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the quickest to react. He leapt back on to his feet within a second of hitting the deck. Beth took this as her cue to start running back down the pier towards the promenade. She raced past the vampire and JD, who were too busy squaring up to each other to pay her any heed. Her stupid red shoes weren’t best designed for running along wooden boards with gaps in between them, and she knew that she was only ever one stride away from tripping over.
    She had only made it halfway down the pier before she stopped. What about JD? Was he following? Or was he staying to continue his fight with the vampire?
    ‘OW!’ Her answer came when she heard Kione yell out in pain and an equal amount of anger and frustration. She turned back to see the vampire on his knees having received another fierce blow to some sensitive part of his anatomy. He climbed back up again, this time slower than before, and Beth watched JD swing his clenched right fist down on to the vampire’s head. Then he began to rain blows upon the now cowering deviant.
    Within a minute Kione was on his back, holding up one hand and whining for mercy.
    ‘Please, I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to hurt her! We were just playing. Honestly!’
    JD stepped back warily and allowed the sheepish vampire to stagger back on to his feet.
    ‘Get the fuck out of here, you rotten piece of shit,’ he ordered.
    Kione lowered his head, as if he were a naughty schoolboy being lectured about misbehaving in class. JD gave him a look of contempt and turned to check on Beth.
    ‘You okay?’ he called.
    ‘LOOK OUT!’ Beth screamed in response. Kione had been bluffing, hoping that JD would lower his guard for a moment. The boy had done exactly that. The vampire seized his opportunity, lunging, fangs bared, at his enemy’s throat. The young man in the scarecrow outfit was blessed with spectacular reactions, and Beth had barely finished screaming before he whirled round and smashed his onrushing attacker’s face to one side. For a few moments the two of them wrestled, holding each other in a tight embrace, each struggling to gain the upper hand. Beth looked on in horror as they tussled. One moment JD would seem to be overpowering Kione, only for the vampire somehow to squirm into a position of ascendancy. Eventually, when Kione had used up all his cunning moves without managing a single bite of JD’s flesh, the young manthrew him up against the rickety wooden railing that ran along one side of the pier and took a firm grip around the weakening vampire’s throat, choking the air from his lungs.
    Kione gasped for air, looking with pleading eyes into his assailant’s snarling face.
    ‘Please,’ he squeaked. ‘Don’t …’
    His voice was faint and his face was slowly turning darker. JD looked into his desperate eyes and loosened his grip just enough to allow Kione to suck in a breath of air.
    ‘Please – don’t – kill – me,’ the vampire gasped. ‘I already died – once – years ago. Don’t put me – through it again. Please. Let me be. I’ll be gone. I promise.’
    Grim-faced, JD squeezed hard again, watching his pathetic enemy’s undead life draining from him. But taking a life isn’t easy, even one that technically doesn’t exist. For a start, he’d have to go to confession. So, in a moment of compassion that Kione didn’t deserve, JD released his fearsome grip on the creature’s neck.
    ‘Get outta here. And don’t ever come back,’ he snapped, unable to contain the disgust in his voice.
    The vampire needed no further invitation. In a moment he had leapt into the air and vanished into the darkness.
    Beth rushed over to JD, who was a panting little after his struggle with the creature of the night.
    ‘You okay?’ she asked, stopping two yards short of where he was to give him room to stretch and breathe in some air.
    ‘Yeah, I’m all right,’ he said, one hand gingerly feeling his neck for any signs of teeth marks. ‘Aside from the fact that I’ve just been