Closed Until Further Notice

  A hungover Kate and James had arranged a time that morning, and at midday he arrived. Kate figured he thought she was asking him out, hence the lack of hesitation on the phone.  

  “So, what's this about?” he asked, as Kate sat them down with a cup of tea. 

  Kate hesitated. “It's quite, uh, weird really - you know last night, when you took me to the bathroom?”

  “Yeah?” He stared at the table. 

  “Did you see anything or anyone when I was in there? Or hear anything?” Kate persisted.

  He paused. 

  “Well your screaming, of course.”

  Kate sighed. “Right.”

  James's eyes focused on her own. 

  They were narrowed. “Why?”

  Kate cleared her throat. “Do you know a guy called Varjak Swinton?”

  “No.”

  “What about the Hotel Swinton?” she continued, eager.

  “Kate,” said James. “What's all this about?”

  She deflated in her seat, then told him breathlessly. When she was finished, James continued to stare at her.

  “The undead?” he said after a while.

  She nodded slowly. “I know it sounds crazy, but I wouldn't have believed it myself until he popped up in my room last night.”

  “Oh.” Oh. The word Kate hated hearing the most. When someone just said 'oh' and nothing else, you had no idea of what they were thinking. 

  She stared at him, willing him telepathically to believe her. 

  But his eyes were transfixed on the opposite wall, unmoving despite her wordless pleas. 

  She waited for a while as he thought, trying to work out if it was a good idea to tell him. 

  It had to be, hadn't it? James was her only friend in California, so who else could she have confided in? 

  “I don’t want to accuse you of being…weird,” he said, slowly. “But, I mean, that doesn’t sound very…logical, does it? Or right, I mean why would a creature like that, if it did exist, take an interest in you? I mean it obviously doesn’t actually exist, but you know what I mean.”

  Kate's breath caught in her throat. 

  “But it's all real, James.”

  “And what proof do you have of that?”

  She shuffled in her seat. “I'm sure if I get Varjak to reveal himself to you…”

  “I thought you told the creepy pervert to leave you alone?”

  “I can get him back again.”

  “How?”

  “I can go to the Swinton just now and find him.”

  Suddenly James shook his head. 

  “Kate, are you sure Eric didn’t offer you a spliff or something? Or someone tried to date drug you, or whatever it’s called.”

  “Then I wouldn’t remember anything at all, would I?” At this rate, I might have preferred a little of that stuff, she thought. “Look, all I’m telling you is what happened. Be it a sign of a mental disorder, be it a sign of insane levels of drunkenness, it’s what I saw, and I know I don’t really know you, but if you could help me out here I’d appreciate it. I don’t really have anyone else here.”

  “Well…I mean, I’ve always had an interest in the supernatural, so at the very least I could just help you out, show you it’s not real and put your mind at rest, or catch some great evidence for myself if somehow you’re right,” said James.

  Kate brightened considerably.

  “Yes, exactly. Look, if it was a hallucination I’m very sorry for getting you to come out here, I mean, I don’t even know your last name and I’m getting you to join my ghost-hunting team.”

  “Ha, it’s Stokes,” he said, with a wry smile. “If he’s supposed to live at the hotel then maybe we should try there first?”

  “Yeah, good idea.” Kate’s stomach made a loud growl of protest. Going red, she looked to James. “I don’t think I’m in a great condition to drive. Oh wait, I don’t even have my car!”

  James laughed. “We’ll go in my car, don’t worry about it.”

  “Now?” said Kate, feeling a determination to debunk the Varjak case so she only had to concentrate on buying uni books this week.

  “Why not?” said James, and within five minutes they were in his little green car. 

   Varjak wasn’t there. 

   Or he might have been, but the hotel was shutting up for winter refurbishment. But he hadn’t responded to her calls either. 

  “I swear he was here,” murmured Kate, cupping a soda and pressing it to her lips once they were back at her‘s. “Someone was definitely here.”

  James rolled his eyes. “Well, it might have been a weird drunk person. I'm going to have to get going anyway.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “I just, okay, Kate, you’re a nice girl, but when you asked me round I didn’t expect to be, you know, embroiled in a zombie hunt,” James said, standing. 

  Kate paused, then irritation flourished inside her. 

  “Oh I see. Okay, what were you expecting exactly?”

  “Not that,” James said, evasively. “It was interesting though, I guess. I just have stuff I need to catch up on before the start of college.”

  “Alright,” said Kate, who was getting the distinct sense that James didn’t believe her story. “Okay, well, sorry about today, I’ll add you on Facebook or something later.”

  “Sounds good,” said James, laughing slightly. “I’ll see you later.”

  He left briskly.

  She stared after him a moment. 

  A tuft of blond hair dipped into her eye line, followed by a marble-white forehead and square-shaped glasses. 

  Varjak. And he was hanging upside down from the ceiling again. 

  She hit him with the back of her hand.

  “You know, I had a feeling you were lurking about,” she muttered, falling back onto the sofa.   

  Varjak continued to stare at her upside-down - it was hard to tell his expression when he was like that. 

  His bum scooted along the ceiling until he was aligned with her.  

  “Then why didn't you call on me? You've been doing it all afternoon at the hotel.”

  “Because you're an awkward squirt who wouldn't have come out just because I told him to do it.”

  “Naturally.”

  Then she realized. What the hell was she doing? She was talking to him like he was normal, like she knew him!

  “No seriously, what the hell…are you?” Kate growled, having found a frying pan to hoist as a weapon. 

  “Whoa, change in atmosphere!” Varjak cried, falling off the ceiling and onto the sofa. “You’re going to have to get used to all this, okay? I’ll explain it to you soon.”

  “No, NOW,” said Kate, pulling the pan back even further. 

  “Jeez - ” Varjak flitted out of the way, standing next to the balcony. “I’m not going to hurt you! And hey, I'm not a creepy pervert, thank you very much.” He folded his arms and threw a reproachful look at the front door.

  Kate raised a delicate eyebrow. “Well, you kind of are. Why don't you lurk about in the men's bathroom?”

  “Because then I'd be a gay pervert, stupid.”

  Kate lowered the pan, slowly.

  “By the way, you totally think James is hot. Can‘t say I blame you, twice I nearly made use of my invisibility and grabbed that a*s of his.”

  “You dick!” she squawked. “Will you please leave me alone already? Who said I want you hanging about here even if you are supernatural?”

  “Sorry, no can do. And I wasn’t the one checking him out, don’t blame ME sonny!”

  “You sound like you were,” Kate scoffed, sitting on the arm of the sofa, frying pan not far from her reach. “And what was all that about you not being a gay pervert?”

  “It was only an observation,” he snorted, opening the door to a blast of warm air.

  “A gay observation, if you ask me,” she muttered.

  “I hope it was,” he said, tossing his hair around in the breeze. 

  “Oh Varjak, you're such a - a - why are you even still here when I sent you away last night?” 

  Varjak turned to look at her. 

  Kate sighed, sparing a glance at his severely windswept hair. “Are you even going to respond?”

  “Because I want to be here,” he said, with a shrug.

  “But why me?” she asked. “Why do you want to be here with me?”

  “'Cause. You're cool.”

  Kate sighed. “That's not a good enough reason and you know it.”

  “You're right.” 

  Another pause. “Would you like to expand on that?” 

  “Not particularly.”

  “Varjak.” Her tone was dangerous. “Please just leave. I have things to be getting on with, and getting involved with a zombie isn’t one of them!”

  “I have a story to tell you though!” Varjak squawked, flying over her head and drumming on it. “If you hear it, you will understand some more!”

  “I don’t care about any stupid stories okay?”

  “Well!” Varjak puffed up his chest, returning right-side-up. “Guess what, I’m telling you anyway!”

  Kate groaned. “I’m just going to ignore you and buy books online, kay?”

  “I’m sure you’ll want to listen once I get started. So, you know your parents, right?”

  She had picked up her laptop and was feigning disinterest. What did he know about her parents? Things she didn’t know, maybe? 

  “Yes, my parents. What about them? Did you know them?”

  “I was their best man at their wedding.” 

  Kate stared. 

  Long ago, when she was about eight or nine, she was told that her mummy and daddy had gone to heaven on the day they got married. 

  She remembered that, clearer than any other memory. 

  “Of course, you won't remember much about the wedding, you were only about one, I think. You're nineteen now, aren't you? And that was eighteen years ago...”

  “Varjak, get on with it.”

  “Right, sorry. So, anyway, you were only there for part of it - you got sick and started screaming and crying. So then my friend Arnaud took you back to your parent's house for the reception. He's dead too now, actually. I was there at his funeral. But I never saw his ghost. Must've crossed over, or whatever they call it.”

  “Will you stop going off on tangents?” 

  “Sorry,” replied Varjak. 

  “Well? Go on?”

  Varjak cleared his throat. “So you were safe, and I at this point had just arrived at the party, and people were making toasts and things and it was all dandy, but then it all went wrong.”

  “You mean the gas leak?”

  Varjak frowned. “What gas leak? The one in your head?”

  Kate shook her head. “No, never mind. Go on.”

  “So then the room started getting extremely cold. And that's when they came. I thought there wasn't a chance for any of us, least of all myself. 

  “People started screaming. Then they just appeared, surrounding us all. Their goal, I guess, was to kill us off first and then focus on the witnesses. We were ridiculous to think we could come to such a huge event unarmed, and our stupidity cost us. There were so many of them...it was only around ten minutes before every single person in the room had been killed. 

  “All apart from me, the one who hadn't had enough blood drained from them. My heart was racing, the pain was excruciating...I remember one of them drifting over to me, their face and neck dripping. They stood over me, deliberating with another undead about whether to completely finish me then, but they said 'No. Save your energy. If he's transformed, we'll soon know. And we'll search for him.' It sounded more of a warning to me.”

  “So they left, and I was left to transform. I still recall the moment my heart slowed down, feeling like a dead weight in my chest, paralysing me, pushing me further into the ground...And it just stopped. Just like that. But I wasn't dead. I stood up, twisting round and half expecting to see my body mangled on the floor, as the ghosts in the movies do, but nothing.”

  Kate nodded without speech. 

  Varjak tilted his head, and Kate thought if he had the ability to blush that he'd do so now. He'd obviously never spoken of this with anyone before. 

  But the sincerity in his expression made Kate believe every word without doubt. 

  Why else would he lie? 

  Then all the questions came rushing into her head.

  “So, why were they after you in the first place? Why were you four targeted?”

  “Because we used to kill them in college. They wanted to build an empire that would stretch out until the undead were in complete control of everything. Back in the seventies they were spreading out vastly with their colonies, building up armies of them, transforming as many 'smart and strong' humans as they could, so their army would be pretty much indestructible. 

But we tried to put a stop to them.”

  “But how did you even find out about the undead anyway? Just by chance?”

  “Chance?” asked Varjak. “No. Arnaud's great-grandfather had a run-in with the undead many years ago, so when they discovered that Arnaud was a descendant they attacked him. Arnaud's great-grandfather was a famed undead slayer, so they wanted to get rid of Arnaud before he started trying to do the same. Which doesn‘t make too much sense to people like you and me.”

  “Right,” said Kate, slowly. 

  Varjak half-smiled. 

  “Anyway. That's enough story-telling for one day, I think.” 

 Kate caught hold of his wrist. He allowed her to, despite the fact he easily could have passed his wrist through her flesh. 

  “So what? Was Arnaud attacked and you four rushed to save him?” she asked.

  “Naturally,” said Varjak. “It was pretty easy, since Arnaud already told us how to kill them as a general interest. But not entirely pleasant.”

  Kate thought. “Hang on. You won the first time easily and lost the second time, without Arnaud...”

  He grinned. “Well, Arnaud knew things thanks to his own father. Destructive chemicals and whatnot. The killing came naturally to him, much more naturally than it did for us. He made it look like slicing cake instead of flesh.”

  Kate winced. “You're right. That is enough story-telling.” She dropped his wrist. “I have one more question, if you don’t mind.”

  “What? You've asked quite a lot.” 

  “Why are you here? If it was just to tell me all that, you would have said it last night and left me alone. Or not said it all. But you've been here all day and night, humiliating me and pestering me and passing judgement on my life. Why are you here, Varjak?”

  He regarded her carefully, for once speechless. 

  After a moment, he said, “Why am I not here?” and disappeared into the floor. 

  Kate shuddered. I wonder if he was this annoying when he was alive? She considered this before continuing her usual business. 

  Since it was a Saturday she didn't have college. 

  After a long, lazy day, she crawled back into bed and fell asleep, swimming thoughts of Varjak clouding her mind.

Reviews

[tynamite]

I love how the chapter started with a phone call instead of some narration, as it made a nice contrast from the previous chapter's weight. I feel that the novel is really improving as the pace of the story is slowing down, and things don't have to be explained and introduced so much now.

I'm starting to really like this novel now. I like how the story can finally switch to storytelling and have Kate actually have a conversation for a change. I find it funny when James said go ahead. This story is really interesting. "Maybe he's at McDonalds again" lol. Because that's exactly where you expect to find ghost vampires - in McDonalds!

[FemmeSpookyCorpse]

Oh, this chapter is helping the story to take a more supernatural turn, which is awesome! The dialogue is humorous and enriching, and the details keep the reader "tuned in" to the environment. Very nice job = ]

-Brittany

[halflives]

Good chapter. Interesting, the plot is developing.