Rose sat back down quietly, her eyes wide. She did not say a word. Rose just sat looking at Natalie, who was not looking at her. She did not know what to do. She did not want to be the one to raise the alarm, or it might be on her shoulders at some point to do something about it. Yes, best to say nothing. They would notice when someone else took a look. Let them deal with it. She was hoping that the lot outside would go away and no one would notice they had been.
Brenda said she would check the pie, as it should nearly be done. Freddie said to turn the oven out and keep it warm.
‘Brenda, I got a feeling in my water, something’s afoot.’ He looked around at the others for a kindred spirit in his theory. He thought Rose looked strange but she generally was anyway, so he left it at that. They waited quietly for Brenda to come back again. She came in and in one deep breath addressed Freddie.
‘The pie is done and I have put it on a low light, but not for long. I aren’t going to miss my dinner if nothing is going on. That pie is too good to go to waste.’
Haggis started growling, his head lifted up and he faced the window.
‘What is up boy?’ Our Doris asked him. Haggis curled himself around her legs. Freddie looked at him and afterwards at Rose. The penny dropped.
‘You didn't see anything, did you Rose, when you looked out?’ Freddie asked. She did not answer him, but stared back at him, challenging him. That was answer enough. He jerked himself up and walked to the curtains, peeking through. Freddie turned quickly back to face her, his nostrils flared, he was so angry.
‘They are right at the bottom of the pigging drive!’ He pointed out towards the road vigorously.
‘I know,’ Rose said.
‘Is this true? Did you see them when you looked?’ Jennifer asked Rose furiously.
‘Yes, so what. Nothing happened, did it? Just ignore them and they will go away.’
‘So Rose, that is your plan is it? That is what we should do with all the wolves and people trying to take over our world. They are stopping us living our normal lives, preventing us from going out at night. Eating our friends. Just ignore them! It will all go away. You have just ignored them and you have put all of us in more danger, Rose. We have lost precious time, preparing ourselves for them. I suggest if you can't be any help, you sit there out of the way and don't be a detriment to me any longer!’
‘Don't you talk to my mother like that!’ Natalie screeched.
‘Oh! It speaks. Who cares what you say anyway, you fat lump.’ Freddie said. ‘You were not wanted here, either of you. You’ve not come here to help, you came to be waited on, hand and foot, the pair of you. Now keep out of my way, I am telling you.’ Freddie had a mixture of feelings. From anger, disgust and also fright because of what was now outside. He had to be sure he wasn’t taking all these feelings out on Rose. He was also aggravated that the one time that he had trusted Rose to check, she had failed them. He felt a fool for ever trusting her.
‘You stupid woman, didn’t you understand we could have been picking up our weapons and been ready for this!’ Freddie flung open the curtains gazed down at the collection standing by Our Doris’s gatepost. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘as long as we don’t go outside, we’ll be fine.’
‘I knew we shouldn’t have come here,’ said Rose. ‘Right into the lion’s den. You are magnets for trouble. We were better off on our own. We had no problems in our own home. We aren’t putting ourselves in danger, me and Natalie. Let’s face it they aren’t after us.’
‘That’s a great I’m alright Jack attitude,’ Freddie said. He clapped his hands. ‘Bravo Rose, you show what an out and out git you actually are, over and over again. I am very happy for you to go now, if you like. As you say, it’s too dangerous in here. Go on.’
Rose, red faced and angry glared at him. ‘No? I thought not. You paid a very expensive price for a few cups of tea and the chance of a cheese pie. Keep your mouth shut.’
Freddie took a deep breath, walked into the hall and opened the front door. The house, the street, the whole of Melden, was deathly silent. The people inside could hear every word he said, every whisper. Pat walked over to the sofa against the wall. She had had the idea of putting her favorite weapon, the lump hammer behind there. Pat took it out and looked towards the others as Freddie spoke, tapping it in the palm of her other hand. They all started to ready themselves.
‘What do you want this time?’ Freddie asked loudly.
Anne lifted her head upwards in her standard haughty way.
‘I just thought I would let you know, before we make this visit any more intimate, that there were never any children left in Friarmere. All your old friends ate them. You see, my little brother played a trick on your friends and now they are gone. They can't save you now. Divide and conquer. Now you are outnumbered, not I.’ She walked forward towards the door. Behind her, the wolves stood at the gate, with an older female. She seemed to look around for them for a moment but they did not follow her. Six of her followers stood with her on the drive. There were four of her henchmen standing guard at the bottom of the cul-de-sac.
‘Are you going to ask me in.’ she snarled as she carried on walking.
‘Not on your Nellie!’ Freddie shouted.
‘Not to worry. I don't need an invite. I’m welcome everywhere!’
Anne started to walk up the steps to the door, two feet away from him.
31 – Chunk
Freddie moved backwards as Anne advanced towards the door. He did not have time to shut it. Besides that, they could just smash the windows and climb in, if they didn’t need an invite. The rest of the party had moved closer to Freddie to hear the conversation, so now they quickly moved backwards too. Pat moved to the left, as did Freddie, into the area by the bay window. Kathy got behind one of the heavy curtains. The rest of the group moved to the right. Rose and Natalie remained seated.
Anne could indeed come into their house. They did not know how this could happen, but they had never been safe here. Haggis was barking incessantly. Pat could see through the window that most of the wolves still stood at the bottom of the drive with one of Anne’s children. Pat’s eyes widened to see that this was Wee Renee's friend, Carol. The dowager’s hump was quite visible from this angle.
Anne pushed her way through the front door, entering immediately into the bright living room. Some of her group were close behind her, in the hall now. Three moved forward, three stayed where they were. In the house, but just to guard the exit. No escape tonight. Anne stood majestically in Our Doris’s living room. She was tall, pale and dressed fully in black again. Anne looked dreadfully out of place with the décor. She smelled strongly of wet soil, sawdust and urine. She reached up a little and slapped the chandelier light fitting, sending it violently swinging. The light now made crazy patterns of the walls and ceilings. Light and dark, light and dark. She’s going to knock another bulb out, Terry thought.
Anne made a shrill noise and dropped into an attack pose. She was almost like a velociraptor. Knees bent and set wide apart. Back slightly arched and arms up, like claws ready for the attack. She bared her teeth. They were not wolves’ teeth. They were yellowing hooked vampire teeth. Her eyes darted amongst them, waiting for the first victim to come at her. She was ready to strike.
Kathy, who had studied Earth Science’s about fifteen years ago, still had a small geology pickaxe that Terry had made her, to crack rocks open with. Kathy decided not to wait for Anne but to bring it on. She sprung out from behind the curtain and with all her force bought the pickaxe and down on to the person's head directly behind Anne.
There was a loud crack as she split the skull of the vampire. A central square of bone had now been pushed deep into the brain. The head fractured outwards from this in three clean lines, tearing the scalp with it as it opened. As they dropped to the floor the person was revealed to be Malcolm, who had been the conductor of Melden Silver band. Terry’s brother. Kathy’s own Uncle. As he fell, for a moment Kathy’s stomach dropped through the flo
or. She had just killed her Uncle Malcolm. Kathy had murdered him for nothing. Just because he was in a kind of killing cult. He wasn’t attacking her. It couldn’t be classed as self defence. But as he fell and she fully saw him in the swinging light. It was quite clear, that he was what they had suspected. Anne had finally given him the precious gift he most desired. She called it an early Christmas Present. Now that his treachery had been revealed, he now had had no reason to ever hide his true nature. His shirt was unbuttoned and open. His wolf’s pelt bushed out everywhere. This was so much more than a very hairy man. His mouth would remain forever in a death snarl. His long teeth were pearly white. New.
This seemed to be the signal for everyone. Terry had some quite vicious dental instruments and he held one in each hand. The scalpels were razor-sharp, sterile and glinting. He slashed away, at anything that wasn’t his friend but only managed to make superficial cuts as they grabbed for him.
Their clawed hairy hands tried to close on his sweater, to grip and pull him towards their teeth. He slashed at their hands, the blackish red, tar-like blood oozed out, smearing across the cream wool of his Aran sweater. Pat was swinging her lump hammer this way and that, laughing. She caught a female on the cheekbone, which now was dented in. The skin a purple mush. As the vampire screamed, raising her hands in the air to run at Pat, Freddie lunged at her; sharpened walking stick poised. He jabbed it hard towards her torso. It entered her armpit and came out a few inches along at the back. The vampire protectively put down her arm, which trapped Freddie’s stick.
‘Hold her Freddie!’ Pat yelled and started to wallop her again generally in the head and ear region.
Anne was currently not in battle but she shouted orders to the others. Haggis’s barking seemed to annoy her. Her gaze had immediately settled on him. Once her beady eyes met his, he whined and ran into the kitchen, getting in his basket.
Another beast entered the living room from the door, stepping over the dead Malcolm. They avoided what was going on with Terry, Pat and Freddie, quite sensibly. Their red eyes looking towards Rose and Natalie who, unarmed, gaped at the dreadful scene. They took three loping steps towards the two women.
Wee Renee ran from the other end of the room, with a high weeeeee sound, jumping on their back. Swinging her arm round she shoved her trusty cheese knife in their eye, flipping it back out fiercely with a twist. The eye caught in the hook, thick fluid, flecked with black, shot across the face of Rose and into the open mouth of Natalie. They still did not move, like the furniture they sat on. Our Doris ran across from the kitchen door, the male, now with one eye was before her. She kicked him square in the genitalia. He crumpled to the floor. For a brief second, Wee Renee was a little shocked that it still hurt them there so much, when they were now a supernatural creature.
‘Well fancy that!’ She shouted to Our Doris from behind him as he knelt. She decided straight away to take out the other eye. Wee Renee brought this one out with some velocity. Eye number two flew across the room, landing in Rose’s lap, who backed away from it by shoving herself further into the cushions of the chair. Unbelievably Rose still sat there, not defending herself, or her daughter. Not even bothering to get up and run away. She just watched everyone else struggling. The hero’s side was two people down.
The creature was now totally blind, but still very dangerous. Our Doris picked up an ornamental brass coal scuttle from the side of her fireplace, smashing it down on to his head. He dropped from a kneeling position to a lying position.
Within five seconds he began to pull himself up again and was six inches up from the carpet, when Wee Renee ran up the length of his back and jumped on his head. His head went down, she jumped again. There was a crack that resounded through the room. His fingers still grasped handfuls of the carpet. He wasn’t gone yet. She jumped again. His face seemed to slip sideways, moving away from the back of his head. Wee Renee yelled.
‘Argghhh, bloody die will you.’ As she jumped for the final time. The back of his head went to the right, and his face remained stuck to the carpet on the left. It wasn’t easy balancing on the top of a disintegrating head and Wee Renee slipped down to the left side of his head. This sent it even further to the right, totally removing the face away from it’s head. Wee Renee was now standing on top of the upside down red mask that had been the vampires’ face. It was embedded into the carpet. Fibre’s had been ground through the flesh.
She looked down at her feet in their pop socks. His hands twitched and grabbed at her ankle. Our Doris brought the coal scuttle down again and again on his head. The vibration of the metal hitting scalp thudded through the floor. His grip lessened and soon his head was just a pile of indescribable red, white and grey objects, all tinged with green.
‘Are you intending to do that again. Because I don’t have another coal scuttle and this one is bent now,’ Our Doris said, laughing. A twinkle in her eye.
‘I might. I enjoyed it.’
‘Well, this was an antique. Try to do it round my cheap stuff. I don’t really want to waste stuff on her lot. You know for future reference.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ Wee Renee replied.
Pat was still, clonking the vampire around the side of the head, and she was reeling around as if she was drunk, which she found hilarious. Freddie had managed to disengage his walking stick from her armpit and was looking through the window at the wolves. They stood at the bottom of the drive, apart from one that stood near the door. This one seemed the largest. It had it’s head cocked listening calmly. From what Freddie could see, one of them was eating something and he half-smiled to himself.
Most of the wolves were behind Our Doris’s garden wall so he couldn’t see much. They had one vampire who had stayed with them, but she seemed distracted. She must be the lupine wrangler, he thought. There were another couple of vampires with the large wolf on the drive, but they stood rigid, as if they could not join in, unless ordered. Freddie really wanted to stab the wolves with his stick. Drugging them had made it so much easier. He should be able to manage a sleepy wolf, even at his age. He did not like them at all. Like Sue, he preferred cats, and these beggars ate cats.
Wee Renee looked around the room for her friend Carol but couldn't see her. Suddenly Brenda rushed past her from the kitchen, throwing a saucepan of boiling water, over Anne who started screaming. There was no doubt that this had scalded her, her ancient skin seemed melted more than blistered. It looked like several layers of the white flesh had liquefied where the boiling water had touched it. Anne curled into a ball onto the floor. She seemed to vibrate. But not attack back, at least. Brenda rushed back in, filled the saucepan again and put it back on the still burning gas ring.
Terry was flailing around with his dental instruments, being quite unproductive. He overbalanced himself and fell to the floor. His scalpel hand downwards. Terry fell half on top of Anne, as she curled in her fetal position. As he flung his arm back to get away from her and raise himself up, he managed to cut her deeply at the back of her neck. If only she had been facing the other way, he probably would have ended all this. Kathy was attacking another vile creature with her pickaxe. This one was young, male and broad. Quite advanced in their transformation and a lethal fighter.
Kathy managed to slice her weapon into his cheek, just below the eye. She pulled downwards and it seemed to open like a zip. The gash ran up from the corner of his mouth to just below his eye. It was fully open one side. A black liquid, mixed with red and white strings of mucous dribbled down his chin, dripping on to the carpet. The creature growled at Kathy, who just laughed.
‘No matter what I did, I couldn't have made you look any worse.’ These creatures were definitely different. They all had a broadening of the nose, discoloration of the skin. A rash on their bodies. They weren't so pale as the classic vampires in Friarmere. The hands were purple, bruised, the nails were longer. They tended to claw at their victims to grab them. The vampires in Friarmere fought with their teeth. They acted more human-like. These
creatures bent at the knees slightly. Looking more like they were one of the missing links rather than a fully formed human.
Our Doris’s Haggis stood with her now, he growled and his teeth were bared. There were no wolves in the house yet and he was protecting his mistress. The nasty woman no longer stared at him. She was on the floor in a ball. Our Doris had a sword on the wall that she had bought when she was on a cruise to Japan. She had been waiting to use it in for the reason that it had been made, which was killing enemies. Although, she could bet that the swordsmith would never have thought in a million years that this would be its destiny.
She took it off the wall, at that point remembering just how heavy it was. This would be a two-handed job. Our Doris had unsheathed it. Years ago, she had asked her husband to sharpen the blunt sword, which although he disagreed with, he did. Thank heavens she had had the foresight. Our Doris held the sword, the tip resting on her Axminster. The next creature that came through the door, she was having.
She saw a shape pass the crack in the door, between its hinges, where it was joined to the wall. She ran, the momentum helping to lift the sword high. It was a one shot swing. All or nothing. The force that she put in, would rotate her round, if she didn’t connect with the vampire. She did connect, and how! Straight in the neck, taking the head clean off, before they had even noticed her. Our Doris was such a small lady, but she fought like a demon.
Whilst the water was on the boil, which Brenda thought was incredibly effective, she returned with the biggest meat knife that Our Doris owned. She ran forward at a female vampire not knowing whether to aim for the head, or the heart, or the neck. She decided on the heart and ran forward with it in front of her she was surprised that the knife slipped in quite easily. It disappeared into the creature although she had not hit the heart. Brenda’s knife went straight through this female. Right through the left nipple, through the breast and into the rib cage. Pat had moved to the other side of the vampire, with her hammer, looking at Brenda’s work.
Silver Banned: Book 2 of the Saddleworth Vampire Series Page 20