Vengeance (Thorn's Needles)

by P. A Ross

  "What the hell was that," I said pointing a finger at her.

  My Dad pressed another button, and the glass reverted back to a mirror.

  "I said don’t touch anything," he shouted back at me.

  "It looks like a vampire."

  "Never mind what it is. It was a mistake to bring you down here,” he replied.

  Two security guards dressed in grey combat overalls and black boots burst into the room with guns pointed at us.

  My Dad put his hands in the air, “its okay no problems she has been subdued.”

  He ushered them out the door back into the corridor. At that moment, the image of the two needles flashed across my mind again. She was trying to tell me something, just like she did with the button on the control panel. I didn’t have time to think it through , and I realised I was standing with my back to the draw my Dad had placed them in earlier. I stayed facing the guards and reached behind me with one hand and eased open the draw. I reached in grabbed both needles and secreted them up the sleeve of my coat.

  Dad turned around.

  “Let’s get you home before you cause more damage,” he said.

  “Is it a vampire?” I asked again.

  “You didn’t see anything. DO YOU UNDERSTAND,” he shouted grabbing my shoulders and pushing backwards into the drawers.

  “Okay, okay,” I replied not wanting any more bruises.

  We made most of the journey back to the gate in silence, and then I guess out of remorse for shouting at me, or desire to tell someone, my Dad started speaking.

  “Vampire, I guess is the right word,” he said out of the blue.

  I looked up at him waiting to hear more.

  “We are studying her, developing genetic formulas that could benefit mankind.”

  “Or weapons,” I responded.

  He looked down his glasses at me, “may be.”

  “One of the formulas will give the taker the power of the vampire for just one night.”

  I placed my hand around the needles now in my coat pocket. It had to be these needles why else would she have shown them to me. But why show it to me?

  “Blood and anger,” was what she said at the beginning.

  She sensed my anger and smelt my blood and wanted me to have revenge. Yes, revenge was what she kept saying.

  ”Revenge, revenge my darling,” her voice was in my head again, although it grew fainter as we ascended.

  I imagine her again, face ashen and drooped, and the sadness and the sympathy I felt for her. The meeting of our eyes, and her raven hair blowing in the wind. Her red lips, glistening body, and the mist enticing me forwards, and my desire drowning me. The UV lights triggering her change to protruding fangs, fiery red eyes, and contorted muscles, as she smashed against the mirror and invoked my fear. The sadness when I was released from her possession. At the end, her ashen faced walking back to her bed, sad and lonely again. There was a connection, a shared sense of loneliness.

  “What’s her name?” I asked.

  Dad looked at me puzzled and frowned at this question.

  “What’s her name?” I asked again.

  “I don’t know,” he replied perplexed by this question.

  “She is just subject X,” he added, as if this were a proper obvious answer.

  The rest of the journey back up to the entrance of the building carried on in silence, and we waited quietly outside until my lift arrived. My Dad had arranged a taxi to take me home and gave me his set of keys to get inside. As the taxi pulled up, he whispered in my ear.

  “Remember. You saw nothing. My job and our safety rely on it.”

  CHAPTER 7

  I slept fitfully all night with dreams of the attack by the gang, the kicks in the back, and their snarling angry faces spitting and shouting at me. The dreams of her whispering the words revenge, over and over again, appearing to me as a goddess. Her raven hair blowing in an invisible wind, her sky bright eyes dazzling me, and her warm glistening body seducing me. Her turning into a vampire, red burning eyes, fangs snarling, and then smashing through the mirror and biting my neck. I woke up dripping in sweat stinging my bruises, not sure what was real and what was a dream. The attack was real as the bruise all over my body were a painful reminder. The events in basement must have been a dream, but under my bed hidden away in my suitcase, a red needle was waiting and willing me to use it. The other was hidden away under the floor boards for extra safe keeping in case something went wrong.

  I stayed off college to recover. I was still worried they would come after me again, or Scarlett, and I had decided not tell anyone who had done it. My mind floated back and forth between Subject X’s image, sad to beautiful to angry and then sad again. The feelings of sympathy and desire I felt overwhelmed by when I fantasised about her. To feelings of anger and rage aimed at Barry and his gang.

  The sick days ran straight into the weekend, and as time went on the dreams of subject x began to drift away like it was all a beautiful nightmare, and I started to think of Scarlett again. Scarlett finally came around to see me on the Saturday afternoon two days after the attack. I had been emailing her and calling her the last two days, but with no response. I was convinced she was embarrassed by me and had lost respect for me. She probably wanted a proper boyfriend that could look after her I thought.

  When she arrived I was happy, but angry as well. My Dad showed her in, and she came up to my room, which I had hardly left over the last two days. I hadn’t bothered to decorate my room when we came to London, instead I had just filled the room up with posters and pictures. The posters were mostly bands, films, and scantly clad women, which I had taken off the walls when I started dating Scarlett. The room had until recently had been tidy as I had tried my best to keep it clean for when Scarlett came around, but over the last few day I had returned to my old ways and the room was a mess. I paused my xbox and turned my music off, as she climbed the stairs.

  She tapped lightly on the door and smiled embarrassed as she walked in.

  “Hi, how you doing?” she asked, looking sheepish.

  I couldn’t be bothered with the niceties, but even though I was angry with her I still couldn’t help noticing how beautiful she looked. Her flame red hair was tied back, and her green eyes dilating as they adjusted to the darkly lit room as she entered. She was dressed in her tight blue jeans and a white t-shirt saying “RED” across the chest in red brick texture letters.

  “Where have you been?” I asked angrily.

  “I thought it just best to leave you alone for a couple of days. My mum didn’t want me going out after college after what happened,” she replied.

  I looked away and thought for a second, it was probably true.

  “Stopped you using your phone and computer as well?” I asked sharply.

  She stared down at the floor, with no excuse forthcoming.

  “Sorry I didn’t know what to say. It felt a bit weird after what happened,” she said apologetically.

  I was right I thought, she was embarrassed and didn’t want to associate herself with me anymore.

  “Oh great, not only did you get me into this, but now you don’t want to talk to me either,” I said, spitting out the words.

  “What I didn’t do this,” she replied.

  “It’s your fault. They told me, you’re one of their girls. It’s the way you dress. What did you expect?”

  “What the hell. You seem pretty happy about it normally, getting the girl the other boys wanted. I have seen you strutting around... Anyway I can dress how the hell I want.”

  “You should have some self respect , and you dropped that damn bag, as well, which tripped me up.”

  “Oh, it’s all my fault is it,” she retorted, eyes narrowing and glaring with hands on hips.

  “Grow some balls, stuff just happens so deal with it,” she shouted.

  “You left me there alone. Let me get beaten up. They may have left me alone if you were there,” I shouted back.

  “Just like you did with Gi
les,” she snapped back with venom.

  “Get lost,” I screamed, not believing she had thrown that in my face.

  I told her that in confidence, my darkest deepest secret I thought.

  “With pleasure,” she said crashing out of my room and slamming the door, shaking the pictures on the wall and leaving a ringing in my ears. She thumped down the stairs and shoved her boots and coat on, and then slammed the front door.

  “Bye Scarlett,” Dad shouted out sarcastically.

  I sulked for the rest of the day not sure what to do. The anger returned again stronger than before, and images of subject x came flooding back to the fore front of my mind. There she was again sad, beautiful and terrifying, all in the space of a couple of moments. I’d not slept much over the last two nights, too many strange dreams of vampires and of being mugged. In one of the dreams, subject x killed Barry and his gang, and I woke up in the morning disappointed it wasn’t real.

  A few hours later I sat in my room alone with the darkest music I could find to play. I opened the suitcase and sat crossed legged on the bed, with the needle in one hand and sleeves rolled up on the other. I dressed all in black ready to head out into the night. I knew where Barry and the gang would be tonight, there was a party going on by one of the sixth form students who were friends with Tony. I sat there hoping the music and the memories of the beating would motivate me into injecting the needle and taking the formula, and taking my revenge. I could kill them all. I could win Scarlett back.

  I leaned against the bedroom wall, and the bruises ignited in pain. I relived each of the kicks again thumping in as they spat in my face, shouting abusive threats that rang in my ears, and the tears streaming down my face stinging it in the cold autumn wind. It triggered new tears to roll out my blackened eyes and into my mouth. Finally, I re-lived the stealing of my wallet and phone, and the punch on the nose bursting it open and letting the blood blend into the tears and saliva. The memories were painful to re-live, and my nose began to bleed again mixing in with my new tears. My hands tensed up and I built up my resolve, muscles shaking with anger. I wanted revenge. I wanted them dead. I couldn’t go through this again, I didn’t want another Leeds. This was my only chance to fix things. I held my breath and pushed the needle down. The needle began to depress the skin on my forearm. The fear of the pain and the feeling of it breaking the skin grew stronger than the desire to keep pushing, and I stopped. I couldn’t do it. I was scared of the pain and what might happen. I breathed heavily letting my muscles relax.

  “Come on, come on,” I said to myself.

  I tried again, muscles shaking and memories flooding back, and the tears and the blood on my face kept pouring. The needle pushed against the skin, and there was a scratching feeling as it started to break the skin, and then I stopped again, too scared of the pain. I tried to imagine subject x and let the memories of the trance try and force me to do it. I re-lived the memories of her pacing the room looking sad with her drooped ashen face, her transformation into a beautiful goddess with hair flying and red lips, then a vampire snarling at me with fangs and burning red eyes, and then finally a sad lonely woman again. I felt an affinity for her. The sadness stuck in my mind. We had shared a connection when she first looked at me through the mirror. I finally realised the mist and the desire were an effect of her powers, and the vampire face a reaction to the UV lights, but the sadness was real. I tried to use these memories to inject the needle, but again as soon as the needle depressed the skin I was stopped by the pain. I was scared, scared of the pain, scared of the reaction, scared it would kill me , and I would die on my bed. I didn’t actually know what it would do. I had made an assumption from the images from a vampire and a brief conversation with my Dad. I put the needle back in the suitcase and went back to bed. There must be another way. I tried to sleep, only to be met by more mashed up dreams of vampires, Scarlett, and Barry and gang.

  The next day I decided to do some research on vampires, as I needed to understand what I had seen and what it could mean. I got Dracula on e-book and started reading. The first line was a revelation, “Jonathan Harker’s Journal”. This couldn’t be happening. I carried on reading the book for the rest of the day and found out he is a major character in the book sent to help Count Dracula move to England. It couldn’t be a coincidence, was it meant to happen? Was I meant to meet subject x? But what does it mean, was I suppose to kill her, I thought?

  CHAPTER 8

  When Monday came around again, I reluctantly returned to college. My face still bruised, and I agreed with Dad to tell everyone I didn’t know who done it. I walked slowly to college, with coat pulled up and baseball hat pulled down to try and hide my bruises and black eye. I didn’t want to go back, but knew I had to face it eventually. At least they didn’t actually go to the college unlike back in Leeds. I would be safe inside the college, and hopefully Scarlett and I could be friends again. The gang was hanging around the gates again. Barry saw me and nudged a boy with him, and then whispered in his ear. They both looked over, and the boy ran over and thrust my mobile phone into my hands. At that point I thought may be my luck had changed. Maybe they wanted to be friends after all.

  I walked into the common room and over to the other side away from Scarlett and Mary. I had said some nasty things to her on Saturday and didn’t know what else to do. All the other students looked at my face, and whispered to one another and noticed I wasn’t sitting next to Scarlett anymore. Scarlett ignored me as I walked by looking the other way and pretending to be in a deep conversation with Mary.

  I then got a message on my phone, it was a video with a message, “Play me.”

  I pressed the button and the video of my attack began playing on the phone. The video shook about as Barry walked. Tony and John standing around me kicking me in the back and legs, as I was curled up on the floor. They kicked at my head, but my arms and hands were covering it up. I watched the close up of my sad pathetic battered face covered in blood, spit and tears. Next it was Tony stealing my wallet, phone and keys. I realised that was where my keys went and was glad dad changed the locks straight away. I felt sickened by watching the video, and the whole episode replayed itself again in my mind, and the bruises on my back stung, as if they had been poked with a stick reminding them they should still hurt. Suddenly a number of other phones beeped and rung across the room. In a few seconds, half dozen phones were playing the sounds of my attack. The muffled noises of screams and laughter in unsynchronised waves of sound echoing around the common room. Those watching it started to look over, and a few laughed and handed it around the class. They were enjoying my pain. I went red with anger and humiliation. I jumped out of my seat, knocking it clattering to the floor, and shot out the room knocking into people as I went, and ran into the toilets. The laughter followed me down the hall way, and I hide in the cubicle waiting for the bell. I tried to focus on my anger, rather than let my pain take over and the tears to flood. I should have guessed they would send the video about. My phone beeped again, and I got a number of text messages.

  “Told you I would make you famous.”

  “You are such a wimp.”

  “She won’t fancy you now.”

  The first bell rang, and it triggered my tears to flood out. I stayed sat on the toilet, trying to work out what to do next. I couldn’t sit in the toilet all day and forced myself out to my first lesson late grabbing a seat at the back alone, and trying desperately not to look at Scarlett as I walked past.

  The text messages kept coming all day from different numbers. Next thing I knew at lunch break other people at the school were watching the video of my attack on their phones and looking over at me and pointing and laughing. It spread around the college and school like a virus, and anyone with a phone seemed to be watching it or had watched it. My social network pages were covered in nasty comments.

  People I never spoken to before barged, laughed, and shouted at me.

  “Welcome to London new boy,” one of them shouted sarcasti
cally.

  “Why don’t you f off back north new boy.”

  “Loser, loser,” a group of younger kids from the school chanted at me during the break times, and then ran off.

  By the afternoon break I couldn’t face people’s gazes and bullying anymore, and hid away out of sight. Scarlett and Mary found me hiding out in the art room, in amongst the paints and paper away from all the crowds and potential bullies. I was scribbling on a piece of paper in a trance of anger and fear. Revenge, revenge, revenge. I had written again and again on the piece of paper in ever decreasing circles from the outside of the paper towards the centre. In the middle I had drawn a picture of subject X as I remembered her that night, hair flowing, red lips with her hands stretched out towards me offering one of the red needles in her hand.