Vampires Don't Cry: The Collection

by Ian Hall

  “Not really,” she answered, a slither of a grin washed over her face. “I was kinda hoping that he’d be okay. You know; untouched. Not ‘turned’.”

  “No luck there, then.”

  “No.”

  “What do you think you’ll accomplish?” I asked, looking at her intermittently as I watched the road. “Taking him home, you’re just delaying the inevitable.”

  “He can change!” she snapped. “I did.”

  I almost said ‘You’re special,’ then I thought of Elena, hopefully unharmed, back in New River. I liked her. It wasn’t just what we’d done in the car. Perhaps I saw a future in her deep brown eyes, maybe I hoped that I could change her, too.

  An interesting silence encompassed us. A thoughtful time, as the dark, looming mountains passed to our right, the oncoming lights to our left.

  Despite her reservations to the contrary, Mandy agreed to watch over the inert Chris, hitting him with a coagulant dart every four hours.

  I went to bed, locking my bedroom door.

  The next day, Reynolds came by to help build our table. Despite our repeated attempts to convince him to the contrary, he over-engineered it. As dad’s tools came out of the garage - he knew how to use of every one - and very soon we had our own torture table. Complete with head cradle, wrist and ankle molds, it looked a solid construction, and had as many leather restraints as the one in Atlanta. The tabletop was three inches thick, four glued sheets of plywood.

  With the edges all sanded smooth and round, we took Chris from the car, and strapped him solidly down.

  “He’s mine now,” Mandy said, with a huge smile.

  I knew that Reynolds had police bands to monitor, and I wanted a good night’s sleep before I returned to New River. To Elena.

  We soon got Chris strapped down to the new table, restraints tight and secure. Every now and again, something incoherent would dribble out his mouth. Nothing lucid; but even in his delirious state, rage remained in his voice. Once the stuff the Helsings shot him with wore off, though, I knew he’d put up a hell of a fight.

  I recalled his terrific strength the night before, strong for a new vampire. If it hadn’t been for Lyman’s dart gun, the whole struggle back at the lot would’ve ended way differently. Lyman must’ve been thinking the same thing. Even as wiped-out as he looked, he stuck by close - standing guard.

  “You don’t have to babysit me,” I told him. “I’ve got this.”

  By his expression, I could tell my friend had a lot to say, but not the heart to say it. He sort of rearranged his face as he sifted through his thoughts. I didn’t rush him; when Lyman felt ready, the words would fall into place.

  After a time, he started with a question, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  Of course, I didn’t. The truth was a big, fat “NO.” But, I wasn’t about to say it out loud.

  “Chris is a friend of mine. I’ve got to give him a chance.”

  “He didn’t look too friendly back there at ground zero, Mandy.”

  I tugged a lock of my cut and dyed hair. “He had no idea who I was. I had my back to him. Probably thought I was one of Angela’s pack…”

  “When he had you pinned down, the two of you were face-to-face.” Lyman tried to sound diplomatic; however, his words screamed ‘dumbass!’

  “It happened all too fast… I didn’t even recognize him, just a freaking blur of fangs.”

  Lyman exhaled, exasperated like he tried to explain nuclear physics to a five-year-old. “Who’s to say it would’ve made a difference even if he did know who you were? He’s one of Alan’s -”

  He’d chose the wrong thing to say. “He doesn’t have to be!”

  Lyman backed off his tone but seemed determined to finish the conversation, “You’re right - it’s his choice. But we’ve taken a huge risk bringing him here, Mandy. I’m not willing to sacrifice everything on your hunch that deep down he’s still the same nice guy - by the way, one you only met a few weeks ago! When Chris comes out of this, he’s got ONE chance to prove you right. And if he’s already signed his allegiance over to Alan McCartney…”

  I finished Lyman’s threat and made it a promise, “I’ll stake him myself.”

  I gave him exactly what he wanted to hear. But it was exactly what I needed to say; I just needed to hear myself say it. I just hoped Lyman couldn’t tell that I wasn’t so sure I believed it myself. If he did - he kept it to himself.

  “You think you can control another vampire?” he asked, much less on the offensive.

  My arrogant mouth replied before my brain could stop it. “I’ve done it before.”

  Lyman’s face twisted like he’d bitten into a grapefruit. “When? What’re you talking about?”

  Damn your big mouth, Mandy Cross!

  “Detective Calhoun,” I confessed, head dropping to my chin repentantly, “the cop that investigated your parents’ murder…Spike…”

  “What the fuck are you talking about, Mandy?”

  Lyman’s pitch went up about five octaves. Even the semi-conscious Chris jerked under his bindings.

  “I wanted him off your trail. It’s not like he was your friend, Lyman - that asshole had you pegged as the bad guy…pissed-off teen goes nuts, and kills his mom and dad…”

  That didn’t buy me any latitude. “So, you just fucking turned him into a vampire?”

  “Yes!” I shouted at his superior face. “And had him under control! Thanks to me, he botched his own investigation and you’re in the clear…far as I know…”

  “Far as you know?”

  I threw my hands up in the air. “Yes - damn it. Azzzz-ah. FAR. Azzzz-ah. I. KNOW!”

  “Son of a bitch, Mandy! Hell of a solution; somebody gets in your way you just turn them into a vampire and call it good?” he stomped around the safe room at this point, throwing his arms around and cussing to himself. After a while he stopped and asked the one question I really hoped to avoid: “Where is he now?”

  I didn’t answer. But, I didn’t have to. Lyman knew me too well by now.

  “Holy fucking shit.” All the air drained out of him like a balloon with a slow leak. “I guess you didn’t have it under control as much as you thought you did.”

  The shame of living up to what I’d done to Spike and the humans who lost their lives after I lost control came flooding into me. I had no honor to fight for.

  “No. I didn’t.”

  Lyman went to the door and walked out, but not before having his final word. “If this thing goes south, Mandy, you’re on your own.”

  I felt so pissed.

  Not so much at Mandy herself, but at the lie she told herself, and at the depth of which she believed it. Amos Blanche may have had centuries honing his craft, Alan McCartney certainly had decades. Now Mandy Elizabeth Cross tried to tell me that she had the whole vampire ethos under her control in six months.

  I paced my room for an hour that night, but through my rages at Mandy’s indiscretions, the only thing I could bring to the fore was my own guilt.

  She had killed the Helsing spy following her.

  I had killed vampires, almost too numerous to mention.

  Mandy had used Detective Calhoun for her own private dog and pony show.

  I had used Dorothy Squires the same way.

  Mandy wanted Chris McDonald for herself, penis and all.

  Like some love-struck school kid I looked forward to seeing Elena again, after murdering four vampires around her. I hadn’t even checked if they were bad or not.

  Every black mark I laid at her name, one appeared at mine.

  I was pissed.

  Sometime in my pacing, I sat on the bed. I must have laid my head back on the pillow, because the next thing I knew, the sun streamed in through my open curtains.

  “Damn it,” I kinda said under my breath.

  I’d walked halfway to the toilet when Mandy appeared I front of me. I didn’t shrink back in shock. I didn’t even cover my dick. I didn’t see the point; she’d seen
it all before. I half opened my eyes in boredom.

  “Lyman. Safe room. Now.” Then she disappeared. I walked to the toilet, and let my morning stream loose. On the way back to my bedroom, she appeared again. “LYMAN!”

  Okay, I was intrigued now. “Let me get dressed,” I said.

  Now, I’m not sure that a ‘sister’ has to actually ogle her brother’s block and tackle when they’re displayed so leisurely in an innocent hallway, but I’m pretty sure she should have noticed them. I mean, even gave one glance?

  She vanished again.

  I wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or grateful for her lack of peripheral observation. Oh how my life had changed.

  Five minutes later I stood in the safe room with a puzzled couple.

  Chris McDonald sat up on the table we’d taken so many pains to construct, his legs and feet still tied, eating cornflakes. My cornflakes.

  At first I paid little heed to his source of nourishment, then the facts hit home.

  A vampire turned the night before takes a lot of holding down.

  A newly-turned vampire has its greatest bloodlust to deal with.

  The hardest thing for a vampire to digest is lactose. Chris digging into that bowl with so much gusto went against every biological theory.

  “Chris,” I said, walking around the table.

  “Hi,” he said, still stuffing cornflakes down his throat, like his bowl would soon be snatched away.

  “My name’s Lyman Bracks and I’ll be asking difficult questions.”

  “Okay.”

  “Name?”

  “Christopher McDonald.”

  “What do you remember last, Chris?”

  “Easy. Mize brothers took me, drugged me. I woke here.” He looked at the bonds still holding his legs firmly to the table. “Your hospitality’s shit, by the way.”

  “You’re eating my cornflakes.”

  “Not exactly my brand, though.”

  I looked at the guy. My age. Good enough looking to get himself in any bed he probably wanted to be in. Including Mandy’s. And I couldn’t help a bit of jealousy slipping in there.

  “Is he ok?” I looked at Mandy.

  She smiled, the first time for a while. She looked real pretty in her new punky hair. “As far as I can tell, he’s not a vampire.”

  I could feel my brows furrowing deeply on my forehead. “Okay, both of you. My car. Now. We’re going to Unicorps.”

  Chris and I both gave blood to be tested. Mine was supposedly routine, on Chris’s we needed immediate analysis.

  It took one blood sample from the ‘golden child’ to set Marc Brennan’s eyebrows lower into his face. The second sample obviously agreed with the first, and the third set the labs ablaze. With all our permissions, they took Chris away for a complete physical examination. When he returned, even he began to get perplexed at the situation.

  Both Mandy and I were agitated after a fourth blood drawing; sent straight to Chicago, to the V-Recovery team.

  We had lunch in the Unicorps dining room. We had whiskey and cola in the VIP area, then after far too long, we were taken to the boardroom.

  Five of us round a table built for twenty. Four supposed friends, one stranger.

  “Can we mention the ‘V’ word?” Marc asked, looking at Mandy.

  She nodded. “I tried to tell him all about it, but he kept interrupting.”

  “So he knows the basics?”

  “Maybe a little more.”

  Marc swept his hand to the unknown. A woman of about forty, plain, thin, glasses. Indiscriminate.

  “This is Dharma Ferook,” he began. She nodded. All so very corporate. “She is a professor of chemistry at Georgetown University. She shares her research with our ‘V’ teams in Chicago.”

  A pregnant pause entered the room, which even I found uncomfortable.

  “Chris. May I call you Chris?” Dharma began slowly.

  He nodded.

  “You are not a vampire.”

  Both Mandy and I swayed backwards on our seats.

  “He seemed pretty vampire-ish last night,” I said, watching the professor’s face.

  “We have yet to fully isolate the drug which caused last night’s alteration, but traces are still in his bloodstream. After the over-violence yesterday, he is now in withdrawal, and it explains his seeming apathy to the subject. We have tested the blood in all of yesterday’s victims, and the same substance been found in every one. It seems one or the other factions of vampires injected the drug into the people in Harris.”

  “But his vampire drive?”

  “May have just been a result of the drug’s ‘rage’ concoction, combined with a mimicking of the fight around him.”

  I looked at Ferook. She definitely had an eastern European influence in her features, a Turkish delight. “Are you trying to tell me that there’s a vampire-making drug out there?”

  “Mr. Bracks, at this stage, we feel it’s actually much less complicated. While we are researching here, in Atlanta and Chicago, we were not unaware of a similar research drive within the vampire ranks.”

  “What?” I started, but she calmed me with a raised hand.

  “We just did not think they were so far forward with any concrete success. It seems we were wrong, and we will need to intensify our efforts against them.”

  Mandy shook her head. “You’re trying to tell us that there are vampire scientists out there, plotting to take over the world?”

  To her credit, Ferook kept her reply concise. “Exactly.”

  I’d had an interesting night, to say the least. Lyman’s big storm-out stirred my sleeping prisoner. I kept a distance from him at first; waiting for the eruption I’d been dreading. Instead, it seemed more like a slow drift from the depths of delirium; Chris broke surface at disoriented and floundered helplessly for a long while in a sea of utter confusion.

  “What am I doing here?” he asked, small as a lost child.

  As I went up to him, I looked for any sign of recognition on his face. None. Also no malice - no vampire fury. When I got close enough, Chris blinked up at me as if trying to clear his eyes. He strained his neck to get a better view.

  “Lizzy? Is that you? You look so different…”

  I put my hand on his arm. “It’s me, Chris.”

  That miniscule effort seemed to take all his energy. His head dropped back on the table with a light thud.

  “Try not to hurt yourself…”

  His smile was faint, fleeting, but there nonetheless, “… hard to move, Lizzy…worst freaking hangover ever…”

  Blatantly, I peeled his upper lip back. Chris gave no resistance or even a sign that he noticed. The sharp, elongated canines were back to normal. For a second, I wondered if I’d imagined the gruesome fangs bearing down on me. A brush of the partially-healed cut on my cheek told me I hadn’t.

  While he still lay compliant, I did as much of an examination as I knew to do. Laid my ear right to his chest. Sure enough, beating heart. Warm skin. Not the faintest hint of vampire pheromone.

  “You sure as hell look human to me,” I reported.

  To my amazement, the guy snorted like I’d just told a joke. “What else would I be?”

  “Chris?” his head rolled lackadaisically, back and forth, on the table; eyes fogging over. I was losing his interest. “Chris? Chris!”

  He turned back up to me; big grin this time. “Oh - hey, Lizzy. How’s it going?”

  WTF? Really?

  “Chris? Chris! What’s the last thing you remember?”

  It took about fifty or so attempts to get an answer to that question. But, as the night wore on, Chris’s stupor wore off. Eventually, he came to notice the restraints. That didn’t go over well, but at least it got him pissed-off enough to pay attention. Then I broke the news that he should call me “Mandy”; he thought that sounded just hysterical. By the time I got Lyman, he seemed almost back to normal.

  I had no freaking idea what to make of it.

  Next thing I kno
w, we’re off to Unicorps where the damn Helsings proceeded to turn Chris into a human pincushion. Typical.

  Now I’m staring down this toothpick-skinny chick, bug-eyes underneath her brainiac glasses, basically telling us that vampires have developed a drug that simulates vampirism in humans without actually turning them; and, BTW - we (the Helsings) forgot to tell you about it!

  I sat there furious; I would’ve given anything for a suppository of that stuff just so I could shove it up Dharma Ferook’s intellectual ass.

  Too angry to talk to anybody else, I directed my observation to Lyman.” So all those kids Angela’s goons shot up - besides the Mize brothers, I mean - they were human? And the Helsings took their bodies? What’s going to be done to them?”

  Ferook replied, “The cadavers will provide us an opportunity to study the effect of the drug on the organs, run tissue samples; with enough data, it may be possible to synthesize an inoculation.”

  “How’s that gonna work, exactly? Moms take their kids in for their measles vaccination and the doctor’s all, ‘don’t forget their anti-vampire shot’?”

  She stayed as cold and sciencey as ever. “Something like that, Miss Cross.”

  Lyman didn’t appear anywhere near as peeved as I was. “So…you’re saying there could be a cure? An actual, permanent cure to vampirism?”

  “From what we’ve been able to determine, the drug acted like an infection in the victims’ bloodstream; merely simulating vampire characteristics. As we’ve learned by observing Mr. McDonald, it runs a short course and appears to have no long-term influence.”

  I looked from Lyman’s pondering face, to Chris’s absent one (so much for “no long-term influence”). No help from either of them, so I took up the fight on my own.

  “So what’s the point?” I demanded. “There’s no big trick to making vampires; I bite you, you bite me…boom - we’ve got a vampire. Ones that stay vampires! Why make temporary ones?”

  Ferook answered with an empirical tone, “We don’t believe they’ve achieved their final objective as of yet, Miss Cross. Their research is still in development stage; obviously - judging by the events of yesterday - they felt pressed to push forward into an actual trial of the drug. Whether the result lived up to expectations, only they know that.”