by HC Hammond
David examined a slide through a microscope with his back to Harold. He didn’t bother to turn and greet him as Harold walked in. Since the confrontation David had been doing his best to avoid Harold and vice versa. The whole blood drinking thing struck too close to home for his liking and Harold hadn’t yet found out about the other services the casino offered.
He decided to get straight to the point, asking David if he’d spoken with Orlen since she came in to investigate the changes in blood supply. He asked twice without getting a response before giving up with the niceties and whirling David around by the shoulder. Harold took a chance, growling and displaying his fangs to David. It worked, though not exactly as Harold intended. David squealed and didn’t stop. He clamped a hand over the man’s mouth, shushing him, and glancing out their shared office window for passersby. No one out there on the dead shift.
“Shut up, or I will shove you in the cooler,” Harold hissed. The man quieted. Harold released him. David stared wide-eyed and open mouthed. He stepped back a few feet, actually hitting the wall before he stopped.
He mumbled, “You, you, you’re,” over and over as his mind moved with agonizing slowness towards realization.
“Yeah, I drink blood too. And I have a few questions to ask about your bookie,” Harold muttered. He glanced out their window again, before grabbing David’s arm and pulling him to sit behind the desk.
David’s bleating look of confusion and fear nagged at Harold’s conscience. Then, he remembered how the guy tried to sell him down the river to save his own ass. David ran a hand through his hair, rested his arms on the chair’s armrests, couldn’t seem to get settled and reached for the cup of coffee on the desk. His hand shook so badly that the coffee quavered in the cup, threatening to spill over the sides.
Harold sighed, “Look, you don’t need to get so spooked. I wanted to get your attention.”
David stopped trying to sip from his tremor ridden coffee cup. He set it carefully back on the desk. “Spooked?” He asked, staring pointedly into the coffee cup. “I’m surrounded on all sides by … by ... ” It was David’s turn to sigh, seemingly unable to bring himself to say the word, which Harold assumed was, “infecteds.” He leaned forward, pressing palms flat against his face.
“How did my life get to this point?” David muttered to himself.
“Could be the uncontrollable gambling problem,” Harold said. He had little pity for the man beyond the need to get him calm enough to answer some questions. If Harold were going to figure out how to get to Orlen before she decided to show up on his home turf again, he’d need to figure out what she did at the casino. Hell, for all he knew she could just be arm candy, literally, for that zombie Harold saw her with and Mr. Rotting Fleshy Parts actually worked there. It didn’t quite jive with Harold’s gut, from her behavior and the odd, almost too convenient way she came into his life. All of it revolving around blood and when it came to blood Harold’s gut was never wrong.
Harold waited patiently for David’s face to reappear. When it did, David didn’t look too close to this side of sane anymore, but who did? Harold drilled David about Orlen.
Had he seen Orlen since she came into the office?
No.
Did he ever see Orlen at the casino?
No.
Was it really David’s idea to blame him for taking the blood?
Yes.
Harold resisted the urge to slam David’s face into the desk. Broken teeth made it so much harder to question a man.
“What gave you the idea to blame me for taking blood from the hospital?” He asked out of frustration rather than to gain any good information.
So, David’s reply was quite shocking.
The Eyes.
He stilled, turning to look more carefully at David’s blank stare. Harold shook David’s shoulder and found it stiff, the man’s muscles tight and contracted. Harold had put him into a trance.
Harold got down on one knee and snapped a finger in David’s face without getting so much as a twitch.
“David?”
Yes.
“David, what eyes?”
No reply. Harold amped it up a notch, ordering David to respond. For a second it looked like it might work. David started to answer, but nothing came out. He continued to stare into the distance beyond the room. Harold repeated the question and slowly, twistingly, David’s mouth curled open, but teeth remained locked together. A sudden urge to rip everything apart curled also inside Harold.
Damn it.
He repeated the order over again, and again in David’s ear, until it became a mantra. A mantra demanding answers, filled with all of his powers of suggestion. What Eyes? What eyes, answer me, tell me what eyes, what eyes, David!
The man’s lips pulled, twisted into a grimace. David’s eyes widened in terror, but still his teeth remained locked shut. Sweat trickled from his brow, followed the creases in his forehead down into the folded crinkles around his eyes and pooled there like salty tears. Harold could not stop himself and his damned mantra. He needed to know, needed to find out what was going on with a curiosity which tore into his gut.
Eyes,whateyes,answermeanswermeeyesdavidwhateyeseyeseyeseyesyesyesyesanswermedavidwhateyse?
Under the force of Harold’s questioning, David’s face continued to contort. Flesh moved, muscles pulled, his eyes widened and welled in a kind of terror Harold had only seen on the most desperate of victims and still those teeth remained locked, the secrets behind remained stubbornly hidden.
He pressed on, pouring all of his skill into pulling the frustratingly resistant answer from David’s mouth. How anyone or thing had the power to lock their secrets from the seduction of a vampiric voice, Harold didn’t know. Yet, someone more powerful, more skilled, more dangerous than he not only locked the secrets in David’s mind from Harold the vampire, they also locked them from David’s own mind.
Finally, a great crack preceded David’s response as locked muscles popped, and he screamed, how he screamed. The sound pierced Harold’s ear drums with its instant blood-curdling volume. The sudden breaking of David’s mind so sudden, it left Harold sprawled on the floor while the man continued to scream, eyes wide, staring into the abyss of his mind, perhaps finally seeing the thing attached to those eyes, which only David knew.
Harold had to stop the screaming. He scrambled up, shaking David by the shoulders, hissing into his ears and trying desperately to pull the man from his own terror. By now, the nurses were no doubt running from their station down the hall to see the problem. He could imagine what they were thinking, someone was either being killed in here or doing the killing. Not so far from the reality.
He hauled back and slapped David in the face with his open palm. Stunned silence filled the small room. Harold waited for the nurses to come rushing in to see who was dying, who had accidentally splattered blood ridden with some kind of terrible virus all over himself. No one came. Harold giggled, rubbing his eyes with his fingertips. This was getting a little out of hand.
“What the hell man?” David asked, his own hand pressed against the rapidly swelling skin of his cheek.
“Sorry. I had to stop your screaming,” Harold said. He bent before David could recover fully and spoke softly, surely, to put him back into a trance. This time staying the hell away from any reference to eyes. Harold quietly told David to forget everything that occurred. He was not a vampire. He did not ask David any questions. For good measure, Harold had David forget the whole ramming him into a locker thing earlier. In all, they were still good work buddies. Harold came in a little while ago and they’ve been working peaceably alongside each other since. Plus, they played a game of poker and David now owes Harold fifty bucks. Harold pulled back drawing David with him into the world again.
“Hey man, what’s going on?” David asked. He looked around lazily, coming to terms with his new reality. “I musta’ dozed off for minute.”
“No problem, I won’t tell if you don’t,” Harold said, as he turned
to the work on the lab counter. He perused the work orders on the chart while waiting for David to pull himself together, simple blood tests, blood drawn and a blood typing, not too bad for the night.
David sat up straight in the chair, finally coming alert. “Man,” he said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I totally forgot to pay you, man.” He pulled out his wallet, coming to stand next to Harold without an ounce of fear. David took a few bills out of his wallet and handed them over to Harold.
“Thanks,” Harold took the money and slid it into his pants pocket. “I didn’t mean to clean you out.”
“I’ll get you next time,” David said with a slap on the back. They both went to work processing blood samples and performing basic tests. Once or twice the shift supervisor, a Nurse Practitioner nicknamed Boss, came in to check-up on them and get results. Otherwise it was a quiet night. No cops needing tests. No creepy chicks looking for answers. No more screaming. Harold knew it would last, but it was nice. Almost normal.
After work he had an uneventful drive home. Home being the halfway house he shared with a bunch of bloodsucking idiots. He hoped none of the guys had broken into his stash by the radiator. Old blood was better than no blood at all. Something Donald seemed bound and determined to wean from them, one way or another. Harold still had no idea how he was to graduate. Or had much clue about the previous graduates of FEBs. Maybe he could just hypnotize Donald into giving him the thumbs up to the court system. Cured and cleared, ready to return to society sir. Maybe that’s how the others all coerced Donald into graduating them. Seemed to easy enough. Only thing, if so many members used this method to get out, why did no one know about it at the halfway house?
The sounds of Baywatch welcomed Harold into the building. Another Baywatch night with the rest of the group. Every week or so, one of the zombies, Eric, pulled out his favorite episodes of the series for a marathon in the living area. Since they only had the one television and they all knew what happened to those who challenged Eric on his control of the boob tube, everyone pretty much joined in for a night of fun in the sun through the miracle of technology.
No one really minded. They all missed light, daytime, the sun, but no one talked about it. You just knew what the others were thinking because you’d been there yourself. Eternal darkness wasn’t all that fun after the thrill wore off. Watching the sun was almost as good as being in it. Almost.
Harold tossed his keys in the basket and followed the music. A bowl of fresh oranges sat on the coffee table, their fresh scent invigorating, cleansing. The whole group assembled in their usual places in front of the television. Zombies on couches, vampires in the corners, Zork right in front, eyestalks rigidly locked on the screen and drooling from the mouth.
“What’d I miss?” Harold asked from his vantage point only to be greeted with a bunch of mumbled grunts.
Harold walked in on the most important scene. The Baywatch babes were running. Harold spent a moment of respectful silence admiring healthy, vibrant bodies, nearly nude, necks bare, in the full sunlight. He was almost drooling himself.
Zork groaned, though for entirely different reasons than most of the members of the group. It slid up to the television, pressing the upper half of its body against the screen and muttered, “Oh Jasmine,” and latching wholeheartedly onto the screen. Revolting sucking sounds ruined the rest of the scene for Harold.
The group cried as Zork continued to make love to the television. It happened every week, but none of them had the heart to tell Zork, Jasmine was married and unlikely to date a flesh-eating slug.
Finally, one of the zombies, Harold recognized him from their poker game got up and pulled the slug from the television screen by the eyestalks. Zork came away with a long sucking pop and a sigh, before being deposited back on the floor.
Harold tossed a towel to the zombie who used it to wipe off the slime covered screen. Zork remained where it was, sighing and staring dreamy-eyed at the screen. Herein lie the secret to a contented and quiet slug. Harold should get a Jasmine cutout and keep it on hand for emergencies.
Harold moved back towards his room and found it empty. Closing the door after himself, he quickly found the stash of blood and sank his teeth in. Not quite the good stuff, but certainly passable. Harold resisted the urge to go continue watching Babewatch and spent the remainder of the night staring at the ceiling. Another day in a string of thousands gone by.
He looked forward to a group meeting and work tomorrow. Harold thought he might try talking with Donald after group to see if he could get the whereabouts of FEBs graduates from the therapist. Maybe if he acted like he wanted advice on how they did it themselves, or someone to talk to about his condition. Or he could try hypnotizing the therapist.
Something would come to him.
Night slipped away on a warm coppery wind, pulling the morning sun after it and Harold fell asleep, his mind spinning weird dreams with eyes and questions. At one point, the dratted Orlen slipped into his room bringing a whirl of odd little red lights scattering around her body and her eyes, black, glaring eyes locked into his. Tiny insects crawled up and down his body, pinchers digging gleefully into skin, itching him all over. He couldn’t move to swat them. He lay frozen on top of the bed covers, eyes locked with Orlen’s and her hundreds of red lights.
Three feet away his roommate’s metronome snores steadily marked out the beats of Harold’s dream. Now, he was standing. Insects pinching blood from his skin. Orlen wavered close, a short vision in tight bun and business suit. Tut, TUT, tut, TUT, tut. She tutted him softly, her voice expanding and withdrawing from Harold in the bedroom. He’d been bad, screwing up her work with David. Tut, TUT, tut, TUT, tut. She didn’t know what she would do with him.
But he wasn’t her problem, yet. Harold had someone to see. Didn’t he? Someone to visit at the casino. A man in charge. Harold needed to go to the casino, but not now, the bad boy. Now, Harold needed sleep and must to the casino in the evening.
Harold’s restrained limbs came free, loosed from their dream bonds. Roaring, he grabbed Orlen by the throat, scattering the itching ants, sending the hundreds of lights into frenzied whirls and squeezed. Her laughter drowned his rage and the metronome sounds stopped. She vanished in a puff of particles and Harold was screaming, wide awake and screaming as he tried to strangle his sleeping roommate.
The man’s desperate gurgling noises unlocked Harold’s mind. He dropped Vlad back on the bed.
The next few minutes were not a shining example of Harold’s peacemaking skills. He was gurgled, threatened, and hissed at by his roommate. Also promises of attempts made on his life were made and finally Vlad would be telling Donald on Harold.
He did try to explain, he had merely been dreaming, but Vlad would have none of it. As soon as nightfall hit, he was going to report Harold. Vlad gathered up his blanket and pillow to go sleep on a couch in the Rec room, telling Harold to stay the hell away if he knew what was good for him. When the door slammed Harold sat on his bed, looking around the semi-dark room with shades drawn. He was utterly alone.
He got up and turned the lights on. An urge to go out hit Harold. It had been a dream and yet, Harold felt a need to go to the casino tonight. He could see it clearly, through the midnight doors, across the vast gaming room and even past the well-guarded door to… something, someone. He could only assume it was the man in charge. On the nightstand, propped against the alarm sat a golden five hundred dollar chip from the casino.
Harold picked it up. It couldn’t be the same one. Harold didn’t carry that kind of cash around. He went to his coat and felt around in the pockets, pulling out a red ten dollar chip from his first trip to the casino. How did this second chip get into his room?
Unable to find the answer, he went back to bed to try and get back to sleep. Harold woke to the persistent poking of Zork’s eyestalks.
“Wake up, jackass. Wake up,” Zork muttered as it jabbed Harold in the cheek repeatedly. “Wake up, you’re in trouble.”
&nbs
p; “Fuck off slug face,” Harold replied, smacking the eyestalk away. He still had a good couple of hours before group and he did not want to waste it talking to a slug.
A good thumping smack landed on his forehead. How that kind of abuse didn’t hurt the slug’s own eyes, Harold didn’t know. “Now Jackass,” Zork muttered, “Donald’s here. He wants to talk to you. What the hell did you do last night?”
“Oh,” Harold groaned as last night’s dream came flooding back to him, Orlen, bugs, a strange poker chip, the attack on his roomie. Harold glanced over to confirm the other empty twin bed. Vlad made good on his threats to tattle. Stupid Vlad.
Harold rolled out of bed, narrowly missing Zork’s body with his feet. The slug grumbled to get a move on before sliming out of the room.
He stumbled into the bathroom and spent a couple moments rinsing out his mouth with the mouthwash. Not a good idea to have blood breath when speaking with Donald. After pulling on some clothes Harold padded down the stairs to the kitchen where he found Donald sitting primly on one of the kitchen stools with a highly agitated Vlad pacing back and forth behind him. He must have spent the rest of the day working himself up into a state over Harold’s “attack.”
“Good evening Harold, I understand there has been some tension between you and Vlad,” Donald said.
Harold sat at the table. “I didn’t think so,” he said. Vlad stopped pacing and hissed. Talk about your ’fraidy cat.
“Well, you know the house rules Harold,” Donald said, he marked something down on a an envelope. “No fighting or else I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“It’s not like,” Harold said.
“Whatever the cause, Harold,” Donald interjected, as he flipped over the envelope. “I would not want to be asked to leave the program, if I were you. Your alternatives aren’t pleasant.”
Jail time, in restraints, under sedation, without blood. Harold cringed inwardly. Not many survived. Time to swallow his pride and save his hide.
