The Red Slayer

I’m plummeting head first into the unknown. As I fall, I can see every fragment of glass that falls with me. Time has slowed way down yet again. In those few extended moments before it catches up with me, I see a ledge to grab onto. Dangling by one hand, the glass settles below on a maroon carpet. I sigh loudly with relief at the stitches I won’t need and swing my legs to find something to brace my legs on. The problem, the skylight is out of reach.

‘Iorwen?’ shouts Dante. He eclipses the blue sky above him, quickly followed by Luke. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah,’ I call back. ‘Can you give me a hand up?’

‘Sure.’ Dante eases his torso forward and stretches his arms down to me. I stretch up and grab his wrist as Luke reaches down to offer his. I kick off from whatever I’m balancing on and grab that as well. But the thing I kicked off from wasn’t stable. Whatever it is, it falls over in an almighty clatter, taking many glass and china things with it.

The phrase “uh-oh” springs to mind, but Dante ignores it as he tries to pull me up. His hands are sweating and my blazer sleeve is slipping through his fingers. He reaches his other hand down, but it’s just as slippery.

’Come on, Luke. Pull!’

He does, but the tug makes me shriek in pain.

Luke freezes and his face goes pale. ‘Can you hear that?’

Dante’s eyes widen with dread. I hold my breath when I hear it too.

Footsteps are moving beneath us, towards us. Bustling voices come into earshot, riddled with confusion and irritation. The boys pull harder now, no longer worried about re-dislocating my shoulder, but I’m slipping despite their efforts.

The footsteps stop, the voices are beneath me. A hand shoots up, grabbing my ankle. I scream and try to shake it free but their grip is too tight. I kick blindly with my other leg until it’s grabbed too. The hands pull me down without mercy. The boys strain to pull me free while my shoulder strains down to the deepest muscle tissue. I lose grip of Luke’s hand, and my other slips out of Dante’s before I drag him down with me.

Instead of hitting the floor, I’m caught in a net of arms which grab my limbs and hold me above them. They’re a swarm of a dozen white people. Men with gelled hair and expensive suits and women in black dresses wearing pearls or diamonds around their necks. They all share a common trait. Their bright red eyes, gleaming like rubies.

I’m lowered to the floor, where two men hold me by the arms. All grin at me, showing canines longer than humanly possible.

Vampires. I’m so dead.

‘Iorwen!’ shouts Luke from above.

‘Let her go, you bastards!’ Dante seconds.

The vampires stare upward, bemused, at the boys who climb in through the skylight and lower themselves to the floor to face them. Their resolve breaks once they see the eyes and teeth, knowing what they are. This lot will slaughter us in seconds if they want to.

A vampire in a navy plaid suit with quaffed dirty-blonde hair straightens his cufflinks and nods at the rest of the men, who overpower and restrain Luke and Dante in seconds. Thankfully, they don’t bite into their necks.

‘What should we do with them?’ asks a brunette woman wearing opera gloves.

The navy-clad vampire studies each of our faces and puts his hands on his hips. ‘We should ask the boss. He might want to ransom them.’

The vampires march the three of us down the corridor towards the stairs, their hands on the back of our heads to stay looking down. I told myself I’d never be crushed under someone’s boot again, but I’m too scared to resist

I stay focused on not tripping on the stairs. It feels as if we’re walking down a skyscraper when it’s only a few storeys. On the ground floor, I spot a door. Freedom is so close. But the vampires drag us to a bare patch of wall hidden behind a staircase. Its only feature besides the red wallpaper is a painting of an unconscious man with a woman nefariously leaning over him.

Navy raps his knuckles on the hollow wall. The painting moves aside and another pair of red eyes gaze down at us before it slides back into place. The wall immediately slides open like a door. As I’m pulled over the threshold, I glance at the man who admitted us. He’s wearing a tuxedo, complete with white gloves and a silver tray tucked under his arm. He hasn’t a trace of empathy in his face, which scares me more than the vampires leading us to possible death.

One door later and the hand on the back of my head finally releases. I look up, eager to take in my surroundings.

It doesn’t make me feel better.

Somehow, we’ve been transported into a film noir. This is where the jaded detective goes to the speakeasy for some cheap scotch. The walls are decked in deep crimson with framed black and white photos of London. The staff are dressed like butlers, and the grand piano being the only instrument in the room makes it clear this is for a more aristocratic and stoic clientele. And there are vampires everywhere. Sat at brass tables, in suits or fine dresses, drinking dark red liquid in their martini glasses, highballs and champagne flutes.

They turn to gawk at us, their hungry red eyes light up at the prospect of fresh meat.

‘What is this?’ says a voice from the far corner. A man with platinum-blonde hair in a ponytail rises from where he’s seated with three other men in a corner. ‘What are these children doing here?’

I glance briefly to Luke and Dante beside me. I give them a silent shake of my head, hoping they will understand it as a sign not to say anything. If we don’t acknowledge what they are, they might keep us alive. They’ll kill us if they suspect we know too much.

‘We found them on the top floor, sir,’ says Navy. ‘We were having a meeting on the floor below while they broke in.’

‘We weren’t breaking in!’ I say indignantly. ‘I fell through the skylight.’

The one holding me gives me a shake. My shoulder shrieks.

‘If that’s true, what were you doing on our roof?’

‘Just…mucking about…doing parkour, y’know?’

‘Yeah right. You kids are always sneaking in to steal our antiques to sell for drugs.’

‘Be quiet, will you?’ says the one called ‘Sir’. ‘I don’t think they’re thieves. Cat burglars don’t break in wearing their school uniforms…’ He examines each of us in turn, surveying our three different blazers. I lower my eyes from his, they’re the reddest in the room.

‘Wait a minute,’ he says. ‘I know you.’

His fingers grip my jaw – so cold, so very cold – and his nails dig into my skin. Luke gasps, Dante shouts ‘Hey!’ But Sir ignores both of them and examines critically. I have no choice but to look him in the eye. I can’t stop thinking about Karen and how lucky I was that there was only one of her, and how easy it is to pick a fight when you don’t have to defend other people.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Isn’t she that girl who played Macbeth?’

‘Hamlet,’ says another vampire. ‘My boys are at Eton; they saw it.’

Sir grins and releases me. ‘That means her mother is Clarissa Dalloway.’ He pauses and corrects himself. ’Was Clarissa Dalloway.’

Every vampire, including the bar staff and the pianist, murmurs in unison, followed by faint laughs. Luke, Dante and I stare, befuddled, at this joke we’re not in on.

Sir merely grins. He doesn’t seem the type to laugh.

‘Now, now, everyone. Think of the poor girl’s innocence.’ His gaze turns to Navy. ‘She’s worth a lot of money. Her father is insane, he’d give his right arm to get her back.’

‘And the boys?’

Sir shrugs. ‘We’ll drain them later. Put them downstairs with the others for now.’ A door opens in a third corner of the room and we’re dragged towards it. The only thing on the other side is a long metal staircase spiralling down to unknown depths.

The further down we go, the colder it gets. There’s a growing smell of damp and mildew. At the very bottom, the grey stone walls are knee high with moss.

The unpleasant odours don’t stop there. When the vampires take us down one of the two arched corridors lit with orange lamps, other stenches invade my senses. Blood for one, and sweat, alongside other bodily fluids. But one smell stands out the most, that of burning fat. I tug my hands free to cover my nose and mouth. Navy relents and steers me by the shoulders. We pass iron doors with sliding hatches, all closed save for one, which happens to be where the burning fat smell originates.

‘Harrison!’ hisses Navy. ‘Harrison!’

Another vampire in leather overalls opens the door properly. An open incinerator with giant orange flames blazes behind him. ‘Yeah?’

‘Close that door at once. The stench will stick to my suit.’

‘Okay.’ As he moves to close it, I spot something his body was concealing. A pile of clothes heaped beside the incinerator, discarded like trash.

My knees buckle under my weight. Navy shakes me carelessly and drags me along slightly further to another iron door. Once it’s open, I’m shoved roughly from behind and the little balance I have is lost. I hurtle down a few steps and land on a wet stone floor. My shoulder wails, but it’s still intact.

‘Iorwen!’ the boys shout in unison and rush to help me up.

‘Got three more for you, mate,’ Navy tells a guard sat at the other side of the room, playing solitaire at a metal table with a yellowing deck of cards. He heaves his fat body up, rattling the table, vibrating his cigarette pack and overflowing ashtray. I can only imagine he smokes incessantly to block out the other smells down here.

The guard grabs the front of my shirt and tosses me across the threshold of a cage door like I’m a toothpick. I fall into a pair of arms that steady my momentum.

Dante and Luke are shoved in after me and the cage clangs shut. Navy departs with his friends, slamming the iron door after them. Both sounds ring in my ears. I can’t hold back my fear or despair any longer. I fall to my knees, melting in a blubbering mess.

I knew it was bad to skip school, but this is a bit of an extreme karmic correction, isn’t it? I don’t expect Luke or Dante to forgive me for leading them here. But if we get out alive, they can have unlimited access to my pool, and they won’t have to give me birthday presents ever again.

Luke pulls me off the floor and into a hug. His kneejerk reaction to when I start crying.

‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘They didn’t get Olga. She must be going for help right now.’

‘What good will that do? This place is full of bloodthirsty killing machines.’

‘I think Iorwen’s right,’ says Dante glumly. ‘First someone has to believe her. And whoever does will have to fight through a lot of vampires to get to us.’

I gaze hopelessly around the cage. My eyes have just adapted to the dark. Hence, I have only now realised how crowded it is. Sat on wooden benches, stood with curiosity or gazing down from metal bunkbeds are at least thirty women, teens and young adults. A few of them are white while the majority look East Asian, African or Middle Eastern.

‘Oh, my goodness,’ I say. The closest one, the girl, could not look more defeated. Her mouth twitches in sympathy. ‘How did you get here?’

′Phwk k̄heā rabāy leụ̄xd k̄hxng reā,’ she replies.

‘Oh.’ I turn to the boys. ‘No English.’

‘Does anyone here speak English?’ Luke asks the cage at large. They look at each other cluelessly.

′Soretomo Nihonjin?’ says Dante.

Silence.

′Ou Français?’ I ask, then take a stab in the dark. ′Neu Gymraeg?’

Nothing.

My deepening despair is interrupted by the grating clang of the guard slamming his enamel mug against the cage bars. He grins smugly towards us. ‘None of them speak the same language, love.’

‘So they can’t plot to escape, right?’ says Dante.

The guard nods.

‘They’re trafficked, aren’t they?’ I say. ‘Modern slaves.’

‘Right again. Only way to get fresh blood for the club’s patrons.’

I look at the prisoners again. All of them are wearing grey tunics with short sleeves. Their bare arms are marked all over with scabs, scars and bruises.

The burgers from earlier rise in my gullet. Only sheer force of will stops me throwing up and adding another awful smell to this place. Drain, Sir and Navy called it. Abusing innocent people to make cocktails. Some must die from the procedure eventually. How long could anyone last in these conditions?

The incinerator. The pile of clothes.

They’re parasites. Monsters.

I charge towards the cage bars, my fist flies through the gap and meets the guard’s nose. He jumps back and squawks, red eyes watering. He staggers toward the iron door, calling me a bitch with every step.

Once he’s gone, I turn to the boys. ‘We need to act fast.’

‘What?’ says Dante.

‘We’re getting out of here,’ I reply and gaze at the prisoners. ’All of us.’

© Alice of Sherwood, January 2020