Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The building had burst into life. Employees were everywhere, all wearing grey uniforms with that garlic symbol embroidered on their breast pocket. They all had that same look, business as usual. I heard screams from somewhere, not frightened, angry, in front of me a pale man banged furiously on his glass door, eyes darting about, cheeks sunken like a drug addict. I jumped back a step.

The men carried my attacker away laughing silently at me, smirks barely concealed. I was left alone, a woman was pushed past me on a stretcher, at breakneck speed, there was blood dribbling down her throat and she was forcibly restrained with iron grips.

It was all real, no one had lied to me. There were vampires, and they were here. I giggled madly to myself as medics ran in the direction the woman on the stretcher had come from.

I saw the corridor had glass doors all down it, I saw more sets of hands pounding. The air became thick with screams. A harassed looking young man pushed me against a wall as he ran past.

‘First feeding,’ he shouted back as if I should know what that meant.

I had been abandoned and I could’ve walked out of the door then, but I hesitated, because of Lisa. I low sigh escaped my lips, what was it with that family? Those girls would end up killing me, I was certain of that.

I grabbed the next person I saw who was running at me, it was a short woman with mousy brown hair, she was just a little older than me.

‘I need to find Doctor Stewart,’ I said loudly, above all the screams.

She began jabbering in French in harsh panicked tones.

‘Doctor Stewart,’ I repeated slowly.

As if by magic, the Doctor appeared behind her. There was something sinister about his smile, his calm steady movements while the rest of the building was in panic. I let the woman go and she darted off quick as a lizard.

‘I heard my name,’ The Doctor’s sinister smile widened.

An employee ran up to him and stuttered something, the doctor’s calm response seemed to steady the young man’s breathing. Whatever Doctor Stewart’s intensions, his method certainly worked.

‘Is it like this every night?’ I asked.

‘Mostly,’ he waved an airy hand. ‘Stand aside please.’ He held up an arm to stop me as two trolleys clambered past, their wheels squeaking. Hanging from pegs on the trolleys were bags filled with blood. I gulped and the Doctor laughed at me, not unkindly.

‘I hear you had a run in with dear Chastity this evening?’ He said, still smiling. ‘She’s new here, an athlete in another life, very strong.’

‘Yes,’ I raised my eyebrow. ‘Have you ever thought about just letting them starve?’

‘Of course not,’ he said as if the suggestion was ludicrous.

I didn’t say anything. The trolleys wheeled past me right into the heart of those screaming, begging voices.

‘Shall we move along?’ Doctor Stewart smiled broadly as he looked out over the scene. I felt sick.

‘Where does it come from?’ I had to ask.

‘Donations,’ He smiled like a Cheshire, too many teeth.

‘Donations from who?’ I could feel the anger rising in my voice. Cat flap sized holes were unlocked by the workers, thick sets of keys hanging from their waists. A bag of blood was pushed into the slot, and then closed again. Grateful hungry groans surrounded the air.

‘Who do you think?’ He said, ‘The P.V.R of course.’

‘But-’

‘You don’t think the idea of feeding a hungry Vampire is appealing to them?’ He went on, as I stared out at the carnage. One creature reached their thin hand through the slot as the same mousy woman I had seen before slid in a blood bag. The Vampire grabbed her wrist and she screamed, sharp nails scratched against her skin and she snatched back her bleeding arm.

I flinched, ‘I thought they wanted to bring you down?’ I asked suspiciously, ‘destroy this place.’

‘Mostly they do,’ he sighed, ‘but the chosen few, they feel lucky, special. They will never speak out against it, and the superior members who know what goes on, but they’re planning to use it as fuel for the fire when the truth comes out.’

‘They feel special?’ Now sounds of slurping came through crashing through the walls, almost sexual cries of relief.

The Doctor widened his smile even more, ‘they’re romantic, see these animals as fantasy, their dreams made real, all those long nights they spend wishing for that beautiful unobtainable being.’

‘But here-’

‘They’re biological oddities, fascinating, impossible,’ he shrugged, ‘but that is all.’

From the way he smiled I knew he loved these beings more than he let on. ‘I’d like to leave,’ I said quietly. I was scared that he wouldn’t let me, my hands were shaking again from the drama of the morning’s events.

‘There’s a front door,’ the Doctor said, ‘no one’s stopping you.’

‘Lisa,’ I said under my breath.

‘Is fine,’ he waved it away airily.

‘I’d like to see her though,’ I gritted my teeth.

‘Lawrence,’ he sighed deeply, ‘you’ve stumbled into this exciting new world, a closely guarded secret,’ he placed a hand on my shoulder, ‘wouldn’t you like to know more?’

‘I know enough,’ I shot back, I grabbed my hand with the other to stop it shaking so hard, but then the other hand started to shake. ‘I want to get Lisa out of here too.’

‘Very well,’ his face sprang back into the bright smile.

He finally, thankfully drew me away from the corridor. All along the walls there were more pouches of blood being delivered into cat flap slots. Through a cell with thick wood boarded over the window a dark hand shot out to grab the blood. My heart skipped a beat as I recognised my attacker, I was never going to forget even an inch of her skin.

Then the smell hit me. My nostrils stung and my eyes watered from the rush of stale air which attacked every sense. It wasn’t the same dead smell I remember from the boys in Norway, that sickly sweet smell of decay. That was there, but it wasn’t the same, this was deeper, more natural, it smelt animal, like rotting meat. The smell of a slaughter house floor. It was old, almost ancient, a dry smell, it caught in my throat as I wheezed through it. It seemed to seep into my skin, into my pores, making me feel dirty and impure.

I glanced in the direction of the smell, it deepened and I was so knocked back I stumbled. There wasn’t a white box in this room, like in all the others, there was a bed, a plain hospital cot. There were flies squashed into the corners of the glass, they were buzzing and swarming over each other. The bag of blood rested untouched in a tray under the same cat flap, a few flies had escaped the room.

On the bed, amongst the flies, a young man was staring at the wall calmly. A strange lingering smile played about his lips, dark hair fell over sparkling brown eyes and hollow cheek bones. He looked contented, his hands folded in his lap. His skin was sallow and waxy, a heavy jacket hung over wasted shoulders. Yet his face retained something handsome, and I was sure I recognised him from somewhere.

‘The flies?’ I choked out a half spluttered question, afraid to breathe in the air.

‘They carry many diseases,’ Doctor Stewart spoke in a patronising tone, like an angry parent, he grabbed me firmly by the shoulder, and for once he wasn’t smiling.

‘But I know him,’ I coughed painfully.

‘Come along before you suffocate,’ the Doctor’s voice was angry and I followed him, but I watched the young man, he was so still he might be dead, but his lips were moving with that restless smile.

We trudged on down the corridor, I tried not to look at the blank and staring faces shining through the glass windows. Mostly they were too preoccupied with their meal, but sometimes they caught sight of me and sniffed their air, remembering my sent. I shivered, they mostly looked human, if had seen any of them in the outside world I would’ve have thought about them, but there was something here now that I couldn’t call human. It was unexplainable, but something in their eyes marked them as different from me and Doctor Stewart.

He was where we left him. An empty blood bag lay beside him, blood splattered down his white shirt, his thick lips reddened. He saw me, and his eyes narrowed. I had never felt such hate stream from one individual, especially not towards me. Alex looked not only like he blamed me for his incarceration, but like he wouldn’t stop blaming me until I was dead.

An employee moved in front of the door and I almost laughed with relief, when I couldn’t see those eyes, it didn’t matter. He was locked away, and once I found Lisa I would be long gone. This situation was almost manageable when I wasn’t face to face with one of them.

Lisa was in an empty room, exactly like the rooms the vampires lived in, a smooth white box lay here too. Lisa was perched on top of the box with her arms folded. She had a long scratch down her cheek, but otherwise looked unharmed, pissed off and impatient, but unharmed.

‘Lisa,’ I gasped, happy to see her unsmiling face again. I ran to her and to my surprise she embraced me. She was even thinner than she had been and her hair against my neck was dry and brittle.

‘Have they really just been questioning you?’ I asked, eyeing her scratched face.

‘Yes,’ she said, her voice was croaky. ‘They said they needed to keep us apart, to make sure our stories match.’

I bit my lip and tried to swallow what Doctor Stewart had told me, that she knew more than she had let on. I wondered what she knew, if she had knowledge of those creatures, of this place. As I hugged her tight I tried hard not to speculate about how much she had lied to me.

‘Can we leave now?’ I asked the Doctor, who stood at the door smiling at us.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘thank you both so much for your contribution.’

‘Do you want to leave?’ I asked Lisa cautiously.

For once she bowed her head humbly and replied in a quiet voice. ‘Yes.’ All thoughts of revenge and Alex and Jarl seemed dissolved. It was hard to except that all her determination and hate had gone.

‘Are you sure?’

I hadn’t anticipated a fight, he had so much he could threaten us with, and we had nothing. We could tell people the truth, but who would believe us? We had no evidence except what we had obtained illegally, and even then we didn’t have anything solid. Telling the police that this facility lay somewhere in France, really wouldn’t cut it.

‘Again I wonder,’ the Doctor’s voice didn’t sound threatening, but there was something faintly dark. ‘You’ve discovered an incredible secret, surely you’re hungry for more.’

‘I just want to go home and forget this whole episode of my life.’

‘Very well,’ he sighed. ‘Lisa I will collect your things.’ And he left.

‘Are you sure he’s not going to give us any trouble?’ I asked.

She shrugged, ‘I had expected him to try and keep us here,’ she said. ‘Maybe he has something else up his sleeves.

I noticed that a large blind covered one wall of the room, I fiddled with the handle. ‘What is this for?’ I asked idly. I pulled hard and the blind released, it shot upward with a swift whipping noise.

A shadow, a demon maybe, or perhaps they had been feeding me drugs in the air, without me even knowing. Behind the glass, quietly sitting, was Teresa. The girl I had slept with all those lifetimes ago.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Six

I woke small conference room, a long shiny desk ran down the middle with white padded chairs pushed in underneath. A movie projector was raised high and attached to the wall. There were no windows and the hard strip lighting was off so I had no idea what time it was, only that I had been asleep for a couple of hours. I had that vague awareness that I had had very little sleep, but still that significant time had past. My eyes felt sharp and prickly as I fought to keep them open.

Awful dead silence rang around me until my head started to thud dully. The silence made me anticipate something, I remembered where I was in the hazy waking process and I started to shiver. I was sleeping on the uncomfortable tiled floor in a sleeping bag. I had been too tired to care before, but now my back ached. I suppose the sum of all this was that I wasn’t in a good place, emotionally or physically, as I hung between sleep I imagined waking up in my little messy flat with regretful longing.

It was the first time I had thought about it, but Doctor Stewart was the only person I had seen since I got here. How did I know he was being honest, this could all be an elaborate trick to keep me from knowing the truth. Was Lisa really fine, being questioned somewhere, was she here at all? There was no way of knowing. I remembered Maria’s screams, the closed door in my face, could that all have been false? Something told me that this was really happening, the things I had been told were not lies. This something, this unexplained feeling, was numbing and chilling. I couldn’t keep my thoughts from becoming head aches, complicated and twisted as they were.

The door swung open. My heart beat furiously and quickly as insect wings as the door hit the opposite wall. There was no one there, the room still softly grey in the darkness. As my heart started to calm I lay back into my sleeping bag, until a black smudge raced across my eye line. I’ve never sat upright so quickly, I wasn’t foolish enough to call out, whatever was in here wasn’t human. I knew that from the speed at which I had registered that the black smudge was a creature. Maybe it was only a cat, even so, I retreated silently into the corner of the room, pushing my feet along the tiles with my hands.

I was sure that whatever was there had heard my heart already, it seemed to echo through the room. What if it was one of them? what would they imagine hearing my blood rushing through me? Then I remembered, it’s not just blood. I was overcome with cold panic when I realised I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want to be torn apart and spread across the flood like Robert Thompson. It seems like an obvious thought, but as I rolled my hands into fists my will to live pulsed through me.

Then I saw her, she blurred past my vision again, but this time I was sure it was a woman. She was crouched in the opposite end of the room now, curled up like a panther. Her skin was dark, so dark I could only make out curves and indistinct shapes, but she was definitely naked. I felt no shame or arousal in looking at her, the way she moved so quickly and the way she was holding herself, she was more an animal than a human and somehow it made sense.

She was deathly silent, not breathing, she didn’t even make a sound when she moved. I could see her hair was a wild matted tangle and her dark lips were slightly parted, but her eyes, were shimmering white and hungry. They glinted like light bulbs in the black room.

She moved towards me. She was still crouched, her shoulders arched, again like a wild cat. Slowly stalking towards me, her eyes fixed on the prize, her gaze unwavering and hungry. I saw her nostrils flare, she was smelling me, smelling the sweat sliding down my temples. I couldn’t run, I knew she would catch me if I tried, and I was fascinated by the way she moved. I was almost happy, that my last moments would be spent watching her and studying her.

I looked at her hands like paws making no sound or impression on the tiled floor, at the knees bending with a gymnast’s skill. I looked anywhere but those eyes, the only part of her not animal like and controlled, but too human, too much longing and need in them. I waited for ‘The Touch’ that’s what Doctor Stewart told me it was called, the moment when your mind goes blank and you’ll give in to anything. It would be better that way, if I was relaxed, ready to give in.

It never came. I waited but it didn’t come, I began to shake as she moved ever closer. I skipped a gaze and she was only a metre from me, the way she crawled was now grating on me, she was toying with me because she knew I wouldn’t run. I felt a dribble of saliva run over my lips and realised my mouth had been open and my throat closed ever since I had seen those white eyes.

Please let it come, I begged someone, anyone. Her hands closed around my feet, even through my sleeping bag I could feel how warm they were, so warm I almost thought it had come, The Touch. She pulled hard and my head slammed against the tiles, dizzying, instant pain spread through me and I felt sick. She was on top of me, she didn’t smell of anything, but I could smell my cold sweat seeping through my clothes.

Her naked body was pressed against mine, I could feel her hard nipples, her muscled thighs, her hands worked up my body and those horrible human eyes were inches away from mine. Her lips pressed against my cheek and her hands slid up my throat. I closed my eyes. My final thoughts before the blow were of Angelica, I wished I had seen her again, I wished I had got to touch her.

Phlorescent tubes burst into life over my head, though my closed eyes I could feel their warmth. The woman gave a horrible throaty cry and I no longer felt her weight on top of me. I gingerly opened my eyes to see three men holding her back.

In the bright light she was a terrible vision, her white eyes wide and straining from their sockets. The men were holding her upright and she seemed so strange that way, like a cat standing on its hind legs. Her arms were flailing at me and her hands were turned into claws, and she kept screaming a low rattling wail of frustration and disappointment.

The three men holding her were struggling against this one thin woman, sweat glistening on their heads, but their expressions were bored and tired, they had seen it all before. One of them took out a syringe with a cloudy white substance contained within. He drove it deep into her thrashing arm and almost instantly she was subdued. Her eyes were still open and her brain still functioning, but she had stopped moving, stopped caring about me. Her eyes drifted off into another corner of the room.

I grabbed my chest to try and calm the pain at my heart trying to escape.

One of the men snorted at me, I must’ve looked ridiculous to these jaded people.

He grunted in a thick French accent, ‘be careful, door unlocked.’

Chapter Twenty-Five

please read everything that comes before this or it won't make sense.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Doctor Stewart motioned me to sit in front of his office desk. The office itself was like everything else I had seen so far in this place, white and lacking in natural light. There was nothing there except the doctor’s large white swivel chair, a shiny white iMac and the desk. I was sat in a fold away plastic chair. There were no pictures of his family, no personal artefacts, not even a dismal looking plant like so many offices I had been in. I was beginning to get sick of all this mind numbing white.

‘What do you want to know?’ He asked conversationally with his hands folded on the desk.

‘How long has this been here?’ I asked looking around me pointedly.

‘This building?’ He asked, ‘was an early eighteenth century manor house, it’s been here for quite some time, this facility has only been operational for thirty years.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

He raised his eyebrows at me, ‘we’re not entirely innocent in our motives,’ he said, ‘you must understand how incredible the possibilities are here, to study and examine something which cannot age or die.’

‘So it’s true,’ my voice shook again, I looked into Doctor Stewart’s honest eyes and tried to believe him. ‘They’re immortal?’ The word hung in my mouth like a bad aftertaste.

‘I’m not sure,’ he rubbed his face, ‘we’ve never encountered one older than two hundred.’

‘Two hundred?’ I felt my mouth fall stupidly open. ‘How does it work?’ I was shivering a little bit, I realised they were here, sleeping, all looking as innocent as Alex.

‘It’s an advanced form of cell mutation,’ doctor Stewart said. I was waiting for him to finish the sentence but he didn’t.

‘Hang on,’ I raised my hand in protest of his explanation, ‘I saw someone get shot in the head, I saw brain matter spilling on concrete for fuck’s sake, a few hours later he’s sleeping like a baby, no scratch on him. You can’t tell me that’s advanced cell mutation?’

Doctor Stewart nodded enthusiastically, ‘you see, the body is technically dead, you’ve smelt how rancid the blood becomes when it’s not needed.’ I didn’t need reminding of that smell. ‘The only thing needed is several basic brain functions, movement and speech and so on, so many organs are rendered useless, the lost energy of these functions goes into the amazing healing ability.’ He shrugged, ‘ordinary humans only use ten percent of our brain capacity.’

‘In thirty years that’s the best explanation you can come up with?’ I asked.

He shrugged again, ‘we’re working on it,’ he said, ‘but there’s enough evidence for that theory, considering The Touch.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘The Touch,’ he smiled, ‘we’re almost there ourselves as humans in research, we’ve developed machines which can put direct pressure on the pleasure centre of a rat’s brain, we know how the brain works and how to control certain impulses with electrical currents. This is very similar, they can reach those impulses and manipulate them. They can make you feel safe and happy, or sexually aroused, make you forget things or trust people you shouldn’t’

The silence hung over us like a weight while I tried to understand. ‘You’re talking about magic,’ I finally forced out.

‘Not exactly,’ he smiled warmly, ‘it’s simple as illusion, slide of hand, smoke and mirrors, making you see and believe things which are not true.’

‘No,’ I repeated, more firmly this time, ‘it’s mind control.’ I was thinking of Teresa, how I hadn’t been in command of my own thoughts and body, I hid my shiver, had she been one of them?

He sighed deeply and folded his hands together on the desk, his wristwatch cast a tiny golden circle on the wall. ‘If you stop thinking about the mystical and concentrate on the scientific it will be a lot easier to cope with.’

I snorted heavily, ‘you’re asking me to believe in immortal vampires,’ I almost laughed. ‘They drink blood.’ I stated it as fact to prove my point.

Doctor Stewart gave me an eerie smile, the look of a greedy journalist sucking up gruesome details. ‘A common misconception,’ he said, relishing in my ignorance. ‘why only blood? All internal bodily fluids are beneficial.’

I felt my mouth slide open like some kind of ugly and slippery shellfish. ‘I don’t understand,’ but I did, images flashed through my mind, Heimlaug Gunderson torn apart; Angelina’s arm, poor Marietta’s head tied to the rocks by her hair. No neat pin pricks in the neck.

‘Of course blood is the most easily available, and the most historically Romantic,’ he sighed as though the idea of Romanticism offended him. ‘Younger vampires will hunt for the more, shall we say, exotic, liquid that the older creatures. When they are younger they will need more sustenance. I hear Cerebrospinal Fluid is a particular delicacy.’ Doctor Stewart smiled wickedly.

I didn’t know or want to know what Cerebrospinal Fluid was, it made me gag just to imagine it. ‘Why liquid?’ My racing mind pictured scenes from every zombie film I’d ever seen.

‘Like I explained, many higher brain functions are lost, to digest solid food is beyond them, but they need replacements for the cells which are constantly dying. They need human fluids to survive.’

‘And you provide them?’ I had to ask, I couldn’t understand how this place could function.

‘donations,’ he sighed with an airy wave of his hand.

The subject seemed glossed over pretty quickly, his dark eyes told me I’d better not ask any more questions., though I was itching to. I wondered who gave the donations, nurses, doctors? Or corpses.

‘What are you doing with Lisa?’ I asked defiantly.

‘Questioning her,’ he said, he reclined in is chair. His tone had gone from excited and animated to dull, like he was no longer interested in me or my curiosity. Suddenly the white office seemed too white, and thinking about the rest of this place made bile rise to my throat. I wondered, if there was a vampire here now would he put a straw inside my liver to suck it out? I clamped my hand over my mouth to stop from vomiting. The urge was so strong I leapt from my chair.

‘It’s going to be sunset soon,’ Doctor Steward smiled warmly, though he watched me leap from my chair with no interest, bored and closed off eyes. ‘You need to rest.’

‘Not until I know Lisa is okay,’ I said, even though I understood that this situation was all her fault. I wanted to run from this awful prison full of dead things, but here I was accepting the news I would have to stay here, without even blinking.

‘She is fine,’ the Doctor reassured me. I thought about Maria and her horrible screams, screams beyond any pain I had ever felt. ‘We needed to be certain she’s not a threat, she has more reason than you to be so.’

‘If you mean the P.V.R,’ I strained my exhausted and baffled mind to remember the name, ‘we’re not a part of it, I never heard of it before now.’

He laughed loud and throatily. ‘The P.V.R,’ he sneered, ‘have read too many Anne Rice novels, don’t worry about them.’

‘But Lisa knows as much as I do,’ I tried to explain, ‘she’s only trying to find out what happened to her sister.’

He laughed again, darker this time, almost sinister. ‘You and Lisa need to have a long talk about how much she knows,’ he smiled with his eyes twinkling.