Dead Angels by Tim O'Rourke Page A

hundreds of Vampyrus crammed into the chamber before him, Burton proudly announced that her name was Marilyn Monroe. During that short clip of film, my mother told me how the male Vampyrus had whooped, whistled, and cheered as she had stood in a flowing white dress which rippled up around her thighs. With a wistful smile on her face, my mother told me it was because of those magical moving pictures of that beautiful woman that hundreds of male Vampyrus left The Hollows the following day in search of their own creature as stunning as the one they had seen on the chamber walls.
    When I asked my mother what had become of this Burton, who had loved the magic moving pictures, she explained that, like the others, he had disappeared above ground.
    “Some say that he fell so in love with those moving pictures, that he spent the rest of his life learning how to make his own,” she said.
    I loved hearing stories about above ground and I wanted to be able to tell my own. The humans sounded magical to me. They had so much and did so much. But the one thing that grabbed my attention the most – and I just couldn’t believe it to be true – was that humans wanted to be the same. They didn’t like other humans who were different in any way. I got the feeling that it scared them. But I wouldn’t know for sure unless I ventured above ground and saw these humans for myself.
    My mother never knew of my adventures above ground – not until much later, that is. Once I’d made up my mind to go above ground, it took me about a week to pluck up the courage to venture out of The Hollows. It took me three days to find a route that I was happy with. I could have followed the paths that my friends and had taken, but I wanted my own. I didn’t want mother to find out, you see. I wouldn’t find out for some years why she was scared of me going above ground. Perhaps she was worried, that like the kid Burton, I would fall in love with something and never go back to her.
    The path I finally chose I found by chance. I lived with my mother in a hollow carved into the face of the Ageless Hill. I often wandered alone, conjuring stories inside my head about the world I had yet to see which existed above me. It was while I was walking one chilly afternoon that I noticed a root which protruded through the ground from above. It was so cold, the root was covered in a white frost and it glistened above like a stalagmite.
    I stood on tiptoe and reached up for the root. I gripped it, but the knotted lump of tree was slippery and I lost my hold and footing and landed on my arse. With the wind knocked from me, I tried again until I finally managed to work my way up it. Looking back below to make sure I wasn’t being watched, I placed one cold hand over the other and disappeared in amongst the roots of the tree.
    Spiderpeeds and slugworms dropped from the roots as I cut a path through them. They wriggled in my hair, and I shook the insects free by shaking my head wildly from side to side. Then when I thought I couldn’t climb any further, I found a hole. Taking a deep breath, I made myself as small as possible and wriggled into it. It was dark, but the roots gave way, and I found myself crawling on my hands and knees down a tunnel made of brick. The walls and ground felt slimy, and several times I had to stop dead-still as rats scurried past me. I hate rats. I didn’t know how long or how far I had crawled through the tunnel, but I got the feeling that the tunnel was climbing upwards. Then, ever so gradually, I could see my hands in front of me along with the green and yellow moss that covered the walls of the tunnel. I looked up to see light shining through a metal grate. It was the first time that I had seen sunlight. It shone through the holes in the grate in thin, white slices. In that light, I spied a ladder fixed to the wall. Looking back one last time in the direction that I had come, I mustered all my courage and climbed the ladder towards the light. I