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  The noise of footsteps on the pavement behind him in the otherwise silent, sleeping street made him turn. There was nobody there. Tom remained standing for an instant, listening. The only sound he could discern was that of his own breathing, which suddenly felt forced, exaggerated. He began to walk again, but now he quickened his pace. The warm, mellow feelings he had got from the evening's drinking session with Gareth were slowly seeping out of him and his senses were reawakening from their short-lived siesta. His heart began to thump wildly in his chest. The footsteps came again. Tom turned to look behind him again, but this time he continued walking, faster. As he turned his head back round to face the direction he was walking in, it felt as though his heart almost ceased beating. Someone was standing in front of him. Tom stopped.

  "Michelle!" he whispered.

  It was Michelle! The shock of her unexpected appearance in front of him had rendered him weak. Michelle didn't answer, just stood before him. She was beautiful! My God, was she beautiful, more so than he could recall her having been. Tom wanted to speak, but words now evaded him as he became acutely aware of Michelle's near-nakedness. It was cold, freezing in fact, but she was wearing a tiny white mini skirt and a skimpy white top, her open faux-fur lined white coat loosely resting on her shoulders.

  "Michelle!" Tom said. He had found his voice again. "You're okay."

  He took a step towards her. His eyes travelled from her painted toe nails nestled in summery sandals, up her long legs, slowly, deliberately over her toned stomach, her shapely breasts, her full lips. His gaze eventually reached her incandescent eyes. He took another step towards her. He encircled her waist with his arms, placed his lips against hers and kissed her, desire lighting up every inch of his body. His hands began to explore her and she readily submitted to his touch, pressing her body against his, her hips gyrating provocatively. Never before had he felt such desire.

  But suddenly shouting shattered the passion enveloping him. Tom heard someone running towards them. A hard object was shoved between them and Michelle screamed, an unearthly scream that pierced the night air. Michelle pushed Tom away from her with such uncanny force that he landed hard on the pavement. She ran off, with surreal speed.

  "Are you alright?" the newcomer asked Tom as he offered his hand to him to help him up off the ground.

  Tom felt outraged. He clumsily stood up and lurched forward to punch the stranger.

  "Fuck you! Fuck you!" Tom screamed at him.

  The stranger nimbly moved out of range and Tom's fist punched the empty air where he had only seconds before been standing. Tom stood doubled over for a moment, trying to catch his breath. He felt as though he had been hit by a truck and forced out of a blissful, dream-like state against his will. When he was eventually able to stand upright again, he faced the stranger and saw that the object that had been thrust between him and Michelle was a large golden crucifix. Tom's eyes widened.

  "She was a vampire," the stranger said, then, as if to emphasise this fact to Tom, he added, "it was a vampire."

  ***

  Tom took another sip of the hot drink as he held the mug between both his hands, his fingers pressed firmly against its warm exterior. It was only milky tea, with lots of sugar added, but it tasted incredibly good. Perhaps that had something to do with Tom's realisation that he may not have been sitting here right now, experiencing this simple moment in his life, had Jonathan not come between him and Michelle-the-newly-Undead, brandishing his golden crucifix against the backdrop of the black night.

  Tom took in his surroundings; he was in an underground shelter. After Jonathan had saved him from the vampire Michelle, the two of them had walked to King's Cross station and had taken the tube to Clapham South station, from where they had walked to a circular structure with a nondescript door not far from the station, partially nestled beneath an apartment block. Jonathan had entered a code and the thick, reinforced steel door had opened, closing again once they were inside. Only a couple of steps or so beyond the main door, Jonathan had entered a code to open another reinforced door. Once past that, they had made their way down the countless concrete stairs of a hazily lit stairwell, eventually reaching level ground deep below the streets of London.

  "This is Clapham South deep-level shelter. You probably know about it already; one of eight such shelters built during the War," Jonathan had explained to Tom as they had walked down a long, empty tunnel, its metal walls curving up towards the ceiling with its regularly spaced strip lights. "There are two parallel, four hundred metre long tunnels down here, each with an upper and lower floor, and each divided into four sub-shelters, so there are sixteen sub-shelters in total here, all named after senior British naval officers. We've made the Collingwood and Grenville sub-shelters on the upper level our living quarters. We've just come down the shaft 9 stairs, but there's another stairwell, ironically closer to the sub-shelters we live in, but we don't use that because Ed had the entrance to it cemented up. It's a disorientating place to find yourself in at first, but you'll get used to it. It was actually a tourist attraction until not long ago, but maintaining it became too costly and it was sold off. Ed bought it. I have no idea why he did, or where he got the money. You'll get to meet him."

  Tom had silently listened as they had walked, and eventually they had reached a lobby, where the hum of voices had become audible. Just beyond the lobby was their destination: Collingwood sub-shelter. They had entered Collingwood, and Tom had stood for a moment in disbelief at what he had seen: primitive-looking, three-tier bunk beds, their bases planks of wood resting on basic metal frames, which ran along almost the entire length of one wall of the long tunnel. A few of the bunks had thin mattresses and bedding, and some of the at least forty people present were lying down, either sleeping or talking quietly amongst themselves. Tables, chairs, a few clothes racks, lined a section of the opposite tunnel wall.

  Jonathan had taken the crucifix from inside his coat and had placed it on a table.

  "Another night worth forgetting?" a woman with dark, tattooed skin and body piercings had called out to him from where she lay on a bunk.

  Jonathan had gestured towards Tom. "He was about to become a vampire delicacy, Layla; by strange coincidence, the vampire was a woman he already knew, but she had most likely been stalking him, waiting for an opportune moment to change him."

  Jonathan had then gently lifted Tom's chin so that he could carefully examine his neck. Tom hadn't protested as Jonathan had carried out his inspection, but he had suddenly realised that he was shaking uncontrollably. Jonathan had walked away, returning not long after with the mug of tea which Tom now held as he sat at one of the tables, Jonathan sitting alongside him.

  Suddenly, a face loomed within close proximity to his own. "Ed," the man the face belonged to said by way of introduction. He sat down opposite Tom.

  "Tom," said Tom, his voice barely audible, his body still quivering.

  "It's shock; the after-effects of your vampire experience," Jonathan explained.

  Tom lowered his head, feeling embarrassed at the memory of his uncontrollable lust for Michelle and his rage with Jonathan for having broken the magical bond he had experienced with her.

  Jonathan squeezed his shoulder in reassurance. "Anyone would have reacted the way you did, Tom."

  Tom glanced around him. "What are you up to here?" he asked.

  "We're the Resistance," said Jonathan. "Ed, me and another guy Martin have been friends for years. Martin's always been adamant that vampires exist - never stopped going on about them, and he made a habit of clandestinely filming people so that he could prove his theory that vampires exist to be true. We accused him of being a voyeur; almost fell out over his behaviour. Then one day he actually caught a vampire on film. After that, me and Ed joined him vampire spotting, keeping a journal of their activities. At least we now knew where to find them.

  "There have always been unexplained disappearances, but nothing like what's happening now. You've seen in the news how many people ha
ve disappeared in London over the past few weeks, Tom. We've started to take it seriously, which is why we're living down here. Most of the people here in the shelter were originally Ed's employees, and quite a few of them still are; we call them his crew."

  When Tom had glanced around him, he had been taken aback by some of the rough-looking men and women there. He now wondered in what capacity Ed had employed them. Few of them showed any sign of friendliness towards him.

  "Welcome," said a tall, black man. "I'm Alex."

  The petite woman with tattoos and piercings smiled as she said, "And I'm Layla."

  "One or two of us are plumbers, electricians and the like," Jonathan continued, "which really helps when it comes to the logistics of living thirty metres under the city."

  "We're preparing for a likely war against vampires," Ed interjected.

  "War?" said Tom.

  Ed got up and disappeared down the tunnel. He eventually returned with a tablet, placing it on the table in front of Tom. "Watch this, Tom," he said as he clicked the PLAY icon on a video.

  The video's images and sounds came to life on the screen in front of Tom.

  "What is this?" he asked.

  "Tom, just watch. And listen," said Ed.

  ***

  Tom watched, and soon became transfixed. In the video, a handsome, impeccably dressed young man with silver hair entered a luxuriously furnished room with two beautiful women, one brunette, the other blonde. They sat down. A bottle of champagne sat in ice on a small table.

  "Champagne, Annabelle?" the silver-haired man asked as he turned to look at the woman with brunette hair.

  "Yes, Nikolas, I'd love some," she replied.

  "And you, Charlotte?" he asked the blonde woman.

  "Of course, beloved," she said.

  Nikolas poured champagne into three tall, fluted glasses and handed a glass to each of the two women. Annabelle evidently drank her champagne, and quickly, but Charlotte and Nikolas merely gave the appearance of drinking theirs, and their glasses remained full. Charlotte moved to top up Annabelle's glass with more champagne, then sat on the arm of her chair.

  Annabelle began to feel more relaxed, and as she coolly sipped her drink, Charlotte pulled Annabelle's long hair loose from its chignon and began to run her fingers seductively through it. Annabelle closed her eyes and leant back, clumsily placing her glass on the marble-topped table next to her. Charlotte shifted closer to Annabelle and kissed her as she pulled her elegant shirt up so that her breasts were exposed, and as she toyed with Annabelle's breasts, their kissing grew increasingly passionate.

  Annabelle broke away from Charlotte to take another sip of her champagne and Charlotte began to cover her neck with gentle kisses. Annabelle giggled. But suddenly Charlotte fixed her mouth rigidly against Annabelle's neck. The glass in her hand fell to the carpet as she began to grapple with Charlotte, vainly trying to push her away. Charlotte merely took hold of her arms and gripped them firmly, rendering her powerless.

  But soon a look of euphoria appeared on Annabelle's face and she ceased resisting. Then she became still. Her lover lifted her head and looked over at Nikolas. He slipped off the chair he had been sitting on and joined Charlotte, on the opposite arm of Annabelle's chair. Both Charlotte and Nikolas's facial features had become leeringly distorted. Nikolas held his wrist over the mouth of the unconscious woman and Charlotte bit lustfully into it.

  Tom recoiled at the sight of the blood which flowed from Nikolas's wrist into the motionless woman's mouth, but he felt compelled to continue watching the gruesome video.

  Annabelle suddenly shuddered and opened her eyes, and Nikolas withdrew his wrist from above her lips, placing his mouth on the wound for a moment. When he pulled his wrist away from his mouth, it was evident that the blood had ceased flowing from it. There no longer even appeared to be a visible mark where Charlotte had bitten him. At first, Annabelle thrashed about in her chair, but her volatile movements gradually diminished and eventually ceased. She sat upright.

  Tom was aghast. She was somehow more stunning and her eyes had the same iridescent, hypnotic sheen that Michelle's had had tonight.

  "Welcome, Annabelle. You are now part of my expanding little army," said Nikolas, as he took Annabelle's hand in his and kissed it.

  Annabelle seemed not to comprehend what Nikolas was saying, and he turned to smile at Charlotte, who laughed.

  "All in good time," said Charlotte. "All in good time, pretty one."

  ***

  Ed leant over Tom and stopped the video. It was late and Tom was shattered, but now that he had seen the video, he wanted to know more. Jonathan and Ed told him that Nikolas had been the first vampire Martin had managed to get on film, in the opulent suite Nikolas always stayed in at a hotel in Brook Street, where Martin had taken on a part-time cleaning job and had installed hidden cameras in all the rooms.

  "That video you've just seen is what got us thinking something sinister might be going on in the vampire underworld," said Ed. "It was filmed not long after the news reports began about large numbers of people going missing in London. Those three words 'expanding little army' Nikolas said in the video had a huge impact on us. We know that Nikolas is an ancient vampire, a sire, and therefore powerful and dangerous.

  "We decided that simply vampire spotting is no longer enough. And here we are now, preparing for the possibility of a vampire attack."

  "I was convinced it really was vampires," said Tom. "Don't ask why; it was just a hunch. I've been hiding out at my gym at night lately, only tonight I was too off my face to realise where I was at."

  Ed and Jonathan looked at each other.

  "You're welcome to stay here," said Jonathan.

  Tom was offered a top bunk to sleep on and given a spare sleeping bag. After the gym's hard floor, the thinness of the mattress didn't even register for him, and within seconds of lying down, he fell asleep, and didn't wake up again until the sun had risen, some thirty metres above his new bed.

  ***

  Tom had been an hour late for work, arriving at his office unshaven and still wearing the previous day's clothes. He had apologised profusely, but his manager hadn't been too bothered.

  "Tom, you rarely take sick leave and you often work long hours," was all he had said.

  Getting through the day and trying to concentrate on the multitude of figures on the screen in front of him had been a mammoth mental task, and the relief Tom felt when it was finally 17:00 was immense. He rushed out of the office and about fifteen minutes later, walked into the Angel Tavern. Gareth was already there and Tom made his way over to where he was sitting.

  "Hey," Gareth said when Tom joined him at the table.

  "How're you doing?" Tom asked.

  "Surviving."

  Tom felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Jonathan, who sat down on the seat next to his. Almost as soon as Tom had introduced Jonathan to Gareth, the awkward conversation with him about his sister began.

  "You're joking," said Gareth when Tom had finished telling him of his encounter with Michelle.

  "I'm afraid he isn't, Gareth," said Jonathan. "I brandished a crucifix in front of your sister and she screamed and ran off; and very fast at that."

  Gareth sat staring at his lager as he thought about Tom and Jonathan's far-fetched sounding news about Michelle.

  "Gareth, are you okay?" asked Tom.

  Gareth slowly looked up at him. "She'll come back," he said. "You made a mistake; it wasn't her. It can't have been. In any case, there's no such thing as vampires."

  ***

  Location: London

  Tuesday, 3 March 2026

  Sunrise: 06:41

  Sunset: 17:44

  Katie's alarm resounded in the midst of her exotic dream. Her eyelids fluttered. Leopard was tapping her repeatedly, but softly, on the cheek, summoning her into a state of wakefulness so that she would feed him. She didn't want to leave the twilight state of her dreaming mind, but the relentless noise of her alarm shattering the serenity o
f her dream, and the tapping of Leopard's paw eventually forced her to open her eyes. The dream trickled out of her mind as she stretched and yawned. She stroked Leopard's sleek grey form gently, then got up and went into the kitchen, where she opened his tin of tuna and emptied half of it into his bowl, before placing it in front of him where he now eagerly sat at his food mat. Leopard devoured his breakfast, purring with delight.

  Katie walked over to the bathroom and switched on the light. She turned sideways to examine the marks on her neck. She had taken to wearing scarves to hide them. She had contemplated asking James not to bite her, but she found the pleasure of their love-making all the more heightened by his compulsion to bite into the flesh of her neck.

  Katie and James had been lovers ever since that night in December when their paths had crossed at the exhibition. Their desire for each other had grown more intense with time and James hovered in the background of her mind all day, as much as she tried to focus on other things.

  But what Katie found strange was that their liaisons had a dream-like tinge to them; it was as though James wasn't real.

  ***

  Location: London

  Wednesday, 25 March 2026

  Sunrise 05:52