Chapter Two

They drove in silence for quite a while. Danny glanced at Dougie from time to time. He was just staring out of the window. Danny knew exactly how he must have been feeling. This was deep, this was dreadful, and this was unbelievable. Danny switched the radio on. The CD Fletch had been listening to swirled into life and their demo of "End of the World" blared out of the speakers.

Dougie punched the off button. "Don't think I'm ever gonna be able to listen to that fucking song ever again!" Danny grimaced, "Yeah, mate, I know exactly what you mean".

The silence stretched on as they both reflected on what had happened. It had been horrendously traumatic digging a hole and burying Fletch's body, but no way were they leaving him there like that. Having carefully searched the house from top to bottom and finding no sign of Tom or Harry, they had to figure out what to do next.

Danny exhaled loudly. "So what the fuck do we do now?"

"I haven't got the faintest idea!" Dougie replied, exasperation in his voice.

"We need to speak to someone…but who..?" said Danny.

"Richard" said Dougie quietly. "We need to go and speak to Richard".

"Seriously?!" said Danny, glancing at Dougie in astonishment. "And say what exactly? 'Hi, Richard, Harry turned out to be a vampire and we killed him and Tom got killed and Fletch knew all along and he's dead too?!'"

"Well, what do you suggest then?" Dougie retorted.

Danny thought for a moment. He realised Dougie was right. A sudden realisation hit him: "Oh god!" he exclaimed, swerving the car sharply. "Gi! And Izzy! What the hell are we going to tell them?"

"Christ!" said Dougie. "I had forgotten about them! We need help! No way can I tell either of those girls their men are dead!"

The gravity of the situation began to hit home as they continued their painfully silent journey. The more he thought about it, Danny realised Dougie probably was right.

"So" said Danny, eventually. "Do you want to phone Richard…see if he's around?" Their other manager split his time between the US and the UK but was likely to be staying at the New Continental as he always did.

Having absolutely no clue what he was about to say, Dougie fished his phone out of his pocket and dialled Richard's number. He answered almost immediately.

Dougie briefly asked if he was at the hotel and explained there had been a serious accident at the mansion and that he and Danny were on their way back to London and really needed to speak to him.

"He'll be waiting for us at the hotel" Dougie said, turning to Danny.

"What did he say?" asked Danny, eager to know.

"He said he was sorry, but I kind of got the feeling he knew…"

Danny thought for a moment. "Well, Fletch knew…"

After a few hours, they arrived at the hotel. The valet raised his eyebrows slightly as Danny and Dougie got out of the car. He recognised them both immediately, but was used to seeing them in much better cars. He smiled as he took the keys from Danny and the boys headed inside.

Richard was waiting for them in the bar. He stood up as they walked into the room and held his arms out to greet them, a cheery smile on his face.

His smile evaporated as he took in the sight slouching its way across the room. Dishevelled, dirty and looking miserable, these weren't the boys he was used to seeing.

"Guys!" said Richard. "What's happened?"

Danny glanced around the bar. "Can we go somewhere private? It's a bit sensitive."

"Sure!" said Richard and ushered them off to the lifts. Once in the safety of his room, Danny cleared his throat and said "Did you notice anything unusual about Harry recently?"

Richard laughed nervously and said "Like what? And since when?"

"Behaving more weirdly than usual since we got back from our trip to Eastern Europe?"

Richard sighed and looked at the floor. "Yeah…yeah, he was…I think you'd better tell me what's happened".

Dougie and Danny took it in turns to tell Richard everything that had happened from beginning to end. His eyes widened as he looked from one to the other as they regaled the sorry tale.

When they had finished, Richard was speechless and ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed his eyes. He slumped into a chair. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet. "So let me get this straight. Harry is dead? Tom is dead? Fletch is dead?"

"Yeah" replied Danny. "That just about sums it up"

"And you buried them in the grounds of the mansion?" Richard asked.

Dougie and Danny looked at each other. "Er no…" said Dougie. "Just Fletch. When we got back Harry and Tom had gone".

"Gone?!" said Richard in amazement. "How could they have gone?"

"No idea" said Danny. "We searched the house from top to bottom and there was no sign of them. Just the blood left on the floor in the studio"

"So they could still be alive?" asked Richard.

Danny laughed, humourlessly, "You tell me?" he asked. "I still can't believe any of this is even possible! I didn't believe in vampires until last night!"

"Neither did I, until Fletch told me what had happened…." Richard began and then broke off as he saw Danny and Dougie gaping at him.

"Wait" said Dougie, "You knew about this as well?"

"How could you have sent us off knowing what Harry had become?" Danny added.

Richard shrugged his shoulders and spread his arms "We didn't think he would turn on you if Fletch kept him satisfied with a constant stream of girls"

"He didn't turn on us," said Dougie sadly. "We turned on him".

Ignoring his comment, Richard continued, almost as though he was talking to himself "We had people working on a way to get him back…guess I'll have to tell them to stop…"

"There was a way to reverse it?" said Dougie incredulously. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"We didn't know if there was!" Richard replied. "We were just looking into it".

"So what do we do now?" Dougie asked. "We've got to tell Gi and Izzy…and the fans…what do we do?"

Richard snapped back into his job. "Leave that to me. We will say there has been a terrible accident and they have been killed. It will be rough, but that's all we can do. No way can anyone know the truth".

After a little more conversation, Dougie and Danny left Richard's room and headed back down to the lobby. They had decided to abandon the Vauxhall and got the hotel receptionist to book them a private taxi. As they waited for it to arrive, Danny and Dougie sat huddled close together, trying not to draw attention to themselves.

Suddenly, Dougie turned to Danny. "I think we should go back to the mansion!"

"What?!" said Danny. "You can't be serious?!"

"I'm deadly serious," replied Dougie. "They'd gone! How could they just disappear like that? Dead bodies don't just get up and walk away!"

Danny struggled to grasp what Dougie was saying. "No" he said finally. "No, you're right. They definitely don't." He looked down at the floor. "So what are you thinking?"

"That they're NOT dead!" said Dougie whispering loudly in his excitement. "That they're still alive! We can't just abandon them!"

"But it's not really them any more…it definitely wasn't Harry and if Tom's gone the same way…"

"But Richard said about reversing the effects on Harry!" said Dougie insistently. "Mate, we could get them back!"

Danny wasn't convinced. "Richard only said he was investigating the possibility.." he broke off and ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation "Mate! This is ridiculous! How is this even happening?!"

"I don't know" Dougie agreed. "But it is and we have to decide how we're dealing with it"

"I'm really not sure it's a good idea to go back…what if the vampires are still there?"

"We'll make sure we're prepared for them this time" Dougie replied.

"No" said Danny firmly. "It's too dangerous." A thought occurred to him. "We could go back to Romania, to the strip club where it all started, we might get some answers there!" He regretted saying it as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

"Yes!" said Dougie excitedly. "We should definitely do that!" He whipped his phone out of his pocket.

"What are you doing?" asked Danny.

"Phoning Richard to tell him what we are planning! Don't want him telling everyone they're dead if we can bring them back! We'd have to change the name of the band.."

"McUndead?" said Danny quietly, shaking his head in disbelief. He was still struggling to come to terms with the fact that any of this was happening, that it was real, that it was actually possible.

Dougie finished on the phone just as their taxi arrived, having persuaded Richard to keep quiet for the time being. Richard had tried his best to talk Dougie out of going back to Romania, but Dougie's resolve stood firm and there was no way he was being dissuaded.

Danny and Dougie chatted quietly in the back of the taxi on the way back to their houses. They decided not to tell Georgia or Lara what had happened for the time being, but rather to say they were extending their album recording session a bit longer and were off to a secret location.

They met up again a short while later, having thrown some clothes into bags and booked flights to Romania for later that evening. Feeling nervous, they set off for the airport.