Vampires Overhead (15 page)

‘Bingen! Bingen! This way!’

They were on the hill looking down at me, and, above them, other Vampires were dropping silently.

‘For God’s sake come down! Slide down anyhow. Bingen, throw the girl down.’

But they would not, and stood staring stupidly while I endeavoured to climb up to them. Sweating, I searched the precipice for footholds, and when I glanced upwards again, Janet was prone on the hilltop, and, straddling her, Bingen fought off fluttering Vampires with the bayoneted rifle swirling round his head. More of those beastly things were converging from the sky!

‘Pull her down here, Bingen. I’ll be with you in a minute. There’s a place down here.’ I heaved myself over the top of the cliff, rolling to rid myself of Vampire Bats clamped on my back. The sword came from my belt, and I was with them, and Bingen, as he saw me, was white as death. Upon the ground Janet lay in a dead swoon, and cuddling close to her were two Vampires. So close that the sword I swung was useless, and it was then I discovered the best way to deal with them. As the girl’s father had done on the boat, I caught them by their wings, hurled them away. They fell dazedly, to lay struggling to regain their equilibrium.

‘Bingen, get down into the cutting. I’ve got a place there we can defend. Bingen, I’ll manage the girl. Get down!’

He did not answer. When I glanced at him, his face was hopeless, jaw dropped open, eyes bulged terrified.

Bending over the girl, I felt two Vampires drop on my back, and had to reach to fling them away before lifting Janet’s limp form to slide and tumble down the cliff. Into the cutting I flung her, and with the stabbing sword protected the entrance as the things attempted to crawl in after us. I shouted cursingly to Bingen.

‘Bingen. Come down. We’re all right in here. Come.’

I pulled Janet behind the boulder and went after Bingen. With knowledge that the things could be thrown off fairly easily, I went with better courage. Again I called, but he did not answer, and I clambered up the ascent with the things hindering me. Through my shirt I felt the muzzle of one clamped to the skin on my shoulder!

On the hill, Bingen was half-standing, half-crouching, motionless, with arms held about his head. Upon him were Vampires, and he did not move. I tore them from him, pushed and tumbled him to the edge, thrust him over to reach the bottom almost simultaneously, dragged him in beside Janet, and shuddered to see three of the great bats humped beside her, whilst at the entrance others waited for Bingen and I, watching our approach. Bingen was helpless, and he dropped where I dragged him, behind the boulder. Two Vampires I flung into the open, and the third crawled into the place they vacated, ignoring me. I flung that away over the heads of those behind the boulder, kicking and stabbing as they shuffled closer.

Even in the confined space here, I found the best way to deal with them was to clutch at a wing and fling them one by one as far away as possible. A horrible effect was, that even while one did this, the thing’s muzzle would twist round, and one could feel its snout sucking at one’s wrist!

They crowded me farther between the boulders, so that I had to retreat until I could not hurl them away. I had to snatch up the sword, stab, and thrust at them.

‘Bingen! How long are you going to be before you come and help me?’ I called, sweating. ‘There’s not many. Together, we could get rid of them.’

With Bingen to prevent them nearing Janet, I would go into the open, for against these few I felt I could make headway, throwing them to the ground, slicing at them with the sword while they struggled to regain their balance. Beheading them!

Turning quickly, I saw that he lay flat, unmoving, while over him Janet bent, rubbing his hands, calling softly to him. Then a Vampire curling about my feet kept me busy. When I had stabbed and kicked it away I called to her.

‘I can keep them out. We’re all right in here. But I must have a spell soon. You’re a great kid. Keep at him, and he’ll soon come to.’

Even as I spoke I heard Bingen groan, and, turning, saw him lurch to his feet. He stood steadying himself with a hand against the gravel, regaining courage.

‘All right now, Bingen? Come on, old son, and give me a hand. The kid’ll be all right. Come and give me a hand.’

My arm, as I turned, knocked against the gun tucked in my trousers. Until then I had forgotten it! I lugged it out and drove a shot at one of the big bats sitting close, and through its head the heavy slug tore, but it never moved or altered its expression. Four shots I had to pump into it before it toppled over, and then it bent slowly, sagged, and lay like a bundle of old rags, limply. Maybe I had hit a vulnerable spot. The gun was useless against them. One would want lorry loads of ammunition to obliterate them. Perhaps it was as well that, until now, I had forgotten the gun. Otherwise I might have wasted all the cartridges.

‘They had you on the run just now, Garry,’ Bingen pushed into line with me, and had the audacity to point at the encircling Vampires, speak jeeringly. ‘Made you run. I didn’t think that you’d go back on a pal. Here, let me give you a hand.’

For a minute I was too surprised to answer. Then I understood. Bingen was impressing Janet. I answered him softly, scowlingly:

‘If I’d gone back on you, my little dear, you’d never have got out of that girlish attack of the vapours you had just now. Stand here, and keep them out, away from the girl, and I’ll go and see if I can do anything with them.’

‘No! Don’t risk it, Garry. Let ’em be.’ Bingen caught my arm. ‘We’re all right here. Stop in here.’

‘Don’t be windy. The things can’t hurt, unless there is so many of them that you get swamped. I’ve found out how to deal with them. You take a lesson from me.’

Anything was better than squatting hopelessly in the gravel cutting, and I went out to discover whether or no I could actually better these bats with this opportunity while they were few.

Narrowing their encroaching circle, they came to meet me, as though accepting the challenge, and with a spring I was among them, to grab one by a wing, hurl it away. As it fell I was upon it, the sword slashing downwards. One after another I treated like that, excited that I could master them, and Bingen shouted encouragement. One of them fastened on to my boot
after
decapitation, and I had to kick it away with my other foot, for I was too sick to handle it. Thirty or so I killed before the last one lay trembling, endeavouring to regain its balance as I walked towards it, for I was too tired to jump.
i
t watched me approach before I sliced at it. Curiously, I felt vague sympathy, or if not sympathy, some queer kind of emotion, as the sword cut into it. The things were so impersonal, it seemed that they had no dislike against us, no feeling at all. It is difficult to explain, but there it is.

The sky was clear when I went back into the hole and sat upon a boulder. Janet sat there, white-faced but plucky, and Bingen came and squatted beside us.

‘We ought to get on,’ I said presently. ‘We want a place where there is food as well as safety. Even though we’re all right here for the time we oughtn’t to stop. We’ll go on, if you’re ready, Janet.’

‘Are you fit to go on yet?’ she cried, and to my surprise laid her hand on Bingen’s arm, for I thought that she spoke to me. ‘D’you feel that you can go on now?’

‘Of course he’s ready to go on. Why shouldn’t he be?’ I grumbled. Insanely, I felt a twinge of what was almost jealousy, that she should be so concerned about Bingen when it was I who had saved them. She didn’t seem to care whether or not I was fit to go on. ‘He’s all right, so we’ll get along if you’re ready, Janet. The afternoon’s drawing in and we must get somewhere before dark. I believe the things can see in the dark. We can’t.’

‘See in the dark,’ Janet cried, and hid shocked face in her hands. ‘Oh! Don’t! Don’t!’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,’ I said, and went to comfort her, but Bingen was before me. ‘I spoke without thinking.’

‘Didn’t think, you big stiff,’ Bingen scolded and grinned at me behind her back as he clasped an arm about her. ‘What the hell d’you mean by trying to frighten her like that.’

Astonishingly, Janet flung off Bingen’s arm and turned to follow me from the cave.

‘I know you didn’t mean to frighten me,’ she said softly. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘That’s all right. I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to frighten you either, so we’re quits.”

We went from the gravel workings to where a broad road wound about the bottom of the downs, to follow it for some distance until it neared blackened and fallen houses. Then we left it again for the grey fields.

‘Queer how one gets so rapidly accustomed to startling changes, isn’t it?’ I mused. ‘The other day we should have stared to see ash over everything like this, and now we just take it as a matter of course. Got used to seeing bare burned earth, leafless trees, ruined houses, and no one but ourselves.’

Thirst began to trouble us, for the day was tropically hot, and the streams we passed that weren’t dry, were bitter, arid to the taste. Under my breath, I cursed myself for having been foolish enough to have carried Janet’s bag instead of bringing food along, for I was hungry. Yet, who would have thought that we would walk through the outskirts of London for many hours without finding food of some description.

On rising ground, we halted to reconnoitre. Nestling away to the north in our direction was a great house set amid blackened stumps of trees, and at some distance from it, at the bend of a sweeping drive, was what, I suppose, was the gate-lodge. The building was burned, but its walls stood, and some of the roof was intact. Overhead the sky was darkening.

‘I’ll go on and have a look at that place,’ I said to them. ‘Come along after me slowly, and then I’ll shout you if it’s good enough.’

I hoped fervently it might be all right to spend the night, and went on swiftly towards the lodge, through great iron gates along a flagged stone path and into the building.

Inside, furniture was tumbled, things were scattered over the floor in the ashes as though there had been a terrific fight. And in the small room at the back I found the bodies of two men and a child. I pulled them into hiding in the garden and, after I had kicked one or two articles out through the door, went to the front to call Janet and Bingen. They stood nervously by the iron gates and came quickly when I called them.

‘Well, well, well,’ Bingen said cheerily, entering to sit and swing legs upon a table he righted. ‘This is like home. Do us fine, won’t it, Janet?’

‘It won’t do me fine until it’s fortified a bit more.’ I pushed him from the table, and when Janet stepped forward as though to prevent me pushing him, I wished that I had thrust with three times as much force.
‘Well, before you get settled and feel too much at home, we’ll have the doorway blocked and the roof pulled over if we can manage that.’

Tables from adjoining rooms barricaded the door, and we stood upon chairs and heaved at the fallen roof until it collapsed and fell to cover the room entirely. While we were busy, Janet had made herself useful. A fire was alight in the stove, and she had raided a larder to find tea, biscuits, and two tins of fruit. A tap in an outhouse gave us water, and after Bingen and I had sluiced some of the stains of travelling through the ash-covered country from ourselves and slaked our thirst with great gulps of the cold water, we went in to find quite a plentiful table arrayed before us.

‘There isn’t any milk, and the biscuits are all the bread I can find,’ Janet said smilingly. ‘There’s some porridge that I didn’t cook. I will if you like.’

‘No. Of course not,’ I answered, pulling a chair to the table. ‘This will be all we’ll want tonight. More than I expected to get, I can tell you. The porridge will do famously for breakfast, and you don’t feel like cooking tonight, I’ll be bound. You must be tired out.’

‘Oh, I’m all right, mister.’

‘Anyway, you’ll have to get a good night’s sleep in tonight. And, by the way, my dear, I wish you wouldn’t call me mister.’

‘What you want her to call you? Darling?’ Bingen said, with his mouth full. He grinned at my scowl. ‘You notice she’s even swept the floor? That’s the kind of girl I’m asking to marry me when I feel like marrying. One who can cook a meal out of nothing, and cook it in a place that’s swept clean.’