Description

You know that house near you, the one at the end of the road? The one that looks a bit scary? The one you always walk by really quickly?. But only walk – never run – as if you run, he’ll chase you and get you.

But back to the house. It’s an old house, set back from the road. It’s thin and tall, with tall and thin windows. In the middle is a crooked green front door. The paint is peeling from the door and the window frames. The mortar is crumbling from between the brickwork, and the whole house smells of damp and decay.

It’s partly hidden behind a high stone wall, with a metal gate as the only way in. The gate is warped and rusted, and never closed. It swings freely in the wind, banging and clanging against the gate post. Sometimes it swings freely when there is no wind.

The garden is overgrown, with weeds up to your ears, no matter how tall you are. The long broken path twists and turns its way from the door to the gate; and turns and twists from the gate to the door. Depending on which way you are going.

It’s never sunny in that garden. No flowers grow and grey clouds seem to forever hover above the houses roof – even on a hot summer’s day.

And there’s never any light at the windows, except in the top room on the third floor – and the light that is sometimes seen is a faint amber, that flickers like a flame. Every now and then as you pass, you think you see out of the corner of your eye a shadowy shape pass a window. But when you turn and look you see nothing at all.

No one comes and goes to the house. No post is ever delivered. No parcels ever arrive. No visitors knock on the door. No one is ever seen entering or leaving the house. But the house is never up for sale, or rent. Kids never try to vandalise it, no one tries to break into it; and no one, NO ONE, visits it for trick or treating.

Somehow everyone knows, although no one knows, that it’s occupied. But occupied by whom? Or What?

What happens if one dark winters day, on the way home from school, three children encounter a vampire (sorry, vampyr, rhymes with dear)? A very strange, quite scary but very lonely vampyr, who at first wants to drink them. Can they convince him not to drink them ? And maybe get to know him and his strange views on the mortal world.