by Preston, Ken
‘Haven’t been allowed,’ Kirstin whispered.
‘That’s a shame, you’d believe in vampires all right if you had been.’
The vampire disappeared around the corner.
‘I thought they couldn’t come out in the light?’ Kirstin whispered as they began slowly walking down the corridor.
‘That’s sunlight, not indoor lighting,’ Choudhry said. ‘And in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s dark outside now.’
They both slowed as they reached the turning in the corridor. Choudhry looked back at the others following.
‘Give us space!’ he hissed. ‘If we need to run, I don’t want you lot in my way.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Peterson said. He was a constable, tall and gangly with a bad case of acne scarring on his cheeks.
‘You got some cuffs on you?’ Choudhry said.
‘Yeah.’ Peterson handed his handcuffs over. ‘You going to try and cuff her?’
‘Maybe,’ Choudhry said.
‘She’ll shred you to pieces,’ Kirstin said.
‘Yeah, thanks for that piece of advice,’ Choudhry said.
They had both reached the turning in the corridor. They hung back, reluctant to make themselves visible. Choudhry heard a soft moaning and a knocking.
‘What’s she doing?’ Kirstin whispered.
‘How the hell should I know?’ Choudhry said. ‘Why don’t you go down there and ask her yourself?’
Kirstin glared at Choudhry and then quickly stepped out from behind the wall. She stared down the corridor for a moment and then beckoned to Choudhry to join her. Taking a deep breath he stepped up beside her.
The vampire had her back to them. She was pressed up against the door to the mortuary, the palms of her hands flat against it. She was smearing blood over the gunship grey metal in red streaks. Just beside her on the wall was the keypad that unlocked the door.
‘Is she bleeding?’ Kirstin whispered.
Choudhry shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
There was more knocking, becoming frantic and louder. Choudhry realised it was from the other side of the door. The vampires in the mortuary were gathering, trying to get out. As if they knew one of their own was here to set them free.
Choudhry looked at the cuffs he had taken from Peterson. Now was the moment to use them, while the vampire was distracted, her back to them. But he had seen the other vampires in the mortuary, seen what they did to Johnson when that girl Julie Carter escaped. A wave of cold flushed through his chest and stomach.
Maybe it would be better to concentrate on evacuating the building, getting everyone safe and then waiting for the ARV to turn up. Let them deal with it.
The vampire twisted around to face them, her face contorted in a snarl. Choudhry heard movement behind him as everyone moved back a step.
‘The key,’ the vampire said. ‘Where is the key?’
To Choudhry her voice sounded like stones being rattled around in a clay pot.
‘Everyone back up,’ he said. ‘But do it slowly, keep your eyes on her.’
They had been stupid, all of them. They should have got out. Instead they had followed the vampire like a bunch of children following Mickey Mouse at Disneyland.
‘Open the door,’ the vampire said, advancing upon them.
Choudhry heard gasps and movement. People were getting out of the way, running back up the stairs. He didn’t blame them. Kirstin stayed by his side.
‘We can’t let you do that,’ Choudhry said.
‘You will do as I tell you,’ the vampire replied.
Now she was a little closer Choudhry could see her face was covered in talcum powder, and heavy, clumsily applied makeup. Her tongue flicked out and she licked her rouged lips. Choudhry caught a flash of teeth, the incisors pointed and unnaturally long.
She walked closer, her eyes flitting from Choudhry to Kirstin and back again.
‘Let’s back up,’ Choudhry said quietly. ‘But keep your eyes on her.’
Choudhry had barely finished his sentence before the vampire leapt at them. She seemed to fly down the corridor, her mouth twisted in a snarl. As Choudhry and Kirstin both turned to run, they smacked into each other, their legs getting entangled and they both fell over.
The vampire was on top of them before they could move.
Kirstin kicked out, screaming in the vampire’s face.
The moaning and the cries from behind the mortuary door grew in volume, along with the insistent pounding on the door.
The vampire picked Kirstin up and threw her away as though she weighed nothing. Choudhry was vaguely aware of hearing her cry out as she tumbled along the floor and smacked into a wall. The vampire was on top of him, her twisted face close to his. He could smell blood and death on her, could see flecks of flesh in the gaps in her teeth. Her pink, pointed tongue flicked out and caressed his cheek.
‘The key,’ she whispered.
Choudhry twisted his face away. Where the hell was that ARV?
‘There is no key,’ he said through gritted teeth.
The vampire leaned closer. Her teeth brushed his throat, the incisors nicking the flesh.
The mortuary door crashed open. The vampire snapped her head up and Choudhry saw, through a cloud of fluttering wings and dark bodies, the other vampires flooding from the mortuary. He caught a glimpse of his colleague Malcolm Crouch, his emaciated frame barely covered in tattered, ripped clothing.
Choudhry snapped his eyes shut and for the first time in many years he prayed to Allah for help. Feet kicked and pounded him as the vampires ran over him. A wave of cold swept across him along with the stink of their flesh.
Choudhry thought he might die, but within a few seconds it was over and he could hear the vampires scrambling up the stairs, could hear the screams of his colleagues and the scattered shouts of warnings to get out of the vampires’ way.
Eyes still screwed tight closed, Choudhry screamed when he felt hands gripping and pulling at him.
‘It’s me, it’s me Kirstin!’
Choudhry snapped his eyes open. Kirstin looked like she had been slapped across the left side of her face where an angry bruise had blossomed, the swelling closing her eye.
The vampires had gone. So had the bats.
‘Oh shit,’ he gasped. ‘I thought I was dead.’
Kirstin sank to the floor, her back against a wall. She was shaking.
‘What happened?’ Choudhry said. ‘How the hell did they get out?’
‘It was me,’ Kirstin said. ‘I let them out.’
‘You did what?’
‘She was going to kill you. I had to do something.’
Choudhry closed his eyes again.
‘I did the right thing, didn’t I?’ Kirstin said. ‘What else could I have done? She was going to rip you apart. But when I saw them, when they came out . . .’
‘I know, I know,’ Choudhry said.
‘I never realised.’
Shouts from upstairs.
The ARV had arrived.
‘It’s all right,’ Choudhry said. ‘It’s over now.’
‘But it isn’t,’ Kirstin said. ‘It isn’t over at all. It’s just starting again.’
a cool two million
A man dressed up as a woman tottered across the stage on high heeled, thigh length boots. Tight leather mini skirt, gold lame crop top revealing a defiantly masculine, hairy stomach, blond fright wig and the most appalling makeup Gilligan had ever seen. He/she looked more like something out of a zombie movie than a nightclub act.
Gilligan and Shaw were sat at the back of the club. They watched Duchess Swallows totter off the stage to some half-hearted applause and boos.
‘What the hell was that?’ Gilligan said.
‘Fuck knows,’ Shaw said.
Gilligan took a pull on his pint of Guinness and grimaced. ‘Bloody hell but this is shite, this is.’
‘I suppose you’re going to start banging on about how Guinness is better in Ireland now, aren’t y
ou?’ Shaw said.
‘Aye, I might do that and all,’ Gilligan said. ‘And it’s the truth, it surely is, that the transportation over here doesn’t do it any good. But this here pint in my hand, it surely has to be the most shocking pint of Guinness I’ve had in my entire life.’
‘Not sure I believe it myself,’ Shaw said.
Gilligan leaned in closer to Shaw. ‘The thing is this pint has probably been sat in the tap all day. You go to Ireland and the black stuff never stops flowing, it doesn’t, so you’re always guaranteed a fresh pint, that you are.’
Shaw laughed. ‘Bloody hell, Gerry, you’re sounding more Oirish by the minute.’
‘Well you can just fuck off now, can’t you? Here I am trying to educate you in the truth of the matter and all you want to do is make fun of my Irishness. You do know, don’t you, that you’re being politically incorrect, which is another way of saying you’re a racist twat.’
Shaw laughed. ‘As if you give a shit.’
‘Now then, Shaw, we could have a little chat about that later if you like,’ Gilligan said.
‘Seriously?’
Gilligan placed his pint carefully on the table and gazed at Shaw ‘That’s right, we could and all. Along with why you and your girlfriends decided to back out of our deal.’
Shaw picked up his pint, a cheap lager, and watched the bubbles clinging to the inside of the glass. Occasionally one would detach and rise to the top. ‘Fuck you, Gilligan. You know what happened. You know we didn’t back out. Things changed, that’s all.’
‘Aye, well, shit happens as they say. But it’s been six months since Joe took over, and what the fuck has he done since then? We’ve got the protection rackets going on, and the clubs and the gambling and fuck knows what else. But we’re losing out on the big money, that we are. Mort’s gone, but seriously what the fuck else has changed since we agreed to take both Mort and Coffin down?’
Shaw leaned forward to speak but Gilligan cut him off. ‘On top of that Joe’s even cosying up to the filth,’ he hissed. ‘Fucking Mort’s got to be turning in his grave!’
‘Nobody would argue with you there, but there’s more going on that you don’t know about.’
Gilligan sat back in his chair, silent for a moment. ‘Is that right? More going on, is there? You want to tell me about that, then?’
Shaw glanced at the stage. It was still empty. Customers milling around, chatting, going to the bar to get drinks.
Shaw lowered his voice. ‘Coffin had Robbie in a couple of weeks back to—’
‘Who the fuck’s Robbie?’ Gilligan said, picking up his pint of Guinness.
‘If you’d just shut up and listen I’ll tell you,’ Shaw hissed. ‘Robbie’s the Mob accountant. He came in for a meet with Joe. Joe says that Mort left a shitload of debt behind him. He’s been borrowing money left, right and centre to keep the Mob afloat, and it’s looking like now’s the time to pay up.’
‘Are you serious?’ Gilligan said, putting his pint glass back down. He hadn’t taken a drink from it.
‘Of course I’m serious,’ Shaw said. ‘The Slaughterhouse Mob is up to its eyeballs in debt and if we take Coffin out then we’re fucking responsible for paying it back.’
‘What a shitting mess,’ Gilligan said. ‘And you didn’t think to tell me about this before now?’
Shaw put his pint down on the wet beer mat. Turned it round and round on the spot. ‘I thought about it, yeah, but me and the others, we’ve been talking—’
‘Without me, is that right?’
Shaw stopped twisting the pint glass around. ‘Yeah, without you. The Stig, he thinks you’re a loose cannon, that you’re dangerous. And Stut agrees with him.’
‘Ah, they do now, do they? And what about you, Shaw? What do you think?’
Shaw started twisting the pint glass around and around again. ‘Fucking hell, Gerry. That kid, Shocker’s lad, I can’t stop thinking about him, I can’t get his face out of my head. But you, I don’t know, you’re a cold bastard sometimes. Seems to me you shot that poor kid and whether or not you meant to, whether or not it was an accident or you would have shot him anyway, seems to me you’re not bothered. Like you don’t really give a shit.’
‘You’ve killed before, Shaw, and there’s no doubt you’ll do it again. What’s different about this one?’
Shaw leaned forward, in Gilligan’s face. ‘Fucking hell, Gerry, he was fucking ten years old! I’ve got a lad of my own his age. Doesn’t that get to you at all? Not one fucking bit?’
‘We live, we die, it’s all the same really,’ Gilligan said.
Shaw leaned back again. ‘It’s not the same, Gerry. The big bastard had it coming, yeah, but that kid? Fuck.’
‘All right, so I shouldn’t have shot the kid, but it was an accident,’ Gilligan said. ‘We were all running on adrenaline and when that lad walked out of the bedroom we all turned around and any one of us could have shot him. But it was me, I was the first one to pull the trigger. The thing is, I don’t see what the fuck that has got to do with Coffin. The big bastard hasn’t got a clue and he’s slowly grinding the Mob down. We need to go back to the plan we had originally, and take Coffin out.’
The crowd began whooping and cheering and clapping.
‘Looks like he’s coming on at last,’ Shaw said.
‘About fucking time,’ Gilligan said. ‘But this conversation isn’t finished, my friend. Not by a long way.’
Jim Gosling ambled on to the stage and slowly approached the microphone. His forehead and upper lip were already shiny with sweat. His eyes darted around the room, scanning his audience. He took hold of his trousers and hitched them up under his massive belly. Gilligan had seen some fat people in his time, but this man was massive.
‘Sorry about that,’ Gosling said, ‘but I’ve just been and pebble dashed the porcelain, like.’
A ripple of laughter from the audience.
‘Did you know, we have more slang for going to the toilet than anything else? Laying a brownie, choking a darkie, cutting a monkey tail, working the turd saw.’ He sighed. ‘Fucking hell, who thinks all these things up? Haven’t they got anything better to do with their lives? Faxing a shit, there’s another one.’
More laughter.
‘We’ve got slang for everything, haven’t we?’ Gosling said. ‘Punching the munchkin, what do you think that one’s about?’
‘Having a wank!’ someone shouted.
Gosling grinned and pointed into the audience. ‘Look at you, eh? You’re obviously an expert on wanking, aren’t you? A right wanker, that’s what you are.’
Shaw leaned in close to Gilligan. ‘Where’s Joe? He’s going to miss the act.’
‘He’s not going to miss much, is he?’ Gilligan said.
Gosling wiped his face with a small towel. ‘You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you? Take my dad for example. I was dead proud of my dad, I was. Medical man, he was, the only one in the family to really make something of himself. That is until he got struck off the medical register for having sex with his patients.’
Quiet, scattered laughter and applause. They all know that wasn’t the punchline, Henderson thought.
‘It’s a shame, because he were a fucking good vet.’
The club erupted, people laughing and clapping, looking at each other like they’d just heard the funniest joke in the world.
Shaw glanced around the club. ‘Bloody hell, Gerry, I think every hard man of Birmingham is in this club right now.’
‘You think there’s something else happening here, do you?’
‘I dunno,’ Shaw muttered.
‘They’re all laughing very hard at Gosling’s jokes,’ Gilligan said.
Except now they weren’t. Silence had fallen over the club.
‘Am I boring you two gentlemen?’ Gosling said, his amplified voice accompanied by a slight feedback.
‘Oh, shit,’ Shaw muttered.
Gosling was standing there on stage, a pint in one hand, the microphone in the
other. He had moved away from the mic stand, walked across the stage so that he was a little closer to the two men.
‘Now, Shaw, I recognise you, you’re one of the Slaughterhouse Mob, aren’t you? And I hear Joe Coffin’s in charge, now that your beloved leader Mortimer Craggs has slipped off this mortal coil.’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Shaw said. One of the spotlights trained on the stage had been turned around and angled on Shaw and Gilligan. Shaw felt exposed, like all his clothes had been stripped off him and he was being examined.
‘But your friend now, no I don’t know him,’ Gosling said.
‘Gerry Gilligan,’ said Gilligan.
Gosling chuckled. ‘Ah, we have an Oirishman in the Punchline tonight, ladies and gentlemen.’ Gosling took a deep pull on his pint while he let his audience think about that for a moment. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, ‘Did you hear about the Irish attempt on Mount Everest? They ran out of scaffolding.’
Scattered laughter, faces turned towards Gilligan and Shaw.
‘Paddy got arrested in B&Q for punching an African woman in the face. Says it wasn’t his fault as his father had told him to go and get a Black and Decker.’
More laughter at this joke and some applause. Gosling looked like he was enjoying himself. He took another swallow of his beer.
‘You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you?’ he said. ‘Paddy was in the delivery room when the midwife hands him a black baby. ‘Is this yours?’ she says. ‘Probably,’ says Paddy, ‘she burns everything else!’’
Shaw glanced at Gilligan. He was staring at Gosling, his mouth clamped shut. There was a muscle twitching along the side of his jaw.
Lots more laughter, the men at the surrounding tables straining to look at Shaw and Gilligan. Teeth bared in grins, eyes alive with mischief.
Shaw had a flashback, like he was back in Angellicit and surrounded by vampires. Harry Frazer and the Noonan twins, Danny ‘The Butcher’ Hanrahan, and the others, their faces falling apart, teeth grown long and sharp. All of them grinning at him, licking their lips, waiting to pounce.
Shaw had to concentrate on not standing up and dashing for the exit.
He had to work at not letting out that scream building inside his chest.
