Tears of No Return

by David Bernstein

  She arrived at a branch of Corhoven Financial. It was larger than the one she had been in earlier. She hadn’t planned on going inside the actual bank, but realized the ATM would only give her a maximum of five-hundred dollars per day. A larger sum would be needed. She would have to go in. The rainy day she’d saved for was upon her.

  After writing herself a check for five-thousand dollars, Karen waited for the long lunch crowd line to advance. Five grand seemed like a small enough amount not to draw attention to herself. She’d withdraw another five in a week or so.

  As the line ahead of her dwindled, the feeling of confinement grew. Her palms were clammy, her face felt flushed, and her legs threatened to give out on her. She hated being stuck in a building with so many people and only one clear exit. She should have felt safe but didn’t. It was the anxiety grabbing hold. Thoughts of her losing control were quieted as she reminded herself that she was all right, that nothing was physically wrong and she needed to stay focused.

  Karen kept her head down, using her long auburn hair to cover her face. At the same time, she kept an eye out, staring through her strands as people marched in and out of the bank. After what seemed like an eternity, she reached the front of the line.

  She heard a dinging sound and saw a white light flashing at the far end of the counter, indicating that that teller was available.

  “Hi,” Karen said, approaching the window. “I’d like to make a withdrawal.” She slid the check under the glass divider. The bank teller—Annie, according to her name plaque—took it and smiled.

  “Could I see some I.D., please?” Annie asked.

  Karen had completely forgotten it was standard procedure and produced her license.

  “Thank you,” the teller said and glanced at the I.D.

  The woman began typing on her keyboard. Karen held onto the counter, growing anxious. The teller’s brow furrowed, a look of confusion on her face. Damn, something was amiss. Unable to remain still, she began tapping her foot.

  “Is something wrong?” Karen asked.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but it appears your account has been frozen.”

  Chapter 4

  Morgan came to as the sun brightened the sky. A building at the alley’s entrance blocked the sun’s rays from reaching his skin, but the reprieve was temporary and would last only for a few more minutes. Mere feet above him, the wall blazed; the aged brick preparing for another day of harsh and deteriorating ultraviolet light.

  He was still too weak to move, pinned to the wall like an insect on display in a zoology lab. Blood, almost black cherry in color, left trails from his wounds and pooled at his feet.

  Morgan craned his neck, bringing his chin forward and head up, to embrace the sunshine as it fell upon him. The first rays blasted into him. The pain was exquisite. Shutting his eyes, he began laughing like a man gone insane with happiness. His body hummed with energy. The sun’s brilliance filled him with strength and began to heal his wounds, the visible and those deep beneath the surface, lost to the eye but not the heart.

  With each passing second, the sun’s direct light crept farther over his flesh until his entire body was entrenched in brilliant light, supplying him the vigor to free himself.

  Morgan bit down, facial muscles twisted into a grimace, preparing himself for the pain to come. Reaching up with both arms, he gripped the lances. Slow and agonizing, he began to pull himself along the poles. What remained of the liquid garlic deepened the burning he felt in his shoulders, as if mini blowtorches were scorching his flesh.

  A foot away from the wall, he began jumping up and down, the brick crumbling as the lances loosened. He kept at it until the poles no longer felt cemented in place. Piles of red rubble and dust formed over his spilled blood. Bending his knees, Morgan trudged forward, like an ox pulling an overloaded cart. The poles held for another moment then gave way to a screeching sound as they came free from the wall.

  Morgan pulled out the lance impaling him on the right side first and dropped it before yanking out the left. He threw the second pole with a grunt of disgust, its metallic clang echoing dully off the alley walls. Standing, relaxing, he allowed the sunshine to rejuvenate his body.

  Within minutes, the holes in his pectoral area healed, but the loss of blood from all that he had endured left him weak. The sun could only do so much. He needed blood. Vampire blood.

  Morgan walked out of the alley starving, aware of how lucky he was to still be alive. The hunters could’ve finished him. They were getting better, but not good enough to know he had been at that bar. Only one other individual had known he’d be there. Now he would need to lay low for a while. Take a vacation. Maybe begin again and search for the truth behind who he really was. He had put things off for too long, becoming content and living the life laid out before him. This was the wakeup call he needed.

  He walked out of the alley, hoping Ben and his sons thought him dead. If that was the case, Morgan wouldn’t have to worry about them, at least for a while. He didn’t want to kill the hunters—they were just doing what he did—but if cornered again, he might be driven to spill their blood.

  Morgan patted his pockets for his cell. He’d lost it back at the bar. He thought about calling a cab, but decided against it. His clothes were drenched in blood. He removed his shirt, rung out any excess fluid, then wiped his chest, face and arms clean. On the long walk home, he pondered his identity and all that had come before this morning.

  Morgan still wasn’t used to watching the sun rise. The Murphy Group’s experiments had changed him, but the vampire within, or what was left of the vampire, was still hesitant about welcoming the dawn. He never knew how long the change would last or if it was a permanent fixture. Would he one day wake up, allow the sun’s rays to touch his flesh, only to go up in flames? The Murphy Group, as horrible an organization as they were, had changed him for the better. It was their only redeeming quality.

  He’d spent years wondering what had been done to him. Not the process, for that he would surely never forget, but the change inside. Was it something spiritual, did he have his true soul back, or was it simply biological? What had the priest, the holy man, done to him? And why was he still holding onto a vampire’s fears? Was the vampire still at the core of him, only covered up temporarily, or was he truly and forever changed? He’d grown weary of trying to find out. He hated the Murphy Group, but at the same time was thankful they had come into his life.

  The Murphy Group had held Morgan captive for five years. From 1979 until 1984, he had suffered some fifty surgeries, the full nature of which he did not know. They tested his skin for reactions to various stimuli, an allergy to UV light the most common. He’d spent day after day getting scorched and singed, never being informed as to why, leaving him to believe it was simply torture for who and what he was. The days and nights were agony, and he wished he’d die during every one of them, until the day the UV light failed to burn him. He remembered the reactions of the scientists. They were overjoyed, as if discovering the cure for some deadly disease. Morgan was treated as a lab animal and told nothing. Each day thereafter, he was exposed to direct sunlight, with no damaging effects.

  A week later, a priest visited him. The holy man touched a blessed crucifix to Morgan’s head, singeing the undead flesh. Next the man poured holy water over Morgan’s face, practically removing everything but bone and teeth. Morgan had begged to be killed, swore that Hell would be a happier place, but the priest ignored him.

  The priest arranged a crucifix, a shiny red round stone, and two vials of blood—one human, the other vampiric blood—upon a small table. The crucifix was placed on Morgan’s bare chest with the red stone on top of it. His skin smoldered, hissing, as tendrils of white smoke rose into the air. The items slowly sank into his flesh.

  The pain was immense, but Morgan was thankful to be leaving this world, thinking maybe the priest was trying to save his soul. But then the holy man poured the vial of human blood into Morgan’s mouth. The taste was welcom
ing, bringing bliss to his undead flesh, but like a relapsing addict, Morgan knew he would have been better off without it.

  “To keep your strength up, my friend,” the priest said, before continuing the ritual.

  “Why are you doing this?” Morgan muttered as the crucifix melted deeper into his chest, killing him, while the human blood supplied him with life. The priest only waved a hand indicating that he needed to be silent.

  The holy man began chanting, and Morgan felt as if every cell in his body was aflame. He tried to writhe about, but the restraints held him still. He watched as the priest took an ancient-looking jeweled dagger from his robes. The weapon had a strange insignia at the end of its hilt: a shining sun surrounded on one side by a crescent moon. The holy man held the dagger high before plunging it into Morgan’s chest, avoiding the stone and cross. Morgan bellowed in pain as the priest withdrew the weapon. The holy man moved the crucifix upward, leaving the stone in the center of Morgan’s chest, then sank rib spreaders into Morgan’s sternum. He cranked the steel device, and the apparatus began opening. A horrific crunching sound filled Morgan’s ears. His chest had become a raw gaping hole surrounded by bone and exposed flesh, revealing an undead beating heart in its pit.

  The priest, using the dagger, sliced deep gashes into Morgan’s wrists and inner thighs. Morgan began to feel the life drain out of him.

  Left to empty itself out, Morgan’s body was on the brink of death with only seconds to spare. The priest opened the vial of vampire blood and thrust it into Morgan’s heart, which he could hear burst upon the impact. The priest chanted louder as the ceiling to the room began opening. The screeching of metal sounded above Morgan’s pleas and the priest’s chanting. The day was bright as the sun shown down. The red stone began to crumble, absorbing into Morgan’s heart, becoming one with him as the priest ended his incantation. The burning in Morgan’s chest, where the cross was eating its way through, ceased, the pain no more.

  “Time to heal,” the priest said. “Drink this.”

  He poured vial after vial of vampire blood into Morgan’s mouth. It wasn’t delicious like the human blood, but he gained strength from the stale, foul nectar. Morgan looked down and saw his chest reforming and soon every wound was healed.

  “What have you done to me?” he asked.

  “Removed the evil,” the priest said before picking up his crucifix. He gathered his items and left the room.

  Morgan was taken to his cell, told nothing, but feeling much different. He no longer craved human blood; and he felt warm, like he did when he was human, at least that he could remember. A week later an elderly scientist, a man Morgan had only seen a few times before, came to visit him. He looked to be in his sixties, had thinning gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard.

  “Morgan,” he began, “I need to tell you a few things. A lot of people around here still think of you as a monster, a bloodsucking demon from the depths of Hell, but you’re not that anymore.” He noticed how calm the man seemed, sitting next to him without restraints. It was also the first time since becoming a vampire that Morgan smelled a human’s natural scent and not the blood flowing through the veins.

  The man went on to explain that the organization in which he worked for, The Murphy Group, had cured Morgan of vampirism, and had saved his soul.

  Morgan would now be indebted to them, taking on a new role in which he must obey. He would no longer fear the sun, the fiery mass now his ally. And he would no longer need to feed upon human blood, nor animal.

  “Do you feel hungry now?” the man asked.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Drink this.” The scientist held a cup filled with what smelled like vampire blood.

  “I want it, but I’m not sure why,” Morgan said.

  The man laughed. “You’re like a child now, aren’t you? This is what you’ll need in order to live. I’m sure you already know what it is.”

  Morgan drank the blood like a thirsty human coming out of a sweltering desert. Taking a moment, he considered what he’d ingested. “What have you done to me?” he asked, dropping the ceramic cup where it shattered on the floor. An armed guard ran into the room, but the scientist ushered the soldier away, telling him that everything was okay.

  “You’ll have to feed at least once a week; more if you’re injured, like say, during combat.”

  “Combat?”

  “You’ll be working for us now,” the man said, sternly. “I’ve already explained that. I know this will take some getting used to, but we need you to learn fast.” His face becoming softer with a gentle smile, the man gave Morgan a friendly and reassuring pat on the back.

  “Why didn’t you just make me human?”

  “I’m not sure about all the details or if it was even possible, but we succeeded in what our goal was. We’ve been searching for a way to control the vampire population for some time. We’ve accomplished that with you and now we have a vehicle on our side.” The man seemed so proud of himself and of Morgan, as if Morgan were his child. Or a pet.

  “And if I don’t want any part of this?” Morgan asked.

  The man’s face grew taut. “Listen here,” he said and motioned for Morgan to come nearer. “If you so much as blink wrong they’ll put you back in your cell and let you rot, literally.” The man winked. “You catch my drift?”

  Morgan glanced around. “What do I have to do?” he asked sourly.

  “Cheer up,” the man said and punched Morgan in his arm. “We’re the good guys, remember. I’d think someone who was in your situation would be grateful for an opportunity such as this.”

  “You’re right, I guess,” Morgan said, trying to sound somewhat cheerful.

  “We’re releasing you tomorrow and if you don’t feed you’ll die. See how they assure your cooperation?” The man chuckled, the sound sharp on Morgan’s ear. “The Murphy Group has all avenues under control, always remember that. We’ll be monitoring you with a tracking device. It was placed in your bones when you arrived, a precautionary measure of course.”

  “As a vampire I had no guilt about what I did. I’m going to have to face my sins one way or the other. I’m indebted to you and I’ll kill as many of my kind…former kind, as I can.”

  “This is a chance to redeem yourself. Don’t screw it up. You’ll be helping to fight a greater cause.” The scientist sprang up and out of his seat. “It was great to meet you, I mean the real you. I never liked that nasty vampire in you one bit.” He giggled again. The man’s demeanor was catchy and Morgan felt himself wanting to laugh in response. The man headed towards the cell’s door.

  “Hey,” Morgan called. “What’s your name?”

  “Doctor George Rivera, right here on my nametag.” He pointed at his chest. “We’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

  ***

  Through the coming weeks and into the following years, George Rivera and Morgan became more than just handler and soldier; they were family.

  George was Morgan’s sole contact and the only person he reported to; visiting The Murphy Group lab only for routine checkups. They met once a week when Morgan was within reasonable distance while working, and once a month when he was on a long distance assignment. He was never without contact for long.

  During Morgan’s down time or while waiting for the next assignment, he would stay at George’s home. The two friends—for that’s what their relationship grew into—talked about assignments, but more often Morgan would share his many confrontations with everyday people, vampires, witches, and monsters, giving George no need to visit the local movie theater. One day on a routine check-in with his handler, the doc had good news.

  “I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I’ve been working on a permanent cure for you.” George said between sips of tea.

  “Are you serious?” Morgan asked, practically jumping out of his seat.

  “Relax. I’ve had some breakthroughs and feel I’m getting close. I’ve been trying to contact the priest who changed you, but haven’t been able t
o yet. He comes from a small order based in the Himalayan Mountains, but he himself lives and practices in the United States now. In the meantime, I’ve been going over the results of your first encounter with him. Until I have more news you needn’t mention any of this to anyone.”

  George’s cuckoo clock chimed twelve times. It was late.

  “What changed everyone’s mind at the lab?” Morgan asked.

  George leaned forward, looking concerned. “No one knows what I’m working on. I set up a private research lab in my basement.”

  “Really?” Morgan wanted to see it.

  “Don’t even think about it.” George pointed a finger sternly in Morgan’s direction. “No one can find out. I’m not so sure they’re keen on finding a cure with all the efficient work you do.”

  Morgan’s excitement waned. “You can’t do this. If they find out you’ll be locked up and I’ll never see you again. As much as I appreciate what you’re doing, I want you to stop.”

  “I’ve taken extreme care in sneaking out my materials. If anyone ever catches on, or if I’m in danger, we’ll disappear together and leave all this behind. I was, after all, a military man once upon a time.”

  The next week George failed to show up for a scheduled rendezvous.

  Morgan went to George’s house where he found his friend dead—shot once in his head—beside the body of his wife, who had been murdered in a similar style. They were tied up and clearly tortured, the scene made to appear like a robbery.

  Morgan could smell the men who did it and tracked them to a nearby motel. They were professional hitmen, former spooks, hired by The Murphy Group to do the job. He killed them both after getting them to talk, making sure the messy scene looked like no accident. He needed to send a message to those higher up.

  Ready to explode, seeing only red, Morgan waited until early afternoon, when the sun was at its strongest, and went to the Murphy Complex. He burst through the doors and killed all in his path. Claws raked against the soft flesh of mortals. His fangs tasted human blood. Heads were torn from bodies mid scream. During his rampage, Morgan smashed computers, shredded printed data and files. In the labs he shattered reagents, ruined studies and tests, making sure to destroy all material relevant to himself. He spared no one, killing scientists and guards—except his most desired target, Commander Keegan. The bastard was nowhere to be found. Using Molotov cocktails and a few propane tanks, Morgan torched the building and watched it crumble to the ground, hoping Keegan was somewhere hiding inside, trapped and dying. And in a great deal of pain.