Blood Cell

by Shaun Tennant

  She looked out across the mess hall, viewing it from this corridor was an angle she’d never seen. The room seemed surprisingly small now, after seeming so huge during the riot. She would have expected to feel the opposite—empty a room of the men and the tables and it’ll seem bigger—but it just wasn’t. Everything was smaller now, like the walls were closing in. She’d gotten out of that tiny cell in solitary, but now she was realizing that the entire pod was just a slightly larger cage.

  Williams and Thomas started to work on the cables. They were all solid, it seemed. No knots or fasteners anywhere. Williams looked deeper into the stacks of tables.

  “Must be tied deeper in. Someone’s gonna have to climb in there.”

  Sally didn’t respond.

  “Somebody small.”

  Sally still pretended not to understand Williams’ hint. Williams turned around to face her, and silently rested a hand on her shoulder.

  They didn’t to say anything. She gave reassuring nods to both Williams and Thomas, and climbed into the stack of tables. She had to work her way through the gaps between the tabletops and table legs, and wondered how any of the inmates could have squeezed into such a tight space. After a few minutes of feeling in the darkness, she found a knot in the steel cable. It was tight, and she was blind in the darkness. She tried to pry the strands apart.

  There was a loud bang from somewhere in the mess hall. Sally froze. Thomas took a deep breath and held it.

  There was another bang. Like a gunshot.

  Voices talking. She couldn’t put names on the voices, but she recognized them. Gangbangers arguing. These impulsive, immature idiots were still settling scores in the face of certain death.

  Williams guided Thomas to crouch down in the darkness of the corridor, out of sight. There was a third gunshot. Someone shouting.

  Then quiet.

  Sally didn’t know why, but during that pause in the noise, the hair on the back of her neck stood up.

  “Can you find the knot?” Williams whispered.

  Sally raised a finger to her lips, then realized that it was too dark for Williams to see, so she shushed him. “It’s close.”

  Someone screamed across the mess hall. No, not a person. An animal screamed. It was an inhuman sound, but clearly one of pain. It sounded like the time Sally’s childhood dog Buttons had broken his leg. Sally listened to a struggle, and another primal scream of pain. Whatever this thing really was, it was taking a beating. There were more sounds, someone fighting against this thing, and then silence returned.

  Silence is a strange thing in such a large place. When the last sound finishes echoing, you can actually hear the silence smother the noise; the acoustic equivalent of throwing a blanket over a fire.

  They waited for what felt like an hour, but was probably ten minutes. Sally started to untie the knot again. She was careful, but every now and then the wire would rub on the steel tables and make the quietest screeching sound. Just loud enough to hear. Too loud. She was starting to sweat.

  Williams whistled to her quietly. “Be still.”

  Sally did her best not to breathe. She could see very little from her position lying inside the barricade. She could see the emergency light halfway down the hallway, and light coming in from the mess hall.

  Into this light rose Thomas, getting to his feet. He was shaking, but clenching his fists.

  At the edges of the pale yellow light, the darkness swelled. The darkness shifted and coalesced like gossamer fabric caught in a breeze. The vampire didn’t jump out of the dark so much as the dark became the vampire. And then it was there, darkness made solid, blocking the light. Sally could see only a silhouette, but it was enough. It was real. There was a monster out there and she was trapped inside this dead-end crawlspace with no way out. Unless Thomas Turner, a convicted felon she had first spoken to a few hours earlier, could protect her.

  Thomas started throwing haymakers at the vampire. He hit it. That thing was stronger than the average man, but so was Thomas. When he struck the vampire’s chest, the creature was knocked back against the wall. Williams jumped up now, brandishing his broomstick stake. He dove stake-first toward the monster. He disappeared momentarily from Sally’s view. And then with a scream, Williams flew backward across the hallway, striking the far wall with his back. A moment later, Thomas slid back into the centre of hallway, falling to one knee.

  The vampire stepped back into the light, blocking Sally’s view. She saw the silhouette tilt its head in her direction as it spoke. “I can smell you, woman. And I want dessert.”

  Thomas jumped on the vampire’s back, his arms around the creature’s throat. It might have been a choke hold, but Sally didn’t think vampires could breathe. As he did, Williams crawled around to find his stake, and stood up again to try and finish off the creature.

  “Sally!” Williams called, “Get out of there. We gotta run!”

  *****

  At the end of the cellblock, Josh, Norris, and Carlos found the entrance to ad seg. The gates were different from when Josh was last here. When he had gone through before, both gates were close, but now the inner gate was open.

  “Someone went in,” he told Norris. “When I left, the doors were both closed.”

  Norris looked at Carlos with spite. “I’d open the gate,” he said, “if I still had my keys.”

  Carlos smirked at him, and pulled a key ring from his pocket. He handed the keys to Norris. “Spoils of war. You want to hold onto something, don’t lose the fight,” he said.

  Norris snatched the keys from Carlos and started to dig through them for the right one.

  Josh checked over his shoulder, ever watchful.

  “Oh. Shit.”

  Norris and Carlos turned around to face the worst-case scenario. There were a couple dozen people gathering behind them. They were inmates, or at least they were before they died. Their eyes glowed silver and they moved slowly. Each of them sported a bloody wound that had stained their uniform—mostly these were bites to the neck, but arms, stomachs, and in a few cases legs were also bloody. The inmates cracked their knuckles and their necks, they shook off stiffness and pain, flexing their arms, rolling their shoulders, and stretching their backs.

  Rigor mortis. Walk it off.

  Carlos held up his cross. Josh raised the heavy cross and his stake, the two of them taking up positions to block Norris, who was still fumbling for the right key.

  “You might want to find the key, like you know, now.”

  Norris went back to work. The vampires gathered in a semi-circle, staying cautiously away from Carlos’s cross. At this distance, Carlos could recognize several former friends and enemies.

  One of the vampires was Charlie, Carlos’s oldest friend. He was bolder than the rest.

  “Come on Carlos,” he said, “Put that thing down. You could be like us. Eighteenth for life. Now it’s Eighteenth forever.”

  Charlie took a step in from the semi-circle, toward Carlos. Carlos turned the cross toward his old friend. Charlie hissed, and revealed his fangs.

  “Kill it,” Carlos said. Josh squeezed his stake tighter. “Kill it!”

  Josh dropped the cross to free up his left hand, grabbed Charlie by the shirt and slammed him against the bars of the gate. He raised the stake over his shoulder and jabbed it into the vampire’s chest, penetrating through the ribs and into the heart. It seemed easier than Josh thought. Like the vampire’s chest was soft, his ribs brittle. Charlie went limp against the bars of the gate.

  Charlie’s skin turned a pale grey, the same colour as his eyes. Then he dried up, clothes and all, becoming flaky like burnt newspaper. And all at once, Charlie collapsed through the bars, hitting the floor on the other side as a pile of ash. He was gone. All that remained was the wooden stake that Josh still held in the place where Charlie’s heart had been.

  The other vampires gasped at the sight. Josh couldn’t believe he’d had the nerve to do it, or that it had been so easy. He’d just killed a vampire. He turned b
ack to face the rest. And it occurred to Josh that these newborn vampires had no idea of their own strength or lack thereof. All they knew now was that they could be killed easily. They might have had the numbers, the rage, the supernatural powers, and the inhuman strength, but Josh Farewell had the power of persuasion on his side. And that was all he had ever needed.

  “Anyone else want to fuck with me?” he challenged them.

  Several vampires, only steps away, growled at him. But none came.

  “Stake went into your boy like butter. I bet the same thing happens if you touch the cross. Want to try it?”

  The vampires snarled at him, but a few of them actually took steps back.

  Norris found the right key, and slid the door to the side. “Got it!”

  Norris went into the antechamber, followed by Josh. Carlos kept the vampires at bay with his cross, and backed through the gate. Norris shoved the sliding gate shut again.

  “Sorry, said Carlos to the crowd of vampires. “Not invited.”

  They went through the second door and shut it too, just to be sure. Norris double-checked the lock while Josh went to Sally’s cell.

  “Sally’s right over—Jesus, no...” Josh said.

  Norris turned from the gate to see what had taken Farewell’s attention. It was obvious. Two of the cells had been torn open. It was like someone had peeled the steel doors away with a giant can opener.

  “She was...?” Norris started.

  “In that one.” Josh pointed. Thomas Turner was the other.”

  “Jesus,” Carlos said, approaching the ruined cells. “If it can do this, and take out Terminal Tom, I don’t think we should be fucking with it.”

  “I was supposed to find her,” Norris said. “It was up to me.” He took a second to wander into Sally’s cell. There was no trace of her. No blood. “I can’t believe... I failed.” He wiped his eyes before turning back to the doorway. “What now?”

  “Well,” Josh said, looking back at the cellblock that they had just escaped from. “We can’t go that way.”

  Norris nodded. “Secure corridor. Try the exit by the mess hall.”

  “No way,” said Carlos. “That’s the best barricade in the place. We’ll never get out through there. Better off trying the upstairs. The room on the balcony over the mess hall.”

  When he mentioned the balcony room, he looked at Josh.

  “Still gotta start by going that way,” Norris said.

  They headed out of the ad seg once again, this time heading down the corridor. As they walked, Carlos came shoulder-to-shoulder with Josh.

  “I get why you did it,” Carlos said to Josh.

  “Did what?”

  “Delman.”

  Josh stopped walking. “Look, I—“

  “You knew what he was, what he was in for. You saw him going after Norris’ girlfriend and you had to do something. I get it.”

  They tapped knuckles, since they couldn’t shake hands while holding the crosses, and kept walking.

  In the darkness ahead, there was a sound like a fight.

  “Santos!” Carlos called out.

  “Sally!” cried Norris.

  The trio ran toward the sound. Under yellow emergency light in the sparse cement corridor, they saw figures running toward them.

  “John!” it was Sally’s voice.

  They met under the yellow light. Norris, Josh, and Carlos; Sally and Matt Williams. Behind them, Thomas Turner was running from the dark figure. Sally didn’t embrace Norris when they met, or even speak to him. She grabbed the stake from his hand and turned back toward the darkness from which she had come.

  Twenty feet away, barely visible, Thomas Turner was slamming the vampire against the wall. He had it pinned against the concrete, overpowering it. And then the vampire fell apart, and the pieces that dropped off never hit the ground. It turned into a cloud of bats, passing around Thomas to his back, then coalescing back into a human form. The vampire punched Thomas in the back before he had a chance to turn. Even down the hallway, everyone could hear his bones break.

  “We have to help him,” Sally said. She ran back toward the vampire. The men followed, stakes and crosses raised. They closed the distance quickly, but not quickly enough. They got close enough that Josh could see the scars where Carlos had burned the vampire’s face. When Sally was about ten feet away, her stake raised to stab, the vampire grabbed his victim’s head in its hands, and calmly broke Thomas’s neck. He slumped along the wall, until he sprawled on the floor.

  The vampire smiled at Sally. “I’ll see you soon, girl.”

  She spat at him.

  The vampire never wavered in its artificial, carnivorous smile. “The rest will die like they deserve, but you, my dear, will be mine forever.”

  Josh stepped in front of Sally, raising both his weapons. “Like hell!” he said.

  A moment later, Norris stepped up too. The vampire chuckled, faded into a mist, and drifted backward away from them.

  Five people. Three stakes. Two crosses. One hallway.

  Carlos held up his cross. “Care for round two, chickenshit? Or you scared of what else I’ll do to your face?”

  The darkness seethed at them, and the very moisture in the air seemed to suck away, into the darkness, where it made a sound like wet fabric.

  A moment later, a swarm of bats rushed past them, over their heads, rushing towards ad seg, and disappearing into the dark.

  The five of them caught their breath. Carlos walked between Sally and Williams, touching the cross to their bare skin. They looked at him quizzically, but let him do it. The cross had no effect on them, and Carlos was satisfied.

  “So,” said Carlos, “I guess we’re all still alive.”

  *****

  Out of all of those who were turned, he was the last to wake. The vampire had bitten him later than most of the others, but that wasn’t the only reason. When Ox Werden woke up three hours after his death, he was in agony.

  Lying on the floor of the prison kitchen, Ox was aware of the pain where his guts had been torn out. But that wasn’t agonizing. Every other part of his body was worse. From head to toe, Ox felt as if he was on fire. His heightened sense of smell was overwhelmed—from the scent of his own charred flesh, and from the even more powerful scent of garlic.

  He thrashed, knocking the large pot from his head, spilling the red tomato sauce across the floor. He tried screaming, but the sound that came out was hoarse and animalistic—he didn’t have the same voice he had once had. His mouth felt different.

  Running his tongue along his new teeth, Ox realized instinctively what he had become. He was dead. He was risen. He was immortal. All over the cellblock, vampires were realizing just what they were and how hungry they felt. Ox didn’t have time to be hungry. He was in too much pain.

  He tried to lift himself from the floor, but placing his weight onto his badly burned hands only made the pain spike. His hands, arms, face, and neck were burning—not melting like any burn victim Ox had ever seen, but burning away like a steak tossed into a fire. It took another wail of pain—this time involuntary—before Ox could stand.

  The other vampire could change shape—he could be fog or bats or a wolf. Ox knew on some primal level that he did not possess these same skills. He was going to have to walk. There would be no transformation—no slipping away from the garlic that covered him, no fading into the shadows to heal. He grabbed a flat stainless steel pan from the rack and tried to look at his burns.

  The mirror did not reflect him.

  Stumbling into the front kitchen, Ox saw the body of Sonny—his best friend. Sonny had been torn to pieces by an animal. He lay in a pool of blood. The vampire had drained so much blood that Sonny would never wake again, not as a man nor as a beast. He was dead and staying that way. Standing over the body, Ox realized that a new smell was taking over, felt his sinuses opening. It was the olfactory equivalent of stepping into bright sunlight first thing in the morning; a smell so bright it almost hurt. It’s the bloo
d, he thought, Jesus Christ I want the blood.

  Ignoring the hunger, Ox stumbled further toward the mess hall. He had to find his way around the serving counter, but as he walked he started to fell his strength returning, and he stumbled less often.

  Reaching the mess hall, Ox was finally bathed in the light of the emergency lamps. Between those lights and his impressive night vision, Ox could see things clear as day. He studied his hands. The skin was burned black. He poked at the back of his right hand. The flesh pressed inward, but the blackened skin cracked and crumbled. He peeled a section of black skin from himself the size of his thumbnail, and rubbed it between his finger and thumb. It crumbled to dust.

  Feeling along his body, Ox dared to touch his face. The skin here was hard and dry, and crumbed when he pressed it. He closed one eye and used the open one to look at his nose. Black. He would never see his reflection, but he knew it now—his skin had been charred completely. Every spot of his body that touched the sauce—which was everywhere—was burning.

  He turned back to the kitchen, moving quickly, panicking. He found the large dish sink in the back kitchen and tried the tap, hoping the water was still running. It was. He splashed it over his face and arms, and felt the garlic burn lessen. He scrubbed for almost five minutes, and managed to reduce the pain to the same level as the worst sunburn he’d ever had. The worst burns were his head, neck, and hands, but his chest and back were badly charred.

  Stepping out of the kitchen again, Ox stopped at Sonny’s body. Dropping to his knees, he ran through his priorities. He had to get to the showers and stop the burning. He had to escape from this pod before the sun came up. And somewhere in between he had to feed. The hunger was taking over now—feeding on hot, fresh blood was a bigger priority than escaping to safety. Hopefully, someone who deserved to die was still alive out there. Someone like that spick Santos Vega, or that race traitor Josh Farewell. Yes, they’d make a good first kill. But first, the showers.