Bad Timing Read online

  The tethered humans were now desperately pulling at their bonds. I guess the big bad that had just killed their torturer was probably not someone they wanted to stick around and have tea with – better the devil you know.

  I moved carefully toward the nearest boy. I gently took his blindfold from him and he blinked a few times and recoiled at my presence.

  “It’s okay,” I said, hands out, palms up, “I’m here to help you. I won’t hurt you.”

  The boy edged further away from me, pulling on all their ropes. He particularly dragged all of the survivors onto the floor. I suddenly had an image of me leading them like a chain of dogs through the streets. If Satan had been on a leash, he’d have died. If I couldn’t do that to a dog, I’d be damned if I was going to be responsible for leading an all-you-can-eat zombie buffet conga line.

  “Look, I know you have no reason to trust me, but...”

  “You’re one of them,” said the boy, looking past me to Ludwig’s twitching corpse. He must have been old; it can sometimes take a while for the magic to leave older vampires.

  “We’re not all the same you know.” I stepped to his side and took a blindfold off a nearby woman, “Wait a minute, them?”

  The woman gave me a quizzical look, “There’s another one. He had red hair and a posh accent; like from Downton Abbey.”

  Okay, now time was of the essence. I pulled out my pink handled knife and sliced the rope between all the humans. I removed all their blindfolds and counted them: twelve.

  “Right, here are your choices. You can say here and wait for Red, whoever he is, to come back and drink you dry, or you can follow me and I can get you the hell out of zombie central.”

  “Zombies?” they all said together.

  “You haven’t noticed the slathering zombie masses?” I asked.

  “No,” said an older man, who had managed to pick up a plank of wood and hide it behind his back while I wasn’t looking.

  “How long have you been in here?”

  The man chose then to swing the plank at me, which I caught and crumbled in my grip. The small crowd gasped and I think they were just about to all fall onto me, when the bell at the door of the shop chimed.

  “Oh no, it’s him. He came back for us.” A young girl of no more than thirteen cowered near me. I turned to her.

  “I won’t let him hurt you. I told you, we’re not all the same.”

  She bit her bottom lip and squeezed out a fat tear that rolled down her ruddy cheek.

  “My name is Britannia. I know this is all a bit...” I struggled for the right word, “...weird, but I’ll get you some place safe. You just have to trust me.”

  “So, let me get this straight.” The boy whose blindfold I’d took off first edged toward me. “You’re a friendly blood sucking demon, and there are zombies outside. But you’ll protect us? At what price, you gonna feed off and kill us one by one like your friend there?” He motioned at Ludwig’s now still body. I kicked the vampire’s corpse out of the door and into the main shop, out of the eye-line of the humans.

  I didn’t have time for this. I needed to get a new radio, some food and get back to the zoo. I needed to tell Tate I was alive and for Josh and Jack to know I was on my way to them. I hadn’t even bothered to ask these humans’ names and here I was trying to protect them, while they challenged my ethical code. I was just about to give the boy what for, when a rumbling groan echoed through the store. I peered out to see a group of zombies shuffling toward Ludwig’s body. Once there, they began to rip him apart like an overcooked turkey. There were stuffing- and cranberry sauce-like substances cascading out of the yawning cracks they were making with their bare hands. I gagged and quickly closed the door.

  “Zombies,” whispered the girl.

  I knew I could protect these guys; I’d herded bigger groups through worse. But it wasn’t my ass-kicking skills that were going to keep them alive. Ironically it was trust; they’d have to trust me to do it.

  “Okay people, look I’m sorry that my kind didn’t make a great impression on you. I’m sorry that you have had a rough time of it these past few days. Out there hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park either, what with all the zombies. But I’m all you have right now, and unless you want to be an undead entree, you’ll let me lead you to safety. I don’t want to leave you here alone. I promise that not a drop of any of your blood will ever pass my lips.”

  There was a murmur of reluctant agreement. I opened the door and quickly dispatched the zombies devouring Ludwig.

  “Do any of you know anything about radios?” I asked.

  A woman came forward who still had a name tag perched on her breast. Her name was Laura and it looked like she had worked here. Thank goodness something was actually going right.

  “What kind of radio?” she asked.

  “The kind I can speak to someone through. There’s a safe haven over the sea, but I need to call a ride for us.”

  Again, there was a murmur of unhappy whispers. Man, what would I have to do to earn these guys’ trust? Before, all my other wards had just merrily fallen in-line, even the zoo people had been easier than this.

  “I know what you need, I’ll fetch it.” She slid past me, keeping a small distance between our bodies. I daren’t tell her that I could have closed that distance and drunk her dry before she’d even finished her sentence.

  Laura ran straight back to me clutching a box. Okay, the radio was now sorted, just the supplies to go. I left the shop and cleaned up the streets of a few ambling zombies, keeping a steady vigil for Downton Abbey, in case he reappeared. I racked my memory all the while as to who he might be. There were so few vampires left in England these days. I’d never met Ludwig, so he had obviously come from somewhere else. It wasn’t inconceivable that he’d brought a child along with him, or worse, a sire.

  There were a few small shops along the high street, although many had been boarded up long before the zombies. The recent recession had been like a small business eating virus so we’d already lost many of our quaint mom and pop style places. The butchers and the grocers were definite no go areas, but there was a small corner shop that still looked in good shape. I beheaded the few zombies that had gotten into it then motioned for my new wards to come in. They began filling bags with canned goods and packets. I’d told them of the people at the zoo, but I wasn’t sure that they even believed me; perhaps they thought it some wicked plan to gain their trust. I deliberately packed an extra bag for my zoo gang then wandered off behind the shop to check outside. I couldn’t carry everyone, so sprinting back to the zoo was off the cards. But fortunately my luck was not only finally starting to change, but seemed to be on a roll. A large delivery truck was parked out back.

  Remembering Josh’s hot wiring skills when we took the Double Decker, I yanked out the wires from below the dashboard, and started it up. The purr of the engine was the most wonderful thing I’d heard in ages. Everyone got in and we started off. I had Laura up front with me. She played with the radio and put out a message on all frequencies that we were coming to the zoo and to meet us by the gates. But just as I edged round the first corner I saw a figure standing in the road.

  I swerved to avoid it and in that brief second of passing it, thought I recognized him.

  “Oh my God, please not him. I’d rather die than go back to him!” Laura yelled. I pulled the truck over and looked in the rear view mirror, no one was there.

  It couldn’t have been him. He was dead, dealt with hundreds of years ago.

  “Please, Britannia don’t let him get me. Please!” Laura grabbed at my arm and I pulled her into an awkward hug.

  “This posh vampire, do you know his name?” I whispered.

  She looked up at me with red eyes and a succession of bite marks on her throat and shoulders. She nodded and whimpered again.

  “Tell me his name.” I gently wiped a tear away from her cheek.

  “Ichabod.”

  Chapter Six

  It couldn’t be.
Philippe had killed him centuries ago: Ichabod, Nicholas’s first child, and the only vampire to get the drop on me. He’d have killed me too, if it hadn’t been for the homicidal tendencies of his newly created child, ironically nicknamed Jack the Ripper. Both had been killed by Philippe to cover up the murders. How could he still be alive, and how, in all the time had passed, hadn’t I heard anything of him? He had hated me on sight; surely he’d have attempted another attack, if he had been alive? But then again, how many vampires called Ichabod could there possibly be? I couldn’t ask Philippe about it now. The sudden realization that I had the opportunity to kill Nicholas’s first child smacked me in the face. I could still complete my vengeance, something I’d been working toward all my life. Something I thought was already completed—well, until Nicholas foolishly makes another.

  “Britannia?” Laura was still nestled in my arms, looking helpless, and tasty. Damn, I would need to feed again soon.

  “Yes?”

  “We should go, before he comes back.” She motioned to the road before us.

  But if I left, I’d never find him again, never know what truly happened. Never get my full revenge.

  Her chest heaved with a giant sob and I lurched forward to start the truck.

  “Ludwig, he was with Ichabod?” I asked her.

  “Yes, he called him sire. I think he was a bit scared of him too.” Her voice trailed off at the end of her sentence as she began scanning the sidewalks.

  The truck juddered and groaned. I pulled away, my hand itching for my lost scythes and my foot hovering over the brake. If it really was the Ichabod I knew, he’d find a way to come at me, especially as I’d just killed his child.

  As we approached the zoo, the zombies that had so far been a minor problem, had now started to clump together like rancid raindrops in a rotting puddle. I punched the trunk through them. There was bound to be more survivors, and although I didn’t have time to sniff them out and rescue them, the least I could do was lighten their undead load.

  The zoo’s gates were opening as we drove toward it, manned by Ryan’s father, Tony and Pete the zoo guy. I backed up the truck and jumped out to open the doors for them to get in. Ryan ran out to me, radio in hand.

  “I heard Laura, is she with you?” he asked, eyes twinkling and hands stained with chocolate ice cream.

  “She’s upfront, you can go say hello.” I nodded at him and sidestepped his awkward almost hug. Laura had radioed ahead of time. Although not a two way conversation, she’d obviously made an impression.

  “There’s a problem.” Pete walked up to me.

  Of course there was a problem; problems were my usual stock in trade, why should my luck hold out? I’d have been more surprised if the whole thing was going smoothly. “What?” I asked with a sigh.

  “The pier, there’s a small ship washed ashore on the beach. There are people trapped in it. They are radioing a SOS; they say the coastline is covered in hundreds of zombies.”

  “Okay,” I whispered to myself, “we need a distraction.” I wondered if there was any way of luring Ichabod to the pier then throwing him into the undead throng. They’d be so busy fighting him that we could all just slip right by. I’d probably want to watch him as he writhed and screamed posh swear words as the rotting hands of the undead ripped him limb from limb, but I could do that from the safety of Tate’s ferry…

  “Brit!” Laura poked her head out from the front of the truck.

  “What?”

  “Your friend Tate, he wants to talk to you.”

  I jogged to her outstretched hand and took the radio.

  “Press the button on the side,” she said.

  I pressed it, probably a little too hard, “Tate!”

  “You’re like a cat with nine lives.” My friend’s voice was loud and clear.

  “Can you meet us at the Blackpool pier?”

  “All business eh?”

  “We can catch up when everyone is safe.”

  “Everyone? You picked up some more strays?”

  “You know me, I can’t say no to those big ‘don’t let the zombies get me’ eyes.”

  “I’m already halfway across the sea; I’ll be there in an hour.”

  “You’re already coming?”

  “Nicholas was a nightmare, he made me. He wanted to come looking for you. Between him and Jack’s polite insistence, I didn’t have a lot of choice. We were coming back to Liverpool to track you. Nicholas thought he could pick up your scent.”

  “He just keeps getting grosser and grosser.”

  “I heard that!” Nicholas said in the background.

  “How long have you been eavesdropping?”

  “I’m a vampire; super hearing is part of our gig. I can’t help it.”

  “Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff you can’t help,” laughed Tate.

  I could ask Nicholas about Ichabod. He might have known what happened back then, but he still felt like an enemy to me. A tolerable enemy, but still…his instincts might nudge him more toward the child that hadn’t been trying to kill him for centuries.

  “How many have you picked up?” Nicholas and his questions.

  “I don’t know, I was too busy fighting zombies and vampires to do a proper head count.”

  “Vampires?” Both Tate and Nicholas sounded surprised.

  “Just be at the Blackpool pier, okay?” I could trust Tate at least.

  “Consider it already done, Brit. Oh and I’m looking forward to having that cup of tea with you.”

  “Me too, Tate. I could really do with one.”

  I clicked off the radio and handed it to Laura. She smiled at me.

  “They both like you, you know?” she said, air quoting the word ‘like’.

  I raised an eyebrow, “Don’t confuse centuries of familiarity with liking.” I air quoted ‘liking’ back to her.

  “So there’s no animal attraction there with either?”

  An idea then rattled out of my tired brain. “What did you say?”

  “You don’t fancy either of them?”

  “That’s not what you said. You said animal attraction.” I looked back at the zoo. The animals were all infected. I had no idea how it had happened, but they could be useful; perhaps the perfect distraction.

  I had everyone quickly eat a decent dinner. I watched as the humans easily bonded. I was making headway with the whole trust thing at least. I felt strange looking at them, like I was trafficking or something; my own private blood stock. Bugger, I was getting hungry again. But feeding on anyone here would be like scattering them to the wind – Ludwig and Ichabod’s prisoners would have rather run head first into a sea of flesh-munchers than have that happen to them again. I’d have to wait till I got home, a home I’d never seen before, but a home that was calling to me nonetheless.

  We needed to move quickly. According to the shipwrecked people on the radio, Blackpool’s shore had now all but been consumed by undead, a wall of rotting flesh barricading us against the sea. Worse of all, the British weather had come out in force and an annoying moist mist was now settling into the early night, making it hard to see.

  Time was up. The plan I had might not have been the best laid one, but you know what they say about best laid plans; maybe a quickly mashed together half arsed plan was going to work better?

  The lorry roared to life and Laura gave me a wave from the cab. My new wards were perched on top of the lorry’s roof, the back door open ready for the animals.

  Back when I was human I had made fun of shepherds. It was a lowly job that hermits and useless middle sons of farmers used to take on. Now I was faced with shepherding a gaggle of undead exotic animals into a hoard of slathering zombies – well, needless to say I wished I’d paid more attention. And part of me really missed Satan; instinctively he’d have gotten the job done.

  I didn’t free all the animals; some were completely dead, eaten by their turned pack members. And some would be relatively useless in a fight, although zombie meerkats strangely still m
aintained their cute factor. I zipped about the zoo with my axe knocking down barriers and throwing down boards to free the sulking captured creatures. Part of me thought this was a massive error of judgment; surely they would be more inclined to kill one another than join up to attack the human undead. But after a few near misses with a rather determined lion and some strange looks from a gaggle of monkeys, I managed to start herding them into the back of the lorry. After the last one could comfortably fit, I closed off the doors and banged the side. The lorry started off and I leapt to its roof to sit with everyone else. Most of them were Ichabod’s slaves and had their eyes downcast. They’d seen me move, seen how fast I was. No matter how different I acted, or even told them I was, in their eyes I was just like him: a vampire. A blood-sucking fiend who would prey upon them the first chance I got. I hoped that they would extend their shaky trust a little longer. After all, only time would prove my honor. I wished at the moment that I had my friends with me: Tate, Lyle, Jack and Josh. They’d have trusted Josh straight away, with his easy smile and honest human eyes. Oh and the uniform would have helped too. Then there’s Tate who had seen his own fair share of forced service when he had been human. Even after all those centuries, his dark eyes held a certain amount of sorrow passed down from his own abduction and ill-treatment; his time had been at the hands of greedy humans, though. Tate was born in Africa and had been forcibly removed from his home, he and his whole family. He’d have known just what to say to make my reluctant wards feel at ease, regardless of his now bloody tastes.

  “What will happen to us when we get to this safe haven of yours?” the nearest human asked me. He was barely out of his teens and covered in several patches of dried blood.

  “My friends have set up a secure town. It keeps out the zombies.” I added the zombie part to make it sound less like a blood farm concentration camp.

  “Your friends are vampires like you.”

  There was that word, vampires.

  “Some are, but some are human. We’ve worked together to get as many people as we can to safety.”