[Vampire Babylon 01] - Skarlet (2009)

by Thomas Emson

  His mum worked hard and she was hardly ever there, but she was their mum.

  “You okay, David?” said Sophie, kneeling next to him.

  David’s tummy hurt. But he nodded he was all right and struggled to sit up. Sophie put a hand on his shoulder. C.J. glared at him, brandishing his knife. David wanted to throw up. Michael stood to the side, hands held out as if trying to calm the situation. He was saying, “He’s just a stupid kid, C.J. He’s a bit mental, that’s all. Sorry, man.”

  C.J. waved the knife. “I don’t give a shit. I’m going to cut him.” And he strode forward. Michael screamed, “No, please,” then moved out of the way. Sophie put her arms up. C.J., eyes blazing, tramped towards David, blade held out.

  The hoodie bounded off the roof of the school and landed behind C.J., and before C.J. could do anything the hoodie grabbed him and bit him in the throat. C.J. dropped his knife. He made a screaming shape with his mouth. He started to twitch in the hoodie’s grip. The front of C.J.’s jeans turned dark and the air filled with the stink of piss.

  Sophie screamed. David sensed her being whipped away from him.

  He turned and saw a pink-haired woman holding Sophie’s limp body in her arms. Pink Hair grinned at David and he saw her fangs.

  Pink Hair said, “The boys, too.”

  And David sensed someone standing above him. He turned away from Pink Hair and Sophie, and looked up. He wanted to pee.

  Mr. Gless, his dead teacher, stared down at him.

  Mr. Gless’s clothes were stained, and he smelled like a wheelie bin that hadn’t been emptied in ages. The teacher’s skin was chalky and his eyes were reddish. He smiled at David, and David cried when he saw his teacher’s teeth.

  Michael screamed, but David didn’t take any notice. He was too fixed on Mr. Gless, standing above him.

  Mr. Gless said, “Hello there, David Murray.”

  The hoodie dropped C.J.’s body on the yard and the boy’s carcass twitched, like it was doing a breakdance. The hoodie had blood all over his chin and he said, “Come on, let’s get going.”

  Mr. Gless said, “Detention for you, Murray,” and scooped David up in his arms, David, screaming, dropping his mobile phone, yelling for his mother.

  Chapter 63

  HEADING HOME.

  “FEEL like a hero again, do you?” said Sassie. “A soldier? With your new weapon?”

  Lawton stared ahead. The M1 stretched out before them, trafficthick.

  “No, I don’t feel like a hero, I’ve never felt like a hero. I’ve only ever felt that there’s a job to do.”

  “This is so cool,” said Lithgow. He sat in the back with the spear on his lap.

  “Wrap it up, Fraser,” said Lawton. “We don’t want the law stopping us and finding that.”

  “What did you make of the old man?” said Sassie. “You got on like a house on fire, you two. Old soldiers, eh.”

  “What is it you’ve got against soldiers, Sassie?”

  Her eyes stayed on the road. Lawton saw her knuckles turn white as she tightened her grip on the steering wheel. They’d left Manchester an hour ago, and Sassie floored it. They’d been quiet during the drive while they digested the information.

  Sassie said, “I went on the march against the war. You know?”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “There were so many of us,” she said. “Everyone speaking out against the war. We were convinced that the government would listen – listen to the people. I mean, it’s supposed to be a democracy. But they didn’t listen. They went to war.”

  Lawton said, “That’s not my fault, is it. That’s not a soldier’s fault. We just do our jobs, Sassie. It’s what we sign up to do.”

  “Killing.”

  “You think it’s all killing? Do you think that’s all I did in Basra? You go ask the Marsh Arabs if they’re better off now we made the Euphrates flow over their land again and what that did for their economy. Saddam built dams, diverting the water from their marshlands. He tried to wipe them out, Sassie. He killed twenty per cent of their people. You go ask them if all I did was kill.”

  A silence fell. But after a few moments Lithgow said, “That’s war, though, isn’t it. There’s always been wars and we can’t help that.”

  “I didn’t know you cared,” said Sassie.

  “Yeah, well, it’s all very well being against war,” said Lithgow, “but what if we’d listened to those people who were against war in the 1939? I wouldn’t be partying every week, would I? You wouldn’t be allowed to moan, Sassie.”

  “Moaning, am I?” she said, but the conviction had left her voice.

  Lawton glanced at Lithgow in the rear-view mirror and saw the glint in his eyes.

  Lithgow said, “I think they went to fight the war for the wrong reason, I do. Just politicians talking shite. But I don’t think it’s bad that Saddam Hussein’s gone. I used to be in Amnesty when I was at school. Did you ever hear what Saddam did over there?” He screwed up his face. “What he did was – was fucking dreadful, man, fucking off the scale.”

  “What George Bush did was off the scale, too,” said Sassie.

  “You’re joking. He was just a jerk, that’s all. Americans could slag him off without disappearing and getting their daughters raped. And loads of Americans did slag him off. They fucking hated him and said so. He was a dickhead, but you can’t compare, Sassie. You got your moral bearings mixed up, man.”

  “Don’t call me ‘man’, Fraser,” she said.

  “I’m not, man, Sassie, I’m just saying.”

  Her face was red, and tears leaked from her eyes.

  “The world’s a fucked up place,” said Lawton. “It’s got too many injuries, by now.”

  Sassie blew air out of her cheeks. She switched on the radio. A news headline said that more people were dying in London.

  Chapter 64

  BACK TO SCHOOL.

  SITTING in the car, Murray rang the newsdesk, and Anil, one of the news editors, picked up. Murray said, “I can’t find my children. Is there anything happening?” her voice trembling.

  “A few attacks reported already. Are you able to, um, file?”

  Murray felt a cold sweat break at the back of her neck. She fanned her face with her notebook. Bile rose up into her throat.

  “My kids are missing, Anil. I can’t do anything,” she said.

  “I’m sure your boys’ll be fine,” he said. “There are attacks, but most people out of a night are perfectly safe. Odds are against anything happening to them. Bet they’ll be home when you get there.”

  She thanked him and put the phone down.

  Murray didn’t share his confidence. Terror clawed at her chest. She wouldn’t be happy until David and Michael were in the car with her.

  She U-turned and headed down the road towards the school. A lorry cut her up as she came to a junction. She slammed her horn, and he slammed his.

  She parked outside the school. The wrought iron gates lay open.

  She got out, walked up to the school building. The word “Sidewalk” had been spray painted on the glass doors. It was fresh, she smelled the paint. And she smelled beer, too.

  Shadows lurked around the yard. She said, “David? Michael? Is there anyone here?” Her voice echoed around the schoolyard. She studied the building, and it chilled her: so gray and ominous. Do we teach our children in such places? And then she felt shame rise in her chest: I hadn’t noticed what my son’s school looked like, she thought.

  Murray stepped forward towards the main doors. A night-light cast a weak glow over the steps that led up to the door. She pressed her face to the glass, looked inside. She turned, went down the steps. She saw the can of spray paint, and cans of beer. Booze pooled on the yard.

  Her heart felt heavy, and she wanted to cry. She started to walk towards the car, and kicked something. It skittered across the yard, clattering against the open gate. Murray went after it, crouched. A mobile phone. She picked it up. She looked at the screen. The screen said mum.<
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  Chapter 65

  CHAOS ON THE STREETS

  OF LONDON.

  THEY hit traffic and roadblocks in London.

  Lawton tuned the radio, found a traffic info station. The announcer said that police were limiting traffic into Central London. Soho, Leicester Square, and Shaftesbury Avenue were affected. Buses and the Tube had also been hit, said the announcer.

  The DJ came back on and said, “So are there vampires stalking the streets of –?”

  Lawton turned off the radio.

  Sassie, crawling along the A400 Kentish Town Road, said, “How are we supposed to get home?”

  “We can go to mine,” said Lawton. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”

  “Yeah, it’s lovely,” said Lithgow.

  “Okay, which way?”

  Lawton said, “Turn into Highgate Road.”

  They drove on. Traffic thickened the closer they got to the guts of London. Cabbies raced through the gridlock. Bus passengers waved fists and shouted as their journeys were slowed.

  Sassie said, “So how come a London boy gets to join the King’s Regiment? Isn’t it for northerners?”

  “My dad lived in Birkenhead. He worked at the Tranmere Oil Terminal. I’d not seen him in years. I was raised by foster families in London after my mum died when I was two. He’d fucked off a year earlier. I found out where he lived when I was fifteen. Went up there at sixteen. It didn’t go to plan, the meeting. He wasn’t interested. I hung around the North West for a few months, doing odd jobs. Slept on the streets. I was kipping outside this newsagent’s one evening, saw a poster for the King’s Regiment. I joined up the following day.”

  Sassie said, “I thought you were an orphan. That’s what the papers said.”

  He said, “You read that rubbish in the end, then. Well, that was a lie, too. My dad’s still alive, but I guess I’m dead to him. Had a new family by the time I found him. He was a Scouser down in the big smoke in the Seventies, doing some building work. My mum was a barmaid at a New Cross pub. He was a bit of a wag, you know. He moved in, they had me, he moved out. They spent a year together. My mum died of a drugs’ overdose, social workers found me.”

  Sassie said, “I’m really sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “For all that. No wonder you joined the forces.”

  “You think useless cases like me join the forces, then?”

  “No, I mean – you didn’t have – many choices.”

  “I had choices,” he said. “Everyone has choices. I could’ve knuckled down at school, got my O-Levels. I chose not to. I could’ve got a job, an apprenticeship or something. Chose not to. I could’ve gone with my mates, caused mischief. I chose not to. We’ve all got choices.”

  She said, “Did seeing your father – I mean his reaction to you – make you join up?”

  “It did. I had no real family down in London. I was seeing Jenna, knew her mum and dad. But I was a kid, you know. Typical teenaged boy. Not ready to settle down. I knew I’d end up on the streets. I was sixteen, and didn’t want to go back in with a foster family. You know, sixteen and he thinks he’s a big man.”

  “And when you got – when you left the army. You came back.”

  “Back to New Cross,” said Lawton. “Old stomping ground. Get drunk, feel sorry for myself, feel anger towards the people who fucked my life up.”

  “You’re angry?” she said.

  “Fucking furious,” said Lawton. “I had a good life. I had order and discipline. I was doing well. A staff sergeant with prospects. It was my life. Imagine if they told you, Sassie, that you’d have to leave your university tomorrow and you’d never work in another one all your life.

  You could never study, do your research ever again. That’s how it felt, I guess.” He shook his head. “Politicians took over. Press wanted blood. I got sacrificed.”

  “You should stop drinking,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I think that a part of you enjoys all this chaos.”

  “Gives me something to do. Gives me a war to fight.” He turned and stared at her. “Gives me someone to fight for.”

  She glanced at him, and then cast her eyes back over the road. She said, “Are you fighting for Jenna?”

  “Her. Everyone. You.”

  “Me?”

  “Jenna’s gone. She’s – whatever she is. But you’re with me. You’re alive and breathing. But then you don’t like war.”

  She said, “No. But sometimes you have to fight them.”

  Lithgow snored in the back of the car.

  Sassie said, “What about Jenna?”

  “What about her?”

  “Will you – do you still like her?”

  “No, not like I did. And it was only ‘like’, really. We were kids. We just got together, you know. Like kids do.”

  “She’s not human anymore.”

  “No, she’s not.”

  “Not the Jenna you knew. They’re none of them the people they were.”

  “No, they’re not. I know that.” He rubbed his neck. “Jenna’s not alive anymore – but I still think I’m going to have to kill her.”

  Chapter 66

  STEAMING ON SUNDAY.

  JED, aged fifteen, with hate in his eyes and a Stanley Knife in his pocket, scanned the commuters travelling south on the Bakerloo Line.

  He and Marty had got on at Kensal Green. They were hunting – hunting some dipshit they could rob for cash, mobile, or an MP3 player. They were going to steam through a train, nicking anything they could.

  Loads of kids being loud filled the carriage. Posh cunts from Harrow who joined the Bakerloo Line off the Metropolitan Line. They were headed for Oxford Circus, Jed guessed. Sunday night out on the town.

  Finish off the weekend. Headed for the clubs and bars with shiny lights and stupid cocktails; not the clubs and bars he tried to get into – dark and grimy and drug-infested.

  The train rumbled through Queens Park, heading towards Kilburn Park.

  Jed got the rage and said, “What the fuck you looking at, cunt?” to a tall, gangly ginger nut.

  The ginge flinched, and his freckles showed on his scared, white face.

  A girl, slutty in a short red dress, stabbed a look at Jed and said, “Leave him alone.”

  The ginge touched her arm, mouth going, “No, no, no,” and Jed strode over. Another guy, spiky blonde hair, stocky, stepped in front of ginge and the girl, the girl – mouthy bitch – still going, “Fuck off, pondlife,” to Jed.

  The blonde guy held out his hands, saying, “Cool down, mate – ” but Jed smacked him – a right hook across the jaw. The guy went down. Girls screamed. The mouthy bitch stopped talking and gawped as the blonde lad hit the floor. Ginge looked terrified, and Jed thought he could smell piss.

  Marty grabbed his arm, said, “Come on, mate, leave it – leave it, Jed.”

  Girls attended to the wounded gay boy and Jed spat at them, calling the blonde, “Fucking queer.”

  He stomped back to the other end of the carriage. Commuters hid behind newspapers, magazines, anything, to keep away from him.

  Marty said, “What’re you doing, nutjob?”

  “He fucking stared at me, that carrot-head,” said Jed.

  “Yeah? Well do him after. We’re robbing someone, and you just got us tagged.”

  Jed glanced over at the group he’d attacked. They were on their phones.

  “They’re calling the pigs,” said Marty, “so we get off at Warwick Avenue.”

  The train screeched and rattled as it hurtled through the tunnel. Jed watched the wankers phone the cops. His heart raced, and a cold sweat broke out on his back. He could feel anger rise in him again, and he clenched his fists.

  Marty, jabbing a finger at the group, said, “We know you,” and he swaggered down the train to square off – he was just trying to scare them, Jed knew that. Other passengers cowered. Marty said, “We can find you, right?”

  “Leave us alone, you scum,” said the mouthy
bitch in the red.

  Marty backed up, still squaring his shoulders, still jutting out his chin.

  Jed held the rail to steady himself. His head spun with fury and fear.

  He’d fucked up. Marty’d be pissed off if they couldn’t rob someone and get away with it.

  They got off at Warwick Avenue. The raced up the stairs, out into the night air. Jed breathed hard, and felt dizzy. But it was good to have fresh air. The tube felt stifling. He lit a fag and spluttered, still not used to it after a year of trying to smoke.

  “You cunt,” said Marty, shoving him.

  Jed staggered away, almost dropping his fag.

  Marty said, “They got you on CCTV doing that. Well, you can take the fall, wanker. You ain’t taking me down with you, right?”

  “He was fucking looking at me, Marty.”

  “Yeah? Well I’m looking at you, now.”

  “What was I supposed to do? He pissed me off. He looked at me,” said Jed.

  Marty strutted off, swearing under his breath. He gobbed on the pavement. A white van was parked on double yellows. Jed narrowed his eyes, thinking, That wanker in the van looks dodgy parked there.

  Marty neared the van. The rear doors burst open. Three goths leaped out. Jed’s heart punched his ribs. The strength drained out of him. The goths grabbed Marty. They dragged him into the van. He gawped at Jed, his eyes wide and scared. The back door shut and the van sped off.

  “Think you’re tough, sunshine?” said a voice behind him.

  He wheeled round, dropping the cigarette. A dark-haired girl in a frilly white shirt glared at him from the tube entrance. She could’ve been pretty. But her skin was pale – like it had too much powder on it.

  Dark rings cradled her eyes and the eyes themselves – fuck, they were red almost; red and blue, like a bruise. She smelled weird, like something dead. Like that dead dog Marty and him burned down by the river a few weeks ago. They’d poured lighter fluid on the carcass, threw a match on it. The putrid dog sizzled and swelled, and the belly burst open and entrails spooled out, charring and fizzing in the flames.