by Philip Henry
Ramone turned to his men. “OK, secure the bridge. We’ll wait this thing out. It’s isolated over there. We just have to stop it getting back over here.”
Chloe stepped forward. “Wait a minute, there’s a house on that island. It’s rarely used but we should still check.”
Ramone considered this and then shook his head. “Sorry, not worth the risk. If they stay inside they might be all right anyway.”
Chloe was angry. “Who are you to…?”
“Look,” Lynda said. Everyone turned to where she was pointing. On the other side of the bridge on the island they saw three young boys standing before a tent. “There are kids camping over there.”
Chloe turned to Ramone, silently asking what he was intending to do.
Ramone shook his head. “I’m sorry but I have to consider the populous at large. An acceptable number of civilian casualties are inevitable. Ask Nicholl, she’ll agree with me.”
Nicholl wasn’t here. She was probably still back at the car park trying to stand. Chloe turned to Lynda. “What do you think?”
Lynda was solemn. “Let’s go.”
Lynda and Chloe ran to the bridge and picked their way through the burning wood and ran to the other side.
What the hell are they doing? Nicholl thought. She had made her way far enough down the trail to see the women running across the bridge, but she couldn’t see the kids from where she was. She started to make her way a little faster down the trail towards the others. Sin descended out of the blackness above and kicked her in the face. Nicholl fell backward to the ground. Sin landed in front of her. Nicholl got her sense back quickly this time and saw the thing that had once been Sheridan.
“How are you feeling, Nicholl?”
“I’ll feel a lot better when you’re dead.” She spat out a mouthful of blood. “Deader, I mean,” she corrected.
“You don’t look too good. Not your usual gorgeous self that turns men into guppy fish. You look like you’ve been through the wars. You look like you’re in pain. How much pain are you in? Enough that you’d do anything to make it end? That’s all I did. You can’t really blame me, can you?”
Nicholl got to her feet and discreetly looked for where her sword had fallen. “Unfair things happen every day to people a lot nicer than you, Sheridan. People die every day. They don’t prolong their own life by taking the lives of others.”
“Selfish? You think I’m selfish?” She considered this for a moment. “That’s what my mum said when you went to see her as well.”
Nicholl’s face fell.
“That’s right, I was there. In the attic. Seems to me if you’d been a little more thorough you could have stopped me there and then. How many people have died because you didn’t?”
“I didn’t kill any of those people, you did. Don’t try to shift the blame. Those were your choices. Your own selfish choices.”
“There’s that word again. It seems to be the popular opinion of me, doesn’t it? What’s that old saying? If six men tell you that you’re sick, lie down. OK, I’ll lie down. I’m selfish. But you know what? That’s what’s going to ensure a long life for me and a quick death for you.”
Sin flew at Nicholl. Nicholl stood her ground and met her with a rapid succession of punches to her face and torso. Nicholl got behind her and pushed Sin into the ground where she started punching her in the kidneys and the back of the head. Nicholl took out one of the knives she had and brought it down just as Sin rolled them both. The knife only caught her shoulder but it went deep, and when Nicholl pulled it out again the serrated edge caused more damage. Sin started to bleed heavily. She used her feet to launch Nicholl backwards. Nicholl landed hard on her back. She was winded but didn’t wait to get her breath back. She rolled onto her side and saw the soldier with his chest eaten out that the Che’al had thrown, lying just a few yards away. Nicholl saw his crossbow lying beside him and quickly scuttled over and grabbed it. Sin got to her feet again and Nicholl started shooting. Arrows buried themselves in Sin’s chest and stomach but none hit the heart. Nicholl had been firing as quickly as she could. Sin had five arrows lodged in her, but now Nicholl only had one arrow left. She took aim with this one. Sin turned sideways to Nicholl to protect her heart. She was pulling the arrows out one by one. Nicholl fired and the arrow plunged into the vampire’s neck. Sin grabbed it at once and pulled it out, but the arrow brought with it gushing blood.
Nicholl dropped the crossbow and ran at Sin. Sin floated away from her, holding the wound on her neck. Nicholl ran after her. Sin was only floating a foot off the ground. She looked behind and saw Nicholl running after her at full speed. Sin saw the cliff edge ahead. Did Nicholl see it? She allowed Nicholl to gain on her a little. She turned now, flying backwards, watching Nicholl get ever closer to her. Nicholl’s gaze was fixed on Sin. She didn’t see anything else. Sin floated over the cliff edge and stayed at the same level. She stopped a short distance from the edge and watched Nicholl charging towards her. Sin hung in the air, eight storeys above the rocks and crashing waves below, waiting. Nicholl was almost at the edge now. Nicholl pulled another knife from her belt and launched herself off the side of the cliff and landed on Sin, plunging the knife into her upper chest and using it to hold on to.
The two of them were face to face. Nicholl wrapped her legs around Sin’s waist and locked them. She held onto the knife with one hand and began punching Sin in the face with the other. Sin head-butted Nicholl and temporarily dazed her. She reached round and pried Nicholl’s legs apart. Nicholl began to slide. She pulled the knife from Sin’s chest as she slipped. Nicholl grabbed tight around Sin’s knees with one arm. The knife was in her other hand and she drove it into Sin’s upper thigh repeatedly. Sin was screaming in agony and frustration now. She was losing her strength. They were both sinking slowly towards the bottom of the cliff. Nicholl was really hurting Sin, but the drawback was that all the blood running down Sin’s legs was making it hard to keep a grip. The two of them were nearing the rocks below. About ten feet from the bottom Nicholl lost her hold and fell into a pool of shallow water.
Nicholl got her head above water quickly, anticipating being attacked when most vulnerable, but it did not come. Behind her she heard the thud of Sin hitting the ground. Nicholl felt around the bottom of the pool but couldn’t find her knife. She crawled out of the water and rested on the shore. She saw a large patch of blood on the sand — black in the moonlight — and dragging footprints leading into a cave. Nicholl followed the footprints.
Inside the cave was totally dark. Nicholl felt around her clothing and found two emergency flares. She struck the first one and threw it ahead of her. The inside of the cave lit up red and Nicholl could see dozens of stalagmites sticking out of the ground. She walked further in, picking her way between the calcite columns. The cave took a turn further ahead and the way was dark. Nicholl struck the other flare and threw it ahead. Sin’s face was illuminated and she rasped and ran at Nicholl. Sin caught her with a few lacklustre punches. She was bleeding from at least a dozen places, and badly. Nicholl drove a foot into her stomach then landed a string of punches on Sin’s head as she buckled over with the pain.
Nicholl ceased her attack. Sin was lying below her, twitching. It looked like larger movements would hurt her. “You going to kill me now, Nicholl?” she asked without raising her head.
“Yes.”
“Couldn’t you give me a break for old ti…?”
“Did you give Bradley a break?” Nicholl shouted.
Sin turned and said, “That wasn’t me. It was Kaaliz.” Sin painfully dragged herself to her feet and leaned against a wall. “I liked Bradley. I couldn’t do that to her.” Through all the blood and scars on her face she tried to smile, to show Nicholl her human side. Nicholl wasn’t fooled for a second because Sheridan had never looked so inhuman, so devoid of empathy and regret.
“You think I haven’t heard every last plea a vampire ever makes a thousand times before?”
Sin’s face hardened a
nd she used all the strength she had left to climb onto a higher ledge. She jumped from that ledge to another, making for the mouth of the cave. Nicholl ran after her. There was no ledge near the mouth of the cave; she would have to come down again to get out. Sin reached her last ledge and tried to jump for the mouth of the cave. Nicholl caught her mid-air and brought her down on one of the stalagmites. The huge pointed rock formation ripped through Sin’s chest and out her back. She didn’t have time to scream. Her weight carried her on down the stone where she rested about halfway. In the second before she died Nicholl thought she saw regret in Sin’s eyes. She would never know for sure. Nicholl dropped to her knees on the ground beside Sin’s impaled form. Her arms were tired from punching and holding on, and the rest of her body was crying out with fatigue. She took a deep breath and walked outside. She had to find a way to get back up to the others. She saw a path and started along it as fast as she could manage.
The three boys that were camping thought they were in the middle of a nightmare. Helicopters were exploding, people were lying dead across from the island, soldiers were chasing a huge monster and two women carrying swords; one in biker’s leathers and one in a tattered wedding dress, were running up the hill towards them. This was the exactly the reason mothers insisted on clean underwear when you went camping. At best they would end up in hospital, at worst on a mortician’s bench, either way their mothers would be glad that their laundry reputation hadn’t been tarnished. The three boys were best friends from school and planned to experience the effects of alcohol on skinny twelve year-old frames that night. The four beers they had bought had had little effect and they were wondering where the fascination lay in drinking for so many people. Surely there must be some upside to it all. The downside, they discovered, was the inability to make any decisions about what to do about the surreal events happening around them. They all just stood there, dumbfounded, waiting for a suggestion for someone to do something. It didn’t even have to be one of them that made the suggestion, if one of the strangely-dressed women had an idea they were ready to listen. It didn’t even have to be a good idea, just something. Some set of directions they could follow that would give them a less than one-hundred percent chance of being killed.
Lynda and Chloe skidded to a stop before the boys and shielded them as best they could. The Che’al was coming up the hill towards them. They both stared it down.
“Get them back across the bridge,” Lynda said. “I’ll try to hold it here.”
Chloe was quick to answer, “No way, you can’t take that thing yourself. We stand together and if necessary, we’ll fall together.”
Lynda was about to argue when she realised it was useless. “OK, I’ll attack from the back, you attack from the front.”
Before Chloe could ask for an explanation of that plan Lynda was charging down the hill towards the oncoming Che’al. The gradient of the hill was giving her an extra burst of speed and her legs could barely keep up. She lifted her sword high. She was only a few feet from the beast now. She dropped to the ground and slid at the beast feet-first. It happened so fast that the Che’al never saw where she went until it was too late. Lynda slid between the creature’s legs and with all her strength and momentum brought her blade down on the Che’al’s left knee. The outer skin of the beast had a small graze in it about the size of a matchstick. Lynda slid on down the hill and came to a stop a few yards later. She rolled round and saw the Che’al almost at the top of the hill. She got up and started running back to the campsite, though what she was going to do when she got there was another question. She had hit it with her best shot and given it the equivalent of a paper cut. She ran up the hill as fast as she could.
Chloe had spied a bottle of clear liquid sitting close by the fire. “What is that?” she shouted at the boys.
The boys looked at each other guiltily and the boy who brought it was silently nominated to tell. “It’s denatured alcohol, I swiped it from my dad’s garage. We weren’t drinking it, I just brought it to help start the fire.”
Chloe grabbed the plastic bottle and sliced the top off it with her sword. She wouldn’t have time to pour it; she needed it all to come out in one throw. The Che’al reached the crest of the hill and stared at Chloe. Chloe stared right back at it.
“OK, boys,” she said under her breath, “when I give you the word I want you to run as fast as you can towards the bridge.” She turned around to make sure they had heard her and saw the backs of the three boys twenty yards down the hill heading for the bridge. Chloe turned back to the Che’al and whispered to herself, “Smart kids.”
The Che’al stepped towards Chloe and she rounded on the beast until the dying embers of the boys’ campfire lay between her and the beast. She had the bottle of alcohol in one hand and her sword in the other. She lurched forward and threw the alcohol at the Che’al. The Che’al, sensing danger, lifted its right hand and the alcohol fell on its hand and forearm. The Che’al looked at the liquid and then dismissed it. It stepped towards Chloe. Chloe stepped towards the Che’al quickly and kicked the remains of the campfire at it. The red embers showered the beast and ignited the alcohol. The Che’al’s forearm burst into flames and it panicked. Chloe charged at it and brought her sword down again and again on its neck and shoulders, causing little or no damage. The Che’al was fearfully slapping its burning arm with its other hand and practically ignoring Chloe. Chloe could see Lynda climbing back up the hill; she was almost there. The two of them might be able to kill it. Chloe’s arms were beginning to tire of driving the sword at the Che’al’s hide when the beast finally extinguished the fire. Chloe stopped for a second and saw the cracks in the Che’al’s arm where it was burning just seconds ago. The Che’al reached for her with the burned arm and she brought her blade down on it.
The Che’al’s hand and six inches of its arm dropped to the ground. It didn’t scream but instead produced an unearthly low grunt that it sustained for several seconds. Chloe knew how to beat it. She turned to see where Lynda was and the Che’al punched her with its remaining fist in the chest. Chloe felt several ribs crack even before she left the ground. Then she was flying backwards through the air and over the peak of the hill. She saw the ground become further away and then she was rushing towards it. She remembered you should always bend your legs to soften the impact of landing – that’s what they told parachutists anyway. Unfortunately it didn’t help much when you didn’t have a parachute and were landing on a slope. Chloe’s leg made a loud crack as she hit the ground and pain shot up her body and spiked in her head. The ground was not level so she tumbled over and rolled down the rest of the incline, her broken leg smashing into the ground every few feet until she came to a stop at the bottom. The world kept spinning even when her body stopped and she felt the darkness closing in on her. She only had time to look down at her leg and see it bent at a very unnatural angle and say, “Same leg as last time. What a bastard.” Then she passed out.
Ramone had met the boys on the safe side of the bridge and told them to follow the trail back to the tea room and wait there until he came to get them. He didn’t like waiting here. He didn’t like the looks his men were giving him. When he saw the boys safely over the rubble and on their way to the tea room, then saw Chloe take one of the Che’al’s hands off before getting launched into the air and falling in a heap, he could take it no longer. He motioned his men to follow him and led them through the flames on the bridge and to the other side. Ramone ran to check on Chloe while the four remaining soldiers climbed the hill. Ramone felt for a pulse on Chloe’s neck and found one. He gathered her up in his arms and made for the bridge. The bridge seemed even more unstable when you couldn’t put your hands on the sides but he made it across and left Chloe on the grass verge past the rubble. He was about to leave when she suddenly woke up and grabbed him by his uniform.
“Sh’heee. Teller, sh’heee. May sitweek,” Chloe slurred and then lost consciousness again. Her hand went limp on Ramone’s uniform. Ramone tried to
understand but couldn’t grasp what she was trying to tell him.
The soldiers closed on the creature with swords drawn. Lynda was already there and swinging and stabbing at it every chance she got. Even with one hand and the other oozing a dark liquid that must have been blood, it was still incredibly strong. Lynda was trying to get her sword into the open wound but the Che’al was guarding it and holding it close to its chest. The soldiers made a co-ordinated attack and all lunged their blades at once. It was chaos for a few seconds. Blades were flying through the air from all angles. One soldier got grabbed around the throat and his neck crushed. Another was bitten in the face, the Che’al’s teeth sliding down the front of his skull ripping flesh from the bone. The soldier fell to the ground screaming, trying to hold his face on, then the Che’al plunged its fist into his chest, silencing him forever. Another soldier was pushed to the ground and the Che’al brought its foot down on his chest repeatedly until it collapsed. While these men were being killed the Che’al was still being attacked but the swords landing on it may as well have been flies. The last soldier took a grenade from his uniform and pulled the pin. Lynda saw him and dived for cover. The soldier ran at the Che’al and jumped into its clutches. The Che’al squeezed the soldier and blood exploded from the young man’s mouth. But he was strong and defiant and, Lynda judged, fuckin’ pissed off at seeing his friends die. The soldier pushed the grenade into the Che’al’s face, trying to get it in its mouth, but not finding the opportunity. The grenade went off and the blast dropped the Che’al and the soldier to the ground.