The Mammoth Book Of Vampire Stories Written By Women

Sheridan prowled the woods and the shore. Camilla, no longer poorly, haunted the kitchen of the B&B, where Noreen was penned for most of her life, incessantly cooking, stowing the washing machine, ironing dank sheets. Noreen relayed tales of the disastrous epidemic. The boy with the nightmares, and no one in that house gets a wink of sleep. The girl that they rushed to hospital: but then the doctors couldn't find anything wrong. So that was a whole day gone for nothing, with the driving her there and the waiting in the waiting room, and the driving her back. In August, too. Jesus God. Schadenfreude . Noreen is miraculously preserved.

Camilla changes the subject. We are all kept women , she says. (Noreen has confided that romance is long out of the window with her Jonas.) We can't do without them, can we? We may look like the perfect couple, but the truth is there are things I — She breaks off, and will say no more.

One day Sheridan came home from his adventures in a thoughtful mood, laid out digital prints on the tired candlewick bedspread, and pondered them with a happy smile. "Time to get the hell out of here," he said. "I'm done."

"The hell is right," said Camilla, glancing and averting her eyes.

"Why so squeamish? I have to live, don't I?"

"I can see why you want to leave!"

He put on his sunglasses, and grinned at her. "No one ever knows. I'm careful."

"Good, because I'm not done. I haven't finished. Not yet."

The dark lenses gave back a double image of her face, so richly shadowed, it's a shame she needs another partner. But two predators can't feed on each other. This is their eroticism, these tastes and smells, this contact at a remove: and it still thrills her. Sheridan always comes first, true. But Camilla likes it that way.

"Go, sister," says Sheridan, the big teenager. "You look like you need a fix."

The car had been repaired. It arrived back at the B&B that evening. They announced their departure the next morning, and settled the bill. Noreen was very sorry to see them go, but she made no fond farewells in front of Camilla's ersatz husband. Camilla conveyed, by a sad glance or two, that the sudden decision was not her own; and that she wished they could say goodbye more warmly. She got up about an hour after midnight, Sheridan peacefully unconscious. The sheets, although freshly changed, still had that bad-laundry smell. How does she do it? wondered Camilla, wrapping herself in an elegant blue and white kimono. Poor Noreen is a genius of poor housekeeping, of meagre portions She went into the ensuite and checked her face. Good God, even the electricity in the mean fluorescent tube seems to come straight from the North Pole. Tiny crow's feet around her eyes, lines between her brows, is that a broken vein ? Can't be! Never mind. Soon, soon this washed-out hag will disappear. The mirrors of civilization will restore Camilla's beauty, infused with fresh magic. For a last thrill, she walked the immeasurably ugly, pine-varnished passageways of the big lumpen house, possessing it like a ghost. American couples snore peacefully behind their brass number-plates, dreaming of Blarney Castle and the Rock of Cashel. Noreen shares a room and a bed with Jonas, with baby Roisin in her cot. The baby, for a wonder, is not grizzling. But the house is unquiet.

Camilla followed a trail of sound — buzzes and clicks and muted thunderclaps. Silently, she opened a door and saw the BMX boy there in the shadows, with his back to her, lost in contemplation of the graphics on his TV screen. His little hands were moving incessantly, clicketty clicketty clicketty . Camilla knew the names of all the children. This one was Declan, the ten-year-old, fortunately immune to the virus that's going round. He's actually a little young for that virus: the bud not quite bursting, the sap not yet on the rise, but he'd be immune anyway. There are rules. She slipped into the room and stood behind him, wondering about passions that she did not share. She was standing so close, it was amazing that the child didn't turn around. Over his shoulder she could see her own face reflected on the screen, clearly visible within the racetrack image.

Declan turned and saw nothing (an adult woman, a mother, a featureless conduit). Without changing expression, he turned back and resumed his game.

Shuddering with horror, Camilla retreated: and that's Noreen's diet. That's all the feeding her poor starved soul ever gets.

She went down to the TV Lounge, feeling morally justified. I'm not a bad person. Not entirely greedy. I give as well as take! A quarter of an hour, and Noreen appeared, red-faced with sleep, her crop-head tousled, bundled up in a dreadful dressing-gown. "I thought I heard Ough, Camilla what is it ?"

Camilla was weeping, stifling her sobs with fists clenched against her teeth.

She was beside herself. It was some time before she could be persuaded to talk. In choked, half sentences, covering her face, she told the story.