Vampires Overhead (21 page)

‘Huh! That the feller you lost?’ The stranger drank slowly from his bottle again, keeping us in suspense, and Janet came from the stove to listen with hands clasped eagerly in front of her. He continued in response to our entreaties. ‘I seen just the same feller. I can put me ’and right on where ’e is. No fear as ’e’s run away. ’E’ll be there yet, don’t you worry.’

‘For God’s sake what do you mean? Can’t he walk? Where is he? Is he hurt? Is that what you mean? Open up, you idiot?’

‘’Ere! ’Oo the ’ell you callin’ a idjit?’ He started up bellicosely, to calm down as Janet laid pleading hands on his arm.

‘Please say where he is, and that he is safe,’ the girl pleaded.

‘Corse I will, Miss. No, ’e ain’t ’urt. ’E’s all right. Least ’e was when I sees ’im. But ’e’s boozed.’

‘Drunk?’

‘I should say. ’E nearly got to shootin’ me.’

‘Oh, I’m glad he didn’t,’ Janet said. ‘But where is he, Mister?’

‘A mile along the road towards town. It’s the second turnin’ to the right. There’s a little country pub. The Blue . . . The Blue somefink it’s called. ’E’s there, an’ if ’e ain’t as drunk as a lord, ’e’s sobered considerable since I seen ’im.’

‘Bingen! Drunk! Look here . . . what’s your name?’

‘Rhodes, captain. Dusty Rhodes.’

‘Oh. We’ll go straight away and fetch him,’ Janet cried excitedly. ‘At once, won’t we, Garry?’

‘I think I’ll have something to eat first,’ I told her. ‘Get some of that meat on a bit of the bread and a cup of tea. Then I’ll go after him.’

‘Garry! To stop and eat when he might want you!’ Janet spoke the words reproachfully.

‘Three minutes won’t make any difference,’ I answered sharply. ‘And I’ll be able to deal with him better than if I’m half-starved.’

‘Oh, Garry. I’m sorry. I spoke without thinking.’

‘Will you stop here and see after the girl?’ I asked Rhodes.

‘Oh! Let me come and help bring him back,’ Janet interjected quickly. ‘Perhaps, if he doesn’t want to come, I’ll be able to persuade him.’

‘No. It’ll be better for me to go alone. If I have to look after Bingen, I shouldn’t want you on my hands as well, should I?’ I told her, and then turned to Rhodes, who had listened interestedly to Janet’s appeal to be allowed to accompany me. Too interestedly I thought. I asked him, ‘Will you stop here and look after her until I get back, Rhodes?’

‘Corse I will. I always was a one to look after the ladies.’ Dusty Rhodes leered, in a manner supposed to be ingratiating, towards Janet. ‘Me an’ ’er’ll get on together like a ’ouse afire.’

‘That shouldn’t be difficult with this deviltry going on all over the country; but, Rhodes . . . Behave yourself. Savvy?’

‘Aw! Don’t you worry, captain. Trust me.’ Dusty grinned at Janet, and I felt less then ever like leaving them together. ‘The little gal’ll be safe enough with me, captain.’

‘You’d better see that she is,’ I told him curtly, and to Janet said, ‘Janet, I really don’t see how I can take you with me. It’s better for you to stay here with Rhodes. You’ll be all right, won’t you?’

‘Of course I will,’ she smiled reassuringly, and whispered as she accompanied me to the door, ‘Don’t worry about him. I can see after myself. Don’t be too long, and be sure to bring Bingen back safely. Tell him I want him. Goodbye, Garry.’

‘Shan’t be long. Cheerio, Janet.’

Climbing out of the valley, I halted on the hill to wave down a farewell to the cottage, and set off with a high heart down the dusty road towards the inn where I would find Bingen. Hastening, I forgot even to glance up at the sky, ignoring any possible return of Vampires, with my thoughts fixed upon Bingen and the safety of Janet. I was worried at having to leave here with Rhodes, for a more unprepossessing scoundrel I had never seen, despite the fact of him having undoubtedly saved my life. I broke into a jog-trot the quicker to get back to Janet.

By the cross-roads where the way to Bingen’s inn turned off to the right, a few villas were scattered around, and they were so little burned that I resolved, hurrying past, to investigate them at the first opportunity, for now, with the arrival on the scene of Mister Dusty Rhodes, I little doubted others had escaped from the general destruction. I wondered how Janet was faring with him, and, wondering, quickened my footsteps. But I felt she was capable of holding her own against even such a ruffian as Rhodes. Mounting a rise, I saw, in the distance, a signboard swinging from the top of a tall post. That would be the inn. I called out, running towards it.

‘Bingen! Bingen! You anywhere about? Bingen!’

The shout reverberated noisily down the road, unanswered.

Standing some way back, with a garden fronting it, the inn was a small country beerhouse of the usual type, and though woodwork was burned and roof was gone the walls held still bar, beer engines, and bottles, some intact, fallen to the floor from burned shelves. The charred sign proclaimed it to be The Blue Anchor. But of Bingen there was no trace. I called again.

‘Bingen! Bingen!’

Ashes lifted about my feet as I entered the place, strode through three rooms to the yard, where lay four bodies which had evidently been flung out recently. That meant someone had been there since the fire. I searched more hopefully. There were chickens alive in a run nclosed with wire netting! They had been saved from the holocaust evidently by the fact that their run had been built from the discarded steel stanchions of some building. The intersecting wire-netting sagged where the Vampires had pressed, but it had withstood the strain. I threw maize to them from a sack in the outhoouse. Later, we would be glad of those chickens. I would fetch them.

‘Bingen! Bingen!’

It was impossible he could be hidden anywhere, for I had gone through the place again and again. I returned dispiritedly through the bar to the road, staring up and down, calling half-heartedly.

There was nothing else for me to do except go back to the cottage. With Janet alone with Rhodes I dared not set off to search about haphazardly. And, so thinking, I glanced down as I traced in the dust with the toe of my boot to see trap-doors in the flagged stones close by the inn wall. A cellar! Why hadn’t I thought of that before? I tried to prise them open, thinking Bingen could not be down there. He would have heard me call, answered. I stamped and hammered, shouting.

Either from obstinacy or a determination to be able to return and tell Janet the place had been searched thoroughly, I went through the bar again to the outhouse in search of some tool which would enable me to burst open the doors, and returned with a felling axe. For a while the doors resisted my efforts, then with a crash they dropped into the cellar.

With his back against a barrel from which oozed beer dripping to the floor, Bingen sat, drunkenly asleep.

Shaking did not waken him, and it was not until I got a great leathern bottle, filled it with beer, and doused him that he regained consciousness, woke fighting, yelling.

‘Get hold of yourself, dopey,’ I entreated, shaking him roughly until he recognized me. ‘Sober up! Janet’s alone in the hills with some tough I don’t trust. Come along, Bingen. Snap out of it. We’ve got to get back to her quickly.’

He peered blearily, pushing me away at first, and then drunken tears flowed from his eyes. Sulkily he sat ignoring my attempts to rouse him.

‘Aw! I can’t come back and face her again. Not after making a fool of myself like I did,’ he growled at last. ‘You go back and tell her you couldn’t find me.’

‘Fool of yourself be cursed. She understands as well as I do. It was only a bad break for you that you cracked instead of me. I did as near as damn it. Come on. Forget it. Jump up, and we’ll get back before anything happens to Janet.’

‘
n
o. I’m not coming. Get out of here, and leave me in peace.’

‘Leave you in drink, you drunken swab. Now, look here, Bingen. What’s it going to be? You’re coming with me even if I have to crack you under the jaw and carry you back. What’s it going to be? Carried back unconscious—or walk back like you are—half conscious?’

‘You mean both of you want me to come back?’

‘What the hell d’you think I’m arguing down here for, you silly chump?’

‘Oh! All right then. Give me a chance to freshen up a bit.’ Bingen pulled himself to his feet. ‘There’s water up there. I’ll have a bit of a wash.’

‘Don’t want to worry about that now. We’ll have a drink, though. You can do with one, I’ll be bound. And I’ve got dust in my throat.’

Bingen filled the leather bottle again and we drank heartily.

‘Gosh, Bingen, you smell like a brewery.’

‘Well, why the devil did you throw that beer over me?’

‘Oh, it isn’t that I’m smelling. That was only a tiny drop in the ocean. What have you been doing with yourself, and why didn’t you come after us? You knew where we were going.’

‘Oh, hell, don’t let’s talk about it. You know why I didn’t come. What’s the place like where you are? What you wanted?’

‘The very thing. We’ll be there in an hour; come along.’

‘Steady on. Not too fast.’ Bingen hurried, and I slowed down to walk with him. ‘What’s this other chap you say is with Janet? Where’d he come from?’

‘Some tramp, boozer. Oh, no offence. I mean this bloke’s a spirit mopper. Nearly in the D.T.s, I think. I don’t believe he knows anything’s happened. Not sure whether or no it isn’t just the drink again like it was the last time. Necks neat brandy by the bottleful.’

‘Likely sort of customer. How did you come to pal up with him?’

‘He saved my life. Pulled me out of a well.’

‘A what?’

‘A well. Place where you get water.’

‘How the hell did you get in there?’

‘Oh, you’ll hear about that later on. You weren’t the only one who made a fool of himself. Come on.’

‘We’re crazy. Both of us. You come along and save my life by pulling me out of a pub, and this bloke comes along and saves your life by pulling you out of a well. Hell!’

‘You said it. Just over that hill there, and then we can see down in the valley and the cottage. And I’ll be glad to. Bingen, I’m worried about leaving Janet with Mister Rhodes.’

We hurried on.

‘That’s queer. Bingen, Janet would have been waiting by the door for us to come back. The door’s closed.’ I stared down into the valley at the cottage. There was no sign of life. Janet wouldn’t have shut herself in there with Rhodes unless . . . I yelled between cupped hands. ‘Janet! You all right? Janet.’

‘Garry! Garry! Come quickly. Garry!’ Janet’s scream was muffled from behind the door, but it was sufficient to jerk us into action.

I was sliding down the hill in a cascade of pebbles, and behind me came Bingen. At the bottom we picked ourselves up and dashed for the cottage. I hammered on the door.

‘Open up! Open. Janet, who’s in there with you? Rhodes, open this door.’

Janet answered me with a cry which stopped my hammering. I pulled Bingen back, and together we charged. The door I had so roughly fastened fell with a crash to spill us into the room. Struggling from underneath Bingen I jumped to my feet.

At the far end of the room Janet stood, or rather crouched, and in her hand was my sword. Her face was white and her blue jersey ripped from one shoulder. Facing her stood Rhodes, grinning jeeringly.

‘Janet! Are you hurt? Has he harmed you?’

‘I’m all right. Oh . . . but send this man away, Garry,’ she sobbed. ‘Send him away.’

‘You sure he hasn’t hurt you. I can’t let him go if he has.’