by steve higgs
‘Christ! Are you alright, mister?’ asked a young voice from a few feet away.
It was followed by, ‘Come away, Tommy.’ From a woman’s voice.
I must look like a drunk rolling in the street. I forced myself to turn the right way up. Tommy was still looking back over his shoulder from between his parents as they guided him away.
‘Are you okay?’ asked a voice by my ear. I turned my head to see a set of men’s feet and looked up. He offered me his hand and helped me off the floor.
‘Thank you.’ I looked back up at my office on the first floor just as one of the windows cracked and flames licked out and upwards.
‘Fire!’ shouted a woman’s voice from somewhere behind me.
The crowd had spotted it now. People drawn by the spectacle were gathering at a safe distance. The man that had helped me to my feet was now tugging at my jacket, trying to pull me back as if he was concerned I might try to go back in to the burning building. I pulled away but offered him my hand to shake in thanks.
The office was gone. Nothing would escape the fire, but I had bigger issues. I needed to find Deadface and the rest of the Klowns and beat them to death. I started towards the Castle with the man calling me back and asking where I thought I was going. I rudely ignored him.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, thankful that I hadn't lost it in the scuffle upstairs. Who should I call? I had not the time or patience to explain this to the Police, so I called Amanda. As I did so, I was jogging through the crowd, sticking to the buildings where there were less people. I wanted to get to Frank and Poison. If they were here, they were in danger and were probably oblivious to it.
Amanda's phone continued to ring with no answer. I rounded the corner by the North Gate, so the Cathedral was now to my left and the Castle dead ahead of me. There were stalls set out all over. Frank and Poison were here somewhere, but there must be a hundred stalls and at least ten thousand people. I cut the phone off and shoved it back in my pocket. Then I pulled it out again, there was someone else I wanted to call.
He answered immediately. I had to cut him off as he started talking and I had no time to listen. I explained what I needed, listened as he promised to do what he could and I disconnected.
Frank's shop was behind me now as I came into the Castle grounds. I was betting they were at this end of the event. The Cathedral bell tower chimed for 2000hrs just as a PA from the stage delivered a short burst of feedback and an announcer started talking, welcoming one and all to the first annual Rochester Blood Fest.
The Big Fight. Friday, October 28th 2000hrs
I spotted Poison's blue hair through the crowd. An overhead light caught it for a split second. She was serving a customer, handing over a bag and smiling at them. Probably wishing them a horror-filled night or something. Their stall was facing towards me, comic books and memorabilia adorning the canvas rear wall and all over the table top front counter. It was sandwiched between a stall selling t-shirts and clothing, where I could see a pair of heavily tattooed and pierced ladies making a killing and a stall selling hospital blood bags that contained some kind of vodka cocktail. I barged through a small gap, heading directly towards Poison, then saw the grey hood step through the back of the stall where the canvas overlapped.
Back in the street, I could hear a fire engine making its way towards my office. The sound of its siren was bouncing off the walls of the old town's buildings, making its location hard to pinpoint but it was there somewhere.
‘Poison!' I bellowed at the top of my lungs. The sound was absorbed by the crowd around me. In my haste, I shoved a man over and left him behind me as I moved to the next obstacle. Ahead of me, Deadface lifted both hands above his head, a knife gleaming in each of them. The customer she was serving pointed to behind Poison, laughing just as the blades began to descend.
She thought it was all part of the evening’s entertainment!
Poison turned, screamed and ducked out of the way. I was nearly there. The twin blades dug into comic books on the front on the stall, piercing several of them which then came away attached to the knives when he yanked them back out of the wood.
Poison darted under his arms, kicking him in his side as she went. The customer, a young woman with her boyfriend was watching and enjoying the show. With three paces left until I would reach the stall, a gap in the crowd finally appeared. Deadface was chasing Poison and did not see me coming. I took two fast strides and leaped across the counter to tackle him around the waist.
I collided as much with Frank as I did Deadface though as he beat Deadface back with a shield he had produced from beneath the counter. The three of us went down to the floor which was about as dangerous as it could get. I had no idea where the knives were in relation to my body, but I had hold of something, so I hit it as hard as I could. I received a kick to the face that shoved me to one side. There was light above my face suddenly.
I looked up to see an arm with a cruel knife in it swinging towards me. Then the shield came over my eyes to deflect the blade with an audible clang. Frank had saved me! The shield swung up again smacking into Deadface's head. He went backward with the blow, following the motion and falling out through the back of the stall.
My phone started ringing.
I could hear clapping also. The damned crowd still thought it was a show! There were calls of bravo as Frank pulled me off the floor. I darted after Deadface but there was no sign of him, he had slipped away into the crowd. I could not pursue him alone and I knew he was after my friends. Back inside the stall, I pulled Frank into a bro hug and patted him hard on the back. We were hip deep in trouble again. Behind Frank, Poison was kneeling on the grass straining hard to pull something out from underneath the counter. Whatever it was had some size and weight to it.
‘A hand here?' she asked, looking at Frank and me.
The crowd that had been stood in front of the stall were now beginning to disperse since there was no more street theatre to watch. Frank leaned down and together with Poison hauled out a large, solid oak-looking chest. It had a convincing padlock on the front hasp.
My phone rang again. I pulled it from my pocket while in front of me Frank was patting his pockets, he finally produced a large key from one of them.
Amanda’s name was displayed on my caller ID. ‘Amanda, we have Klowns at the Castle in Rochester. I need units here as soon as you can mobilize them. Deadface is here.’
‘I know, Tempest. I am on my way there already. The Klowns have attacked the Police that were assigned to you and all the others in uniform that were on duty at the event.’
‘The ones assigned…? Hold on. What are you talking about Amanda?' There had been Police following me? For what purpose?
‘Look, Tempest. I don’t have time to argue. Quinn thought you were the most likely target for the Klowns and has been having you watched and tailed for the last few days. The two plain-clothes guys were found fifteen minutes ago in an alleyway near your office. Both had been stabbed.’
That prick Quinn. He had lied to me and set me up.
‘Amanda, you knew about this didn't you?' I demanded. I was already angry, Klowns had tried to kill me or someone I knew twice in the last few minutes, my office was destroyed, my dogs had been taken goodness knows where and now I find out that Amanda and the Police have been using me as bait. She hadn't answered. ‘Tell me the damned truth.' I shouted down the phone.
‘Tempest…' she trailed off. I disconnected. I had other things to focus on.
A scream lit the air. A few feet away a woman laughed having jumped at the sound of the scream. Her boyfriend was laughing at her. It was all very funny.
At my feet, Frank got the chest opened and showed me what he had inside. It was an arsenal. There were swords. There were knives of all sizes and shapes. There was a crossbow. There was a double-headed axe, FFS! Knuckle dusters, a taser or two. No firearms, but there was one item I was quite familiar with. I had used it just last weekend when dealing with the zombie hoard.
<
br /> ‘I threw that in at the last minute.’ Frank said. ‘I thought you might be pleased to see it again.’
I grinned as he handed it to me. I hefted it again, feeling the familiar weight. All I needed now was a Klown to hit with it. ‘My question, Frank, has to be, why do you have a chest full of medieval weapons under the counter of your stall?’
‘It seemed like a good idea.’ he answered with a shrug. ‘There have been so many Klown attacks, and they have come after you twice already…’
There was another scream and then another and suddenly the crowd woke up to the Klowns in their midst and started trying to get away. I heard a chainsaw somewhere. The screams were everywhere now, the crowd shoving each other in a bid to be somewhere else. The herd mentality was knocking over stalls and I saw opportunistic thieves grabbing things as they went past.
The people would be gone soon, they were running away from the Castle grounds and disappearing through the ancient North Gate in front of me. ‘Guys this is not a safe position.’ Frank and Poison were listening. ‘We need to keep the Klowns here until the people have escaped. They are after us.’
‘Why?’ asked Poison.
‘Yeah, why?’ echoed Frank.
‘Remember Obsidian the vampire-wannabe?’ The colour drained from Poison’s face as she remembered being kidnapped and drugged by him.
‘He reinvented himself as the head Klown and has been systematically going after everyone that has ever done him any wrong. At least that is what I think is happening. I am right at the top of his kill list and by association so are you two and all my other friends.’
They were both quiet for a moment, then Poison fixed me with her eyes. ‘So, what is your plan, Tempest. You always have a plan. There are a ton of them and three of us and I do not feel like getting carved up with a chainsaw tonight. Do we run?’
I looked up and around us at the crowd of people fleeing the Castle grounds. It was oddly comic to watch in that everyone was going as fast as they could but there were so many people that they mostly had to walk… so they were screaming... and not running away. Through a gap in the press of people, I saw a face I recognised. Deadface was fifty yards away staring at me. He had shucked the grey hood, but it was that fact that he was motionless that made him stand out, not the garish clothing and face paint he wore. I spotted another Klown and, now that I was looking, yet another. They were forming a perimeter around us. We needed to get away from the stall. It had poor fields of vision over what I had to now consider as the battlefield and provided zero as a defensive position. We were armed, but I had to expect the Klowns would be also, and they outnumbered us. Badly.
‘If we run, they will chase us and most likely hurt more innocent people as they try to get to us. We need to wait for the crowd to thin, then lead them away from here and into somewhere that we can defend ourselves a little better. The Police will be here soon enough and will send armed units I am sure. This is what we need to do…' I outlined a rough plan that I hoped would keep all of us alive.
From just behind me I heard a voice. ‘Need a hand, fellas?’ asked Big Ben nonchalantly. Poison, Frank and I turned as one to find him leaning against the upright of the stall. He was grinning and had on his black combat gear. ‘I thought I might find you here.’
‘Ben where did you come from?’ I asked, disbelief that he was here in my voice.
‘I was on a date with a couple of girls.’ A couple of girls. Obviously. ‘The bar we were in was evacuated because of a fire a couple of doors along, which turned out to be your office. I guessed that you would be here somewhere and most likely in trouble, so I sent the girls home, grabbed my gear from the boot of my car and grabbed an extra set of armour for you.’ He lifted his right arm and chucked a set of black Kevlar body armour over to me.
‘You, my friend. Are a sight for sore eyes.’ Big Ben. Six feet seven inches of well trained, muscular, barely suppressed violence. ‘How’s the wound?’
‘For now, it is insignificant.' he replied. I knew what he meant, I felt the same way about my ribs. We were in a fight whether we liked it or not, the Klowns would use our injuries against us if they knew about them so we might as well ignore them and get on with the job.
‘Hey, that’s Jagjit.’ said Frank, pointing.
We followed his indication. Sure enough, Jagjit was hurriedly escorting Alice away from all the danger. She had a large fluffy toy tucked under her right arm. Big Ben went after him, calling that he would be back in a minute.
The crowd of people was almost gone. Thankfully the Klowns, visible here and there, were mostly ignoring everyone else. They were here for us. A few bewildered souls, those less mobile or less able were still heading away from the area we were in. Soon it would be just us and the Klowns, which meant they were contained. The Police would be here soon enough, so all we had to do was hold them off or keep them here for a short while.
‘We should move, yes?' asked Poison. She was dressed in her usual style of black, tight, distressed clothing with layers to keep her warm. The fringe of her black hair was cut at an improbable angle to sweep from left to right over her eyes with a band of bright blue running beneath the upper layer so that it peeked out here and there as her hair moved. It looked to be a costly effect to achieve. She looked good though. Tough and athletic and somehow at home with the short swords she had in each hand. Next to her, Frank was still rooting through the chest of weapons trying to find something he liked. The shield he had used was strapped to his left forearm already like a knight. I half expected him to pull out some chain mail and a giant mace. Instead, he selected a double-headed axe.
‘Yes, Poison. We should move. Get one of the buildings to our backs.’
I could hear sirens in the distance. Lots of them.
Good.
‘Hold on, Tempest.’ called Frank from the floor. ‘This might be useful.’ I looked down and sure enough Frank was hauling several sets of chain mail from the bottom of the chest and he had a couple of steel helmets to go with it. The helmets looked to have been designed in the twelfth century with the steel extending down over the cheeks and neck and a bar that came down over the nose. They looked heavy.
Poison took a chain mail and slipped it over her head and arms.
‘Tempest Michaels.’ Deadface called out loudly to me.
Frank, Poison and I all looked in the same direction. He had our attention. ‘It is time to die.’
Then the Klowns came. The Police or anyone else who might have been able to help us were somewhere else still. I heard a chainsaw, it might even be two chainsaws, coming towards us and could see at least twenty Klowns. The numbers were not good.
I threw the front counter of the stall out of our way. It clattered upside-down, scattering comic books which flapped in the light breeze as we stepped over them. The Klowns were walking slowly towards us, closing the circle. We were in the middle of it. Time to change that.
With a battle cry, I ran to my right dragging Poison and Frank with me. There were alleyways all over the old part of Rochester. We just needed to get to the Cathedral and we could get into a position that was at least defendable.
Ahead of us were Klowns. They had formed a circle of sorts so no matter which direction we went there would be some of them in our way. Their intention had most likely been to corral us and close the circle so that Deadface could either kill us himself or watch us being killed. By attacking them instead, we changed the game. The Klowns were starting to react though. We were running straight towards one of them but to his left and right were two more that were less than ten metres away. All of them were moving in our direction but it was only these three that I needed to get through to escape the circle. What we could not afford was to get caught up fighting them for more than a few seconds or the horde would descend on us.
I had covered twenty metres and was almost upon the first Klown. He looked familiar like maybe he was one of those that had attacked me last Saturday night. He was about my height and weight t
hough and he was just standing his ground trying to look tough when he should have been backing off. Had he done so the two Klowns from his left and right would converge on us as we reached him. Instead, I closed the distance with Poison and Frank on my heels and watched with glee as Big Ben and Jagjit hit him over the head with a steel trash bin. He had been raising his arm to swing at me with the machete he was holding, the chaps came from behind him at a run with the bin, their timing perfect as we were able to continue running with no break in our pace at all as the Klown crumpled unconscious on the floor.
There was yelling behind us. I risked a glance over my shoulder. The Klowns were all converging on us, but the circle they had tried to trap us in had placed those on the far side almost fifty metres away from where we now were. They were running but we had several seconds before we would be outnumbered.
I changed the tactic again. I wanted to attack.
‘Ben. Go right!' I shouted, grabbing Frank and Poison and pushing them along with me. The five of us suddenly had Klowns to our front all coming our way one at a time. The Klowns behind us would be a problem soon enough but not so soon that we could not pick a few off.
It was time to even the numbers a little.
The first Klown had his face painted into a cruel and twisted expression that looked like someone had roughly sewn his mouth and eyes shut. He had a blade in each hand and heavy workman's boots on. He was a big man, heavy around the shoulders and chest and he was running at us. Our change in direction caught him off guard though as without warning the gap he was trying to close disappeared. Big Ben punched him in the face before he could even raise his knives, then barrelled through him sending him to the ground where Jagjit kicked him square in the side of his head.
The next Klown saw what had happened and came to a halt, but it was far too late to avoid the blunt force trauma of Big Ben. The Klown had a baseball bat that he managed to swing, only to find that Big Ben caught it with one massive hand. Right on his shoulder, I will admit that I took great pleasure in trying to remove the Klown's head with my own weapon.