by Jacob Rayne
The dog he’d brought home for the twins had lasted a matter of minutes.
Little more than an appetiser.
He knew he needed to find human prey tonight, his kin were seeming to grow hungrier by the day.
He looked at them, hanging upside from the rafters, their muscled torsos rising and falling in the gentle rhythm of sleep.
When darkness consumed the town they would rise.
The screeches would start, hunger pangs that were transferred to his ears with the deafening volume of an arena rock show.
He wanted to have something waiting for them, to keep the screeches at bay.
His head was pounding. He needed to slake his thirst for blood too, but his needs would always have to come second.
Carla was ready to drop the next litter too, her belly swollen almost to bursting point with the writhing forms of the next set of mouths to feed.
She was no use on the hunt. Even if he had been of the mind to kick a heavily pregnant female out to hunt, she was cumbersome and he didn’t want her getting hurt.
Nor the precious life that grew in her belly.
No, the responsibility to feed the family fell squarely at his feet. And it was not something he took lightly.
80
‘Right then, gents,’ Osmo said, when everyone had reconvened with an empty bladder and a full bag of weapons. He squinted as he stubbed out another cigarette against the breezeblock wall. Sparks fell like tiny shooting stars. ‘How are ya all feeling?’
‘Good,’ Campbell said.
‘Ready,’ Baz said, shoving shells into his shotgun.
‘Shitting myself,’ Nige said. ‘But ready to kick some vampire arse.’
Clive’s reply was conspicuous by its absence.
‘Y’alright, son?’ Osmo said.
‘I don’t know if I can do this.’
‘Ah, trust me, you can,’ Osmo said. ‘Do not overthink it. Any of you. Cos you will scare the shit outta yourself and end up losing your bottle. That’s the main reason I go charging in headlong, cos if you overthink things you end up talking yourself out of it. Switch off that little voice in the back of your mind that tells you this is suicide cos it’ll only get you killed.’
Clive gulped, nodded. ‘I think I need the toilet again.’
‘That’s just the nerves, son,’ Osmo said. ‘Get in there again before we go. So, here we go. We can all see the hot spots in this area. To me, that means the enemy is somewhere in that middle zone. We’ll split in two groups, as we agreed earlier. Officer Campbell and me will take this bit,’ he gestured to the part of the map which showed Mason Street, the place where most of the disappearances seemed to be taking place, ‘Up to the graveyard. You three take the other half of that circle.’
Baz nodded.
‘Now, I want everyone to have their phone switched on. Ring or text if there are any problems, ok?’
Everyone nodded.
‘We’re probably just going to be scoping things out tonight,’ Osmo said. ‘But prepare yourselves for battle cos if we get spotted or we find the base we might have to attack, just in case they fuck off to parts unknown again.’
Clive gulped. Campbell fidgeted with his chin.
‘And if we have to fight, it’s to the death, gentlemen,’ Osmo smiled grimly. ‘To the death.’
81
Brian moved out into the streets, his belly crawling under his skin, partially from the effects of the raging thirst and hunger that had overtaken him, but mostly because of the near-unimaginable thought of coming home with anything other than a big kill.
He felt as nervous as he had on the night of his first ever kill.
He gulped, tried his best to put this out of his mind, knowing it was not conducive to a good hunt.
Shaking his head to clear it of these negative thoughts, he moved into the alleys.
He heard raised voices, seemingly already pissed, arguing over something which had probably once mattered to him in his past life.
Before the all-consuming need to feed.
He glanced round the corner, saw the two men concerned. They looked a real handful.
His confidence was low, so he put them out of his mind.
He doubted he could take one of them. If they both turned on him – as he was certain they would if he didn’t finish them quickly – he risked serious injury, and another night of his family starving.
No, weaker prey needed to be found.
As Brian turned the corner into an alley, he noticed a car with its sidelights on.
He thought this strange, as darkness had completely swallowed the town now, leaving only the sickly light of the streetlights, but thought nothing else of it at the time.
As he peered through the blacked out windows of the car, he was sure he saw someone talking on a mobile phone.
Probably just waiting to pick someone up, he thought and put it out of his mind.
The car pulled away when he turned the corner.
He saw a cat at the end of the alley.
Last resort only, he thought.
His ears pricked up when someone called the cat inside. He glanced around the gate to the yard and saw a slim woman in her dressing gown, a pale green mud mask plastered all over her face.
His belly did a flip as he imagined her tender flesh sitting in it.
He knew he had to put his family first, but it was days since he’d eaten, hours since he’d slaked his raging thirst.
I can have a few bites, can’t I?
As he followed the woman, he smiled at the realisation that he hadn’t heard the lock snack shut on the back door.
In his eagerness to follow the woman in, he didn’t see a tall, moustachioed man watching him from the yard across the alley.
82
‘Gotcha, ya pale son of a bitch,’ Osmo muttered.
He’d seen the pale, dark-veined man skulking about in the alley and had moved the car round the street to get a closer look at him.
When he’d gotten close enough to get a good look, he’d realised that, without a shadow of a doubt, he had something to do with the vampires.
He’d followed him to the yard, seen him go inside after the woman who lived there.
The shrill screams that came out of the house chilled his blood and he longed to dive in and give the fucker a taste of cold steel right in the chest, but he needed to follow him back to his lair.
Killing him now was out of the question, even drawing attention to himself was inadvisable so he moved back into the shadows, trying to blot out the woman’s screams and the wet sounds of feeding.
When the woman was in tatters, Brian took his fill then began dragging the remnants of the carcass back.
With the blood and flesh inside him he felt revitalised, much stronger and able to cope with dragging the deadweight body back to his home. It wasn’t far; he’d lucked out tonight.
He slung her over his shoulder, not caring about being discovered in his haste to get home and feed his family.
‘I’ve got him,’ Osmo texted to Campbell, Nige and Baz. ‘Following him now, along Mason Street towards the church.’
Campbell drove past their target, killing the engine a few hundred yards from the church to avoid detection.
Osmo crept after the lad, being as silent as he could.
The young man certainly wasn’t cut out for this; he was panting heavily and really seemed to be struggling to carry the body.
Maybe this is gonna be easier than we’d thought, he allowed himself to think, then scolded himself.
This guy was obviously just one of the harvester crew, the monster itself was bound to be much more fearsome.
Osmo cursed as his target stopped.
The longer they were out here the longer either the police or the rest of the harvester crew had to find him.
Plus the guy might turn round and spot him at any time; hiding places were few and far between out here.
The man’s chest was heaving hard and Osmo knew he could ta
ke him, longed to take him, but was loathe to mess up the plan.
It was frustrating, but he was going to let this further fuel his attack when he found out where the man was staying.
Brian took one final deep breath, took a quick nip of blood from the woman’s throat, and lifted her onto his shoulder once more.
He felt stronger from the blood, but he knew it was only temporary. Till he’d had a good feed he would be weak as piss.
Nearly there, he told himself.
Keep going.
For them.
Osmo watched, a grin on his face, as the man turned the corner and set down the body once more. This time the man was struggling with the door handle on a decrepit church. The door came open with a squeal of rusted hinges.
‘Gotcha,’ Osmo grinned, making a gun with his fingers and pulling the imaginary trigger on his knackered enemy.
He quickly texted his friends to let them know what was going on.
Brian pulled the door shut behind him, forgetting to lock it in his exhausted state.
The body on his shoulder was a ton weight, and his energy had finally deserted him. At least he could sleep now.
His family could feast while he slept. Hopefully there’d be some leftovers for him in the morning to regain his sapped strength.
Carla was awake, a pained expression hewn into her pale features.
‘They’re coming,’ she said.
‘Who?’ he said, fearing an attack by the enemy.
She pointed in the direction of her belly, which seemed stretched to breaking point, the skin almost transparent in places.
‘Oh shit,’ he said as a jet of dark blood shot onto the floor at their feet.
Osmo heard the curses and had to see what was going on.
The darkness in the church was pretty much all-consuming, but, by the light of the moon streaming in through a gaping hole in the roof, he could see the man talking to someone lying on the floor.
He vowed to find out what was going on, even if it meant bringing the situation to a premature head.
His fingers tapped out a text message to tell them he was going in. The phone vibrated in his pocket immediately, no doubt their frantic replies imploring him to hold his ground.
He crept through the carpet of debris, hoping that the room’s other inhabitants were so engrossed in whatever the hell they were doing that they didn’t notice the noise of his boots grinding the broken glass and brick shards into the floor.
His heart rate became hazardous, the sound of the racing blood like thunder in his ears.
As he drew closer, he saw two of the big bat things, hanging upside down from the wooden ceiling joists.
They looked to be asleep, and were on the small side.
Certainly smaller than the others he’d taken.
He crept a little closer, though he didn’t really want to be standing near the two sleeping monsters when they woke up.
Trying to breath silently, he moved as close as he dared.
He squinted and saw a woman – no, scratch that, a female one of the bat things – lying on the floor, her hands clasped to her swollen belly, her face twisted into a pained grimace.
‘No fucking way,’ he muttered under his breath as he realised what was going on.
83
Campbell’s car screeched to a halt outside the church and he was out before it had even stopped moving, with a stake in either hand and bad intentions fixed firmly in his mind.
He glanced around and ran over to Baz’s car which was parked across the road.
Baz wound the window down.
‘Any crack?’ Baz said.
Campbell shook his head. ‘He’s in there. But I haven’t heard from him in a good ten minutes.’
‘What do we do?’ Baz said.
‘I say we wait,’ Nige said, his face the colour of old milk.
‘I’m not sure,’ Campbell said. He quickly texted Osmo to see what the score was.
Osmo cursed as his phone vibrated in his pocket.
In the darkness it seemed as loud as a car crash.
The woman was in the throes of labour, her blood spreading across the floor beneath her legs in a gleaming pool.
He quickly checked his phone.
Replied, telling them to wait outside for him, but surround the place.
He wanted the new-borns to emerge so he could take them out too.
‘Right, he says to wait,’ Campbell said.
‘He say what’s going on?’ Clive asked, looking paler than Nige.
‘Nope,’ Baz said upon getting the same message as Campbell had.
‘Best do as he says,’ Campbell said, gripping the stakes tightly and moving to the main entrance. He wanted to be first in, to bail Osmo out if it came to that.
Baz took the rear entrance. Nige and Clive waited by the car, guns locked and loaded.
All of their feet tapped nervous beats on the floor while they waited.
Osmo grimaced as the first tiny pale head emerged from among the bloody ruin that made up the woman’s genital region.
It greedily lapped at the wound like a cat with a saucer of milk.
The sight of the repulsive thing made him sick and he vowed not to let it survive.
After a few more tense, scream-filled minutes, the bat thing came out of its mother. Osmo was set to dart in when she grimaced again and began to cry out.
Another head began to emerge.
Osmo waited impatiently, longing to join battle and get it all the hell over with.
Brian grinned as the second of his latest litter of children emerged into their humble home.
These two seemed less thick about the shoulders and necks. They looked much more graceful but no less deadly.
‘They’re girls,’ Carla said, a sheen of sweat standing out on her brow.
He kissed her forehead, lifted one of the writhing infants into his arms, smearing blood across his arms and chest.
The tiny infant mewled and cried and lapped out at the blood on his arms.
‘Plenty of food for them tonight at least,’ he said.
Carla smiled.
Just then one of his male children let out a hideous cry.
84
Osmo had decided his best line of attack was to take out the sleeping bat things first as, with them being pure vampire, they represented the most danger to him.
He reckoned the female would have been exhausted after the ordeal of birth. She’d be easy prey.
The man likewise.
Osmo had sunk the stake into the bat thing’s chest with almost orgasmic glee. A thick spray of blood had shot out, hitting him in the face and chest.
It had woken with a truly chilling cry, blood spilling from its gnashing jaws, and scored dozens of wounds in Osmo’s face and chest as it flapped its wings frantically.
He cursed and lashed out with the stake, tearing a deep wound through the wings.
The creature bared its fangs, lashing out at him again, carving more wounds in his face.
Its sibling was awake now and it was making its way towards him.
A muzzle flash lit up the darkness and the creature he’d stabbed fell back, its head resembling a blood-filled watermelon being struck with a sledgehammer.
Osmo was on it as soon as it hit the floor, jamming another of his stakes through its heart. He threw all of his bodyweight onto the spike, digging the lethal blade into the creature’s sternum until blood raced down onto the floor below.
The other creature lashed out, hitting the back of Osmo’s head so hard it flung him to the floor.
There was a blur of activity as Campbell ran in.
He decked the harvester man with a wild blow of his mallet. The man fell, blood and saliva spraying from his open jaws.
Campbell pulled the infant out of his arms and ground its skull beneath the heel of his boot.
Its head popped like an egg, its pathetic squeal making him feel like an utter bastard.
The mother voiced her rage and
despair, throwing herself onto Campbell in a frenzy of snapping teeth and flailing claws.
Baz’s shotgun blast took off the back of her head in a shower of blood and bone shards.
She cried out, still moving, despite the river of blood that ran down her back and splashed Campbell’s feet.
Osmo was slowly recovering and he saw one extremely pissed off creature standing over him.
The shotgun blast again lit up the gloom, tearing holes in the creature’s wing.
Osmo threw himself to his feet and onto the creature, the spike held out in front of him. The blade punctured the creature’s neck, drawing a terrified cry from it.
Blood dripped down onto his shirt as claws once more made tatters of his face.
The creature pulled him in close, its wings wrapping tight around him and crushing the air from his battered body.
Campbell’s world spun.
The mother’s teeth snapped at his face and throat with relentless speed and ferocity. The tips nicked the skin above his Adam’s apple.
A thin ribbon of blood snaked out of the wound, the taste seeming to invigorate the mother.
Osmo cried out and shoved the creature hard. It stumbled back, but pulled him further into its chest. The breath was slowly being squeezed out of his body, his ribs threatening to break under the force of the embrace.
Thinking fast, he dropped to his knees, pulling a knife with each hand and slashing them across the backs of the creature’s ankles.
It squealed as the blades tore its Achilles tendons, greatly reducing its mobility.
He laughed at it, raced round its back and stuck one of the kitchen knives up and under its ribs.
His efforts were rewarded with an ocean of blood racing from the monster’s punctured heart and soaking the floor at its torn feet.
Baz’s shotgun blast was the icing on the cake, shattering the creature’s skull and throwing its contents all over Osmo in a sticky cloud of blood and bone.
