Out After Curfew

Chapter 13

Gerard slams and bolts his heavy steel front door behind him as he enters his house. Only on his way home from his shift had his hand started to throb after his earlier violent outburst. On the transit back to IGS headquarters, none of his subordinates had said a word to him, either all still in a state of nonplus, not having had the nerve to address the incident, or simply having had nothing to say that was not already obvious. The responsible thing for them to do would be to report him to their superiors for his actions. Gerard knows this and is now somewhat expectant of a phone call at some stage soon, summoning him to the office of management to reprimand or dismiss him.

His shutters are already down. He had seen them slide downwards from his car as he pulled through his gates. He had barely made it back in time tonight. With a sigh, he moves away from his front door, once again having to face the emptiness of his house. He switches lights on as he makes his way to the kitchen.

He takes a can of lager from the fridge and pops the seal, some bubbles of white froth shooting outwards with a hiss. Holding the can in his hand, looking at it as he is about to take a swig, his eyes are drawn to the wounds on his knuckles which he has yet to bandage – the physical reminder of his act of brutishness.

His eyes linger on these wounds and for some reason of which he is unsure, he cannot bring himself to ingest the behaviour altering liquid elixir in his grasp. He places it down on the kitchen work surface and turns away, stopping at the door to the living room, having nowhere else to go, nothing else to do instead.

Suddenly fists start loudly banging on his fences, accompanied by a cacophony of screams and yells. He remains static, purposeless – this unrelenting brash noise assaulting his peace once again, tormenting him once again for another night, gloating once again, goading him once again. He becomes angry and spins around, grabbing the can of beer from the side and hurling it against the wall. Froth erupts from the thing like a volcano as it dents inwards against the solid surface and drops to the floor.

Gerard storms out of the room and snatches up a set of keys from a wooden cabinet in the living room as he continues out into the hallway. He stands at his cellar door, fumbling to find the right key on the small bunch before shoving it into the lock, turning and swinging the door open with abandon, yanking the key out of the lock again afterwards.

He heads down the stairs to the cellar, switches the light on in the cold, colourless underground room and walks over to the opposite side where there are two long, rectangular safes attached side-by-side to the wall. He inserts a key from the bunch in the lock of one safe and swings the door open.

He grabs from within his .22 Long Range bolt-action rifle and a small box of bullets. He storms back up the stairs, his anger still his pilot and in need of satisfaction. He unbolts his steel front door, opens it up and steps outside.

Something that strikes him as he steps into the cool evening air is just how much louder the noises seem from outside - how much the house and all its metallic reinforcements must dampen the sound. As well as this, the vampires also become noticeably more enlivened and start increasing the volume of their cries, magnifying the manic vigour of their pounding. They have clearly heard him open his door – know that he is now outside and tantalisingly closer within their reach.

Fumbling clumsily, impaired by his rage, Gerard starts loading his gun, dropping the bullet box to the ground when he is done. As he finishes loading the gun he hears something else from behind the walls, something surprising, an utterance he thought he may have been mistaken about until he hears it repeated and repeated again a number of times.

"BLOOD!" he hears one of them shout throatily with desperation, the voice of an uninhibited beggar with no remaining social qualms, concepts or understanding.