Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Seven

When I woke up and saw the sterile white I groaned. Elizabeth, the name popped into my head with fury, I knew I was weakened with painkillers and I could only connect the name to something terrible, I just couldn’t remember what. I was scared, and I had never wished more that I was somewhere else, even when I was being chased in Norway, even when project 45 found us in Cuba. I wished, not for the first time, that I had never heard about any of this, that I was still safe believing vampires were fantasy.

As my groggy eyes opened further I saw the room wasn’t so white, it was a pale blue. Elizabeth’s eyes. I had that awful cramping feeling of regret that that comes with a hangover, I only knew what I had done was bad, I didn’t know how bad. I looked to the right, there was a hospital machine beeping, and a window, a big double window that let in a soft glowing sunlight.

I knew then, in the most beautiful sweep of relief, that I wasn’t in Project 45, I was in a hospital. A real, human hospital, my heart leapt. I wanted to touch that beautiful sunlight, but my left arm was numb, it wouldn’t move. Details flashed in blurred slow motion. She broke my arm, I saw the bone sticking out through the skin, surrounded by dark blood.

Blood. She could’ve killed me but she didn’t, she only stopped me. Then I remembered what I had done and I sat up so quickly that my head span at what felt like a hundred miles a second. I grabbed hold of the bed rails and vomited onto the floor.

When I had recovered I looked up and now, finally focused, with the weight of everything sliding into place, I saw a furious Lisa with her finger resting on the help button. Her face bought a whole new shame to me and I felt like retching again. All her warnings and hints rushed over me, my head felt ready to burst through my skull.

‘I hope you’re proud of yourself.’ She hissed, though she did seem a little relieved to see me awake.

‘Can you help me sit up?’ My voice felt heavy and disused.

She sighed, and moving cautiously around the sick she helped me into a sitting position, it might have been my imagination, but she seemed to flinch at my touch, as if I were unclean. She was also avoiding my eyes. After a few moments of slow breathing I felt almost normal again, just a little spaced out and still confused. My left forearm was encased in a rigid white cast. I carried on breathing slowly, staring at it and trying to put the pieces together.

‘Mark died,’ Lisa said simply. ‘He escaped.’

I bought several disconnected thoughts together, ‘that’s good.’ I smiled, relaxed with painkillers, I realised it was a good thing that Mark was gone.

‘It is?’ Lisa raised an eyebrow. ‘Doctor Stewart thinks you convinced him to kill himself somehow.’ I said nothing, I definitely didn’t remember persuading him otherwise. ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Lisa went on, ‘we’re both banned from Project 45 forever, the Doctor is trying to find something in your past which will incriminate you. He’s thinking the break in to the school in Glasgow, if he can prove it, he’ll try and make you out to be some kind of kiddy-fiddler.’

I knew it was going to take a while for me to process everything I had just heard, I wanted to speak, but a muffled yelp just came out, there were so many details I couldn’t figure out.

‘I’ve never seen anyone so upset,’ Lisa said, she avoided my eyes, nervously biting her lip. ‘It was like she had died, he just kept crying and clutching her against him, calling her an angel. “My Angel, my Angel,” he just kept saying over and over.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I managed to squeeze out of my dry lips.

‘I followed you,’ Lisa whispered, her eyes looked wet and she still couldn’t look at me. ‘I knew you wouldn’t listen to me so I followed you, and I saw…’ she trailed off.

‘Lisa please,’ I felt bile rise up in my throat. ‘I wasn’t me.’

‘I know,’ she said, a single tear fell from her eye and she wiped it away. ‘But I tried to warn you, again and again, I told you what happened to me, I’ve never told anyone, but I thought it would help you. I should’ve watched you more closely, I let her turn you into this, this monster.’

The word hit me hard. ‘But Lisa listen to me,’ I tried, ‘she could’ve easily killed me, but she didn’t. She let me live, that proves she still cares about me I-’

‘No,’ Lisa whispered, ‘this is over.’ And she left the room, left me with the smell of vomit creeping towards my nostrils.

* * *

I don’t know if they induced my sleep or if I just fell back into it, but I don’t remember much after I saw a blank faced nurse enter the room. When I woke the smell of vomit was gone and the room was immaculate again, it could’ve been hours later, or weeks later. It was dark outside though now, so I guessed it was the same day, though my body felt so stiff, still full of foreign chemicals, and that horrible guilt that returned to me with my other senses.

A gap in the curtains betrayed the harsh yellow of streetlamps, and the hospital was quiet, the interrupting French voices strangely comforting. I was glad to be here, the machines bleeped dully and my head felt heavy on the pillows. I was not ready to deal with what I had done yet, I was happy to relax in denial.

One thing was certain, that I missed her, that I still saw a way out of this. I couldn’t go back to Project 45, Doctor Stewart would make sure of that, but there had to be a way I could see her again. I couldn’t leave things like this with Elizabeth, my guilt and shame started to burn within me again.

There was a note on the small bedside table, I recognised the neat handwriting. ‘I’ve booked a hotel,’ it said, followed by an address and phone number. Then there were a couple of scribbled out lines underneath that, before she went on. ‘I know none of this is your fault, it’s just hard to be around you. I need to deal with what happened.’ Then another phone number. ‘You might need this for legal advice, Lisa.’

I stared at her words for what felt like an hour. I mashed my eyes with my palms, groaning. How did I mess up so badly? Of all  the terrible things I had seen, I never thought I would be the cause of one. I had noticed that she didn’t look me in the eye, and she couldn’t be around me because I disgusted her, what I had done disgusted me too. I felt myself crying hopeless tears, vaguely aware of them, no apology would be enough now. Elizabeth was lost to me, and the tears fell thicker.

I felt dirty and contaminated, I wouldn’t know myself now, if I was seeing this situation from the past. I tried to recall how I had felt in those moments, but nothing came except a lust filled haze. I couldn’t remember anything past that because my thoughts became clogged with guilt. It didn’t matter how guilty I felt though, I couldn’t help myself picturing her again, the thin dress and her smooth skin. I couldn’t help picturing her helpless, her skin so soft I felt my hand would fall right through it.

I was still trying to make sense of everything as the taxi rolled away from the hospital. We meandered through a small town lit brightly, with people rushing to get home and shops closing up. I let my thoughts drift, watching the human lives, wishing I was still a part of normality.

One thing was certain through all this, Elizabeth could’ve killed me, and she didn’t. Elizabeth had superhuman strength, like them all. Mark had looked like a gust of wind might kill him, but when I ran into him he was solid as a brick wall. Elizabeth was a slight girl, but she had broken my arm with her bare hands. She was also a vampire, living off blood bags, in need of human prey. The fact that she spared me had to mean something, it had to mean that she wanted me alive.

The hotel was very basic, utilitarian and strangely cold. There were no personal touches or design features. Everything looked like it came from a kit, shipped out from a factory brick by brick. It was the sort of place lonely businessmen are forced to circulate in. You could almost hear the walls sighing with repressed frustration.   

My room was no different, white sheets, flat screen TV, basic tea and coffee making equipment, complete with the sad little kettle, stained with lime scale. As I moved around the room, I noticed there was an adjoining door into the next room, this must be Lisa’s room. This gave me instant relief, and then took it away as I realised this meant she didn’t mind being near me, just in the same room as me. I remembered again how she avoided looking directly in my eyes.

She might have been in there right now, I wished I could open the door, but she had made her feelings towards me clear. I couldn’t blame her, that guilt was burning a hole in me. A clear tiredness came over me as I sat on the bed, a healthy exhaustion. Beyond this small town, the outside world was fields and farms, not another set of bright lights for miles.

Getting into pyjamas with one hand was too difficult so I ended up falling into bed naked, trying to cleanse myself with yet more sleep, more blissful hours of oblivion.

Elizabeth was transported to this drab hotel room, her beauty such a contrast to the harsh normality. I had often wondered what she would look like naked, imagined in acute detail. Finally there she was there, in all her natural splendour. She was more radiant than I had imagined, her small perfect breasts ending in sweet points, a small waist and expanses of that smooth feather soft skin.

She moved on top of me, creating a perfect rhythm, with my hands on her waist and her thrusting me in deeper with the movements of her writhing hips, it was hard to hold on. Her full lips were slightly parted in a small ‘o’ and her blue gaze was locked onto mine as we moved together, those hypnotic eyes half opened in silent ecstasy.

I came inside her as I fell hard on the carpet. I landed on the cast as the jolt of pain bought me crashing back into the real world. I screamed in sleep before I woke. My arm still twitching with pain, I lay breathing harshly in the darkness, entangled in the sticky sheets. I almost laughed, the first time I’ve had a wet dream in about fifteen years. Well, if I was now a sex offender, might as well get it right. I tried to shake the image of naked Elizabeth from my head, but she wouldn’t go. I tried to drown her in shame and embarrassment but she wouldn’t go away.

Scowling, I kicked the sheets away from me and clambered to my feet. Looking for a bathroom I noticed the door to Lisa’s room was opened. Horrified, I tried to cover myself, but something was wrong, the room was silent. There was also a chill coming from there, Lisa wasn’t back yet. I fought with the pyjamas for several minutes before entering the room.

Yes, this was definitely Lisa’s room. I recognised her smell, her beauty products, the bed had been slept in and unmade.  The window was wide open, the curtains billowing around it. Where was she? As if to answer my question, I saw a letter in the mess of Lisa’s unmade sheets. My heart began to beat faster, this was a messy childish hand, not Lisa’s.

‘I have your friend.’ It was hard to decipher, so I watched the letters as if they might change. ‘Now I give you a choice, I always wanted to play the villain. If you want, you can come and rescue her, at the bottom of this letter I’ve told you exactly where she is, no tricks. If you want to be a hero and prove your worth, come and fight me single handed (pun intended).  The other problem is Elizabeth, I know things about your friend Doctor Stewart, things that would make you sick. I know what he’s doing to your sweet virgin right now, punishing her for what you did. You can’t save both of them. Alex.’

I crumpled up the letter in my hands. Either way I was dead, it was a question of who I would die trying to save.