There was a harsh scratch and a wooden match flamed to life. Robert Ducet stood in the doorway of my cell. He was tall and thin, with long fingers that wrapped around a tapered candle. He looked normal, at least as normal as anyone can in the flickering yellow light of a candle. I was terrified.
“I’m not here to drink you,” he said. “I need your help.”
“No, I can’t,” I said, without even thinking about what I was saying.
“You can,” he said. “It is time.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want what every man in this prison wants, John. I want to be free. I want to leave this place and never lay eyes on it again. You must know even the guards hate this place. No man should have to live like this. You have served your time and paid your debt to society. Why languish here. There is nothing but pain, misery, madness, and death waiting for you in this place.”
“My sentence was twenty years,” I said.
“Of which you have served two,” Robert said with authority. “The same length of time that Ronald Hensley served for the murder of your wife. Then he was set free. No one but myself can do the same for you, John.”
“We’ll be caught,” I said.
“Let me show you something.”
He took me by the arm and led me out into the corridor. I felt my skin crawl at his touch, but I was also afraid that prison guards were going to come storming down the corridor at any moment. I had seen what the guards were capable of when prisoners didn’t comply. I was afraid they might beat me to death for being out of my cell. I couldn’t explain it, but the fear of breaking the rules was suddenly just as a potent as my fear of the vampire that held my arm.
“You are trembling, but believe me, you have nothing to fear. The guards never come down here at night.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“I have been here a long time, John. My legend is known by many. The guards have seen traces of my existence. They have no desire to feel my embrace.”
He opened the door of the room beside my cell. I had thought it was Robert’s cell at first, but it was actually an old storeroom. There were brooms and old bottles of chemical solvents once used for cleaning, but now long forgotten in the room. A jagged hole in the floor revealed rusty metal pipes.
“This is my haven, John,” Robert said. “This maintenance space was sealed up and forgotten when the prison was expanded. I spent years chipping away the stone. I needed a way out in case I was discovered. Going over the wall isn’t any more of an option for me than it would be for you.”
“What is it?”
“Just a simple tunnel where the water and gas pipes for the prison run. It’s barely large enough for a person to walk through, but the pipes are still functional and at the end of the passage I’ve dug a tunnel to a maintenance shed outside the prison walls. I’m going to leave this candle burning in your cell, John. Then I’m going to fracture the gas pipe. No one will doubt what happened to you.”
“What about the other prisoners?” I asked.
“You care about their well-being? They are murderers and thieves, John. No one will mourn for them. They themselves would thank us if they could, but most have died already, their minds shutting down and leaving only their rotting flesh.”
“You killed them?”
“No, this place killed them. Now come with me before it is too late for you as well.”
I stared down into the darkness of the hole. I felt like I was staring into my own tomb. The vampire beside me waited. I looked at him. He seemed so normal, yet I had seen his journal, I had heard his story. He had proven himself to be capable simply by unlocking my cell. Yet I was afraid. Five years ago, I had gone to bed without my wife, trusting that she was okay, and telling myself I didn’t need to worry. I’ve regretted that decision ever since. I didn’t know if following Robert down into the black hole was something that I would regret, but I knew that if I didn’t take this chance to escape from prison, I wasn’t likely to get another. I didn’t want to live with that kind of regret, so I stepped forward and disappeared into the dark.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Dark Origin Page 3