The Book of Death (25 page)

Stopping to wipe his face dry,
he realised that someone had thrown a snowball at him and caught him real good
with it too. He looked over in the direction it had come from and saw on the
other side of the road an old lady in a long dark blue coat with a walking
stick. She looked familiar. In fact, as she flipped him the middle finger and
shouted
“Asshole!”
at him, he recognised her as the old bag that had
fallen in the street when he’d switched on the police siren in his squad car to
impress Jessica. The stupid old witch obviously couldn’t take a joke. But right
now Sanchez had neither the time nor the patience to deal with her, although he
did plan on giving her the siren treatment again, if an opportunity presented
itself.

The impact of the blow from the
snowball could have caused him to lose his footing, such was the precarious
state of the ice and snow underfoot, so with that in mind he exercised more
caution in the remainder of his walk to the car, taking high steps and pressing
his boots down hard onto the ground. When he reached his squad car he set The
Book of Death down on the roof next to the siren and fumbled in his pocket for
his keys. As he pulled the keys out they snagged on his Zippo lighter and it
flew out and fell into a thick pile of snow just below the kerb.

‘Fuckin’ hell,’ he mumbled to
himself.

He crouched down to retrieve the
lighter from the sludge, doing his best not to kneel in the snow. It was cold
enough already without getting his uniform wet. The lighter had landed just
under the car, almost out of reach. As he pawed at it, he caught sight of a
dark shadow looming over him in the snow. Even in the already gloomy light
provided by the dim streetlights, this shadow was dark, and large. He leaned
back and looked over his shoulder. There, stood behind him and now looking
quite a fearsome sight was the Santa Claus he had bumped into in the library.

‘You want something?’ Sanchez
asked, climbing to his feet.

The Santa opened his mouth wide.
On his upper set of teeth he had a large set of fangs. The guy was a fucking vampire.
A big bastard one at that.

The big ugly Santa hissed at
him, his foul breath wafting out from the pit of his stomach. Sanchez reeled
back instinctively at what he perceived to be the smell of rotten kebab meat.
The Santa lunged over his left shoulder, reaching for the book on top of the
squad car.

‘Give me that book!’ he snarled.

‘Not a chance!’ Sanchez yelled
back, turning around and grabbing for the book. He managed to get his hands on
it before the vampire. With his chubby cold fingers he slid the book off the
top of the car and clasped it against his chest ensuring his elbows protruded
out to keep the Santa at bay. His attacker climbed all over his back and
reached around him with both hands to try and get a grip on the book.

Sanchez twisted away from him.
If he could somehow knock the fat Santa over, he might buy himself enough time
to get in the car. Unfortunately gripping The Book of Death with all his might
made it difficult to do anything. Although there was no way he was releasing
his grip on the book (and the fifty thousand dollar reward) to some fat,
out-of-shape undead Santa Claus.

Unfortunately, in terms of
strength and fighting prowess Sanchez was no match for the colossal mass of the
huge grey bearded fucker in the red hat. The Santa grabbed at the book and
tugged at it with one hand. The two of them struggled back and forth with it
like two toddlers fighting over a teddy bear. But where Sanchez continued to
pull as hard as he could, the Santa suddenly surprised him by pushing. He succeeded
in shoving the book hard into Sanchez’s chest, knocking him off balance. He
slipped and lost his footing on the ice, tumbling backwards. In refusing to let
go of the book he only succeeded in pulling the obese vampire down on top of
him.

Neither of them could sustain a
firm grip on the book. But with each passing moment it became more evident that
Sanchez was no match for his opponent. The vampire had blood-crazed eyes and
where initially he had been focussed only on retrieving the book he suddenly caught
sight of the ample flesh on Sanchez’s neck. It was glowing red in the cold. In
vampire terms it must have looked like a juicy steak.

As the Santa lunged forward to
take a bite, Sanchez wrestled hard with The Book of Death, hoping to use it as
a shield. With one almighty tug he managed to yank it upwards. It hit the Santa
underneath the chin, knocking his head away just as he was about to sink his
teeth into some flesh.

Drastic evasive action would be
required to get out of this mess. Fortunately Sanchez had the survival
instincts a weasel could only dream of. He pulled his hand away from the book
and pulled at the Santa’s beard. As he suspected it was attached around the
vampire’s face with elasticated string. He pulled it back as far as he could
before releasing it and allowing it to snap sharply back into the Santa’s face,
covering his mouth and more importantly his fangs. The Santa wasn’t fazed by it
though and instead seized the initiative and tugged harder at the book,
forgetting about biting anything for a moment. It took only a couple of seconds
for him to rip the book completely from Sanchez’s grip. He then sat
triumphantly astride the hapless bartender, grinning maniacally. He tossed the
book down on the pavement by his side and leered down at Sanchez, pulling his
beard back into position.

‘Time to die, fat man!’ the
Santa hissed, reaching inside his red jacket. He pulled out a small silver hip
flask. ‘I’ve tried your hipflask. Now try some of mine!’ he sneered.

‘No thanks,’ said Sanchez
frantically fumbling around in the snow just beneath the kerb with his free
hand.

As the Santa unscrewed the lid
on his flask Sanchez put Operation Weasel into action. He felt the cold metal
of his Zippo lighter in his fingers. He plucked it from the snow and flicked it
open, then thrust it towards the Santa’s beard. The Santa never saw it coming
and Sanchez watched with glee as the fat bastard’s thick grey beard went up in
flames.

‘SHEEEEE-IIIIIIIT!’ the Santa
screamed as the flames flew up towards his face. He rolled off Sanchez and onto
the snow on the pavement, dropping his hip flask to the floor.

With the vampire rolling around
face down in the snow attempting to put out the flames on his beard, Sanchez
seized his chance. He hauled himself up and reached for the silver hip flask.
The lid had come off it and a green liquid was leaking out onto the snow.
Figuring it to be some sort of alcohol and no doubt flammable, Sanchez held it
over the Santa and attempted to pour it onto the flames on his beard to ignite
them further before his victim could extinguish them. He timed it perfectly.
The Santa rolled over onto his back looking up at Sanchez just as he poured the
liquid onto his beard and the lower half of his face. The Santa’s eyes opened
wide in horror as some of the liquid slid into his mouth. The flames on his
beard had all but gone out but there was still a small cloud of black smoke
rising up from it causing him to cough and splutter.

Sanchez put down the hip flask
and prepared himself to re-enact his favourite wrestling move, The Splash. He
launched himself up in the air and threw himself down onto the Santa like he’d
seen his favourite wrestler, Earthquake, do on television. Landing astride his
stricken victim, he flipped his Zippo lighter open again. The Santa was no
longer struggling or fighting back. He was simply laid out motionless on the
ground.

Sanchez was busy congratulating
himself on the effectiveness of his Splash technique when something caught his
eye. Peering down at his stricken foe he noticed the green stains on his lips.
He remembered the stories of the child killer paralysing kids with a green
poisonous liquid. Could it be that this vampire was responsible for murdering a
load of defenceless kids? Well, now it was the vampire who was defenceless.
Time for some gloating and Schwarzenegger style pay off lines.

‘You should lay off that green
stuff, you look paralytic,’ he said. The Santa didn’t respond. He couldn’t. The
paralysis had kicked in already. His eyes said all Sanchez needed to know. He
was terrified of what was to come. For once, Sanchez was going to get the
chance to administer some good old retribution on behalf of all of the victims
of a vicious killer. A genuine chance to be a hero and avenge the deaths of
many innocent people had landed in his lap. What could possibly go wrong?

He looked down at the flame on
his Zippo, then looked into the eyes of the vampire again. ‘You need to lighten
up!’ he said smirking (while contemplating what a shame it was that no one was
around to appreciate his fine pay off lines). ‘Come on, give me a ho, ho, ho!’
The vampire looked truly terrified but offered no fight.

Sanchez closed the lighter again
momentarily and picked up the hip flask. He poured a little more of the green flammable
liquid onto the Santa’s clothes, then he stepped away from his prostrate
victim. He screwed the lid back on the hip flask and slipped it into his inside
pocket figuring it would be an ample replacement for the one he’d given away
earlier. Then he flicked open his lighter again. Toying with the fat bastard by
holding the flame of the Zippo over him gave Sanchez an enormous sense of
power. All he had to do was drop the lighter down onto the vampire’s beard and
within seconds the paralysed psycho would be a smouldering pile of ash. First
of all though, some more gloating was required.

‘Not nice to be flat on your
back with someone staring over you, threatening to kill you, is it?’ he asked,
kicking the vampire in the ribs for good measure.

This was turning out to be great
fun. Sanchez kicked him again, harder this time. As he held the Zippo high over
the Santa, readying himself to drop it, he suddenly heard a voice from behind
him shout out. It was the voice of a young girl, probably no more than ten years
old.

‘Hey everyone! That guy is
beating up Santa Claus!’

Sanchez looked over his shoulder
and saw on the other side of the road a troop of Sunflower Girls, the Santa
Mondega equivalent of the Savannah Girl Scouts but with some serious behaviour
problems. They all wore green sweaters and blue skirts with fluffy blue pom pom
hats to protect against the cold weather. Not normally a fearsome sight, but
there were thirty of them. There was also the group leader, a rather large lady
in her forties with a face like a giraffe’s and a bowl haircut. Fortunately she
was at the back of the group. The one Sanchez had to worry about was the little
girl who had shouted out to the others. She was at the front of the group,
pointing at him. And far from looking distressed, this little girl looked
extremely angry. She reached down and pulled something from her sock. She held
it up. It was a flick knife. She flipped it open and pointed the blade at
Sanchez. Then she looked around at her troop.

‘GET HIM!’ she shouted.

Within a second, thirty
screaming ten-year old Sunflower Girls had started charging towards him. The
one with the knife led the way, snarling like a pit bull terrier. The leader
followed on behind the pack shaking her fist angrily at Sanchez. She looked absolutely
appalled at what she had seen him doing to the Santa Claus.

‘It’s not what it looks like!’
Sanchez yelled at the onrushing mob.

It was no use. None of the girls
would have been able to hear him over the noise of their own screaming. He took
one last look at the vampire on the ground and dropped the Zippo onto him.

WHOOSH!

As soon as the naked flame made
contact with the flammable green liquid on the Santa’s red outfit his whole
body exploded into flames. The sight of it stopped the onrushing girls dead in
their tracks. There were gasps all round as their jaws dropped at the sight of
Santa Claus going up in flames. The image would no doubt be permanently etched
into their memories, scarring them for life.

Unfortunately once the initial
shock passed, it only angered them further. Their screaming took on an entirely
new level of aggression.

Sanchez reached down to the
sidewalk and grabbed The Book of Death. By the time he’d picked it up, the
Santa was a flaming ball of flesh three feet high. The flames were stretching
up to the side of the squad car, blocking off any chance Sanchez had of getting
into it, so with no time to lose, he turned and raced off down the icy street,
praying he wouldn’t slip.

Thirty hysterical Sunflower
Girls chased after him, baying for blood.

Thirty

JD walked along the dusty track
towards the horizon. The sun shone blisteringly in the blue sky above, yet he
felt no heat from it. The temperature, much like the breeze, had been totally
neutralised. For the longest time he felt like he was walking the wrong way on
a conveyor belt. The scenery didn’t change and the horizon seemed to come no
closer. All that surrounded him was the deserted wastelands of the Devil’s
Graveyard. And everything seemed to be polished in an almost blinding white
sheen. The only sound was that of his boots on the highway beneath his feet.
Everything had been muted out. Even his breathing was silent.

Finally after an indeterminable
length of time he spotted something up ahead by the roadside directly beneath
the sun. It was a large building with a thatched roof. Within seconds of
catching sight of it his life moved into fast-forward. The horizon raced
towards him and the faint white clouds zipped by overhead all in less than two
steps along the highway. And just like that, he found himself outside a large
roadside bar with a solitary Harley Davidson parked outside. From the outside
it looked very similar to the kind of bar found in Santa Mondega. Was this
place part of his imagination? It looked like a typical gunslinger saloon. Kind
of a cross between the Tapioca and the Nightjar, but ten times the size of the
either of them and even less inviting. But this was undoubtedly the place to he
was meant to be. He was going to have to go in.