A damaged, tiny, hopeless figure stood at
the bus station like thousands more in this wicked, dangerous world. I could
imagine all too easily the events that had led her to this wasteland of a city
on a bitter winter’s night: a sudden break with her mother and the latest
‘stepfather’ after months or years of conflict and abuse; a failed love affair
that any comfortable, orderly person could see was heading towards a limited
menu of ruinations. Perhaps it was an attempt to escape the ‘family life’ of a mother
who had been identical to her daughter at sixteen but who was now married to
welfare or dependencies even less healthy and a succession of ‘men’ for whom
the word manhood represented little
more than brief and bloody moments with drab and available girls. This one had most
likely been rendered incapable of imagining anything significantly better by
the useless and immoral education system and was too dull to remember hurt or was
even now seeking its endless, predictable sequels. I was going to change that for
her tonight. Only blood can wash away certain kinds of pain.
She was so thin and draped in the uniform of
victimhood; a micro skirt and badly bleached hair that semaphored a welcome to
pimps or other exploiters. Base metal rings in the shapes of dragons, serpents
or goat’s heads imprisoned hands that had been made to comfort her children
when they were hurt and tearful.
Battered Doctor Marten boots and torn, grubby tights completed the livery
of vulnerability. Everything about her cried out: Use me up and throw me away.
Or Kill
me.
She turned dull eyes toward my headlights;
eyes that could be seventeen or a hundred years old for all the childhood that survived
in an existence that was focus of pain for me to cure. I turned the music down
a little. “Going into town?” I asked through the window of my unmarked and unremarkable
panel van. “I’m heading there on business if you don’t want to pay for a taxi
fare. The buses are all done at this time of the night.” It was morning,
really; an hour or two before dawn.
I wondered if her mother had ever given her
the advice that you, dear reader, must be willing her to remember and follow
right now. I respect your compassion… but some injuries require surgery.
“Yes. Are you going near the cathedral?
There’s a club there I want to see.” Alas,
there had been no advice about cars and strangers.
“Sure. My work is close by the cathedral.
Hop in.” This was going to be easy.
As she slid the van door open there was
movement behind her and another waif; smaller still and younger-looking,
emerged from behind the obscurity of the bus shelter’s advertising poster for sexy
lingerie. “Can Dora come too, please? We both want to visit the club.” Perhaps
someone had indeed given her the other half of The Talk – the one about not
travelling alone at night. It was going to be a little less easy but I know my work
and if a man can’t handle them in pairs then he might as well give up, go home
and get a less emotionally intense hobby like dog-fighting or kickboxing.
Nothing in the world keeps me alive quite as splendidly as The Concert.
“What’s your name, Miss?” I said to my first
guest who was now settling down onto the heavy plastic sheeting that waterproofed
the van’s windowless rear compartment. Dora shut the passenger door.
“Vina, sir,” she replied. “We’re sisters,
you see, Theodora and Hervina: Sisters of Shadows.” She giggled at her
Gothicism: a joyless noise. I turned the music down further so the powerful rear
speakers that are a bachelor’s compensation for lifelong celibacy did not spoil
the discussion that I always think of as the Overture.
I turned off the main road and onto a
trading estate that at that hour contained little more than darkness and
privacy; both of which I needed tonight, however briefly.
Had I been able to see Vina back there in
the gloom I would indeed have driven them both to the homeless people’s shelter
that I manage in the Cathedral close. I’d also have tried to persuade them not
to seek Club Midnight’s perils but rather to accept professional help in the
morning when they were safely rested, cleaned and fed. But this was the other
kind of pick-up and the salvation I had to offer would be still less welcome
than the unsolicited advice of a do-gooding and fussy English clergyman would
have been to a pair of teenage runaways. “You don’t look like sisters,” I said.
“But your names are similar. I like them: they’re pretty but very
old-fashioned.”
Vina growled behind me. “Not when we were young
they weren’t, sir. Not when the Old Queen still ruled.” I heard saliva flooding
as Vina’s mouth reshaped itself: invisible in the rear view mirror. My van’s dashboard
has two extra controls: one to lower protective covers over the speakers and
the other to pump an aerosol mist of Holy Water throughout the interior. The stereo
still worked splendidly even so and I turned it up as loudly as possible so The
Hallelujah Chorus would drown out the screams.
2 comments:
So what was he a vampire hunter? Engaging story.
I think I found two typo's for you:
1: 'mother who had been identical her daughter at sixteen' is the word to missing?
2:'I’d also have tied to persuade them not to seek' did you mean tried?
Welcome to Friday Flash! I'll look forward to reading more of your stories. ^_^
H i Helen, and welcome. Alas, he was indeed a vampire hunter. It's been observed before I'll have to be more direct in my storytelling - too much John M Ford influence {I wish!} in my writing, I think.
And thank you for the typos. Going to have to tighten up on the proof reading, too.
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