GUEST BLOGGER: Royston Blake - "Blakey on tour Part 3"

(Read Part Two here)

When I say Count Dracula, I'm talking about a bloke who looks like Dracula. I ain't thick, you know, and I realise it weren't really him. The real Dracula lives in Transylvania, so far as I know, which is in Scotland. Only jock I ever knowed in Mangel were the one used to have the burger van in Frotfield Way. Jock, his name were. But this one here, this bloke who had just waltzed into the place where they had the hearse, he didn't half look like Dracula. That's all I'm trying to say, for fuck sake.

'What the hell are you doing in here?' he says, stopping dead when he clocked us. And when I say dead, I mean he looked like a dead man. So much so that he had me reconsidering all I just said about Dracula and Scotland, but not the bit about Jock the burger man. (And if you're wondering why the fuck I keep going on about him, it's cos he comes into it in a bit. So keep your fucking hair on.)

The feller were looking at me, eyes all glassy and skin that way and all, waiting for an answer. But I couldn't come up with one, no matter how hard racked me swede. 'What's the fucking question again?' I says.

'I said what are you doing here? This is a private area. Do you have a deceased here?'

I had an answer now. 'Disease?' I says, feeling the hackles rise. 'You saying I got a fucking disease?'

'I'm asking if you--'

I cut him off. One thing I cannot stand, being a person who has gone through some shite to do with his swede and ended up in a mental hospital for a spell, is people thinking you're a lesser man for it. Like this one here, suggesting I got a mental illness on account of the scars I bear. In a certain light they show up prominent, I've noticed, making it look like I got a thin silver band around me swede, stretching across the forehead and just above the lugs, and this were one of them lights here. And it is true: they did pop my lid off in that ozzie and have a rummage around, looking for fuck knew what and not finding it. But it don't mean I'm barmy, right? And it don't mean I let cunts like Dracula here cast asparaguses about my intelligence. Which is why I cut him off. By giving him a little twock.

And I do mean little, which is why it came as such a surprise when he went down.

But not a bad surprise.

I say not bad because I'd been doing a bit of training of late, just press-ups and pull-ups for the minute, getting the old core strength up to speed again in preparation for summat I can't tell you about, being as it concerns a bit of a career change that must be kept under wraps for professional wossnames. And when the one here went down, it gave us a sign. It telled us that I now had the core strength of the biggest and strongest apple you even seen, and that I were ready for Stage Two. Which were fucking marvellous. As were the next bit that happened, which were that I located the hearse.

I were in summat of a workshop area, with saws and bits of wood and workbenches and wossnames all around. And that had throwed the fuck out of us at first, making us think I were in some sort of carpenter's shop instead of a place they keep the hearse. And then Drac had come in and insulted us before I'd had time to look through that door there in the corner, which I were doing now. And finding the hearse there. Polished up and shining and basically using all her charms to lure me inside her and give her on. I went and tried the door.

It opened.

As did the up-and-over door that gave her access to the yard out back and the streets of Mangel.

'This is a pr... what are you...'

It were Drac again, coming to in the workshop area. I had a glance through and saw him sitting up. His mouth were all mashed and bleeding, streaking his chin and neck. It showed up like black against his skin, which were white and leathery like a handbag our Sal used to have, bless her rotting carcass that is buried up in Hurk Wood. He put a paw to his lips and parted them wide, wincing and flashing a bit of gnasher where it don't have no right to flash, being as it were about an inch clear of his gums. And I gotta tell you right now, I sort of shat meself. Not proper like, but a little bit. Almost. Cos there and then, as I jumped in the hearse and hared off on me hols, admiring the walnut dashboard and savouring the surprising amount of torque the 2.8 V6 ticker delivered despite the hearse being so long and with the big load I'd glimpsed in the back, I realised that vampires truly do exist.


To be fucking continued...