The First Rhys Hughes MEGAPACK®

VAMPIRIC GRAMPS

VAMPIRIC GRAMPS

Logic can be a frightening thing. The power of the mind to apply reason to a problem is often the most highly praised talent of humanity; and yet I have learned from vile and grim experience that pure deduction is capable of reducing a man to mewling and shuddering paroxysms of despair. Not so long ago I was that man. Indeed, in many ways, I still am. Logic is the origin of my misery, the bane of my soul.

It began with a mildly philosophical discussion about those legendary beings known as vampires. I was talking to my neighbour and friend, Mr Damocles Blinker. He had won fame in his youth as an explorer of weird lands and beliefs, travelling the world and learning arcane secrets from a succession of improbable priests, gurus and occultists. Of all his meetings the most memorable had been in Moldova.

“I have told you this story many times before,” he said as he accepted the glass of brandy from me, “but as you never seem to tire of hearing it, I see no reason not to oblige you again…”

“Thank you, Damocles!” I blurted in my enthusiasm.

He grinned. “My pleasure, Burt.”

And he proceeded to set the scene, to describe the woodlands north of the town of Iaşi, the lonely road, impenetrable night, fierce storm and the frantic search for shelter, the knocking on the oaken door of an unlighted residence, the creaking as it opened…

“Ghetu was a genuine vampire, I assure you, an aristocratic avatar of that particular brand of evil,” he said.

“Almost a cliché?” I ventured uncertainly.

Damocles nodded. “Yes, my friend. He had the black cloak, the pallid expression, the empty castle; but it wasn’t a real castle, more of a fortified manor house. It was deserted and cobwebbed from highest turret to cellar and filled with antiques that he regarded merely as bric-a-brac, clocks and clavichords, velocipedes and phonographs. He informed me that I was his first guest for more than thirty years.”

“And he showed you to a spare room in the attic?”

“He did. With a dusty black bed.”

“You were his guest for three whole days?”

“Yes. Until the storm abated.”

“And he never tried to bite you during your stay?”

“No, Burt. But there’s a good reason for that. Ghetu assumed that I too was a vampire, a kindred dark spirit.”

“Damocles, why would he think such a thing?”

“The answer to your query is simple, Burt. Please refill my glass with more brandy first. Thanks. In the long central hall of his house, there was an enormous circular mirror hanging on one wall; but in that mirror I had no reflection and he noticed the fact.”

“This occurred shortly after your arrival?”

“Yes, while I was still stained from the rigours of my journey. I passed that mirror only once; during the remainder of my visit I never went back into the central hall. That was lucky.”

“But you’re not really a vampire, are you?”

Damocles drained his glass before responding; he was a master of the theatrical pause. “No,” he said quietly.

“What are you then? The transparent man?”

I waited patiently, but he was unforthcoming, so I prodded him with a deep sigh. He looked up and explained:

“The reason I had no reflection was an optical illusion, nothing more. I doubtless would have been exposed as a fraud had I stood in front of that mirror on the following days. But that first instance convinced Ghetu that I was as undead and vampiric as he. The truth is that it was an example of camouflage rather than invisibility. The stains on my clothing matched to a remarkable degree the patterns of mould on the wall opposite the mirror and in the dim light of the few candles…”

“You blended perfectly into the reflected background?”

“Exactly, Burt! Ghetu never realised!”

It was at this precise point that a sudden thought occurred to me. I had heard the story from Damocles’ lips many times; it was enjoyable, almost soothing in a peculiar way, but suddenly there was something I wanted to ask that I’d never considered before. I can’t frown like ordinary men, nor can I pout or squint, but my apprehension manifested itself in other ways, in a specific movement beyond the ability of most human beings, a gentle undulation unmistakable to my friend.

“You are troubled,” he observed. “But why?”

When the ripple had passed and I was calm again, I voiced the thought aloud, my abrupt revelation, the dark epiphany. I said, “Vampires have no reflections in mirrors. If a big mirror is hung on a wall of a room, or if the wall is the mirror, then everything present in the room that doesn’t show a reflection will be a vampire. That’s logic.”

Damocles set down his glass and poured himself more brandy; it must have been clear to him that I was too distracted by my own philosophical ponderings to remember my duty as a host and attend to his needs. “Yes, it is,” he agreed. “Unassailable and clear.”

“That is the famous test for vampires, isn’t it? A good vampire hunter will always carry a mirror with him…”

“Or with her,” he replied, somewhat testily. “Don’t forget that women work in this field too. I once knew a feisty redhead with green eyes by the name of—” But he noticed my agitation and broke off. He knocked back his drink and his cheeks visibly pulsed.

“I can think of something in that hypothetical room that will never be reflected in that conjectural mirror,” I said.

“Never, Burt?” he answered.

“Not once. Shall I now tell you what it is?”

He was amenable. “Please do.”

I hissed sharply, “The mirror itself!”

Damocles absorbed this information. His intelligence and experience, both considerable, seemed to bend inside his head, furrowing his brow so thickly with lines that for a moment it seemed he had imprisoned himself behind the bars of a horizontal jail.

“But that means…” he said thickly, his tongue protruding.

“Yes, my friend. It’s true.”

“All mirrors are vampires!” he screeched.

He half raised himself out of the chair, fell back with a deflating hiss, and despite my perspicacity I couldn’t tell whether it was the cushion or his ego that had compressed. “All.”

Pounding the arms of the chair with his fists, he wept.

We sat in silence for minutes.

Finally I added, “Logic can’t be argued with. Tomorrow morning I’ll remove every mirror from every room in my house. I suggest you do the same. We’ll have to spread the word, let other people know. Because of vanity, we have all been harbouring undead parasites among us for many millennia. This situation must cease.”

He nodded. I had convinced him; or rather, logic had. Pure logic. Why keep pets when logic purrs around your ankles with such tenacity? For an hour we tried to change the topic, to discuss a few of his other adventures, lighter in tone than his Moldavian exploit, but it was useless. The stain of darkness had seeped into our souls. At last he bade me goodnight and left me alone. The house was lonely again.

Many days passed and then logic came back, its ramifications causing mayhem in unexpected corners of my psyche. I realised that if mirrors are vampires, then all vampires must be mirrors. Or to put this statement into algebraic form: if M=V then V=M. Soon enough the implications of this formula substantially increased my dread.

I reasoned as follows: if all vampires are mirrors, whenever I look at a real vampire I should see myself, my own reflection. Anyone might be a vampire, any random individual in the street. If I looked at someone and they didn’t look like me, in other words if I couldn’t see myself reflected in them, then either they were normal humans or else they were vampires who were failing to show my reflection.

And in the latter case, the only logical reason for this failure was that I had no reflection myself. Which would mean that I too was a vampire! In the following months I stared with phenomenal intensity into the faces of everyone I encountered. I went to restaurants, theatre lobbies, taverns and libraries, every location where I might reasonably be expected to have the opportunity of meeting crowds of people.

But not once did I find one who looked just like me!

And yet they couldn’t all be normal human beings. The statistical odds against that were incalculable. At least one of them had to be a vampire. I know that vampires form a tiny percentage of the general population, the most oft-quoted figure is less than 1%, but I had stared into the visages of thousands of individuals. The logical conclusion was that I had stared at a vampire face to face, but that he or she hadn’t displayed my reflection. So there was no way I could deny the truth.

Burt Smith, namely myself, was a vampire…

The horrid realisation of my condition depressed me. Was it foolish to hope for a cure? I had no wish to adopt the lifestyle of a bloodsucker, my outer physique and inner parts aren’t suitable for vampiric activities, I’m simply not agile enough; I have the maximum flexibility of a grandfather, no more than that. Indeed, I am often called ‘Gramps’ by my friends as a term of descriptive or metaphoric endearment. So I decided to seek out a surgeon capable of reversing my condition.

I learned that the only surgeon who might be skilled enough to aid me in my quest was Doctor Ricky Tensor…

Thanks to the modern miracle of the telephone network I managed to contact his secretary. I carefully explained what I wanted. By this time, I was so terrified of myself that I refused to leave my house. “He must visit me,” I insisted, but she was disdainful.

“Dr Tensor never makes house calls,” she said.

“I simply can’t come to his clinic. I have agoraphobia. I have plenty of money. I’ll pay double his normal fee.”

“Only double?” she sneered.

“Yes, but I will triple that double…”

“One moment.” She went off to consult the surgeon.

She returned a few minutes later and said, “He has agreed. Please give me your address. Now I must warn you of something: Dr Tensor doesn’t have a normal appearance. He is—”

“Disfigured?” I ventured.

“Just so. Horribly. In an explosion.”

“That is of no consequence to me. Ten years ago I had an accident and I’m no pretty picture myself,” I said.

“Very well. You may expect him in the afternoon.”

I replaced the telephone receiver.

Then I set to work turning my dining room into a temporary operating theatre. I cleared all the ornaments off the table, turned on the lamps and disinfected the walls and floor. I trembled at the thought of what it might take to cut the vampiric element out of me. Maybe I wouldn’t survive the procedure. But I had to take that risk.

The condition of being a paranormal parasite couldn’t be endured any longer. Already Damocles was beginning to guess the truth. I had stopped answering the door to him when he knocked. I ignored the social calls of all my other friends. Burt Smith, alias Gramps, was a vampire and it was better for him to shun mortal company.

The hours crawled past like mummified lice.

At last, after an agony of waiting, the surgeon rapped on my door with the secret knock I had specified. I flung it open. Terror and joy competed for the privilege of bursting my mind…

The source of the joy was a realisation that I was already cured! I had got better on my own, without the aid of scalpel or medicine. I’ve always had a very strong immune system. Proof of my cure was the fact that Dr Tensor looked exactly like me. He was my double, my reflection. Thus I couldn’t be a vampire. That’s logic again.

But if he was capable of reflecting my appearance, he must have been a mirror; and if he was a mirror, he must be a vampire. So I shrieked and the shock of my shriek caused him to shriek too, and we stood there, face to face, shrieking across the cursed threshold of my front door, shrieking like tortured similes in a grammar dungeon.

I closed and opened my eyes, but his appearance didn’t change. And it was a perfect replica of my own. A glass tank mounted on wheels, full of a mysterious bubbling liquid; and immersed in that fluid among a nest of tentacles, eyes on stalks and prehensile mouths fixed to the tips of fleshy tendrils, was a gigantic throbbing brain!