the key the smallest turn she could manage, the resistance gave her the smallest bit of relief.
Locked.
Just as she recalled doing the previous night.
That… that doesn’t make sense. How… did you get in here?” She asked, her fingers closing around the key and blessing Tawney for choosing a lock with silent tumblers.
The man had the audacity to look abashed, placing a hand behind his head and scuffing his feet like a boy caught in the act of something bad. “That is where I confess our situation is rather unique. We, that being my companions and I… We… well… We are what you would know as vampires.”