Vampires Overhead (11 page)

‘It’s incredible we could have done that. Isn’t it?’

We smoked in silence.

The softness of the bunk, and the food I had gorged after my fast, was an inducement to sleepiness, even though it was only somewhere round three in the afternoon. Gradually my eyes closed, until remembering the opening overhead, I sat upright.

‘I’m going to get in a real sleep,’ I said to Bingen. ‘Let’s go up and see that the opening over the cabin is secure. Then we’ll turn in, get a good long rest, out of it early in the morning, and make our way right out of the town to see what’s in the country. I’m just about dead beat. Standing on the steps of a cinema for four years doesn’t leave you with enough stamina to go on “jags” with drivers of the Royal ’Orse, fight Vampires, row boats down rivers. Let’s get the place safe. Come on.’

We climbed to the hatchway.

‘Nip outside and get half a dozen boards of that asbestos,’ I told Bingen. ‘I’ll get the rope, and if we lash them down over the opening, we’ll be snug for the night. Leave spaces between so that we can breathe.’

With the opening covered, we dropped down again, and I followed Bingen’s example, pulled off all my clothes, for it was hot in the tiny cabin. We could have done with the opening
wide to the night air but . . . we were taking no risks. That both of us dispensed
with all our clothes was proof of our confidence in the security of the concrete barge.

‘Good night, Bingen. See you in the morning, I suppose.’

‘You will Garry. I’m not getting out of here until after you’ve poked your head out to see that everything’s all right. Good night.’

I snuggled down in the bunk.

Shafts of light slanted down from between the cracks in the asbestos boards, and for a while I could not sleep. I watched the dust dancing in the paths of sunlight, with horrors from preceding days and nights flashing back and forth in my brain and, as though I had not my full share, thoughts of others must needs trouble me. The Luxurides; the programme girls; how had that wonderful little blonde fared; often had I admired her when she had come to the doors under some pretext to breathe deeply of air free from perfume and warmth; the hook-nosed manager; the haughty marcelled damsel of the box-office; how had they fared; the old lady who looked after me so well in my ‘digs’ in Pimlico. . . .

With these people revolving madly in a fluttering cloud of Vampires, I fell asleep. Nature had let me put up with a lot, but now must have put her foot down, for I stopped dreaming and shivering in my bunk, lapsed into total unconsiousness.

Before I slept, I heard Bingen snoring noisily.

Early in the dark of dawn, I was roused to find myself listening intently for some sound which unwittingly had awakened me. The cracks of sunlight had gone, the cabin was in inky darkness, I saw a star twinkle through a crack in the boarded opening, but as I watched it was gone. Then my muscles tensed gradually.

I could not hear Bingen. He breathed noisily, and now in the silence I could not hear him! Suddenly, as I listened, his bunk creaked softly as though he jerked nervously.

‘You all right, Bingen?’

‘Yes,’ his answer came whispering from the blackness.

‘I wish to heaven I’d had the foresight to leave a light ready to hand,’ I grumbled. ‘There’s a box of matches on the table, but where the devil is the table? I think I’ll get . . .’

I stopped talking, for as I spoke I heard Bingen’s breath catch and sob.

‘Bingen. For God’s sake what’s the matter? I thought I heard something. It woke me up.
d
id you hear anything, or have you just got the wind up? Bingen! What’re you up to?’

The words rapped out sharply, for his bunk strained as though he pushed at it, bare feet pattered across the cabin, and he was searching in the dark for me. I reached for the floor with dangling feet, caught his arm, and it was shaking. He held on to me closely.

‘The matter. What’s the matter. Speak, you fool. Is there something in the cabin with us?’

‘Out there. Out there. Something screaming. God!’ Bingen’s voice shook hysterically. ‘God! A terrible noise.’

‘What noise?’ I asked and, asking, held my breath, shuddering, for I heard now the noise which had wakened me. It stabbed into the quiet of the cabin like a flash of light.

‘AAAAAAAH!’

And again it came.

‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!’

Out there in the night, someone screamed.

High pitched, shrill, monotonous cries, sounding as though they were wrenched from some tortured child or woman. Screams of sheer terrified hysteria.

‘What is it? Bingen, is that what you heard before?’

‘Yes.’

The screams rang through my ears.

‘AAAAAAH!’

As though the cries were strangled by sheer inability of the screamer to cry any more, they gurgled softly to a stop, and with the silence, sanity and reason came back to me.

‘Get away from me. Get out of the way.’

Struggling against Bingen’s clutching hands, I freed myself, and was on the floor, stubbing my toes in a maddened effort to discover my bearings. If only I could see that star twinkling through the crack in the covered opening! My outstretched fingers caught the remnants of the stairs, a broken newell post, and, swinging myself up, I pushed, heaved with my shoulders at the asbestos boards, prising at the ropes which held them down, until finger-nails broke, and in the darkness Bingen rushed forward, tried to hinder me.

I shouted and swore at him, kicked, punched, then turned to the covering again.

‘For God’s sake. God! Don’t open it,’ he pleaded. His voice rose to a scream. ‘Don’t undo it. Something’ll come. You’ll let something in.’

‘Get to hell out of the way. You fool. You damned fool. There’s someone out there. Don’t you understand? Somebody out there.’

Then ropes slipped suddenly from fastenings, and unexpectedly my shoulder heaved on unresisting boards. The jerk launched me forward and my feet caught Bingen so that he was knocked down into the cabin to lay on the floor whimpering. Pink light from the moon and the comet poured down on to us. With one quick glance above, I turned to Bingen.

‘Pull yourself together. It’s all right. Stand by to give me a hand if I want one when I get out there. Take hold of yourself, Bingen. It’s all right.’

Came the screams. They rose into the night again and died.

Bingen’s courage broke then. I saw him jerk swiftly to his feet, dive for the bunk, and he no longer stared at the hatchway. I saw him shrink into the black shadow of the bunk, pull mattress and blankets over himself. I think seeing him do that stopped me from losing control of myself.

Sobbing with the effort of pulling myself above the hatchway, I reached the deck, trembling. I must find out who screamed else I would lose restraint, dive for the cabin again. Apprehensively I stared about.

The barge was deserted as when we had come aboard!

And yet those screams had come from no more than a few yards away. Across the water burned hulks showed black, but a few inches from the fiery, shimmering water. There could be no one on them. And the shore was half a mile away. I ran the length of the barge, skirting the piled asbestos, stared overboard around the boat to see nothing clung to the side. It seemed I was alone in the night. My eyes darted, peered, watching. Overhead great stars glittered and the sky was clear. The river ran past calmly as it had done for centuries, but now it slid between banks of night enhanced flames, redly. Abruptly, three heart-stopping screams pierced the muttering silence, and they came but a few feet away from where I stood . . . alone!

‘Bingen! Bingen! Get out of that. Search around. There’s someone down there. It must be down there. There’s not a thing up here,’ my voice trailed off hoarsely, for now I was sick with fright, and Bingen did not answer. Later, he told me defiantly, he had crawled into the bunk and covered his head foolishly with bedclothes like a scared child.

From side to side I ran calling.

‘Who’s there. Where are you. Damn you, where are you.’

I cursed Bingen for a chicken-hearted swine, knowing that I was almost in the same state of panic, and then, as though to restore my failing courage, instead of screams, there came a soft sobbing.

From every part of the deck the sound came apparently to my frantic ears, and I ran here, there, until not a mouse could have been concealed on the deck with me, and remained unseen. Again, I could have sworn the boat held only Bingen and myself, but, with that quiet sobbing pulling me, I went on searching, if indeed, dashing foolishly from side to side, running from stern to bow, could be called searching. But for myself and the piled cargo the deck was empty. I tried to visualize the cabins below. The screams could not have come from there. We had searched so thoroughly for cigarettes and food. In those tiny cabooses it would have been impossible for anyone to hide. A child even. I called again and again.

‘Where are you? Tell me where you are. Answer me.’

It seemed every time I called the sobs grew quieter as though someone was afraid of my voice.

Then I cursed myself vilely for a fool. The cargo! Someone was hidden among those piled asbestos boards. If I had to fling every scrap of it into the river, I’d find them now. I’d unload the whole boat by myself.

Some of the boards were tumbled into a heap, making a kind of lean-to by the stern. I started on them, flinging them aside so that they slid into the river, and before I had moved many came upon a body. A short dark man, with a stubble of beard and a pronounced corpulency, lay twisted tortuously under the cargo. Incongruously, on his near-bald head, was clamped an ancient derby hat. And, despite his stoutness, he had the same shrunken appearance as though every drop of moisture was drained from his veins. The Vampires. He must have been overwhelmed by the things, killed, and then later the boat had swayed and rocked to cover him with tumbling boards. He could not have screamed!

I heaved him to the side and tumbled him overboard. And with the splash those screams burst out again.

Now I traced them, and, with renewed vigour tore, lifted at the covering until my fingers bled and I had to rest. I called again unavailingly to Bingen.

‘Come up and give me a hand. It’s all right up here. Come up and help me, Bingen.’

Studying the piled cargo I saw where one of the sheets, jutting out, would afford me a leverage to tumble a whole heap of boards. Afterwards, I wondered why I had not seen the place before, it was so obvious. For the cargo was piled here, with an untidy haphazardness contrasting strangely with the rest of the orderly stacks.

I took a breath, lifted experimentally on the leverage, and heaved. The boards rose, slanted, fell with a crash to the deck, sliding over into the water, and the screams broke out afresh to stop quickly.

Curled into a cavity between the boards, holding arms tightly about a curly dark head, silent in terror, was the screamer.

V

The Finding of the Screamer

MOTIONLESSLY, timorously, she lay cringing, not hazarding a glance up to see who stared down at her, and I think her very heart ceased beating with sick terror when the boards tumbled apart to expose her.

‘Come, kiddie. There’s no need to worry any more now. Come.’

Reaching down into the cavity, my hands caught her shoulders gently, endeavouring to coax her to her feet, but still she crouched, hiding her head in her arms. Her slim figure shook terribly as she strained away from my grasp, and when I insisted gently, raised her to her feet, she fought in my arms with the boneless, twisting, scratching fury of a terrified cat, forcing me to utilize all my strength to restrain her. Teeth buried in my arm. I have the scar yet.