by Preston, Ken
‘Miss?’ Archer said.
The old lady opened her mouth, revealing red, raw gums empty of teeth, and hissed at the two men.
‘Oh shit,’ Choudhry said.
‘Keep out of her way,’ Archer said. ‘Chances are she can move faster than you think.’
‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ Choudhry said. ‘I was there when the vampires escaped from the mortuary.’
The old lady hobbled closer. Reached out a swollen hand towards them. Her fingers clawed stiffly at the air.
Archer and Choudhry separated so that they were on either side of her.
‘Do you think she’s just pretending to be slow?’ Choudhry said.
‘No,’ Archer said. ‘If she was fast enough, strong enough, she would have been after us by now, I’m sure of it.’
‘I’m still keeping my distance.’ Choudhry glanced at Archer. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘You distract her and I’ll sneak up behind her and cuff her.’
Choudhry raised an eyebrow. ‘And how do you expect me to do that?’
‘Get closer to her, let her think she has a chance of catching you.’
‘Didn’t I just say I was keeping my distance?’ Choudhry sighed. ‘You never listen to me, do you?’
Archer was round behind the vampire now. All of her attention was focused on Choudhry.
‘Hey, nice doggie, come here, there’s my good girl,’ Choudhry said, smiling at the old lady and waggling his fingers at her.
The vampire smacked her gums together. They made a wet, slapping noise.
‘Ugh, you really are disgusting,’ Choudhry said. ‘But what are you going to do if you catch me? Gum me to death?’
Archer had his cuffs out and ready. Even though the vampire looked frail, even though she had no teeth, he knew she could still be dangerous.
‘Could you get a move on, Archer? This old girl is starting to freak me out.’
Archer lunged, grabbing her wrist and snapping the metal bracelet around it. The vampire turned, moving faster than he had thought she was able and fastened her mouth on his throat.
‘Get her off!’ Archer screamed, pushing at her.
Her gums slid over his neck as she made disgusting sucking noises. Choudhry pulled her off and slapped the other cuff around her free wrist. She rolled onto her back on the floor, struggling to free herself from the restraints.
‘That was horrible,’ Archer said, wiping his sleeve on the slime dripping from his throat.
‘It’s just a good job she didn’t have her false teeth in,’ Choudhry said. ‘Then you’d have been in trouble.’
‘Tell me about it.’ Archer looked around the reception area. ‘What do you think? Shall we go exploring?’
The bats were still hitting the windows with their wings and their bodies.
‘No, I think we should call in backup,’ Choudhry said. ‘You really want to go looking through this place all by yourself? There are probably blood sucking monsters hiding in every corner.’
Archer thought of Emma, of the kid who’d said he saw the woman coming in here with Coffin.
Choudhry held up his hands before Archer said anything. ‘I know, I know, you think Emma might be here.’ He sighed. ‘Let me call the station, get some help down here. Once I’ve done that, I’ll come exploring with you..’
Once Choudhry had made his call, the two men walked slowly and quietly deeper into the home. Archer stopped at the first door that was open, standing out of view of whoever might be in there. He slowly looked around the corner and sucked in his breath.
‘What is it?’ Choudhry whispered, standing next to Archer.
Archer signalled him to come and take a look. An old man lay on the bed, the covers pulled off him. His pyjamas were splattered with crimson blood. His skin was white with red blotches.
And he was moving, twisting his head from side to side as though he was having a nightmare.
The two detectives crept into the room and watched the old man as he continued snapping his head from one side to the other.
‘That looks painful,’ Choudhry whispered.
‘I think he’s turning into a vampire,’ Archer said.
‘What are we supposed to do, shove a wooden stake through his heart? I mean, look at this guy, he’s got teeth.’
‘No, that would be murder,’ Archer said.
‘Murder? But these things aren’t even alive, are they?’
‘Doesn’t matter, we can’t just go shoving pointed stakes through their hearts.’ Archer looked at Choudhry. ‘Are you prepared to do that?’
‘I don’t know,’ Choudhry said. ‘If I see one of them charging at me with its teeth bared and I have a stake to hand then yeah, I suppose I might.’
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Archer said.
They stepped back outside the bedroom. Archer looked up and down. Everything was quiet, too quiet.
Why was that?
* * *
Joe Coffin opened his eyes again as Steffanie climbed off him. The vampires were all gathered around, watching. He took a deep, ragged breath. Seemed like the room was full of vampires, standing there in complete silence. Like they had just witnessed something sacred.
A foul, ugly, obscene tribal ceremony. A display of power.
‘One last time, Joe,’ Steffanie said, trailing a finger across his cheek.
Coffin’s back and shoulders were on fire. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold this position they had tied him into, but he also knew he had no choice. He would be kept there for as long as they wanted to keep him there.
Coffin looked at Emma. She was slumped in the wingback chair, her head hanging down as though she had fallen asleep.
‘Hey, you okay?’ he said. His voice was hoarse, almost a whisper.
‘What do you think?’ she said, without looking at him.
Steffanie held out her arms and twirled around on the spot, her wedding gown trailing behind her.
‘So how was it for you, Joe?’ she said, and laughed. She slowed to a halt, facing Coffin. ‘We used to have a good time, didn’t we? In the bedroom at least.’
‘Is that right?’ Coffin said. ‘So how come you decided to start shagging Terry Wu?’
Steffanie dropped her arms and pulled a sulky face at Coffin. ‘Why do you always have to spoil it, Joe? Here we were talking about the good times and you had to bring up Terry.’
‘You were the one had an affair. You were the one set me up to kill Terry and film me doing it.’
Steffanie smiled. Or at least half of her face smiled, the half that didn’t have holes in it.
‘Don’t forget, your girlfriend was part of that too. She was ready to throw you to the wolves on the front page of her newspaper.’
‘I told you she remembered me,’ Emma muttered.
Coffin shifted position, trying to ease the pain in his back and shoulders.
‘What was your problem, Steffanie?’ Coffin said. ‘Can you even remember now? When I first met you, you wanted to get out of the stripping game. Then when we got married, you went straight back into it. What the hell did you marry me for? Why’d you agree that we should have a child? None of it makes sense to me.’
Steffanie tilted her head back, looked at the ceiling with her one eye. ‘I don’t know. Sometimes it’s so hard to remember now.’ She looked at Coffin again. ‘I think I was just bored. That’s all. Bored.’
‘Are you two going to argue all night, or are we going to have some fun?’ Chitrita said.
Steffanie pushed both hands through her hair, holding it up and off her face.
‘All right, who’s next then?’
The vampires whispered amongst each other and began shuffling forward.
Julie Carter stepped out from amongst them and walked up to Coffin.
‘Me,’ she said, smiling slyly. ‘It’s my turn now.’
The vampires gathered behind her, nodding, grinning.
Julie undid her dress and let it fall to the fl
oor. She stepped out of it.
She was naked.
Slowly she eased herself onto Coffin’s lap. Her mouth hovered over his throat, her lips and teeth brushing his flesh.
Coffin could smell her. Decay. Disease. Death.
She pressed herself up against him, slowly rubbing her body up and down against his.
Coffin ground his teeth together, his head turned away. The vampires crowded around him began a low murmuring, building in intensity as Julie Carter’s undulations increased in speed and intensity.
The murmur grew into a chant.
* * *
‘That doesn’t sound good,’ Choudhry said.
Archer stared at the closed door. Whoever, whatever, that noise was, it was coming from behind that door.
‘When are we getting backup?’ Archer said.
‘Soon as they can tear themselves away from all the other shit that’s happening in the city right now,’ Choudhry said. ‘I think it’s just you and me for the moment, brother.’
‘Great,’ Archer said.
He crept up to the door and placed his ear against it. The chanting had stopped but he could hear movement inside and the murmur of voices. Sounded like there was too many in there for Archer and Choudhry to go barging in without help. Archer crept back to stand beside Choudhry.
‘We can’t go in there on our own, we’ll be slaughtered within minutes.’
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,’ Choudhry said.
‘We need a diversion.’
Archer had a quick look around, trying to find something, anything he could use to draw the vampires out of that room. The incessant drumming on the windowpanes reminded him of the bats outside, trying desperately to get inside. It seemed like they were following Archer and Choudhry through the home, beating themselves against the glass.
‘Let’s open the windows,’ he said.
Choudhry turned and stared at the swirling mass of dark, winged bodies throwing themselves against the windows.
‘Are you mad?’ he said. ‘We just escaped from those flying rats a few minutes ago. Now you want to set them on us again?’
‘We can use them as a diversion,’ Archer said.
‘Uh-uh, you have gone loopy-loop. I don’t know if you noticed but those things out there are vampire mascots. Didn’t you ever read Dracula? We open the windows, the those bats are coming straight for us and nobody else.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Archer said. ‘We open the windows and then we run in there, where the vampires are. The bats will follow us and there are so many of them it will be chaos.’
Choudhry eyed Archer uneasily. ‘I don’t know, sounds like a crazy plan to me.’
‘You got any better ideas?’
‘Yes, we wait for backup!’
‘That’s not an option,’ Archer said. ‘Who knows when, or even if, we’ll get any kind of backup at all. Meanwhile, Emma could be in there and those blood sucking bastards could be doing God knows what to her.’
Choudhry ran his hand over his face. ‘Why do I do this? All right, let’s do it.’
The two men ran to a separate window each and took hold of the window opener.
‘On three,’ Archer said.
‘Three!’ Choudhry shouted and flung his window open.
Archer was right behind him and the bats flooded into the home, an endless stream of darkness flowing through the open windows.
Archer and Choudhry ran for the door. The hallway was already filled with bats and more were flying in.
Archer got to the door first and grasped the door handle. Choudhry slammed into the door beside Archer. The bats were over them already, nipping at their scalps and their hands.
‘You ready?’ Archer shouted.
‘Just do it!’ Choudhry shouted back.
Archer opened the door.
swallowed up by darkness
The Priest was covered in bats. He looked like he was made of dark, fluttering wings. Only his face showed, but even that was hard to see in the dark.
He had been squatting on a low wall across from the care home, watching everything that was going on. Earlier he had seen Coffin and Emma enter the building, and then he had watched as the two policemen followed them.
Now he was waiting to see what would happen next.
He wasn’t the only one.
The man thought he was hidden well in his dark corner, but the Priest could see him. The Priest recognised him too. He had seen the man earlier at Joe Coffin’s club. But what was he doing here? What was his interest in the vampires?
Whatever it was, the man was wise to stay hidden for the time being.
Even the Priest knew better than to enter the care home on his own. The bats might be his friend, sensing that innate vampirism deep within him, but the vampires inside that building wouldn’t tolerate him. Chitrita was in there, he knew that much. He could sense her presence, and if she wasn’t so distracted with whatever it was she was up to she would be able to sense his. In fact, if she knew the Priest was here she would probably be trying to kill him right now.
Another good reason to stay outside.
To bide his time.
Coffin and Emma, the two policemen, they were foolish. So frail these humans, and yet at the same time so convinced of their own invincibility. They had to be, that was the only reason he could think of that they would risk their lives in this way. Once a person was bitten, once that person had become immortal and seen the universe how it truly is, all pretence dropped away. And your eyes were truly opened for the first time.
The Priest knew that life after death was a curse, not a blessing. Even the life eternal promised by Christianity, by his Lord Jesus, was something to be scared of not welcomed. The Father God was a harsh, demanding parent. A jealous father who demanded complete and unconditional love and devotion. Heaven was little more than an eternity of servitude to a slave master.
And yet, and yet. The Priest had been saved from his curse by his devotion to God, and he had been given a blessing and saved from the eternal fires of Hell. The Father in Heaven deserved unconditional love for saving even a sinner as debased as the Priest.
He shifted slightly on the wall and some of the bats rose into the air and darted around in erratic movements above his hat. The Priest could hear the bats talking to each other. He was one with them, and yet apart from them at the same time.
The bats were here to keep intruders out of the vampires’ way.
Chitrita had a plan, and the bats were part of it.
The Priest continued watching.
As did the man hidden in the darkness.
* * *
The doors to the large, communal room opened and bats flooded in. Seemed like every bat in the city had congregated outside the door as more and more of them darted inside, turning the room dark with their beating wings.
Coffin kicked at the floor, trying to turn his chair over. It was too heavy, and with Julie Carter on top of him he could only just get it moving a little. The bats swarmed towards him. Coffin glanced at Emma. She had her head down and her knees drawn up to her chest.
Julie, aware of the commotion, was climbing off Coffin.
And then she disappeared, swallowed up by a dark cloud of beating wings as the bats flew over them and everything turned black. They nipped at Coffin’s face and his scalp, at his arms stretched painfully over his head and barrelled into his chest and stomach. They covered him, crawling over him, their wings beating against him, their teeth on his face and his neck and arms.
Coffin bellowed and arched his back but it did nothing to shake any of the bats off. There were so many of them he couldn’t catch his breath, like the bats were sucking all the air out of the room. He kicked out, twisting as much as his restraints allowed him to. The room was filled with the noise of the bats, of their wings. It was as though the air itself had taken on physical form and become agitated, violent.
Coffin twisted and kicked out again, writhing in the wingback chair
.
He felt something loosen.
A knot in the sheets somewhere. Coffin let himself go loose, relaxed for a moment and then jerked his body hard and straight. There, something was giving, he had a little more movement now. He did it again, tautening every muscle in his body and twisting one way and then another.
The bats continued beating at his face and his chest, at his arms and legs, everywhere that was exposed to them.
He thought he heard a scream, but he couldn’t be sure.
The sheets began unravelling. Coffin pulled his arms free, and a hot, searing pain shot through his shoulders and down his back. He dragged himself to his feet, beating at the cloud of bats darting around him.
And then he fell to his knees as pins and needles weakened his trembling muscles. The bats descended upon him, sensing a weak prey. Coffin beat at them, creating swirls and eddies in the movement of the bats.
As his legs recovered movement and feeling, Coffin managed to stand up, using the wingback chair for support. He gave himself another precious couple of moments and then launched himself towards Emma. It was only when he was right next to her that he saw her. Bats were entangled in her hair, biting and flapping their wings. Emma had curled herself up as much as she could into a tight ball, in an attempt to protect herself.
Coffin pulled at the sheets tying her to the chair until they began unravelling.
‘Down on the floor!’ he shouted as he pulled her out of the chair.
Emma flung herself face down onto the floor and Coffin joined her, wrapping a protective arm around her.
‘We’re going to get out of here,’ he said, his lips up close to her ear.
She nodded.
Coffin looked up just in time to see the bats parting and Steffanie stepping through the gap. Bats hung from the folds in her wedding dress and off her veil. Coffin jumped to his feet, a red rage falling over him. He reached out, his hands curled and ready to grab at her throat, to strangle the life out of her. And if that wouldn’t kill her, then break her neck and set fire to her. He would do whatever it took to rid himself of that woman.
Before his hands found her throat she had gone, disappeared into the swirling cloud of bats.