‘Are you kidding?’ I cried, shaking her off. ‘The police will lock us all up!’
Ignoring her protests, I swung myself out of the back seat and leaned against the car so that I could hop a little closer to Danny. He looked bad. I mean, he looked really bad. Even in the harsh blaze of the headlights, I could see that he was turning blue.
‘M-maybe it’s his heart,’ Nina stammered. ‘Could it be his heart, Sanford?’
‘His heart’s stopped working,’ the doctor said drily, ‘if that’s what you mean.’ All at once he turned to Reuben. ‘Go and get my bag,’ he ordered. ‘It’s in the kitchen.’
Reuben sped off. Estelle was chewing her thumbnail. ‘That bite’s not going black,’ she pointed out.
‘I know.’ Dr Plackett applied pressure to Danny’s ribcage with both hands, pushing hard as he gulped down more air. Estelle wondered aloud if someone else should be doing the mouth-to-mouth – someone with a bit more stamina, like Reuben.
The doctor shook his head, then planted his lips over Danny’s. Nina said, ‘It wouldn’t be safe, Mum. The guy’s just been fanged.’
‘Yeah, but look at him.’ Estelle nodded at Danny. ‘It’s not like he’s much of a threat.’
‘We don’t know that.’
Estelle snorted. ‘One minute you’re saying he’s dead, the next minute you’re saying he might fang me,’ she complained. ‘Will you make up your bloody mind?’
‘What’s happening?’ Sergio bleated. ‘Is he dead or not?’
‘No,’ Estelle snapped.
‘Maybe,’ Nina had to admit.
‘I hope not,’ said Dr Plackett, straightening up. He wiped his brow, though he didn’t appear to be sweating. I noticed a tremor in his hands.
‘But you’re a doctor!’ Sergio wailed. ‘Can’t you tell?’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Perhaps it’s different for werewolves,’ Nina said hoarsely. ‘Perhaps . . . perhaps you can’t fang a werewolf without killing him.’
Oh, man, I thought. Is this a hoax? I almost expected to look up and spot a camera crew, because nothing seemed real. Werewolves? Vampires? Dead people? Get outta here.
Suddenly Reuben banged through the front door and hurled himself down the steps, tossing Dr Plackett his medical bag. At the very same moment, Nina turned on her heel and stumbled away.
‘Ah . . . Nina?’ I said, as the shadows engulfed her.
‘It’s all right, love. She’s feeling a bit off-colour,’ Estelle explained. Sure enough, the sound of retching soon wafted back to us. ‘Just let her alone and she’ll be fine,’ Estelle assured me. ‘Vampires are always vomiting, poor things.’
‘Do they – I mean – can they—’
‘No.’ She wouldn’t let me finish. ‘They can’t fly, or turn into bats, or anything else. It’s a dog’s life.’
‘Except that it goes on forever,’ Reuben reminded her. He was watching Dr Plackett, who had produced a very long syringe from his bag. ‘Dogs aren’t immortal and vampires are.’
‘But not invincible.’
‘No,’ Reuben conceded. ‘You can say that again.’
‘Did you check on our other patient?’ Dr Plackett suddenly asked, drawing some kind of medicine into the syringe. When no one answered, he said, ‘Reuben?’
‘Huh?’
‘Our suspected skull fracture.’ The doctor’s gaze was fixed on his syringe, which he tapped with one finger to dislodge the air bubbles. ‘Did you check his condition while you were in the house?’
‘No.’
The doctor sighed. Then, without warning, he plunged his needle into Danny’s chest.
‘Eeww!’ Sergio protested. We all cringed like Danny’s dogs, which were still skulking on the veranda. Personally, I didn’t want to look anymore. I’d had about as much as I could take.
So I stared off into the darkness, wondering how Nina was doing.
‘What the hell is that?’ Estelle demanded. I guess she must have been talking about Dr Plackett’s needle, because he said in response, ‘It’s a last resort.’
His tone was so grave, I couldn’t help glancing at him. But Estelle refused to accept this grim diagnosis.
‘Danny’s not dead,’ she insisted. ‘He’ll wake up soon.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’ Dr Plackett was feeling for a pulse. ‘This isn’t what normally occurs.’
‘Yeah, but he’s a werewolf, isn’t he? It’s like Nina says. Werewolves are probably different.’ After a quick bout of coughing, she added, ‘We should take him inside and give him a few hours. He’ll come good – you’ll see.’
Once again, the doctor shook his head. He sat back on his haunches and stared dully at nothing in particular. It was obvious that he’d given up.
‘You could be right,’ Reuben said. ‘Sanford? She could be right.’
Dr Plackett’s grunt wasn’t very encouraging.
‘We shouldn’t put him in a bedroom, though,’ Reuben went on. ‘I mean, it wouldn’t be safe. We could put him in one of the tanks, don’t you think?’
‘No,’ Dr Plackett slowly, painfully climbed to his feet. ‘Both of those tanks are occupied, remember?’
‘Oh. Yeah.’ Reuben cursed under his breath, but I was all at sea. And so, apparently, was Sergio.
‘Who’s down there besides Lincoln?’ he asked, frowning.
‘Barry,’ said Dr Plackett. He had joined the rest of us in a kind of anxious huddle. ‘We were able to lock him up, though it was a bit of a challenge. He’ll be very hard to handle for at least another hour or two.’
I must have looked surprised, because Reuben kindly offered me an explanation. ‘Barry’s not so sick anymore. Vampires always perk up when they get a bit of fresh blood into ’em. Isn’t that right, Sanford?’
‘Unfortunately, yes. It has an immediate effect on the nervous system.’
Beep! Beep! The blare of a horn made us all jump; we whirled around to gape at my mother, whose white face and pounding fist were visible above the steering wheel of her car. She was yelling something as she sounded the horn, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying.
‘What?’ Reuben shouted back at her. Mum started jabbing a finger at the windscreen.
‘Mum, calm down!’ I begged. Estelle cupped a hand to her ear.
‘Huh?’ she said.
Then a short, sharp scream cut through all the commotion. It was Nina. She had drifted back towards us, completely unregarded, and had positioned herself behind Reuben. As we rounded on her, she pointed past him.
‘Oh my God!’ she whimpered. ‘Look! Look!’
We looked. Every head turned; every gaze dropped to the ground.
Danny was moving again.
‘There!’ Estelle said triumphantly. She didn’t have to raise her voice, because the horn had stopped. (I guess we’d all seen what Mum had wanted us to see.) ‘He isn’t dead. I was right after all.’
Danny’s eyes were open. His legs were churning up dust. His arms twitched feebly. ‘Groa-a-ah . . .’ he croaked.
The doctor gasped. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘That injection must have worked,’ Reuben offered.
‘I told you.’ Estelle sounded smug. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’
Sergio and I were dumbfounded. We exchanged a bewildered glance.
‘You blokes should go inside,’ Reuben advised us, as Danny sat up. ‘Or get in the car, or something. You too, Estelle.’
‘And you,’ Estelle retorted.
Danny groaned again. He was slack-jawed and drooling as he stared blankly into the middle distance.
Dr Plackett ducked down beside him. ‘Danny? Can you hear me?’
No response.
‘Danny?’ The doctor touched his arm. ‘Can you get up?’
Slowly and ponderously, Danny’s head swivelled in the doctor’s direction. But he wasn’t looking at anyone. His eyes were still unfocused.
Drool kept leaking out of his open mouth.
‘See if you
can get up,’ said Dr Plackett, applying pressure to Danny’s elbow. It seemed to work. While the rest of us backed away, Danny staggered to his feet.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Nina whispered.
‘I don’t know.’ Dr Plackett had to swallow before continuing. ‘This isn’t symptomatic. I’ve never seen this before.’
‘Maybe he’s like Gary,’ Sergio suggested. ‘Maybe he hit his head.’
The dogs were whining. Danny didn’t seem to hear, though – he was swaying slightly, his arms hanging loose, his head cocked, his gaze blank. An experimental prod from Dr Plackett seemed to have some effect; Danny took one step forward, then stopped.
‘Oh, man,’ Sergio muttered.
‘Danny?’ Reuben spoke in a sharp, loud, hectoring voice. But Danny just stared and drooled.
‘Okay,’ said Dr Plackett. ‘This is extremely peculiar. I don’t like this at all. We need to get him downstairs and locked up before he moves on to the next stage.’
‘What next stage?’ Estelle inquired.
‘I don’t know, but there’s bound to be one.’ Dr Plackett started gesturing at people. He looked grim and pale and exhausted. ‘Nina, you come with me. The rest of you stay well back. Well back.’
‘Sorry, Sanford. No can do.’ Reuben wouldn’t cooperate. ‘Where d’you think you’re gunna stick this guy? In the Yank’s tank? Then the Yank’ll have to come out, won’t he?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘You’re not gunna leave ’em in there together, are you?’
‘No, of course not!’
‘In that case, you’ll be needing my help.’ Reuben adjusted his grip on the rifle. ‘You won’t be able to handle Lincoln. Not without me, you won’t.’
Suddenly I had an idea. ‘Will you be bringing Lincoln upstairs?’ I asked Reuben, who narrowed his eyes at me.
‘I’ll have to, won’t I?’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll make sure he doesn’t try anything.’
That was all I needed to hear. As Dr Plackett prodded Danny into the house, and Nina fluttered around them like a little white moth, and Reuben shooed Estelle and Sergio away from Danny, I hopped back to where my mother was sitting, hunched behind the steering wheel of her car.
‘Hey, Mum? Mum!’ I clutched at the windowsill. ‘There’s someone you have to meet, okay?’
She peered through her glasses at me, her expression dull and drained. ‘He looks as if he’s had a stroke,’ she murmured.
‘Huh?’
‘Him.’ She nodded towards Danny, who was lurching from foot to foot like Frankenstein’s monster. ‘He’s lost control over his motor neurons. I’ve had stroke patients like that, only their weakness tends to be all on one side.’
‘Oh.’
‘He needs to go to hospital. Isn’t anyone going to take him to hospital?’
‘Maybe. I mean – it depends.’ When she sighed in a despairing kind of way, I gripped the windowsill even more tightly. ‘Things are really complicated!’ I exclaimed. ‘You can’t help unless you understand what’s happening! That’s why you have to come and meet this guy!’
She was shaking her head. ‘It’s not complicated, Toby. It’s very simple.’
‘It’s not!’
‘These people are all deeply disturbed. They’re using this paranormal cover story of theirs to involve you in some kind of human trafficking—’
‘Okay – you know what? You’re wrong. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Toby, there’s no such thing as werewolves or vampires. They don’t exist.’
‘Then where did the whole idea come from?’ Before she could think of a snappy comeback, I tried another approach. ‘I’m not talking about the stuff you see in movies, I’m talking about a condition. That you inherit. I know it’s pretty weird, but what about the Elephant Man? Or those kids who can’t go out in the sunlight?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘You’ve gotta keep an open mind! You’re always saying that!’ I pleaded. ‘Mum, if I wasn’t a werewolf, this place wouldn’t even be here. You should see what’s downstairs. They’ve got it all set up for werewolf fights, and it must have cost a fortune. You don’t spend money like that for nothing.’
‘You do if you’re deluded,’ she mumbled, staring in front of her. By now I was getting really impatient.
‘How could they all be deluded?’ I asked. ‘You reckon they’ve been hypnotised, or something?’ When she wouldn’t answer – or even look at me – I leaned down further and pushed my head through the window. ‘They’re not deluded, Mum, and I haven’t been brainwashed. I haven’t been here long enough to get brainwashed.’
At last she fixed her bloodshot eyes on my face. She was holding on to the steering wheel as if it were keeping her afloat in a stormy sea; her hair was a mess and her lips were dry and cracked.
‘We have to go . . .’ she said hoarsely.
‘We will. After you’ve come inside.’
‘Only if you tell me one thing.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Are there drugs inside that house? Illegal drugs?’
Oh, man, I thought. And aloud I said, ‘You think we’re all stoned? Is that it? You think Nina’s mum is having hallucinations?’ Even though I was famished, and frightened, and suffering from half a dozen aches and pains, I couldn’t help smiling. Estelle on hard drugs? Puh-lease. ‘Honest to God, there’s nothing inside that house. No food. No medicine. Nothing. That’s why I wanna leave as much as you do.’
‘So get in the car and we’ll go!’
‘I can’t. Not yet. I’m part of this now. I have to make you understand.’ And then all at once a spark plug fired in my head. Being different wasn’t an illness. She knew that. She believed in that. ‘Mum, what do you think I was doing in that dingo pen? I was there because I’m a werewolf. It’s who I am. Can’t you accept who I am?’
Maybe I’d hit a nerve – or maybe she was just too tired to argue. Whatever the reason, she suddenly gave in, switching off the headlights and stepping out of the car. There was no one else around. While Mum and I had been talking, Dr Plackett must have coaxed Danny through the front door. Nina and Reuben must have followed them inside, while Estelle and Sergio had also disappeared – around the back of the house, perhaps? Everything seemed very dark, though a golden glow was still spilling through the kitchen window.
With Mum’s help, I made my way up the front steps. If we’d had a torch it would have been a lot easier, but I managed somehow. On the veranda we ran into Danny’s dogs; they were pacing around, whining and yapping, as if they didn’t know whether to wag their tails or sink their teeth into the nearest human body part.
‘They ought to be locked up,’ Mum said, peering nervously at their restless, shadowy shapes. ‘You can tell they’re unstable. And they’re in a pack, too – packs are always hard to control.’
‘Yeah, well . . .’ I shrugged. ‘We can’t lock ’em up, because the tanks are full.’
‘Who do they belong to?’
‘Danny.’
‘Oh.’
‘They’re pretty well trained. They won’t do anything unless he tells ’em to.’
‘Well, that’s a problem in itself,’ Mum observed, ‘since I don’t think Danny will be saying much in the near future. Not if he’s had a stroke.’
Luckily, the dogs didn’t attack us as we moved inside. The first thing I did, once I’d crossed the threshold, was to turn the hall light on. Then I headed for the kitchen, refusing to lean on Mum while there was a perfectly good wall to support my weight.
‘Who’s that?’ she suddenly demanded. She had reached the door to Gary’s bedroom; even though I was a few steps behind her, I could hear the gasp and rattle of his breathing.
‘Oh – well – that’s Gary. He’s one of the guys who kidnapped me,’ I explained. ‘He was in a road accident.’
‘He’s cheyne-stoking.’
‘Huh?’
‘He’s dying,’ she said flatly. ‘That’s cheyne-stoking respiration. It mean
s that he’s dying.’ Her fierce gaze flashed around the empty corridor. ‘Where’s the phone?’
‘There isn’t one,’ I confessed. ‘I mean, there isn’t a landline. Not here. Reuben has a satellite phone—’
Mum didn’t wait for me to finish. She marched ahead until she reached the kitchen, while I hobbled along in her wake. By the time I’d caught up with her, she was haranguing Estelle, who was sitting at the table puffing on a cigarette.
The only other person in sight was Sergio. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that he was chewing ravenously on a muesli bar. Had Estelle given it to him?
‘—dying in there!’ Mum was shouting. ‘He needs to be in hospital!’
Estelle squinted through a cloud of smoke. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure! He’s cheyne-stoking! You probably don’t know what that means—’
‘I know what that means,’ Estelle interrupted. ‘I’m a hospital volunteer, remember?’ As she lumbered to her feet, I suddenly realised. Of course! Estelle must have been the one who’d put Father Ramon’s letter in my hospital room!
But I was more interested in the contents of Estelle’s pockets than I was in her volunteer work.
‘Can I have a muesli bar too?’ I asked.
‘Nope. All I’ve got left are some mints.’ She reached the top of the stairs and yelled down them. ‘Oi! Sanford! This bloke up here is cheyne-stoking!’
There was a moment’s pause. Then a ‘What?’ came drifting up.
‘That fractured skull!’ she bellowed. ‘He’s cheyne-stoking!’
‘So can I have the mints, then?’ You must think I’m a bastard, the way I was obsessing about food at a time like that. But my stomach was growling, and Gary wasn’t exactly a friend of mine, and there was a weird, dreamlike quality about the whole scene, anyway; somehow I couldn’t believe that Gary was really dying. ‘Please?’ I begged. ‘I’ve hardly had anything to eat all day . . .’
Estelle reached into the pocket of her cardigan and pulled out a packet of mints, which she passed to me without a word. Meanwhile, Dr Plackett was slowly emerging from the hole in the floor, his feet thudding rhythmically on the stairs. He’d taken his sunglasses off, exposing a sunken pair of eyes. With his cadaverous face and bad colour, he looked almost as sick as Gary did.