Avengers

by Brian Lumley

  Trask stood up, said, “If those three monsters have stolen another vehicle, the guards on that border crossing post might have logged its registration number. Why, they might even know its destination. If so, I know someone who can probably supply us with both.”

  “Which brings us back to those difficulties I spoke about,” said Millie. “Our documents only allow us to travel in Turkey. I know there aren’t many restrictions on Turks travelling into Bulgaria, but we’re not Turks, just guests in their country.”

  Trask took out Ali Bey’s card from his pocket, went to the antique telephone on Liz’s bedside table and began to dial the Inspector’s number. “Yes,” he said. “That’s a very good point, and Burdur might have the answer to that one, too.”

  Trask got through to a grunting, unintelligible receptionist, gave his name and asked for Burdur. Following which:

  “You are fortunate to be catching me, Mr. Trask,” said the harassed-sounding Inspector a moment later, when he was called to the phone. “I getting back here two, three minutes ago, and now on way out again! I busy, very. Please being quickly. What is it you wanting?”

  Trask told Burdur what he suspected: that last night’s killers had probably departed Turkey via a little-used, backwoods border crossing into Bulgaria, and began to request documentation in order that he might pursue them. But from the moment he mentioned the border post the Inspector quit muttering to some unseen other in the police station and fell silent. Indeed, he even seemed to stop breathing. And before Trask could finish:

  “You knowing the way to the crossing?” There was an undeniable urgency in the Turkish policeman’s voice.

  “I have a map,” said Trask.

  “I meeting you there,” Burdur growled.

  “When?” Trask was taken aback.

  “Now! Packing your things, Mr. Trask. You want leaving Sirpsindigi, leaving Turkey maybe? You leaving.”

  “But—”

  “—I seeing you at crossing point,” Burdur cut in. “Driving quickly, Mr. Trask. Is very bad business.”

  Trask immediately suspected the worst, and said, “I’m on my way.” But the line was already dead…

  “The scenery is Mediterranean,” said Millie, staring out of the minibus’s window. “And the countryside sparsely peopled, mainly farming communities. The rain last night was probably the first of the season. Just see how it’s made everything look fresh.”

  “Nice climate,” said Trask. “If the Tundźa was a sea rather than a river, I might well believe I was on some Aegean island. It’s a pity the Greeks and Turks can’t get along. There are incredibly nice people on both sides.”

  “Mundane conversation,” said Paul Garvey. “It’s supposed to ease the tension.”

  “But it isn’t doing its job,” said Liz. “Instead, the tension increases every time we take a wrong turning. But all these farm tracks look the same to me, and the map is too small-scale to be anything like accurate.”

  Liz was in the front, map-reading for Ian Goodly; Trask and the others were in the back; all six were being jostled, thrown about by a combination of their vehicle’s poor suspension and a badly neglected, potholed road surface.

  “At this rate,” said Goodly, doing battle with the steering wheel, “it won’t be too long before this old rattletrap shakes herself to bits!”

  “Suggestion,” said Lardis Lidesci, hanging on for dear life. “Liz, why don’t you just put that chart down and simply take us there? You have the skill, after all. And Ian: surely you know, or you can guess, which tracks to take? The future can’t be all that devious?”

  Trask looked at the Old Lidesci, opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again and frowned. And finally he said, “You know, he could be right. Liz, put the map aside. And Ian, just drive. Your choice.”

  “Hang a right at the next crossroads,” said Liz and Millie, almost in unison. But the precog was already doing it. And:

  “Damn!” he said. “But you know, I think Lardis is right!”

  They sped along a slightly better road, past the small man-made lakes of a trout farm, and crested a rise. And there, just two hundred yards ahead, they spotted a wooden structure at the side of the road, and a red- and white-striped pivoting barrier with a universal HALT! disc centrally situated. Two police vehicles were parked beside the border post, and Inspector Burdur was standing there, waving the minibus down.

  As the team got out of their vehicle, Burdur came striding and gripped Trask’s arm. “How you knowing?” he said.

  “That they came this way?”

  “Yes. How you knowing that?”

  “We believe they may be heading for Romania,” Trask lied—and then wondered if it really was a lie. For after all, they’d come out of Romania. But why would they want to go back there?

  “You knowing plenty about these criminal peoples,” said the Inspector angrily, bringing him back to earth, “yet you telling me nothings!”

  “First you tell me,” said Trask. “What’s happened here?”

  “What happening?” said Burdur. “You wanting know? You going inside, then you seeing.” Wiping sweat from his brow, he nodded toward the open, fly-screened door of the border-post shack.

  Guarding the door, one on each side, two nervous, trembling border patrolmen kept glancing inwards, their eyes trying—but not trying too hard—to penetrate the shaded interior. Looking at them, at these burly, sidearmed, yet badly shaken men, Trask paced to the door, then paused to look back at his people. They were watching him, uncertain what to do. Then Millie made to go to him, but Ali Bey Burdur held up a warning hand. “Not for the ladies, no,” he said, gruffly.

  And Trask told Garvey, “Paul, stay with Liz and Millie.”

  At which Lardis Lidesci stepped forward.

  “You?” said the Inspector.

  “I’ve probably seen worse,” Lardis grunted.

  Burdur looked deep into his eyes, and nodded. “You thinking so? I thinking so, too. You, Mr. Trask…I thinking all of you seeing worse. I think is part of your work. But me: I policeman thirty-seven years, and not seeing worse, never! You still want going in?”

  For answer Lardis started for the door, and Burdur followed on behind.

  Trask had meanwhile stepped inside. Disturbed by his entry, a swarm of blowflies whirred past on their way out, and several of them flew into his face and hair. Grimacing, he brushed them away, then passed deeper into the gloom of the place.

  There was one small window looking out on the road and barrier; dirty and fly-specked, it didn’t let too much light in. A cubicle at the rear contained a toilet and wash basin. The door to the toilet stood open…and someone was sitting there with his trousers round his ankles. Half of the shack was hidden behind a slightly elevated counter, where a second man was seated in a chair, with his head laid back as if he were asleep. Trask knew he wasn’t asleep, however, and also that the man using the toilet…wasn’t using it.

  For while Trask’s eyes were still adjusting properly to the gloom of the place, his talent had leaped ahead to register the grisly truth of what he was seeing. And:

  “My God!” he said, when finally it sank in. His exclamation—an explosion of sound in the silent, stinking confines of the border-post shack—brought more flies swarming from the faces of the two corpses, or from what had been their faces.

  For the one on the toilet had no face—just a raw, screaming mask—where the flesh had been flensed right down to the bone. And his shirt all down the front inside his open uniform jacket was a sticky crimson mess where blowflies, reluctant to give up their meal and their egg-laying pursuits, continued to swarm.

  As for his colleague, lolling in his chair behind the desk: twin ballpoint pens were sticking up from his eye sockets, his face was crusted with dried blood, and his throat and windpipe had been torn free and were hanging on his chest…

  From close behind Trask, Lardis grunted, “They were here.” A completely unnecessary comment, but what more could he say?

&nbs
p; “Yes,” said Inspector Burdur from the doorway. “They were. And now you are please telling me who was here. I thinking you owing me that much, Mr. Trask…”

  21

  The Vampire Hunters, Memories out of Time

  FEELING SICK AND MORE THAN A LITTLE DIZZY, Trask followed Lardis and Burdur out of the shack. The dizziness (he told himself) was probably due to the fact that he’d been holding his breath from the moment he’d caught his first whiff of the place. Blood and death are like that—each has its own distinctive smell—and violent death is even more distinctive, and much more pungent. And you couldn’t get much more violent than this. Added to which both men had soiled themselves in the moments before they died, but only one had been in the right place to do so.

  “Well?” said Ali Bey Burdur, when they were out in the open again.

  Trask took the handkerchief from his mouth and put it away, and coughed for a moment or two to clear his throat before trying to speak. But the Old Lidesci—who in his lifetime on Sunside really had seen a lot worse than this, and all too often—strode across to the other members of the team and, in lowered tones, began to tell them something of what he’d seen.

  “Mr. Trask?” said Burdur. “Please, I need to understanding.”

  “I can’t tell you everything,” said Trask then. “It’s possible that my people back in London have already passed information to Turkish intelligence in Ankara, but I still don’t know what or how much.”

  “If not telling everythings, then telling somethings, eh? I must knowing, Mr. Trask. Those men in there, they are having the families.”

  “I understand,” Trask nodded. “And I’ll tell you all I can, which may not be much but better than nothing. Not about what’s gone but what might be coming.”

  “Something coming?” said Burdur anxiously. “I listening.”

  “But first our documents,” said Trask. “We need them stamped in order to cross the border. If we’re checked in Bulgaria without the proper authentication—”

  “I can dealing with that,” said Burdur. “These two men here are border officials. They came here to relieving the dead men. They will stamping your documents, giving you the visas. But I needing to know what is all about. I needing it now!”

  “Then listen carefully,” said Trask, “and when I’m finished ask me no more. Because what I’m going to tell you is all I can tell you. The people who did these things…no, the creatures who did these things—who killed Fletcher and the others, and who murdered the man who owned that car and these border guards—they carry a disease. But it’s a disease like none we’ve ever seen before, and it’s extremely virulent.”

  “A disease?” said Burdur. “A sickness? Then must be causing the madness, this disease. No sane peoples ever did things like this.”

  “That’s right,” said Trask. “They are insane, and in their madness they’ll cause others to go mad, too. And so it spreads. That’s why we have to track them down and destroy them.”

  “What of the dancing girls?” said Burdur. “They are having a part in this, right?”

  “They were victims,” said Trask. “Helpless victims. But by now the disease is in them, too. And there’s no helping them.”

  “This is something to do with the plague out of Asia,” said Burdur. “A new development—a new strain—am I right?”

  “No,” Trask shook his head. “It’s far worse than the plague out of Asia.”

  “But…how am I knowing this thing when I seeing it?” Ali Bey threw up his arms in frustration. “And is it in Turkey now, this horrible plague thing?”

  And Trask could only answer truthfully, for he felt certain now that it was in England. “It could be,” he said. And then he had an idea. “You have rabies here, don’t you?”

  “The rabies? Yes. Not so much now, but still here. What are you saying? That this thing is like the rabies?”

  “It’s…like rabies,” said Trask, “yes. But it isn’t carried or passed on by dogs.”

  “So, how is passed on?” Burdur was insistent, and Trask had gone too far now to turn back.

  “How is rabies passed on?” he said.

  “Eh?” Burdur frowned—and then he gasped. “You are saying that—they are biting? They are biting like the vampire? Like the old superstitions? The old legends? Ahhh!” His eyes bugged. “The anti-tikkies!”

  And Trask said nothing.

  “Is real?” Burdur’s dark skin was a shade paler. “Can I believing this thing?”

  Still Trask said nothing. But Burdur knew by simply looking at him that indeed it was the truth. And:

  “This happening in the night,” he said. “These many things, they all happening by night. The vampires, they were here! Like your man Lardis say—they were here!”

  “Will you see to our documents?” said Trask. “And give us a note to cover our lease on this vehicle’s use in Bulgaria?”

  “Yes, yes,” said the other, his eyes wide and almost vacant in the contemplation of unthinkable things. “Giving me the documents. The stamping, er, equipments—the rubber stamps—are in there.” He looked at the shack and shuddered uncontrollably. It lasted only a moment, and snapping out of it he gripped Trask’s arms and said, “You and your friends—what you are doing—you are the brave peoples, Mr. Trask. And I having somethings for you.” He went unsteadily to his car, and Trask followed him.

  “Is here,” said Burdur, bringing out a thin manila envelope from the glove compartment. “This arriving by fax in the night. Big Boss Security in Ankara is say me to expecting it. I am to putting in envelope and sealing, giving to you. But…I keeping till now to make bargain.” Averting his eyes, he offered an apologetic shrug. “Now…bargaining no longer required.”

  Trask took the envelope and said, “From?”

  “Your people in London, I thinks. Is coded.”

  “You did look at it, then?”

  Burdur blinked and answered, “Was the fax, Mr. Trask. How I not looking? But understanding, decoding, making into Turkish, I not doing. I hope is helping, or making easier your work.”

  “So do I,” said Trask. But somehow he didn’t think so.

  Ten minutes later, as the E-Branch party shook hands with Burdur, boarded the minibus and drove under the raised barrier into Bulgaria, distantly, from the south, the first mournful wail of sirens could be heard. An ambulance—in excess of requirement but at least a means of conveying the dead to the morgue—was on its way, plus a scenes-of-crime team called in by Burdur.

  As for the Inspector himself: he stood on the road to wave them farewell until they passed out of sight…

  In the minibus, sitting up front with Ian Goodly, Trask opened the envelope, glanced at the single sheet of encyphered paper, passed it back to Paul Garvey. “There’s a decoder in my briefcase,” he said. “When we hit a decent patch of road, type this up and see what comes out, will you?”

  And while Garvey worked laboriously and very uncomfortably at that, Trask turned to Goodly and said, “What now?”

  “What’s in store for us, do you mean?” The precog glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “I can take a stab at it, make a couple of guesses, attempt to extrapolate, if that will suffice. But as for reading the future: the more I think about it, the more my mind shrinks from it. And to be honest I think I’m losing it. It could be deliberate. Maybe I’ve been in this game too long. ‘I think, therefore I am?’ Maybe it’s a case of I think horrible things—wherefore I don’t want to think anymore.”

  “Huh!” Trask grunted. “And is this the same man who almost gave Lardis a telling-off for questioning why we’ve got to get on with this?”

  “No,” Goodly gave a curt shake of his head. “This is a man who’s sick to his stomach from seeing terrifying things, knowing that they’re coming, and not being able to do a damn thing about it. A man who sees things but is often unable to explain them, and who knows that one day he will see his own death and the deaths of his friends, and having seen them will know that
they’re inevitable and utterly unavoidable.”

  Trask thought on that awhile, then said, “I wasn’t trying to be flippant. And I’m sorry if that’s how it sounded. I just don’t want us to stagnate on the job, as it were. I don’t want horror to become commonplace. I want us to keep working at it, eventually to defeat it.”

  “It’s okay,” Goodly answered. “And you know I’m dedicated, too. It’s just that sometimes it feels like a no-win situation. We’ve lost too many friends down the years, Ben. Too many loved ones. And this battle we’re fighting, it seems endless. I mean, after all we’ve done we’re no further forward. Normally we take two steps forward and one back, except this time it’s beginning to feel like two forward and three back! We’re not winning this one.”

  And from the rear of the vehicle, “Which means we’ve got to try that much harder,” Lardis Lidesci growled, no longer questioning but firm in his resolve.

  “England might be contaminated,” Goodly reminded him, without looking back. “And what of Australia, Turkey, Krassos? Contaminated, yes, with a growing infestation. Not by the Wamphyri—not yet—but victims of the Wamphyri, common vampires such as all those poor people on the Evening Star. Not by creatures who recognize the importance of remaining anonymous, but by people who don’t know what they’re becoming, who can’t possibly understand these strange new forces and emotions that they feel driving them ever more strongly, hideously on. And eventually, when they succumb, when they discover their unbelievable strength and monstrous hunger…what then?”

  “Every man for himself,” said Paul Garvey, still trying to type the encrypted message into Trask’s decoder. And:

  “I Am Legend,” said Millie, quietly.

  “What’s that?” Trask looked back at her.

  “The title of a book I read a long time ago,” she answered. “It was science fiction, or fantasy, horror: a nightmarish romance about the last man in a world converted to vampirism. The once-hero was now the menace; he was the legendary monster!”