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The car shuddered to a halt and despite all efforts to persuade it otherwise, refused point blank to restart. Rob knew that he should have had it serviced three weeks ago but decided to wait until the following month when he would once more be out of the red at the bank. Funny how these things always seemed to come back to bite you. Knowing that it would be a waste of time, he raised the bonnet and gazed imploringly at the contents of the engine compartment, hoping to spot a loose wire or similar problem that could easily fixed. Fat chance! Slamming the bonnet back down in frustration he went to look for his mobile. He was on a weeks holiday, never told anyone at work where he was going and kept and always kept his phone switched off to prevent some over enthusiastic colleague from calling with a ‘could you just…….’
Typical! No network coverage and no means of summoning help to get the car moving again. There was no alternative but to walk to the nearest telephone or find a house from where he could make a call. He couldn’t remember passing anything suitable and he had left the main road at least ten miles back so the only way was forwards. At least the weather was OK, so picking up his jacket and locking the vehicle he set off. There was nothing to see but open countryside and it was miles before he came to a fork in the road. An old weathered road sign told him that a place called Barton-by-Willows was six miles straight ahead, but that a place called Mannerley House lay only one mile along the left hand branch. Perhaps his luck was changing and he may even be able to get something to eat and drink whilst waiting for a mechanic.
The road was dusty and unmade but eventually led to a pair of impressive gates and a lodge of some kind. They were open and a driveway led away into the distance to what looked like a manor house set in a dip in the natural folds of the landscape. He waited for the lodge keeper to appear but then noticed that the building appeared to be empty. Looking closer through the windows he doubted whether anyone had lived there for some considerable time. Nothing for it but to walk what looked like half a mile to the house itself. The day was warm and fine but as he passed through the grounds of what must have once been an impressive estate he didn’t notice a single living thing. There were no birds, no deer or sheep which usually populated such areas and no workers going about their daily tasks. Undeterred he approached the large double fronted entrance and rang the bell.
After a few minutes he heard the approach of feet echoing through what must have been an imposing inner hallway, and when the door was opened by a youngish woman his expectations of the interior were confirmed. The room took away his breath. Its floor was made of white marble and the walls were lined with tapestries and portraits. Here and there were dotted full sets of what looked like mediaeval armour each on a plinth, and highly polished. The ceiling was vaulted and decorated in the finest baroque style. A gentle cough brought his attention back to the person standing before him.
“Oh, I beg your pardon, my name is Rob Foreman. My car has broken down a few miles down the road and I wondered if I could call a garage from here.”
“Please come in Mr Foreman, I’m Natalie Henshaw. I’m sure that Peter can get you moving again without the cost of calling out a mechanic. He looks after all our vehicles and there isn’t much about the workings inside a car that he’s not familiar with. I’ll ask him to tow your car into the workshop if you tell me exactly where it is.”
She was charming and he accepted her offer of refreshments while he waited for his car to be recovered. They moved on to a room which was laid out for afternoon tea and were joined shortly afterwards by two older people whom Natalie introduced as her mother and father. He was a distinguished looking man in his early sixties and she the typical upper/middle class wife running the house in her businessman husband’s absences. They chatted generally and Rob found himself opening up to their gentle but persistent questions. In no time at all they knew more about him than he would ordinarily have divulged to strangers. Other people, whom he assumed to be family members, arrived in ones and twos as the hour for tea approached and without obvious command a team of three servants brought in an assortment of sandwiches and cakes along with tea and coffee.
The time, several sandwiches and not a few cups of tea seemed to pass very quickly and Rob didn’t notice at first, but a figure appeared at the doorway and Natalie went over to meet him. After a brief conversation she nodded and he disappeared. Returning to Rob with a frown on her face she sat down.
“It seems that your car is in a worse condition than you may have believed. Peter says that the ignition system is faulty and that he will need to get a spare part before it can be fixed. That will not be until tomorrow, so why don’t you accept our hospitality for the night? We have rooms to spare and you can stay for dinner – it isn’t often that we have guests nowadays.”
Rob was disappointed but agreed to her kind offer and asked for his bags to be brought in from the car. He was shown to a double room on the second floor and had to admit that there were worse places where he could be stranded for the night. Dinner was informal and the numbers at afternoon tea were swollen by one or two who had presumably returned to the house in the meantime. It did not occur to him at the time but there were no children present, in fact he appeared to be the youngest person there. The meal was a pleasant occasion and more tea and coffee was served in the drawing room afterwards. Rob found himself becoming rather drowsy and put it down to the long journey he had made from Wiltshire to the Yorkshire Dales. Not wishing to appear impolite, he fought off the feeling of tiredness for a while but gave in when Natalie remarked upon his fatigued appearance. He took the opportunity to say goodnight and retired to his room.
He passed a night full of strange dreams and was ‘aware’ of a number of people in the room and standing around his bed. When he awoke in the morning he had difficulty getting up and felt as if the life had been drained out of him. When he didn’t appear at breakfast, a worried looking Natalie called on him and offered to send for a doctor. He told her that he had probably just picked up a cold and that there was nothing to worry about. Nevertheless he spent all of that day in and around his room, eating and drinking from a tray brought to him by a member of the serving staff. That night, the same odd and disturbing dream recurred and he again awoke to feelings of exhaustion. This time he conceded to the offer of medical attention and a doctor arrived during the afternoon.
An examination lasting the better part of half an hour produced nothing more then a diagnosis of acute exhaustion and a recommendation of complete bed rest. Medical opinion was that Rob should be up and about in a few more days, which was fortunate as he would be due back at work the following week. After another night of strange images he awoke feeling considerably better and raised the subject of his dream again with Natalie. She smiled and said that the house was reputed to be haunted, but that none of the family had reported seeing anything remotely ghostly – was he perhaps psychically sensitive? Rob doubted it but still worried about the coming night’s sleep. His fears were unfounded as the mysterious figures failed to reappear and he was back to his old self. He told Natalie that he would be leaving the following day and wished to thank everyone for their hospitality and care whilst he had been unwell. Her entire demeanour changed, and she told him that would not be possible.
He laughed but stopped when he saw that she was serious. Several other family members had appeared and a cold feeling of unease swept through him. Natalie’s father Paul stepped forward and ushered him towards a couple of chairs by the fireplace.
“My daughter was not exactly accurate when she told you that it is not possible for you to leave. Of course you may depart at any time you chose, this is not a prison – your car has been repaired and is available at a moments notice. Before you take any action however, you must understand that once outside the boundaries of this estate you will be fortunate to survive beyond twenty-four hours.”
Rob had risen from his seat at the start of Mr Henshaw’s statement, but now slumped back into the chair as the man continued.
“You see when my people first came to your world over six hundred years ago it was purely and simply a scouting mission and we managed to blend in with the indigenous population without much trouble. We really should not have stayed long, but by the time we chose to leave several of our party fell ill once outside the immediate area. We isolated the cause as being due to the peculiar properties of the water supply to what ultimately became the estate and we became trapped here. We are safe as long as each of us takes in daily supplies of the liquid from the spring which feeds the house, but as for leaving the grounds I’m afraid that is inadvisable.”
“So why am I here?” asked Rob “What possible reason can there be for holding on to me? Do you intend to use me as some sort of stud animal to combine my DNA with your own in the hope that it may effect some kind of cure?”
“If only it were that simple” Henshaw continued “There is a part of the human immune system which we need in order to be able to shake off the confines of the estate, but to achieve that purpose we have been forced into a program of harvesting individual humans and draining off their blood, replacing it with equal quantities of our own. In this way we are able to replicate an antidote to the component in the water supply and will be free to return to our home.”
Rob could not immediately take in what he had been told and sat in silence for some minutes. When the full horror of the situation dawned upon him he realised that his dreams were nothing of the kind. He had obviously been drugged and the ‘people’ he saw were the medical team performing some sort of bizarre blood transfusion.
“Let me get this straight. You can’t leave here so you use the locals or whoever else happens to pass by to manufacture a cure for your condition. These innocent people are now either dead or worse, still living somewhere on the estate with no hope of recovery or return to their families.”
Paul Henshaw looked away from Rob’s piercing gaze and stared at his shoes like some naughty schoolboy caught stealing from the kitchen.
“You must understand Mr Foreman, that our people have been stranded on this world for over eight of your generations and that their families are now long gone. Whilst we are here our ageing process has suspended and what we are going through is more or less a living death. Your race has been searching for the Elixir of Life for many years and dreams of longevity as some kind of biblical Holy Grail – I tell you now, this is nothing more than a curse and it is a situation from which we are desperate to escape.”
Rob stormed out of the room and left the house in search of his car. This could not possibly be happening and the sooner he was away from the estate the better. Natalie had followed him and caught up outside the front doors.
“What my father said is true, you will die if you leave. If proof of what has been done is needed, here stick a pin in one of your fingers and see what colour you bleed.”
He took up the challenge and the blood in his veins, he could not call it his, oozed out a pale yellow. He looked at Natalie and sat down on the steps.
“That is our blood, and is perfectly compatible with your body as long as you remain here and allow the water to keep you alive. Our early experiments with the local population resulted in the deaths of all of them and the illness of a number of us. The human race was not at the evolutionary stage where its blood could be used. We have had to wait a long time but now, at the end of your second millennium the conditions are perfect. The blood we took from you will allow the final members of our group to join the rest of us and return to our world. I am sorry but that is how it is.”
“So what now, am I stuck here for the rest of my life? How long will that life be? Where are the others that you have used? What in God’s name gives you the right to do this?”
“There’s no point in becoming agitated, what’s done is done and I am sure that you would have taken the same course of action in our place. The length of your life will be indeterminate as long as you remain here, and there are nine other people on the estate in a similar position to yourself. We assume that the same conditions which made us sterile will apply to you, so there will be no descendants. You may of course wish to contact the outside world with a tale of alien abduction but without the facility of a telephone in the house that could take some time. I am sure that certain sections of your media will be interested but without proof of our existence your story will not last for long. The locals will, of course, have nothing to do with you as they regard the inhabitants of the estate as latter day vampires, which we are not of course.”
Reluctantly Rob accompanied her back into the house and returned to his room as final preparations were in hand for ‘curing’ the remaining members of their party, and he gathered that the entire group was planning to leave within the next few days. He stood by the window and gazed out at the late afternoon sun bathing the estate grounds in a beautiful golden glow. He would have many, many hours to learn how to appreciate the sights and sounds of nature as it progressed through its annual cycle and wondered at the mental stamina of the current inhabitants of what was to become his living tomb.
Typical! No network coverage and no means of summoning help to get the car moving again. There was no alternative but to walk to the nearest telephone or find a house from where he could make a call. He couldn’t remember passing anything suitable and he had left the main road at least ten miles back so the only way was forwards. At least the weather was OK, so picking up his jacket and locking the vehicle he set off. There was nothing to see but open countryside and it was miles before he came to a fork in the road. An old weathered road sign told him that a place called Barton-by-Willows was six miles straight ahead, but that a place called Mannerley House lay only one mile along the left hand branch. Perhaps his luck was changing and he may even be able to get something to eat and drink whilst waiting for a mechanic.
The road was dusty and unmade but eventually led to a pair of impressive gates and a lodge of some kind. They were open and a driveway led away into the distance to what looked like a manor house set in a dip in the natural folds of the landscape. He waited for the lodge keeper to appear but then noticed that the building appeared to be empty. Looking closer through the windows he doubted whether anyone had lived there for some considerable time. Nothing for it but to walk what looked like half a mile to the house itself. The day was warm and fine but as he passed through the grounds of what must have once been an impressive estate he didn’t notice a single living thing. There were no birds, no deer or sheep which usually populated such areas and no workers going about their daily tasks. Undeterred he approached the large double fronted entrance and rang the bell.
After a few minutes he heard the approach of feet echoing through what must have been an imposing inner hallway, and when the door was opened by a youngish woman his expectations of the interior were confirmed. The room took away his breath. Its floor was made of white marble and the walls were lined with tapestries and portraits. Here and there were dotted full sets of what looked like mediaeval armour each on a plinth, and highly polished. The ceiling was vaulted and decorated in the finest baroque style. A gentle cough brought his attention back to the person standing before him.
“Oh, I beg your pardon, my name is Rob Foreman. My car has broken down a few miles down the road and I wondered if I could call a garage from here.”
“Please come in Mr Foreman, I’m Natalie Henshaw. I’m sure that Peter can get you moving again without the cost of calling out a mechanic. He looks after all our vehicles and there isn’t much about the workings inside a car that he’s not familiar with. I’ll ask him to tow your car into the workshop if you tell me exactly where it is.”
She was charming and he accepted her offer of refreshments while he waited for his car to be recovered. They moved on to a room which was laid out for afternoon tea and were joined shortly afterwards by two older people whom Natalie introduced as her mother and father. He was a distinguished looking man in his early sixties and she the typical upper/middle class wife running the house in her businessman husband’s absences. They chatted generally and Rob found himself opening up to their gentle but persistent questions. In no time at all they knew more about him than he would ordinarily have divulged to strangers. Other people, whom he assumed to be family members, arrived in ones and twos as the hour for tea approached and without obvious command a team of three servants brought in an assortment of sandwiches and cakes along with tea and coffee.
The time, several sandwiches and not a few cups of tea seemed to pass very quickly and Rob didn’t notice at first, but a figure appeared at the doorway and Natalie went over to meet him. After a brief conversation she nodded and he disappeared. Returning to Rob with a frown on her face she sat down.
“It seems that your car is in a worse condition than you may have believed. Peter says that the ignition system is faulty and that he will need to get a spare part before it can be fixed. That will not be until tomorrow, so why don’t you accept our hospitality for the night? We have rooms to spare and you can stay for dinner – it isn’t often that we have guests nowadays.”
Rob was disappointed but agreed to her kind offer and asked for his bags to be brought in from the car. He was shown to a double room on the second floor and had to admit that there were worse places where he could be stranded for the night. Dinner was informal and the numbers at afternoon tea were swollen by one or two who had presumably returned to the house in the meantime. It did not occur to him at the time but there were no children present, in fact he appeared to be the youngest person there. The meal was a pleasant occasion and more tea and coffee was served in the drawing room afterwards. Rob found himself becoming rather drowsy and put it down to the long journey he had made from Wiltshire to the Yorkshire Dales. Not wishing to appear impolite, he fought off the feeling of tiredness for a while but gave in when Natalie remarked upon his fatigued appearance. He took the opportunity to say goodnight and retired to his room.
He passed a night full of strange dreams and was ‘aware’ of a number of people in the room and standing around his bed. When he awoke in the morning he had difficulty getting up and felt as if the life had been drained out of him. When he didn’t appear at breakfast, a worried looking Natalie called on him and offered to send for a doctor. He told her that he had probably just picked up a cold and that there was nothing to worry about. Nevertheless he spent all of that day in and around his room, eating and drinking from a tray brought to him by a member of the serving staff. That night, the same odd and disturbing dream recurred and he again awoke to feelings of exhaustion. This time he conceded to the offer of medical attention and a doctor arrived during the afternoon.
An examination lasting the better part of half an hour produced nothing more then a diagnosis of acute exhaustion and a recommendation of complete bed rest. Medical opinion was that Rob should be up and about in a few more days, which was fortunate as he would be due back at work the following week. After another night of strange images he awoke feeling considerably better and raised the subject of his dream again with Natalie. She smiled and said that the house was reputed to be haunted, but that none of the family had reported seeing anything remotely ghostly – was he perhaps psychically sensitive? Rob doubted it but still worried about the coming night’s sleep. His fears were unfounded as the mysterious figures failed to reappear and he was back to his old self. He told Natalie that he would be leaving the following day and wished to thank everyone for their hospitality and care whilst he had been unwell. Her entire demeanour changed, and she told him that would not be possible.
He laughed but stopped when he saw that she was serious. Several other family members had appeared and a cold feeling of unease swept through him. Natalie’s father Paul stepped forward and ushered him towards a couple of chairs by the fireplace.
“My daughter was not exactly accurate when she told you that it is not possible for you to leave. Of course you may depart at any time you chose, this is not a prison – your car has been repaired and is available at a moments notice. Before you take any action however, you must understand that once outside the boundaries of this estate you will be fortunate to survive beyond twenty-four hours.”
Rob had risen from his seat at the start of Mr Henshaw’s statement, but now slumped back into the chair as the man continued.
“You see when my people first came to your world over six hundred years ago it was purely and simply a scouting mission and we managed to blend in with the indigenous population without much trouble. We really should not have stayed long, but by the time we chose to leave several of our party fell ill once outside the immediate area. We isolated the cause as being due to the peculiar properties of the water supply to what ultimately became the estate and we became trapped here. We are safe as long as each of us takes in daily supplies of the liquid from the spring which feeds the house, but as for leaving the grounds I’m afraid that is inadvisable.”
“So why am I here?” asked Rob “What possible reason can there be for holding on to me? Do you intend to use me as some sort of stud animal to combine my DNA with your own in the hope that it may effect some kind of cure?”
“If only it were that simple” Henshaw continued “There is a part of the human immune system which we need in order to be able to shake off the confines of the estate, but to achieve that purpose we have been forced into a program of harvesting individual humans and draining off their blood, replacing it with equal quantities of our own. In this way we are able to replicate an antidote to the component in the water supply and will be free to return to our home.”
Rob could not immediately take in what he had been told and sat in silence for some minutes. When the full horror of the situation dawned upon him he realised that his dreams were nothing of the kind. He had obviously been drugged and the ‘people’ he saw were the medical team performing some sort of bizarre blood transfusion.
“Let me get this straight. You can’t leave here so you use the locals or whoever else happens to pass by to manufacture a cure for your condition. These innocent people are now either dead or worse, still living somewhere on the estate with no hope of recovery or return to their families.”
Paul Henshaw looked away from Rob’s piercing gaze and stared at his shoes like some naughty schoolboy caught stealing from the kitchen.
“You must understand Mr Foreman, that our people have been stranded on this world for over eight of your generations and that their families are now long gone. Whilst we are here our ageing process has suspended and what we are going through is more or less a living death. Your race has been searching for the Elixir of Life for many years and dreams of longevity as some kind of biblical Holy Grail – I tell you now, this is nothing more than a curse and it is a situation from which we are desperate to escape.”
Rob stormed out of the room and left the house in search of his car. This could not possibly be happening and the sooner he was away from the estate the better. Natalie had followed him and caught up outside the front doors.
“What my father said is true, you will die if you leave. If proof of what has been done is needed, here stick a pin in one of your fingers and see what colour you bleed.”
He took up the challenge and the blood in his veins, he could not call it his, oozed out a pale yellow. He looked at Natalie and sat down on the steps.
“That is our blood, and is perfectly compatible with your body as long as you remain here and allow the water to keep you alive. Our early experiments with the local population resulted in the deaths of all of them and the illness of a number of us. The human race was not at the evolutionary stage where its blood could be used. We have had to wait a long time but now, at the end of your second millennium the conditions are perfect. The blood we took from you will allow the final members of our group to join the rest of us and return to our world. I am sorry but that is how it is.”
“So what now, am I stuck here for the rest of my life? How long will that life be? Where are the others that you have used? What in God’s name gives you the right to do this?”
“There’s no point in becoming agitated, what’s done is done and I am sure that you would have taken the same course of action in our place. The length of your life will be indeterminate as long as you remain here, and there are nine other people on the estate in a similar position to yourself. We assume that the same conditions which made us sterile will apply to you, so there will be no descendants. You may of course wish to contact the outside world with a tale of alien abduction but without the facility of a telephone in the house that could take some time. I am sure that certain sections of your media will be interested but without proof of our existence your story will not last for long. The locals will, of course, have nothing to do with you as they regard the inhabitants of the estate as latter day vampires, which we are not of course.”
Reluctantly Rob accompanied her back into the house and returned to his room as final preparations were in hand for ‘curing’ the remaining members of their party, and he gathered that the entire group was planning to leave within the next few days. He stood by the window and gazed out at the late afternoon sun bathing the estate grounds in a beautiful golden glow. He would have many, many hours to learn how to appreciate the sights and sounds of nature as it progressed through its annual cycle and wondered at the mental stamina of the current inhabitants of what was to become his living tomb.
