The Return of Dr. Mecuniam

"I don't think he is doing you any good..."

Roberta whirled and stormed from the room, banging the door behind her. Asala sat, listening to the shower starting in the adjacent bathroom. She had tried to separate them. She was sure Dr. Mecuniam was not doing Roberta any good. Not one bit of good.

The end of Roberta and Asala's sojourn in Whitby was approaching. A relief to Asala as her friend was quite clearly unwell. She had stayed in bed for the last two days - at least during the day but had gone out at night. The first time slyly and secretly so Asala had only noticed her absence when she went to see her in their bedroom. The second night it had been more open. A defiant Roberta getting up and Asala arguing with her all the way to the door. She would have stopped her and could have so easily, given how weak she seemed, yet when Roberta had pulled the door open onto the street and before Asala could restrain her there, black as night but with his white face now betraying almost colour - rude health - was Dr. Mecuniam sweeping a protective arm around her friend.

The next day was awful. The rain pelted down and the wind was strong. Asala left her friend looking pale, wan and so tired in bed. Never had she seen her eyes so deep and dark. "Sleep," she had said and had left her for half an hour to sit in a café with a coffee and Danish pastry. She had forbidden her to go out but that had seemed unnecessary. She did not seem strong enough to go anywhere.

Asala had shunned the many cafés in Church Street, pretty as it was with all its Whitby Jet shops and many cafés and restaurants, it was just too close to that awful cottage where Roberta and Dr. Mecuniam had...

It was an old report in a newspaper, a facsimile in a guide book that Asala was reading as she sipped her coffee, 'Vampyrism in Whitby - a true account.' Idly she read it. She had read Bram Stoker's works but was somewhat contemptuous of the modern obsession, in films and elsewhere - 'Buffy' and all that, of vampires. What caught her eye was the mention of a Dr. Mikaeliam having been hounded from the town in 1712. The name seemed an awful co-incidence and again a Dr. Makuniam was suspected of having something to do with the disappearance of young women before he left - by train - in 1912 - seemingly to disappear into thin air. Certainly, there was no account of him having been detained elsewhere in the country. The name was a coincidence. A grandfather perhaps, surely Dr. Mecuniam's father could not be that old? What utter rubbish what...

Asala sped from the café back to Roberta. She had forbidden Roberta to go out or to see that man but her bed was empty, her pyjamas strewn over the sheets, she was not in the house and her boots and coat were missing. She was not at the dark cottage off Church Street either. Where could she be? Where were they?

Boots? Why had Roberta taken boots? Asala was suddenly sure that madly, absurdly given her condition, she had gone back up onto the moors where she had first seen him. Had known Asala would seek her out in Church Street.

Asala's hunch was completely sound. Roberta had been forbidden, Asala had forbidden her to see him yet there she undoubtedly was, up on the moor at the very place they had first met the dreadful doctor and once more having relations with him. Asala had told her he was doing her no good, had insisted there was a break. Had been about to take her from Whitby. She had been ignored. In the distance Asala could see her friend on the moor.

Asala raced towards her friend, Roberta's fragile form seen through the scudding clouds low on the moor almost like skeins of mist. She was closing and knew Roberta could not keep up the pace, was too weak to outrun her.

The wind howled and all at once Asala saw Roberta stumble ahead of her and it was as if her solid form, the very real body Asala had known so well, so intimately and for so many years before at school, was jarred, banged just a little too hard and simply came apart. Yes, it was as if the glue that had held her being together suddenly lost its efficacy and all the myriad particles just disintegrated to dust and, caught by the wind, were blown away, expanding into a larger and larger but distorted and less distinct version of Roberta until a sudden squall whipped the image into a vortex and sent it across the land as a cloud, like smoke almost, out into the North Sea to be lost to sight.

As Asala stared after the vanishing cloud with eyes wide and open mouth she saw Dr. Mecuniam, not far from her. He was in silhouette, not looking at her but at the now vanished cloud across the sea.

Dr. Mecuniam slowly turned towards Asala, he had evidently followed her, his dark eyes staring and sorrowful; and as his eye fell upon her she felt an awful attraction, a strange magnetism drawing her to him. Asala wrenched herself around and ran, just ran across the moor not caring where she was going - oh yes, that was terror all right, with all the flesh, bone and blood she had so sought. It would be a long time before the terrified, whimpering wreck the police found high on the moors wanted anything outside the warm comfort of a very ordinary modern flat with, bright electric light, solid smooth gypsum plaster walls and central heating. It was a long, long time before Asala would talk to them about what had happened, what she knew, what she suspected. They seemed very, very interested.

All those little realities; all those little worlds carried around in people's heads; all those particular ways of looking at the world - and how many are real and how many an illusion? We perceive reality as we have formed it in our own little skulls. How similar is it to the next man's? How similar is his version of reality to our own? And if it is simply and uniquely our own, does it continue on after we are not?

Dr. Mecuniam watched Asala as the girl ran across the moor, then turned back towards the distant grey sea where Roberta had been blown, smiling a little sadly, his sharp teeth showing through his thin lips. It was not as if Roberta had quite ceased; her reality had become his own, her vitality his, trapped within his own ancient form along with so many, many others. Sometimes he could almost hear them clamouring, seeking escape and their own substance.

It was a pity - for her, for sweet dear Roberta - but that was how it was. Survival of the fittest perhaps - certainly survival of his ancient race.