by Preston, Ken
Emma should have been no different.
Coffin stood in front of her, his fists bunched by his sides, his jaw clenched. It was like his mouth had been glued shut.
‘So, you gonna say something, or what?’ Emma said. ‘Or are you just going to stand there like a big ape and stare at me?’
Coffin loosened his jaw, took the pressure off his teeth. Felt like he was grinding them down to nothing.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he said. ‘Have you got a death wish or something?’
‘I could say the same about you,’ Emma said.
Coffin shook his head in frustration. ‘Does your boyfriend know you’re here?’
‘Mitch, no he’s still in hos—’
Emma clamped her mouth shut.
Coffin raised an eyebrow. ‘You and Dirty Harry no longer an item?’
‘It’s complicated,’ Emma said.
‘I wish people would stop saying that every time I ask a question. It’s like everyone thinks I’m stupid or something.’
‘No, it’s not that.’
‘I shouldn’t even be talking to you.’
A bat flew by. Coffin ducked.
‘I’m glad you are,’ Emma said. ‘I want to explain, tell you—’
‘No, not now,’ Coffin said. He looked behind him, then back at Emma. ‘You planning on following all those bats down Sheepcote Street.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What if I told you to stay here, let me do the investigating?’
‘What do you think?’ Emma said.
Coffin sighed. ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’
‘How about we go investigating together? It’d be like an episode of Cagney and Lacey.’
‘I guess I can’t stop you,’ Coffin said, turning and heading down the street.
Emma followed him.
Coffin walked slowly. Street lamps were on all the way down the road, as were lights from shops and bars and offices. But down towards the end of the road there was a dark, shifting mass. As though a hole had been punched in reality, or a black veil had been thrown over a section of the street.
A bat flew close by Coffin’s face, its wingtips brushing his cheek. His hand automatically rose up to swat it away, but it had already gone.
Another bat flew past and then back again.
‘There’s more of them down here,’ Emma said.
Coffin raised a hand to shush her.
He could see the dark, undulating mass a little clearer now. A single building, covered in them. There were too many to cling on to its sides and so the others were hovering as close as possible, like the building was some kind of bat magnet.
Whatever had attracted them there, they didn’t want to leave.
There was a sign outside at the front, The Blue Sky Care Home.
‘Fuck, that’s so weird,’ Emma whispered.
‘Yeah,’ Coffin said.
‘We gonna go closer, or hang back here?’
‘I’m going inside that building,’ Coffin said. ‘You should stay here.’
‘You know I won’t,’ Emma said.
‘I know, but you go in there you’re on your own. I’m not looking out for you.’
‘Yeah, whatever,’ Emma said.
Coffin hugged the shop fronts as he walked further down Sheepcote Street, and closer to the bats. He knew he was illuminated by the light from the shop displays, but the alternative of walking down the middle of the road felt more dangerous somehow.
Emma scooted up beside him. ‘What do you think is inside then? The bats are there for some reason, right?’
‘I already know what’s inside,’ Coffin said.
‘You going to tell me or do I have to interrogate you to get an answer?’
Coffin looked at Emma, raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s Steffanie.’
Emma stopped walking. ‘Are you serious? How do you know that?’
‘I just do,’ Coffin said, and kept on walking.
Emma caught up with him. ‘And you’re planning on just walking in there?’
‘Nope. I’m planning on killing her too, just after the bit where I walk in there.’
They were drawing closer to the bat covered building. Coffin saw some scaffolding, a skip. Bats were clinging to the scaffolding poles and clambering over the rubbish in the skip.
‘Have you got a plan for that?’ Emma said.
‘What, the walking in there part, or the killing Steffanie part?’
Emma snorted. ‘I see you’ve lost none of your stupid sense of humour.’
‘It’s easier to be funny when you actually know who is knifing you in the back. Not knowing was killing me.’
‘Like I said, I can expl—’
‘Like I said, not now.’
Coffin turned his back on her. Whatever she might try to say, whatever explanations she could think up, none of it changed the fact that she had kept secrets from him, that she had been digging into his life, looking for dirt.
That she had been intent on writing an expose about him, of shopping him to the coppers with that film of him murdering Terry Wu.
If it was anybody else, anybody other than Emma, they would be dead by now.
Coffin knew this, and the thought bothered him.
He pushed the thoughts away, forced himself to concentrate on what was happening right now. He had been flippant when he answered Emma about walking in there, but the truth was he had no other plan.
Maybe, for once in his life, he should come up with one. Get out of here, get the others and come back in force. Coffin had no idea what Steffanie had been up to in the last few months. And what was it with all the bats? They were a completely new development and Coffin didn’t like it.
‘Joe?’ Emma said.
‘Quiet, I’m thinking,’ Coffin said.
He expected a smart reply to that, but Emma said nothing.
Coffin dismissed the idea of leaving and gathering the others. Not his style. Steffanie was inside that building, he didn’t know how he knew that but he did. And that meant Coffin had to act now. By the time he got back with Stut and Shaw and the others she might well be gone.
All of Coffin’s anger, seemed like everything he had ever raged about or railed against, was now focused on the bat covered building, on that front door. He needed to get inside there and rip that woman apart, destroy her completely like he had done with Abel Mortenson and Merek Guttman.
After he had finished with Steffanie, when he knew she was out of his life forever, he could deal with Michael.
‘Joe?’
Coffin stirred, felt like he had zoned out there for a moment.
‘This is no way to be, skulking in the shadows,’ he said. ‘Fuck it, I’m going in.’
He walked out into the middle of the road and towards the doorway. Several bats detached themselves from the wall and flew towards him and then up and over his head.
Coffin stepped up to the front door. Now he was closer he could see it was one of the older buildings in the city, renovated and restored and given a new purpose.
A cloud of black, shifting shapes swarmed from the doorway and over Coffin. The flapping of their wings brushed against his face, their claws scratching his flesh, teeth nipping at him.
He roared, swinging his arms, punching at empty space. The bats nipped at his hands, at his arms. Coffin couldn’t see a thing, he’d been thrown into darkness, his ears filled with the sound of rustling wings and tiny limbs.
He opened his hands and grabbed at the mass of bats, grabbing a bat in each of his fists. He squeezed, the tiny bones crunching in his hands, the blood squirting from beneath his fingers.
The mass of bats cleared, the last of them rushing past him and out of the door.
Coffin blinked. A woman stood just inside the open doorway. For a moment Coffin thought it was Steffanie. The way she held herself, poised like a cat, perfectly still and yet looking ready to spring at any second.
But it wasn’t Steffanie.
She was a va
mpire though, Coffin could see that.
‘Steffanie, where is she?’ Coffin said.
The woman smiled. Her teeth were huge, seemed to envelope her lower jaw as the smile widened until her face resembled a skull.
‘Joe,’ she said. ‘I’m so very pleased to see you. Steffanie has told me all about you.’
‘I’ll bet she has,’ Coffin said. ‘And all of it bad, right?’
The smile grew impossibly wider. ‘She said you were good in bed.’ She paused, her tongue flicking out to lick her red lips. ‘Sometimes.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Chitrita.’
‘Shit eater?’ Coffin said. ‘Stupid name if you ask me.’
Chitrita tipped back her head and laughed. ‘Steffanie never told me you were so funny!’
‘She never had much of a sense of humour. Now we’ve got the introductions out of the way, why don’t you tell me where the hell she is?’
Chitrita placed her hands on her cheeks. ‘Ooh, Joe. Are you getting angry? What a temper you have!’
Coffin unclenched his fists and let the mangled bats drop to the floor with a soft splat. He took a step further inside and closer to Chitrita.
The smile switched to a snarl, and she growled.
Coffin stopped.
‘What was that, are you a dog now?’ he said.
The toothy smile returned. ‘I didn’t say you could come any closer.’
‘I suppose vampires must like their personal space,’ Coffin said, and took another step forward.
Chitrita growled again, peeling her lips back to reveal the tips of her fangs. Her entire body, without having moved or shifted position, had taken on a shivering tension. Coffin sensed her power, knew that when she did move, it would be fast.
Far too fast for him, for his reflexes to kick in.
‘Really, Joe, you should stay where you are. You’ll be dead soon enough, so why rush the moment?’
‘I’m not very patient, never have been,’ Coffin said. ‘Never could wait for anything.’
There was movement behind Coffin. Before he could turn to see what was happening, he heard Emma.
‘Get your freaking hands off me you toothy bastard!’
A cadaverous vampire was dragging Emma into the house by her hair. She was on her knees and kicking and screaming and struggling to stand up, but the vampire just ignored her and continued dragging her inside.
He let go of her and she fell, her palms making a soft smacking noise as they hit the floor.
‘Didn’t I tell you to stay where you were?’ Coffin said.
Panting, Emma looked up at Coffin, her hair corkscrewed across her face. ‘To be honest, I think the last thing you said was, fuck it, I’m going in.’
‘Let’s go upstairs,’ Chitrita said. ‘Steffanie will be so pleased to see you both.’
Coffin held Emma by the arm and helped her up on her feet.
Emma sucked in her breath. Another vampire had entered the large reception area.
‘Julie,’ Emma said.
Julie Carter stared dead eyed at Emma and Coffin. If she recognised Emma, she showed no sign of it.
‘I know I told you to stay where you were,’ Coffin muttered. ‘Now look at the mess we’re in.’
batty
Archer and Choudhry abandoned their car and ran. Archer’s guts were tight with tension. Seemed for a while they almost had a handle on this vampire situation and now it was spiralling out of control once more. They were like a disease. You thought you had stamped them all out apart from maybe one or two, but that wasn’t good enough. You had to exterminate every last single one of them or else they would replicate.
If the vampires weren’t stopped now, they would be colonising the city soon. And then what?
‘Looks quiet, Boss,’ Choudhry said.
He was right. There were people milling around, looking confused, dazed. Some were lying on the floor, being treated by paramedics or looked after by friends, or maybe strangers.
Archer couldn’t see any ambulances parked nearby, and he guessed the paramedics must have got here the same way as he did, on foot.
‘Where the hell have all the bats gone?’ Archer said.
A paramedic looked up.
Archer pulled out his ID. ‘DCI Archer, where did the bats go?’
The paramedic pointed. ‘Down there, but I’d stay away if I was you.’
‘Yeah, you’d be batty to go down there,’ the other paramedic said.
Choudhry rolled his eyes. ‘Everybody’s a comedian these days.’
‘Come on, let’s see what’s happening,’ Archer said.
As soon as they turned down Sheepcote Street, they pulled up short. There was a crowd in front of them. Photographers, reporters, curious bystanders.
‘What is it about people? They know what those bats can do and now they’re following them?’ Choudhry said.
‘People are stupid,’ Archer said. ‘Haven’t you realised that yet?’
They began pushing their way through the crowd.
‘Police! For your own safety head back onto Broad Street!’
The crowd kept moving forward.
‘That’s the trouble with people these days, no respect for the police,’ Choudhry said, shaking his head.
They shoved their way forward until they reached the front of the crowd. There seemed to be an invisible barrier across which no one was prepared to cross.
Archer immediately saw why.
The building in front of them had become a living, breathing thing. A dark, evil mass of shifting, pointed shapes. Archer had to fight the urge to turn and run. To go back to his house and find Emma and hold her tight.
To lie to her and tell her that everything was going to be all right.
‘Bloody hell,’ Choudhry whispered.
Archer twisted his head, scanning the crowd. ‘Why the hell are we the only police on site?’
‘Probably sat in the traffic jam wondering what to do next,’ Choudhry said.
‘Get on your radio, find out what’s happening.’
Archer swallowed. His mouth and throat were dry. The need to turn and run, escape the nightmare in front of him, was now battling with an insane desire to approach the bat infested building. He could see an open door, thought maybe he even glimpsed a figure inside, some movement.
The bats shifted and folded their wings, and the building itself appeared to tremble.
Why the hell was it covered in a mass of bats? What was the attraction for them?
‘Control says they’ve got no one to spare,’ Choudhry said, breaking into Archer’s thoughts.
‘The fuck they have,’ Archer said, the anger rising inside his chest.
‘Apparently there’s loads of bat attacks happening all over the city. Each one is pretty small scale, but there’s too many happening.’
‘Yeah? And what about here? Haven’t we got a bat problem here?’
Choudhry shrugged. ‘That’s what I said, but apparently because this one has calmed down, because the bats aren’t actually doing anything at the moment, we’re a low priority.’
‘Stupid bastards,’ Archer said. ‘All the other bat attacks, they’re a distraction. Keep everyone busy, away from here.’ Archer studied the shifting mass of bats. ‘But this is the main attraction, inside there is where it’s all going on, I bet.’
‘You’re talking like the bats know what they’re doing,’ Choudhry said.
‘I think they do,’ Archer replied.
‘Hey, are you two cops?’ a voice from the crowd said.
Archer turned, spotted a young lad, spiked hair, acne covered face, no way he was old enough to be out drinking.
‘Yeah, you know something?’ Archer said.
‘Yeah, Joe Coffin’s in there, I saw him go inside. And all these bats flew out, it was sick, like something out of a horror film.’
‘Why doesn’t it surprise me that Coffin’s involved?’ Archer muttered.
‘And then there were thi
s woman with him, she went in too.’
Oh shit! Emma?
* * *
Chitrita, Julie and the male vampire took Coffin and Emma through the home. There were other vampires too, hanging back in the shadows, watching them. Had to be all the vampires who had been kept in the mortuary on Steel Lane. But not just them, there were others. Had to be residents of the old people’s home. Had the vampires turned them all?
Coffin clenched his jaw, his eyes flicking around the room. They took Emma up ahead of him, the man dragging her along, his long fingers wrapped around her upper arm.
Emma was struggling, pulling away from him.
‘Stop fighting him,’ Coffin said. ‘You’re wasting your time, he’s too strong.’
‘I can’t help it,’ Emma said. ‘He stinks like something the cat dragged in and left behind the fridge, I can hardly breathe here.’
Coffin could smell him too, the ugly sweet stink of death and putrefaction.
The vampires took them along the landing and past bedroom doors, all of them wide open. Coffin couldn’t help but glance into the rooms as they walked by. They were all bedrooms or bed-sitting rooms. Some of them were empty, in others he saw corpses lying on beds. Faces pasty white, flesh sagging from bones, arms hanging over the sides of the beds.
Some corpses were twitching.
Returning to life, of a sort.
How many residents had there been in this home? Had they all been turned?
‘Please, keep moving Joe,’ Chitrita said, her voice purring with pleasure. ‘Your wife is waiting for you.’
Coffin grunted.
An ancient looking vampire limped past them. He bared his long, yellow teeth at Emma but her captor shoved him away.
‘They’re all growing hungry,’ Chitrita said, and sighed. ‘It’s growing ever more difficult to keep them penned up in here, I’m going to have to do something about that soon.’
‘How about you let me take care of them?’ Coffin said.
‘You are so funny,’ Chitrita said, and gently placed a long fingered hand on his shoulder.
Coffin tried shaking her off, but her grip grew tighter. They were still walking, drawing towards a closed door. Emma was struggling again, like she had an idea what might be behind that door and she wanted nothing to do with it. The tall vampire gripping both her arms looked like a walking skeleton, but he was obviously strong. He held her tight and pushed her on.
