by steve higgs
‘But on Twilight they do,' Basic pointed out, clinging to the idea like a life raft in a stormy sea.
‘Twilight is a load of twaddle for teenage girls,’ answered Big Ben knowingly.
‘Oh, really?’ Poison looked less than impressed by his generalisation.
Time was ticking on, so I wanted this show to get on the actual road. ‘Okay, chaps' I said breaking the moment. ‘We can continue the discussion afterward if you like but we need to go. Basic don't worry about Werewolves. I give you my personal guarantee that there won’t be any.' I felt safe in my promise as there is no such thing.
Thirty seconds later we were back in the cars and heading out of the car park.
The Kent Vampires were meeting at their clubhouse, which was in a small village called Boxley, just outside Maidstone. I had driven through Boxley a few times without really noticing it. It was just another suburb of Maidstone which I had gone through plenty of times but never once stopped in.
The lane the vampire clubhouse sat on was not a place I had ever heard of and had been forced to google it just to track down its location. The flyer had a postcode and we found the place easily enough just by following the verbal instruction from the satnav.
And then all hell broke loose.
Death by Fire. Monday, September 27th 1948hrs
The lane leading to what the satnav claimed was the destination was narrow with a flat grass verge about five feet wide that was probably littered with bluebells in the summer. Tall thin trees had grown on both sides to form a canopy. The trees cut out all the light from the moon and stars which made it unnaturally dark. There were cars lining both sides of the lane, half-on, half-off the road where they had pulled onto the grassy verge to leave sufficient space for cars to still pass.
As we passed the cars the road curved slightly, and we began to see dancing light between the trees. The dancing light was flames and I think we all realised this at the same time as I felt the others stiffen when I did as if the action were synchronised.
‘I've got a bad feeling about this.' Big Ben murmured as we came around the trees and into the clearing that contained the clubhouse.
The clubhouse was a wooden building that was double height, but probably single story inside and might once have been a church hall. There were brick footings to perhaps three feet off the ground then the rest was timber and looked to be in a well-kept condition. Windows could be seen on the front and one side from light reflecting off them, but there was no light coming from within that I could see.
What was happening was not immediately clear, but the building was on fire all along one side and as we watched, two guys doused the other side with fuel from a jerry can. As Jagjit hit the brakes and we started to pile out I saw one of them throw a match and felt the pull of air as the fuel caught. The fire leapt into life. Now the building was burning on two sides.
As the fire went up, it illuminated the far side of the clearing and I saw, clear as anything, Vermont Wensdale, and his two flunkies silhouetted against the trees. There was no way I was wrong. That the crazy idiot has caused this with his stupid reward offer did not surprise me, that he was here in person though was a shock. I had taken him for deluded rather than dangerous or irresponsible.
‘Come out, vampires,’ yelled someone now silhouetted in the flames not twenty feet from me. My attention swung back to the burning building. I could see maybe twenty guys all holding bats or… Christ, could I see people holding stakes?
All this took half a second, as what we were seeing became obvious very quickly. These guys were burning the vampires out of their barn and the people inside were going to burn to death if no one did anything.
I could not tell if there was anyone in the barn, however, before I could decide what to do the door opened and two vampire-wannabes made a run for it. They were met by at least half a dozen men with bats and we saw the spray of blood from a mouth as they were both tackled. The door had snapped shut again but I heard a window smash, possibly from the side that I could not see. Was it someone breaking out, or one of the attackers trying to get in?
‘Let's go!' yelled Big Ben and he was gone, already running towards the men outside the barn. I waved for the others to stay where they were and took off after him. He was several paces ahead of me and I saw him pile into two guys with a hard shoulder. As they went sprawling, he swung a haymaker at a third guy who seemed stunned to be on the receiving end suddenly. He went down like his on-switch had just been turned to off. As Big Ben moved to the fourth guy, I could see he was going to get him, but lose to the fifth who was already beginning to swing what looked like a sharpened crowbar.
The two that Big Ben had already taken out were on the floor, but both were starting to get up. I leapt the nearest one gaining some height as I did and drove a knee into the face of guy number five before he could complete his backswing. As we went down, I ripped the crowbar from his hand and threw it away.
It had become a melee though in the space of a few seconds. I took a glancing kick to the jaw from one of the chaps on the ground as he struggled to get away. Doubtless, he had no idea nor any care about who was who in the dark.
As I rolled over Frank appeared above me and held out his hand to help me up.
‘Get back to the car and get out of here, Frank.’ Frank looked panicked, but he shook his head and helped me up.
It was of little use though as I was bundled back onto the dirt with a tackle that knocked the wind out of me. I tasted dirt and leaf litter as my mouth dug into the ground. I think Big Ben kicked the guy tackling me at that point though as he jerked violently and rolled away. As I fought for breath and to work out which way was up, I saw a whole platoon converging on where I lay. The fight had come to us.
There must be twenty of them I calculated, all dressed in various dark clothes. Some in decent looking combat or tactical gear, but most were wearing jeans and hoodies. It didn't matter what they were wearing, I thought to myself as I calculated the chances of survival. We were five in total, including Frank, who weighed seventy kilos if he ate a good breakfast and Poison who weighed less than that.
The barn was now fully ablaze on both sides with flames licking at the roof and spreading around to the front of the building. There the door, and possibly the only exit in such an old building, was positioned. The door burst open at that moment, allowing a hoard of angry, frightened vampire-wannabes to escape. With the attackers' attention on us, they had seized their chance to get out and were now heading straight for the mob and therefore right for us.
As I watched, I could see that leading the charge was none other than Obsidian Dark. He was wearing the same rig he had been in three days ago at the cottage in Aylesford. I thought I recognised one or two others. They were running but also stumbling and coughing from the smoke that must have filled the space they had just escaped from. Their eyes were streaming and making their overuse of makeup comical as it ran down their faces - the effect on some of them somewhat like a tearful teenage girl.
The mob attacking the vampire-wannabe clubhouse reached our position just as Frank hauled me off the ground for the second time. They were slowing though, their attention drawn by the yells from the vampire-wannabes. Obsidian bellowed a feral battle scream as he ran at the mob. His hair and long black leather duster were flapping behind him as he ran towards us, leaving a trail of diminishing smoke. He was unarmed, so far as I could see, but seemingly unconcerned about such trivial detail.
The yell from Obsidian drew the attention of any that had not yet noticed the latest peril.
In the clearing, the noise of the fire now engulfing the barn was deafening but his voice rose above the surrounding din and was joined by his fellow vampire-wannabes as they met with the nearest members of the mob. Big Ben seized his chance to rip a bat from the hands of a much shorter man whose attention was now focused away from us. A fast kick to the back of his knee and a chopping downwards thrust with the end of the bat put the man on the floor. Suddenly th
e mob was being attacked on two fronts and was outnumbered.
In the darkness, with staccato punctuations of dancing light from the fire, utter confusion reigned. The effect was much akin to a strobe light at a club as flashes illuminating nanoseconds of movement. I grabbed a man in front of me from behind and threw him to the floor, but it was too dangerous to follow him down with further blows.
I looked around for my team, wanting to get them out of the melee and to safety. Though only a minute or so had passed since we arrived, I had seen no one on fire and heard no one screaming in the agony that being burned provides. I clung to the hope that there was no one still inside. Anyone who had not yet escaped the clubhouse was surely lost.
I glimpsed Poison then, easy to see with her diminutive, athletic form. She was being helped off the soil by two vampires. It looked like she had rolled in a puddle.
Someone grabbed my shoulder and I span to react and found Jagjit heaving for breath behind me. He bent over at that point and threw up. ‘We need to get out of here,’ he insisted between gulps of air.
He was right, but that had already been my consideration. We just needed to find everyone first.
‘Get the car, mate. I'll find the others.' Just then I heard the sweet, blissful noise of sirens coming our way. Who had placed the call did not matter. It might have been one of the vampires from within the burning barn. If so, then the sirens would be both police and fire brigade and probably ambulance as well.
Jagjit turned towards the lane that led into the clearing and stumbled off at a lope clearly in some discomfort. We could lick our wounds later.
I looked for Big Ben, Basic, Frank, and Poison again and saw that the number of people visible in the clearing had reduced greatly. My guess was that some of them had fled and as I thought that I heard car engines start back out on the lane.
A girl screamed. I turned towards the sound to see three guys in combat gear dragging Poison off. They were ten metres distant and moving away from me. She was being held off the ground but was putting up quite a fight, thrashing her little arms and legs. As I started to run towards her, I had to jump one guy who was lying inert on the ground and then around two more who were tussling over a bat. I saw her break one of her legs free and proceed to kick the guy who had been holding it in the face. With that, he lost his grip on her other leg and she fell to the floor.
The loss of forward motion meant I caught up to them instantly. I threw myself over Poison and into the two guys who were still holding her arms.
‘Tempest, they are after the reward money,’ I heard Poison shout. ‘These idiots think I am a vampire and can tell them something they can use.’
I was on the floor, rolling to my side and off the one man I had landed on. I felt dazed and beaten and my lungs were beginning to really struggle from the exertion.
‘The reward is ours, bitch. Tell us what you know,' shouted the one she had kicked in the face. Having not learned a lesson he was trying to grab her feet again.
Then I was thrown to the ground for what must have been the sixth or seventh time as I was tackled hard from behind. Yet again I tasted dirt and breathed in insects, leaf litter and goodness know what. There was a weight on my back, I registered a knee pushing into my spine, pinning me to the floor. My arms were free though, allowing me to scramble for purchase, so I could flip the latest assailant off. My left arm was wrenched behind me as I tried to move though, and I felt the cool hardness of steel as a cuff slammed into place over my left wrist.
Then I could hear voices shouting commands and as I looked up there were police in uniform rounding up mob crazies and vampire-wannabes alike. Somewhere in there was my team too.
I glanced to my left to see Poison lying on the dirt just a couple of feet from me. The guy that had been holding her was now face down on the ground and handcuffed like me. She had a little blood in the corner of her mouth but was sitting up onto her elbows to look around.
‘Stay there, don’t move.’ A cop told her as he hauled the guy next to her onto his feet and led him away into the clearing proper where the police were beginning to gather.
The weight on my back shifted and a voice close to my right ear said, ‘I'm going to get you up now, but I can put you down again so behave yourself. There is nowhere to go.' It was Amanda. I could tell instantly from the faint scent of her perfume which had found its way to my nose. Even in these circumstances, it went straight to my groin without involving my brain.
‘Hello, Amanda,’ I said. She froze and spun me around, so she could see my face. I guess she had seen someone to tackle and had tackled them. Having taken me from behind and knocked me into the dirt she had not had the chance to notice that she knew the guy she was sitting on.
‘Tempest what are you doing here and why were you attacking that girl?’
‘He wasn’t. He was helping me. He was trying to fight three guys by himself to save me.’ Poison interjected helpfully. It sounded much better coming from her.
Amanda seemed satisfied with Poison's explanation and helped me to stand. The cuffs stayed on though.
We joined the group now forming in the centre of the clearing. The fire brigade was already putting out the fire, the scent of wet wood now replacing that of burning wood. The smoke had dissipated and with the fire out the roar it had provided was noticeably absent. However, the fire engine had a compressor running to pump the water and there were several nearby vehicles with their engines running and a background mumble of conversation between the assembled police and their captives punctuated irregularly by the squawk of a radio, so it was far from silent.
Jagjit, Frank, Basic and Big Ben were already there as were perhaps twenty-five others which meant that a lot of the vampires and many of the mob had escaped, either before the cops arrived, or into the woods where they might be hiding still. I looked around hopefully for Vermont and his two goons but there was no sign of them.
Paramedics from two ambulances were treating several people, the slowly revolving blue lights on their ambulance illuminating the clearing and everyone in it as they turned. The injuries looked mostly superficial, which is to say that I could not see any blankets draped over bodies and no one appeared to have a stake sticking out of their chest.
Obsidian was being led over to the group from the ambulances now. He had a bandage around his head and blood covering most of one side of his face. He was instructed to kneel, and when he resisted the gentle pressure being applied to his shoulder, he was nudged hard in the back of his knees and pushed roughly to the ground. He gave the cop his best angry face, but then noticed he was next to one of the mob that had set fire to his clubhouse and threw himself bodily at the man. Obsidians hands were cuffed behind his back like everyone else, so he was trying to head-butt or bite the guy.
Two cops grabbed his shoulders and hauled him back. ‘Don't mix the groups, you moron,' instructed a sergeant. ‘The ones dressed like vampires go over there.'
Obsidian caught sight of me as they hauled him back to his feet. His eyes bugged out of his head. ‘You! I'm gonna kill you! You, maniac!' with that he lunged towards me and the two police officers holding him lost their grip. He pitched forward and stumbled. Unable to move his feet fast enough to stay upright, his trajectory, however out of control, was sufficient to get him the few metres he needed to land on top of me. I was on my knees already and could just not move fast enough to get out of the way.
Had I been able to react quicker, I might have been able to roll onto my back and get my feet out to parry him. Now though I was pinned under him as he was trying to get to my face.
‘You dirty murdering git. You are going to die, you and all your kin! I will bathe in your soul,’ he was screaming, and he was mad, like apoplectic mad, but he just told me something I wanted to know. There was no way it was a coincidence that he had used the same phrase as Ambrogio, so he must be involved with him somehow.
The police had caught hold of him again and were lifting him off me. With his hands
tied he could do little but swing wild kicks at me until they forced him back to the ground using the cuffs to overstress his shoulder joints. Once back under control, Obsidian was dragged away still swearing and threatening death to all. I could see there were two distinct groups and we were in with the mob.
‘We are not with these guys,’ I shouted to the sergeant.
‘He doesn’t care, Tempest,’ replied Big Ben. ‘I told him that already.’
‘Hey, Sarge,’ I tried again but he continued to ignore me.
‘Everyone is going to the station, Tempest,’ said Amanda. ‘It’s the only way we can sort this out.’
I could see it from their point of view. A building on fire, multiple attempted murders, probable arson, people assaulted and no idea what the hell was going on. I would have arrested everyone too. A short while passed and we were loaded into vans under guard and taken to Maidstone police station.
Maidstone Police Station. Monday, September 27th 2051hrs
It was after 2000hrs and we were at the station. It had not taken long for the police to sort us into different groups. I was ushered into a room where I found Big Ben and Frank. A few minutes later we were joined by Jagjit, Basic and finally Poison. There were chairs and a table and a jug of water with plastic cups in the room but little else. We could hear conversation drifting through the walls. However, it was not loud enough to make out what anyone was saying.
I was not particularly worried about our situation. I could not come up with anything we could be charged with and therefore it should only be a matter of time before we were released. I wanted to leave now of course. Hunger, boredom and the desire to get my friends out of this awful predicament all fighting for dominance in order of priority.
I settled into a chair much as the others already had. Our phones had been taken along with all other personal effects. It was a good thing we didn't carry illegal weapons as a matter of policy as our incarceration might have stretched far longer.