by Philip Henry
He ran out of the villa’s courtyard towards the cliff edge, the bottle and glasses clinking in one hand, her shawl in the other. He was only a few yards from the walls of his villa when a voice stopped him.
‘Freddie!’
The bishop stopped and turned. A beautiful woman walked from the shadows. Frideswide was equally beautiful, but in a different way. This woman was not coy. Everything from her dress to her walk suggested a brazen nature. She wasn’t a lady.
‘What are you doing here?’ he spat. ‘I am not in the market for company tonight. Miss Nancy should have told you that.’ He looked her up and down. ‘Though, perhaps, later in the week I could pay you a visit.’
‘I’m not one of your whores, Freddie.’
‘Who are you? Why do you feel you can address me with such familiarity?’
The woman stepped forward. ‘I want your pursuit of me to end.’
‘I do not…’
She grabbed him around the throat, lifting him off his feet. Her eyes glowed unnaturally blue and her incisors grew before his eyes. The bishop struggled in her grasp but was easily restrained. ‘Now you know who I am.’
‘The tem… the tempest!’ he managed to say.
‘I prefer Taisie, but that little title has made me known the length of this land.’ She dropped him to the ground. The bottle, which he had forgotten he was still holding, smashed on the ground. The blood of the vine seeped into Frideswide’s shawl. When the bishop saw it, he became panicked to greater heights.
‘Frideswide!’ He looked behind him, but could see nothing. He scrambled to his feet, keeping a close eye on Taisie, then turned and ran to where he had left Frideswide. Taisie smiled.
The bishop stumbled to a stop before the building. His eyes grew wide at what he saw. He dropped to his knees. On one of the curved walls of the small building, Frideswide had been nailed up by her hands using the builders’ tools that were lying all around. Her throat was ripped out and her once-ivory dress was soaked in red. Her head hung to the side, her facial expression as innocent in death as it was in life.
Another vampire, a male, leaned on the wall below where she hung, smiling. He looked at the bishop and nodded as he buttoned up his trousers. ‘Don’t worry, bishop. I didn’t let all that anticipation go to waste. She had a lot of spirit. I like that in a woman.’ The vampire laughed.
The bishop screamed at the sky, tears running down his face. When his vision cleared, Taisie stood before him.
She looked at the structure and read the Latin inscription: ‘Tis pleasant safely to behold, from shore to rolling ship, and hear the tempest roar.’ She turned to the bishop. ‘You think this little… temple, a haven from my rage?’ She knelt down before the bishop and whispered, ‘Nowhere is safe from my rage, nor no-one.’ The bishop was still sobbing quietly. ‘You will end your quest for this trinket you seek and you will cease building this… whatever this is supposed to be.’ Taisie grabbed him around the throat and lifted him to his feet again. ‘Do you understand me, Freddie? If you continue to irritate me, I’ll nail a different member of your family to that wall every week until you stop. Am I understood?’
The bishop hung his head, shameful of what he was about to say. ‘I will call off the search for the amulet.’
She nodded backwards. ‘And this thing?’
‘I’ll dismiss Shanahan and the builders tomorrow. It can’t be completed without my release of certain funds.’
Taisie dropped the bishop to the ground. He made no attempt to get up, but instead stared at Frideswide’s defiled body. Taisie patted him on the head, ‘Good boy, Freddie.’ The other vampire joined her. ‘See, Galen, I told you he was a reasonable man.’
The bishop heard their laugher disappearing into the night. He slumped over and lay on the ground, then cried openly.
The servants would cease taking bets on their master’s improved posture in the coming months. He no longer took trips to town by himself. His dark mood seldom improved. Female guests still stayed on occasion but the bishop made no play for them. He walked hunched-over and slowly, the lightness in his step gone forever.
rek’d
Rek’s phone rang for the eighth time and woke him. Not that he was sleeping exactly, but he was drifting in and out of consciousness. He looked at the screen. It was Sarah again. He let it go to voicemail again. He knew what she was going to say and he didn’t want to hear it. His niece may be a dhampir, she may have strength and powers he didn’t have, but nothing was going to stop him from killing the vampire that had killed his sister.
The police scanner crackled again. Rek sat forward. The dispatcher gave the code 11-54 and the address. Rek sat back in his chair. 11-54: Suspicious vehicle. Not what he was waiting for. He leaned forward and rested on the steering wheel. He was purposely trying to pick an uncomfortable position to keep himself awake, but somehow within a few minutes he had leaned back into his seat. His eyes were closing. He wasn’t going to sleep. He couldn’t. He had to be alert and ready to move on a second’s notice. Maybe he would just close his eyes for a few seconds. Just to refresh himself.
The streets were empty. He didn’t understand it. It was a scorching hot day, not a cloud in the sky and Portrush was deserted. He walked down the centre of the street that should be bumper to bumper with holidaymakers. The traffic lights still changed. In the distance he heard electronic pulses of music. He followed them to the amusements. Nobody stood at the video games. No-one tried their luck on the grappler. No-one rode the ghost train. He walked outside and looked up. The rollercoaster made its way up steep inclines then rocketed down, but no screams of excitement accompanied the cars.
He walked on down to the beach and looked the length of the golden sands and saw no-one. Not even a stray dog or even… He looked up. No seagulls. No birds of any kind. The air was as quiet as the ground. He looked at the windows of the hotels and B&Bs and saw they were all bricked up.
In the blink of an eye it was night. The moon had replaced the sun. Blue skies were now black. And there were people all around him. Everywhere he looked the streets were packed with… No, not people. Vampires. They were all vampires. They stood at the slot machines trying their luck. They were riding the rollercoaster. They were lying on towels on the beach. Hundreds of them, thousands maybe, all lying on the beach in the dead of night in swimming costumes and sunglasses. Something wasn’t right. Something was off.
No children.
Of course. There wouldn’t be. He watched the vampires play in the dark waters of the sea. One of them caught him watching and stared at him. The beach became silent as they all turned and looked at him. Rek turned and walked away from the beach quickly. He glanced over his shoulder and saw they were all getting up from their towels and getting out of the sea. They were following him.
He ran into a café. A vampire filling his cup at a vending machine turned and stared at him as he burst in. The vampire took a drink from his cup and walked back to his table. Everyone in the café was staring at Rek now. He took a few steps forward and saw Mand inside the vending machine, slumped over, pale. Her hands were cuffed to the bottom of the vending machine. A tube ran from her neck to the nozzle where the vampire had filled his cup.
‘Mand!’ He screamed and started pounding the glass front of the vending machine. She was so weak she could barely move her head and open her eyes. Her lips moved, trying to speak. Rek kicked the glass sheet on the vending machine but it wouldn’t break. He turned around and grabbed a chair to swing at the glass. There was another vending machine behind him and Sarah was inside. She wasn’t moving. Rek dropped the chair and pounded his fist on the glass of Sarah’s cage. She didn’t move. Rek looked at the LED readout above the coin slot. It said EMPTY. He bowed his head and felt his heart ache. He had failed Sarah. He had failed Anna. He could still save Mand. He could still use the chair to smash open the vending machine.
He looked up and found himself in a graveyard. Before him were the graves of everyone he knew; Sarah, Anna,
Mand, Chloe, Tom, Dave1, Dave2. Rek fell forwards onto his belly and began to cry. Arms shot out of the ground and seized him. His cries turned to screams as the vampire counterparts of his beloved dead rose all around him and attacked him.
He felt his blood draining. He felt his limbs being ripped off. With his last breath he screamed…
…and woke. He grabbed the steering wheel tightly. He panted heavily and looked all around. He got his bearings back in a few seconds and took deep breaths to slow his heart rate down. He pushed the sweat from his forehead back into his hair. He yawned. He didn’t know how long he’d been sleeping but he guessed not that long.
His phone rang again. He lifted it and looked at the screen. DAD. Sarah had called her grandfather. The big guns. Rek set the phone back down on the passenger’s seat and let it go to voicemail. He wasn’t going to be talked out of this. No matter what Sarah, his dad, or his sub-conscious said about it.
The brief sleep had not rested him. He slapped his face a few times, but still felt himself drifting off. Four Harley Davidsons roared past his car. The bikers were all dressed in leathers and were racing through the quiet streets at crazy speeds. He smiled at them. He wished he had nothing else to worry about. Riding from town to town, getting drunk and putting up a tent on any deserted patch of grass sounded pretty good right about now. He wondered if Mand would like that sort of lifestyle, for a few weeks anyway. She might. They might do a lot of things if they got through this. He wondered how her mission was going. Mand and her plans. She was reckless but he had never met anyone so brave either. It was just one of the reasons he loved her.
The police scanner crackled. The dispatcher sounded panicked. Code 11-54V. Repeat, Code 11-54V. All units please proceed with extreme caution.
Rek brought his car to life as the dispatcher gave the address. This is what he had been waiting for. Code 11-54 meant an animal bite or attack. And the additional V? He knew only too well what that stood for. With a squeal of tyres Rek was heading towards the address.
The mother was hysterical. The policeman tried to hold a piece of gauze tightly to the wound on her neck, while another tried to hold her upright. She was struggling against them, screaming, crying. The most senior officer shook her by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes.
‘Hey!’
She stopped shouting but her breaths were still shallow and her chest was rising and falling quickly. Tears streamed from her eyes.
‘You have to tell us the situation in there before we can do anything.’
She swallowed then drew several short breaths, trying to find her voice. ‘M… m… my daughter and h… her friend. Still in there. Th… th… that thing.’ Her composure broke. ‘It’s going to kill them. You have to get in there!’
The senior officer, who was only slightly senior, looked at the other two officers. They looked scared. He imagined he looked scared too. Of course he knew the rumours, well, not even rumours. Cops didn’t joke about things like this. But this would be the first time he had seen one of them in the flesh. What was he supposed to do? The cops in the area may know all about these creatures, but that didn’t mean they came out on patrol prepared to fight them. He looked again at the whimpering woman before him. Her legs were giving way under her. She had already given up. She had already accepted that her daughter was dead. The officer wasn’t so sure. If her daughter was dead then why was the creature still inside? Why hadn’t it left? He could be fairly certain it wasn’t staying inside because it was scared of the three police officers on scene.
OK. This was it. If he was going to lead, he was going to lead by example. He took off his cap and jacket and handed them to one of the other officers. He looked around and saw a yard brush propped against a wall. He ran to it and broke it over his knee. He now had half a shaft with a pointed end. All those years watching Hammer horror movies in his teens, just hoping for a glance of exposed breast, were about to pay off.
Another man came bounding down the street. It was the father of the other child. The officers restrained him and explained what was happening as best they knew. Then all eyes turned back to the senior officer. The makeshift stake was visibly shaking in his grasp. He gripped it tighter, took a deep breath and entered the house. Everyone held their breath and watched him disappear inside.
Rek saw the flashing lights up ahead and gunned the accelerator. He skidded to a stop alongside the police car. He jumped out and grabbed his backpack from the backseat. He started towards the door.
‘How many inside?’ he said to no-one in particular. Everyone was too stunned to speak. ‘How many!’
One of the police officers cleared her throat and said, ‘Two… two children and one police officer and the… the…’
Rek didn’t break his stride and was inside within seconds. The hall was empty. The TV was on in the living room and a cigarette was still smoking in an ashtray, but there was no-one. No-one in the kitchen. Back out to the hall and up the stairs. The police officer’s body lay on the landing with his throat torn out. A stake lay beside him. Rek took the Taser from his backpack. There was only one door off the landing that was closed. He moved towards it. He dried his palm on his trousers then reached for the doorknob. He turned it slowly and opened the door a crack. He could hear someone quietly sobbing. He wasn’t too late. He took a deep breath and swung the door open.
They were in the corner. A little blonde girl, maybe seven years old, and a female vampire. The vampire hugged the little girl closer, like a favourite toy she didn’t want to share. The little girl’s face was slick with tears. Rek looked around the room and saw another girl with dark hair. She was lying face down and wasn’t moving.
‘Hey,’ the vampire shouted at him. ‘We is playing. No boys allowed.’
‘Why don’t you let her go and play with me?’
‘Boys are yucky.’
Rek edged closer. ‘Do you know someone called Kaaliz?’
The vampire combed the little girl’s hair. ‘You have nice hair. Me could braid it for you.’
Rek had reached the dark-haired girl. He knelt down and put two fingers under her jaw-bone, still keeping his eyes trained on the vampire. There was no pulse. ‘Why don’t you and I play? I’m not going until you do. You want to braid her hair, you’ll have to get rid of the yucky boy first.’
The vampire took a baby rattle from her pocket and rattled it by her ear. She pulled the little girl closer and rattled the toy in her ear too. Rek could see the little girl was having trouble breathing. The vampire was holding her around the neck.
‘How about we play Star Wars?’
The vampire shouted, ‘No. Go away. Star Wars is for boys!’ The vampire threw the girl aside and launched herself at Rek.
Rek pulled out the Taser and hit her with a full blast in the chest. As soon as the full charge was deployed Rek hurled the little vampire across the room. She smashed into the dressing table, shattering the mirror. Rek glanced over his shoulder and saw the little girl was still in the corner, but she now had her arms wrapped over her head. That was good. She didn’t need to see this.
Rek dropped to his knees and pulled the vampire from the debris. He looked down at her. She was still dazed. He punched her face. Once. Twice. Again. Harder. Faster. She tried to cover her face but didn’t have the strength. When Rek got control of himself again his arm was sore from punching and he was out of breath. He looked down at the vampire. She was crying. Audibly crying, like a child.
Rek steeled himself, remembering what she was and what she had done. ‘Where’s Kaaliz?’
From the bloodied mess below, a mouth opened. ‘Me not know.’
Rek shook her violently. ‘Yes you do! Tell me!’
She started crying again. ‘Me not know.’
Rek got up and walked to the landing. He grabbed the stake lying by the policeman’s side and walked back into the room. He dropped to his knees and raised the stake.
The vampire stopped crying for a few seconds and said, ‘Me is
sorry me was bad.’
Rek hesitated, confused. She started crying again. Rek looked round and saw the dark-haired girl’s body. He turned back and drove the stake into the vampire’s chest. She gave a short yelp of pain then her body shrank to that of a child, before shrivelling and drying up. Rek’s eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open. He had never seen or heard of anything like this before. The body of a long-dead child lay before him. The body of a newly-dead child behind him.
He got to his feet and walked over to the corner. He knelt down and said, ‘Hi. Let’s get you out of here.’
Cautiously, the blonde girl lowered her hands and looked at Rek. ‘Where’s the bad girl?’
‘The bad girl’s gone.’
The blonde girl got up and put her arms around Rek’s neck. He lifted her up and made sure her face was buried in his chest so she wouldn’t see any of the bodies as they left. He lifted his backpack and they left the bedroom.
A large crowd had gathered outside. Rek walked outside with the little girl and the crowd cheered. The father who had come from down the street ran towards him and took the girl from his arms. He hugged his little girl tightly, then hugged Rek. Rek looked round for the mother. She met his stare. Tears welled in Rek’s eyes as he very slightly shook his head. The woman dropped to the ground and wailed.
Rek walked over to the remaining police officers and addressed the woman who had spoken to him as he entered. ‘I’m afraid your colleague…’ The police woman wiped her eyes, sniffed and nodded quickly, trying to stay professional. ‘It’s safe now if you want to go in.’ Rek turned and walked back to his car.
He threw his backpack inside the car and rested his arms on the roof. This had to stop. He couldn’t look into the eyes of another wife, mother, daughter or lover of someone who had been lost to vampires. This little quest he was on was selfish. He had to look at the bigger picture. He should go back and make a strategy with the others. Kaaliz would die along with the rest of them if they worked together. He took a deep breath. This was the right thing to do. He had wanted so badly to be the one to execute Kaaliz, or at least to be there; to watch him die, but not being there seemed like a small sacrifice now. He looked back at the grieving mother being comforted by the police woman. Compared to what some people had lost it was nothing.