by Rashaad Bell
He handed me his milkshake. I sniffed it. “There’s blood in this.” I stated.
“Took a trip to local blood bank.” He said. “Made a little…withdrawal.”
“You risked running into Colonel Hawking just to break into a blood bank?” I questioned.
He raised one eyebrow. “Look who’s talking, Miss, I need to go break into the morgue to see my dead parents one last time.”
“Connor…” I said softly.
“Yeah, I’m sorry, that was a bit harsh.” He came closer. “Besides, it was either go out and steal some blood or have to deal with you potentially murdering everyone in the house while I watched TV.”
I took another whiff of the cup and then took a long sip through the twizzler straw. Almost at once, I pulled away in disgust. “Oh my God, this is horrible.”
“Hence the ice cream.” Connor replied. “And the twizzler.”
“I’m not drinking this.” I tried to give it back, but he refused to take it.
“Some nights you have enough money for lobster and some nights all you can afford is a bag of Ramen noodles.” He walked out of the bedroom. “Drink up.”
He was dead-on of course and I had to force myself to finish, my gag reflex kicking in more than once. The ice cream did make it taste better and yet it still made me sick to my stomach. I could hear Aiden and Girard now. They were coming inside, carrying groceries. At least they made it back safely and with food and booze. I could eat something that taste good after I came back, even if it offered me zero nutritional value.
Ethan was with them. I honestly didn’t think that he was going to come back, but he did. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do this. How I was going to manipulate Ethan, Dakota and Connor and not lose one of them in the process? I could always enthrall Ethan, same as I did Dakota, fix it so he would never leave, but a part of me didn’t want to do that. I wanted him to love me because that was the way that he felt, not because I implanted the thought in his head for him. Then again, I felt the same way with Dakota and I compelled her anyway and that was working out perfectly.
I don’t know what category of person I’m developing into. That Agent, the one I left alive at Dakota’s house, when he witnessed me enthrall Dakota, he called me a monster. Is that what I’m becoming? Is that what I am? The most horrific thing about it is that I’m finding myself not caring about things like that more and more. I do things that I would never have done in the past, horrible things and I do them like its second nature. I look at Connor, I see the monster that he is and deep down I’m terrified I’m going to wake up one night and realize that I’m just like him.
They were putting the groceries away when I came downstairs. Ethan caught sight of me and came over, giving me a hug and a kiss.
“You taste like strawberry twizzlers…” He said when he pulled away. “…and copper?”
“Who filled up the entire freezer with these things?” I looked towards the kitchen and saw Aiden holding up a bag full of blood.”
“That would be I.” Connor acknowledged, grabbing the bag from his hand, poking a straw inside of it and taking a sip. “Breakfast of fucking champions.”
“Well use the freezer in the garage.” Aiden said. “We need this one for food.”
Connor walked off. “You use the one in the garage, resurrection boy; those are fine just where they are.”
“Whatever. Dick.” Aiden starting pulling the blood bags out of the freezer. “I’ll do it myself.”
“Careful with those.” Connor cautioned. “Your sister needs them more than I do.” He waved at me. “I know how to exercise self-control.”
Abigail grabbed the keys. “I’ll wait for you in the car.”
Connor watched as she stormed passed him, slamming the front door. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Hey.” I caressed Ethan’s face. “I’m going to see my parents. Come with me?”
“You don’t need to ask.” Was his reply.
“I’ll be back.” I called out, heading towards the door.
Outside, Abigail was already in the driver’s seat, music blasting, waiting for us. When we got inside the car, I could sense she was troubled without her having to say anything. It wasn’t until we were on the road, pulling out of our neighborhood when she decided to turn the music down.
“You need to get as far away from Connor as soon as you can Madison.” Even though she was distressed, I could tell she wasn’t annoyed at me. “That guy is serious bad news.”
“I know.” I finally confessed.
“Then why do you keep him around?” She asked.
“Because I need him.” I answered. “You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me.” Abigail demanded. “Because you’re right, I don’t understand.”
“I’m in trouble Abby.” I was staring out the window. “Like really, really, bad trouble.”
“And you think this Connor dude is the answer?” She questioned. “Look, I know he helped you out with that carjacking thing and you claim that he brought you back from the dead, but everything thing he’s telling you is a lie. Everything. There is nothing about him that’s genuine.”
“I trust him.” I said.
“Why? Explain to me why you trust him?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, I just do. It’s hard to explain.”
“You trust him because he told you to trust him.” Abigail slammed her hand on the wheel of the car for emphasis. “He made you trust him Madison. I don’t know how, but he did it and that’s why you’re blind to what’s going on.”
“He didn’t make me do anything.” I shot back. “I trust him because of the things that he’s done to prove he can be trusted.”
“He’s got you so wrapped around his little finger you can’t see which way is up or down can you?” Now she was starting to get angry with me.
“You just don’t like him because he’s a dick.” I refuted.
“No, Madison.” She was shaking her head furiously. “He's not a dick. He’s what little dickheads want to be when they grow up. His cocksuckery is infinite.”
“Wow.” Ethan decided to speak up. “Thanks for painting that picture so vividly.”
“And you!” Abigail looked up at him through the rearview mirror. “This dude is like, constantly trying to fuck your girlfriend on a minute to minute basis and you’re just okay with that?”
“I don’t fight over girls.” Ethan explained. “Either she’s going to be with me or she’s not.”
“Keep thinking like that buddy.” Abigail was particularly sarcastic. “Fucking pussy.”
“Besides I’m not concerned about him.” He added. “So what’s the deal with you and this Dakota chick?”
“Really?” Abigail shot herself in the head with her index finger and thumb. “That’s what you’re worried about? Dakota? Seriously, are you a fucking idiot or do you just play one on TV?”
“Look. Neither one of them are going anywhere anytime soon.” I rubbed my eyes. This conversation was making my head hurt. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I just wanna say goodbye to parents.”
“Just remember I tried to warn you.” Abby turned into the hospital parking lot, pulling the car up to the entrance. “You two go on ahead while I find parking.”
I got out, closing the door and walked inside. Ethan had to run to catch up to me. I had never been to this hospital before and I wasn’t certain where I was going at first. Everything smelled so sterile here, but just beneath that, it was still there, the smell of death. You couldn’t hide that stench no matter how much disinfectant you used.
I followed it.
“You know where you’re going?” Ethan asked.
“No.” I disclosed. “Not really, but I have an idea.”
“What is it?”
“I can smell the decay in this institution. Some of it is older than the others. I’m thinking that’s where the dead bodies are at.” I construed.
“Shouldn’t we just talk to a
doctor?” He asked.
“Yeah, you go do that.” I stepped into the elevator.
We got off at a lower level and I continued to walk, trusting in my prenatural senses. We entered a restricted area, but there wasn’t anyone around to stop us, so we continued on. I took a left, went down an extensive hallway, took a right, went a little bit further, then another left and stopped.
We were here.
I could smell my mom beyond the door in front of me. I turned the doorknob, but it was locked. I gave it a good twist and the lock popped. I stepped in, pulling Ethan inside with me and closed the door. Even amongst all this death, he still managed to smell like oranges. The wall was lined with numerous little freezer units, at least twenty.
“Do you know which…”
I walked to one in particular and pulled the handle on it, a counter with my mother’s body slid out in front us.
“…yeah, never mind.”
There she was, eyes closed, a white sheet pulled up to her collarbone. She didn’t really look dead yet, just like she was asleep. At least she looked peaceful.
“Oh…broken lock.” Abigail was sneaking in. She checked to see if she was being followed before she closed the door. “Is that her?”
“Yeah.” I walked a couple of units down and opened a handle. My father’s body slid out this time. I let out a chuckle. Even in death, he still looked a little cocky. Like he wasn’t that pissed at being dead. I bent down and kissed him on the forehead.
“Did my Cousin call while I was sleep?” I pushed his body back into the unit and closed the door.
“Yeah.” Abigail seemed preoccupied. She wasn’t used to being this adjacent to dead bodies, but she was doing her best to hide it. “He said he was running late.”
“Typical.” I bent down and kissed my mother as well, then pushed her back inside and closed the door on the unit.
I went down three more units then opened the door and pulled out the body that was inside. It was a middle-aged, auburn haired woman.
“Who is that?” Ethan asked.
“This is Dakota’s mother.” I leaned forward and kissed the small bullet hole on her forehead. “Not everyone gets to walk away from one of these. I’m sorry Mrs. Theia. I’ll take care of her, I promise.”
I sealed up her unit then turned around. “I’m ready to go home now.”
I didn’t speak the rest of the way. I just wasn’t in the mood for conversation. All Abigail desired to do was talk about Connor and the only thing Ethan wanted to speak about was Dakota. I didn’t feel like I needed to clarify myself to either one of them. Isn’t it sufficient that I’m putting my life on the line to protect them? What I really needed to do was to go into hiding, just disappear somewhere and not be seen or heard from for a couple of years, but no, here I am, endangering my life to safeguard them. Like I need...
I stopped. I sound like Connor. I never want to sound like him. We pulled up into our driveway, yet I declined to get out the car.
Ethan leaned in the passenger window. “You coming?”
“Yeah, just give me minute okay?”
“Sure.” He started to walk off.
I called out after him. “Hey, tell Girard to come out here for me.”
He gave me a wave. I was grateful to be alone. I thought I was going to cry and yet I realized I had no more tears left to shed. I was all cried out and to be honest, I was done crying and I silently swore to myself that I would never shed another tear again. It didn’t take long before Girard came outside, getting in the driver’s seat next to me.
“Do you have that material I asked for?” I asked as soon as she settled in.
“Yeah, it’s…”
“Keep it for right now, that’s not what I called you out here for.” I said.
“Oh, okay.” She got really nervous. She was speculating if the reason I brought her out here was to kill her. “What’s up?”
“I want you to explain to me about enthralling.” I clarified.
“That?” Girard exhaled, severely relieved. “It’s kind of like mind control or a sophisticated form of hypnotic suggestion. The subject is advised to do something or to feel a certain way and the subject does this, thinking that the way they feel or whatever it is that they are doing was their idea.”
“Do they remember being enthralled?” I asked.
“No.” She said. “The subject always reasons that it was his or her idea.”
“Is it permanent?”
“As far as I can tell.” Girard was watching me very closely now, she was piecing things together. “The only way to breakdown compulsion is for the original Vampire to, in essence, enthrall the subject again and instruct them to disremember all previous things they compelled them to do.”
“Could I, if I wanted, enthrall another Vampire if I needed to?”
“Anything’s possible, but I’ve never read any documented cases of that happening.” She said.
It was the subsequent question that I wanted to ask the most. “Does compulsion carry over if the subject has been transformed into a Vampire?”
Staci Girard was silent at first, just regarding me. “You believe Connor was compelling you to do things while you were human, don’t you?”
“Yes.” I admitted.
“Madison, he could have enthralled you to do virtually anything while you were human. Not even virtually, let me change that, I mean anything.” She leaned close. “And all of it would transfer over if you were turned into a vampire. All of it. The way you act, what you wear, the emotions you feel, he could have modified all of that and you wouldn’t even notice, you would just think it was all you.”
I didn’t want to hear anymore and yet I needed to.
“That’s the thing about compulsion, Madison. It makes your entire memory suspect because you don’t know which thoughts are authentic and which ones are fabricated.” Girard sighed. “Do you recall how you were turned into a Vampire?”
“Yes.” The night in San Francisco flashed in my mind, the train I was riding on, me bleeding to death. Waking up and my wounds being healed, killing that cop at the Bart station. “Well, kinda.”
“What do you mean kinda?” Girard asked. “Either you do or you don’t.”
“I don’t know, everything was chaotic, I was bleeding, dying. I blacked out.” I explained. “When I woke up I was like this.”
Everything was quite between us.
“Madison, how do you know that’s what actually transpired?” She finally asked.
“Because I was there.” I said. “I remember it.”
“But you don’t.” Girard declared.
Silence again.
“When was the first time you meet Connor?” She asked.
“At a bonfire.” I answered. “Not that long ago really.”
“But are you positive? How do you really know that for sure?” She asked. “You could have met him months ago and you wouldn’t even recollect it.”
I disagreed. “I would remember.”
“No you wouldn’t. That’s the whole thing about being enthralled. It’s the fact that you don’t remember.” She said. “Madison...” Her voice trailed off.
“What?” I asked.
She touched my hand. “He could have turned you weeks ago and you wouldn’t even have known it.”
I laughed. “You can’t be serious?”
“When it comes to compulsion it’s all about the wording.” She sat up straight in her chair and gazed into my eyes as if she was a Vampire. “I’m going to turn you into a Vampire and you are not going to know you are a Vampire. After you drink someone’s blood, you will forget that you did it. If you notice that your eyes are brighter than normal you will drink blood until they look human again and you will forgot that you did it. You will act and behave like a normal human. On a certain date, you will forget all the rules I have implied upon drinking blood and act and behave as a normal vampire does.”
She sat back in her seat. “Of course it would be tremendously mo
re comprehensive than that. If I was him, since I couldn’t enthrall you again once you became a Vampire, I would want practice out the wording on other people first, over and over again until I got the phrasing down exactly how I wanted it. Then I’d kill all of those other Vampires and come find you.”
I just couldn’t believe her. “You give him too much credit. He really isn’t that clever.”
“You don’t get as old as him by being stupid.” She countered.
“Old?” I thought about it. “He’s only thirty something. And that’s human and Vampire years combined.”
“Madison, we have historic accounts on Connor dating back to World War One.” She said.
He lied to me.
“You really need to read the files I have on him.” Girard sat there, thinking things through, ambiguous about it all. “But really, to do all of that? That just seems particularly unnecessary to me, I mean and don’t take this the wrong way, your cute and all, but you’re not that cute. Not to strategize all that out. I mean, what would be the purpose? What’s the end game?”
Of course he lied to me. He wants whatever it is inside the Box of Pandora.
“Your right Madison. That actually doesn’t make sense.” She admitted. “Besides, it’s like you said, he’s not that smart.”
I needed time to contemplate about everything I just learned. “You got the stuff on the Eden Complex ready?”
“Yeah.” She said. “Everything you asked for is on a USB.”
“I’ll find you sometime tonight.” I said.
“Anything else?” She asked.
“Yeah.” I admitted. “If I had been compelled as I human and it has carried over to me as a Vampire, what else can I do to cancel it out and get all my original memories back?”
“Other than Connor releasing you from it himself, you’d have to kill him.” Girard got out the car and went inside.
I sat alone for a while, rerunning our discussion over in my mind. Everything she said was conceivable and if there was anyone who was maniacal enough to put something like that together, it’s Connor. On the other hand, any and everything that comes out of Girard’s mouth is suspect. She’s already betrayed us once and this could be her divide and conquer tactic.
