by P. J. Day
We arrived at the same cavernous room where I was almost burned alive. The small conference room to the left had displayed a DNA chart on the whiteboard, technicians were still running around toiling with the servers right above us, the larger girders in the ceiling had lights that splashed tremendous amounts of light below, making my skin feel slight pricks. In the center, was the examination table with thick leather straps and pointy, metallic stirrups.
Havens came over to where the guards and I were standing and grabbed one of my arms and twisted it behind my back. Even if I weren’t feigning weakness, I would have had a difficult time resisting his extraordinary strength. I ponied up a fake stumble as Havens led me from behind to the examination table in front of me. Alan assisted Havens as they put me on the table, both strapping me in as tightly as possible. One of the thick leather straps ran across my upper torso, another around my thighs. They cuffed my wrists and legs; they weren’t like the cuffs I had on before, which extended out from the table with metal links or twine, but they were built into the table, welded on, in fact.
As soon as they were done, they swiveled the examination table upward. I faced another blinding light, which partially obscured the upper bodies and faces of the group, just the tails of their lab coats and the steel-toed boots from the guards were visible through the illuminant fog.
“Day three of interviews with Jack King, American Vampire, subject number three,” Rebecca’s soft voice reverberated over the microphone. Her soft, silky voice continued through the amplification, “Mr. King, where can we find more of your kind?”
“I really don’t know,” I said.
“Are you bluffing once again, Mr. King?” asked Yi.
“No, I’m not. I’m being honest with you.”
“You don’t know your real name, you don’t know where you’re from, and now you tell me that you’ve never encountered another of your kind?” Yi asked, clearly flustered.
“I’ve assimilated successfully,” I said with a proud grin.
The leather straps were bound tightly onto my body. It felt extremely uncomfortable being tied down. I tried wiggling just a little, but it was impossible.
“Do you know where Ted is?” asked Rebecca.
“He’s in Singapore,” I said.
“Mr. King, I’ll give you one last chance to tell the truth,” Yi said. “We checked the flight records of that night, to this very hour, and he has not left Hong Kong, where is he?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“You are either the most stupid vampire on the planet or the most stubborn.” said Yi.
I could tell he was at wit’s end as his voice broke into a higher pitch.
“I consider myself a sophisticated man. One who does his best to reason but you do not want to reason—Havens, bring in the gentleman.”
Havens briefly stepped outside beyond the large metallic double doors, and grabbed a man who was being detained by the guards. He was bound with his hands behind his back. He had on a wrinkled blue dress shirt with a dirty white tee underneath and a pair of clean, black slacks. A cloth bag covered his head.
“Let me go, you assholes,” he mumbled through the covering.
“I hate to resort to plan B, but you’ve left us no choice, Mr. King,” Yi stated, as Havens dragged the man into the middle of the room and placed him in front of the light.
The man was too thin to be Ted and too short to be Samuel. Those two were the only ones who knew my identity, in fact, they were the only men I knew who, if threatened, would make me sing like a canary.
“Havens, please lift the bag from his head,” requested Yi.
Havens lifted the cloth from the man’s head and revealed a balding man in his mid-forties, with a semi-large nose, and a set of thick eyebrows. His wide eyes were consumed with fear.
“Larry?” I asked, completely dumbfounded.
“What the fuck is this place—who the fuck are you?” Larry asked me.
Yi was clearly surprised at Larry’s resulting reaction. I heard him over the microphone asking something from one of his colleagues in Cantonese. He quickly looked at me and asked,
“Do you know this man?”
“Well, kinda... but not really.”
“How do you know me?” asked Larry. “I demand to see an attorney, now.”
“Larry, an attorney is not going to help you out of this mess,” I said.
Larry scanned the room and in a drab tone asked me, “Why is everyone Chinese?”
“Aren’t you friends?” Yi asked.
“No,” I replied, smiling to myself.
“Your instant messages kept mentioning his name, Larry Herschfeld,” said Yi.
“I’ve heard of him through an acquaintance,” I said.
“So, you’re not friends?” asked Yi.
Larry and I, while in unison said, “No.”
“Is this another one of your lies, Jack?” asked Yi.
“I assure you, I have no feelings for this man,” I said.
“Wait a minute, is this a joke?” Larry asked, with a smile on his face. “Are those lights, cameras? They’re cameras, right?”
“Please, let him go,” I said. “He’s married to a beautiful woman.”
“Wait a minute, how do you know what my wife looks like?” Larry asked.
“I think we need to let him go,” I overheard Alan say.
“We can’t let him go,” emphatically stated Yi.
“What? Why not?” yelled Larry. “I have nothing to do with this...I promise I won’t say a thing.”
Havens grabbed Larry by his scrawny left shoulder and proceeded to put the cloth bag over his head again. Larry did his best to escape Havens’ grasp by slapping him on his chest, ducking away from his arms, and scooting away in consternation, but was essentially powerless to Havens’ gargantuan reach. Larry let out girlish yelp as he was picked up and placed on Havens’ shoulder.
Yi continued to berate someone in Cantonese as Larry was whisked away to a temporary stay in containment. I felt horrible for him and felt mortally disgusted for Cassie.
“Enough of these games,” said a familiar voice over the microphone, with a dash of a German accent.
His booming baritone silenced everyone in the room. His footsteps hit the unfinished concrete, echoing throughout the chambered bunker. Standing in front of the lights, only his silhouette visible.
As he stepped in closer to me and in front of the light, his full head of gray became more visible. A thick, white mustache hung over his moist lips. Rald had a tendency of wetting his lips before speaking. He looked as if he were going to an important board meeting, wearing his best business Armani suit.
“Hello, Jack,” said Rald. “I’m sorry about this situation getting so out of hand.”
My eyes—pent up with rage—instantly became red. The inside of my mouth began to water, my body tensed up, muscles tightened like compressed coils as soon as the Judas presented himself.
“Everything I have done for you and the company, and this is how you repay me?”
“Jack, the Chinese, they don’t know how to handle vampires,” Rald said, in an apologetic tone, standing three feet in front of me.
“It doesn’t matter if this wasn’t your intention, you have betrayed me. For what? Money? How much money could you possibly need?”
Rald bit his lip with nervousness and bowed his head.
“I couldn’t ask you, Jack. Too much was at stake, you would have run away.”
“You don’t know that. I enjoy my life. I enjoy my apartment, my car, my love life, my job. Who knows? I would have probably agreed to some research in exchange to keep the status quo,” I said, as my voice escalated with each word.
“We couldn’t do this in the States. There is too much exposure with the media, leaks, and investigative journalists wanting to play hero,” he said, as he placed his hand on my shoulder. “You would have never agreed to be studied in China.”
At that very moment, it dawned on me tha
t trusting humans was ill-advised at best, and at worst, dangerous. Humans had a tendency to turn into unfeeling opportunists when presented with greed.
“How did you find out I was a vampire?” I asked.
“We looked over the Bogota National Archives with a fine-toothed comb. Did you even know what was in there, in regard to Dr. Nunez’s work?” asked Rald, squinting his eyes with mild confusion.
“Exactly what I told you. Research of a now-extinct species of bat that could bleed an animal profusely and close its wound within seconds. You patented the enzymes from the bats he had in formaldehyde. You gave me a job because I made your company all the money it will ever need.”
“We thank you for that; however, you were extremely careless. In fact, it seems you wanted us to find out you were a vampire.”
I shook my head as I maintained eye contact with Rald.
“How do you figure that?” I asked.
“Your name was in Dr. Nunez’s journals,” Rald said.
“That’s impossible,” I said. “I purged every reference he had made of mefrom his works in Bogota.”
“When?” asked Rald.
I tilted my head back and said, “2003? Maybe?”
Rald placed his moderately sized hands inside his jacket and pulled out an old, weathered, leather-bound journal. The bottom half was slightly charred but the pages, although browned with time and moisture, seemed intact.
He opened the journal and scanned a page that was maybe three-fourths in and mouthed, “My sweet, sweet Nora, you have filled me with your essence and your unrivaled kindness.” He flicked through a few more pages and continued to read out loud, “The extract I made from the cyan-hued bromeliad, which I found on the banks of the Chucunaque, made me tolerate sunlight for 30 minutes, however, I could not find the same plant and don’t know if it still exists.”
He closed the journal with his right hand, jettisoning dust into the air.
“Fascinating,” he said, with a mild grin.
I stared at Rald in shock. My journal, which I thought was burned to a crisp on that night where I was brutally attacked by the gutless savage, Antonio, had somehow remained intact and was now in the hands of my captors.
“I need that journal, Rald. You must understand.”
“Well, in that case. You need to work with us, Jack.”
I ignored Rald’s suggestion, the origins of its recovery consumed me.
“You said you found it in the archives?”
“Yes, someone turned it into the archives the same year you told us to search for Dr. Nunez’s work.”
“How can that be?”
“It’s what the curator told me,” he said, in a matter-of-fact tone.
“You understand there is a potential for a cure in there, right?”
“Yes, I know. Which is why if you cooperate, you will be allowed to get this back.”
“What do you want from me?”
“You need to start being candid with Rebecca about your life.”
“But I have been,” I said.
“There has to be more. How could you not remember your origins?” asked Rald, who increasingly began looking over his shoulder.
“I just don’t. I know it sounds strange, but every time I try tapping into that portion of my brain, the memories are just a smattering of incomplete images.”
Suddenly, Yi grabbed the microphone.
“This isn’t going anywhere.”
He let go of the mike and hurriedly walked toward Rald. He faced him and crossed his arms, lightly scolding him.
“This is stupid. It’s clear he does not want to cooperate. This silly Western technique of being nice and coddling will not work.” Yi faced me and scowled. “We have deadlines, and I am tired of negotiating with a mutant.”
Even though Rald had asserted himself earlier, it seemed that it was all for show, as Yi openly castigated his methods, and obviously was the one in control.
“Alan, please come down and prep Jack for the next step,” said Yi, appearing physically dismissive of Rald, turning his back on him.
“You’re not going to do that,” Rald said.
“Do what?” I asked, my panic-stricken eyes darting around the room as I looked for Alan.
Yi turned around at Rald and sharply pointed his finger at him, “He can heal—you and I know that already.” He slowly turned his head at me and said, “He’s indestructible.”
“But we have no guarantees that regeneration is possible. We’ve discussed this already as we looked over his DNA,” said Rald.
“Regeneration?” I asked, putting two and two together. “You can’t do this,” I yelled.
Alan calmly walked toward Rald and Yi, with a large blue gym bag in his right hand. There were pointy protrusions stretching out the canvas throughout the interior of the bag. As soon as Alan got close to me, I closed my mouth in small, unnoticeable spurts, holding my breath, intermittently.
Yi walked up to me and began noticing the unorthodox movements my mouth was making. “What do you think you’re doing,” he sneered.
I shook my head and lightly mumbled, keeping my lips tightly closed.
“Are you holding your breath, Mr. King?” asked Yi.
I exhaled demonstratively, “No, I’m not, why do you ask?”
“Alan, come here,” instructed Yi. “I think he’s holding his breath.”
Alan stepped closer into me, and began examining me closely with his right eye. He placed his right ear next my nostrils to see if there was any breathing. He stepped away and plunged his hand into one his pockets, quickly pulling out the vial filled with the red powdery substance. I kept every orifice in my body as closed off as possible, even puckering my asshole. Alan’s hand was trembling as he attempted to unscrew the plastic golden cap of the glass vial, eventually, losing control of the small glass tube, as it crashed to the floor. The red powder dissipated into the air. I looked up, biting both my lips and doing my best to keep any oxygen from entering or exiting my nasal cavities.
Yi crouched to the floor and began fanning the powder toward my direction with his hands. “Quit staring and help me get this powder near Jack,” Yi yelled at Rald, and Alan. Alan, always one to follow orders, frantically fell to his knees, and mimicked a ridiculous scooping motion with his hands.
“Havens,” yelled Yi. “Open Jack’s mouth, make sure he breathes this stuff in.”
I began pushing my arms out. I heard the leather straps crackling as they yielded to the pressure applied by my pulsating musculature. My face began to flush red like cochineal carmine. I felt the veins in my neck almost bursting out of my skin. Havens pushed the spectating Rald out of the way and lunged at my neck. I managed to free one of my arms, as I stretched the leather straps with my unnatural strength. I slapped away Havens’ massive hand, as he attempted to grapple my throat. He paused, stunned that I could defend myself and was apparently at full strength and not affected by Alan’s powder. As Havens staggered, I freed my other arm and used both hands to stretch the leather around my thighs. I slipped out my legs and sprang off the table.
Havens looked down at Yi and Alan, and seemed hesitant on what to do next. I heard a cacophonous rumbling of boots enter the chamber.
“They have breached the large window above the examination room, the protestors have grown in numbers, they’re infiltrating the complex,” said one of the guards in a panic.
Yi’s face immediately sagged with worry and fear. He looked up at Havens and said, “Don’t let him get away.”
I stood my ground, my feet firm and planted on the cold, concrete floor. I looked into Havens’ soulless, deep, darkened eyes, letting him know that he would have his hands full with an angry, vengeful vampire who was at full strength and thirsty for blood.
Havens stretched his neck and proceeded to hold out his hairless, brawny arm. A guard came running and tossed him a black graphite crossbow and a cloth pouch of what looked like silver-tipped arrows. Havens quickly placed one of the arrows on the
bow’s center groove and cocked the crossbow’s tightly wound, metallic bow string. He lifted the sights of his crossbow directly in front of his right eye; it was a wink of ill will, which was aimed in a straight line toward the center of my chest.
“Aim for his leg...incapacitate him!” yelled Yi.
Havens maintained his sights toward the middle of my torso. I stood still, waiting to leap to one side as soon as I detected a hint of movement from his index finger as it calmly rested on the bow’s menacing trigger. Yi, who was still on his knees, gave me a quick glance and hurriedly turned to Havens. “Keep him alive,” Yi pleaded.
“I’ll go get more Machineel dust,” said Alan, as he got up from the floor and sprinted toward the large doors of the chamber. .
Yi stood up and yelled at Havens, “Aim for his legs...do you hear me?”
Rald slowly approached Havens from behind and tried to put his hand on his shoulder. Havens gave Rald a dismissive sniff of his nose, and pushed him away with his left arm, sending Rald tumbling to the floor.
“This is no time for revenge,” begged Rald.
“You know, if you miss, I will kill you instantly,” I said.
Havens’ developed forearm muscles began to twitch, and his trigger finger trembled; my knee slightly leaned to the left anticipating the arrow’s launch. Yi, who was still on the ground, scooted toward Havens’ left leg and pulled it right from under him. The silvery-tipped arrow shot straight into the air. Havens hit the floor, and attempted to regain his stance with his left arm. The crossbow made a deep thud as it landed on the floor behind Rald.
As the group in front of me struggled to gain their composure, I sprinted toward Havens at full speed. I leapt into the air, spreading both my arms in a striking motion, and my fangs fully exposed, as I readied to clamp down on Havens’ hulking neck and shoulders. Rald, in one swift motion, grabbed an arrow from the floor, stepped in front of Havens and stabbed me with precision. The silvery-looking tip entered my thigh, piercing through skin and muscle, finally feeling its cold metallic point resting up against my femur. I immediately landed on my back, clutching my right leg in agony, as I felt the poisonous metal begin to course through and around the gash.