The School of the Undead

great tragedy for her; a terrible event in which, as far as she was concerned, all they had both strived to maintain over so many decades had been destroyed. Whenever the subject came up – and it seemed to him to have cropped up in almost every conversation they had had since they had left the house – Mary would wind herself up to such an extent that she would eventually end up in tears. Peter would always respond by consoling her, thinking this much more important than making his own feelings known. In a way, he hoped that he would never have to say what he really thought about Amanda finally finding his hiding place at the back of the house as he just did not know if Mary would be able to accept what he would say.

These considerations continued to pass through Peter’s mind as he stood at the lectern. Indeed, it was only when he heard his name being hissed by Mary to his side that he realised what he was doing.

“Hello,” Peter heard himself say in his hoarse – and to his ears, too high pitched – voice. Ideas of what to talk about swirled around in front of him, crushing his previous excitement and obscuring the gathered crowd before him. The horrifying images of his attacks on Milch and Brenden began to dominate, but then by chance, he caught sight of the terrified face of a boy sitting at the back of the hall. The thin film of those pictures fell away from his vision, leaving his mind to be dominated by his senses and to recognise the silence of the hall as well as the fact that the boy he now found himself staring at was no other than the one he had so recently killed.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered after closing his eyes, after which he was prompted by the deputy to use the microphone. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said again.

“Hello,” he said, feeling impatient to talk so that he could move on from thinking about how terrible it must be for Brenden to see him, his attacker standing there. “My name is Peter O’Hare,” he continued, not really knowing what to say or where to begin. “You will have to excuse me if I struggle a little here. I’m not sure if I’ve ever spoken to so many people. I certainly cannot remember such a thing. Perhaps in my statements here I ought to just get to the confession.

“I lost track of time so long ago that I find it difficult to place just exactly when it was that I attacked poor Johann Milch. Needless to say, a good while has passed since then. I find the event itself quite difficult to recall, but I’ll try my best. Though I don’t want to take any responsibility away from myself, the attack emerged from our difficulty in getting enough blood. As Mary made clear, if we didn’t have enough, then it was me who had to go without. This was the only way as it was plainly too dangerous for Mary to go hungry; she was the only one, by then, with a past record that would enable her to get a job to bring in the funds we needed and who could get in contact with the school so that she could get the documents so she could keep on working.

“A couple of people have asked me since I arrived here why I didn’t just come to the school without saying that it had been Mary who had attacked me. But to that, I would reply that there were too many questions that would need to be answered. What would I say to those in charge here? Where would I say that I’d come from? How would I explain the circumstances of my attack? It all just seemed so risky. My poor wife was always also convinced that if I went to the school, at some time or another the truth would come out and she would have to go to the Tunnels. What’s more, we had devised our plan so that we could stay together. If I had gone to the school, we would have been parted and it might have been tricky for me to return to Mary as that would have required us to formulate an explanation for our coming together. But I digress.

“Whatever the circumstances, it happened to be the case that we occasionally ran short on our supplies and that we had decided it would be me who would do without in such circumstances. As we were well aware of what the hunger could do, I did my best to build a set of restraints in our basement to ensure that I would not escape and seek out some poor unfortunate. But that turned out to create a flaw; as I’d put in the set of chains that were supposed to keep me locked up, I was also aware of its weaknesses.

“I tried my best, but I am truly sorry that it just wasn’t good enough, and not just once, but twice. As far as I can recall, before the attack on Johann, I had been without any blood for at least three months, maybe more. As I suppose most of you would know, there were good days and bad. Mary would come and talk to me on the good days when she could spare the time. She would also come to check on me on the truly bad days - even though it was incredibly painful for her to see the state I was in and to hear the terrible things I would say - to make sure that I was not attempting to escape. However, our system was not foolproof as Mary still needed to find work so we could get ourselves out of the jam we were in. This meant that sometimes, Mary would have to leave