She reached over the counter and picked up a small bag with a series of numbers branded into its leather ‘15619924.’ She reached out and dropped it into the man’s outreached hand. Corporal Knightley looked at the man with disdain even hatred.
“Oh, hell no!” she snarled.
“He needs a doctor, not some ‘a have a go’ hero drunk and there’s not a damn thing wrong with my equipment!”
Marie stared at the man waiting for his response.
The man giggled to himself then looked her up and down.
“No argument there,” he winked.
“Listen to me, if you want himself to wake up in the morning, leave it to me,” replied the man.
“I’m the local go here,” he smiled, going back to his drink to take a mouthful.
The team looked to Corporal Knightley, who thought for several seconds, she didn’t have what she needed to patch him up properly. If this man was indeed the local general practitioner, he would be able to help more than she could. She agreed to allow him to help her, that way if anything went wrong, she could act quickly and correct anything he may have done wrong.
The man clapped his hands together, rubbing them like he was trying to start a campfire then opened his bag and pulled out instrument after instrument, laying them next to Captain Quis Podex. Corporal Knightley had never seen anything like them before; they were clearly tools for medical practice. But they were so far advanced; she had only dreamed of such equipment. Corporal Knightley and the man tended to the captain while Sergeant Devonne sat down with a hefty thump onto a bar stool like she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“You,” the sergeant asked in a raised voice, looking across to the pub to the newest member of their group, “Why are you here and what the hell were you doing down that hole? I ran your tags through the database, I know you’re Lieutenant Aisling Storm of bravo team.” The sergeant was always keen-eyed and quick-witted.
“I ran your tags when I saw you at the cottage. Come on, let’s have it. Why doesn’t any of this seem to be phasing you at all?” the sergeant had giving Lieutenant Storm a lot to answer.
Lieutenant Storm looked away from the window, she gazed out of for a moment, peering at Sergeant Devonne. The look in her eyes was distant like she was lost in thought, she was reliving the events that brought her to be shackled in that hole.
“I uh,” the lieutenant stumbled over her words shakenly.
She sat into the chair near the blazing fire with her bloodstained bruised skin; she looked like she was fresh from the fight. She began to tell all to the sergeant everything that had happened to her and Bravo team since they arrived in Eiru.
“I’ve been here for a month or more, I think, those vampires at the cottage were the least of my worries,” she took a deep breath and took the brandy the barman had poured for her, sipping on it she carried on.
As she spoke, everyone listened intently, “We were sent to restore the power to an old facility not far from here, a medical facility, we were led by Captain H. Connolly.”
Her words seemed to form of their own accord while she relived the events in her mind.
“We gained access to the facility through the main doors but later, we mistakenly forced the facility into lock down. When we tried to restore the power, we triggered the facility’s defences,” she became short of breath when her emotions overwhelmed her.
She battled against the tears by taking another sip from her brandy and the barman came out from behind the bar once more with a damp cloth lightly pressing it against her head and gently tried to wash away the dried blood stains.
She continued, “The team was separated when we got attacked by these things; these red and black tar-like monsters. Later, Corporal Bernadette Cooper and I found our captain’s weapon covered in a black slick substance!” A sudden spark of hope entered her voice.
“We almost had the power back online, I mean we were so close, until we were attacked again by the same monster as before.” The room was engrossed with her story, it had fallen into complete silence.
“We just, ran, we tried to put as much distance between us and the monster. We aren’t trained to fight anything like that, we’re a security team, not monster hunters!” she snarled with a whimper, finishing her brandy in one mouthful then handed the glass back to the barman and finished her tale.
“We found the body of Samantha Arigrave, our medical officer, or what was left of her, she had the same black slick substance that we saw on the captain’s weapon, it was clogged in her mouth, she had choked to death on it.”
She let out a mournful sigh, “We kept running until we got out of the facility, we radioed for evacuation, but we got no response. We tried to get back to where he had docked but; I must have blacked out because when I woke up, I was been sold to a coven. Later, I was trying to out think Minotaurs for food then I found myself in shackles down in that hole with people biting me, people drinking my blood while I was forced to watch my friend been eating alive by that creature, if I struggled, I was beaten until I complied.”
She suddenly broke down crying hysterically, Sergeant Devonne looked at Aisling unsurely; Aisling was weak, she was covered in blood and dirt, her hair was matted and stuck to her head and sure enough just as she said there was quite a few classic vampire bite marks on her neck and forearms.
“Now, there yee are,” announced the man.
“He’s healing quicker than he’s meant to
