The Fishwhacker Swindle?

Now I’m as open-minded as the man on the Clapham omnibus, but allowing Romania to join the European Union next year is just asking for trouble. Before you know it we’ll have hordes of vampires streaming across our borders. It was bad enough when that earl or baronet or whoever he was landed at Whitby more than a century ago bringing his murderous foreign undead ways with him, and there was only one of him.

After I’d disposed of the last of the zombies* – which I ended up doing single-handedly despite my appeal, so thanks for nothing – I barely had time to draw breath before a new menace announced itself. Four doors down who should move in but a Romanian family, the Klavinses: Valdis and Anna and their two children, Kaspars and Monika. Technically they’re Latvian, but I’m not going to let a geographical nicety get in the way when the fate of the human race is hanging in the balance. The father, Valdis, was friendly enough but his name is a giveaway, containing as it does the name Vlad, as in Vlad Drakul, the grandfather of all vampires. So I started to do some detective work.

First I checked their dustbins, as you can discover all sorts of things about people from what they throw away. What should I find but sunblock, and lots of it. Granted, it was a hot July and the twins, Kaspars and Monika, were fair-skinned and only six, but really, you do have to wonder about such a fear of sunlight, don’t you?

Next, the little girl Monika came up the road one day to say hello while I was watering the lawn with the garden hose. I sent a stream of water in her direction and she ran away crying. Fear of running water? Yes? Do you see a pattern emerging?

After that I sneaked out one night and planted a six-foot tall wooden cross in their front lawn. I got up at daybreak and watched their house through the net curtains. Before long both Valdis and Anna were at the front door, staring at the cross. Looking perplexed and, yes, scared.

The clincher came just a few days ago on Halloween. At about seven in the evening the doorbell went and Anna was there with the twins, who were in costume, Kaspars as a pumpkin and Monika as a ghost. Ha! I went to fetch the special chocolates I’d prepared earlier and handed the box to Kaspars. He bit into one greedily and cried out and spat it on the ground. Anna hurried them away with a look over her shoulder at me. Well, well. The little undead bastard hadn’t liked the taste of garlic. Funny, that.

Today I went to Homebase and bought a mallet and a dozen lengths of wood, the ends of which I’m sitting and whittling to sharp points. When I’m ready I’m going down the road. I might not come back. If I don’t, please remember this message. There’s too much at stake not to. (That was a pun.)



*My wife and the police claim I imagined the zombie invasion but I know you believed me.