#FridayFlash: Northern Vampire Tales – The Female Of The Species...Part 2

This story is part 10 in the Northern Vampire series. It follows directly on from part 1 of the story, which I posted last week and which can be found here. I also have a blog page here that lists all my vampire stories in chronological order.

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We join our hero, tied to a chair in a disused warehouse by the Tyne, being lectured by Charlene Benson. He is fairly sure a good kicking, or worse is in the offing...

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Well bugger me, Geordie Benson has a big sister! I bet there's no younger siblings though, one look at Geordie as a baby would be enough to put anyone off from breeding again.

'I divvent normally get involved in stuff like this, like,' Charlene says, ' but you've cost me money, Mr Wheeler.' She lets that sink in for a bit. 'I can't say I'm too keen on that.'

It's not topping my list either.

'So what's going to happen in a minute is that Dave and Sean here are going to extract from your hide what you cost me in cold, hard cash, bonny lad.'

She seems to have got a grip on herself now. Looks like it's all business from here on in.

'And when they're finished, Mr Wheeler, I'm going to blow your knackers off,' she indicates the gun with a flourish, 'for what you did to poor Geordie over there.'

'What did I do, exactly?' I feign ignorance.

It was Marek and Piotr's bomb as I recall.

'What did you do? What did you do?!' she asks, her voice rising. 'If poor Geordie hadn't been in the bog when your bomb went off he'd be dead.' There's an edge to her voice now. 'The blast blew him into the bath and that saved his life, like, but not before it'd blown most of his face off.' She's shaking again now as she backs off a few steps.

She nods to Dave and Sean and they take a step forward.

Time to go.

I flex my wrists and ankles and the cable ties holding me to the chair snap like liquorice laces.

Ah, so that's what they were, cable ties.

I duck out of the chain and stand, just in time for the heavy to my right, Dave is it, to swing his baseball bat at my midriff. Dancing backwards over the chair at the last moment, I flick the end of the bat away as it passes. Dave is off-balance and over-extends himself in rotation, stumbling as I step in behind him and shove him forward at the same time as Sean lunges with the knife.

Sean's knife slips in under Dave's ribs with hardly a sound, just a surprised grunt from Dave as he keels over, ricochetting into his mate. Sean has his hands full of Dave and is still trying to focus on the hilt sticking out of his mate's chest as I snap out my fist and crush the cartilage in his throat. He claws at his neck and goes down gurgling, all tangled up with Dave.

I can move quite quickly when I have to.

The air parts and I feel something hot graze my cheek before the percussive shock wave and the boom of the shot reach me. In a heartbeat I'm behind Charlene, one hand on her wrist and the other wrapped tight about her neck. Behind me I can hear gurgling and quick breaths being taken.

'Didn't Geordie tell you?' I whisper, my fangs sliding into place as I relieve Charlene of the gun. Charlene goes rigid, her eyes like saucers as she cranes her neck to catch a glimpse of my face.

God, she smells good. O+ I think.

I swing her round and lob her down the factory where she lands in a winded heap a few yards away.

'Now then, Geordie, lad.' I advance on the wheelchair. 'Christ, mate, you're a bit of a sight.'

Geordie's nose is gone, and most of his eyelids too. The combination of burnt flesh and ointment is almost enough to make me gag. I mean, he was an ugly bugger to start with, but now...

'Typical of you,' I continue, 'lurking in the loo when there's work to be done. I wouldn't be surprised if you were hiding in there, cracking one off?' I poke the end of the pistol's barrel into his crotch and he whimpers.

'Shut up, Geordie.'

He tries to claw the oxygen mask from his face with hands encased in pressure dressings. The bits of his fingers I can see are livid with new scar tissue. Realising he's never going to be able to get the mask off, Geordie slumps in the chair.

'That looks sore,' I venture, then, glancing over my shoulder at Charlene who's managed to get herself into a sitting position and is gasping in great gulps of air, 'does she have to wipe your arse for you an' all, Geordie?'

I see him stiffen.

'Now then, bonny lad,' I mimic Geordie's accent for the last bit, 'I don't take too kindly to being dragged away from my evening constitutional without so much as a by-your-leave. It makes me, irritable. And when I get irritable--'

Geordie screams as I force the gun into his hand and curl his ruined fingers round the grip. He jumps when I help him pull the trigger, then lapses into soft mewling as he sees the bullet take Charlene full in the chest, crimson blossoming out over her white blouse. She grunts and slumps over.

'Canny shot!' I say by way of encouragement.

My ears are still ringing as I manoeuvre the wheelchair slowly over to the open loading dock on the eastern side of the building. Geordie's snivelling and I'm sure he thinks I'm going to tip him out of the chair into the Tyne.

'Didn't the hospital give you a pair of those dark glasses, seeing as how you can't close your eyes now?' I chuckle at the thought of Geordie all done up like Roy Orbisson. I bet he's got a crap singing voice. Geordie sobs softly and scrabbles for the top pocket of his jacket.

'Here, let me.' I reach into his pocket and pull out the glasses, theatrically fumbling them out of my grip off the edge of the loading dock. 'Oops. Butter fingers.'

I look at my watch. 'I'd better be off now,' I whisper in Geordie's ear. 'I reckon you've got an hour before the sun comes up, a couple more before it gets really painful. You might want to call someone while you can still see to dial--'

A dark stain spreads out from Geordie's lap. He understands the implication.

'Aw, Geordie, man. Have a little class, will you?'

#FridayFlash: Northern Vampire Tales – The Female Of The Species...Part 2

Future; Nostalgic on Tour 2010: Part 1 – South by North East.

The story begins with the Future; Nostalgic posse ensconced at Gate 19, Newcastle International Airport, awaiting the Special Assistance people to arrive and take us to the aircraft for our flight to London's Stansted airport and an overnight stay before traveling onward to Slovakia.

The first time we did this trip a few years ago, all was well until we boarded the plane only to be told it had a fuel leak and we'd all have to get off again. Not to worry, the airline was sending a spare plane up from London, so we should still make our Stansted connection. We didn't. In fact we watched our connecting flight taxiing to the runway as we ourselves taxied to the gate, so it was with a certain sense of deja vu that we watched the Arrivals board at the gate click over to "Delayed" next to our flight. Oh goody. Here we go again.

Thankfully the delay was only an hour and we were soon aboard a very nice little Airbus something-or-other winging our way south. We began to relax. Silly us! Arrival at Stansted was bang on time. Shame the arrival at our plane of Stansted’s Special Assistance people wasn't. After around fifteen minutes of waiting, the ground handler finally managed to raise someone on the radio and shortly after a guy arrived with the dreaded C-Max stair climbing chair.

A word to the wise here. Being mobility-impaired, yours truly has personal experience of said stair climbing chair from my last transit through Stansted, and there’s no way I’m doing that again. The C-Max is an electric contraption that wouldn't look out of place in the arsenal of a modern day Inquisition IMHO; the last time I had cause (ie: no choice) to use one of these things I ended up flat on my back in excruciating agony for the next two days, popping painkillers like Smarties. I declined and asked for my pre-booked medi-lift which, apparently, wasn’t available. Funny thing that, the medi-lift not being available, as during our transit through the airport, Future; Nostalgic’s skiing correspondent spotted a number of medi-lift vehicles parked up on the tarmac. Hmmm.

Representative pic of an airport medi-lift.
Picture courtesy of SOVAM S.A.S, France.

To cut a long story short, during which our pilot played a blinder on our behalf for which I will be eternally grateful (and confirmed that he’d personally radioed ahead to ensure the availability of a medi-lift), and a further fifteen minute delay saw us finally aboard a medi-lift and, we thought, headed for Arrivals. Silly us. If you'll indulge me here for a moment, let's have a quick compare-and-contrast moment:

Newcastle International Airport - medi-lift meets passenger at Gate 19 and drives them to the plane, jacks itself up hydraulically and deposits said passenger by wheelchair through the plane's forward galley door. Reverse the procedure for inbound passengers.

Stansted Airport - medi-lift attaches itself to the plane's forward galley door, passenger has to make their own way onto the medi-lift where they are met by a wheelchair. Medi-lift lowers itself hydraulically before the passenger is wheeled straight through onto the tail lift of the vehicle and dropped down onto the tarmac to continue their journey to Arrivals accompanied by a Special Assistance person pushing the chair. Again, reverse procedure for outbound passengers.

Which do you think is the better system? Answers on a postcard please.

In our case, we were allocated a particularly disgruntled Special Assistance person, and were then routed through the gate we would have disembarked at had we all been able-bodied. At the gate stood a planeload of people waiting to board our aircraft, now around thirty minutes delayed - the profusion of black looks with which we were met was not lost on any of us.

Bags were collected from Arrivals (eventually – they’d been pulled off the carousel and stacked next to the Help desk as potentially discarded baggage), then off to the Special Assistance Desk to make a complaint. Forewarned as I was by our pilot, it came as no surprise to me at all that Special Assistance blamed the airline for not requesting the appropriate offloading equipment, but what was a surprise was their telling me I ought to have called them the day before to book the medi-lift. ‘Scuse me?

Well, I checked my airline paperwork (booked months earlier and including a wheelchair assistance on/off the plane request), and nowhere within it was there any indication of me having to telephone Stansted myself (or any other airport for that matter) to make my own arrangements. I mentioned this, which went down like the proverbial lead budgie. Nevertheless, my requiring a medi-lift was booked into the Special Assistance diary for the following morning and for our return trip a week later, and I was kindly provided with their direct telephone number in case I needed it in the future.

Since this is not the number Stansted airport publishes on the Special Assistance section of its website, if you happen to have the misfortune to transit through London Stansted with a disabled passenger in tow, you might like to drop me a line so I can give you the correct number for Special Assistance; and don’t forget to ring them the day before you travel.

Bearing in mind we were now around an hour behind schedule, and had yet to reach our hotel, eat, shower, or sleep before returning to the airport at 5am the next morning for our next leg of the trip, we cut things short and headed down for the shuttle bus to the hotel, thankfully accompanied by a rather more reasonable member of the Special Assistance team. Just as well - Stansted is a warren and without her help we'd probably still be wandering the halls even now.

So there we were, shivering in the rain on the dark, windswept expanse of concrete that is Stansted's coach park and guess what, yes, that's right, we'd just missed the bus; another one along in 30 minutes. Eventually we reached the hotel and checked in, only to be given the wrong room number on our electronic key by the receptionist. Funnily enough we’re not surprised, this is the UK after all; just wait till I compare it with the service you can expect in Slovakia. Once that was sorted out and we finally found the correct room, it was a pleasant surprise - a spacious and clean room complete with disabled facilities. Nice.

Dinner was a bit basic, a read-the-menu-then-order-at-the-bar sort of place, this hotel. Never mind, the food was reasonable, though whoever thought it was a good idea to serve mushy peas, and rather dried out mushy peas at that, with scampi and chips ought to have their chef's qualifications checked.

We figured we'd better find out about breakfast before retiring for the night, and see if the hotel could rustle up a couple of extra pillows. Breakfast it transpired, was served from 6am - we're leaving at 5am. Not a problem. Oh, goody. There was an early breakfast available from 4am. Even better. Hang on a minute though, if the full breakfast, which was available from 6am, was a continental breakfast, whatever in the world could the early breakfast be? It turned out to be coffee and cereal. Cosmic.

Bearing in mind we'd had a good look at the restaurant setup while waiting for our evening meals, and waiting, we wondered just how much of a stretch would it have been to put out a tray of croissants (or similar) at 4am, since the rest of breakfast service would appear to consist of switching on the coffee machine, the cereals, milk, jam and butter being already in situ in little racks.

Extra pillows? No, we don't have any extra pillows (he looked like we’d just asked for his firstborn). But you're a hotel, aren't you? I'll see what I can find. Thanks. With hindsight, we really wished he hadn't bothered as it took him an hour and a half to find one and we were just dropping off to sleep when there came a hammering on our door.

And then there was the issue of an early morning call - not, I would have thought, beyond the scope of your average hotel. Apparently they didn't do early morning calls, guests had to organise their own through the TV in their rooms; and if there had been instructions, that would really have helped!

Anyway, we eventually dropped off into a fitful night's sleep, looking forward with some trepidation to another visit to Stansted airport in the morning.

Future; Nostalgic on Tour 2010: Part 1 – South by North East.