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.