"Mr B - Snacks" by James ´Jimbo Fett ´ Inwood

Lights blared and the music flared across the small, stark white kitchen. From outside the crowded, featureless hall, which contained a quagmire of people, a figure slipped out and into the kitchen.

“D’you mind if I slip past you for one second” came a loud voice to the side of Vic Harvey as he propped up against the side of the fridge. Vic, a man of average height, cast a bored look at the source: another face, but with a pitiful attempt at facial hair. The only feature that was out of the ordinary was that his nose had at one point, been badly broken so it looked all squashy and out of place. His eyes however, had a peculiar stillness, like that of a dying pond covered with algae: tranquil yet disturbing.

He managed to snap out of it.

“Yeah, um, sorry.” he grunted.

Vic moved to one side and watched the stranger open the fridge door and then look back at him; the artificial light give his pale skin a slight glow.

“Fancy a drink?”

“This your house?” Vic asked.

“No,” he replied, while opening the can.

“Bit cheeky,” said Vic with a frown.

“Yeah well, nobody knows I’m here - I invited myself - and nobody knows my name. Do you still not want a drink? Nice selection of lager in there.”

“Well, OK, I’m going in a minute.”

“Is that so?” the stranger replied raising an eyebrow with interest.

“Yes I’m off to another party with my…er - friend”

“What a coincidence! As it so happens I’m off to another party that’s closer to home

The stranger smiled as another man appeared and landed a hand on Vic’s shoulder; a very protective hand that spoke of intimacy between the two men.

“How do,” spoke the new comer.

“Ah! Where are my manners? How do you do,” the stranger said as he shook hands with the newcomer.

“What’s your name anyway?” asked Vic.

“My name? Oh! Yes my name, uh, well it’s hard to pronounce - so just call me Mr B. Everyone else does.”

“Well Mr B, my name is Al, and you can call me Ally if you like. But me and my friend here are off to another party. Catch you later.”

“Wait a sec’ Ally, he was telling us about a party that’s closer to us.”

With a grin Mr B continued.

“Yes, not too far away, and only a few blocks down the street. Quite a gathering,” he added.

“Well…I suppose it will not hurt us,” Ally responded. “Only, we’re only going to be there for a few minutes, just to be sure…”

And from there, the two very good friends were led out of the house party and into the uncaring night. The door shut on them, the music a faint boom as they carried on down the dank street, towards the party that the strange Mr B spoke of.

It was some time until Ally spoke.

“Are we here yet?”

“Oh yes! Just round that corner and down that alleyway, Ally.” Mr B burst out laughing at the strange coincidence of homonyms in his sentence.

The trio walked down the alleyway with Mr B in front, his rounded shoulders somewhat blocking out the streetlamp light from the other side. Mr B swivelled around with almost lighting fast reactions to face the two. What happened next, neither Ally nor Vic could understand, no human could without becoming one of Mr B’s kind. The two men stared at Mr B for a few seconds before Vic said.

“What…” was his last words as those strange, pale eyes in which both men were staring at took on a life of their own, mesmerising them both, like a moth to a flame. They stood still, open-mouthed and vacant-eyed, while a pair of strangers landed next to them, and one by one hit them each across the back of their heads with a large block of wood. The strangers discarded the blocks as their victims fell to the floor in a crumpled pile, now the feeding would begin as the attackers’ canines lengthened and sunk into their victims’ exposed necks while they partially drained them of blood.

The two bloodsuckers didn’t even give Mr B and second thought as they fed; though this didn’t bother him in the slightest - food was more important.

“I would take those slabs of meat someplace else, gents.”

“What do you care?” snapped one, he was a tough looking wretch with jet black hair and a scar under his upper lip.

“My payment, that’s what I care about.”

This caused them to pause from their feast.

“Yeah, you’re right,” came the other. He was bald and had an earring, his mouth was smeared with blood like a messy child eating spaghetti. They both rummaged around their pockets until they found what they were looking for: wallets; wallets which they both emptied of money and credit cards. This was for two things: the obvious reason was that it was Mr B’s payment, but it also served to look as if it was a simple mugging rather than a supernatural attack; the latter would create “inconveniences” for Mr B and his companions.

“Nice taste this blood has,” came the other one.

“I wondered if you’d like the taste. Two blokes alone together - does make one wonder,” Mr B said.

The scarred one startled back in horror.

“You mean these two were a bunch of…”

“Relax - blood is blood!,” he laughed.

“Do you want some?” came the other vampire.

“No, not for tonight. Tonight I feel like I should earn my food. Goodnight gentlemen.”

And with that he walked away into the night, he past a few shops, a few streets, and past estates and into the outskirts of the city. He felt that he needed to be away from the city for a while, it was getting on his nerves.

“Perhaps it is time to visit the countryside,” he muttered to himself, as he entered the train station. It was dark, foreboding and empty with only one train ready to leave. He went up to the ticket booth, a tired old lady stared at him from behind the counter.

“Where’s the train heading for?”

“Siger” she said, wrinkling her nose at his breath. Mr B made a mental note to buy some chewing gum.

“I’ll take a single ticket to Siger, please” he asked.

She handed it over with the comment “It’s the last train tonight.”

“Thank you.”

The train didn’t look too good, it was a run-down, rusty beast which reeked diesel and cried oil at him. It was Mr B’s turn to wrinkle his nose, he never did like the smell of trains or anything mechanical for that matter; he tried to think of when he was last on a train: it was in the fifties and it was a steam engine. Now a steam engine, that was truly something impressive, all the billowing clouds of steam shrouding the station and giving the place a sense of atmosphere and poetry - almost as if the contraption was a creature rather than a man-made machine.

He snapped out of his nostalgia and made to board the train, the carriage door had to be really shoved hard to be opened that Mr B almost lost his temper with it. Thankfully he didn’t and instead gave the next door a little kick to make up for its brother’s annoyance.

He sat down, listening to the plonk of his rear hitting the shapeless lump that was the seat: all sticky and dirty, he remembered why he didn’t like travelling by train: not only was the accommodation filthy it made you feel filthy and in need of a shower. The train started to move and Mr B decided to snooze for an hour.

“Ticket please!” came a gravely voice from far away.

The first thing Mr B noticed was that he was hungry not the kind of hunger you could satisfy with food, he needed blood soon.

“Ticket please!” came the voice again. It was the conductor, an old, hunchbacked man of 70 something looming over another person - it seemed that he was not the only passenger on this train. His stomach rumbled.

“Ticket please!” was all the old conductor said, he had a glass eye and several broken veins and an air of military around him.

“I said, do you have a ticket!” barked the conductor.

“Yes..s..sorry,” he stuttered, trying to fight back the urge to bite him; instead, giving him an evil glare and quickly stuffing the ticket into the old man’s hand and looking away. Rather perplexed, the conductor simply shook his head, thanked him and walked away.

It was going to be a long night for Mr B.