Eat Local

by King, Danny

  “Motherfuckers!” Vanessa hissed, shaking her hand to tensing her stomach muscles to squeeze the bullets out.

  “Come on, there’s more where that came from,” Chen gasped, trying not to show his own pain to endow Vanessa with the strength to go on. Vanessa snarled in response and jumped to her feet.

  “I’ll kill them all,” she seethed before once again pushing into the storm.

  Colonel Bingham saw them coming every step of the way. Six points of fire moving fast, heading his way, and not stopping for shit.

  “Second Squad, hold your positions. Don’t let a single one of them out of your sights. Third Squad, you’ve got two to your left. Don’t let them through. Use the crossbows,” he said, radioing each position in turn as he reorganised his troops as the battle unfolded.

  The first few bolts missed their mark but when Chen was struck in the neck he and Vanessa immediately realised the danger. They might’ve been able to run through a hail of lead but a crossbow bolt to the heart could put them down for good.

  Chen pulled the bolt from his throat and snapped it to examine it. It was indeed made from hawthorn. Whoever these bastards were they knew their stuff.

  “We’ve got to get back!” he warned the others but it was already too late. The bolts were flying in from all directions and Angel and Boniface had been skewered, though nowhere fatally.

  “Move in,” Larousse urged Colonel Bingham. “Take the fight to them.”

  Boniface was the first to turn and flee. The farm might’ve been a death trap but at least it didn’t offer instant death unlike Alice’s fool idea. He would take another couple of hours of life over a heroic death any day of the week so he turned on his heels and found running downhill was a lot easier than running up had been.

  When he arrived back in the Thatcher’s dung-ridden courtyard all was relatively quiet. He’d outrun the battle – again. And this gave him pause for thought.

  The cars?

  Boniface found them all neatly parked at the rear of the hayloft and untouched by war. The tracks might have been barricaded but he was fully insured and ready to sacrifice his no claims bonus to punch through to the main road. There was only one problem.

  “Chen you asshole, where’s our fucking keys?” he said, trying each car door in turn only to find it securely locked. When he got to Vanessa’s Jag her alarm started wailing, giving fair warning of his intentions to all those outside.

  “Bastard!” he swore, then caught a set of keys glinting inviting out of the corner of his eye – in the ignition of a dirt bike leaning up against the side of the barn. “Okay, that could work,” he concluded.

  Third Squad heard the dirt bike’s engine crank up before they caught up with Boniface – just a little too late. He smashed straight through the rickety barn door, clobbering the point man in the process and spraying the others with gravel and horse droppings as he spun it in a donut and took off for the main road. Bullets whizzed past him and a crossbow bolt found his shoulder but he was soon out of range and going hell for leather.

  Motorcycles were something new to Boniface. He’d ridden a few in his time and knew how to work the controls but having spent the first 2000 years of his life riding horses he couldn’t shake the habit of tethering his bike once he’d got where he was going and wondering where to stuff in the oats.

  The dirt track leading away from the farm was clear. Boniface looked back and saw the farm as just cluster of foreboding shadows in the distance. He was almost away, which raised another interesting thought in his mind. Did he stick with the plan and double back into the woods? Or did he keep going and leave his comrades to their fate? There were pros and cons to both ideas. The question was, which would serve Boniface best?

  Unfortunately his thinking time had run out.

  A line of powerful arc lamps lit up the track in front to dazzle him in the glare. Shouts and gunfire accompanied the wall of light and his front wheel hit a pothole to toss him from the saddle. Boniface landed in a hedgerow and for a moment he was caught on its thorns as boot steps rushed towards him. A whoosh of a crossbow bolt gave him all the motivation he needed to untangle himself and he hurried through the brambles, paying no heed to the thousands of barbs that sought to claw his face off.

  The soldiers shot into the bush but Boniface was already through to other side and running across the field, casting a cross of dark shadows from the arc lamps that followed him wherever he went.

  “Stop right there. We have you surrounded!” shouted one of the soldiers more in hope than in conviction but Boniface wasn’t about to give himself up. He knew what happened to people who threw themselves at the mercy of the enemy. It had happened to everyone in his village two thousand years earlier but it wouldn’t happen to him. When his time came Boniface would die on his feet not on his knees. Admittedly his feet might be pointing away from the fight but he’d be on them nevertheless. It was a point of principle with him.

  Bullets and bolts chased Boniface through the night, across the field and into the shadows of the valley of death, and back to where he’d just come from.

  *

  Henry and Angel were faring no better. They found themselves pinned down on the hillside taking fire from all sides. The bullets took the wind out of their sails but it was the bolts they really feared.

  Up until now they’d kept their attackers at bay with a constant salvo of fire but now their clips were running low.

  “There’s too many of them!” Henry said, squeezing his trigger to chew up the turf in between the blinking muzzle flashes moving around to his left.

  Angel ducked as she felt her hair parted in several new places thanks to the enemy on the hill. “We’re going to die out here,” she agreed, returning the compliment only to find her gun clicking empty after just two rounds.

  She counted her clips and found she had only a couple left, just enough to cover their retreat but not enough the renew their assault.

  “Come on, let’s go!” she told Henry, slapping him on the back and pointing back in the direction of the farm.

  *

  Mr Thatcher and Sebastian were likewise not enjoying the fireworks. Sebastian had reacted by taking shelter in the furthest corner of the cellar while Mr Thatcher’s options were somewhat more limited, given that he was still tied in his chair and in plain view of the coal chute.

  Several stray bullets snapped around the cellar to shower Mr Thatcher with bits of plaster and fuel his pleas for mercy. “Help me. Help me. For the love of God, help me!” he said over and over again, hearing Sebastian cowering beneath a bench somewhere behind him without being able to see him.

  But Sebastian didn’t trust Mr Thatcher, certainly not enough to untie him. But equally he couldn’t do nothing. If he sat idle and let Mr Thatcher die that would be as good as killing him himself – albeit without having to burn his clothes afterwards. It was clear that nobody within five miles of this farm had a conscience but Sebastian did and it drove him to risk his own life for Mr Thatcher.

  Crawling forwards and into open ground, he waited for the latest ricochet to run out of zip before jumping up and shoving a filthy tin bucket onto Mr Thatcher’s head.

  “Best I can do, mate,” he told him, quickly retreating back into his foxhole again.

  “What good is this, you great nimrod?” Mr Thatcher objected angrily, although this question was answered with a clattering ding as the bucket came to his aid almost immediately. “Alright, I take all it back, that was quite helpful,” Mr Thatcher admitted, although he did wonder why Sebastian had picked the pigs’ slop bucket over the one he used to water the horse with.

  *

  Vanessa and Chen made it all the way back to the farmyard but they’d been followed by a detachment of Second Squad. The first Vanessa knew about it was when a bolt hit her in the back to dump her onher face. She rolled over and machine-gunned her assailant to Swiss cheese but others were already on their way.

  Chen yanked the bolt from Vanessa’s back to make he
r roar in agony.

  “Sting a bit, does it?” Chen deduced.

  “Just a smidge,” Vanessa confirmed through gritted teeth.

  But now Chen found this out for himself as a flurry of arrows found their mark when the rest of Second Squad caught up with the pair of them.

  Vanessa and Chen emptied their guns into this renewed assault but the soldiers kept on coming. All they’d done was buy themselves some time.

  “Go! Get out of here!” Chen urged Vanessa, soaking up more shafts in order to protect his friend.

  Vanessa refused to leave but Chen recognised a hopeless situation when he saw one and he used all of his strength to shove her away; away from the bolts, away from the approaching soldiers and away from him as he prepared to meet his maker. Vanessa’s stumble turned into a run and soon she found herself going for broke in the other direction. She loved Chen with all of her heart but like every night feeder she was first and foremost a lone wolf. And her instincts to survive soon kicked in.

  Chen watched her go then jumped to his feet. As the Coven’s security officer he couldn’t help but feel a tad responsible for tonight’s unexpected visitors. Of course he couldn’t have known or prevented it from happening but like the Captain of the Titanic he felt it was his duty to see his friends to the lifeboats first. And equally, like Captain Smith a hundred years earlier, he was still secretly hoping to find a great big fucking sandbank just beneath his hull to save his hat from getting wet. But as more and more soldiers rushed in from all sides Chen knew it wasn’t to be. Twelve hundred years of night were about to come to an end.

  But he wasn’t going out without a fight.

  The first arrow grazed his cheek as he ducked to avoid it. The second buried itself into his shoulder but he pulled it out and hurled it back into the eye of the soldier who’d fired it.

  More arrows soon followed but the kevlar armour Chen had lifted off First Squad shielded his vulnerable heart and his movement protected him further.

  “Shoot him in the sides, between the vests,” Second Squad’s leader told his archers, but Chen just jumped, spun and pirouetted between their fields of fire to remain unharmed.

  Bullets raked his body but Chen was now impervious to pain. All he wanted to do was kill as many of his attackers as he could and set out his stall by grabbing the leader and snapping his neck like a twig before anyone else could blink.

  Soldiers to the left and right broke ranks and Chen seized the opportunity to pick them off with ease, even whilst soaking up more arrows. He bit one, ripped another’s throat out with his bare hands and used the last one as a shield to give his own body a brief respite from all the bullets.

  “Move it, go that way!” the lead crossbow archer told his fellow bowmen. “Stay out of his reach!”

  The way Chen tore the head from the soldier he held provided all the motivation they needed and they fanned out either side of the wounded vampire to try to get one clean shot of his unprotected midriff.

  Chen snarled with laughter when he saw the fear in his enemy’s faces. The tide was turning. The fight was swinging his way. One of the bowmen broke and deserted, preferring dishonour to death, leaving Chen facing just two others, each with only a handful of bolts left.

  “Take him! Take him! Take him!” the furthest urged the nearest but the nearest complained he didn’t have a shot.

  Chen leapt, not at the nearest but the furthest, to take him by surprise. He snatched him cleanly, grabbing his weapon in the process and killing the soldier opposite before he could get a shot off. Now only one of Second Squad remained and he was pinned to the ground with Chen’s fangs bearing down on him.

  “Help me! Help me, for the love of God!” Private Woodcock screamed, terrified beyond even his wildest comprehensions.

  “God has forsaken you,” Chen chuckled into the Private’s ear as he bit down on his neck and sucked deeply on his rich, salty gore.

  An arrow to the top of the head hurt like hell and Chen looked up just in time to see the deserter return, bringing with him vital reinforcements from Third Squad. Chen launched himself at them but he was too late. He’d let his guard down for the briefest of seconds and that was all the bowmen needed.

  Twin arrows struck him in either side skewering his heart with surgical precision. He’d never known an agony like it but his screams were cut short as a machete took off his head. It landed with a thump to stare into the eyes of Private Woodcock, who’d never believed in God before this moment but who was now born again in every sense.

  “Thank you, thank you,” he told his rescuers, scrambling away from Chen’s crumbling head and backonto his feet. He clutched his tattered neck and felt the ooze of his own blood seeping between his fingers but it wasn’t a deep cut. He would live to fight another day and make the bastards pay for what they’d done to his friends. “Get me a bandage,” he said, reaching out for a supporting hand from his comrades.

  His comrades stepped back.

  “Sorry bro, nothing we can do for you,” one of them replied, raising his crossbow and firing a bolt into Private Woodcock’s heart. The Private died in an instant, with his soul stained for all eternity to ensure he wouldn’t be meeting his newly acquired Saviour after all.

  CHAPTER 18

  Vanessa got as far as the outhouses. Third Squad had pursued up to block off the perimeter and now she found herself caught out in the open, just as Chen had been.

  She didn’t know what had happened with Chen but Third Squad sure as hell did and they were reluctant to take on another target at close quarters. But if they could hem her back, ward her away from the woods and keep her penned into the farm where they could keep track of her, the sun would do their work for them in a few short hours.

  A crossbow bolt struck the side of the barn just in front of where Vanessa was running, prompting her to turn and double back again. More soldiers were now pouring out of the darkness and Vanessa saw no way out until she noticed the chicken shed to her right. The door was invitingly ajar and she figured she could either take shelter inside or break out of the other. A second crossbow bolt striking close still made up her mind once and for all so she slipped into the shed and pulled the door shut quietly behind her.

  “Squawk! Squawk! Cluck and Screech!” the birds all yelled in unison, only too adept at recognising a predator when they sensed one.

  Vanessa turned and bared her fangs in irritation and put a finger to her lips. “Shhhhh!” she commanded and in that instant the shed fell silent, save for half a dozen hastily delivered eggs being scrambled on the floor.

  Now that the chorus line had sat down, Vanessa was able to turn her ears to what was going on outside the shed. Boots ran this way and that, circling the shed and taking up positions, yet no one attempted to get too close. Vanessa decided to take this as a good sign – at least until she peered through a crack in the door and saw two soldiers crouching in the field fifty yards away. There was something odd about them but Vanessa didn’t notice what until one of them patted the other on the helmet to give him the signal to fire.

  “Oh shit!” Vanessa just about had time to say as a bright white flash raced towards her to block out the crack in the door. She dived behind a line of cages but she might as well have taken shelter behind a pack of eggs for all the good it did her. The shoulder-mounted RPG had been designed to take out tanks on the battlefield so it easily obliterated the Thatchers’ rusty old corrugated chicken shed and everything inside with shrapnel to spare.

  The explosion lit up the night and was seen by everyone, human and otherwise. To Larousse, the detonation looked like a glorious smite from God but to Bingham and 18 it looked like an act of desperation. The rockets had been brought to stop vehicles from fleeing, not barbecue poultry. This particular theatre of combat and this particular enemy needed a more ordered approach, not less.

  “Hold your fire, Goddamnit!” Bingham barked into his radio as burning feathers rained down across his people from on high. “Rocket team pull back. And no
Willy Peter either.”

  Henry and Angel couldn’t have known about the change in orders though. As far as they were concerned the ante had just been upped and whilst sticks and stones might not have troubled their bones, Rocket Propelled Grenades were another matter altogether. They stayed crouched against the side of the barns until the fires dimmed enough for them to take advantage of the shadows again. If one positive had come out of the explosion it was that most of the soldiers had momentarily lost their night vision. Henry and Angel suffered no such ill effects and as such were able to slip past several formations before making it back to the farm.

  The front door was too exposed but there was another way in, and it was the same way Mrs Thatcher had come out – down the coal chute. Henry jumped in feet first closely followed by Angel. They slid down the short drop and landed in a seemingly empty cellar but Henry wasn’t taken in by the discarded ropes and the vacated chairs. He could smell Sebastian even if he couldn’t see him, something that had less to do with Henry’s superhuman abilities and more to do with Sebastian’s scattergun approach to Paco Rabanne.

  “You can come out if you like.”

  An upturned bucket appeared from behind the sofa and Sebastian lifted it off to ask: “Who’s winning? Us or them?”

  To Sebastian’s surprise a second bucket popped up next to him, this one containing Mr Thatcher, who’d taken the opportunity and the liberal wearing of buckets to share Sebastian’s coveted hiding place with him.

  “Get away from me,” Sebastian baulked, shoving Mr Thatcher and his bucket out of his personal space which, when it came to serial killers, was wider than usual.

  “Anyone else down here, Sebastian? I mean, besides yourselves,” Henry asked, his nose already working overtime to smell past Sebastian and Mr Thatcher.