Joe Coffin Season One

by Ken Preston

  The vagaries of fashion weren’t exactly prominent in Craggs’ thoughts at this moment. The thing in the suit was leaning so far forward, its nose was almost touching Craggs’ nose. It made a low, guttural sound in the back of its throat as its lips peeled even further back, and those jaws began opening.

  “Oy, you. Father, or whatever the fuck you’re called,” Tom shouted. “Leave him, now!”

  The thing on the table turned its head, looking like a reptile, and stared at Tom. He was holding a gun, Craggs’ gun, which he always kept in a drawer in his desk. In his other hand, Tom was clutching a bottle of twenty-year-old Lagavulin he had taken from Craggs’ globe shaped drinks cabinet. Craggs was grateful that he had not taken the Glenfarclas, at least. That really would have been wasted on him.

  Tom took a quick swig from the whisky bottle, and said, “Back up, doggy. Come on now.”

  The ancient thing climbed off the table, that low growl still emanating from the back of its throat. Craggs didn’t like the way it looked at Tom.

  “You’d better be careful,” Craggs said, relaxing a little in his chair. “Your friend looks like he wants to take a bite out of you.”

  “Oh, right, well tough fucking shit,” Tom snarled. “I’m fucking sick of being pushed around, and it’s about fucking time I started giving the orders around here. If he doesn’t like it, he can fuck off somewhere else for his blood milkshake.”

  Craggs breathed slowly, evenly, bringing his heart rate back down. It was all about self-control. This was a bad situation, obviously. Velvina was dead, poor bitch, lying in a growing pool of her own blood on the floor, and who knew what had happened outside in the main part of the club. But Craggs knew, no matter how bad the situation was, the only chance he had of getting the upper hand was if he stayed in control.

  “What the hell’s going on, Tom?” he said, quietly, not wanting to antagonise the monster by speaking too loud.

  Tom began pacing up and down the office like a caged animal. “That’s a good fucking question, Craggs.” He ran his hand through his hair. “This was all meant to be so fucking simple, and now it’s nothing but a fucking nightmare.”

  “What, Tom? Tell me, what is this nightmare you’re talking about? I can help you, Tom. Whatever you’ve got yourself mixed up in, we can work it out.”

  Tom shook his head, his single bark of laughter shooting a tingle of fear down the nape of Craggs’ neck. That laugh was verging on hysteria. If Craggs didn’t get out of here soon, Tom was likely to lose it, and maybe start shooting the place up.

  “Who is this, Tom?” Craggs said, pointing at the ancient thing in the stained suit. It had sat down on the sofa now, it seemed tired, worn out. But still those eyes, glittering and alert, followed Tom as he paced up and down.

  “Him?” Tom said. “Haven’t you heard? He’s the Father of all vampires. The oldest vampire of them all.”

  Vampires.

  Craggs dismissed the notion as soon as it had entered his mind. Vampires, ghosts, werewolves, none of those things existed. He remembered the vampire cult that Tom had found, the ones he claimed were responsible for Steffanie’s murder. But hadn’t he said they were just kids? This thing in front of him looked like it was a hundred years old at least.

  “Tom,” Craggs said, quietly. “Did this monstrosity here kill Steffanie and Michael?”

  Again that bark of laughter, short, sharp and nasty sounding. “No, that psychotic bastard’s still running around with the police after him. This fucking piece of shit is the one who drank my son’s blood, while that bitch Steffanie kept him tied up in the cellar.”

  “Steffanie?” Craggs muttered. “But Steffanie is—”

  “And he fucking sucked on me, too,” Tom screamed, holding up his hand and ripping a plaster off his thumb.

  His whole body was quivering, as though he had an electrical current running through it. If he dropped the gun, Craggs wondered if he would have time to get out of his chair and grab it.

  Probably not. No matter how much he liked to pretend otherwise, he was nowhere near as fast or as strong as he used to be.

  “What’s going on, Tom?” Craggs said. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  Tom stopped pacing and stared at Craggs. “It’s all your fucking fault. You and Joe Coffin. I’ve just been your fucking poodle all these years, haven’t I? You and Joe, you’ve been pissing yourselves behind my back, fucking laughing it up a treat, right? I’ve tried hard to do my best for you, Craggs, fuck knows I have, but nothing is ever good enough for you. Not unless Joe does it. Yeah, Joe fucking Coffin, the golden boy. I’m surprised you don’t suck his fucking cock every time you see him.”

  “Dear God, Tom, is that all this is? You’re jealous?”

  Tom pointed the gun at Craggs. “Shut the fuck up, or I swear to God, I’m going to blow your fucking head off.”

  Craggs said nothing. He knew he had to choose his words carefully. Just one wrong comment, and Tom would shoot him, or set that monstrosity on him.

  Tom began pacing up and down again. “I thought I was on the way up. For once in my fucking miserable life, I thought I had it made, and I was going to make something of myself. But then that bitch of a wife of mine had to go and fucking spoil it.” He stopped pacing, whipping his head around to stare at Craggs again. “She had it coming, that kicking I gave her. She fucking had it coming.”

  Craggs kept quiet. His eyes flicked from Tom, to the old man he had referred to as father. What the hell did that mean? Craggs had known Tom’s father, years ago, before the cancer got him, and slowly, painfully killed him. And this thing, sitting in his office, looked nothing like Tom’s old man.

  “And you, you had to poke your fucking beak in, with your pet dog, Coffin, and then humiliate me in front of Laura. She’s my fucking wife, Craggs. My wife! I don’t remember you ever visiting my old man when he used to kick the shit out of me and my mother!”

  No, wait. Tom said he was the father of all the vampires. Did he seriously believe that? All this talk of vampires, was it the drink?

  Tom approached Craggs, took another long drink from the bottle, keeping the gun pointed at the old man. But he was swaying slightly, like he was standing on the deck of a ship, rolling in a gentle swell. The whisky was Craggs’ only hope. If Tom kept drinking like this, he was going to fall flat on his face and pass out. Then, if he could grab the gun before that monstrosity in the chair got him, he could shoot it in the head.

  That would just leave whoever was down in the club. Craggs had no idea how many more of them there were, but he’d heard the commotion, and the screams from downstairs. Craggs had to assume that Clevon and Addison were dead. If he was going to survive this, it was up to him, on his own.

  But that was all right. He’d faced worse odds than this over the years.

  “So this is what it comes down to, is it?” Craggs said. “You’re pissed off, because I gave you a slap, but I left your father alone. Is that it? Is that why you murdered that poor girl over there? What the hell did she have to do with any of this, Tom?”

  Tom looked at Velvina, lying on her back on the floor, the overhead lights reflected in the dark pool of blood surrounding her mutilated body. Then he turned to look sulkily at the ancient thing sitting on the sofa.

  “He killed Velvina,” he said. “That was a mistake. I was planning on getting some warm pussy tonight.” Tom’s head swivelled round to face Craggs, and his lips drew back in a nasty smile. “But there’s plenty more where she came from, right?”

  He upended the bottle, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he gulped at the whisky. When he had drained it, he let the bottle drop to the floor. His face was flushed, and his eyelids were drooping. Craggs couldn’t believe Tom was still standing. He had obviously been drinking when he first arrived at the club, and now, after finishing off a bottle of whisky that had been over half full to begin with, surely he should have passed out by now?

  “You know what?” he said, his voice thick and slu
rred. “I’m fucking sick of all this talking.” He lifted the gun and pointed it at Craggs’ head. “That’s all everybody ever does, is talk and talk and fucking talk. It hurts my fucking head.”

  “Don’t do it, Tom,” Craggs said.

  “Fuck you, Craggs,” Tom said, and pulled the trigger.

  the bloofer lady

  Emma sat in the hard plastic chair, looking across Jacob in his bed at Laura. She was holding her boy’s hand, gazing at him as he slept once more. Her face was strained with worry, but her eyes shone with love for him.

  Vampires, Emma was thinking.

  Karl, in her head, saying, You really think that Craggs would have had Steffanie and Michael sliced and diced like that? He would have ordered a hit on them, not a horror movie gore fest.

  Tom, with his two mysterious companions, hidden under the sheets. Or maybe not hidden, but shielded, from the sun?

  And hadn’t one of them looked like a woman? A woman, maybe of Steffanie Coffin’s height and build?

  Karl again, saying, What’s going on, Emma? You see a vampire at that house?

  No, of course not.

  But maybe she had. How else could that psychopath have survived a fight with Joe Coffin? All that blood splashed over the walls.

  Blood.

  The missing blood from the blood banks.

  And poor Jacob, being held prisoner in the cellar whilst apparently being drained of his blood.

  “The Bloofer Lady,” Emma said.

  Laura looked up, her eyebrows raised. “What?”

  “Sorry,” Emma said. “Just thinking out loud.”

  The Bloofer Lady. The Beautiful Lady. That was what the children called Lucy Westenra, in Dracula. After she had been turned into a vampire, she began hunting children at night, draining them of only a little blood, and then setting them free. Was that what had happened to Jacob? Had Steffanie been keeping him a prisoner, so she could drain him of his blood, little by little?

  Steffanie Coffin, a fucking vampire?

  Emma had to find Joe Coffin, talk to him. Besides Emma, he was the only other person to see the Birmingham Vampire, and survive. And they had both followed Tom, seen him with his two mysterious companions hidden under those sheets. If there was anybody who would even begin believing what Emma had to say, it was Joe.

  “Laura,” she said, softly. “I think I should go now.”

  Laura looked up, regarded Emma blankly.

  “Laura, do you know where I might find Joe, right about now?”

  “I don’t know, he could be anywhere. But he’s staying in a room over the club, so I guess you might find him there.”

  Emma stood up. “Okay, thanks.”

  She wanted to say something else, give Laura some encouragement, words of kindness and reassurance. But she couldn’t think of anything, and in the end, she just quietly left the room.

  * * *

  Two things happened. As he pulled the trigger on the gun, Tom swayed drunkenly, and his aim drifted up slightly. And knowing that Tom was about to shoot, Craggs slid off his chair and dived under his desk.

  The bullet hit a picture hanging behind Craggs, shattering the glass and ploughing through the backing board and into the wall. The picture frame fell off the wall. Crouching under the desk, Craggs heard a thump and a cry.

  It was Tom. He had fallen over. But he was still conscious, Craggs could hear him shuffling around, swearing, trying to get back onto his feet again. Now was Craggs’ only chance to get out of here. He started crawling out from under the desk, his joints protesting with every move. The sudden dive he had made underneath the desk had hurt him, he wasn’t as fast anymore as he needed to be.

  But he wasn’t giving in.

  Halfway out from under the desk, and lying on the floor, Craggs looked up. That ancient looking monstrosity in the filthy, stiff suit was crouched on top of his desk again, grinning down at him. A thick string of drool fell from between its clenched teeth, and onto Craggs’ upturned face.

  “You bastard,” Craggs growled.

  The monstrosity dropped from the desk, its mouth opening, more yellow saliva dripping from its fangs. It landed on Craggs, knocking the wind from him, one filthy hand on his head, pulling it back to expose his neck. Craggs grabbed a thick shard of glass from the smashed picture frame, its sharp edges digging into his hand, slicing his flesh open. Ignoring the pain, he thrust it into his attacker’s neck, gouging the point in as deep as he could.

  The thing on top of him let out a wet scream and, letting go of Craggs’ head, its hands scrabbled at the triangle of glass sticking out of the side of its neck. The shard of glass was slippy with Craggs’ blood, and its sharp edges cut through its paper thin flesh as it tried to pull it out.

  The elderly mob leader punched the thing in the nose with the heel of his uninjured hand. It rocked back, still pulling at the jagged glass in its neck. Craggs hit it again, and this time it rocked back far enough that it fell off him. Craggs clambered to his feet. The palm of his right hand, and his fingers, dripped blood from a crisscross of lacerations.

  Tom was holding onto the sofa, pulling himself unsteadily to his feet. He still held the gun. He saw Craggs, and his eyes widened. The thing on the floor was snarling and kicking, still trying to pull the glass from its neck, its hands and neck and face now covered in blood.

  “Stay there, you old bastard,” Tom said, his voice thick and slurred.

  Still on his knees, he swung the gun up, pointing it at Craggs.

  The old man was too quick for him. In three long strides he had reached Tom, and grabbed the gun, twisting it from his hand. He slapped Tom across the face and cried out at the pain in his hand. Tom swayed backwards from the force of the slap, but managed to stay upright. The slap left streaks of blood smeared diagonally across his left cheek.

  Craggs smashed the butt of the gun in Tom’s face. Tom screamed, and this time he did fall over, onto his side. He rolled over onto his back, looking up at the elderly man. He held both hands over his nose and mouth, and Craggs could see the blood and snot dribbling down his cheeks, and over his ears, pooling on the floor. Tom’s chest started hitching, and tears welled up in his eyes, and rolled down his face, cutting clean lines through the dark red blood smeared on his cheeks.

  “Shut the fuck up, you fucking cry baby,” Craggs snarled, and kicked him in the side.

  Tom cried out and sobbed helplessly.

  “Now stay there.”

  Craggs walked back around the other side of his big desk. The thing on the floor was pulling the long shard of glass out of its neck. Its ancient eyes regarded Craggs with contempt.

  Craggs raised the gun and shot it in the head. The bullet slammed into its forehead, making a neat red hole in the grey flesh. The thing’s eyes widened in surprise, and it stiffened, and then lay still.

  Craggs nudged it with his foot. It didn’t move. Craggs nudged it again, and still it did not move.

  Despite seeing the corpse on the floor, Craggs couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that the thing still wasn’t dead.

  He kicked it one last time, just to be sure, and then turned and walked back to stand over Tom.

  Craggs knelt down and placed the muzzle of the gun against Tom’s temple.

  “I should fucking shoot you now,” he said. “I could decorate my floor with your brains right now, couldn’t I?”

  Tom stared up at him with wide, shining eyes, snuffling and crying, and making wet gurgling noises, like a little child recovering from a tantrum.

  “Joe told me, he said you were spotted at the house where he found Jacob,” Craggs said. “Fucking hell, Tom, did you know he was there?”

  Tom, his hands over his nose, snuffled and cried, and shook his head in spasmodic jerks.

  Ignoring the pain in his lacerated hand, Craggs placed it flat over Tom’s hands and leant his weight on it. Tom screamed at the pressure on his broken nose, his body writhing, trying to wriggle himself free.

  Craggs let go and tapped Tom on
the forehead with the gun’s muzzle. Tom stopped moving, staring up at Craggs, trying to control his crying.

  “Tom,” Craggs said quietly, “you’re a fucking dead man. After what you’ve done, I can’t let you live. You know that, don’t you?”

  Tom stared up at Craggs, more fat tears rolling down his face. He stank of blood and whisky, and Craggs wondered if maybe he’d pissed himself too.

  “But I need to know a few things, Tom. And I need you to answer my questions. So, tell me what I want to know, and I’ll make it nice and quick, all right? Hold back, though, and I’m not going to kill you straight away. But you’ll wish I had, Tom. I can make it so you’ll wish your mother had never met your father, Tom. You understand me?”

  Tom nodded.

  Craggs tapped him on the head again with the gun’s muzzle. “Now, Jacob. Your boy. Did you know he was being kept prisoner in that cellar?”

  Tom nodded again, his hands still over his nose and mouth, his eyes wide and pleading.

  “Fucking hell,” Craggs whispered. “How could you do that to your own son?”

  Tom mumbled something behind his hands, his voice thick with snot and blood.

  “What did you say?”

  “Jacob...wasn’t meant to be there,” Tom groaned. “Jacob was a mistake.”

  “A mistake,” Craggs said, his voice flat and dull. “Bloody hell, Tom, that’s all Jacob ever was to you, isn’t it? A bloody mistake.”

  Tom closed his eyes and moaned. “He wasn’t meant to be there. When I saw him, when I saw what they’d done to him, I didn’t know what to do.”

  “You could have pulled your fucking kid out of there, that’s what you could have done. Instead, you left him.” Craggs hit Tom on the forehead with the muzzle of the gun, and he cried out. “You left him to be fucking tortured by that sick fucking psychopath. If Coffin hadn’t found him, Jacob would be dead by now.”