by Alan Spencer
“Your punishment must fit the crime. You forced the poor women down the chute to be eaten alive. Fourteen times over. Think about it. A quick bullet to the head doesn’t match the way your tortured those poor girls.”
“Are you going to send me down the chute to be eaten alive? Tell me, you son of a bitch! How are you going to kill me? You’re playing games with me. Chicken-shit bastard. You won’t kill me. You don’t have it in you. You direct people, you run this shit hole, but you don’t put your back into the work. You’re not one of us.”
Douglas was wrong.
He had spent his teenage years on the sublevel and his early twenties catering to vampires on the third floor, preparing entrees created from dead and living human beings. He’d served his time, and he understood the difference between doing your job and murder, even in these special circumstances.
What Douglas had committed was an atrocity.
“No, I will kill you.”
Douglas’s grin wriggled. “You won’t do it. You don’t have it in you. Go back to your desk job.”
Without any more pomp and circumstance, he rendered the steel bar over Douglas’s skull. A metallic konk and wong sound delivered the man into unconsciousness.
He picked his limp body up and dragged him toward the machine.
He whispered, “The zombies will have their meal all the same.”
Chapter Twenty
Addey woke in a sterilized room with white walls, white tables and white beds, and all within a circle of white-curtained rooms. She was soaked in a delirious sweat. Her legs had been washed, the plastic bucket of sudsy water on a pushcart in the corner the evidence. Train tracks of stitches circled her legs like black cobras. She gawked at them, horrified at the damage done to her. It came back to her in a flash: the zombies biting down on her as she waded in fetid blood. But it wasn’t just her legs; her entire body was victim to the cannibals. She couldn’t bear to look at the inflictions too long. She was grateful when a nurse peered in at her patient. She closed the curtain behind her once she noticed Addey was awake.
The nurse was older and dressed in dark blue scrubs. “The doctor is on break. Carpal tunnel pains him awful. He’s been on duty for sixteen years in this place, and he’s seen some gruesome victims. But the living ones, they’re the hardest. Patching them up, making them look decent, it’s not easy.”
Gee, thanks, lady.
“He’s put fifty-six stitches and four staples in your legs and thirty-two stitches in your arms and eighteen in your neck. And let’s not forget your cheek, seventeen in all. You’re going to have bad scarring, but hey, you’re alive. Damn lucky, young lady. I haven’t met a single person who’s survived after falling into the pit. Ever.”
I didn’t fall into the pit. I was thrown.
It wouldn’t do any good to argue. She was too exhausted to put up the effort. Her mouth tasted of cotton. She reached to the side table for a cup of water and drank fervently.
“It’s good you’re thirsty,” the nurse said. “You lost so much blood. We’ve been pumping it into you like crazy.” She reiterated, “You were so close to dying.”
Her body ached, her entirety feeling like a swollen bruise. The bite marks were numb because she was loaded with drugs. So much of the attack had vanished from her memory, but the damage was a firm reminder of who had inflicted the damage. The dead were merciless, empowered by their numbers. Deke was the one who truly saved her. Otherwise, she would’ve been dead.
You’re alive.
The nurse collected the sudsy water and carted it behind the curtain. She turned one more time before leaving. “Oh, and you have a visitor. After he’s gone, we’ll bring you dinner. Afterward, we’ll send you to your room to rest. The stitches will hold. You’ll be put on light duty.”
They’re making me work after this!
Her mental protests ceased when Richard entered the room. He waited for the nurse to leave before walking to the side of her bed. She was happy to see him, but he didn’t wear a happy face. He was concerned, and his thoughts were elsewhere besides her well-being.
“You must tell me what you saw in that corridor you came out of. I’m sorry; there’s no time for pleasantries.”
“You’re not kidding.” She combed her mind for those details. “I only entered one room. There were vampires, zombies and werewolves sleeping. They were sharing IV tubes. At the time, I was being chased by two vampires. A man and a woman, that’s all I can remember. I fought my way through the door, and I ended up in that hallway. Cynthia found me lying there. She saved me.”
Richard’s eyes pained him. He rubbed at them and expelled a weary breath. “The room was empty when we investigated. They cleared it out pretty fast.”
She noticed how he couldn’t remove his gaze from the stitches on her cheeks.
“Yeah, I was bit up pretty good,” she said, not meaning to sound offended. “Douglas threw me down into the pit after I turned him down for sex. He’s a fucking bastard.”
“He’s gone now.” He put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. “I arranged for him to have a taste of his own medicine. This wasn’t the first time Douglas abused his power.”
He whispered in her ear, “You can’t say a word. Somebody could be listening. I need your help, Addey. This place will be turned upside down soon. I’m going to tell you a secret, but you have to keep it quiet. If you tell somebody, I’m dead. Simple as that. My life is in your hands now. I can get you off this island, but you have to help me.
“The island project is being terminated by the government. They’ve run out of funding, and the gradual phase-out plan is being activated. What you stumbled upon is a secret lair. Perhaps one of the vampires caught word of this plan, and they’re acting out—or they’ve been planning this secretive shit and have been waiting for the right opportunity to strike. I’ve lost those who I can trust. I need you, Addey, to be my eyes and ears. If anything’s suspicious—word of mouth or anything—you must report it to me.”
He handed her a pager. “The shift manager can page you, but so can I. I know it’s old fashioned, but cell phones are out of the question, and it’s obvious why. When I page you, I need you to come help me. Tell no one. You handled yourself with courage, and I can trust you to make the smart decision in a compromising situation. Now play things like normal, like everything’s fine. Your job is to keep your eyes and ears open. Be ready to report any strange things, anything that would indicate an uprising of any kind. I will be in contact with you soon.”
She reached out for him, but he was too quick, and she was very weak. He was gone in a flash. The nurse entered the room with dinner, but she wasn’t hungry.
My life only gets crazier by the moment. I’m taken from my life, nearly cannibalized, and now I wake up and I’m a secret agent.
But who would hurt her if they found out she was helping Richard?
“I’ll eat later,” she told the nurse. “I want to go back to my room.”
“It’s up to you,” she tsk-tsked, waiting a moment to let Addey think over her decision. “Okay, I’ll get you a wheelchair.”
“No. I can walk.”
She got up, and she realized she was wearing a gown, the back loose for the world to see her naked ass. “Do you have any clothes I can wear?”
The nurse understood. She left and returned promptly with a black skirt and a white button-up top. “Don’t worry. Nobody’s going to look down upon you if you’re worried about your appearance. I’ve worked with a lot of injured people, and it’s different here. People understand. They’ve heard about your battle. Everybody’s in awe of you, actually.”
Thanks, Deke, for saving my ass. Now everybody thinks I’m a ball-busting, ass-kicking monster slayer.
But you are, she thought. You beat the shit out of those zombies.
Who am I kidding? I was chow to those things.
The stitches were the evidence.
A few swift punches didn’t compare to a form of mutilat
ion.
She was careful slipping on the sandals the nurse provided. Her toes had been victim to teeth as well. Many of the nails were taken out completely.
The nurse followed her out of the rooms to the front receiving desk. “Give it a few weeks, and your wounds should heal just fine.” Then a warning. “Watch yourself, Ms. Ruanova. It’s not safe, not for anybody.”
Thanks for the words of encouragement.
Addey left the medical wing, and it wasn’t long before she approached the cafeteria on the way to her room. Everybody sat in their friendly cliques, talking, chatting and bantering as if things were normal. Humans were resilient in that respect when they weren’t given a choice.
She avoided the cafeteria and walked by the leisure section of the complex. Couples and friends walked to the movies. The dance club flashed with people cutting loose. Those inside obviously had shopped the stores frequently and currently wore designer clothes.
She caught the gym next, and that’s when people eyed her with interest. Respect. Fear. Awe, as the nurse had phrased it.
This is ridiculous.
Richard had faith in her from the beginning, when she was on the cruiser. Maybe she was good at thinking through high danger/high stress situations, but defending herself? She wasn’t so sure about that. She hadn’t come face-to-face with any of the other monsters yet, but that would come later, she was certain.
Exhaustion was setting in after a short walk. Her knees and ankles were sore, her stitches numb but also emanating a soft pang. She completed the trek to her room. The nurse had handed her a tote bag upon leaving. Inside were her clothes and her key card. Richard must’ve rooted through her locker on the sublevel and retrieved them.
She closed her room’s door behind her and folded onto the bed. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep but couldn’t, despite her physical condition. So she flipped on the light, and she dressed in work clothes—the only clothes she had—and ventured outside her room.
The halls were just as busy as they had been when she first arrived. Most of the people flocked to the break room or farther down the corridor to the gym or the cafeteria. She wasn’t ready to venture out too far. She was a child again, limited to the front yard in this new, unknown place.
She supposed a shift had just let out, many of the crew stalking the vending machines and setting up camp in front of the video game consoles. They wore distant, unreadable faces.
They’ve found their escape. I guess you’ll have to find yours.
She kept reminding herself, I didn’t choose this. This is worse than a draft. If I die here, nobody would care.
Widescreen plasma televisions played ESPN, Showtime and HBO, and a group of guys and girls ventured to watch a nudie channel. They laughed and chided each other, nursing a bottle of high-end bourbon they passed around. Addey wasn’t interested, and her choices were drying up quickly until she caught the sign on the wall: Library.
It would be calm inside, and chances were nobody would bother her. She hoped there was information on the island, any piece of history to read up on. The library was the size of a modest public facility. There were no computers, and she supposed the Internet was the reason. People would e-mail for help.
She hadn’t come upon another person. Compared to television and drinking, reading took a backseat, she thought.
Addey cleared her throat. She hadn’t spoken in hours. “Is anybody here?”
She waited.
The response was from a sleep-choked voice. “Oh, somebody’s out there. Hey, I’ll be right there.”
Behind the help desk, a head poked up, disbelieving somebody had ventured into the library. The old man was in his seventies, his thin white hair disheveled. He adjusted his oversize black-rimmed glasses to get a good look at her. “Hello. My name’s George Neiman. What’s yours?”
“Addey Ruanova.”
“Ruanova, what is that?”
“Mexican.”
George looked impressed, and she didn’t know why. Perhaps he was lonely. “What can I help you find? Are you looking for good fiction or nonfiction? I wish we had a nice fireplace. You could warm up and nestle in a blanket and read to your heart’s content.”
“I’m new here. I’m practically right off the boat.”
He instinctively touched her shoulder, eyeing her as if she could detonate. “Do you need anything? I’ve got coffee, water or anything else you might want.”
“I’m interested in information.”
He was taken aback by her response. Then he smiled. “Oh, do you now?”
“Do you have any information on the island? Construction, history, anything like that?”
“Not much,” George said, extending his lower lip. “Hmmm. One thing, and that’s it. It’s a document.” He walked around the desk and came to her side. “I’ll show you. It’s in a frame, actually. Unfortunately, Brenner—the director of this fine facility—doesn’t believe information is productive. He doesn’t want people knowing too much about the place. If you ask me, they want us to be scared. They can control us better that way. Screw them. They win no matter what. My advice? Have fun. Meet a nice guy, drink until you can’t stand, and enjoy their food. Do anything to forget whatever job they give you. It’s the only way we can spit in their faces. Reading won’t help you here.”
She ignored his last statement. “So where’s this framed thing?”
He walked her to the back wall behind the periodicals section. The framed document was on a floor display surrounded by a Plexiglas barrier. The bronze plate read, Declaration of James Sorelli.
“James Sorelli, who is that?”
He itched the stubbles on his face. “He’s a vampire. You should read his declaration before you ask anything else. You’ll have better questions later. His statement is a rough essay, really.” He pointed at the frame. “Go ahead and read it.”
He wore the “I dare you—or are you too scared?” expression.
The document was handwritten, but it appeared to be copied, the ink too black and too clear to be from hand, maybe a lithograph copy. The cursive was rough in parts, but clear enough to be legible.
She read it.
These words come from a man behind the rusted bars of an iron cage. You throw raw meat at me like a lion or a tiger at the zoo. I am a vicious predator to the human race. But I am human. I am flesh and blood, though altered. How many babies will be born with our defects? Does the human race wish to hide us, or do you aim for higher goals, such as curing us? How can scientists do any good to curb our condition when we’re locked up and left to stew in darkness? Yes, we are irrational. We are violent. Hungry for what we can’t eat, thirsty for what we can’t drink. We can’t be a part of society until we are cured.
But the cave gets smaller and more claustrophobic by the week. More continue to arrive here in chains and shackles. This is an epidemic, not a trend. Vampires and creatures like me won’t pass. It’s human evolution. Think about humans in general. Our population is booming despite what the world war tolls may be, and our DNA has crossed many X and Y chromosomes and will continue to advance and change. The template of DNA is evolving. I have a heart that craves human blood. I have no conscience when it comes to my victims, which is all the reason more to heed me.
What does a cage do to an abomination like me? The raw meat you serve us does little. I crave more than a plate of food. My body is acclimating to the conditions. I’m stronger even without the nourishment I need. I’ll eventually twist the bars, shatter the locks and remove the shackles you have provided, and I’ll run rampant. This is not a threat. It will happen, and I won’t be the only one. Can you imagine hundreds of us free to conquer you? We’ll sup the human race for what it’s worth, and nobody will be left, and in the meantime, your generation is continuing to give birth to walking dead men, snarling beasts and wolves and blood drinkers. Our evolution will evolve again and again. We’ll be nothing compared to what you birth next. The cages won’t hold us, I promise you.
What am I proposing you do? The caves you’ve buried us in are meant to seclude us. We need to be separated from innocent human life, but we also must be fed, nurtured and kept content. This current situation you have us in is an escalating one. We require blood, meat, animals to hunt and, most of all, release from these horrible cages. I can barely stand up and stretch in the one I currently reside in. So seclude us somewhere with more space, far away from cities, towns and populations. Somewhere where we can’t hurt anyone.
Where should we be relocated? I suggest an island deep in the ocean. Somewhere too far to swim to the nearest piece of land, kept in a zone illegal for anybody to fly over and sail to, and a place big enough to house hundreds, if not thousands, of us. I have spoken to my fellow vampires. They have volunteered to build any construction of your choosing. We’ll put our backs into the facility, and in return, you will receive safety, our threat moved out of the homeland.
This arrangement is in the United States government’s hands one hundred percent. President Truman can do as he wishes. He can hire other people to build the facility, or maybe he has another vision different from mine. I welcome talks or negotiations. I am open-minded as the rest of us are. In this declaration, I am conveying the fact that we are agreeing to come along peaceably to this island. Deep down, we are still human, thus sensible. Our lives are in your hands, but the public’s safety is in yours. As creatures and animals, we can’t predict our future behavior in these cages. That’s why prevention and precautions must be taken. Our rebellion in these cages isn’t a threat. It’s inevitable. Please listen to reason as much as you do your hearts, I implore you.
Addey rubbed her eyes. They ached from straining to read the document under the harsh glare of the overhead lights.
“It’s amazing what James’s letter accomplished.” George had returned, sipping from a mug of steaming coffee. “The story I hear that makes the most sense is that James reached through the bars and managed to hold one of the guards in a death grip by the neck. He simply asked for a pen and pad of paper to spare his life. The guard did so, gratefully. When the guard read James’s scrawl, he was affected by it. He proposed it to his superiors, and it eventually reached President Harry Truman’s desk. Truman decided to play with the idea of building an island and shipping them out. Harry was a practical man, a farm boy from a small town, and he felt for the common people who were afflicted with such debilitating diseases. He was a damn good president.
