LITMIR.BIZ

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a short article and the top few centimetres of a photograph.

      MEN IN BLACK CAPTURED ON FILM?

      Is this the first real photographic evidence of the existence of the men in black? It was sent to us by an anonymous source, on the same date we received a number of reports of vampire activity in north-west London. Note the purple visors, and the unmarked uniforms and vehicle.

      Matt scrolled quickly down to look at the entire photo. What he saw made him feel like crying.

      The photo was blurry; it looked like it had been taken with a long lens by someone in a hurry, someone who didn’t want to be seen with a camera in their hand. It showed a nondescript suburban street at night, the rows of houses almost identical to one another, the cars parked in front of them Japanese and German, the gardens neatly tended. It had been raining when the photo was taken; water was running along the kerbs and rushing into a drain opening.

      In the middle of the frame was a black van, parked in front of a driveway and directly under a streetlight, its rear doors open. Matt squinted at the photo and saw that the article’s author was correct; he could not see a licence plate above the vehicle’s rear bumper. Beside the open doors were three figures, and it was the sight of two of them that had sent a great wave of relief pouring through him.

      They’re real. It was real. It all really happened.

      Two of the figures were dressed all in black, a matt material that didn’t reflect the amber glow of the streetlight. They were wearing black shapes on their heads, and both had an unmistakable blob of purple where their faces should have been.

      Visors. Purple visors.

      The two black shapes were pushing the third, a scrawny figure wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, into the open doors of the van. The third figure didn’t seem to be struggling; Matt looked closer, then drew in a sharp breath. The black figure nearest the camera had something in its right hand, a dark oblong that was pressed between the shoulder blades of the person being loaded into the van. He scrolled down, but there were no more pictures. Matt let go of his mouse, sat back in his chair and put his hands over his face.

      It had really happened. People knew.

      The photo on his computer monitor was blurry evidence that he hadn’t lost his mind, that it hadn’t all been some vivid coma dream. No matter what his parents were allowing themselves to believe, he knew now that he was right.

      It was real. Which meant the boy who had spoken to him after he woke from his coma was real. And now he had found the first step on the path to a wider world.

      Matt clicked on SIGHTINGS, and began to read. The experiences, page after page of them, bore such similarity to his own that he almost began to feel annoyed that so many other people had grasped at the edges of this strange world; it seemed to render his own experience less unique. He chastised himself for such petulance, and read on.

      The details of the accounts were different, as were the locations; they came from as far afield as Dover and Aberdeen, and almost every part of the British Isles in between. There were reports from several European countries, of similar figures operating in Romania, France, Germany and Hungary. But in all cases the key points remained constant: figures dressed all in black, their faces covered by purple visors, unmarked black vans, helicopters where no helicopter should ever be seen. And they all ended in the same way, with a warning to tell no one what they had seen. Matt shivered at the memory of the last thing the men in black had said to his father, as his own blood pumped out across his chest.

      This never happened. Do you understand?

      He understood all right. But he no longer cared. Because it had happened, and he was damned if he was going to pretend otherwise. He scrolled back up to the greeting at the top of the page and clicked the link in the final sentence. A new page opened, a short paragraph followed by an incredibly long list of words.

      THE ECHELON MONITORING SYSTEM

      The British government, along with every other government in the world, monitors electronic communication between its citizens. This is NOT speculation, or paranoia; this is standard military and security service procedure. Emails and mobile phone calls are run through powerful computers and scanned for words that feature on a flagged list, a list that is updated on a daily basis as new threats emerge. Below is the most recent list of Echelon flagged words that we have. Be aware that just because you do not see a word on this list does not mean it has not been flagged. For safety, only communicate sensitive information in person or via landline telephones. And be aware that even those methods are far from secure if the government decides to take an interest in you. Keep your ears open.

      Matt scanned the list quickly. Most of the words on it were what he would have expected, overtly provocative phrases like bomb, plot, cell, jihad, terror, martyr, suicide, Afghanistan, Al Qaeda. But interspersed among the obvious words were several that seemed out of place, unless you had seen the things that Matt had seen: purple, black, visor, uniform, teeth, flying, bite, throat, blood…

      Vampire.

      The word was there, in black and white. Matt said it out loud, letting it roll off his tongue, as he had in the quiet of the infirmary when the doctor had left him alone.

      “Vampire. Vampire.”

      A grin spread across his face; the tiredness that had been threatening to overwhelm him only five minutes earlier was gone. He felt energised, like he had put his finger against a live wire. His skin was prickly, and his brain was fizzing with new questions and ideas.

      One idea in particular.

      He settled into his chair to read the rest of the site, knowing deep down that he had already decided what he was going to do.

      10

      SLEEPLESS NIGHT

      SOUTH OF GUDENDORF, LOWER SAXONY, GERMANY ELEVEN WEEKS EARLIER

      Greta Schuler tiptoed down the staircase of her family’s farmhouse, taking care to avoid the third-to-last step, the one that always creaked. Her sleep had been fitful, full of bad dreams, and for an unsteady, wavering moment she had been unsure whether the noise she had heard had been real or imagined. But then it had come again, a deep rumble from the direction of the north field, and she sat upright in her bed, drawing the covers round her.

      It was cold in her bedroom; she could see her breath in the air. She waited for the noise to come again, and when it didn’t, she climbed out of bed, crossed the cold wood of her bedroom floor in her bare feet, pulled on her boots and her thick woollen coat and set out to investigate. For a second or two, she considered waking her parents, but decided against it; days on the farm were long and tiring, and they needed their rest. And besides, Greta was almost twelve years old, and a country girl; she had run off countless stray dogs and foxes, and even the occasional wolf.

      At the foot of the stairs she eased her father’s shotgun out of the umbrella stand that stood beside the heavy front door, took the battered black torch down from the shelf on the wall, then gripped the brass door handle and slowly, centimetre by centimetre, pulled it towards her. The door creaked once, ominously loudly, then settled, and slid open. A blast of cold air whistled through the gap between the door and its frame and Greta shivered, her skin breaking out in gooseflesh. She pulled her coat tighter round herself, and slipped out into the night.

      On the doorstep she broke open her father’s gun and checked that it was loaded. She saw the bronze discs and red tubes of the cartridges lying in place, snapped the gun shut and looked around the wide farmyard that lay before the house. Snow covered every centimetre of the ground, shining silver beneath the light of the full moon that hung in the night sky above her head, light that illuminated a long streak of something dark. It ran across the yard, from the thick woods bordering the gravel track that led to the main road, to the wooden gate of the north field that stood beside the farmhouse. Greta stared at it, feeling fear crawl momentarily into her stomach before she pushed it away, then flicked on the torch and stepped forward.

      She gasped as the beam fell across the streak. In the yellow light of the torch, it glistened a dark,

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