by J B Stilwell
She bares her fangs at me and again hits the glass with her fist. I jump although I had somewhat expected it. I give her one final glimpse of my recomposed face, and then turn my back on her. In some ways that’s more insulting than anything, especially when she and I both know her fate.
The assistant returns with a medium-sized piece of equipment that, joking aside, does look like a leaf blower. Mr. Caulfield looks at her and nods. She hands the piece of equipment to me. I take it into my arms, but fail to say thank you. It just doesn’t seem appropriate at a time like this.
Rick looks at me and firmly whispers, “Please get over it.”
Taken aback I exclaim, “Excuse me?”
He steps closely to me. “You are mentally upset over this, I get it. If you continue to allow your mind to focus on it, you will lead yourself down a path where you will make a mistake and possibly cost both of us this project. I sympathize, I do. But buck up or just let me finish the project on my own.”
Feeling warm wetness prick the corners of my eyes, I blink multiple times, willing myself not to cry. I purse my lips and look at Mr. Caulfield over Rick’s shoulder. “Will we be given any instruction on how to use this thing?” My words come out a lot more caustic than normal.
Mr. Caulfield’s lips twitch. I think he’s trying not to smile, but I could be wrong. “Daniel,” he motions to the male assistant, “please show Dr. Burcham the appropriate functionality.”
The young man comes over and gives us a brief over-view of how to work the government-rigged leaf blower. There is a receptacle that will hold the powder and once the switch it turned to “On,” the contents of the receptacle will be blown from the end of the tube. The machine suddenly went from leaf blower to death blower - not by design, but by intent.
Rick kneels and rests the box containing the vitamin D powder on the floor. I kneel with him and lay the receptacle in my lap. I open the top and prepare for the powder to be emptied into the bay, trying not to be distracted by Thalia’s rhythmic thumps against the glass. It’s almost as if she’s beating out her own death march. I shake my head to clear it.
Rick opens the box and angles the corner over the bay opening. He slowly begins to shake the powder into the receptacle until it’s nearly full, leaving enough remaining that we could go through the experiment two more times. Waste not want not I guess.
Once he’s finished, I place the top back on the bay and tighten it as much as I can. I shakily stand up, still holding the machine close to my body. Rick stretches his long frame to his full height, looking at Mr. Caulfield, “We will need for Thalia to be more boxed in so that there’s less of a possibility of her moving and us wasting our sample.”
Mr. Caulfield looks at the assistants and tilts his head toward Thalia’s cell. The male assistant, Daniel, gets suited up in some protective gear while the female assistant waits patiently by the control panel. When Daniel is dressed, he signals to her and she pushes a red button. A small opening along the vertical length of the back wall opens close to the door of the cell. Steel bars extend out all the way to the other side of the glass, creating a wall of bars.
Daniel opens the cell door and begins typing furiously at the control panel on the bars. The new wall begins to move across the space of the cell, effectually enclosing Thalia into a smaller space. She begins to look back and forth, running here and there, banging her forearms against the metal. Daniel types more into the control panel and the ends of the steel wall quickly fold in on its sides and slam against the opposite wall, creating a much smaller barred cell within the glass cell.
Mr. Caulfield motions to the female assistant who rushes from the area only to return with a crane-like ladder contraption that can elevate a person up to the space between the ceiling and the top of the cell.
Mr. Caulfield looks at us. “I am guessing that projecting your sample from above, with a freer range of motion, is preferable to trying to do so through the bars. Correct?”
Rick nods, “Yes, sir, thank you for that forethought.”
I take a deep breath and start walking toward the mechanized ladder. Rick grabs my arm. “What are you doing?” he asks as quietly as possible.
I look at him as if he has asked me the stupidest question ever. “I’m doing my job.” I firmly pull my arm from his grasp and continue toward the ladder. Once I’m on the platform, Daniel presses a button on the side of the contraption and I begin to ascend toward the ceiling. Once my waist is parallel with the top of the cell, the ladder stops.
I take a deep breath, stealing my nerves, right before the female assistant asks, “Ready?”
I wait for one, two, three heartbeats then nod. I realize that I probably need to say something. “I’m ready.” I position the death blower so that it is aimed toward Thalia. I hear the grating sound of wheels turning and the top of the cell begins to slowly slide open from my side. I have to tell myself over and over again not to close my eyes.
As soon as there is an opening big enough for the end of the hose, I insert it into the cell, sighted right at Thalia. She attempts to run back and forth but doesn’t have much room to move. I hesitate long enough that Rick yells, “Now, Emma!” I jerk, but manage to squeeze the trigger on the death blower. White powder begins to shoot out the end of the tube and rain down on the panicked vampire. She becomes covered in it as if a blizzard has suddenly blown over the minimal space she occupies.
She begins to groan as I continue to spray the contents onto her. Her groaning turns into a growl before becoming an ear-piercing yowl. The white powder turns pink as the vitamin D begins to eat away at her flesh. I stop spraying the powder onto her and watching in amazed dread as she begins flinging herself all over the bars and glass, trying to get the powder off of her.
The pink turns to red and I begin to see what looks like bone. Suddenly, Thalia throws her head back in a guttural scream before her body explodes into hundreds of meaty chunks all over the glass, through the bars onto Daniel and up to the ceiling all over me.
I drop the blower and collapse, falling from the ladder toward the floor. The last thing I remember is a whistling in my ears as empty air rushes past me.
Later, how long I’m not sure, I open my eyes to see Rick peering into my face. I’m lying on a bed in what not so oddly feels like a sick room.
“What happened?” I ask.
The corner of his mouth twitching, Rick responds, “You fell.”
I scowl at him. “But why don’t I hurt? I just feel weird, almost weightless, but I don’t feel any pain.”
“I caught you.”
I stare wide-eyed at him.
“Well, sort of,” he admits. “I caught you, but we both ended up on the floor. I took most of the impact, so you might be a little sore, but no major injuries.”
“How?”
He shrugs. “That pesky vampirism and its effects of heightened speed and strength.”
I give him a small smile. I slowly sit up and look down at myself. There are still bloodstains on my clothes, but my skin is remarkably clean.
“Angela, the female assistant, got a nurse to check you out to make sure you were okay,” he explains. “The nurse cleaned you up the best that she could.”
I exhale in relief that it wasn’t Rick who had to bear the work of digging vampire chunks from my bra. You know how you tend to find loose rice in various places after attending a wedding? I have nightmarish visions of the same thing only with pieces of Thalia. Shudder.
“What happens now? Do we have to present the results to the other teams?” I ask.
Rick shakes his head. “There is a concern, so we still have work to do.”
“A concern?”
“Yes. With the way Thalia responded before she, um, died, there’s a concern that a vampire would be able to harm as many humans within striking distance as possible before actually expiring. The possibility of that would actually make the solution, in its current form, impractical to say the least.”
“So we have to thin
k of a way to destabilize the vampire while the vitamin D has time to, um, eat away at the vamp’s body?”
“Right,” he states. “We can think more about it tomorrow.”
“It’s time to go home? How long was I out?”
Rick looks at his watch. “It’s close enough to quitting time. You were only out for about twenty minutes. Part of that was because of the sedative the nurse gave you.”
“Why would she give me a sedative if I had passed out? That doesn’t make sense.”
“You came to at one point, but you were hysterical and your blood pressure shot up. She did it to calm you down long enough to get your system back under control.”
I lean forward and cover my face with my hands. I don’t know which is more embarrassing, the fact that I passed out or the fact that when I regained consciousness, I flipped out. I rub my hands over my face and look up at Rick who is peering down at me, a look of concern on his face.
“Well, I guess I should go home then.”
“WE should go home. I’m spending the night, remember?”
“What? Still?”
“Yes, still,” he responds. “I’m sure Tucker is still lurking around out there. Plus your nerves are probably shot to the point that even if he isn’t, you won’t feel safe unless you have company. All of it is really moot anyway because after the sedative, you can’t drive. So I’m driving you home.”
I swallow and look down into my lap, knotting my fingers together. Rick stands up and waits in front of me. He holds his hand out to me. I look back up at him and slowly place my hand in his. He uses his other arm to gently help me stand. We start to walk to the door and he continues to keep his arm around me, bracing me as if I might fall again. Honestly, I can’t say that it won’t happen, so the help is appreciated although I hate it. Well, I hate needing help, not having Rick’s arm around me.
When we get back to the other facility, we put the container of the remaining vitamin D powder in a temperature-controlled locker down the hall from our research suite. We pick up my jacket and purse from our suite then walk to the car. Rick still insists on keeping his arm around me, which is good because I feel dazed. It’s like I have to concentrate on the simple task of walking, reminding myself to place one foot after the other.
He gently squeezes my shoulders with this arm as we stop in front of my car. He holds out his hand, “Keys.” I get my keys from my purse and drop them into his hand. He then escorts me to the passenger side and opens the door, actually helping me to sit in the seat. In my mind-blurred state, I still have to smile to myself at how caring and gentle he is being.
After he starts the car he asks, “Are you okay enough to tell me how to get to your apartment?”
Startled, I look at him. For some reason I had thought he already knew, but evidently he doesn’t pry into others’ personal lives like some people. I nod. “Are you sure?” he asks.
I smile and whisper, “Yes, Rick, I’m sure.”
I’m able to get us to my apartment without many problems. I only got confused once, which I consider a huge success considering what I’ve been through in the past couple of hours.
We walk silently up the sidewalk to my apartment, Rick’s arm still steadying me with each step. I look at my front door and suddenly stop, eyes wide in alarm. Rick tenses, bringing his other arm up around the front of my body, almost like a shield.
Across the front of my apartment, in glaringly wet-like red lettering, are the words “The dead can never be relieved.”
With my mouth hanging, I bury my face into Rick’s shoulders. He rubs his hand up and down my back. “Come on. Let’s call the police.”
Shaking my head, tears leaking from my eyes, I look at him. “We can’t. What if Officer Davis shows up? What if he remembers that you influenced him to let us go?”
“It’s not likely.”
Still shaking my head, “I knew what you had done to me not long after the haze wore off.”
He regards me, the look on his face very gentle, tender even. “That’s only because I wanted you to know,” he whispers.
My voice catches. He could have duped me the whole time? And I wouldn’t have known? But he didn’t. I’ll have to think about that later when I can actually think.
I nod and mumble, “Okay.” He gently squeezes me then asks, “Can I use your cell phone?”
I hand him the phone as he dials some numbers then takes my hand and leads me back to the car. He explains the issue to the person on the other end of the line and gives them my address. He ends the call and hands my phone back to me. “An officer is on the way.” He leads me back to my car.
Leaning against the hood of my car, we wait while Rick continues to keep his arm around me.
“Shouldn’t we go into the apartment? It will be light soon.”
He looks down at me, “We have some time. Probably shouldn’t touch anything that could be considered evidence. Is there another way to get into your apartment?”
“Not unless you want to climb through a window,” I reply.
“Well, if they take too long to get here, we’ll have to do that so you don’t get vampire splattered all over you again.”
I jerk against his arm, giving him a stormy glare. His grin fades. “I’m sorry. Just trying to distract you. It was a bad joke. I’m sorry.” He again rubs his hand up and down my back. I close my eyes and slide against him, resting my head against his shoulder.
He continues to hold me as the minutes pass by and no police officer is to be seen. I keep my eyes closed as hundreds of thoughts play bumper-cars in my head. I purse my lips then say, “I think it was Tucker.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because of what’s written,” I explain. “It’s a line that was written on the wall of one of the buildings at the abandoned mine.”
“You went to an abandoned mine with Tucker?”
I lean back away from him. “Actually, Tucker, Abe and I went there. Tucker had told us about it and Abe was interested in checking it out because of the murders.”
Rick bobs his head, looking off into the distance. “Well, I guess we better wait inside. It’s getting too close to first light.”
We get back to the front of the apartment before I ask, “Are we really going to go through the window?”
“Is there another choice that won’t possibly disrupt evidence?”
“You know as well as I do that in cases like this, it’s unlikely that anyone will be arrested for it unless there is a witness or a lot of fingerprints that are already in the system. Even so, this is not exactly the type of case that takes priority.”
He cocks his head to the side, “We might be surprised at what takes priority in a small town like Rowan where nothing else happens.”
“Yeah, nothing except unsolved murders,” I grumble.
Appearing a bit agitated, Rick takes the keys from his pocket and opens the door. He stands in front of me, keeping one arm back across my body. He slowly leads me into the darkened apartment. He finds the light and turns it on to find my happy home to be seemingly, and thankfully, empty of intrusion.
“Better-than-human vampire sight?”
“What?” he asks.
I nod to the switch. “How you knew where the light switch was.”
“Oh,” he runs his hand through his hair before dropping the keys on the entryway table. “Yeah, better vision in the dark.”
I begin to walk to my bedroom to change out of my bloodstained clothes when Rick suddenly grabs me. “Let me check out the rest of the apartment first.” Once he has confirmed that no bogeymen are hiding in any darkened corners or closets, I take a change of clothes to the bathroom to finish the cleaning job that the nurse had started. I’m glad to learn that there are no bits and pieces hiding anywhere as I shed my clothes and turn the shower on full blast. I fill the sink with cold water to let my bloodstained clothes soak, then jump under the hot water in the shower to scrub the trauma of the day from my prickling skin.
/>
Once I’m done in the shower, I dress and begin to ring my clothes out when I hear a knock on the door. I walk slowly out of the bathroom, assuming that Rick would answer the door, but he’s nowhere to be seen. I turn and see him sitting on my bed. He just shrugs and says, “Sun.”
Ah, the sun is up so he’s staying in the darkest part of the apartment, which just happens to be my bedroom. Yes, the place of no light.
I walk to the door, “Who is it?”
“Officer Davis,” the voice responds.
Dang our luck. Praying that Rick is correct in that the officer won’t remember, I open the door.
“Good morning, ma’am. I’m responding to the call at this residence for what looks like graffiti that has been sprayed on your door?”
“Yes, sir,” I respond quietly.
“Can I come in and ask you a few questions?”
I welcome the officer in and notice that he’s taking everything in, running expert eyes over the entirety of my small apartment.
“Your name?”
“Emma Burcham. Dr. Emma Burcham.”
Officer Davis cocks his head to the side, studying me for a few moments. “Is the graffiti the only thing you’ve noticed this morning?”
“Yes, so far,” I reply.
“Does what is written in the graffiti have any meaning to you?” he asks.
“Actually, yes. It’s a line from what is written on the wall of one of the buildings at the abandoned mine. Someone took me there to show me the grounds and tell me what happened.”
Officer Davis glares at me, one eyebrow raised. “You do understand the concept of abandoned, right? By being there, you and your friend were trespassing.”
“But,” I stammer as I start to panic. “I was just...”.