Jasper Fforde - The Eyre Affair

‘What are you doing?’ I asked, the revulsion rising in my throat.

Spike turned to me, his eyes gaping, his mouth cut from the glass, a look of horror and fear in his eyes.

‘I was hungry!’ he howled. ‘And I couldn’t find any mice—!’

He closed his eyes for a moment, gathered his thoughts with a Herculean effort, then stammered:

‘My medication—!’

I forced down a foul gagging sensation and opened the medical kit to reveal a Biro-like syringe. I undipped the pen and moved towards Spike, who had collapsed in a heap and was sobbing silently. There was a hand on my shoulder, and I whirled round. It was Frampton, and he had an unpleasant smile on his lips.

‘Let him carry on. He’s happier this way, believe me.’

I pushed his hand off my shoulder and for an instant my flesh touched his. It was icy cold and I felt a shiver ran through me. I backed away hastily and tripped over a stool, falling heavily and dropping Spike’s injector. I drew my gun and pointed it at Frampton, who seemed to be gliding towards me without walking. I didn’t shout a warning; I just pulled the trigger and a bright flash illuminated the lab. Frampton was catapulted across the floor towards the blackboard and fell in a heap. I scrabbled around for the injector, found it and ran towards Spike, who had picked up a particularly large jar with a very recognisable and unspeakably unpleasant specimen in it. I flashed the torch into his frightened eyes and he mumbled:

‘Help me!’

I pulled the cap off the injector and jabbed it in his leg, giving him two clicks. I took the jar from him and he sat down looking confused.

‘Spike? Say something.’

‘That really hurt.’

But it wasn’t Spike talking. It was Frampton. He had picked himself up from the floor and was tying what looked like a lobster bib around his neck.

‘Time for dinner, Miss Next. I won’t trouble you with the menu because… well, you’re it!’

The door of the biology lab slammed shut and I looked at my gun; it was now about as much use as a water pistol.

I got up and backed away from Frampton, who once more seemed to glide towards me. I fired again but Frampton was ready for it; he simply winced and continued.

‘But the crucifix—!’ I shouted, backing towards the wall. ‘And this college—it’s a church!’

‘Little fool!’ replied Frampton. ‘Do you really suppose that Christianity has a monopoly on people like me?’

I looked around desperately for some kind of weapon, but apart from a chair—which drew out of my grasp as I reached for it—there was nothing.

‘Thoon be over.’ Frampton grinned. He had sprouted an inordinately long single front tooth which grew over his bottom lip and gave him a lisp.

‘Thoon you will be joining Thpike for a little thnack. After I have finithed!’

He smiled and opened his mouth wider; impossibly so—it seemed almost to fill the room. Quite suddenly Frampton stopped, looked confused and rolled his eyes up into his sockets. He grew grey, then black, then seemed to slough away like burned pages in a book. There was a musty smell of decay that almost blotted out the reek of formaldehyde, and soon there was nothing at all except Spike, who was still holding the sharpened stake that had so quickly destroyed the abomination that had been Frampton.

‘You okay?’ he asked with a triumphant look on his face.

‘I’m good,’ I replied shakily. ‘Yuh, I feel okay. Well, now I do, anyway.’

He lowered the stake and drew me up a chair as the lights flickered back on.

‘Thanks for that,’ I murmured. ‘My blood is my own and I aim to keep it that way. I guess I owe you.’

‘No way, Thursday. I owe you. No one’s ever answered a call of mine before. The symptoms came on as I was sniffing out Fang here. Couldn’t get to my injector in time…’

His voice trailed off as he looked forlornly at the broken glass and spilled formaldehyde.

‘They’ll not believe this report,’ I murmured.

‘They don’t even read my reports, Thursday. Last person who did is now in therapy. So they just file ‘em and forget ‘em. Like me, I guess. It’s a lonely life.’

I hugged him on an impulse. It seemed the right thing to do. He returned it gratefully; I didn’t expect that he had touched another human for a while. He had a musty smell about him—but it wasn’t unpleasant; it was like damp earth after a spring rain shower. He was muscular and at least a foot taller than me, and as we stood in each other’s arms I suddenly felt as though I really wouldn’t mind if he made a move on me. Perhaps it was the closeness of the experience that we had just shared; I don’t know—I don’t usually act in this manner. I moved my hand up his back and on to his neck, but I had misjudged the man and the occasion. He slowly let me go and smiled, shaking his head softly. The moment had passed.

I paused for a second and then holstered my automatic carefully.

‘What about Frampton?’

‘He was good,’ admitted Spike, ‘real good. Didn’t feed on his own turf and was never greedy; just enough to sate his thirst.’

We walked out of the lab and back down the corridor.

‘So how did you get on to him?’ I asked.

‘Luck. He was behind me in his motor at the lights. Looked in the rear-view mirror—empty car. Followed him and pow; I knew he was a sucker soon as he spoke. I would have staked him earlier ‘cept for my trouble.’

We stopped at his squad car.

‘And what about you? Any chance of a cure?’

‘Top virologists are doing their stuff but for the moment I just keep my injector handy and stay out of the sunlight.’

He stopped, took out his automatic and pulled the slide back, ejecting a single shiny bullet.

‘Silver,’ he explained as he gave it to me. ‘I never use anything else.’ He looked up at the clouds. They were coloured orange by the streetlamps and moved rapidly across the sky. There’s weird shit about; take it for luck.’

‘I’m beginning to think there’s no such thing.’

‘My point precisely. God keep you, Thursday, and thanks once again.’

I took the shiny bullet and started to say something but he was gone already, rummaging in the boot of his squad car for a vacuum cleaner and a bin-liner. For him, the night was far from over.

‘I told Mr Parke-Laine that you had haemorrhagic fever but he didn’t believe me,’ said Liz on reception at the Finis.

‘The flu would have been more believable.’

Liz was unrepentant.

‘He sent you this.’

She passed across an envelope. I was tempted just to throw it in the bin, but I felt slightly guilty about giving him a hard time when we had met the previous night. The envelope contained a numbered ticket for Richard III which played every Friday evening at the Ritz Theatre. We used to attend almost every week when we were going out together. It was a good show; the audience made it even better.

‘When did you last go out with him?’ asked Liz, sensing my indecision.

I looked up. ‘Ten years ago.’

‘Ten years? Go, darling. Most of my boyfriends would have trouble even remembering that long.’

I looked at the ticket again. The show began in an hour.