by Amy Cross
“Tarmey will never engage another vampire in combat. That's the whole reason he's been hiding down there in a lead-walled room. The lead prevented Patrick from sensing that Tarmey was still alive. Tarmey's a coward”.
“No,” says the voice. “Tarmey is a realist. He knows he can't defeat Patrick in a straight fight. Like me, he has been waiting to find some other way to stand up to the last vampire”.
“There is no way,” I say.
“There is always a way,” says the voice, stepping towards me. For the first time, I see its face: burnt and hideous, scratched and damaged, with two white eyeballs slowly twitching in wide-open sockets with no eyelids.
13.
“Sophie?” asks a voice in the darkness.
I'm still strapped onto the bed. “Alex?” I ask.
“Where are you?” he says.
“Over here,” I reply. “Follow my voice”. Suddenly I feel, in the darkness, Alex's hands reaching down to untie the restraints. I sit up. “What are you doing down here?”
“Dr. Penfold gave us express orders not to come down to the basement under any circumstances,” he replies. “So I took the back stairs. Do you understand?”
The lights blink and fizz.
“We need to find John Tarmey's room,” I say.
We carefully make our way out of the pitch black room. In the corridor outside, the lights are occasionally blinking back on, though never for more than a fraction of a second. As we head towards Tarmey's room, we hear an increasingly loud banging sound, and eventually we turn a corner and there he is.
Patrick.
He's slamming himself into the door to Tarmey's room, trying everything within his power to get that door down so that he can get in and... what? What exactly does Patrick want with Tarmey? Whatever it is, it's driving him insane. He's like an animal, just throwing himself against the door again and again.
“Patrick,” I say.
He doesn't hear me.
“Patrick!”
He slams his whole body against the door, creating something of a dent, then he steps back and looks at me. In the dark corridor, with the only light coming from the moon and the occasional flickering of the lights, Patrick looks... fierce. It's almost like his human side has completely vanished. As he looks at me, he bares his teeth and I see those two little white fangs that I once felt slide into my body.
“What do you want with him?” I ask. “You need to talk to me. You need to tell me about what happened after we left Gothos. Where did you take me for a whole year?”
Patrick looks away, slams himself into the door again, and take a moment to rest.
“You're never going to break down an iron door,” I say, approaching him slowly and cautiously. “Let me help you find the key. It's probably up in Dr. Penfold's office. And then you have to talk to me”. As I reach him, I realise I'm almost trembling with fear. I've never seen Patrick like this before, so animal-like and angry. It's genuinely as if I've never seen him before, at least not properly.
“I need to know if what they've been saying is true,” I say. “They say I gave birth to a baby and I don't remember it, and they say they found me almost dead. Is that true?”
Patrick stares at me.
“For fuck's sake!” I shout at him. “You have to talk to me!”
He just stares.
“This silent thing,” I say, “it's kind of cute sometimes, but right now you owe it to me to talk to me and explain what's been happening. You owe it to me to be honest and tell me if it's true that I had a child, if... we had a child. Did we?”
I step closer to him.
“Talk to me!” I shout, pushing him against the wall. I'm sick of the way he refuses to say anything. He has a mouth, a tongue, a brain, why does he just keep staring without every saying anything. “Tell me what happened! Tell me what you did to me! Tell me... Tell me if you're sorry!”
For a moment, I think he might be able to say something. But then he just pushes me back against the door.
Suddenly something appears between us. It takes me a moment to understand that it's Alex. He's stepped in Patrick's way.
“Leave her alone,” Alex says. “Don't hurt her. Do you understand?”
Without any warning, Patrick grabs Alex and throws him head-first into the corridor wall. There's a sickening crunch and Alex falls to the floor. I run over and roll him over, and for a moment I stare at his face.
“You killed him,” I say, unable to believe what just happened. I look up at Patrick, and for the first time I see him as the monster that he really is. “He was only trying to protect me, and you broke his neck”.
Patrick stares at me, impassive as always.
I stand up and walk over to him, pushing him against the wall again. “You're not the only one with a temper!” I shout. “You're not the only one who's angry!”
Ignoring me, Patrick continues to try to break down the lead door. I can hear John Tarmey screaming inside the room. Turning, I walk over and look at Alex's body, crumpled on the floor.
In the distance, there's the sound of people running, and I start to smell smoke. There's a fire. Whatever's happening here, it's getting worse by the minute.
“We have to leave,” I say to Patrick, going back over to him as he continues to try to get through the door. “You have to come with me. We can still work everything out, but you have to calm down. Whatever's happening, you have to stop it”. I grab his arm and try to pull him away, but he snarls at me.
“What are you going to do?” I ask. “Break my neck too?”
He stares at me in silence.
“Is that what you were going to do at the van?” I ask. “Did you come to kill me? Did you get what you need from me and then you thought you had to kill me to keep your precious secret?”
I step back and start trying to drag Alex's body away. “Come with me!” I shout, but Patrick just resumes his relentless attempts to get into John Tarmey's lead-walled room. He's like an animal, unable to do anything other than use his brute strength to try to solve his problems. As I reach the stairs, I realise there's no way I can drag Alex with me all the way.
“Sorry,” I say to his body, and I abandon him.
As everyone evacuates the building, I go to Dr. Penfold's office. I need to find the key to John Tarmey's room. It's the only way I can get Patrick to come away with me. But as soon as I get into the office, I find Penfold dead on the floor. Kneeling down to take a look, I see that someone has sliced open his neck and chest. For a moment, I assume this must have been Patrick, but then I spot a blood-covered knife nearby. Patrick would never use a knife to kill someone, he'd use his bare hands. So who did this, and why?
Going to Penfold's desk, I open the drawers and eventually I find a set of keys. I've no idea if any of them open John Tarmey's door, but it's got to be worth a try so I turn to head back down to the basement. At that moment, a team of firefighters run into the corridor. Seeing me, one of them races over and grabs me, pulling me towards the door.
“Let me go!” I shout, but as I struggle, I drop the keys and soon I've been pulled out onto the lawn, where the other patients and various staff members are being kept away from the building, which is going up in flames.
Before I have a chance to try to find a way back in, there's a loud creaking sound and I watch in horror as the roof of the entire building collapses, sending the upper floors crashing down into the main part of the building. Firefighters usher us all away and within a few minutes it's clear that the whole facility is going to be destroyed. There's nothing the firefighters can do except keep us back and wait for the flames to die down.
As I stare at the flames, I can't help wondering whether Patrick is still down there, still trying to break down the door to John Tarmey's room. I've seen Patrick survive some pretty serious injuries, but the entire building is collapsing into the basement now. There's nothing I can do to try to save him, all I can do is hope that he finally got out before it was too late.
1
4.
I close my eyes and wait.
The chase lasted almost a century but finally, today, I lost. I always knew I would. As the door starts to crack an smoke fills the room, I can do nothing but wait for the inevitable. I always knew that Patrick would find me, that he would set himself loose against my body. I will try to fight him, of course, but I know there is nothing I can do. He will tear me to pieces, just as he destroyed all the others. That's how he earned his reputation all those years ago. At first, no-one feared him, he was seen as just an annoyance. But by the time he had killed ten thousand of our brothers, he was the most feared vampire who had ever lived. He thought he had killed me too, but of course I was able to get away and hide. Until now...
With my eyes still closed, and the smell of thick smoke in my lungs, and flashes of intense heat coming into the room, I hear the door finally come off its hinges. There's a loud clatter of metal as it hits the floor, and now I can hear the flames from the corridor.
I open my eyes.
Patrick stares back at me, his face up close to mine, his eyes filled with absolute malevolence. I don't blame him. For so long, he thought he was the last vampire. But I was here all along, hidden in this little lead-walled room where he couldn't sense me. He thought he had killed the rest of our species, but he was wrong. I remained. I hid down here, using the lead walls to shield my presence from him. Now he will have to kill me properly, and all his guilt and grieving will have to begin again. All the pain and anguish that he spent decades suppressing will have to come back to the surface.
Think about that. He has lived for so long with the knowledge that he committed genocide against his own people. The knowledge that he slaughtered us all. Eventually, he must have come to some form of peace with himself. And now he finds that one of us escaped and survived this long. So he must kill me again, and all the guilt must be borne a second time. No wonder, then, that as I stare at his eyes, I see nothing but madness.
There's a loud creaking sound from above, and I hear something crashing towards us. It's the building, collapsing in on itself. I look at Patrick and I can see that he knows what is about to happen. I smile at him, but the smile is not returned. I hold my arms out wide to welcome him.
He launches himself at me.
The entire burning building crashes down on top of us.
15.
“I'm sorry,” says Shelley, sitting on my bed. “I figured that if I started saying I'd met Patrick too, they'd think I was crazy as well”.
“It's okay,” I say, sitting next to her.
“It's not,” she says. “I'm really sorry. I had this big plan to come back later and break in and rescue you, and then we could go off and find Patrick together. But I couldn't find anyone who'd help. Rich was fucking useless, Adam's not even in town at the moment. I totally let you down”.
“You didn't,” I say. “It's all fine now”.
There's a pause, and finally Shelley puts her arm around me. “You don't have to go back to hospital?”
I shake my head. “They're so busy trying to work out what happened with Dr. Penfold and the facility, they've just said I can stay home unless there are any more 'episodes', as they call them. Basically, as long as I shut up about Patrick, I'm good”.
“Where is Patrick?” Shelley asks.
“Don't know,” I say. “Last time I saw him, he was in the basement of that building”.
“Yeah,” says Shelley, “but he's a vampire. They're tough. He probably just dusted himself down and wandered out”.
“Maybe,” I say. “I'd like to know for sure. And... there's something else”. I'm not sure whether I should tell her, but eventually I work up the courage. “You know that year I was missing? I don't remember any of it, but apparently I had a baby while I was gone”.
Shelley's eyes open wide. “You? A baby?”
“With Patrick,” I say. “And I don't remember any of it, but if it's out there... I don't know what to do. Patrick's not gonna tell me anything, and I can't find it by myself”.
“We'll find a way,” says Shelley. “I don't know how right now, but we'll find a way”.
I smile. “So you're not going out with Rich any more?”
“Fuck no,” she says. “He got a job at this electronics store and now he's totally boring. He cut his hair, and he threw out all his cool clothes. Doesn't dress like a vampire at all. He's got this short haircut and an earring and a little beer belly, it's like... It's like he's a totally different person. He can just fuck right off”.
I nod. “Is it possible that I could have given birth... that I could be a mother... and I don't remember? I don't feel any different, I don't have any kind of connection with the baby, but my body feels different and... Is that possible?”
“Dunno,” says Shelley. “Remember that time I was pregnant? That was weird, but I guess it's not the same thing, is it?”
“Not really,” I say.
“You need to find Patrick,” she says. “You need to find him and make him tell you what happened”.
“I don't know where he is,” I say.
“You need to find him,” she replies firmly. “If he's still around Dedston, if he hasn't fucked off completely, there's only so many places he could be, especially if he's looking after a baby”.
She's right. So why do I feel so lost? “The firecrews found some bodies in the basement of the hospital,” I say. “They found Alex, he was my friend in there for a while. And they found Dr. Lucas, and they found an unidentified man who I think must be John Tarmey”.
“But no sign of Patrick?”
“No sign of Patrick”.
“Then he's out there,” Shelley says. “And we'll find him”.
“I'm scared of him,” I say. “Actually scared of him”. And it's true. I look over at the window. I used to long for him to appear there every night, but now I'm terrified that he wants to hurt me. Still, if he's been messing me around, and if he really did get me pregnant, steal the baby and then wipe my memory, then he kind of owes me an explanation. So I'm going to find him. Even though I'm terrified of him, I'm going to track him down. And I'm going to make him talk to me. If it's the last thing I do, if it kills me, I'm going to make him talk. I'm going to make him tell me everything.
NEXT
Dark Season VIII – Dead End
In the final part of the first series of Dark Season books, Sophie sets out to discover what happened to Patrick and John Tarmey after the fire. Meanwhile, a mysterious figure from the past is conspiring to turn her against Patrick. Will Sophie work out the true identity of her new friend before it's too late? Did she really give birth to Patrick's child? What secret has been given to Shelley, and by whom? And as a final battle looms, will Patrick finally speak and tell Sophie the truth about everything before it's too late?
