Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Thirty-nine

Half the cars parked outside the building were on fire, employee’s cars blazing up in the dull starless sky, people who would suffer tonight. The sparks were licking at the old stone, I prayed for a moment that the whole building would go down, until I remembered Elizabeth, and with some shame, the innocents, the humans.

‘You’d better have this,’ Lisa tossed me a wooden stake, I caught it clumsily with the only hand I had to work with.

‘How long have you been carrying these?’ I asked, examining the sharp wood, turning it over in my hands.

‘Since I found out that this kills them,’ she said, her eyes dark. ‘It works too, this is what I hurt Alex with.’ Then she turned to stroll across the burning car park, no sign of fear.

‘Wait!’ I called out, stumbling after her, ‘we’re just going to walk straight in there, no plan?’

‘That is the plan,’ and she just carried on across the car park, teeth gritted.  

I had no choice but to follow her, I also gritted my teeth, adrenaline coursed through me, but it was mostly fear. Fear making my feet heavy and my instinct to run scream at me internally. I had contemplated the idea that I might die tonight, but in an offhand macho way, not seriously. Now I realised that this could be it, and I realised the foolishness of walking into this building filled with vampires, armed only with sticks of wood. I told myself to hold it together, maybe this was the whole point to our journey. Maybe something inside me believed everything so far had led me to this point. I don’t remember what I felt, except afraid.

Lisa shouted to me and pointed out three figures running towards us, one was instantly recognisable as Jacqueline Beauclerc, though she wasn’t her usual perfectly neat self. Her hair was falling haphazardly from her tight bun and her make-up was smudged, her clothes and face were covered with soot. I yelled out and rushed to help her as I saw her dress was on fire.

‘Lisa help me!’ I shouted, I didn’t think Jacqueline was aware that she was on fire, and she was running so fast I could barely catch her, when I did she screeched loudly as I grabbed her dress, holding half in my hand and half with my teeth I ripped, the material tore and I stamped wildly on the flames, Lisa helping.

Jacqueline was eyeing me with hatred. ‘That was vintage Chanel.’ She sneered, the other two workers just carried on running.

‘I was trying to save your life,’ I breathed in disbelief.

‘If you wanted to save our lives,’ she hissed, ‘you never should’ve come here.’ And with that she followed her colleagues.

‘Ungrateful bi-’

Lisa held up a hand to silence me. ‘You understand,’ she said, ‘the fire, it’s so no one can leave. They all have to stay and fight for him or die out here.’

It was a good plan to keep the Vampires from leaving, I had to admit that, a gloomy voice at the back of my head told me that he probably got the idea when I set fire to him. It seemed that me and Lisa had no choice either. She breathed in heavily, and then she flung the doors wide open.

At first all seemed quiet, then a wild-eyed banshee ran screaming towards me. I held the stake up and tried to remember from first aid training where the heart was. It was on the right of the chest, yes? But that’s my left. Too late, the crazed Vampire, kept from live pray for so long, ran right into my stake.

I looked straight into her shocked eyes as I was pinned in position, numb and unable to breathe. The stake going into her iron flesh had felt like a knife sliding into butter, she fell to the floor in one fluid motion. I watched, still pinned to the floor as her skin began to turn grey and flaky, the colours changing before my eyes, the flushed pink dulling instantly.

Flakes of her skin peeled, looking like grey autumn leaves. The colours in her eyes faded until they were milky white with no pupils. Her body shrank, deep lines converging over her once youthful face.

After what seemed like an age I let my hand go limp, then I let my whole body go limp, but that bought me face to face with the grey corpse. I let out a shriek.

‘Pull yourself together,’ Lisa hissed at me, ‘that was only the first.’ She was standing over an equally mutated body, but she was surveying the rest of the area with narrowed eyes and sharp jerky movements.

I nodded and pulled my shaky body from the ground, my brain screaming at my legs to turn and run. My foot pressed against the dead vampire’s leg and it fell apart, it was made from some sort of compressed ashes now. I gulped hard and fought my urge to run with everything I had, my feet were stiff as I moved forwards.

We moved with no incident for a few minutes, it was far too quiet. ‘They must’ve been guards,’ Lisa whispered. Every step made my heart beat a little faster, every corner we turned bought an anticipation of terror. My tongue felt like sandpaper in my mouth, I couldn’t speak if I had wanted to, I just kept relying on Lisa’s cautious movements, my brain too erratic to judge for myself where we might be going or to be ready to fight. I had killed someone, I knew that would take a lifetime to deal with, and my hands kept shaking when I remembered.

Just when I thought that the whole thing had been a trap, and that there was nothing here, we walked into a vision of hell.

This was the main very wide corridor, and all of the doors to the cells were open, every single one. The white walls were stained with dark blood, in some cases from top to bottom. Smeared handprints ran everywhere, even on the ceiling, and fearful screams rang out.

There were body parts, a bloodied arm, half a mangled leg, someone’s head still fixed in a scream. There were grotesque slabs of flesh, things that were once organs, livers with the bile and blood drained. All wrapped in project 45 uniforms so red they might have been strips of skin, some of them probably were.

There were several of those grey vampire corpses through the corridor, though some were just smears of grey ash now. There were far more human bodies though, some looked barely touched, some had their throats or ribcages torn out, some were still bleeding, many were still alive, babbling in French. Some were merely blinking softly, too close to death to speak. We couldn’t save them all.

Lisa, taking command, spoke loudly in French, she was pale as snow, but if she felt as sick as I did, her voice didn’t betray her. People started to limp towards her, some tried to move but couldn’t. She repeated the words again in English. ‘This way is clear, the entrance is unguarded.’ Then the English speaking workers followed, I was surprised at how many of them could still stand. Their injuries looked so severe, a man dragged a broken leg behind him, clutching the thigh, the other hand tried to hold his intestines in this stomach. I swallowed down my vomit, this would be a pretty bad time to lose control, I had to keep myself together.

A vampire rushed at one of the stumbling survivors, but Lisa was almost as quick, her stake was in his back just as his fists missed the woman. But it wasn’t the heart, she pulled the stake out as the vampire turned on her, his foul smelling blood dripping over the already blood sodden floor, Lisa slipped and the Vampire lunged at her, I ran forward to help her, without thinking I plunged my stake next to the ragged hole Lisa had made, and the vampire fell onto her, crumbling into dust.

Lisa coughed heavily, brushing the remains frantically away from her clothes and hair. The people tried to rush towards to exit but there was a panicked built up. ‘ONE AT A TIME!’ Lisa shouted at them, but they were deaf to her command, so desperate to get out. The man with his guts hanging out was lying dead on the ground, his hands still stretched towards the door.

Another vampire rushed at me, this one stopped abruptly, two feet away from me, his eyes were dark, he crouched like an athlete, like a lion about to pounce, I held the stake out and hoped for the best. He struck, quick as a snake, but, like the other, foolish and desperately hungry, he landed on my stake.

Lisa was fighting her own creature, he was so covered in blood he blended with the walls, he was growling barring his teeth as Lisa tried to push him away, but he was too strong and she was exhausted, sweat was beading on her forehead. The vampire’s teeth fixed Lisa’s shoulder. I screamed out her name and rushed to her, my useless arm stuck out awkwardly, I had no other defense apart from surprise, but he had seen me, his teeth stained with Lisa’s blood, a hole in the flesh of her shoulder.

Behind me I heard more growls and inhuman screeching, there were more coming. Lisa screamed along with them as the vampire moved in for another bite, before it crumpled before her, it’s head separated from its body, falling into grey dust. Doctor Stewart loomed over the body, wielding an enormous machete.

He fell to the ground, at first I thought he was shocked, like I had been, but he was bleeding from his neck, at an alarming rate.

‘This way,’ he said feebly, barely audible over the growls and grunts of the creatures. He got to his unsteady feet, one hand trying to stem the flow of blood at his neck and the other offered to Lisa. When he moved, no matter what I thought of him, I followed him blindly, we both did.

Mercifully, he lead us into an empty corridor. There, he slumped down against a wall, Lisa ripped off her trouser leg and tied it tight around her shoulder, wincing as she did.

‘How’s your arm?’ Doctor Stewart asked in his fading voice, he was looking at me. I shrugged, now was hardly the time. Mine was a wound fixed by medical professionals, he was bleeding to death.

‘Thank-you for saving my life,’ Lisa gushed, ‘I’m so grateful I-’

‘No, no,’ he waved her words away, his breathing was hard, every intake of air seemed more difficult to make. ‘I don’t have any time, I’m going to die.’

‘We can get you to a hospital we can-’

‘Stop it,’ he hissed through gritted teeth, ‘I just want you to get anyone you can out of here,’ he stopped to breathe harshly. ‘There are people still dying, I’m just glad I…I…’

‘Please take your time,’ Lisa crouched to him and held the cloth to his neck, it was now completely soaked in blood.

‘I’m glad I won’t be alive to hear them scream anymore.’

Lisa and I exchanged terrified looks, her eyes were wet and her hands were shaking.

‘Elizabeth,’ Doctor Stewart began, my brain snapped awake.

‘Where is she?’ the words crowded each other

‘NO!’ The effort it took him to scream seemed to knock the remaining life from him. ‘No, you don’t understand, she did this to me.’

I put two and two together and came up with five thousand. ‘What did you do to her?’ I growled.

‘Pease,’ Lisa whispered, ‘he saved my life.’

‘Listen,’ Doctor Stewart croaked, ‘I’ve been in love with Elizabeth for thirty years, from the day she arrived here. I was so much younger then, so ready to believe one of them was good and pure. I spilled all my secrets to her, told her things I would never say to anyone. She was everything to me, for so long.’ He paused to take a shuddering breath, ‘I never touched her, I wanted to, oh God I wanted to, but I didn’t.’ Another ragged breath.

‘I let her touch me.’

Lisa put her hand to her mouth. ‘She fed on you?’

‘I loved her,’ he whined, ‘I couldn’t let her live off stale blood bags like everyone else. I wanted to help her, it made me feel good to feed her, special, wanted. In exchange, I spend hours with her, sometimes just looking at her. She couldn’t speak but those eyes, they showed such love, I knew as a young man I would never have a real relationship like this, she was the love of my life. It went on, for three decades it went on, and I hid it from everyone. Then you two came along.

‘I followed you sometimes Lawrence, I saw you watching her, and I saw the way she looked at you, with fresh eyes. It was the way she had looked at me thirty years ago. I was jealous beyond belief, thinking she wanted someone younger, someone new. I was wrong, as I went to her tonight, as this building rang out with dying screams, I needed to look into her eyes and gain strength.

‘I saw there such hatred. I had never seen anything like it on any face, I saw thirty years of anger and revulsion stretched across those features I loved so much. She wanted me dead, and she would have killed me, she would’ve sucked me dry but I injured her and I ran away. The anger Lawrence, the hatred, she’s… she’s evil.’ He stopped, his breathing fading.

‘Maybe she-’

‘NO!’ The shout was less impressive than last time. ‘I found out something about Elizabeth, she’s over four hundred years old. History is littered with stories of her wrongdoings, men convicted of things they had no choice over. I was too in love with her to look into her story, I was so trusting of her, because of the way she looked at me. She’s made men kill Lawrence, she’s made chaos, she-’

He stopped breathing. ‘Doctor!’ Lisa wailed.

With his eyes closed he whispered his last words. ‘I lied to you, Teresa, she’s Elizabeth’s sister. She’s real.’

‘What!’ I shook his blooded collar, ‘Doctor Stewart!’

‘Caleb, my name is Caleb.’