A Bite Sized Introduction
The full moon gawped at a landscape sparkling in the frost. All was calm, all was bright, all was silent…….UNTIL……
“Aarroooooo ! Aarroooooo !”
What was it about this sound that caused unblinking owls in churchyards to blink, icicles to tinkle nervously on branches and porches, and the humans that were still awake to leave the warmth of their beds, check the windows and shutters and the bolts on their doors and block up their cat flaps, before climbing shivering back under the bedclothes again and go on shivering, even though they were warm once more?
They knew what that sound meant.
Mice too knew it down their whiskery mouseholes, scaredy cats knew it, upside down bats knew it, chewing rats knew it. In the little seaside town sleepy police keeping the peace knew it, geeks knew it, freaks taking leaks in the streets knew it; monks knew it, hunks knew it, even semi-conscious drunks knew it . . .
But more important, panting pooches on pillows knew it; whimpering whippets in wicker baskets knew it; poodles piddling on pincushions knew it: even temporarily terrified terriers knew it . . .
BARKULA and his Under dogs were out looking for something to get their teeth into.
Aarroooooo! Aarrooooooooo!
1. An Earthy Bed
Many years ago ‘Count’ Dracula left Transylvania and landed at Whitby in Yorkshire, in search of fresh necks to nibble and good British blood to suck. Dracula and his gang of drooling Undead arrived on a sailing boat, in coffins, lying like pale pork sausages with fangs on beds of cold damp earth. It was HMS Spooky, because there were no sailors to be seen, except for the Captain, who had lashed himself to the ship’s wheel in the violent stormy weather. His clothing flapped in shreds about his bony body and his head hung down on his chest, limp as an old party balloon.
He was dead as a doornail!
No sooner had the ship somehow come to rest without crashing, than a fearsome hound leaped ashore and loped off in the twilight, up the 199 steps to the graveyard of St. Mary’s, in search of bones. The dog was as black as pitch. It had red eyes that glowed like coals and ears the size of human hands that stuck straight up in the air. It was neither seen, nor heard of again.
UNTIL NOW!
That hound was BARKULA – the Vampire Dog.
‘Where has Barkula been all these years?’ I hear you ask. Wait till I tell you.
They have some strange dogs in Transylvania, very strange dogs and Barkula, as you will see, was undoubtedly the strangest.
When he reached the graveyard on the cliff, he nosed about until he found a big hole. He felt at home. ‘There’ll be some bones in here,’ thought Barkula, so he leaped straight in. When he reached the bottom he was six foot down, and the sides were very steep. He found he could not get out again. All night he scrabbled frantically away at the sides of the hole, and merely succeeded in covering himself in earth. And there were not even any bones down there worth chewing either after all that! He tried a couple. They were so old and mouldy they were beyond revolting.
At least the earth kept the daylight off him the next morning when the burial service started. Before he knew what was happening, a big box like the one his Master slept in during the day was lowered on top of him. After that the hole was rapidly filled up. And that was that. There Barkula stayed for years and years. Undead. And hungry. Anything edible was shut up in the box. There was nothing to do but sleep.
It was not until recently that another burial took place almost on top, because the graveyard was filling up. It woke Barkula up. Hoping it might be his Master come to rescue him, he howled in excitement. The vicar was just intoning, ‘Ashes to ashes and dust to dust,’ in a suitably solemn voice. When the mourners heard that horrendous howl they looked at each other aghast then took to their heels, waving their arms and screaming. The vicar fainted and crumbled neatly into the grave head-first. He was there for quite a bit, until a gravedigger came, hauled him out then rapidly filled the grave up.
The graveyard was close to the edge of a cliff, and occasionally bits of cliff would break off and slide down into the sea.
It was only very, very recently that this happened at St. Mary’s graveyard in Whitby, and one of the bits that slid down contained the grave with Barkula in it.
Aaaarooooo!
Jonathan Yeatman-Biggs (aka Morton Duckpocket.)
© Morton Duckpocket. MMX
Illustrated by Tom Morgan-Jones
