Table of Contents
1 - The Chase
2 - Friarmere
3 - Band
4 – The Grange
5 - Bonfire
6 - Prawns
7 - Turning
8 - Garlic
9 – The Pub
10 - Miracle
11 - Dogs
12 - Lust
13 - Sheep
14 - Wolves
15 - Police
16 - Coffee
17 – Tea Towel
18 - Cats
19 - Butcher
20 – Sausage Roll
21 – Fruit
22 - Teeth
23 – Cheese Knife
24 - Concert
25 - Gun
26 – Timpani Mallet
27 - Plan
28 - Bus
29 - Sledge
30 - Moors
31 - Hairy
STICKY VALVES
BOOK ONE OF THE SADDLEWORTH VAMPIRE SERIES
Sticky Valves by Angela Blythe
Book 1 of the Saddleworth Vampire Series.
First Edition.
© 2017 Angela Blythe. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.K. copyright law.
Please contact me for details of future books at
http://www.angelablythe.com
Published by Willow Publishers.
Cover Illustration and Design Copyright © 2017 by Dark Grail
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/DarkGrail
Editing by A.S.Blythe
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
1 - The Chase
2 - Friarmere
3 - Band
4 – The Grange
5 - Bonfire
6 - Prawns
7 - Turning
8 - Garlic
9 – The Pub
10 - Miracle
11 - Dogs
12 - Lust
13 - Sheep
14 - Wolves
15 - Police
16 - Coffee
17 – Tea Towel
18 - Cats
19 - Butcher
20 – Sausage Roll
21 – Fruit
22 - Teeth
23 – Cheese Knife
24 - Concert
25 - Gun
26 – Timpani Mallet
27 - Plan
28 - Bus
29 - Sledge
30 - Moors
31 - Hairy
Sticky Valves
1 - The Chase
He needed to run and run fast. He didn’t know in what direction or for how long, but he needed to run.
They say that in times of emergency the body sometimes allows people to do acts of superhuman strength and he hoped that it was going to be true for him. After ten days locked in a cellar with no food and barely any water, he wasn’t in the best condition to be doing this and if he was truthful he never was much for athletic activity but he needed to run as fast and as far as possible.
His feet were sore, his shins cut by branches and shrubs, but he had to put this all out of his mind. That thing would be on his trail soon if he wasn’t already behind him and, if he was caught, he was in no doubt that he would be dead this time.
Why the hell had this happened to him? What had he done to deserve this? Just a night out with the lads, a few too many beers and he woke up in that cellar.
The noises in that house...the coppery smell of blood and rotten things. Hours and hours in the dark and then...then...he would come down, and just spend hours watching him. Walking round and round him in the dark. He didn’t attack, or speak, or touch him. And there were no breathing sounds, only sounds of dry lips being licked with a rasping tongue. Then he would go, silently, up the stairs. And shortly after the noises would start again. Women, men, children. Muffled voices, laughing. Screaming. Heavy noises on the floorboards above him. His laughing. Then silence.
He was enjoying the chase. This particle of meat, of sustenance intrigued him. He didn’t know why, but it gave him immense pleasure to smell the fear of this man. To taunt him in the dark, then observe him. With a watering mouth he would go down to the cellar, and watch him getting thinner and thinner. He never was a fan of fatty blood. This game, this exercise will give it the flavour of adrenaline and oh, how he loved that. Did this man really think he had escaped? No one got the better of him. If he escaped it was what he had planned.
The hunter was thrilled to have discovered this wonderful area. These particular villages. Isolated, northern settlements, whether on the moors, or nestled in valleys, were bathed in fresh air, warm sunshine and cool rain. The people, mainly interbreeding with the other villagers, had produced the sweetest meat, the most exquisite blood he had ever tasted. He would herd them like cows. Some would be breeders. Most would be feeders. Gone were the times he would have to feed on dirty tasteless humans. Like eating dog food, to a human.
The monster continued to track the man. Sometimes he would be behind him. Sometimes in front. This was so easy. He had decided he was going to slit the man behind the knees, one at a time. Put his mouth over the lovely hole and suck on the nectar. The sucky hole, his favourite. He would then put his long fingers inside the cut, wiggle it open a bit more. Then he would get his tongue deep inside the flesh. Nothing was going to deny him this.
He ran on, his lungs burned. He was going to get away. There was no sign of his captor. He thought he saw a light to his left through the trees. It was a distance away, but it looked like car headlights. He must be near a road. He had done it. He was going to get away. He strove on, dug deep and ran even faster.
‘Simon, if you sing that bloody song one more time I am going to stick that microphone where the sun does not shine’. The bus roared with laughter and applause at Barry’s statement. One rendition of the Queen hit We are the Champions’ was probably acceptable, but after doing it five times, it would wear down even the most ardent Queen fan.
Simon put the microphone down to even more applause than he got for his singing, and found his way back to his place on the bus. The peace and quiet was not to last long though, grabbing the newly released mic, Gary launched into one of his usual speeches.
‘Ladies, Gentlemen and members of the committee’. More roars from the captive audience.
‘We are again victorious in the march of Friarmere Bands quest for glory. The winners of the Eckington Brass Trophy for best overall band, best march and best soloist.’
‘Don’t forget a cheque for a Thousand Pounds,’ interrupted Ernie Cooper from the back of the bus.
‘Aye, if we don’t all drink it first Ernie,’ replied Simon.
‘Anyway I think it’s only fitting that to celebrate our landmark victory we should all raise a glass or a can and sing the Friarmere Band Song.’ Most people, knowing that the ‘Friarmere Band Song’ only actually consisted of singing the word Friarmere repeatedly to some football based chant could only raise a half-hearted cheer. This could actually be worse than listening to We are the Champions.
Simon got back out of his seat with his hands in the air to dance around to the Friarmere song. He was trying to pull some of the lady players out of their seats to dance with him, but was having no takers.
Ernie Cooper looked out of the window with a heavier heart than most, he loved ‘ban
ding’ and had been part of a Brass Band for most of his life. He actually couldn’t remember a time in his sixty five years when he wasn’t involved in a local band in some form or another, but at times like this he wished he was home with his feet up and watching a film. Even travelling back on the train would have been better than being trapped on a bus with forty, mostly drunk people, whose ideal form of entertainment seemed to be something akin to bear baiting in the middle ages. It wasn’t their fault he thought to himself, he wasn’t much for popular entertainment and his wife always reminded him that in Planes, Trains and Automobiles he was more the Steve Martin character singing Three Coins in a Fountain whilst everyone else was wishing he would shut up and sing the theme to the Flintstones.
Still it had been a good contest and the band had won convincingly and in the end that was what it was all about. All the weeks of practice, tantrums and heartache had paid off and they had another trophy for the cabinet and some more money in the funds.
I’m nearly at the road. I’m safe. He ran faster. He couldn’t miss his chance.
‘Jesus what was that?’ Said the coach driver, undoing his seat belt and activating the hazard warning lights on the coach’s dashboard.
‘Simon? Simon?’ Lynn Cooper was up out of her seat and moving towards Simon who was now a crumpled mass in the foot well of the coach.
‘Is he ok?’ He said looking at Simon
‘I don’t know,’ Lynn replied. ‘He certainly has had a bad knock.’
Ernie got up and grabbed the mic.
‘Right everyone calm down, it looks like we have hit something’
‘Was it an animal? Oh god what if it’s a deer?’ Sue said.
‘We don’t know, I am going out to look now and I need everyone to stay calm and stay in the bus. I don’t need any more accidents.’
‘Ernie! I am coming with you, I am the only one here with traffic management experience.'
Ernie looked at Michael Thompson and had to stop himself shaking his head. Of all the people on the bus he was the last person he needed getting in the way and unfortunately the last person who would listen to him either.
‘What traffic management experience? You’ve never been a policeman or even a Special Constable.’
‘No, but I was a steward for three years on the Yorkshire Show, I have directed more traffic round more obstacles than anyone on this bus and that includes our resident policeman Keith. And before you say anything, Keith has passed out, he couldn’t direct anything at the moment.’
‘Look we haven’t seen a car for the last ten minutes, I don’t think we need anyone to bother with traffic management. Lets just see what we hit and then get moving.’
‘It’s the empty roads you need more management for Ernie. Empty road means more speed, lack of concentration next thing you know, BANG! We’ve got a Ford Fiesta welded onto the back of the bus.’
‘And I suppose you standing in the middle of the road waving your hands about like an idiot will stop that will it?’
Ernie looked at Thompson, he knew that nothing short of a cricket bat would stop him getting off the coach and parading around directing traffic like he was on duty outside Buckingham Palace. How he could cope with this man being on the committee for another nine months was beyond him. Thompson had an opinion about everything, had done everything and was one of those people who never stopped trying to tell you about it. Sadly though the truth was that Michael Thompson had done nothing with his life, still lived at home with his younger brother and with all the recent closures in his factory was looking at redundancy at forty and spending the rest of his life claiming benefit. If there was a picture in the National Art Gallery entitled ‘Loser,’ Michael Thompson’s face would be staring out at you.
‘Ok, ok but don’t wander off and if something hits you, we aren’t picking you up, you stay where you land.’
‘Charming,’ muttered Thompson as he moved past Ernie and tried to get a handle on the situation, that he was sure only he could manage. As he got off the bus he looked up and down the road. Total darkness not even a glimpse of a set of headlights. Ernie was right, there were no cars likely to come here at this time of night. Still he was off the bus now and it was time to take charge, maybe this was the moment that he would be hailed as a hero, the man that saved the day.
He turned right and went around to the front of the bus where the driver was examining the headlights and the panels, cursing loudly.
‘All ok?’ He asked.
‘Jesus!’ The bus driver exclaimed. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack. What the hell does it look like? I’ve got a smashed headlight and indicator, lots of blood and a dented panel. My heart rate is going through the roof and I need a cigarette and a stiff drink.’
‘Anything I can do?’ Thompson asked.
Before the bus driver could respond Ernie came to join them.
‘I thought you were directing traffic?’ He said to Thompson.
‘Directing Traffic? On this road?’ The bus driver sounded irritated and close to the edge, his voice rising to quite a high pitch by the time he got to ‘road’.
‘Nothing to direct at the moment,’ Thompson responded.
‘Look, just go and position yourself somewhere just in case or get back on the bus. I don’t want to be here any longer than we have to be, Simon might need to be in hospital.’
‘But….’
‘Just do it Michael. Do something useful or get out of the way.’
Michael stared at Ernie for a moment. One day he thought, one day I will be Chairman then what will you do? You’ve only got nine months then you are up for the vote and I am going to win that vote, I’ll make you clean the instruments and arrange the uniforms. I’ll get my own conductor or maybe I’ll conduct the band myself, nothing will stop Friarmere when I am Chairman. In fact I will call myself President of the Band. He turned and walked back around the bus, consoling himself with his new plan, never thinking that every single person on that bus would rather vote for anyone but him in any coming election. But again Michael Thompson never let reality come between him and a plan.
After ten minutes of searching Ernie and the bus driver could see no sign of what they had hit.
‘If it was a sheep I’ll bloody kill that Farmer Kipling,’ said the Driver
‘He lets them buggers roam all over the bloody place and you can never trace them back to him, he never marks them.‘
Ernie looked at the marks on the bus.
‘Bloody big sheep then to have hit the bus up here? Has Kipling got many six foot sheep?’
‘Bounce.’
‘What?’
‘Bounce, hit something like that and it can bounce, comes back at you much higher.’
‘Bollocks, so now Kipling has been breeding rubber sheep has he?’
‘Look its true, remember John Gardner?’
‘The biker who died a while back?’
‘Yeah, he came over the moors one night on one of those wide handle custom jobs. Wasn’t going all that fast from what they can tell, hit a sheep and was found next morning dead, bike halfway down the moor covered in sheep shit and him dead on the road with a dead sheep on his chest. Bounce, dead sheep knocked him off his bike on the rebound. Well known round these parts.’
‘Sounds like a load of old sheep shit to me. So what do we do now, don’t want to be here much longer especially if whatever we hit is still bouncing.’
‘I reckon we get going?’
Ernie climbed back onto the bus.
‘How’s Simon?’ He asked Lynn.
‘Better, he’s still a bit groggy and he won’t be singing for the rest of the night but I don’t think it’s serious.’
‘Wont be singing? Every cloud. It's true what they say.’
He picked up the mic.
‘Right everyone, we are finally on our way. We have looked everywhere and can find no sign of anything we could have hit. We strongly believe that the animal, whatever it was, has gone further into the woods a
nd to be frank I am not going anywhere near there in the dark. The driver is going to call this into the police as soon as we get back and we have left a marker so we can find this location again if we have to.’
‘Isn’t he going to get cold?’ Asked Tony.
‘Isn’t who going to get cold?’
‘Thompson, I take it he is the marker?’
‘Isn’t he on the bus?’
‘No, not seen him since he left to do his Traffic Management’
Ernie put his head in his hands, Thompson bloody Thompson. I should just drive off he thought. A bouncing sheep might kill him if I’m lucky. He slowly lifted he head from his hands and got off the coach again.
‘Michael!’ No response.
‘Michael Bloody Thompson you have 5 seconds to get on this bus or we are leaving you here.’ No response.
Ernie got his phone out, he hoped he had a signal out here. The hills often had a tendency to play havoc with mobile reception, at least that’s what the mobile companies told him. He pressed the wake button and the screen glowed into life. Scrolling through his contacts to the letter T and then to a contact labelled Tosser, he pressed the call button.
Putting the phone to his ear, he could hear it ringing. After five rings someone answered. Well it was more like heavy breathing than an answer
‘Michael?’ More breathing, if a little quicker.
‘Michael its Ernie, where the hell are you?’
‘In the woods.’ It was Thompson but he sounded breathless.
‘What the hell are you doing in the woods? You are supposed to be directing non-existent traffic on the bloody road!’
‘I saw something, no, I thought I saw something.’
‘What? An animal? Was it something we hit?’
‘It was nothing, I’m coming back,’ the call ended.
Five minutes later, Thompson appeared at the edge of the woods. Frankly he looked like he had been dragged through them backwards, he wasn’t a snappy dresser but it was fair to say he was looking pretty rough by the time he reached the coach.
‘What the hell happened to you?’ Said Ernie.
Thompson didn’t look at him, he kept his head down. ‘I told you I saw something.’
Sticky Valves: Book 1 of the Saddleworth Vampire Series Page 1