Joe Coffin Season One

by Ken Preston

  “I was going to go back for him,” Tom said, between snuffles. “I was going to go back and get him out of there, but you don’t know who these people are, Mort. You don’t know what they’re capable of.”

  “You spineless piece of shit,” Craggs snarled. “I’ve got a good mind to keep you alive, while I cut tiny pieces off you and shove them in your mouth, make you eat yourself, bit by lousy bit. How’d you like that, you fucker?”

  Tom moaned again, his hands still over his face.

  Craggs slid the gun down Tom’s body, coming to rest in his groin.

  “Now, tell me what the hell is going on, or I’m going to shoot your balls off. And then I’m going to shoot you in the kneecaps. I think you’ll be talking plenty by then.”

  Tom took his hands away from his bloody, ruined face. He stared wide eyed at Craggs, a sudden fury contorting his features.

  “Fuck you, Craggs,” he said, and spat a gobbet of blood at him.

  Too late, Craggs noticed the shadow lunging for him. He swivelled around, swinging the gun up, just as the gnarled old man in the stained suit crashed into him. Craggs slammed onto the floor on his back, his arms being flung out sideways with the force of the impact. The gun flew from his hand, and skittered across the floor, out of reach.

  The elderly mob boss tried to squirm onto his front, crawl after the gun, but the ancient monstrosity on top of him had him pinned to the floor. As he twisted his head, he came face to face with Velvina, staring lifelessly at him with her wide eyes. Craggs realised he was lying in her blood, pooled across the floor.

  He looked back up at the monstrosity, grinning down at him, its lips and teeth red with blood. The old man swung a fist at it, but the thing caught his wrist in its long fingers, and pinned his arm to the floor. Craggs stared up at its gaunt face, at the bulging eyes. He could see the bullet wound in its forehead where he had shot it. And he thought he could see, just poking out of the wound, the glint of something metallic.

  With a sudden rush of horror and despair, Craggs realised that it was the bullet, somehow being forced back out of the thing’s head. Craggs watched, fascinated, as the squashed bullet was slowly squeezed out of the wound by some invisible force. Gradually it emerged far enough that it tipped forward and then dropped to the floor with a dull clink.

  The monster sat on top of Craggs and snarled at him, baring its teeth. It was getting ready to bite him.

  “Wait!” Tom shouted.

  He was across the other side of the room, swaying slightly as he bent down to pick up the gun. He grinned at Craggs as he straightened up. His face was a mess, his nose looked like it had been bent to the left, and his mouth and chin were covered in blood.

  “As much as I would enjoy seeing Boris Karloff tearing your throat out, I hate the thought of you returning as a vampire,” Tom said, as he walked towards them.

  “Vampire!” Craggs spat the word out. “What are you talking about?”

  “Look at him, Craggs,” Tom said, lazily waving the gun in the direction of the thing sitting on top of him. “Does he look normal to you? You ever come across anything like him before?”

  The monstrosity on Craggs hissed at him, spraying flecks of spit and blood in his face.

  “He’s a fucking vampire, Craggs,” Tom said, and giggled. “You can see it now, can’t you? You don’t believe it, but deep down inside, you know it’s true. And if that thing there takes a bite out of you, and sucks your blood, fucking chances are you’ll be waking up again sometime soon, with a craving for a drink of nice, warm blood, too.”

  Tom paused, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, being careful not to touch his nose.

  “Thing is, you old bastard, the last thing I want is you prowling around, wanting to sink your teeth into me. And have you seen how fucking difficult it is to kill these bastards? A few more of these freaks and I’ll have an army of fucking terminators on my side.”

  Tom pointed the gun at Craggs.

  “So, I’m going to shoot you, and then let Boris have his fill of your blood. Think of it as a kindness, Craggs. You’d hate being a vampire, I’m sure.”

  “Quit talking, and just do it,” Craggs snarled.

  Tom laughed, took another step closer, beside Velvina’s body. His foot slipped on the floor, slick with her blood.

  “Oh, fuck!” he yelled, drunkenly trying to regain his balance, his arms pinwheeling wildly.

  There was a crack as the gun fired, and the thing on top of Craggs jerked sideways. Craggs wasted no time in crawling away, as Tom finally lost his battle with gravity, and dropped to the floor, with a wet smack, in the dead girl’s blood.

  Craggs got painfully to his hands and knees. He couldn’t risk looking back, wasting any more time. He had to get out of here as soon as possible. There was no way of knowing what was outside his office, if Clevon, or any of his other staff were left alive, but he had to take the chance. If there were more of these fruitcakes outside, then so be it. But he had to try.

  Craggs staggered to his feet and reached the door. He grasped the door handle, but his hand slipped off, slick with his own blood. There was movement behind him, but still he did not look back. Grabbing the door handle with both hands, this time he managed to twist it, and pulled open the door. Staggering outside, he slammed it shut behind him.

  Down the stairs. He had to get down the stairs and outside. Once out in the open, he stood a better chance.

  But the club, it was so silent. Was he the only one left alive here? Was there nobody to help him?

  Craggs headed for the stairs, gritting his teeth. It didn’t matter. He’d faced tough odds before and always come through the other side.

  Behind him, the door opened. A shot was fired, the bullet slamming into the ceiling just above Craggs, showering him with flecks of plaster. Craggs made a dash for the stairs, but his legs gave way beneath him, and he stumbled forward. The old man pitched over at the top of the flight of steps. At the last moment he made a grab for the handrail, but missed it, and tumbled down the stairs. He cracked his head on the wall, as he fell, and came to a halt almost at the bottom, his right arm bent awkwardly behind his back. His left ankle flared up in pain, and Craggs bit back a scream.

  There was a movement at the top of the stairs. Tom and his pet monster, coming after him. Was this it? Was this the end of his life, and career as leader of the Slaughterhouse Mob?

  Fucking pathetic way to die, lying in a broken tangle of limbs on a flight of stairs in the back of his club. But at least he was going down fighting.

  Craggs lay in the silence, unable to move any more, waiting to die.

  Suddenly the quiet was shattered by the pulsing throb of music from the club next door. Craggs wasn’t alone after all.

  Suddenly inflamed by a renewed need to live, a fierce determination to not let himself die like this, especially at the hands of Tom Mills, Craggs began crawling forward. He screamed as his right arm freed itself from underneath him, a red hot pain shooting through his elbow. Using his left hand, he shoved himself upright. He stood up, leaning against the wall for support, leaving a bloody hand print behind.

  The music played on, throbbing through the walls, turned up to top volume, it sounded like. It would be deafening in there. Craggs lunged for the door, sure that his two pursuers were right behind him. He pushed through the door and staggered into the club.

  The place was empty. There were a couple of tables with half-finished drinks sitting on them, but no one sitting in the chairs. The lights were down low, but the drinks behind the bar were illuminated in the soft glow of the bar lights. But Addison was not standing behind the bar.

  Craggs’ eyes were drawn to the stage. There was a woman up there, dancing. She was up against one of the silver poles, her thighs straddling it, her back arched, and running her hands up and down its sleek length.

  And she was naked.

  Craggs limped closer.

  The woman arched her back, her long hair hanging down, almost touchi
ng the floor. She undulated her hips softly against the sleep, silver pole, and then swung herself around, her hair flying out like a wave. Pulling herself back up straight, she hugged the pole, her arms draped around it, squeezing it between her breasts.

  Craggs limped closer, his pursuers forgotten for the moment, as a cold lump of ice settled in his stomach and across his chest.

  “Steffanie?”

  Her naked body was dripping with blood. Letting go of the pole with one hand, she ran her fingers over her breasts and down her stomach, smearing the blood around in swirling patterns of red. She smiled at Craggs, her face resting against the pole, and then slid down, bending at the knees so her bottom was sticking out.

  She giggled and swung around so that her bottom was facing Craggs.

  “Kiss my arse, Mortimer Craggs,” she shouted over the music, and giggled again.

  She swung back around to face Craggs, standing up straight, running her hands through her hair, and stretching like a cat.

  Suddenly the music was switched off, the silence almost a deafening noise in itself for the first moment.

  “I’ve been wanting to say that for years,” Steffanie said, as she stepped down off the stage. “I’ve hated you, Mortimer Craggs. I’ve hated you ever since the first moment I laid eyes on you.”

  Steffanie circled around him, running a bloody finger across his cheeks, over his lips. Craggs stood still, staring straight ahead, trying to regain some semblance of self-control. Seeing Steffanie alive again, it was impossible. But then Craggs had never actually seen her body. What had happened? Had Tom been lying to him?

  Steffanie continued circling him, her naked flesh seeming to emanate a freezing coldness. Her finger continued tracing lines across his face, leaving trails of red.

  “Steffanie,” Tom said, from behind Craggs. “Don’t bite him, he’s mine.”

  Steffanie draped herself across Craggs, sitting on his lap, one arm over his right shoulder, her chin on his left, and pouted. “You spoil all my fun. Let me have my wicked way with him, and I’ll tell you where the USB stick is.”

  Tom approached Steffanie, still holding the gun. The Father was crouched on one of the tables, licking blood from a customer slumped across the table, his head lying in his spilt drink.

  “You fucking bitch,” Tom said. “You knew all along, didn’t you?”

  Steffanie giggled and then nibbled at Craggs’ ear. Craggs flinched.

  “No,” she said. “I just remembered, up there while I was dancing. Everything came back to me. Everything.”

  Tom took a deep, juddering breath. “Okay, great. Fucking whoopdeedoo, you remember. Now where the fuck is it?”

  Steffanie’s tongue flicked out, and she licked at the blood on Craggs’ face. She made a sound, deep down in the back of her throat, like a growl of pleasure.

  “I’ve never fucked an older person before, I never thought it would be worth it,” she whispered, her lips against Craggs’ ear. She undulated her body up and down against him, grinding her hips against his. “But you might be the exception. You’ve still got some life down there, haven’t you?”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Craggs hissed.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Tom said, and lifted the gun.

  Craggs spun Steffanie round in between him and Tom. The blast of Tom’s gun firing echoed around the nightclub. Steffanie’s face exploded over Craggs, showering him in blood and bone and flecks of brain matter. He tipped back, Steffanie falling on top of him, and he hit the floor with a painful whack to the back of his head.

  “Oh, fucking hell!” Tom wailed, tipping his head back and letting the gun drop to the floor. “Why the fuck do these things have to keep happening to me?”

  Craggs pushed at Steffanie’s lifeless body, his hands on her breasts in a gruesome simulation of sexual coupling. He managed to tip her bloody carcass off him, and it landed with a dull thud on its back, the arms and legs splayed out, lifeless eyes staring out from the shattered, bloody face.

  Craggs was too weak to move. His arm was on fire, and his ankle no longer felt like it would support him. He fumbled in his pocket with lifeless fingers for his mobile. He should have thought of this before, get help.

  Craggs pulled the mobile out and punched in a number.

  Tom seemed to have forgotten him for the moment. He was pacing up and down, wailing and shouting drunkenly.

  “Joe?” Craggs said. “Joe I’m at the club, I’m in a bad way.”

  Tom whirled around. “Joe? But Joe’s dead!”

  “Quick, Joe,” Craggs hissed. “I need you now, he’s going to kill me!”

  Tom snatched the phone out of Craggs’ hand.

  “Yeah, Joe, come quick!” he screamed into the mobile. “If you get here fast enough, you’ll get to see me slice and dice the old man, and then it’ll be your fucking turn!”

  He hurled the mobile across the club, and it smashed against a wall, and broke apart.

  stupid

  Joe Coffin pushed the Fat Boy as fast as he dared in the wet conditions. The roads were gridlocked with traffic, headlights cutting through the gloom, and the sheet of water falling from the heavy sky. But the pavements were deserted, everyone hiding indoors from the downpour. Whenever he came across a queue of stalled traffic, Coffin mounted the pavement, and tore along it, water spraying out from under his wheels in great arcs of foam.

  The visibility was dreadful, worse than driving at night, and Coffin had to keep a sharp eye out for lamp posts, litter bins and telephone kiosks. He skidded to a halt outside a Pizza Hut, narrowly avoiding colliding with a pensioner driving a mobility scooter along the pavement. He was enshrouded in a rain-drenched plastic covering, and he drove past Coffin without comment.

  The families in the Pizza Hut looked at Coffin through the logo on the window, their faces wide eyed, slices of pizza held forgotten in hands halfway to their mouths, open in astonishment.

  Coffin gunned the bike, and set off again, spraying a sheet of water against the window, momentarily obscuring the onlookers’ view.

  After learning that Tom had taken out a hit on him, Coffin had already decided that he was going to kill Tom Mills. After he had got Tom to spill his guts about what was going on, and what he had got himself involved in. But if Tom hurt Craggs, or, God forbid, killed him, before Coffin had a chance to get to Angels, then he would make sure to take his time over killing him.

  Coffin angled the bike back onto the road, and shot over a junction, the traffic lights on red. There was a blaring of horns from behind him, and then the sound of crunching metal. This section of the road was free now, and Coffin took it as fast as he dared, leaning low over the bike, ignoring the red hot pain in his shoulder.

  Tom had sounded like he had gone insane, screaming down the phone at Coffin. He had always been highly strung, but he was weak and ineffectual, the butt of everybody’s jokes. The other guys in the Slaughterhouse Mob, they made fun of him, or they ignored him, Coffin included, much of the time. No one ever took him seriously, because no one ever thought he would bite back.

  But now he had, and in the worst way possible.

  Coffin pulled up outside the club. The place looked like it had been locked down for the night. Another sign that something was wrong. Craggs shut the doors to Angels as little as possible. Coffin climbed off the Harley and took his helmet off. Rainwater ran down his face, pooling into little rivers, streaming down inside his leather jacket, and his T-shirt.

  He flexed his arm, bolts of hot pain firing through it with each movement. Even considering Tom’s obvious unbalanced state of mind, Coffin didn’t think it would come down to much of a fight. Tom was too much of a lightweight, couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag. But what made Coffin uneasy was the fact that he had not heard from Clevon, or Addison. There was no way in hell Tom could have taken all of them down, which meant he had to have company.

  But who?

  Not those two mystery companions of his he kept hidden under sheets, surely? />
  Coffin approached the club’s double doors. The Angels logo, usually flashing neon colours, was dead. Coffin pushed at the doors, and they gave slightly, and then stopped. He pushed harder, and they gave a little more. There was something on the other side, blocking the doors shut. Favouring his left, uninjured side, Coffin put his weight against the doors and shoved. When he had got enough of a gap that he could see inside, he realised there was a body on the floor, blocking the doors. It looked like Clevon. He was in a kneeling position, with his face on the floor, and his arms splayed out either side of him. His trousers and pants were bunched around his ankles, and his naked bottom was sticking up in the air.

  Coffin pushed his way through into the lobby, and closed the door, and turned the lock. He leaned down and gripped the bouncer by his shoulder, turned him over. Clevon flopped onto his back. His groin was a mass of bloody, ripped flesh. In the dim light, Coffin could see the trail of blood, where the bouncer had crawled, as he tried to get to the door, all the time bleeding to death.

  Tom hadn’t done this. An attack so savage and bloody, it looked like the work of the psychopath that Coffin had fought in the house on Forde Road. The one the newspapers liked to call The Birmingham Vampire.

  Coffin straightened up. On his left was the admittance desk and the cloakroom. On his right were the toilets, and a wall of photographs, Craggs posing with local celebrities. Further down the hall where the double doors led to the club, there was a huddled shape on the floor. Another body.

  The steady thump of rock music pumped through the walls. Some crappy, soft rock.

  Coffin couldn’t go in the club unarmed. He needed a weapon. And he knew where to find one. He jumped over the admittance desk and opened a door in the back. There was a second office in here, with a large safe built into the end wall. The club’s takings were kept in here at the end of the night until they could be banked the following day. What very few people knew, was that the safe also housed a sawn-off shotgun in a compartment in the back.