The Mammoth Book Of Vampire Stories Written By Women

He wakened, rimed with perspiration, to see Losh chewing an errant hangnail and tossing his instruments back into the suit-case. Laura was wrapped in white bath towels. They were crimson now.

"Is she okay?" Manser asked. Losh's laughter in reply was infectious and soon he was at it too.

"Do you want the offcuts?" Losh asked, wiping his eyes and jerking a thumb at a bucket tastefully covered with a dishcloth.

"You keep them," Manser said. "I've got to be off."

Losh said, "Who opened the window?"

Nobody had opened the window; the lace curtains fluttering inward were being pushed by the bulge of glass. Losh tore them back just as the glass shattered in his face. He screamed and fell backwards, tripping on the bucket and sprawling on to the floor.

To Manser it seemed that strips of the night were pouring in through the broken window. They fastened themselves to Losh's face and neck and munched through the flesh like a caterpillar at a leaf. His screams were low and already being disguised by blood as his throat filled. He began to choke but managed one last, hearty shriek as a major blood vessel parted, spraying colour all around the room with the abandon of an unmanned hosepipe.

How can they breathe with their heads so deep inside him ? Manser thought, hypnotized by the violence. He felt something dripping on his brow. Touching his face with his fingers, he brought them away to find them awash with blood. He had time to register, as he looked up at the ceiling, the mouth as it yawned, dribbling with lymph, the head as it vibrated with unfettered anticipation. And then the woman dropped on him, ploughing her jaws through the meat of his throat and ripping clear. He saw his flesh disappear down her gullet with a spasm that was almost beautiful. But then his sight filled with red and he could understand no more.

She had been back home for a day. She couldn't understand how she had got here. She remembered being born from the warmth of her companions and standing up to find both men little more than pink froth filling their suits. One of the men had blood on his hands and a cigarette smouldered between his fingers. The hand was on the other side of the room, though. She saw the bloody, tiny mound of towels on the pool table. She saw the bucket; the dishcloth had shifted, revealing enough to tell her the game. Two toes was enough. She didn't need to be drawn a picture.

And then somehow she found herself outside. And then on Edgware Road where a pretty young woman with dark hair and a woven shoulder bag gave her a couple of pounds so that she could get the tube to Euston. And then a man smelling of milk and boot polish she fucked in a shop doorway for her fare north. And then Preston, freezing around her in the early morning as if it were formed from winter itself. She had half expected Andrew to poke his head around the corner of their living-room to say hello, the tea's on, go and sit by the fire and I'll bring some to you.

But the living-room was cold and bare. She found sleep at the time she needed it most, just as her thoughts were about to coalesce around the broken image of her baby. She was crying because she couldn't remember what her face looked like.

When she revived, it was dark again. It was as if daylight had forsaken her. She heard movement towards the back of the house. Outside, in the tiny, scruffy garden, a cardboard box, no bigger than the type used to store shoes, made a stark shape amid the surrounding frost. The women were hunched on the back fence, regarding her with owlish eyes. They didn't speak. Maybe they couldn't.

One of them swooped down and landed by the box. She nudged it forward with her hand, as a deer might coax a newborn to its feet. Sarah felt another burst of unconditional love and security fill the gap between them all. Then they were gone, whipping and twisting far into the sky, the consistency, the trickiness of smoke.

Sarah took the box into the living-room with her and waited. Hours passed; she felt herself become more and more peaceful. She loved her daughter and she hoped Laura knew that. As dawn began to brush away the soot from the sky, Sarah leaned over and touched the lid. She wanted so much to open it and say a few words, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

In the end, she didn't need to. Whatever remained inside the box managed to do it for her.

My Brother's Keeper

Pat Cadigan

Pat Cadigan is the two-time winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the author of twelve books. Her fiction is included in many anthologies, including The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Dark Terrors 3, The Ex Files, Disco 2000 and A Whisper of Blood, and her short stories have been collected in Patterns. Born in Schenectady, New York, and formerly a resident of Kansas, she now lives and works in North London .