by Preston, Ken
‘You find that in a Christmas cracker?’ Gosling said. ‘Me, I hate all that life advice shit. Much prefer the jokes. Here’s one. Two snowmen were standing in a field. One says to the other, ‘Can you smell carrots?’’
Duchess doubled over and screamed with laughter. No one else said a word.
‘No?’ Gosling said. ‘How about this one then? What did Santa do when he went speed dating? He pulled a cracker.’
The Stig glanced at Gosling. ‘You’re fucking loony tunes, you know that? All of you, you’re fucking fruitcakes.’
‘You don’t look so good,’ Gosling said. ‘The pressure getting to you?’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ the Stig said. ‘I’m fine. Just as soon as Joe gets back we can finish counting this money and then you three can fuck off back to the loony bin where you belong.’
Gosling chuckled. ‘Is that what you think?’
The Stig glanced at Gosling again, quickly returning his attention to the Priest. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘All that gunfire downstairs, you think it hasn’t been noticed? The coppers are probably on their way right now, and once they’re here and they’ve got this situation contained they’ll be going through here with a fine-tooth comb. And I’m betting once they find all this money they’re not going to let us keep it.’
The Stig looked at Gosling again.
‘I’d keep an eye on Baron Samedi over there, he looks like he wants to give you a kiss.’
The Stig snapped his attention back to the Priest.
Stilts opened up a drawer in the desk and started rifling through it.
‘Hey, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ the Stig said.
Stilts ignored him.
‘Hey, you fucking deaf as well as dumb?’ the Stig yelled.
‘What does Miley Cyrus have for Christmas dinner?’ Gosling said.
The Stig, his gun still trained on the Priest, whipped his head around to look at Gosling.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Twerky,’ Gosling said, and lifted the gun he had been holding down by his side and shot the Stig in the head.
Before the Stig had hit the floor, Gosling was turning his gun on the Priest.
The sofa was empty.
‘What the bloody hell?’ Gosling whispered.
‘’E’s beoind ya!’ Duchess screamed.
Gosling spun around, crouching as he moved. The Priest was a blur of movement. The office door opened and then slammed shut.
Gosling fired, a hole splintering in the door beneath the impact of the bullet. Straightening up, Gosling ran for the door and yanked it open. There was a hole in the wall where the bullet had smacked into it. Gosling looked up and down the hall.
It was empty.
He returned to the office and shut the door behind him.
‘Right, you two, let’s get this cash out of here before Coffin comes back.’
Duchess jumped up and down, squealing and clapping his hands.
Stilts jumped down from the chair and joined Duchess, zipping up the bags.
Gosling called a number on his mobile.
‘What the bloody hell’s going on?’ Gosling said. ‘There’s been a bloody firefight at Angellicit tonight, is that anything to do with you?’
Gosling listened, and then said, ‘All right then. Yeah, don’t worry about it. Coffin will be dead soon enough.’
* * *
‘We’ve got problems,’ Archer said, finishing his call with the station.
‘You know, one day you’re going to tell me, hey, everything’s fine, the station just called to see how we are,’ Choudhry said.
They were standing by the car. Traffic had ground to a halt as they had drawn closer to Broad Street. The two men had been about to carry on towards the cluster of bats on foot when Archer’s phone had rung.
‘There’s been a shootout at Angellicit,’ Archer said. ‘All units are being sent over there.’
Choudhry threw his hands in the air. ‘Seriously?’
‘It’s worse than that,’ Archer said. ‘There are other, tiny pockets of bats gathering all over the city and attacking people. We’ve got units going there too.’
Choudhry looked at traffic behind them. Their car was blocked in both directions.
‘So what are we meant to do? Head over to Angellicit or one of these bat attacks or what?’
‘No, up ahead on Broad Street is still the largest gathering of bats and they’re not attacking, yet. We should go find out what we can and then touch base with the station again.’
‘You do realise it’s not a gathering of bats, don’t you?’
‘No, and do I look like I give a shit what it’s called?’
‘It’s a colony of bats,’ Choudhry said, undeterred by his partner’s disinterest. ‘A pity we’re not dealing with crows, then it would be a murder.’
‘A murder?’ Archer said. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘That’s what you call a group of crows, a murder,’ Choudhry said.
‘Great. Next time we’re in a pub quiz you can be on my team. Right now, we need to get moving.’
* * *
Angellicit had emptied out. Now that the danger was obviously over, people had begun milling about on the street outside. No one seemed sure of what they should do. Sirens had been heard approaching, but now they had fallen silent.
Inside the club Coffin grabbed Shaw and Stut.
‘Anyone seen Gilligan?’ he said.
Both men shook their heads.
‘All right, you two get upstairs and look after the cash. You need to stash it somewhere before the cops get here.’
As the two men headed for the stairs Coffin took a swift look around the club. As far as he could see nobody had been shot. Longworth had to have been aiming over everybody’s heads when he came in all guns blazing. Coffin had been the one in his sights, nobody else.
Coffin looked down at Longworth’s body. He had to decide what to do with that next, and he had to make that decision quick. On the one hand he could leave it there, after all there were enough witnesses that Longworth had come into the club armed to the teeth and with intent.
On the other hand, Coffin had shot and killed him.
That was going to kick up an almighty stink.
There was no way Coffin could get rid of the body in time though, and besides which there were all those witnesses.
Best just to leave things as they were and deal with the shit when it hit the fan.
‘Joe?’
It was Shaw. He looked pale, a little sick.
‘What?’ Coffin said.
‘The Stig, he’s dead.’
‘What the fuck?’
‘He’s been shot.’ Shaw swallowed. ‘In the head.’
‘Where are the others?’ Coffin said.
‘They’re gone, all gone,’ Shaw said. ‘The money too.’
Coffin turned away. Clenched his hands into fists, digging his fingernails into his palms.
Someone outside screamed, quickly followed by someone else screaming.
What now? Coffin thought.
He walked through reception and looked out of the door. A huge, black cloud was hovering low over everyone gathered outside Angellicit. Men and women were running, screaming, colliding with each other as the cloud seemed to attack them. It took Coffin a moment to realise what his eyes were seeing. That the cloud was in fact a mass of bats swirling around each other. Every so often a bat darted from the black mass and attacked someone.
A young woman wearing sparkling thigh length boots, shorts and a cropped T-shirt ran screaming at Coffin as two bats clawed at her scalp. Coffin grabbed her and hauled her inside. Swiped at the bats and threw them to the ground and kicked them to death.
Someone else ran for the open door, the safety of the club.
More joined him.
‘Joe?’ Shaw said. ‘What about the cops? They’re on their way.’
‘No, they’re not,’ Coffin said. ‘I don’t know w
hat the hell is going on, but I don’t think we’ll be seeing the Old Bill tonight. Get these people inside.’
Stut joined them. With the help of the bouncers they started herding people back into the club, whilst others took off screaming down the road. The bats swirled and dived and darted, scratching and biting at the crowd. Once the last person was in, Coffin slammed shut the club doors.
Some of the clubbers were crying whilst others just stood in shocked silence. Shaw and Stut looked at each other, unsure what to do next.
‘Oh God, they’re all over the city,’ a young man said, staring at his mobile.
Coffin walked over and took the phone off him. There was a video playing. It was hard to see what was going on in the dark and whoever was filming couldn’t keep their phone still, the picture was wobbling all over the place. But Coffin could hear the screams and the shouts, and he could see enough to make out the clouds of bats.
‘Where is this?’ Coffin said.
‘I don’t know, it’s someone on Facebook, they’re live.’ The young man leaned over and pointed at the bottom of the screen. ‘They’re on Broad Street, look it tells you there.’
Coffin’s mobile buzzed against his thigh. He pulled it from his pocket and looked at the glowing screen. It was Leola.
He thumbed the accept call button and said, ‘Where the hell are you?’
‘Hello, Joe.’ Coffin recognised that voice immediately.
It was Steffanie.
‘Follow the bats, Joe, if you want to see your bitch again.’
* * *
Coffin gunned the Fat Boy into life. The streets of Birmingham were deserted of pedestrians, but traffic was heavy. Coffin ignored the underpass and continued up to the traffic light junction, mounting the deserted pavement to bypass the stalled traffic.
Coffin opened up the throttle, speeding along the pavement between lamp posts and illuminated shop windows. The slow moving traffic ground to a complete halt as he drew closer to Broad Street, and the pavements had begun to fill up with bystanders forcing him to slow down and finally come to a halt.
Coffin pulled his helmet off.
And saw the dark cloud of bats hovering in the distance, a moving shadow against the night sky.
There had been small pockets of bats all over the city, but this colony at Broad Street was the largest by far. When Steffanie had said follow the bats, this was what she had meant.
Coffin watched the massive cloud of dark, fluttering shapes. He could hear the screams of people as they were attacked.
‘It’s like something out of a film,’ a young woman standing next to Coffin said to her friend.
Despite the crowds on the pavement and the gridlock on the road, Coffin could see he would have more freedom of movement a little further on. All the spectators were keeping their distance from the main action. Most of them looked spooked and ready to run at a moment’s notice.
Coffin put the helmet back on. Turned the collar of his thick, leather jacket up.
Getting bitten by a bat didn’t worry him too much.
But there were bigger things with teeth than bats out there.
Coffin began slowly pushing the Fat Boy through the crowd, snarling at everyone to get out of his way. Soon the crowd had thinned out and Coffin was able to speed up again. He rode the bike along the pavement up Broad Street, beside the cars stuck in a queue on the road. Frightened faces peered out at him from the windows.
A young woman ran towards Coffin, screaming and beating her hands at her head. A bat was darting around her, nipping at her face and neck and scalp. Coffin skidded the bike to a halt. He climbed off it and intercepted the woman who ran blindly into him.
Coffin snatched the bat off her and crushed its tiny body in his fist. He dropped it to the ground, a crumpled mass of wings and fur.
The woman started running again. Coffin watched her for a moment and then turned to look back up Broad Street. To his right were a row of bus shelters, and across the other side of the road the Rep and the Library of Birmingham.
Some of the cars headed out of the city, and into the cloud of bats, had managed to turn and cross the divide onto the opposite carriageway. But then a bus had tried that and got itself stuck halfway across, its chassis jammed against the concrete rise between the roads. That had effectively blocked off any cars beyond that point making an escape. Behind the bus, closer to the city and where Coffin was currently standing, there was a divider between the two carriageways preventing any other drivers from making the same attempt to cross onto the opposite road.
Coffin decided to walk from this point on. He didn’t like the idea of one of those bats flying straight into his visor and causing him to crash. But he decided to leave the helmet on for the moment.
As he walked closer to the panic and the chaos, another woman ran past him being tormented by a pair of bats, and then a man sprinted past him, roaring and waving his hands in the air.
Coffin ignored them. He couldn’t rescue everyone and, besides, that wasn’t his job.
He needed to find Steffanie.
And then kill her.
As Coffin walked, he drew nearer a crowd. Incredibly some people who weren’t being attacked had not left and were taking photographs or videoing the chaos. What looked like a news crew was there too.
Coffin had to start pushing past bodies, elbowing people out of the way. Parts of the crowd were moving, flowing down Broad Street. A couple of bodies lay on the ground, bleeding. Some people milling around looking shell shocked and seemingly not sure what to do.
There were less bats here than Coffin had thought there would be, although still quite a sizable cloud of them. Some bats broke away and darted down Broad Street in the same direction as the crowd.
Coffin followed them.
* * *
Emma had skirted around the city centre and tried approaching Broad Street from the opposite direction, but had to abandon her car at Five Ways. From what she could see it looked like almost every road around Broad Street was gridlocked, and the ones that weren’t had been cordoned off by the police.
Except not quite because the police were still setting up roadblocks. Looked like they had only just got here. Maybe, if she was quick, she could get onto Broad Street from a road they hadn’t blocked off yet.
Emma ran down Islington Row Middleway, one of the major arteries off Five Ways island and then took a left down Tennant Street. She knew she had to move as fast as possible. Halfway down Tennant Street she took another left down St. Martin’s Street. Here she met a small group of panicked people streaming towards her.
‘Don’t go down there!’ one young woman yelled at Emma as they passed each other.
Emma ignored her. St. Martin’s Street was a dead end for cars, but a narrow passageway continued down onto Broad Street. Emma had been right. There was no police cordon here. Not yet.
Emma sprinted down the alley, bracing herself for the chaos she had seen on the news report. When she exited onto Broad Street, she pulled up short.
The relative silence was the first thing that struck her. There was the steady rumble of car engines idling, but none of the blaring of horns that you would expect in a traffic jam. There were very few pedestrians left now. One or two braver souls had hung around, helping others up off the ground. Most of the faces she could see peered from car windows, eyes searching for something up above.
Bats, of course.
Of which there seemed to be very few. One or two solitary bats flying drunkenly around here and there, their dark shapes just discernible against the night sky and the lights on Broad Street.
What the hell had happened? Where were they?
Emma walked towards the city centre. Ducked as something swooped past her, briefly disturbing her hair.
‘Shit!’ she muttered. That was scarier than she had expected.
‘Hey, get in the car,’ someone hissed.
Emma turned. A young man, all grooming products and attitude, had opened his window, arm
out gesticulating at Emma.
‘Where did all the bats go?’ Emma said.
‘Get in the car, before they come back!’
Emma approached the car. ‘Tell me where the bats went.’
‘She’s crazy, Steve, just close the window,’ a young woman sitting next to Steve said.
‘They went down there,’ Steve said, pointing. ‘Are you a policewoman?’
The young woman leaned into view and giggled. ‘Are you going to arrest all those bats?’
Emma walked away, heading to the side street Steve had pointed at. Sheepcote Street.
Emma began jogging towards it. Another bat swooped past her, snagging at her hair. Had it nipped at her scalp with its teeth? Emma touched her head and paused in her running to look at her fingertips.
No, there was no blood.
Emma turned at the sound of car doors opening. Now that almost all the bats had gone a few brave souls were deciding to climb out of their cars, heads twisting as they searched the sky for more winged creatures.
A lone bat skittered towards a woman who screamed and hurriedly got back in her car, slamming the door shut. The bat slammed into the window and then flew away.
The back of Emma’s neck began tingling as she realised that someone, or something, was standing right behind her.
She turned and then recoiled in shock.
‘Fuck!’ she hissed. ‘You scared me!’
Joe Coffin scowled at her.
‘I should have known you’d be here,’ he growled.
shit eater
Standing in front of Emma, looking down at her, Coffin realised that he had been unconsciously rehearsing what he might say to her if he ever saw her again. He knew he thought about her too often. He knew the hurt of her betrayal still cut him.
There were many things he could say to her, accuse her of. In Coffin’s world you only betrayed a person once. There was no get-out clause, no second chances. That was the code that Mortimer Craggs had lived by, had run the Slaughterhouse Mob by.
Betray me once and I find out, you’re a dead man, was what he used to say.
Coffin lived by that code too.
