Vampires Overhead (20 page)

Above, the circle of blue sky, such a height away, was broken by the intruding silhouette of Janet’s curly head staring down. To drown down here with something clamped upon my body! Spurred into ction by imagination I kicked about with my legs, swinging from side to side.

I felt the softness of the Vampire but, bobbing in the water, it evaded me again and again until my boot pushed it to the wall while I guided it into position between my legs. With a secure hold on it I began to climb. Three feet, four, five! I heaved up the rope to realize as I rose that I could not climb without my legs to aid me! Inch by inch I pulled myself upwards, knowing I attempted the impossible. I hung by one hand trying to bend so that I might somehow get the Vampire under my arm. That would give me the use of my legs to step upon the knotted rope, but as I bent and reached, wings tightened about my calves, winding to tether my legs together. I kicked, twisted, trying to free myself, let it fall back into the water, but could not.

‘Are you all right?’

Janet’s voice came tumbling down to me.

‘No! I’ve got it on my legs. I can’t climb with it and I can’t shake it off.’

The rope jerked suddenly to almost loosen my hold.

‘Don’t try to pull me up. You couldn’t. And the rope jerks. I’ll have another try to get out.’

Slowly I pulled myself up. Joints of my arms were red-hot, aching, till I feared they would let me down. My lungs inflated explodingly, and in my groin grew an unbearable pain. Between my dangling legs the Vampire held still, as though it knew it was being saved, and it did not loose its hold. Motionless as it was, above even the fear I should not be able to pull myself out was the fear it would climb upon me, my shoulders, my face.

With the top no more than twelve or fifteen feet above, I hung limply, beaten, after what seemed months of heart-breaking effort, so limply, my hands nearly opened to let me plunge back into the dark and the water with the Vampire.

‘Oh, try, Garry. Try again,’ Janet’s voice came despairingly to me, and it seemed she was a thousand miles away, her voice sounded so distant.

‘I can’t. I’m done,’ I called huskily, but the words were hoarse muttering in the well, and Janet did not hear.

I was beaten, and only the thought of Janet up there alone in the sunlit world with its horrors kept my hands clenched on the rope. I must hang on. Hang on.

The rope swung as Janet’s hands strained at it uselessly, hardly moving it from the vertical, but the movement bumped me between the circular wall, swinging me round and round. The searing ache in my shoulders dulled. Could I hang there until I recovered strength? But the rope was slipping slowly, surely, between my palms. I was finished.

And then miraculously into the circle of sky by the side of Janet appeared the head and shoulders of a man. I thought it was Bingen, but did not care who it was, too fatigued to lick dry lips and call, shout that he pull me up. Vaguely, I know he shouted down, and the bull-roar of his voice set the rope swinging again unless it was, as he shouted, he tugged upon it. Then I recovered from faintness and understood the import of his shouting, knew it was not Bingen.

‘’Old on, ol’ cock. ’Old on! I’ll ’ave you out o’ there in two shakes.’

The rope jerked, sliding my hands downwards, and then I was being lifted with a violence which ripped the sleeve from my shirt and grazed my arm along the brickwork. I called to him to heave more gently, for now, with rescue heartening me, I feared the Vampire between my legs would lose its grip to fall, make the whole effort worthless. But gasping and panting I was pulled over the wall to lay in the sun, and still on my legs the thing was clamped securely. Cramp had stiffened my limbs so that I could not move even after the man had pulled the Vampire from me and flung it away.

‘You know how to deal with them?’ I gasped.

‘You bet I does,’ he answered with a grin. ‘Better now?’

‘Not quite, but will be in a minute.’

My heart beat as though it must burst from my chest while I tried to fill my lungs with the sweet air. The sun blackened before my eyes, and dimly I felt a bottle being pushed between my clenched teeth. A fiery trickle of neat brandy running down my throat revived me, and I sat erect coughing, spluttering, to feel extremely foolish. Janet, sitting back on her heels, eyed me solicitously.

‘Oh, Garry. Are you all right now?’ she asked.

‘’E’s better now, Miss,’ the stranger said. ‘’Ere, chum, ’ave another sup o’ this.’

‘No thanks,’ I smiled between coughs. ‘I’d like a drink of water to put my stomach out though. I think it is alight!’

‘Ar! This ’ere’s the stuff to warm yer gizzard.’

Janet came running with a jug of water, and I drank thirstily. The stranger grinned at me and raised the black bottle to his lips. I watched him gulp nearly half a pint of neat spirit before he lowered the bottle to speak to me again.

‘Strewth! I’ve ’eard of blokes with bees in their bonnets,’ he grinned, showing black and broken teeth between the stubble gracing his dirty chin. ‘But goin’ down that there well to save one o’ them there birds! Wot the ’ell d’you do that for? Or did you just ’appen to fall in with it?’

‘Oh, don’t tell me! I know it. I did a damn silly thing. Did it foolishly, without stopping to think.’ I grinned apologetically at Janet as she helped me to my feet. ‘I made a fool of myself. But I didn’t realize it until I was down there, and suddenly thought of you being alone, Janet, if anything happened to me.’

‘But wot the ’ell d’you do it for?’ the stranger queried.

‘I wasn’t actually thinking about saving its life. In fact, I’m going to kill it now,’ I told him. ‘But you see we’ve decided to settle here for the time being, and there’s no other water but that from the well. We couldn’t have drunk water after it had been polluted by that thing drowning in it.’

‘Drink water! M’Gawd! With all the breweries in the country wide open for the taking. It’s worsen goin’ down a well to save ’im over there.’

The man indicated the Vampire squatting motionlessly, and then walked over to kick it violently, so that it fluttered with wet wings some yards away, to sit again on its haunches staring bleakly, for all the world as though listening to our conversation. Grinning at me the man continued.

‘Water. Huh! Not more’n couple of miles away there’s a brewery. It’s been burned, but it’s hardly touched. There’s cellars of the stuff there ready for the taking. Tastes all the better for bein’ cooked. ’Ere! ’Ave another swig.’

‘No thanks. You’ll want all there is there.’

‘Aw! That’s all right. I got a sack o’ stuff, bottles an’ such, the other side the ’ill. Dropped ’em when I ’eard the gal scream for ’elp.’

‘Yelling for help! Janet, you’re an optimist. And if you hadn’t called for help I shouldn’t have got any. Would still be down there.’

‘Don’t, Garry.’

‘No thanks. I really don’t want anything to drink now. I feel more hungry than thirsty. Janet, d’you think we can manage a breakfast from the remains of the bread and cheese?’

‘Wot’s that?’ the man interjected. ‘Ain’t got no grub? I got plenty in my swag. Send the gal over the ’ill for it. There’s tea an’ tinned milk an’ tinned meat. Though wot the ’ell I’m carryin’ milk an’ tea about for, Gawd knows. I don’t. There’s plenty there, an’ there’s plenty where it comes from. ’Elp yourselves. You ’op off, m’dear. I’ll look after your bloke.’

‘Yes, of course I’ll go,’ Janet cried, despite my frown of protest. ‘You two go in the cottage and get the kettle on, and I’ll be back in a minute.’

Janet was off, running up the hill, and I watched her before following the stranger into the cottage. Inside I remembered something.

‘Where you goin’, chum?’

‘Just going to slaughter that damned thing I brought out of the well.’

When I returned, the stranger was lounging, at home in a chair with feet upon the window-sill. I eyed him curiously. He wasn’t drunk, but he certainly wasn’t sober. Probably he was so soaked in the spirit he carried around with him that he couldn’t get drunk. He was a burly fellow of the tramp class in a filthy shirt opened swaggeringly to display a great red, bull-like neck and hairy chest. His lips were full and red amid the stubbly tangle of his beard. A tough customer, I thought, and thought of the revolver, and then remembered also he had saved my life.

‘You know I owe something to you. Coming along like you did was opportune for me. You saved my life, and I’m grateful to you.’

‘Aw! S’nothin’.’

‘May be nothing to you,’ I grinned at him. ‘But it means a hell of a lot to me.’

He dismissed the matter with a wave of a great forearm.

‘How did you survive?’ I asked him. ‘Are you by yourself? Had a rough time?’

‘Rough time! M’Gawd! Rough time! I’ve ’ad rough times afore, but . . .’ he shuddered, drinking again from his bottle.

‘First thing I knows about anythin’ was when I wakes up over Mitcham way wiv the ’orrors. Millions of ’em.’

‘You mean . . .’

‘O’ course I mean them. Wot else? At least they wasn’t the ’orrors, if you understand wot I mean. Not the D.T.s. I was in a wood, and fust thing I knows there ’undreds and ’undreds of black birds all about. And then I think as they was abendin’ down to kiss me. I ain’t so sure as I wasn’t adreamin’ about beautifool woman like this one ’ere,’ he grinned, jerked a thumb over his shoulder to where Janet busied about preparing a meal, and though he laughed I saw he drank deeply with remembrance. He continued with bravado, intent, I think, upon impressing Janet. ‘Then when I sees what they was, I ups an’ kills ’em. M’Gawd! Wot killin’ they want too! The time they take to die!’

‘We know all about that,’ I cut in. ‘If you don’t mind we’ll have all the horrid bits left out.’

‘Just as you say, captain. Anyways, I gets away from ’em makin’ for a place I know where there’s folks an’ an off-licence, though there ain’t no folks there now, and the off-licence’s aburnin’. So I tried to put out the fire, but it ain’t no use, an’ I gets me enough brandy an’ ’ops it wiv me drink lookin’ for some place to get cosy.’

‘And the Vampires? Where were they? There all the time?’

‘That wot they are, Vampires? Well, they was on me. All the blurry lot of ’em. I felt ’em. Anyways I shakes ’em off and gets me a snug little ’ome in an old cistern in a dust shoot. Them things comes in wiv me, but I ain’t ’avin’ ’em, an’ throws ’em out. Wot you laughin’ at?’

‘Oh. Nothing,’ I grinned. ‘Only the way you’re talking about things that just frightened me out of my life. Carry on.’

‘You don’t say, captain. Well, I sets there, comfy. Two days, three, ’oo knows. But I’m there ’til I finishes the drink I got. Then I goes out to the off-licence again for more. An’ strike me pin, them things is still a ’angin’ round. I runs into more of ’em afore I gets me booze. I gets back, an’ there’s about seven of the devils a ’angin’ on to me. They even tries to get in m’cistern wiv me. One of ’em does, an’ I ’as to squash it all over the sides afore it pegs out. Clamped on me like a limpet ’e was! Worsen any delicious tremblin’s I ever ’ad afore. Anyways, this all ’appens out Mitcham way, an’ I’m off amakin’ m’way down to the sea. All the country’s gone up. Ain’t nothin’ left. That’s all. I ’ears your gal ascreamin’, an’ bein’ a bit of a ladies’ man, I ups an’ comes along.’

‘Yes. Thank God you came along.’ Janet uttered the words thankfully.

I stared at the chap reflectively. He had been sodden with drink all the time, actually he didn’t really know what had happened to him, did not understand, even now, what had become of the country.

‘But have you seen anything of any other people? We’ve lost one of our party.’

‘I seen a bloke not so very far away from ’ere. Wot kind of a bloke was the bloke you lost?’

‘Bingen. Not quite so tall as I am, but fatter. Black hair, red face. Dressed in a blue shirt with a rifle. A revolver stuck in his trousers. He’s got a scar on the left side of his forehead.’