Vampires Overhead Read Online Free Page B

you there tonight. Can you come along after you’ve done here?’
    ‘I’ll be along soon after ten. That do? How can I find you?’
    ‘That’ll do fine. There’s a night watchman. He’ll let you in if I’m not there, but I’ll be there. A wicket in the entrance gates under the lion. You can’t miss it. If I shouldn’t be there the watchman’ll fix you up. Old Garrison man he is. That beaky-nosed Jew in a boiled shirt on the steps your boss? He’s got an eye on us. I’ll be getting along. See you tonight then, and we’ll make it a wet one. Old times all over again. S’long, Garry.’
    ‘S’long ’til tonight, Bingen. See you at the brewery. Gosh! What a rendezvous! Could we pick a better? I’ll say we couldn’t!’
    Bingen’s whip caressed plump dappled flanks, and his team stiffened into their traces; the van-boy, who had been craning over the piled crates interestedly, jerked fingers in a cheeky caricature of a military salute, and I returned it with a grin; the dray swung into the traffic stream, and Bingen turned to wave a smiling farewell. Cap tilted over one eye, I went happily back up the steps to my job. It was great to see one of the old hands again, even if it were Bingen. But then, he’d a lot of good points about him, despite his two bad ones, women and beer. Anyway, we’d make a night of it tonight. A night worth remembering. I felt bucked enough to walk across the vestibule and rub my back soothingly on one of those tempting mermaids. I almost cake-walked across the steps, had to take a firm hold on myself to avoid turning and staring defiantly at the manager. For a while I could feel his eyes following me disapprovingly, then he went away.
    The rest of the afternoon and the evening dragged slowly, but how quickly the time flew, for in between glancing at the ornate clock over the box-office, and scowling at the motionless hands, I was going over the old times, remembering incidents in preparation for the yarning with Bingen.
    Due that night, by a lucky coincidence, to leave early, I was hurrying down the narrow slope of a back exit from the cinema shortly before ten-thirty. Queer, I felt younger, fitter, thinner out of that stifling uniform. Queer also, as I write, how trivial little incidents come jumping to my mind. Sitting here in the cottage with Janet nursing the purring cat, busy with clicking needles upon a pair of socks, I remember, as though it were but a few short hours ago, instead of eight months.
    A crowded bus carried me along the Strand, across Waterloo Bridge—fallen so much sooner than the most pessimistic of engineers had prophesied—and a hurried walk through squalid streets by the riverside brought me to the brewery.
    From the far pavement of the narrow street I stood awhile to stare up at the huge stone lion surmounting the entrance gates; blackly it loomed against the sky. Crimson glow from the comet tinged the moon’s pale lustre and the sky was clear, dusted with yellow stars, with light haze from the City merging into its vastness. But it seems now, when I go over everything again and again, I saw, up there in the translucent heavens, a barely discernible cloud. Since beginning this description, I have mused over details of those first nights, and the more I dwell upon them the less sure I am, that while I stared up at the lion silhouetted against the night sky, I glimpsed the first Vampires. But a faint thought will persist that I saw then something which should have warned the unsuspecting country of peril. Who else searched the heavens that night?
    Crossing the street at last, I banged upon the great gates, the sound reverberating loudly in the deserted street. Footsteps clattered over cobbles and, after many creakings and squeakings as though the tiny wicket were seldom opened, it swung wide to let me stoop and enter. Bingen locked the gate behind me.
    ‘Won’t do for anyone to come along and catch us in here,’ he said, after we greeted each other.