Read Online Vampires Overhead by Alan Hyder - Free Book Online

exiled, outcast, for the beastly things they are, and from the space into which they had flown for safety, chanced upon earth. And the voyage had made them hungry! I tried to turn my thoughts from the impossibilities of imagination.
    ‘I wonder whether we’ll have much trouble forcing that gate after they’ve gone. Should manage it all right with the sword. Ten to one when we want to get out we’ll want to get out quickly.’
    ‘I’m not anxious about getting out now,’ Bingen answered. ‘Let me stay here until they’ve blown away.’
    ‘It’ll be easy enough to get out, but if we want to get out quickly? Want to make a dash for it? What then? D’you think we ought to loosen a few bricks round the gate so that it could be pushed open, but can’t be pushed in? I wonder whether those things would have enough sense to pull the gate down if we did that.’
    ‘No! Don’t give them a chance,’ Bingen said, stretching out a hand to stay me. ‘We daren’t risk it.’
    ‘It’ll be worth risking. They can’t get in while they’re pushed against the gate like that, and we’ll be able to get away if we have to. We can’t stay in here forever. Risking those things would be preferable to slow starvation.’
    But saying it, I knew that, of the two, I’d choose starvation. Bingen was right. We daren’t risk letting them in.
    Backing down into the tunnel we sat exhaustedly on the floor some distance apart, Bingen keeping an eye on the brewery gate, and I watching the river. We smoked thankfully of the few cigarettes we had left, and our ears tuned above the crackling roar of flames, listening for the sound of things creeping, knowing they moved silently.
    And that day dragged slowly away.
    The river climbed its banks to the gate, driving the Vampires away, retreated, to let them gather there again: those at the brewery end remained clamped to their bars. Every so often we inspected the tunnel entrances to reassure ourselves they were secure, and more frequently had to walk down to the river end to bathe faces in the warm water, and gulp thirstily at what, to us in the stifling heat, seemed so cool and refreshing. Without that water what should we have done? Died or gone mad? For the air heated with every gasping breath we took, fiery blasts of wind carried particles of red-hot grit and dust upon us, burning our eyes, scorching our throats, until we rinsed it away with that priceless water. Clouds of ash billowed about the hard, settling on the black bodies by the gate, tonsuring round heads, greying shawls on sloping shoulders.
    Lack of food worried us not at all. I would have revolted at the thought, for sick terror contracted my stomach muscles; my nerves were taut violin strings, every little noise dissimilar to the roar of flames jerked and twitched my body. Bingen was different. At times he was cheery, defiant, and then, without warning, would get hysterical, his nerves would break, and he would curse, sob, shiver, scream.
    The evening drew in without appreciable alteration to the light, and the night passed. I dozed in cat-naps, stiffening now and then to peer into the dark. Once I heard Bingen crying softly, and ashamed at hearing him, wandered back and forth between the gates.
    Daylight came, bringing a difference to the colour of the glow, and so far as we could judge, the Vampires at the gates had not moved.
    During that day we killed the four rats sheltering with us, for when we passed them they humped back to the wall with bared teeth. Pushing the bodies through the bars, we saw how those hateful muzzles probed and twisted to reach. One by one the rats were pulled away into the press of black bodies out of sight. It sickened me, thoughts of going the same way chilled the sweat on my back. We spent some time searching the floor for cigarette ends from the smokes of the night when we had carelessly tossed them away.
    Either the air cooled, or we grew used to the heat, but still our clothes were wet with