Vampyrrhic

by Simon Clark

  Instantly the racket was deafening. There could be no whispers now; they-had to shout above the clatter of the motors.

  ‘Electra,’ he shouted. ‘Save the torch batteries.’ He pointed up at the grates that admitted rays of slanting sunlight. ‘It’ll be bright enough for the time being!’

  Electra switched off the light.

  With the chainsaw throbbing in his hands, he walked quickly forward, eyes straining ahead, looking for the first sign of the creatures.

  For all the world he looked like a dragon-slaying warrior of old, with the chainsaw held high like a great sword before him.

  Now came a series of tunnels branching off. Bernice might be in any one of those. With luck the sound of the chainsaws might bring her to them.

  But what if she was now one of the monsters?

  He’d have to use the chainsaw on her, and sweep her lovely head from her shoulders. He gritted his teeth and hurried on, this time moving in a crouching run like a soldier crossing no man’s land.

  ‘David!’

  Electra’s warning shout punched through the air like a bullet.

  He turned to see a mass of white heads bobbing out from one of the side tunnels; the deep-set eyes blazed with fury.

  They reached out their thin naked arms, hands hooked like claws. One seized Electra by the hair and pulled her back.

  Jack Black raised the chainsaw above his head, wielding it like a battleaxe The engine screamed, blue smoke churned through the air, then he brought the chainsaw down, slicing through the arms of the creature that held Electra.

  The severed arms dropped from her to lie twitching on the ground.

  The vampire jerked back, furiously waving the raw stumps of its arms.

  Jack shoulder-charged the creature, knocking it back into the column of sunlight shafting down through the grate. It screamed thinly, the bald head twisted to avoid the light as if the creature had been caught beneath a shower of sulphuric acid.

  Mewling and whining like a scalded cat it fled into the gloom of another tunnel.

  One moment there had been half a dozen of the vampires pouring from the tunnel, now there were none. David watched them scurry back into the depths of the tunnel, bald white heads bobbing in the gloom.

  An object moved on the periphery of his vision. Damn, now they were coming from another tunnel. This time behind him.

  He turned round and twisted the throttle of the chainsaw so that the sound morphed from a metallic ticking to a full-blooded scream. The teeth on the saw blurred.

  The creatures attacked from the shadows, black-lipped mouths open, exposing teeth that were panther-sharp. Their arms stretched out towards him as the fingers became talons ready to rip out his eyes.

  He saw Electra move to his side. She held the torch out like she was aiming a pistol, then thumbed on the switch. A million candlepower light blasted into their faces. The deep-set eyes screwed shut.

  The vampires recoiled, dazed by the torch’s brilliance.

  For a moment David hoped the light alone would be enough to push them back into retreat. But after cringing back from the light they began to edge forward, holding up their claw hands to shield their eyes and hissing fiercely.

  Now that the tunnel was wide enough, Black moved up to David’s side. He pushed the chainsaw blade forward in a series of stabbing movements. One of the creatures lunged at Black.

  David seized the chance and, raising the screaming chainsaw, swept the blade in a flat arc from left to right.

  The buzzing blade caught the creature at the side of the neck.

  David felt the chainsaw buck in his hands as the whirling teeth bit into the vampire’s flesh; the pitch of the motor changed as the blade made the first cut. He watched in a mixture of fascination and horror as the blade slashed into the monster’s neck in a spray of body fluids and diced flesh that spat outwards, showering the creatures behind and hitting the tunnel’s walls.

  Just one swipe. That was all it took.

  One second later the chainsaw had buzzed its way completely through the monster’s neck, severing head from body. The body dropped, twitching, while the head bounced down at David’s feet.

  Instantly, Black kicked the head — that still grimaced and snapped with its powerful jaws — sending it cannoning along the tunnel like a football, away into the shadows.

  Once more the creatures melted away into the side tunnels.

  ‘Do you think we’ve got them on the run?’ Electra called above the racket of the chainsaws.

  ‘I don’t think so yet,’ David called. ‘So watch your backs.’

  Electra switched off the light. Hesitantly they moved forward again, carefully looking round bends in the tunnels, or watching the shadowy corners for any sign of a lurking vampire that might suddenly lunge at them.

  They passed beneath columns of sunlight that shone down like stage lights from the drains above. And all the time they glimpsed the feet of passers-by walking over the grates or saw the undersides of cars, buses, trucks. Once, David saw a child of about three peer down through the grate at him, its eyes steady and unperturbed as if it had looked down through the street grates a hundred times before to watch these life-and-death battles taking place underground.

  The child smiled and posted a chocolate button down through the iron grille. It fell with a tiny splash into the stream of water. A hand appeared and seized the child’s arm — an irate mother, he supposed, in that strange, dislocated way that comes with extreme emotional pressure. The child was pulled away, no doubt noisily complaining, into yet another shop.

  So. Just a few metres above his head life went on as it always had done in this little town in the hills. The people went about their everyday business, oblivious to the war being waged beneath their feet. God Almighty, if only they knew…if only someone could help…

  David swallowed a bitter taste rising in his mouth. He shifted the chainsaw into one hand. The weight of it was tremendous; the vibrations of the motor jolted through the bones of his hand and his arm to rattle the teeth in his head. The cut on his thumb he’d made with the sword tingled in some mystic harmony with the chainsaw.

  He felt a slap on his arm; he glanced back at Electra. She jerked her head towards the mouth of another tunnel.

  ‘Watch out,’ she shouted. ‘Here they come again!’

  A dozen or more vampires were moving down the tunnel towards them at a shuffling run. David couldn’t take his eyes off the heads that were as round and as white as bobbing footballs in the near-darkness.

  David revved the chainsaw, and prepared himself for the onslaught.

  2

  ‘Maximilian?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What’s making that noise?’

  ‘Sounds like a motorbike.’

  ‘But it seems so close.’

  ‘Coming down through the grates?’ he suggested.

  Bernice looked back at the pale oval of his face in the near-darkness.

  ‘But it sounds different from the traffic. It sounds more like a power tool.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Perhaps some workmen have come down into the tunnel?’ she said hopefully. ‘If only we can find them they’ll get us out of here.’

  ‘It sounds to be coming from down that tunnel there.’ He gazed up at her with his almond-shaped eyes. ‘We could look?’

  She nodded. ‘I don’t think we’ve got much of a choice, do you? OK, follow me, watch out for the stream; it’s deeper here. I think if we can keep right back against the brick wall we should be — Look out!’

  A white figure ran from out of the darkness. It came at them at what seemed a tremendous speed. Instinctively, she pushed herself back against the tunnel wall. Simultaneously she stretched her arm out against Maximilian’s chest and pushed him back, too.

  From the gloom came a white face. The expression on it was shocking. The mouth was wide open; it emitted a thin piercing cry, so high it almost sounded like a whistle. The deep-set eyes were as wide as
the skin surrounding the sockets would allow.

  Bernice held her breath, her heart thudding furiously.

  The vampire ran towards them, making that fantastic whistling scream that bored right through her skull.

  Then it came out of the darkness into the half-light; it waved its arms.

  Or what was left of its arms.

  Bernice realized, with a shock that left her breathless, that the creature’s arms had been severed above the elbows.

  She glimpsed the white bone in the centre of the thing’s muscle, the slashed arteries pumping liquid out in forceful squirts that jetted against the walls as it ran.

  Then it passed her.

  She turned her head to watch it run by, its feet slapping at the floor, the open-ended arm stumps flailing at the air. A moment later it had gone back into darkness. The scream faded.

  Now she could hear the sound of the motors again, rising and falling; they reminded her of angry dogs snarling at intruders.

  Now she knew who was responsible for the sounds she was hearing, and for the injuries to the creature.

  ‘Come on!’ She grabbed hold of Maximilian’s hand and set off at a run.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘My friends are down here. We’ve got to find them — now!’

  3

  David and Jack stood back to back with Electra sandwiched between them. The air filled with exhaust fumes and the deafening snarl of the chainsaw motors.

  The creatures lunged out of darkness from either side, eyes blazing hatred, mouths open as they screamed their high-pitched screams; their pointed teeth flashed in the light of Electra’s torch.

  Severed limbs twitched in a growing pile around their feet.

  A creature lunged low at David’s legs. He brought the blade of the chainsaw down like a club.

  Damn…

  He missed the back of its neck.

  Instead, the spinning saw bits slammed into the back of the thing’s bald head; instantly the screaming saw stripped the skin from the skull, leaving denuded grey bone.

  David bore down, like he was cutting through a felled tree trunk.

  Grey pieces of bone flew in every direction. The creature fell to its hands and knees.

  He leaned forward, pressing the blade down. It sliced easily through the creature’s head, hacking through the skull in a line from the back of the head to exit at the bridge of its nose. The top half of the head came away in one neat piece.

  There was a gush of yellow fluid and the creature lay at his feet, arms and legs jerking in post-mortem spasms.

  Behind him, Jack Black fought with near-superhuman strength; he used the chainsaw like a gardener uses a scythe to fell stinging nettles. He swept the chainsaw from side to side, beheading the vampires with almost balletic grace. Bodies dropped to the floor.

  Meanwhile, Electra used the torch like a weapon, flashing the brilliant light into the vampires’ deep-set eyes, dazzling them and distracting them from their attack.

  A head rolled under David’s feet; he saw the raw end of the cut-through neck rest against a severed arm. Instantly arteries and nerves sprang from the raw mouths of the wounds to connect. The veins contracted, drawing the severed head to the open wound of the arm.

  Hell, the things are fusing together, he thought in disgust. If he left the head there it would join to the arm.

  He tore his fascinated gaze from the process and stooped to cut through the arm with the chainsaw. At that moment the chainsaw coughed and stopped.

  He opened up the throttle and pulled the starter cord. It spluttered.

  Didn’t fire.

  He tried again.

  And again.

  Shit!

  He threw the useless machine to one side. More of the vampires were surging towards him, while all the time the head was fusing to the severed arm. He glanced down to see the head suddenly twitch back to life: eyelids flicked back; the eyes stared up at him; the mouth opened and shut goldfish-like, then suddenly it bared its teeth and snapped at his ankle.

  David stepped back, dragged the sword from his belt and, gripping the handle firmly in both hands, swung down the blade, cleaving the head from the arm.

  He kicked the head away into the stream where the force of the current rolled it away.

  Now he slashed the sword at the faces of the vampires.

  And yet still they jostled forwards.

  One darted at him. With a huge effort he drove the sword forwards so the point of the blade stabbed the creature in the centre of its chest. The point punched through the rags it wore. David pushed harder, driving the sword inwards, as if he was pinning a butterfly to a board. He could even hear the blade grating against the ribs.

  The creature tried to claw at his face.

  Using the sword to hold it at beyond striking distance he called out: ‘Jack! Jack!’

  Then Jack was at his side, swinging his chainsaw in a smooth horizontal arc that neatly decapitated the creature.

  It fell limp, the weight of the thing pulling the sword downwards with it. David planted his foot on the creature’s chest to withdraw the sword.

  He looked along the tunnel.

  Dazed, he thought: Oh, Christ Almighty, there’s dozens of them.

  They surged in at the three people in their single-minded fury. The destruction of their own kind didn’t matter. As long as the creatures destroyed the three humans.

  David’s arms and shoulders ached from wielding the sword. Sweat streamed from his face. His clothes were soaked with the blood — if you could call it blood — of these monsters. The handle of the sword was slippery.

  Another figure dashed at him from a side tunnel. He raised the sword; the metal blade seemed to tremble as if it had a life of its own; he tensed his muscles ready for the downward swing.

  ‘David!’

  His eyes focused on the face in front of him.

  ‘David! Stop! It’s me!’

  ‘Bernice?’

  She looked up at him, eyes wide, her light hair fluffed into a golden halo in the light of Electra’s torch.

  He paused; she might have been bitten by one of those things. She might be a vampire, too. A voice in his head pleaded with him not to take the risk, but to bring the sword down against the side of her neck.

  ‘David,’ she said breathlessly, her eyes huge and trusting. ‘It really is me. I’m fine. Look.’ She reached up and slid her thumb against the sword’s keen edge. Then she held her thumb up at David.

  He saw a bead of blood well out from the nick. It was red, a dark living red, a human red. Not the piss-like yellow liquid that sprang from the vampire’s veins.

  Black’s chainsaw buzzed furiously against his ear as a vampire leapt at him. Head and body separated, it bounced down at his feet; yellow body fluids gushed incontinently from the severed neck.

  ‘Get behind me,’ he shouted to Bernice. ‘Get between me and the wall.’ She did so, but she pulled at his arm.

  ‘David,’ she cried. ‘Stop fighting them, stop it!’

  ‘Are you crazy? They’ll tear us apart!’

  ‘No, you don’t understand,’ Bernice shouted. ‘They’re as afraid of you as you are of them!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s true! They don’t want to fight us; they’ve been forced to do it,’ she shouted. ‘Listen, David! It’s not their fault.’

  David paused. The creatures had stopped attacking for the moment. They watched from the shadows of the tunnels, deep-set eyes boring at them.

  Black throttled down the chainsaw until it ticked over. The reduction in noise seemed almost painful in comparison with the sound and fury of the last five minutes. The vampire dead lay strewn like giant stalks of obscene white celery across the stone floor.

  Electra, panting, looked at Bernice. ‘Did I hear you right? You’re saying these things aren’t dangerous?’

  Bernice looked shaken and had to force herself to speak clearly. ‘They’re only dangerous because they’re being control
led by the others.’

  ‘What others?’

  ‘Stroud and the rest. I’ve seen these vampires down here. I’ve seen how they live. They drink blood that comes down the drains from the slaughterhouse. I don’t think that normally they behave much differently to cattle themselves. Maximilian? Max. Come out here, it’s OK, these are my friends.’ David watched her beckon a Down’s syndrome man into the tunnel. ‘We watched them,’ Bernice continued. ‘They seem to be responding to some outside force. It takes control of them.’

  Electra looked back at Jack. ‘This dark light you were speaking about. You said how powerful it was. Do you think that’s been controlling these creatures?’

  Before he could answer they heard a light cough, as if someone was politely trying to catch their attention.

  ‘She’s quite right, of course.’

  David spun round. Standing there in the tunnel, dressed in white, his bare feet slightly apart on the stone floor, was Mike Stroud. His hair glinted blond in the torchlight.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ Stroud said pleasantly. ‘Or should that be good evening?’

  He gestured to the iron grates above his head. No sunlight fell through them now. Beyond the brilliant light of Electra’s torch the shadows had crept in to engulf the tunnels in utter darkness.

  Stroud was cool, relaxed, as if nothing on earth could faze him.

  He glanced back at the other vampires standing hunched in the shadows, bald heads showing as white discs. ‘These, my children of the night, are nothing more than our humblest foot soldiers, my dear David. They are nothing more than the cannon fodder of war. The same miserable kind of low-quality troops that generals send into no man’s land to help absorb the bullets and artillery shells of the enemy before the real attack begins.’

  David froze there, but his hand tightened around the handle of the sword. If he steps just a little closer, he thought, I can take a swing at the monster’s neck.

  Stroud did take a step forwards, yet it was only to kick one of the severed heads towards David. It was a gentle kick; like a pass at football. The head rolled towards him, then stopped against the wall. It was the head David’s cut through level with the bridge of the nose.