Dead by Dawn

by Wellman, Bret

  “If you want to stay there, that’s fine too,” said Barry, rubbing his elbow.

  “Drink another beer. You’ll be fine.”

  Adam headed out to his bike knowing the ride would be the only enjoyable part of his day. Being around Carl was going to be miserable.

  He went slow and took a longer route. Every extra minute on the road was another minute of freedom where he didn’t have to deal with that lazy piece of shit.

  All the shades were drawn on the double wide when he pulled up. There were no cars in the driveway, making it look as though no one was home.

  Adam slipped off his helmet and set the bike against its kickstand. He lingered a moment before heading into the dark trailer.

  “Hello,” he said, as the front door squeaked open.

  It was dark, what little light made it through the shades was tinted red. The front door of the trailer opened wide, like a mouth trying to swallow him whole. Something inside of Adam was warning him to run.

  He waited for a minute, but there was no answer.

  He whistled. “Carl, you in here?”

  Nothing.

  Adam stepped through the front door and began making his way to the bedrooms. He could hear every one of his footsteps as he walked across the carpet. They made a swooshing sound, disturbing the still air.

  Probably should have taken off my shoes, he thought.

  He reached his mom’s bedroom and cracked open the door.

  “I told your mom I didn’t want you here,” came Carl’s phlegmy voice.

  “Look, I’m real sorry about the other day. I don’t know what got into me.” You got into me…

  “Go away.”

  “Do you need anything? Soup or something.”

  “I need some peace,” said Carl. He was growing louder, angry.

  Fine, wallow in your own self-pity for all I care.

  Adam left him there and went out to watch some television. He wished he could be farther away from Carl than the tiny hallway, but the living room would have to do.

  It took him all but ten minutes of channel surfing to discover nothing was on. When he gave up, he began searching through the DVD collection. Adam had personally bought every movie in the collection and therefore saw them all at least twice.

  In the end he settled for a movie he hadn’t seen in a while, Shawn of the Dead.

  Adam slipped it into the DVD player and kicked back, preparing for a long day of movie watching. Much to his delight, Carl never came out of his room once for eight hours. The two of them had never gotten along better under one roof.

  His mom got home around 5:30, carrying a pizza box and can of soup.

  “Hey Honey, how was your day?”

  Adam shrugged. “It was fine.”

  “How is Carl?”

  “He didn’t want to be disturbed.”

  She frowned. “Well it’s about time he got up and moved around. It’ll be good for him.”

  She set down the pizza and soup and headed into the back room. Adam waited on the couch, not sure if he should leave or wait for pizza.

  When his mom came out Carl was practically hanging from her elbow. The man looked like death. His lips were turning blue and his skin was ghost white. He did little more than shuffle as he walked along and his eyes were glazed over. Adam couldn’t be sure, but it looked as though he’d lost a lot of weight as well.

  “He’s freezing,” said Adam’s mom. “Watch him while I call the doctor.”

  Adam scooted as far away as he could as his mom set Carl down on the couch. He didn’t know what the hell the guy was sick with, but he didn’t want to catch it.

  Carl didn’t move or talk, he just sat there, staring straight forward. Adam watched him, unsure of what to do.

  Eventually his mom came back in, twisting her hands together. “The doctor told me to take him to the hospital.”

  After seeing Carl come out of that room, he could have told her that. The man looked like death on two feet.

  “No hospital,” Carl mumbled.

  “You’re really sick Darling. You need to go. At least get checked out,” said Adam’s mom.

  She touched his elbow and he yanked it away. “No hospital.”

  “Do you want to die?” asked Adam. “Is that it? You’re really sick man. You need a doctor.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “No you’re not.”

  Adam grabbed him and was shocked to find he felt like ice. Carl tried to jerk away, but was too weak to make any headway. Adam was able to pull him up.

  “No,” Carl moaned.

  “Oh, be careful honey. He’s very sick.”

  Carl was almost dead weight as Adam struggled to get him to the front door. His mom followed closely behind, her hand was out as if to catch the overweight man were he to fall.

  They stepped outside the front door and Carl gasped.

  “The sun!” he cried, “it’s burning me!”

  “You’re fine,” said Adam, inching him towards his mom’s car. He had to admit, the man was suddenly much more alert. The sunlight seemed to pour a little bit of life back into the guy. He tried to resist, pushing with more force against Adam than he had probably given all day.

  He had his eyes closed and was moaning as if in pain. The neighbor across the street who had been watering his flower beds stopped to stare.

  When Adam finally had Carl in the passenger seat and buckled in, he had the strong urge to take a shower. He felt sick to his stomach just thinking about whatever germs were now crawling all over him.

  “Thank you Adam,” said his mom. “You were a big help today.”

  “You don’t need me to come with you?”

  “No no, we’ll be fine. I’ll have them bring out a wheelchair for him at the hospital.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes Adam. You go enjoy the rest of your day. It’s okay.”

  Adam took a step onto the yard to watch his mom back out of the driveway. Now that he could get a good look at Carl in the daylight, he could see how sick he really was. His mom, the woman who spent ninety nine percent of her time inside, looked tan next to the guy.

  Drive fast mom, he thought as she blew him a kiss and pulled away.

  Four hours later he was sitting at Barry’s when his mom called and said the two words that made his heart freeze.

  “Carl’s dead.”

  Chapter 8

  Darkwood military base, WA - July 6th

  Dr. Bennet opened his briefcase and took out a handful of packets. He passed them out to the five people sitting at the long table. He himself was stationed at the head, Major General Smith sat at the opposite end. Between them were some of the top officials from the F.B.I, CIA, NSA, and Homeland Security.

  The room had no windows and only one door. A sweeper team was sent in an hour earlier to make sure the room was entirely sound proof and secure. There was no reason for it not to be, but they did it anyway.

  The room itself was bland: there were no windows or pictures on the surgical white walls and the only furniture was the long table and chairs.

  Dr. Bennet fidgeted at the idea of being in a room with so many important people. The hours he spent preparing this presentation felt rushed. The people there were too important, he needed more time to develop a better presentation.

  Things were moving fast and everyone was looking at him for answers.

  Well, read Dracula people! Or Salem's Lot. Hell, watch Blade for all it’s worth. We already know the answers! We just can’t believe them.

  Dr. Bennet cleared his throat and clicked the first slide on the projector. A picture of Jonathan Q. Harbor appeared on the screen. He was strapped down to the operating table, looking as dead as ever. The picture was taken using a camera that didn’t use mirrors, the only kind that would capture his image anymore.

  “Homo Nus Nocturnes,” said Dr. Bennet repeating the speech he’d practiced a hundred times in the mirror. “Let’s not beat around the bush, we’re talking about vampires.
”

  He waited for somebody to ask a question, when nobody did he clicked to the next slide. Each page of the packets he handed out matched the slides he would be showing. This time it was a picture of Jonathan Q. Harbor’s arm. His wrist had been subjected to minimal ultraviolet rays and was breaking out into a rash.

  “One of the most notorious vampire deterrents in folklore is their vulnerability to the sun. To test this theory, we shined a small amount of ultraviolet light on the subject’s arm. As you can see, even the smallest amount of exposure caused a large rash to form. No sparkles here.” He looked up, expecting a laugh. His crowd was stone faced. He cleared his throat again. “Anyway, this reaction to U.V. rays was quite intriguing and caused us to look for an answer on a molecular level. What we discovered is quite amazing.” He clicked the next slide and the image of a microscopic organism popped up. The organism was round and white, with millions of tiny tentacles sticking out from its sides, like tiny hairs. “Almost immediately, we found an organism throughout the body that has an appearance unlike any other. Though it is unique in appearance and behavior, it tests chemically to be a former Streptococcus Mutans cell, which are found in all humans and are a part of the natural bacteria of the human body. It appears to be a complex, symbiotic virus/bacteria and from what we can tell, it has rewritten the genetic code of the human by invading into every single cell. It’s done this to such a drastic extent that the victim is no longer human. It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen, the closest thing we can compare it to is the Rabies virus. The difference is that this Rabies virus can then attack and completely take over the body’s natural bacteria. We’re calling it Esuriensanguis Nocturnus, or EN for short.

  He switched the slide to show a video of the symbiote attacking a red blood cell. The tiny hairs were ripping their way inside. “What we’ve discovered ladies and gentlemen, is a super organism. Anyone familiar with science fiction’s Nanobots might be able to understand how this virus works. It heals the creature’s body in previously unimaginable ways. When we applied a laceration with a scalpel we saw an influx of infected cells to the area. Within mere seconds, the wound had sealed itself shut. We tried burning the skin to see if the organism would react similarly. While the healing process was slower, as soon as the flame was removed, the skin returned to normal. On a side note,” he said, meeting the eyes of everyone at the table, “this evidence of prolonged damage led us to believe that vampires can be severely injured, perhaps even killed by fire.”

  “Are we talking about an organism that can effectively eliminate disease as we know it?” Asked a blond-haired woman on his right.

  “We’re talking about a virus that can eradicate any disease known to man in the morning and heal a severed limb by the afternoon,” said Dr. Bennet. “What we’re talking about is damn near divine intervention, if you forget the virus is a disease in itself and turns you into a bloodthirsty succubus.” He waited for a retort, but the room offered none. “The state of preservation this virus prefers is that of the classic vampire, most commonly the ones from older legends. It enhances speed and agility, while at the same time healing any injuries sustained, they empower motor function and brain activity, yet they stop the heart and blood flow as we know it.”

  “How is that possible?” asked a sharp-nosed man next to Smith.

  “As far as we can tell,” said Dr. Bennet. “It attacks bacteria inside the body first. After that it goes after blood cells, it then distributes them throughout the body as needed. It does this with frightening intelligence. The virus works without the heart, its microbes drag themselves through the blood stream. They intentionally take the most direct path to the injury, sometimes choosing to flow through the arteries, veins, lymphatic system or it can make a path on its own. It may seem unimaginable and ridiculous to you, but I can assure you, when put into practice the result is a superior being.” Dr. Bennet clicked to the next slide, revealing the picture of a wooden stake. “Now that I’ve somewhat explained to you all that we know of EN, I’d like to dive deeper into how to stop it, if you don’t mind.” Dr. Bennet waited.

  “Proceed,” said General Smith.

  “Okay, another famous vampire myth is that a wooden stake to the heart will kill them. Obviously we didn’t want to kill the only vampire specimen we have so we used a controlled experiment to see how EN would react to your average piece of wood. The result was astounding.” Dr. Bennet clicked to the next slide revealing a piece of wood laid across a pale white forearm. “As you can see in this picture, its skin has virtually no reaction at all. When the skin is pierced however, all of the infected cells in that area will rush out and absorb into the wood.”

  “Will the creature ever run out of infected cells?”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Bennet. “Which is a good point to bring up. So far we’ve found that the vampire expends its blood cells at an astounding rate. As the virus uses up microbes, it counts on new blood cells to create and sustain more. The transfer rate is somewhere around two blood cells for every one microbe. As a result, you get a strong urge for Hematophagy, or blood drinking. In the wild, the creature must be thirsting for new blood almost constantly. We’ve run a few tests on the vampire’s bone marrow and so far have been unable to find evidence that the creature can create its own blood cells. Therefore we’ve concluded it must steal them from outside sources.”

  “And the stake?” asked General Smith.

  “As far as we can tell, there’s a reaction triggered by the cells inside the wood. When the virus senses the foreign cells inside the vampire’s body they attack. The wood on the other hand soaks them up like a sponge. This can potentially leave the vampire short of the microbes it counts on to survive. If the stake was placed somewhere vital, for instance a heart, then the loss of fresh EN cells would be fatal.”

  “And all wood works?” asked the hook-nosed man. Dr. Bennet took note of the CIA badge clipped to his shirt.

  “We used treated wood from the lumber yard, I imagine fresh wood from a tree would work even better. It would be more alive, if I may,” said Dr. Bennet. “We plan on running more tests using wood, but at the present moment we simply haven’t had enough time.

  We’ve also been experimenting with other materials. Some of which include, mercury, steel, iron, plastic, cotton, rubber, aluminum, and leather. None of which gave us any unexpected results. There was one that did however.”

  Dr. Bennet waited. When there were no more questions, he clicked to the next slide. “Silver,” he said, pointing to the large projection of a silver coin. “Has the opposite effect of wood.” He clicked to the next slide. A projection of a coin laid out on the vampire’s shoulder appeared. The skin underneath was red and bubbling.

  “Whereas wood absorbed EN, silver repels it. The reaction is similar to that of two protons. We’ve found that the reaction happens so fast, the resulting friction can create high levels of heat. The red and blistered skin you see on the screen was caused by the heat of the virus/bacteria as it was repelled away.”

  “Fascinating,” said an older man to Bennet’s left.

  “Yes,” said Dr. Bennet. “And after the EN has been cleared out of the area, the skin returns to dead human flesh. That is, when the silver object is pressed against the skin. If silver were to actually go deeper by breaking the skin—and this is just our theory—it would most likely cause a reaction that would kill the vampire. Also, if I may go back to ultraviolet light for a moment.” He clicked through the slides until he found the correct one. “The reaction by EN is very similar to silver. In the case of U.V. however, the microbes vibrate as opposed to being repelled. This vibration is so fast and so rapid that it will cause the vampires to spontaneously combust.”

  “And this can be any ultraviolet light, not just the sun?” asked Smith.

  “Correct,” said Bennet, clicking to the next slide. “We tried garlic with little results at first.” There was a small bottle of powdered garlic on the projection. “Most of our tests came back inconc
lusive. It wasn’t until we did a comparison test under the microscope that we saw any effects at all.” He clicked to the next slide, bringing up the picture of the virus eating a white blood cell. “We provided a drop of blood and a drop of EN infected saliva to use as a control. We then ran the same test, only we introduced various chemicals into the blood. In every case the results were the same, the virus took over the blood cells. Until we tried garlic that is.” He clicked to the next picture. “In that test alone, the virus left the blood cells in peace.” He took off his glasses and pinched the lenses between his shirt to clean them before putting them back on. Beads of sweat were beginning to form on his forehead. “We’ve concluded that garlic does little harm to the vampire, though it may prevent the thirst, if enough is in the victim’s bloodstream. Also, it could very well disrupt the creature’s senses.”

  “So you’re saying garlic might prevent these creatures from being able to hunt?” asked the hook-nosed man as he scribbled something down in his notepad. As far as Dr. Bennet could tell it was the first time any of them had written anything down.

  “That’s the best theory we have so far,” said Dr. Bennet. He cleared his throat and fixed his dress coat before moving on. “After garlic we decided to try a few less traditional tests. The ones that, quite frankly, have shaken a lot of us up to the very core of our beliefs.” He clicked to the next slide and the image of a church appeared. “Religious symbols. We presented the creature with hundreds. Our predictions were that nothing would happen with any of them. Out of all the tests, we were only wrong on two counts. We haven’t the slightest idea how or why, but these reactions did happen. I imagine you all can guess which two they were.” He clicked the projector and a picture popped up of a cross next to holy water. “Regular water does nothing to the creature. Have that very same water blessed by a priest and suddenly it takes on acidic qualities when in contact with the vampire. Dip your own hand in that very same water and nothing happens.” He gave them a moment to process before going on. “The cross on the other hand we’ve found to give absolutely zero physical harm to any aspect of the creature. Even so, the creature acts as though it’s being severely burned.”