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There are squatters in Poppy’s house.
They didn’t pay a penny for it, nor sign one scrap of paper; just moved in under cover of darkness with their awful furniture and their horrid clothes. Poppy’s lovely home that she did up so pretty has been invaded by tramps and hobos.
And worse – worse yet – they’re bally well foreign. They have accents. It’s appalling, every darn bit of it.
She won’t have it. By golly, she simply won’t. She’s a lonely gal, Poppy, and always does her best to be hospitable – some folk don’t see it that way – to blue blazes with ‘em – but even she has her limits. They’ll be dealt with. Oh, yes. These interlopers, these trespassers, putting their dirty hands all over her things, they’ll get what’s coming -…
“Guillermo! How many times have I told you to clean up this mould? It’s everywhere! What will people think? They’ll think we are peasants, Guillermo.”
With insolence wholly unbecoming a servant, the drab, fat one – fatness is almost as great a sin in Poppy’s eyes as foreignness – says tetchily, “I did bring in an expert to look at it, Master. Remember? And he gave us an estimate. You thought it was too expensive. You argued with him. He argued back. You ate him. Now the nearest mould guy is four hours’ drive away and he can only come next week.”
The tall and awful Arab scoffs, resting his feet on Poppy’s favourite embroidered tuffet as he buffs his nails. “‘Expert’. What do they know, eh, these ‘experts’? For hundreds of years we made do without experts. It’s mould! You get a brush, you scrub it off. Just like the blisters you get from herpes. Scrub, scrub, scrub – all better!”
“I… Master, I don’t think that’s how herpes works.”
“No, it is. Tch. You think just because the last time I encountered an Ess Pee Dee was before humans discovered penicillin that I don’t know anything. Is that right, Guillermo? Hmm? You think I am ignorant? An uneducated barbarian?”
“STD, Master.”
That earns him a dour look. “Guillermo.”
“No, Master. You’re not ignorant. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that. It’s just… okay, the point is that you can’t just scrub black mould away. And even if you could, this – I don’t think this is black mould.”
“It’s black, it’s mould. Black mould.”
“But it grows too fast. And sometimes it moves. Haven’t you noticed?”
“I don’t pay attention to such things, Guillermo. That is your job.”
“In my village, there was a famous wise woman,” says the English one, who reminds Poppy a little of her Uncle Mortimer, the blackest of black sheep. He’s lounging by the fireplace looking at pornography on Guillermo’s laptop. “She treated herpes by applying a mixture of acorns and cow dung to the afflicted area, followed by a red hot poker. Worked very well, in that it drastically reduced the number of villagers willing to admit to having herpes.”
The luckless expert hovers at Poppy’s side. Poor thing. He hasn’t fully realised what’s happened. It can take some folks a while.
“Still can’t work out where the moisture’s coming from,” he mumbles, absently scratching the holes in his neck. “Darndest thing. Could fix it up in no time if I knew. Been in the business twenty years. They said… they said this place was real peculiar, but I figured… twenty years, that ain’t nothing to sneeze at…”
How long has it been since these horrid people moved in? Time is tricky for Poppy. Sometimes it’s Tuesday, sometimes it’s Christmas, sometimes it’s forty years ago and then it’s tomorrow. But curiously, uniquely, they seem to find time tricky as well – always forgetting what day it is or how long it’s been since the Black Death last swept through Europe.
Except Guillermo. Guillermo keeps track of things for them, keeps calendars and diaries, and Poppy… yeah, Poppy’s a smidge jealous. Poppy wouldn’t mind a Guillermo of her own, to help her sort out her yesterdays and tomorrows. She’d get a whole lot more done, she’s sure of it.
Not this Guillermo, though. Too fat. Too boring. Those round glasses – ugh.
The gypsy woman parades into the room wearing one of Poppy’s old dresses. Where did she find it? How dare she touch it? Doesn’t she realise she’s far too fleshy for it? Poppy glares daggers at her, and she glares right back and huffs, “For fuck’s – Gizmo! The spectral slut’s here again! You were meant to get rid of her!”
“Come now, Nadja, my love,” drawls her lout of a husband. “Let’s not be hasty. Don’t you think she’s got terrific tits?”
What a nasty creature, leering at Poppy like that, right in front of his wife. She oughta slap him right across his unshaven face. Or puncture his eyes with a hairpin. Either or.
Not that said wife seems to mind having married a grimy Limey pervert. The thing that Poppy hates most about these people is that they have sex all the time. Everywhere. On everything. And they like it, even! Poppy never got to have sex that she liked, not once, and Poppy’s thinner and prettier and better than them in every way.
And just to add insult to injury, despite all that sex, they don’t have a single child for Poppy to kill.
It’s not the least bit fair, any of it.
The gypsy’s saying something, but Poppy can’t hear her anymore. She blinks, and the room dissolves. She’s wearing black. She’s at her daughter’s funeral. She’s laughing, and all the guests are looking at her with shocked disapproval.
***
The rest of Poppy’s family are distressingly at peace with this… this invasion. Hazel, the old witch, thinks the squatters are charming. A breathe of fresh air. William laughs quietly from inside the walls whenever Laszlo makes one of his coarse jokes. Hazel and William are both idiots and Poppy has never put store by their opinion.
By a strange twist of fate, it’s actually Nell, young, weak, flinching newcomer Nell, who takes Poppy’s side. The girl shudders whenever Laszlo glances her way and fled the one time Nadja acknowledged her existence.
Weeks pass. Months. After Poppy’s attempts to scare her unwanted guests away all fail, she throws up her hands and decides to feed them to the Red Room.
It means they’ll never leave, alas – but they’ll be quieter. Everyone’s quieter after the Red Room’s digested them for a few years.
For Nandor, the Red Room is a museum full of old trophies and paintings of his favourite horses. There’s a bronze statue of him in the corner. There is also a great deal of basketball memorabilia. (Poppy didn’t know what basketball was until he moved in.)
For Nadja, it’s a luxurious indoor swimming pool, heated and huge, surrounded by lush leafy pot plants and mosaics of beautiful soaring birds. She always swims nude. (Not that Poppy has been watching.)
For Guillermo, it’s usually some or other setting from Interview With A Vampire, except when it’s a cosy kitchen that smells like his mother’s cooking. (Poppy’s own mother didn’t cook. They had servants for that.)
Colin Robinson… doesn’t give the room anything to work with at all. Honestly, the room seems to hate his being in it and actively avoids him as best it can, moving to a different part of the house whenever he closes in. (As does Poppy.)
For Laszlo, it’s a sex dungeon. Obviously.
And they all know. That’s what drives Poppy up the wall. Every one of them is aware that it’s all the same damned room. It doesn’t bother them. They seem to find it funny.
They certainly don’t get quieter.
“Come on now, those aren’t nearly big enough,” Laszlo complains, frowning at the dozens of wall-mounted dildos the room has graciously supplied him with. “You can do better than that.”
Nadja slaps his arm. “Laszlo! Don’t be like that! You have to ask nicely. Room, sweetie – this is lovely. Fantastic effort. But my husband’s been taking it up the arse for two hundred years, yeah? These aren’t going to cut it, I’m afraid.”
With a meekness Poppy has never before seen her house demonstrate, the room flickers, plunges itself into darkness, and when the lights come back on the dildos have doubled in size.
The door opens. Nandor sticks his head in, whining, “How much longer are you guys going to be?”
Laszlo tuts. “Come on, old chap. You know very well it’s not your turn. There’s only one purgatorial Room That Should Not Be available, and we devised a perfectly fair rotating roster.”
“But I need Guillermo to polish my sword collection!”
“Then don’t keep your bloody sword collection in the one room that only lets them exist when you’re in it, you fucking idiot!” Nadja snaps.
Laszlo sighs as his wife and housemate attack each other, and, sitting down on the bed, glances Poppy’s way (she hadn’t realised he’d noticed her). He pats the red silk sheets and waggles his eyebrows. “Interested, petal? I know you don’t much care for me, but I assure you, I’m legendary at sex.”
Unable to decide whether to slide on over into his lap and prove how much better she is than the gypsy wench or open up his skull with the nearest lamp, Poppy slips away.
***
Poppy’s not used to being on the back foot. She doesn’t like it. This is her house. She is (or was, until recently) one of the oldest people in it. She’s the most powerful person in it.
This is her house.
If only these people slept. Infiltrating dreams, stirring up incessant nightmares, denying the body rest – all excellent, fast ways to break someone into pieces. But what they do in those coffins isn’t sleep, not really, and their minds are impenetrable.
Except for Guillermo.
Guillermo already doesn’t sleep much. His masters keep him too busy.
Yes. He’ll do. Poppy prefers more interesting targets; people with big personalities and vivid imaginations. But in the right hands, clay can produce masterpieces just as well as jade and ivory.
“It’s plain awful the way they treat you, honey,” she coos.
He shifts uncomfortably as she strokes his chubby cheek. “Nandor said I shouldn’t talk to you.”
Pouting, Poppy circles him, slow and steady. “That mean old fella? Why, he’s a perfect perisher, my love. You’re too good for him by a mile. Why do you take his orders all day long, hmm?”
“I – well, um. I want to be a vampire.”
“Well! Ain’t that the elephant’s eyebrows. But how come?”
He pushes his dreadful specs up his lump of a nose. “Oh, you know… the usual reasons. Super-strength. Unearthly sexual charisma – that would help me out a lot. Never ageing. Always being the scariest person in the room. Being… being safe, I guess.”
Poppy smiles. Sincerely, for once. “Cabbage, if those are your goals – your heart’s own true desires – there’re easier ways to achieve ‘em.”
Those pretty puppy-dog eyes widen with comprehension. “No! Uh. No, thanks. Um. Very kind of you to offer. But no.”
“Why not? This place loves you. All of us do. We’d treat you right. You’d fit right in.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that. Er. Still – still no. I don’t think I’d be happy.”
“Happy? Hah! Kid, lemme tell you a secret. Happiness is a blob of whipped cream on a spoon. One lick and it’s all gone. But safety, security? That’s real. That’s substantial. You can take it to the bank. You’ll be safe here.”
“Right. Right. Okay, we seem to be miscommunicating. I want to be safe because I want to be happy. Does that make sense? I don’t just want to be safe. You’re… you’re safe. But you’re not happy.”
“How do you figure?”
“If you were, you wouldn’t spend all your time watching us.”
The silly goose hasn’t noticed that they’ve been walking as they’ve conversed, down the corridor and round the corner, and now they’re standing at the top of the landing (Poppy loves that word. Landing – they sure do!). She hadn’t planned on killing him when this conversation started; she’d simply hoped to talk him into opening a curtain at an opportune moment. But he’s gone and made her angry, talking like he knows her. Like he understands her. Like he ever could.
Besides, there’s so much blubber on him – he’ll make for a fantastically messy corpse. She envisions him popping like a blister.
He’s rambling now: “Plus I’ve always wanted to visit Machu Picchu. And Antarctica! Happy Feet was one of my all-time favourite movies when I was a kid. And I’m planning to get into Warhammer 40K at some point. There’s a lot on the To Do list, and it’ll all be way easier when I’m a vampire – okay, the sunlight thing will be a complication, but I can work around that. I won’t have to pay for anything! I’ll be able to fly and turn into mist! I’ll hypnotise people into doing whatever I tell them! Whereas, y’know, the only real advantage to being a ghost is being able to stay in this house forever.”
“There are other advantages!” Poppy says, brightly. “Look down.”
He does, and she gives him one good hard push.
***
“The lurking was annoying. The sulking? Somehow, even worse.”
“Go away, you… you dirty whore.”
“Pfft. Wow. Woo-ooow. Was that your first ever curse word, angry ghost girl? That’s adorable.”
Nadja smirks and stretches, draped across her naked husband. Poppy wasn’t spying on them, for once. She was sitting in the library, minding her own business, when they barged in, dropped to the carpet, and started rutting like animals. That happens a lot, she’s noticed; as though half the time they can’t bear to endure the distance to the bedroom or the sex dungeon.
(Is making love to someone you like really that good? One more thing for Poppy to be bitter about.)
“It was a good try,” says the vampire. “If Nandor gave as few shits about his mediocre familiar as he pretends to, it would have worked. But I’m afraid he’s pretty much always keeping an eye on him. I mean – he’s shit at it. So shit. Supremely, majestically shit. Have you ever seen a small child put in charge of an exotic pet? An iguana, or something?”
Poppy has. She gave her daughter an ill-fated parrot.
Like she can read her mind (can she?), Nadja nods. “Never ends well. The child loves their pet. But they don’t know how to care for it. They’ve never had to care for anything, much less something with complicated needs.”
It’s so annoying how the peasant bitch pretends to be wise, like she knows so much more about life and the real world than Poppy. Stupid cow probably never even learned the Texas Tommy, or which fork to eat fish with.
“However!” Nadja continues, raising a finger. Enjoying her oration. “If you try to throw the iguana out a window – obviously, the child will be upset.”
‘Upset’ is rather underselling it. Nandor reduced the landing and the stairs to splinters. Poppy can only imagine his reaction if he’d not caught his plummeting servant just in the nick of time.
Laszlo grunts in agreement, absently scratching dried semen from his thighs. “She’s right, petal. Not your fault. You couldn’t have known. It really was a good try. May we console you with cunnilingus?”
“You’re not my sort of people,” Poppy tells him, sourly.
Squinting at her, he replies, “What an interesting situation this is. You’re very rude to us. To my wife and I especially. Normally, we’d kill you. Except we can’t. And normally, you’d kill us – except you can’t. We all just have to put up with one another. Very amusing.”
“That’s the thing no one tells you about immortality,” Nadja sighs, staring at the ceiling as though Nell’s hanging up there with her glamorously mangled spine (she’s not; she still doesn’t come anywhere near the vampires). “So much of it is putting up with people.”
“Which is why sex is so useful!” Laszlo say emphatically, slapping his palm on the floorboards. “Even when I can’t stand someone, I invariably find that it’s much easier to endure them for hundreds of years if there’s good sex to be had. And sometimes, if the sex is good enough, you can come to appreciate what few positive traits they do possess. Case in point: Nandor. Hated him when we met. Five thousand or so orgasms later, why – we’re almost friends.”
Poppy considers the facts.
The house is very full now, and only getting fuller. They kill an average of two people a day. Every day, two more unwilling housemates.
In a year… in two years… in ten? Poppy will be one of thousands, then one of tens of thousands. Her significance will dwindle. Her status will drop. Her influence over the house and its occupants will be dispersed, will, perhaps, disappear. She will become that one thing she dreads the most: irrelevant.
Unless she establishes her relevance now.
And – nuts to it. Shouldn’t she get to have fun? For once?
She scurries over and drops into Laszlo’s lap. He laughs. Nadja laughs. Somewhere in the walls, William laughs too.
***
Guillermo: Frankly, I feel sorry for her. And – and what am I gonna do? Get up on my high horse? She tricks people into thinking she’s nice so she can murder them. I trick people into thinking I’m nice so Nandor and the others can murder them.
(He shrugs.)
What goes around comes around. As for the house… yeah, I think we can make this work. It’s roomy. Great view from the top floor. No rats – I thought there were rats at first, but it turns out the scratching sounds were just the ghost of some guy who entombed himself alive in the walls, so that’s – whew! – a big relief. Of course, the main draw for me is all the empty woodland and meadows surrounding it. That was why we had to leave Staten Island; we ran out of room in the backyard for bodies. Won’t be a problem here! Heh. No, I think this will work out just fine. Homicidal wraiths notwithstanding.
***
(Voice from off-screen): Sorry, could you give us your name again?
Nell: Eleanor Vance.
(Voice from off-screen): And you live here too?
Nell: I… no? I don’t. Live. Here.
(Voice from off-screen): Right. Sorry.
Nell: It’s fine. Um. So… so like I said, you can ask me any questions you want. I’ll tell you everything I know. My story’s pretty interesting, I think. Your viewers would… how to put this? I think the sort of audience that enjoys watching the vampires eat people would also enjoy my story. But first – first I need a favour. I need you to make a call. Can you do that for me? Please?
***
Nandor: It wasn’t me. It wasn’t!
(He folds his arms. His face and clothes are covered in ash and his cape is missing. He’s standing in the woods.)
Nandor: How could it have been me? It was the middle of the fucking day! And anyway, why would I burn the fucking house down, eh? Just because Poppy kept trying to kill Guillermo? Pfft. It was a really nice house! Great acoustics. Lots of closet space. I wouldn’t throw all that away – not to mention my dream team memorabilia! – for one familiar. Please.
(Shifting; clearing his throat.)
Nandor: Which is not to say I am not grateful to Guillermo for waking us all up, telling us to turn into bats, and carrying us out of the burning house tucked under his shirt so the sun didn’t kill us. That was helpful of him. Would have been nice if he’d also saved a few other things, like my fucking coffin… ahem. Still. Good job, Guillermo. You fucked it up slightly less than usual. I am sorry for biting your nipple. Next time I do it, I will ask first.
***
Nadja: (also in the woods, also lightly singed) Of course it was Nandor. Burning things down is what he does. Case in point: my bloody village. Well, fuck him. He’s not getting away with it this time. He’s choosing the next house, he’s clearing out its occupants, he’s cleaning it up, and he’s replacing all my dresses and jewellery.
***
Laszlo: Tragic. Really tragic. An infinite supply of top-quality ghost pussy – gone, just like that. *snaps fingers*
(He sighs heavily, then brightens up.)
Laszlo: Still! That’s the way it goes. Onto bigger, better, and sexier things.
***
Poppy: (surrounded by smouldering debris and in shock) It’s gone. It’s gone? It’s… she did it. That dumb kid actually did it.
(Poppy fades away)
***
Nell: I don’t know what happens now. Do I disappear too? Mom and Dad are gone. I feel… it’s like there was an anchor tied to my foot, and now it’s been cut away. I’m so light.
(Voice from off-screen): Any regrets?
Nell: Plenty. I wish I hadn’t had to get Theo and Steven involved. I didn’t want them to have to come here ever again. But I knew they would. If I asked. If you asked them for me. And I knew they’d understand. They’re good people.
(Voice from off-screen): The vampires escaped – that must be disappointing?
Nell: Oh, I figured they would. They’ve survived for hundreds of years. A few cans of kerosene and Theo’s lighter weren’t going to take them out. The point is that they can’t use the house as their killing field anymore.
(Voice from off-screen): They’ll find somewhere else.
Nell: Yeah. But it’ll be a hassle. They’ll go back to having a tough time ditching the corpses without getting caught. Someday, someone stronger than me will put a stop to them. Hopefully, I’ll have made that person’s battle a little easier to win. That’s all I wanted. Yeah. Anyway – thanks for making the call. I hope you got all the footage you wanted. I’m leaving now. See you in the confetti.
(Nell fades away.)
***
Guillermo: (shirt off, applying ointment to his chest, which is covered in blood and scratches) Uh… it’s a pity, obviously. Definitely a setback. Forecast says it’s gonna be a sunny week, too, and now we’re miles away from the nearest standing structure. (He sighs.) I found us an old mineshaft to hunker down in until something better comes along. It’s not great. Lots of spiders. Lotta grime. And no way to tidy it up, because all my cleaning supplies were destroyed.
(Wincing, he places a bandage over the worst scratch, then straightens his shoulders and looks determined.)
Guillermo: Whatever! One more mountain to climb. I’ve been doing this for ten years. I can cope. I was a boy scout – I know how to build a tent, forage for berries, all that stuff. And you know what? It’s summer. There’s plenty of families camping and hiking around here, lots of ‘em with little kids that like to wander off. There’s our food problem solved. We got this!
(Thumbs up!)
***
Colin Robinson: Yeah, I saw those kids with the kerosene. Why didn’t I stop them? Why would I? Do you have any idea how much I hated that house? I’m a psychic vampire! I don’t want to live inside another, bigger psychic vampire! Would a wolf want to curl up in a T-Rex’s mouth? C’mon. And it was so remote – no decent hunting grounds for miles. A guy can’t sustain himself on the anguish of dead people. It’s stale. I need offices! Grocery stores! Fresh, miserable meat! So yeah. Screw the house. We’re going back to the city. As for the body disposal problem – well. It’s not my problem, is it? Hmm. You know what? Those Crain kids – they had some seriously impressive, deep-seated issues. Torment pouring off them in thick, juicy waves. Maybe I’ll see if I can’t find out where they live.
The end