Vampires Overhead

by Alan Hyder

  ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘Just after twelve,’ Bingen said, holding wrist-watch to the light shimmering round the bend. ‘Only been in here a few hours, and to me it seems like days.’

  ‘It must have been nearly twelve when we came in here. Say we wakened soon after dawn, that means we’ve been in here twelve hours.’ I mused. ‘A few hours ago I was standing outside the Luxurides with medals and swagger uniform like some little tin god, and now, here I am, crouching in a tunnel with the fear of God put in me by a few bats.’

  ‘Bats! Phsaw! Whoever saw bats anything like these things.’ Bingen sat erect, stared along the tunnel. ‘D’you notice anything?’

  ‘The light!’ I said at last. The water had dwindled away down the tunnel, and even as we noticed it the light, filtering through, intensified the darkness at the top end. ‘For God’s sake. It’s a funny light. Bingen, I understand! It’s the light shining through the river. We’re seeing daylight through the water as the tide goes down.’

  Luminous, the light swam in a green haze with flickering hints of flame in it, and weird transparent shadows grew dimly on the walls. Green and red. We held our breaths as we watched it lighten imperceptibly. From black to grey, and in the grey danced suggestions of pink; from grey to green shot with crimson, pale green, and glowing scarlet. The river receded down the tunnel to let light shine through, until, etched quaveringly in the water, we saw the streaky outline of a barred gate.

  ‘We’ll be able to get away by the river.’

  ‘I’m not getting out of here until I know what’s out there waiting for us,’ I answered. ‘Soon we’ll be able to see.’

  The river subsided slowly, crept down to the brown mud outside. Several times I went up the slope to watch the gate. How long it was, waiting, watching the muddy water lap down to the river gate, creeping through and finally under it. We looked at the water, and at the growing mud flat flickering with pink and scarlet from the conflagration like shot-silk. The river slid over the mud to the gravel, back into the bed of low tide, and we sat still, too nervous to move from the security of the tunnel, seeing only the water. Both of us dreaded what the world would have to show us.

  Bingen moved first. He flung away the stub of a cigarette and rose slowly to his feet.

  ‘Got to have a look. Come on. Let’s see what’s outside.’

  I followed Bingen down the slope towards the river, and as the north bank came into view our steps grew slower and slower.

  The whole of the town on the opposite bank was alight. Flames reflected redly, shakily in the smooth water. We forced ourselves closer to the gate silently, then, with one accord, sprang backwards, slipping and stumbling on the slimy floor.

  A great burst of white heat blistered at our faces. Flames crackled, hissed with a very inferno of noise, driving us back along the tunnel. At the bend we halted, crouching, shielding our faces. And at the back of us clustered on the gate were . . .! The air grew hotter, seared my lungs as I drew it gaspingly into my throat, sweat dried as it seeped into my hot clothing. Bingen whimpered like a child, terrified.

  Past the tunnel entrance, down the ebbing river, a group of burning barges drifted slowly, a huge bonfire on the water.

  Under the iron caissons of Hungerford Bridge they swung, hesitated, drifted clear. The heat became unbearable as they went past. Vainly I tried to shield myself. In my brain beat throbbingly the thought I could not stand this. . . . I must go out and face the things clustering on the gate rather than be shrivelled up. But the barges were past the hard outside the brewery, and the scorching heat abated. They were gone, and, with their passing, warm air billowed upon us. Warm air . . . but how cool it tasted after the heat.

  ‘That’s what it’s like out there,’ I said when my dried lips could articulate the words. My voice cracked. ‘That’s what it’s like out there!’

  ‘I’m going out. I’ve got to get out of here.’ Bingen shrilled the words in panic. His tongue licked ceaselessly at his lips, his reddened eyes watered, he shook as though with ague. ‘Got to get out.’

  A depression on the floor had gathered water from the ebbing river. I pulled Bingen down, and laying on the floor, we pressed faces into it, sucking muddy water into hot dry mouths. We felt better, rubbed sweat and mud from our faces.

  ‘Get out of here into that?’ I asked and shook my head. ‘We’ve got to stick in here to keep out of that. It’s cooler now. Let’s go and see what it is like outside. Bingen, the whole damned world’s on fire!’

  With shaky hands steadying shrinking bodies against the bars, we stared through the gate.

  Over the river on the north bank, to the east and to the west so far as we could see, peering first from one side and then the other, scarlet flames stabbed skywards above a rolling veil of grey smoke. Above our tunnel hung low another pall. Had the wind veered and blown that smoke into our refuge . . .! A lifting of the smoke and a towering burst of flame roared away to the east, and dancing in the white-hot wind we glimpsed the burning of London.

  ‘It’s hell! We’ve woke up in hell,’ Bingen muttered.

  White stone of a newly completed building, a lofty block of offices, shone dazzlingly, and about it flames crept like virginia creeper in the autumn; behind it, to the right, the great dome of St Paul’s loomed out of the smoke and was hidden even as we watched; downstream two barges laden with barrels burned fiercely, and every now and then a barrel would explode, zoom into the air like a Roman candle. At every explosion we crouched, until the very magnitude of the scene we watched held us tense, unheeding.

  Those exploding barrels, in normal circumstances, would have been awe-inspiring, but now, with the tremendous crackling roar coming from the burning town, they were insignificant. Bingen, as he looked at them, nearly smiled.

  ‘Burning rum!’ he cried. ‘That’s rum in those barrels. What wouldn’t I give for a quart of it.’

  But I was intent upon something else.

  ‘Bingen, look. Among the smoke over the river, on the barges, the bridges. They’re everywhere.’

  Motionless among the flames, in thick layers like ashes, were fellows to the things on the gate in the tunnel. To the left, not two hundred yards away, the red-hot steel-work of Hungerford Bridge was draped with them, like tropical fungus drooping from a burning tree. On the bridge, two trains burned in fiery snakes, and about them clustered the Vampires. In the flames they lay piled upon each other, clamped to one another with tentacled wings, impervious to the heat. Into my swimming brain there leapt a vision of people in those carriages. Drowsy, early morning workers close upon the seats, strap-hanging; the unexpected stopping of the train . . . was it brought to a standstill by impassable layers of Vampires? . . . people staring from the windows . . . and the things forced by weight of sheer numbers in among them . . . fire . . . glowing woodwork blowing to flame . . . white heat . . . flames hissing, crackling . . . the probing black muzzles. . . .

  My knees gave way, and but for holding to the bars of the gate I should have fallen to the mud. As it was, my feet slithered helplessly.

  ‘Garry! God! Garry!’ Bingen’s hand gripped my arm and he pointed shakingly. ‘Look at that!’

  One of the things dropped from the bridge to the river’s brim. It stared at us menacingly, hunched upon the mud. Bingen screamed.

  ‘There’s more! Look at them!’

  Silently, as though someone above had emptied a huge bucket of obscene filth, they dropped, piled the mud in struggling heaps, drew closer, until they were at the gate, upon which they packed as we fell back into the tunnel, climbing body upon body like a mounting drift of ebon snow. We were centrally in the tunnel, in the hot dark air, and at the brewery end they hung upon the gate, and at the river end also!

  We gazed at each other despairingly. Bingen gibbered. His mouth worked aimlessly amid white froth.

  ‘Bingen! In a little while we’ll both be stark raving mad,’ I whispered. ‘This won’t do. We’ve got to plan something. Occupy our
minds with some idea of escape. Else we’ll get beyond control.’

  ‘What can we do?’

  ‘We’ve got to hold this place and stay put until these things have gone. They must go sometime. They can’t stay forever. Out there, someone’ll be getting into action. Machine-guns, bombs, gas. They’ll get rid of them. The people out there have been taken unawares, but when they get together they’ll clear those things out. All we can do is stick here until we get a sight of someone outside who’ll help us.’

  ‘I can’t stop here doing nothing. I’ve got to get out. I can’t stand it.’

  ‘Well, there’s plenty to do, damn you,’ my voice rose shrilly, hysterically, for Bingen stared at me with such hopeless terror in his eyes, I had to take hold of myself not to be affected. I continued more calmly. ‘We’ll start doing something, Bingen, we’ll take a gate each and see to it, defend it. Which’ll you have, the brewery or the river?’

  ‘No. We’ll stick together. I’m not going near those gates alone. Go together, from gate to gate.’

  And I was glad, for being together gave one a mite more courage. We crept . . . there is no other word for it . . . up the tunnel to the brewery. Behind the bodies on the gate, flames roared even more fiercely, but those nightmarish things were impervious to a heat which made us shield our faces. They clung there unmoving, watching our slow advance with bleak eyes. Close to the bars we halted, and I heard Bingen’s breath catch and quicken in pure helplessness.

  ‘While we’re in here we’re safe,’ I assured him. ‘The sword jammed in there stops ’em getting in. Let’s get the rifle, and bayonet them through the bars.’

  Bingen returned in a moment, glad of something which would take his thoughts from panic, with the rifle, and walked slowly to the gate.

  ‘Give ’em hell, Bingen,’ I shouted, and at his side kicked foolishly at the forms through the bars. ‘That’s the stuff to give ’em. Let ’em have it.’

  With all sorts of nonsense I encouraged him as, deliberately, he stabbed the bayoneted rifle through the gate. Stabbed methodically into round eyes, ripped ribbed leathery wings from bulging black bodies, thrust point into stomachs, then, sensing the uselessness of it, he lurched wildly with the weapon, anywhere, anyhow. And the things stayed there on the gate, unmoving.

  ‘It’s no use. You can’t even hurt them,’ Bingen gulped breathlessly at last and rested on the rifle. His glance fell on the bayonet. ‘God! Look here. The point’s dry. There’s nothing on it.’

  The things were bloodless . . . until after they had fed . . . when one sliced a head from sloping shoulders there was only dark dry stuff like cotton-wool tangled with black threads.

  ‘They can be killed though!’ I shouted triumphantly. ‘When you stabbed ’em, they slid back. Their places were taken by others. These aren’t all the same ones here. They can be killed all right. Didn’t I beat one into pulp?’

  But I was trying to convince myself. They could be killed, but it seemed they could not be hurt, for those cold, expressionless eyes never faltered, broke their gaze, showed feeling, no matter what one did to them. Beastly as they were, some change of expression must have been manifest had they been hurt. Pain or dread must have crept into their eyes when sword severed wing, tentacle, sank into body or head, had they been hurt, yet they ignored Bingen’s plunging rifle, gazed fixedly at him, almost pleadingly, as though one should sympathize with them! This strangely pathetic human effect gave birth to the horrifying idea of them being lost souls from another world. Lost souls from purgatory.

  ‘Don’t waste strength. You’ll want that later on,’ said I, and went back from the gate into the tunnel. ‘You can hardly kill them, and you can’t hurt them at all. We’ll just have to wait until they’ve gone. Bingen, would the old watchman have got away without trying to get us out of here?’

  ‘I dunno. D’you think anyone’d bother about someone else with these things on his neck? Old Dad would have helped us if he could I suppose.’

  ‘They must have got him.’

  ‘I suppose so. But what I’m concerned about is stopping them getting me.’

  ‘Poor old chap. To come scathless through many a little War on the frontiers and now to go under like that.’ I shuddered, imagining the old fellow writhing beneath those filthy, probing muzzles. ‘God! They can’t have come from this earth.’

  From somewhere out of space, through the stratosphere, from the unknown, dropping through a silence with bleak eyes fixed greedily towards the inhabited earth. They might have bred here unseen, unheard of, in some darkly warm unexplored tropical fastness, but where in the world is any unexplored territory? No, from some passing planet, some other world, from which I like to think they had been exiled, outcast, for the beastly things they are, and from the space into which they had flown for safety, chanced upon earth. And the voyage had made them hungry! I tried to turn my thoughts from the impossibilities of imagination.

  ‘I wonder whether we’ll have much trouble forcing that gate after they’ve gone. Should manage it all right with the sword. Ten to one when we want to get out we’ll want to get out quickly.’

  ‘I’m not anxious about getting out now,’ Bingen answered. ‘Let me stay here until they’ve blown away.’

  ‘It’ll be easy enough to get out, but if we want to get out quickly? Want to make a dash for it? What then? D’you think we ought to loosen a few bricks round the gate so that it could be pushed open, but can’t be pushed in? I wonder whether those things would have enough sense to pull the gate down if we did that.’

  ‘No! Don’t give them a chance,’ Bingen said, stretching out a hand to stay me. ‘We daren’t risk it.’

  ‘It’ll be worth risking. They can’t get in while they’re pushed against the gate like that, and we’ll be able to get away if we have to. We can’t stay in here forever. Risking those things would be preferable to slow starvation.’

  But saying it, I knew that, of the two, I’d choose starvation. Bingen was right. We daren’t risk letting them in.

  Backing down into the tunnel we sat exhaustedly on the floor some distance apart, Bingen keeping an eye on the brewery gate, and I watching the river. We smoked thankfully of the few cigarettes we had left, and our ears tuned above the crackling roar of flames, listening for the sound of things creeping, knowing they moved silently.

  And that day dragged slowly away.

  The river climbed its banks to the gate, driving the Vampires away, retreated, to let them gather there again: those at the brewery end remained clamped to their bars. Every so often we inspected the tunnel entrances to reassure ourselves they were secure, and more frequently had to walk down to the river end to bathe faces in the warm water, and gulp thirstily at what, to us in the stifling heat, seemed so cool and refreshing. Without that water what should we have done? Died or gone mad? For the air heated with every gasping breath we took, fiery blasts of wind carried particles of red-hot grit and dust upon us, burning our eyes, scorching our throats, until we rinsed it away with that priceless water. Clouds of ash billowed about the hard, settling on the black bodies by the gate, tonsuring round heads, greying shawls on sloping shoulders.

  Lack of food worried us not at all. I would have revolted at the thought, for sick terror contracted my stomach muscles; my nerves were taut violin strings, every little noise dissimilar to the roar of flames jerked and twitched my body. Bingen was different. At times he was cheery, defiant, and then, without warning, would get hysterical, his nerves would break, and he would curse, sob, shiver, scream.

  The evening drew in without appreciable alteration to the light, and the night passed. I dozed in cat-naps, stiffening now and then to peer into the dark. Once I heard Bingen crying softly, and ashamed at hearing him, wandered back and forth between the gates.

  Daylight came, bringing a difference to the colour of the glow, and so far as we could judge, the Vampires at the gates had not moved.

  During that day we killed the four rats sheltering with us, for when
we passed them they humped back to the wall with bared teeth. Pushing the bodies through the bars, we saw how those hateful muzzles probed and twisted to reach. One by one the rats were pulled away into the press of black bodies out of sight. It sickened me, thoughts of going the same way chilled the sweat on my back. We spent some time searching the floor for cigarette ends from the smokes of the night when we had carelessly tossed them away.

  Either the air cooled, or we grew used to the heat, but still our clothes were wet with perspiration, and we had stripped to trousers and shirts. But for the thought of those muzzles on bare flesh we would have stripped to the skin. To be naked before those things!

  Bingen, with eyes reddened by cinders and a stubble of beard darkening his white face, lapsed into a brooding silence from which I vainly tried to coax him. He would not survive many more days of this, I thought, as I watched him. Neither, for that matter, could I. I prayed, I think, for something to happen. For the things to move. For them to struggle to get at us, go away, return, anything but this terrible, motionless waiting. We tried to drive them from the gates with concerted attacks of the bayoneted rifle, but it was as though one attacked a pile of corpses, so that we’d give it up and go down the tunnel to suck water from the puddles on the floor if the river was in ebb, and bathe lavishly if it were high.

  Four nights and three days we spent there in that hell with the Vampires clustered unmoving on the gates. Four nights when Bingen cried, swore, and fell silently brooding by turn. Three days when we stared hopelessly at the things on the gates and they stared bleakly back at us. Four nights which sapped comprehension from my brain and weakened muscles in my legs. How did we survive? How did we?