Cold Open.

Seventeen year old Stacey leant against the burger grill staring at the time on the wall opposite her. Quarter to one in the morning, only another five and a bit hours to go, she counted. She turned to her friend Lee who was at the front counter.

“What ya doin’ at the weekend?” she called out to him.

“Got a tonne of coursework to catch up on then I think I’m goin’ to see Adam.”

“Has he put out yet?” she teased.

“Oi Stace, shut it will you? Leave him alone. His folks are a bit stiff so he doesn’t want to lose his virginity until he’s moved out. All in good time, alright?”

“Whatever you say Lee,” she said laughing.

“What are you doing anyway?”

“I still owe me mam for the new carpets after that party went a bit men’al so I’m working Saturday and Sunday nights to pay for it.”

Lee winced. “Fuck, that’s rough.”

“It’s not that bad, thank you Lee,” their manager said as he walked through the kitchen, just at the wrong moment. “Lee, if you’re not serving customers, you can be cleaning the surfaces.”

“I already have.”

“Then you can do the floors. Stacey, I thought you were working the window?”

“I am, but there’s no one there. I’m watching the cameras just in case.”

“Well some one’s pulling up now, can you see to it?” he instructed.

Stacey rolled her eyes behind the departing manager’s back and switched her headset on. “KwikBite, where we serve quickly so you don’t starve. Can I take your order?”

Ever since the ordeal at the restaurant a few weeks ago, it was decided for staff and customer safety that they would lock the doors to the building at night and just serve through the drive thru hatches.

“Five Ravenous Meal Deals and five large Cokes,” came a female voice with absent manners. Stacey put in the order and totalled it up. “Thank you for the order. That’ll be ferty two quid at the next window please.” She paced over to the drinks and poured the five out one by one whilst Vanessa in the back put the meals together for her.

When they were done, the boxes were placed on the counter for Stacey to stuff in brown paper bags. She took them to the window and robotically filled the bags with napkins and straws.

She slid the door open. The driver wasn’t making much of an effort to lean over and take them from her. “Here you are. You’ll have to take them then, I’ve only got short arms,” Stacey said holding the first drinks in a carton holder. “Did you want any sauces with your food?”

A girl’s face popped out through the car window, lit up by the lights from above, smiling freakishly. With pointed canine teeth. “I’ll have a squirt of red sauce please,” she sung cheerfully, grabbing Stacey’s wrist and pulling her through the drive thru window. Stacey was screaming, squirming and kicking and bridging the car and the serving hatch as the hungry vampiric customer sunk her teeth into her neck.

Over by her feet, Lee, Vanessa and their manager tried to pull her back in and up, but as the blood drained from Stacey, they could feel her fight for survival lessen as she became limp and floppy.

“Food!” the vampura demanded from the car, behind Stacey’s limp body, in a more abrupt manner. Lee instinctively slung the bags over and they were snatched back into the car. The lady vampura then pushed Stacey out at the shoulders and sped off.

Stacey’s body hung awkwardly out of the drive thru window as her colleagues still clung to her legs. Blood continued to flow out from her neck and onto the road below as another car came from around the corner of the building.

Chapter Fourteen.

“I’d like to welcome back Henry after his recovery time at home! It’s been a long two weeks and we’ve missed you!” Stanley said. Bridget cheered from behind where Henry was sat. “How are you feeling son?”

Henry coughed and adjusted himself in his seat. He wasn’t expecting to be put on the spot. “Um, yeah, I’m better now. Just looking forward to getting stuck back in.”

After the events at the blood bank, Henry suffered severe bruising to his chest and legs, along with concussion symptoms that got him two weeks off courtesy of his GP’s insistence. This was his first shift back after.

“Good, that’s what we like to hear,” Stanley said. “At the end of this and before you go out, you’ll need to sign out your new weapon in light of everything that’s been going on.”

Henry had heard about this from David and Lana during his time at home. And he was excited to get his hands on his own.

“It’s pretty much a double ended poking device,” David had said during one phone call after he had gotten his.

“Oooh, really? My interest has peaked,” Henry said suggestively, making David laugh.

“You’re a naughty bugger. One end is your wooden stake for vampuras, and on the end of that is now a metal spike, just slightly longer than the stake.”

“That sounds pretty sick actually.”

“So we just need to get you back on shift and you can get your hands on it.”

That was at the beginning of his recovery period, and he was back, this was now his chance.

Back in the briefing, Stan continued. “We are short staffed tonight so we’ll finish up now and get out there. Please do be careful and if you need anything, just ask for help. I’ll be in the car tonight with Nadheera just so we can cover more ground quicker. Henry, you’ll be with Lana and Zoe and David will be the other pair.”

“It’s a little heavier at the metal end, even though it’s slightly hollow inside,” Stanley explained, taking Henry’s stake out of the weapon’s case just before they all headed out. “Just sign here for it.”

“This is awesome Stan,” Henry said, turning it in his hand and getting a feel for the weight of it. He ran his thumb over the carvings that were made to update his stake achievements. “You’ve got my tally on there.”

“Of course, it’s ready for you to use. The sharp pointy metal end needs to go into the gnasher’s brains.”

“Cool.”

“But unlike vampuras they don’t disappear or anything. They’re just corpses.”

“Thanks Stan.”

***

Henry and Lana and were a couple of hours into their patrol and had found themselves in the leafy suburbs of Pin Corner.

“…So yeah, we’ve not see her since,” Lana said, recounting what they knew about the Marta, Tallon and Rowena triangle the night of the blood bank battle.

“Well she wasn’t wrong at least, and she did help out,” reasoned Henry.

“Yeah, I suppose. Do you think you’d still stake her if you saw her again?”

“Probably,” Henry reckoned. They turned the corner and Henry’s eye caught something a bit unusual. “Is that… is that man carrying dead chickens?” Henry asked out loud.

Ahead of them, in the dark, was a silhouette of a man walking ahead of them with a chicken corpse in each hand, hanging by their feet.

Lana looked at the figure and then back at Henry. “Um yeah, I think he is. I think that’s worth a few questions, don’t you?”

“Absolutely, I want to know what the dead chickens are for.”

The pair ran as quietly as they could to catch up to the man without giving away their presence.

When they were just behind him, Henry sprinted past him so that he was in front of him. “Hey there midnight stranger!”

The man abruptly turned but dropped his shoulders defensively when he saw Lana was stood there with her hands on her hips, looking expectantly at the chickens. “Where’d you get those from?” she asked.

Tutting, the man looked to her and back over his shoulder at Henry.

“Don’t look at me man,” Henry said. “She’s the one asking the questions.”

“If I tell yous, you won’t stake me?”

“Well, you tell us what we want to know, then we will weigh up that decision. But if you don’t tell us anything, then we will definitely stake you,” Lana said.

The vampura clearly weighed up his chances and sang like a bird. “I ain’t gonna tell you wheres I got them from but me and a few others are fed up of the shite taste of humans and we don’t like the fact that when we do bite now they just turn into gnashers so the farm on Church Lane has chickens which taste alright but there’s obviously less blood in ‘em so you need more than one to sorta satisfy you.”

“Wow. Ok, thank you for your honesty,” Henry said.

“Can I keep ‘em then?” the vampura asked earnestly.

Henry pretended to think and quickly answered, “No.”

“Owh, c’mon please! I’ve been a vampura for about a year now and ev’rythin’ was going so well but this new stuff about the virus mutating ‘nd causing gnashers to happen has just made things go a bit shitty. Just give us a chance, like. We ain’t biting people no more, just aminals.”

“From the farm on Church Lane?” Lana asked.

“Nuh-uh, I ain’t telling ya that. You can guess all you like, but I’m not telling.”

“But you already told us,” Henry said.

“No, I didden!” the vampura said, getting rather defensive, squaring up to Lana.

“You said, ‘the farm of Church Lane has chickens which taste alright’,” she repeated while she had his full attention.

The penny dropped. “Arh shite-” he managed to say before Henry staked him through the back into his heart. When he hit him with the silver mallet and disappeared, the chickens dropped to the floor.

“We need to check out that farm,” Henry said.

“Yeah, I’ll see if Stanley can come and pick us up.”

***

“Thanks for the lift, Stan,” Lana said as she did her seat belt up. “It’s so toastie in here!”

“No problem. It wouldn’t be safe for you to walk out in the pitch black all the way out to the farm.”

“Were you up to much to tonight before we called?” Henry asked, leaning between the front seats from the back.

“Not much,” Nadheera said with a hint of boredom in her voice. “We’re not even allowed the radio on,” she whispered.

“Because…” Stanley said, hearing her complain, “We need to be on our guard. It’s not a fun road trip, cruising with your bff. It’s serious stuff we’re doing.”

“Mhm. Before chicken guy we weren’t really up to much either, were we?” Henry said to Lana to change the subject.

Once the four were out of Tarmsworth St Jude and driving through the country lanes, Stanley put his full beam lights on. The eery darkness wrapped around them and Henry was glad they didn’t have to walk through it.

They turned onto Church Lane towards the farm. The farmer’s farm house didn’t have any lights on, which for this time of night wasn’t exactly unusual.

“Shall we knock on the farmer’s door first?” Lana asked.

“Yeah, we’ll stop in there, see if they’re up. Try and determine whether he knows if vampuras are taking his chickens.” Stanley reasoned.

He drove onto the gravel drive way and turned the car off, extinguishing the only source of light from the head lamps.

Henry, Lana and Nadheera dug their phones out for the torch.

“Henry and Nadheera, turn yours off,” Stanley said. “I don’t need all three of you with things in your hands. Stakes out.”

“Why? What is it?” Nadheera asked.

“You can’t smell that?” Stanley asked.

“Stan, we’re at a farm. All there is is the smell of shit,” Lana grumbled.

“Well amongst that is the smell of death,” he said, approaching the front of the farm house. “And voila. The front door is ajar. Get behind me with the light.

Stanley pushed the door wider and stepped in. The others filed in behind, with Lana shining her torch around the hallway.

“Ok, well I smell the death now,” Henry commented, holding his spare hand to his nose.

“Hello?” Stanley shouted out. There was no response so he put the big light on in the hall. “Right, we’ll check the rooms in pairs down here and meet back here so we can go upstairs. It’s likely the dead are up there anyway.”

Lana and Henry took the left, which led to the kitchen. Henry found the light switch and illuminated the room It was tidy and clean, except for the mouldy bowl of fruit on the middle of the dining table.

“Yeuch, how long have they been there?” Henry muttered.

Lana opened the fridge and turned her face away when the stench from inside hit her. “That ain’t pretty, damn.”

“I was hoping there’d be something decent in there to snack on,” Henry said, crestfallen.

“Believe me, if there’s death upstairs then you’ll lose that appetite quite quickly,” Lana said. She closed the fridge door and started to look over the children’s paintings attached by letter shaped magnets.

“Kimmy and Dylan,” Henry said from behind her.

“Who?”

“The children who live here. There’s height measurements on the door frame over there.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Not good. C’mon, let’s meet the others and get it done with.”

“I don’t want to H.”

“I know. But I’m here,” he said, reassuringly squeezing her wrist.

Stanley and Nadheera were waiting for them by the bottom of the stairs.

“Anything?” Nadheera asked.

“Mouldy fruit and a smelly fridge,” Lana muttered.

“We think there are two kids upstairs though,” Henry said.

“Yeah, we saw the toy box in the play room just off the living room,” said Stanley gravely. “C’mon. Let’s check upstairs and then we’ll need to do the farm.”

The four climbed the stairs in single file, with Stanley leading and Nadheera in second. Henry volunteered to go next, gently beckoning Lana to go behind him with a protective arm.

The landing split in two directions with three rooms on both sides. They were all shut and looked plainly identical.

“We’ll go left, you go right?” Henry suggested.

“Sure. Good luck,” Stanley muttered.

With stakes in hand, just in case, Henry led Lana round to the first door. He opened it slowly and peaked his head through. He saw tiles on the wall and a pull string light switch.

“Bathroom,” he said, pulling on the cord. The extractor fan kicked in at the same time. He looked round the room. “It’s clear,” he said. He pulled the door shut behind him.

He edged towards the next door and pushed it open. He felt for a light switch and saw the red Manchester United wallpaper.

“Brace yourself,” he warned Lana. “This must be the boy’s room.”

They entered and Henry’s eyes were drawn to the bed at the back of the room first and then to the floor. Which is where the boy’s body was. In a little pool of dried blood.

Laid out on the floor in just his pyjama shorts, the eight year old had six puncture wounds on his chest.

“Fuck me,” Henry muttered with disgust. He ushered Lana out of the room and kept her on the hall way while he checked the last room, decorated in a pink princess theme. He turned the light on and made a quick assessment and noticed the five year old was in the same state as her brother.

He spun round and closed the door behind him.

“Fuck.”

“The same?” Lana asked.

“Yup.”

“Shit.”

“So we found the deceased adults, a spare room and an office. I’m guessing you found the kids?” Stanley asked, coming round on the landing.

“Yeah. And they’ve got six weird holes in their chests,” Henry explained. “Did the parents have the same?”

“No, they just had their throats cut,” Nadheera said quietly.

“They did that to the kids so they could drink the blood from their holes and avoid having to bite them,” Stanley explained.

“And to not turn them into gnashers?” Henry clarified. Stanley nodded. “How considerate of them,” he sarcastically drawled.

“Are you ok?” Nadheera said, affectionately touching Lana’s upper arm.

“I have a cousin his age, it’s awful,” she said.

“We’ll have to check on the livestock. Does anybody not want to do that?” Stanley asked. No one said anything. “Ok, I respect that, thank you.”

***

The four trudged round the farm in near darkness for less than an hour just checking for any signs of life. Or lack of it.

The chickens had all been killed and drained of blood. Only a quarter or so of the sheep they could find were still alive. The twenty or so cows they counted were all dead in the field too.

“I can’t really imagine cow blood tasting better than human blood…” Henry wondered aloud as they walked back to the car. Stanley and Henry were ahead of the two girls who were slowly following.

“But to them the human blood is undrinkable, and the livestock won’t turn,” Stanley admitted.

“Does that mean they’ll have to have armed security at safari parks then?”

“It makes you wonder if that’s next. Girls, Henry, if you want to sit in the car, don’t worry about the mud on your shoes, and I’ll just call the police. Tell them it’s clear and they’re going to need to lock this place down.”

“Thanks Stan,” Nadheera mumbled appreciatively.

“You’re all good. We’ll get you home and call it an early night I think,” Stanley said unlocking his phone.

“I don’t think I’m going to sleep tonight,” Henry said as he shut the door behind him. Stanley paced around outside the front of the car deep in conversation on his mobile.

“No, me neither,” Lana said agreeing.

“Do you want to grab a QwikBite and sit in the car with it?” Henry asked.

The girls agreed and Stan got into the car.

“All done, they’re on their way. Do you mind if we just wait here until they get here?”

***

Lana pulled out of the pavilion carpark with Nadheera, Henry, David and Zoe in the back, heading for QwikBite. They’d found themselves with a bonus early finish but none of them could face trying to sleep. Zoe and David were just coming for the ride.

“How do you even have an appetite after seeing that?” David asked when Henry had finished recalling the events of the night.

“I don’t know, but if you don’t want to share my chicken bites with me then that’s fine by me,” Henry said.

Lana made a gagging sound as if she was going to be sick. “How can you even say ‘chicken bites’ after tonight? I think I might have go vegetarian.”

Lana pulled round into the drive thru and slammed the brakes hard. Everyone jerked forward, unaware of why that had happened. In front of them, hanging out of the serving window was the dead body of a member of staff.

“Fuck sake. I just wanted some food!” Henry moaned.