Free Vampires Overhead by Alan Hyder

something to buck me up. b ut we must wait and make sure.’
    ‘You stay here a minute, and I’ll have a look at the top end. Keep your eyes open for anything. I’ll see what I can, up there, and be back.’
    My feet stumbled on the slope as I started to run, and by the brewery gates faintness swayed me, so that I had to squat on the floor to recover. Hunger and terror had told on me more than I realized, I was weak. Soon, I knew, I must get something to eat, to get strength for the coming effort of escape. We must take a chance, leave the tunnel while we had the opportunity. Who knew when those things might be back?
    The yard was unchanged, except for a great piece of guttering fallen athwart the gate to drip molten lead from a steel angle. One end of the angle lay close, nearly under the bars, and I reached for it. I should be able to lever the gate open if I pulled one end of it into the tunnel.
    The padlock wrenched from its staple, but I was scared to open the gate wide.

 
     
     
    IV
    The River Through the Dead City

    ‘BINGEN!’
    My shout brought him running up the tunnel to dart into the yard like a rat with a terrier on its tail.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Nothing, except that we’re free,’ I answered. ‘Come out in the yard and explore.’
    ‘Garry!’ Bingen shot the words out and halted, ready to dive back into the security of the tunnel. ‘Garry, there’s one still there.’
    ‘Where?’
    He pointed shakily.
    Picking up the sword, I walked across the yard to where a great stone lintel had fallen from above the entrance. Protruding under the beam was the head of a Vampire, and its eyes, as I approached, held mine bleakly. The tip of its wings were free, but the whole of its body, pressed under the beam, must have been squashed flat, and the thing lived, with no sign of pain, no hint of death. The sword fell, and the pursed muzzle quivered at the leather of my boot even as the live head rolled away from the dead body. No blood or moisture came from the neck. Rather, it looked like darkened cotton-wool intertangled with shreds of black thread. A protruding spinal cord showed dully black, greying as I watched. The head with the long, mouthless muzzle rolled to a stop, and on the forehead still beat a thin pulse. The expressionless eyes stared up at me. I kicked the thing into a pile of ashes.
    ‘For God’s sake,’ Bingen whispered huskily, ‘let’s try the watchman’s hut and see if we can get some beer.’
    Behind the hut, one wall of which stood, burned buildings crumbled in a heap of fallen bricks between two high gables tottering precariously above ashes which glowed redly beneath a grey surface. Over by the tall entrance gates, flat now on the cobbles, was an unexpectedly clear space. It looked as though it had been covered by some fireproof material during the conflagration, and centrally in that space lay two bodies.
    ‘It’s old Dad,’ Bingen said in answer to my gesture. ‘The other’s the manager.’
    ‘That’s the car he came back for.’ I motioned towards a tangle of twisted metal by the gate, and with a sudden inspiration comprehended the reason for that clear space about the bodies. ‘Bingen! The clear space round them is where those things were heaped!’
    We were silent.
    ‘They must have been covered in the middle of the fire, and any falling ash or bricks fell on to the Vampires. Then, when the things flew away, they swept the debris clear from the circular space.’
    I could imagine the filthy things rising like a cluster of scavenger flies from refuse, and forced myself to stoop and examine the two bodies closely.
    ‘Every drop of moisture’s been drained from them,’ I whispered. ‘They’re nothing but dried skin and bone. All these little red pin-prick marks all over them are where . . .’
    ‘For God’s sake come away,’ Bingen cried. ‘Come away.’
    The blue sky above was a mockery, with those two at my feet.
    Sucking muzzles dissolved flesh to moisture