Free King Carrion by Rich Hawkins Page B

directly opposite him with the engine idling.
         A man’s voice: “This isn’t a good night to be out on the streets, my friend.”
         Mason raised his head and looked through the open passenger window at the man in the Ford Fiesta. There was apprehension in the man’s eyes. A chubby face flanked by dark brown mutton chops. He wore a baseball cap and a bomber jacket.
         “I suppose it isn’t,” Mason said.
         “Are you okay?” the man asked. His eyes searched for signs of injury or bite wounds on Mason. He eyed the hammer lying on the bench.
         Mason took a long drag of the cigarette and blew smoke through his nostrils. “I’m not sure.”
         “What are you doing out here?”
         “Nothing at all.”
         “Fair enough, man. You should duck.”
         Mason frowned. “What?”
         The man pointed an old service revolver at him. “Get down. There’s something nasty behind you.”
         Mason glanced over his shoulder just as a teenage boy reached for him with blood-slick hands. He dropped his cigarette and fell from the bench and onto his knees, grasping for the hammer as he tried to scramble away from the vampire.
         The boy snarled.
         The crack of a gunshot. The boy’s neck was wrenched backwards and the back of his head blew out. He collapsed, his body slumping over the back of the bench. The insides of his skull spilled like hot soup onto the seat.
         When Mason looked back at the car, the man lowered the pistol and put it in the inside pocket of his jacket. No expression on his face.
         “Fucking leeches,” he said.
         Mason rose to his feet, wiping dirt from his jeans.
         “I’m getting out of the city,” the man said. “You need a ride?”
         Mason nodded, glanced back at the teenager’s body. “Cheers.”
         “Good choice. This place is fucked. Don’t forget your little hammer.”
     

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
     
    The man was called Pete Smith, and he sweated in the driver’s seat as he grasped the steering wheel with white-knuckled hands. His bulging stomach was visible past the unzipped bomber jacket clinging to his thick limbs. He told Mason he had already killed his parents earlier that night, after they became, as he called them, ‘leeches’.
         The inside of the car smelled like stale junk food and old grease. Something like the musk of body odour was ingrained into the upholstery. A dried up air freshener hung from the rear-view mirror. The floor was littered with food wrappers and scrunched-up McDonald’s burger wrappers. A Costa Coffee cup rolled around in the back of the car. The backseats were taken up with two duffel bags and several bottles of water.
         The car moved through streets of wrecked vehicles and murder scenes. A flaming figure staggered from within a building consumed by fire and collapsed on the pavement, still flailing in its death throes. Smoke from the fires made the night air hazy.
         A dog trailing its collar bolted across the road. Mason watched it vanish into an alleyway. He wished it the best of luck.
         They passed blocks of flats where candlelight still glowed in some windows. On a street corner lurked a gang of youths armed with baseball bats, knives and axes. One had lit a flare that burned with eye-watering red light. They swigged from bottles of vodka and cider. Some were masked up in scarves and hoods, jittery with adrenaline. They eyed the car as it went past.
         Gunshots rang out from behind a row of shops.
         Dead bodies in moonlit gardens. Forms crouching by the bodies, heads lowered as if to kiss them. One of the forms raised its head for a moment to glance around, and Mason had to turn away from the terrible face of shockingly-white skin and red eyes.
         Mason glimpsed people peering from windows, clearly terrified, waiting for help that would never come on this night. Men stood in