LIFERS Chapter Twenty Five

Even though Ella ordered him to stay in the garage to keep watch until the storm ended, Sheldon had decided otherwise and chose one of the central seats on the middle row of the cinema. He liked the cinema, it was dark, cosy, and dry, but the main reason he preferred it to the garage was because its soundproofing stopped him hearing any trace of the storm.

However, he felt thunder vibrate through his seat a couple of times about a half hour ago, so the storm wasn’t over just yet. Besides, Hal knows what he’s doing so he needn’t bother to watch for trouble, and the last time it strolled into town was only yesterday, so no way was it wasn’t going to happen again so soon. But if it did, and it came his way, he’d be ready for it, a gun in each hand said so.

He had no idea how long he’d been sitting in the same position but his ass had numbed around the same time his eyes became used to the dark. He began to wonder if the storm had ended and his brother Mervyn had forgotten to come for him. Or was he playing another trick on him; just to see how long he stayed in there? He picked up both guns and decided to go check for himself.
He walked up the centre aisle and moved aside a curtain to open the door to the foyer, and that obliterated any night vision he had. He peered between gnarled fingers to see it still raining, but that wasn’t all he saw.

‘What the fuck?’

There was a fat guy at the garage next door shaking one of the pumps like he was angry at it, and then he looked up as though someone had called to him. That wasn’t good; if there was someone in the garage and that someone turned out to be Ella; boy was he in a heap of crap for not being there. He spun and headed back into the auditorium and into the blackest of voids and fumbled his way down to the shaft at the bottom that would take him to the tunnels.

At the foot of the garage steps he stopped when he heard voices, none of which he recognised. He thought about going for his brother but the steps to the schoolhouse weren’t safe, and Mervyn would have pulled the rope up after he climbed it anyway.

After a couple of seconds he heard the sound of metal being dragged on the concrete floor, then a switch was flicked and the fan heater he stood by so many times in winter hummed to life. With the background noise of the fan, Sheldon crept up to the edge of the open hatch where he continued to listen to their conversation.

..

‘So,’ Nick said, as he turned to face the heater. ‘Do you have an exact location where the girls are being held?’

‘If what we gained from one of them is to be believed,’ Gregg said. ‘They’re locked in an upstairs room.’

‘So you’ve actually spoken with one of them?’

‘Yes, and to get here we had to shoot and kill three of them. So the rest of them up there will know somethings wrong and they may send others.’

Nick turned his back to the heater. ‘And what happens when the rain stops? Do they all come out?’

Gregg nodded. ‘Probably.’ Then he saw Nick snap his head up. ‘What is it?’

Nick looked unsure, wobbled his head, his cheeks, his neck. ‘Don’t know, I thought I heard something.’ He pointed.

Gregg could only see the outer surface of the hatch. ‘In the office, now,’ he said, and then once more he disappeared around the oil truck.

When he reached his vantage point, Gregg saw the back of a man from the waist up in a grey flannel shirt and carrying two guns. He caught his profile and there was no missing the family resemblance he shared with the guy from the schoolhouse, right down to the tight brown curls on his head, this had to be Sheldon. Gregg didn’t hesitate; his first shot hit the man in the centre of his back, his second just below the left shoulder. Both guns fell to the floor and he crumpled on the upper steps.

‘Give me a hand, Nick,’ Gregg shouted. ‘Jill, bring that over for me?’ He pointed to a mechanic’s trolley under the oil truck.

Jill pulled the trolley free and shoved it with her foot to where it stopped just before the roller-shutter. Gregg and Nick pulled Sheldon from the shaft and dragged him across the garage floor; his blood hissed as it mixed with the puddles they hauled him through before they laid him face up on the trolley.

Gregg checked the newly acquired supply of guns for ammunition, two Colt 45s’ and both full. He passed one to Nick and emptied the other before he tossed it down the shaft and told Nick to pocket the extra ammo.
Sheldon looked in a bad way; both bullets had passed through his chest and left two gaping exit wounds where bubbles of bloody air pumped out.

Nick looked down on the man. ‘He’s a vampire?’ he said, incredulous and disappointed. ‘He doesn’t look like one.’

‘What did you expect him to look like, Nick?’ Jill said.

‘Well, there kinda … I mean like, they have these … these long, and their … with … hell you’ve seen em’ on TV haven’t you?’

Gregg crouched. ‘A little bird told me about you just before he flew through the school roof. Now I need you to tell me something. Are there any more of you fuck-ups out here?’

Sheldon coughed blood. ‘Fuck you,’ he said

Gregg walked over to the roller-shutter, he pushed the up button and waited five seconds then stopped it and walked back to put his foot on the trolley between Sheldon’s legs. ‘The choice is yours,’ he told him. ‘You answer my question and I put one in your head to make it quick. Or, you don’t answer my question and you’re going surfing. So, last chance, fuck-face; are there any more of you out here … yes, or no?’

Sheldon twisted to look at the gap then looked back and spat but Gregg dodged it. He shook his head, kicked out, and shoved the trolley under the shutter and into the street. En route, Sheldon tried to slow his momentum with the palms of his hands but his strength had left him, and once he’d gone under and out, Gregg pushed the down button and the shutter closed to drown out his cries.

..

Nick was beside himself as he ran for the office to go look from the window, he saw Sheldon try to pull himself up from the trolley, he saw the skin on his face start to dissolve, he saw the wind suck up the steam or smoke or what ever it was that came off his body and send it billowing along the street. And less than a minute later he saw Sheldon’s fleshless skull slip sideways as though to look directly at him and reveal a jaw-full of pointed, yellow teeth. This was incredible, this was absolutely mind-blowing; now he really had to go get his camera, he just had to, nobody at the convention would believe him if he didn’t. especially that stinking Jew.

‘Jesus H,’ he said, as he came out the office. ‘You weren’t shittin’ me about that rain, man; that guy’s tapioca out there.’

Gregg looked up. ‘Like we said, they don’t like to get wet.’

‘So as long as it’s raining, we’re safe, yeah?’ Nick said to confirm what he’d already realised.

Gregg nodded. ‘Yes.’

Nick had also realised that these two had no idea what the hell they’d stumbled across. This was bigger than NASA claiming they’d actually made it to the moon, but all they were concerned about was finding some missing girls and getting the hell out of there. Girls who, for all they know, might already be dead. Hunting for them could leave little time for him to get to his van and collect his camera, and even less time for him to get some worthwhile photographs.

There had to be some way to convince them that a record needs to be kept, that proof of their existence alone should be documented in some way. And not only that, his convention buddy-list could do with the boost a handful of photographs of these guys would bring. Not to mention the national press coverage and the money, and having J. Leno pester him for his autograph instead of the other way round.

‘What is it, Nick?’

‘What?’

‘You looked a little distracted there.’

‘Distracted? Are you kidding me? What I’ve just seen out there was enough to wipe the smile from the Mona Lisa. That ain’t the kind of thing you see every day, man.’

‘If it’s freaked you out that much and you want to leave, you have at least twenty miles to the next town, and as the rest of this lot don’t know about you, they won’t come looking. Jill and I have a score to settle, you don’t.’

What the hell was this guy talking about? He wasn’t going anywhere, except to his van. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘If there’s any chance of finding and rescuing those little girls, then I’d like to help in whatever way I can.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘No I’m not, but I’m here, so we’ll go with that, okay?’

‘Okay, but before we can move on we need to be certain Sheldon was definitely the last one running free.’ Gregg pulled the map from his back pocket and rested it on the oil drum. ‘At the bottom of this shaft is the tunnel for the cinema, if our friend out there didn’t come from the town hall that’s the only other place he could have come from. So once we check out the cinema, we’re free to work on getting the girls out. And, according to the map, the stores don’t have tunnels, so at least we won’t need to check them out.’

Nick saw his chance; no way was he going to let it pass. ‘I think if we … oh, never mind.’

‘What, Nick?’ said Jill.

‘Well, this road,’ he said, pointing to the map, ‘other than us trekking through the woods, it seems to be our only way out of here.’

‘It is,’ Gregg said.

‘So what if we succeed in freeing the girls and then, when we’re on our way out of town, someone secluded in one of those stores starts taking pot-shots at us?’ He pulled the 45 from his jacket pocket. ‘I don’t mind going out there to check they’re empty. And if you two want to stay here I’ll happily do it by myself.’

Gregg nodded. ‘Okay, but you’re not going alone; you and Jill can check the stores while I check the cinema. If you get back before I do stay away from the tunnels, or I might mistake you for one of them.’

Jill nodded and hit the up button. ‘Well, come on, Nick. This was your idea.’