No one had mentioned where they were going. It was already set. The natural place to retreat to was the band room. They could all be together, it locked, they had weapons there, food and refreshments were available. They could go there, tend to any injuries, recover, rest for the night and decide what should be done next. As they got further away from the cries and guttural sounds coming from the Civic Hall, the night became so quiet. They could hear snow falling in chunks from the roofs, with a heavy muted thud. Friarmere was beautiful and silent to the outsider. The streetlights glinted off the snow. It was white and twinkling and so perfect. It was as if they were in a land of shimmering glitter. Christmas was on it’s way and the village was preparing itself to be magical. Unfortunately, they knew that behind the stunning fairyland the reality was blood, rot, death and danger.
As they walked past the pub, which was still open, Freddie all of a sudden, became very tired.
‘Shall we stop for a bit and get our breath?’ he asked hopefully. A couple of the older ones agreed with him. The majority didn’t though.
‘I think that’s a bad idea. We should get back while the going is good. We can settle down in the band room. We can't expect the pub to take us in there, and lock the doors if we have an ambush. It’s not fair on the other punters. Lets stick to the plan,' said Gary, making the final decision.
‘Damn it,’ hissed Norman as he wriggled flat like a snake, across the roofs of Friarmere.
They carried on. Because they were listening, struggling in the bad walking conditions and looking in every doorway and down every street, it took them nearly an hour to get to the band room. It was quite cold in there, even though they had only left it about five to six hours earlier. Luckily, it did have central heating and Sue rushed in to override the timer switch and get it going. As soon as they had all filed in and shut the door, it was immediately warmer than being outside. The heating clicked on quickly and they knew that from past experiences here, that they would soon be warm, as it wasn't an enormous room to heat and there were now eleven people in it. It was wonderful to smell the bandroom. They associated the scent in here with fun, friendship and safety.
Wee Renee, Laura and Pat started to fill the kettle, put the cups out and take out food from the fridge. There were lots and lots of sandwiches and cakes left, so they would be able to hold up a while here, no worries. There were also still several weapons remaining on the table, that they really had not been able to carry earlier. Some people had lost some, or left them embedded in a vampire, so were happy to be able to replenish their arsenal.
Liz looked very tired and was struggling. She generally didn't have much energy and with all the anxiety from seeing The Master, the fight and the walk back through the snow, she was exhausted. Her legs were shaking, she said she had pains in her chest and she couldn’t get warm.
‘It’s stress,’ diagnosed Pat. Freddie also sat down for a while, he was shaking and as white as a ghost.
‘I know how you feel, Liz. I don’t know if I am on my arse, or my elbow.’ He seemed to have trouble breathing too. They all had a steaming pot of tea made for them. Wee Renee insisted that everyone took sugar in their tea for shock. In the calm atmosphere of the band room they sat for a while. Gazing down at the floor miles away, or contemplating their fingers. Putting their hands around the cups of tea to warm them and taking deep breaths. They were exhausted shocked and empty. A thousand thoughts and pictures ran through their heads. They had each left a part of themselves there that they would never get back. The first person to break the hush was Andy.
‘That was so much worse than I thought it was going to be,' he said quietly with a sigh.
‘They knew we were coming,’ said Gary, ‘Their plans were better than ours. We thought we knew best and have now lost people in our ignorance and arrogance. We didn’t think that there were so many, and that they were so ferocious.’
‘Kids as well,’ Laura muttered, through a few tears, ‘The kids. I couldn't believe it.’
‘Er… does anyone want a sandwich?’ Sue asked hopefully. No-one wanted one and only Bob ate a cake. Wee Renee got up to make another pot of tea. All of them needed it.
‘The question is, what shall we do next?’ said Gary trying to move on from his thoughts.
‘If we make it through the night,' said Pat grimly.
‘We will make it through the night!’ Wee Renee announced loudly from the behind the steam of the kettle, ‘Think positive! If we can make it with them all in the same room as us, that siege that we just experienced, then we can make it in here. We have our own territory to protect now. A wee fort. We have just got to get through tonight.’
‘Then what?’ asked Laura
‘We will just have to get some help, won't we?’ Freddie said matter-of-factly. ‘It’s clear this problem is too much for us now. It needs an army.’
‘Split the group. The stronger ones will just have to get out of this village, through the snow and find some place that will give us some help and bring them back to the ones that will struggle to make it,’ Tony shrugged.
‘No way are we splitting this group up,’ said Wee Renee adamantly. ‘We will all make it together. I don't think splitting our resources, whether they are weapons or people will do either group any good. So we all go together and we go at the pace of the slowest person.’ Collectively the whole group looked at Liz, who guiltily looked down.
‘The good thing is, we all get on,’ said Sue cheerfully, ‘Can you imagine doing this and arguing between ourselves?’
‘Yes, I agree. A lot of the bad seeds have gone. A lot I would have butted heads with,’ Pat said under breath with a sniff. They all knew she meant Keith and Vicky. Secretly if you had asked any person in that room, they would have agreed with Pat. They did miss some people thought. Particularly, Freddie missed Maurice.
Lost in their thoughts again for a minute, Danny covered his mouth with his hand, then rubbed it on his stubble. He did that when he was nervous.
‘Did you see what Woody did to Geoff?’ he asked, obviously still in shock about the whole matter. A couple of them nodded and looked down at their cups again, morosely.
‘What?’ asked Laura
‘He just punched into his chest, took out his heart and bit into it,’ said Danny flatly. Liz started crying and Andy put his arm around her. She was panicking and was close to becoming hysterical.
'This is too much for me. I can't take it. My brain won't take it anymore,' she sobbed into her hand, her hair hanging over her face.
‘It can take it and it will!’ said Wee Renee firmly, ‘Liz, we are going to defeat all this.’
Sue banged her cup down in desperation.
‘How can we defeat something like that, tonight? We will definitely need extra help. More police. The army. We can't stay here and fight that kind of stuff. We are just people. Musicians. Just regular people that shouldn’t have to fight for our village, or anything else,’ Sue said quickly. The panic was starting to become infectious. Gary knew he had to step in at this point.
‘Whoa there. What we need to do is protect ourselves primarily and we have a responsibility to make sure that this does not get out into the rest of the country. We can save everyone by just being messengers. It’s as simple as that.’ They nodded at Gary. That seemed easy enough. The atmosphere started to calm. He checked everyone’s face and could feel the tension ebbing away from them. ‘So do we have a plan then? That we go out, all of us, when we are feeling a little stronger, in the daylight. We try and make it out of the valley to another village and get help?’
'Yes,' they muttered, some of them, quite enthusiastically.
‘Do you think you can manage that, Liz?’ asked Laura.
‘Yes,’ she replied bravely. ‘With all of you, yes, I can manage it.’ They could see she felt better after her few tears and was encouraged by the new plan. ‘What good can we do here? We can't stay here for the rest of our lives. The food will run out and they can come and get us anytime.
Any band member will know where we would be. The thing is, we could see their footprints, but I just kept thinking that they would be able to see ours too. I really don’t want to be here. It’s dangerous.’
‘We will wait for daylight then,’ stated Tony.
‘I suggest,’ said Wee Renee with her finger in the air, ‘That even if we can't now, we think about eating as much as we can.’ Pat took this as her cue and started to eat a couple of thick slices of battenburg cake. She broke the cake into it’s squares and ate first the yellow, then the pink, then the yellow again, then pink. Before she had swallowed that piece, she picked up another. Bob picked one up too and started to copy her. Sue was happy that watching Pat had tempted him to eat. Wee Renee watched before continuing. ‘We don't know how long the journey will take. What we don’t eat we will put in our backpacks. We can parcel up some of those sandwiches. But we need to eat before we set off and get some strength. We also need some sleep. Who is up for having alternate watches?’ All the men said they would. With the additions of Bob, Pat and Wee Renee there would be plenty to cover the shifts. Each set of two had to do a couple of hours each. They all thought it would be very easy to stay awake as most felt like they would never sleep again. The one exception was Liz, who said she wanted to go to sleep as quickly as she could and shut it all out.
The room was lovely and warm now and they rolled their coats up to use them as pillows. They lay down in a couple of rows. Danny and Gary said that they would take first watch and then Pat and Wee Renee were up next. As soon as it was light, if they got that far, they would have another hot drink, some food and then set off as soon as possible, so they could use the daylight most effectively.
Outside, as the friends dreamed, wept, and cried out in their nightmares, Norman and Michael watched. The band room with its lights on was like a beacon in the dark.
‘They were a lot more prepared than I thought they would be. Much irreparable damage has been made to some wonderful vampires. It vexes me so. I underestimated them. I won’t do it again.’
‘Don’t worry Master. They are sitting ducks now. We will get everyone. There’s still a few hours of darkness left. Lets get the others over here and get them girls, er, all of the band, tonight. Get it over with. Then you are fully victorious.’
‘No, no. They won't get very far. We have made sure of that. My children need the shade of their beds after this great battle, to replenish their strength. There are many nights we can come and get them, whilst they grow weaker, day by day. They are isolated now. I need to regroup my forces. See how many of my flock, I have left. I may be recruiting a couple more villagers, who are hiding behind their front doors and then we will come for them again. What are they going to do? They can't contact anyone else and they won't be able to get out of this place. This snow has made it so easy. It is like a higher force has been watching over me these last few days. Besides that I have a few problems in other places to deal with and Kate is trying to sort something out herself. It is always one thing and then another for me. Michael, we have made losses tonight.’
‘You still have me,' interjected Michael, but Norman ignored him.
‘However, we have made more gains. We have more small children who have joined our cause, who will no doubt change their families. The more they do this, the more we will be protected.’
‘The more the merrier!’ Michael interrupted again.
‘Your brother is still thriving and so are a lot of my recently made disciples, that are becoming very important to me. There are a couple of things to tie up but I see tonight, relatively, as a win for me.’
28 - Bus
The next morning the sun came out quickly and gleamed off the snow, unbelievably dazzling. It was a pure, clear morning. Beautiful crystalline trees and pure white snow, greeted the eleven friends. Nothing had happened in the night and some people had got a good few hours sleep and felt refreshed. Their spirits were up and they were all surprisingly hungry in the morning. The group heartily ate quite a lot of the sandwiches and cakes. Some of them had two or three cups of tea or coffee. The friends felt strong, as the ordeal was nearly over, wasn’t it?
At one point, they could delay it no longer and were ready to go for it. The general feeling was excitement, a new day and fresh hope. They put their boots back on. Some were concealing weapons on the inside of their coats. Other items were too big, like Pat’s lump hammer, so they carried them in their hands.
A couple of them had still insisted on taking their instruments, in the vain hope that life would get back to normal. Liz looked quite a bit better, rosier cheeks and definitely more cheery and they were all very thankful about this. Even just for the reason that their pace would be a little quicker the healthier she was.
Gary, although he didn’t voice it, was a little worried that they had not been attacked in the night, but very thankful. After last night, he thought that their enemy already had planned something a bit cleverer than them at every turn. Norman Morgan was always one step ahead of them. Now they had a new plan, he wondered if they were walking into another trap. Gary just knew that it wasn’t going to be plain sailing. This guy was too wily for that.
He had imagined that monsters had less intelligence than them and would just attack blindly. Surely a living tissue brain, worked better than a dead green one. Maybe some of them weren’t thinking straight and were worried about other members of their family. Gary thought that he had no distractions and had been outsmarted. Of course he was no brain surgeon. A couple of members of the band were extremely clever, like Freddie, but then he thought of course, Freddie was worried about Brenda over in Melden. Bob was a bright lad, but worried about his friend, Adam, who he had had no communication with for a few days now.
They all walked out of the band room and Sue locked the door. There was food left in the fridge and they could still retreat back here. They were hoping that by tonight, they would have a police force on the way back here with them. Maybe a couple of hours walk in the snow towards the next village, or even the worse case scenario, the one after that. They could then find a phone or shelter and get help someway.
They started to walk towards the main road that ran from Friarmere into the next village over the hill, and then on towards Manchester. It was a wonderful sunny day. This was a good sign. They got to the main road, gathering in a group and surveyed the village. All was silent, there were no tyre tracks on the road. No-one had come along here for the last few hours, no tracks whatsoever. Pristine snow, stretched either side of them.
They turned left and now were enjoying the walk; with the sun on the snow it was warm. Bob kicked his way through the snow making long tracks. Mini snowballs cascaded across the flat top of the fallen snow. Choosing to try and distract them, Wee Renee told them a tale about a woman who had not had the use of her bowels for ten years, which doctors had given up on. She was healed by a Reiki practitioner in four weeks. Wee Renee also said she was witness to them healing a blind lady. She reached into her coat, and out of her sweater pulled a chunk of brown rock, on a piece of cord.
‘What’s that?’ asked Bob fascinated.
‘Petrified wood, lad.’
‘What does that do?’
‘It calms fears and gives me clear thoughts.’
‘Wow, you are the calmest person in a crisis, I have ever met. It’s bloody good stuff!’ said Bob very impressed. A few of them laughed including Wee Renee.
‘Aye lad. Some things that are weird, are wonderful, not terrible. But it just shows you, there is more than meets the eye about this world. We are just starting to work that out, aren’t we, eh?’
By now it was around ten o’clock. When they got close to the edge of the village, Sue was the first to notice it. At first she thought it was her eyes and she couldn’t work out what she was looking at. She rubbed them, the sun on the snow was blinding, and tried to focus in on the white. What it looked like was an enormous amount of snow. As the road rose naturally out of Friarmere towards the
hills, they were automatically looking upbank. It just seemed to go very much higher upwards, in a short distance. Bob saw his mother trying to focus on what was before them and he followed her gaze.
‘Is it a ski slope?’ Bob asked, his mouth lifted up one side in confusion.
They all stared towards it. With no shadows or colours, it looked so strange. The group were dumbfounded. Pat caught up with the group, quite breathless. She set her feet widely apart and examined the mystery from top to bottom.
‘Well, flap me sideways. It’s a wall. They have built a bloody wall.’ Pat said incredulously.
They moved a little closer. Now they had been told what it was, they could see it. It was like a Magic Eye Painting. They could see it had some kind of framework inside, covered in snow. The framework was across the road and the snow had been deliberately piled, to cover any gaps. Then lucky for the vampires, the weather had worked for them, and huge drifts sloped up the sides of the structure. It had a strange flat top though.
‘What is that inside?’ Freddie asked in wonder. They regarded the huge wall. There was something familiar that they couldn’t quite put their fingers on. Freddie had a sudden thought. He turned around to the others.
‘Bob, Danny, Andy? Throw some snowballs at the top of the structure.’ The three of them started to make snowballs and pelt them at the wall. Laura and Tony joined in. This was the most fun they had had for weeks. Then, a chunk of snow cracked and broke from the rest, but did not fall. They all aimed for that spot. Soon a couple of them hit near the spot and knocked the chunk of snow down, which dropped down six feet, joining the drift beneath it. Underneath it was bright red.
‘It’s a double decker bus!' they all exclaimed. Indeed, now they could see how they had done it. A double decker bus had been completely parked crossways on the road and snow piled up at the sides and the front of it. The snow had fallen since, and drifted, making a wall over twenty feet high, with absolutely no way around it. The drifts meant that the wall was about thirty feet thick.
Sticky Valves: Book 1 of the Saddleworth Vampire Series Page 24