Like This, for Ever

handed the tin to Jorge.
    ‘She does not!’ Sam was keen on Angelina.
    ‘She does, it was on Facebook this morning. People have known about it for years. When she was married to her last husband – not Brad Pitt, someone else – she used to carry his blood around her neck in a little bottle.’
    ‘And do what, take sips when she got a bit thirsty?’
    Barney took a deep breath. If they didn’t stop talking about blood soon, he’d have to leave.
    ‘No, dorko. I don’t think she drank it. But it’s still well weird. Would you want to carry someone’s blood around your neck?’
    ‘What’s it called again?’ asked Sam.
    ‘Renfield’s Syndrome. It’s got something to do with a book about Dracula,’ said Jorge.
    Barney swallowed hard. ‘My dad has a copy,’ he said. ‘It’s by a man called Bram Stoker. He caught me reading it once – I was just flicking through looking for the scary bits and he told me off. Said it was a work of great literature, not a manga comic.’
    The others were all watching him, wanting more.
    ‘Well, it’s supposed to be the first vampire story,’ Barney said. ‘All the other stuff – you know,
Twilight
,
First Blood
,
Buffy
, those old films you see sometimes – they all started with Bram Stoker’s
Dracula.
’
    ‘So why’s it not called Dracula Syndrome?’ asked Sam.
    ‘Well, that would just sound stupid,’ said Jorge.
    ‘And it’s straight up? These kids had their blood drained out of them so someone could drink it?’
    As Jorge shrugged, Barney turned away. The adults were all gathered in small groups, talking quietly; even his dad and Mrs Green seemed deep in conversation. Only Jorge and Harvey’s mum stood alone, wrapped in her cream padded jacket, her short blonde hair spiked upwards, ignoring the other adults. She was watching the children, her sons in particular. Barney caught her eye and looked down.
    ‘There’s something they didn’t want to tell us,’ he said. ‘They’re more worried now than they were before. I’m not sure they’re going to let us go out tonight.’
    ‘We can’t cancel now,’ said Sam. ‘We’ll never be able to set it up again. I’ve lost count of what parent thinks who’s where.’
    ‘And doing what,’ added Harvey.
    ‘With who,’ said Jorge. All three of them laughed. Barney didn’t quite manage to join in.
    ‘There’s us four, Lloyd and Hatty. Six of us. Can six sleep on your boat, Barney?’ Harvey asked.
    ‘We’ve got to get on it first,’ said Barney. ‘Boat windows are small.I’m not sure even Hatty will get through. I think we need a backup plan.’
    ‘The back-up plan is that we all come back to our house,’ said Jorge. ‘Mum’s working all night and Nan is always comatose by nine o’clock. We could have the entire football team sleeping over and she wouldn’t know.’
    ‘What if your mum comes home early?’
    ‘Barney Boy,’ said Jorge, giving him a pat on the shoulder, ‘sometimes you just got to wing it.’

24
    ‘ NO LESS THAN five of the online nationals are running the vampire story, as well as several of the big regionals; we’ve had over a dozen requests for an interview from the media on this subject specifically and Bram Stoker’s
Dracula
is currently climbing up the Amazon chart,’ said Anderson as he and Dana approached the incident room. ‘My younger, hipper colleagues inform me that the social networking sites are talking about nothing else. Suddenly it’s cool to be undead.’
    ‘OK,’ said Dana, raising her voice to get the attention of the room and walking to the front. ‘I want to knock this vampire business on the head once and for all. Then at least we can say we considered it fully. I’ve asked Gayle to do some research on known cases of so-called vampirism. What have you got for us, Gayle?’
    Gayle Mizon stood, brushed biscuit crumbs off her skirt and came to join Dana at the front. ‘Right, two cases this decade of note,’ she began. ‘Both in 2002. First, a young Scottish man, Allan Menzies, who became obsessed by vampires after seeing a film called
Queen of the Damned.
’
    ‘That the one based on an Anne Rice book?’ asked Tom Barrett. As heads turned to him, he shrugged. ‘I had a girlfriend who loved that sort of stuff,’ he said.
    ‘Yes,
Queen of the Damned
is a vampire story by the American author Anne Rice,’ said Mizon. ‘Anyway, Menzies killed his friendand buried him in woods near his home. At his trial, he claimed to be a real