by Amy Cross
"You're locked in," Donna says. "Whoever let you inside, they locked the door. Probably threw away the key as well. Maybe they didn't like you very much. Can't imagine why. Anyway -" Suddenly she's right behind me; I turn to find her staring straight into my eyes. "Listen, Abigail. Here's the thing. Even if that door wasn't locked, you'd be stuck here. The only person who can let you out is me, and I really don't see that happening, do you? Why should I let you live when you did so many awful things to me? Maybe we should just live in here together, forever?"
Starting to panic, I bang on the door, hoping that someone might hear me. "Help!" I shout. "I'm stuck in here! Help me!"
"What are you scared of?" Donna asks, leaning closer to me. "I'm just a ghost. I can't even touch you, and this is just an empty room. Frankly, if you ask me, the scariest thing in here is you, Abigail. You're a monster".
"Help!" I scream, banging as hard as I can on the door. I know Gothos is a big place, but someone has to hear me eventually.
"Are you sure you want to get out of here?" Donna asks. "After all, you killed me, so who knows what else you might do? You have a primal urge for blood. No-one's going to be safe around you. For the good of the whole world, wouldn't it be better if you stayed in this room forever, with me?"
I take a deep breath, feeling tears welling up in my eyes. Maybe Donna's right. I'm dangerous. I hurt people. The world doesn't need a creature like me. Patrick ended up killing my mother, killing the one person he was supposed to love, and I'm probably going to turn out just like my father. At least in here, I can't hurt anyone. I've already killed Donna, and I can't exactly kill her again. Slowly, I turn to face her.
"You and me," she says, smiling. "Together forever, in here. Wouldn't that be fun? We could talk and talk and talk. What is there out there for you, anyway? An insane father who wants to turn you into a killing machine? A bunch of pseudo-soldiers who want to capture you and perform experiments on you? What was it Benjamin said about Patrick, back at the facility in Dedston? He said Patrick is totally without love. Worse, he's without the ability to love". She pauses. "How do you want to live your life, Abigail? Free in the world, but unable to love? Or trapped in here with me, but with a heart that loves? You have to choose. If you choose to go back out there, I'll even open the door for you".
I close my eyes, trying to work out what to say. She's right. I don't want to become like Patrick. At least if I stay in this room, I'll still be me.
"Good," Donna says. "I'm glad you're staying. Now, why don't you come over to the middle of the room and sit down, and we can catch up on old times?"
Patrick
As I walk through the darkness, I feel the bones of the dead crunching under my feet. It has been many, many years since these poor bastards died, and the flesh has slowly rotted away from their corpses; their bones, on the other hand, remain where they fell. Whole rib-cages glisten in the moonlight, and the occasional skull stares up at me. After all this time, they shatter into dust as I walk across them. It is not disrespect that leads me to tread a path straight through these remains, though; rather, it is the fact that there are far too many bodies left scattered about. I simply can't find a path to the mountains that doesn't involve climbing over the dead. Perhaps another man would carefully move the bones aside, taking care to show respect and to honor those who have fallen. As for me, I see these bones for what they are: the physical remains of long-dead fools who fell and died in combat; the ruins of men and women who fought long ago. They deserve no pity. At some point they were all, every single one of them, my enemy.
Ahead of me, the small light burns brighter still against the night sky.
Pausing for a moment, I turn to look back at Gothos. The house is illuminated in the distance, but I see no reason for nostalgia. The place should have been destroyed long ago. It's just a ruin, and it has no more life than these skulls under my feet. Now that the vampires are all gone, there is simply no reason why their great palace should remain standing and it's a travesty that it remains. Nevertheless, Diana wishes to keep Gothos running and I do not feel that I am in a position to criticize or question her. She has always seemed wiser than the rest of us, and I feel that perhaps she knows what she's doing. Of all the people I have met in my life, it is Diana I trust the most. She has no ulterior motives, no hidden designs; she simply wishes to maintain the legacy of the vampires for as long as possible. I don't necessarily agree with her in every respect, but I can at least understand why she does what she does. If only all people were as easy to read.
When I was stronger, this journey would have been easy. Now that I'm dying, I find myself struggling with every step. If only one of my daughters could have come with me, but they are both unsuitable for the task: Gwendoline has a strong mind but a weak body, whereas Abigail has a strong body and a weak mind. Gwendoline is lost to me, and Abigail is locked in a room from which no-one has ever escaped. My children have failed me. The vampire race will die with me. My Death Walk has begun, and I will not stop walking until I fall dead to the ground.
Abby
"I can't explain it," Donna says, as we sit on the floor, surrounded by darkness. "It's like... every time I saw you, I felt this inner rage. It was primal, and primitive. I just wanted to kill you; I wanted to rip you apart and strip the flesh from your bones. The thought of you existing was too much for me to handle. I've never felt like that about anyone or anything before, but with you... I was blinded by hatred".
"It wasn't your fault," I reply, glancing around the room. Now that my eyes are adjusting to the darkness, I can just about make out some dark shapes in the gloom. The room seems bare, apart from a bed over by the far wall and a wardrobe next to the door. "There's something about me," I continue. "When I turned sixteen, something changed inside my body. You sensed it, and you reacted against it. I guess all humans felt the same way, but for some reason it was stronger with you. It's a natural reaction to finding something alien in your environment. There's a word for it. I was a quisling".
"Maybe," she says, "but I still shouldn't have been so mean to you. I should have controlled myself".
I smile. "I promised not to keep apologizing for killing you, so you have to promise not to apologize for bugging me for years, okay?"
She nods. "I wanted to be a photographer," she says suddenly. "I wanted to go to college and study photography, and then be, like, a photojournalist or something in New York".
"I know," I say. "I overheard you talking about it once. You said you wanted to combine art and... something, I don't remember exactly".
"Art and critical commentary," she reminds me.
"That's right," I say. "You wanted to combine art and critical commentary. I remember being really surprised when I found out you had this huge ambition". I pause for a moment. "It's strange how we remember certain things about other people, isn't it? I didn't know you very well, but I knew you wanted to be a photographer, and -" Suddenly I realize that something's not quite right about this conversation; something about Donna feels wrong. "When I was really young," I continue carefully, "my dad - I mean, my foster father - got me a little toy camera. It was blue -"
"It was red," Donna says, correcting me instantly.
"That's right," I say, eying her cautiously. "It was red". I pause for a moment. "It was a Christmas gift when -"
"It wasn't a Christmas gift," she replies. "It was a birthday gift".
I stare at her. "I still have it somewhere," I tell her.
"No you don't," she replies. "You dropped it off a bridge once when you were trying to take photos. You got scared because of how high up you were".
"Yeah," I reply cautiously. "That's all true, but how do you know so much about my childhood?"
She stares at me, as if she doesn't understand the question. "It was a red toy camera," she says eventually. "That's just what it was. You said it was blue, and I told you it wasn't".
I take a deep breath, slowly starting to realize what's happening here. "Earlier, you remin
ded me of what Benjamin told me back in Dedston. You said he told me that Patrick can't love anyone".
"He was right," Donna replies. "Patrick's a monster".
"But how did you know?" I ask. "How did you know what Benjamin said to me? You weren't there!"
"I must have been there as a ghost," she says. "I must have been haunting you invisibly and -"
"You weren't even dead at that point," I tell her. "This was before I came back to Callerton, so... Again, how could you know this stuff? The only person who knows all this stuff is me".
She pauses. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that you're not Donna. You're not a ghost. Gwendoline was lying. You're just an extension of my own consciousness. There's no other way you could know about things that happened in Dedston".
She stares at me for a moment. "If that's true, then you must have lost your mind, because you're sitting here talking to me. What's wrong, Abigail? Don't you want to believe in ghosts?" She leans closer to me. "Face the truth. You killed me. If you hadn't held me captive in the woods, I'd still be alive today. You wanted my blood, and you know what that means... It means you're like him. You're just a little copy of Patrick". For a moment, Donna's face seems to shimmer; seconds later, her appearance has changed and she looks like me, but with slightly different hair. "You're nothing like me," she continues with a new voice. "You might be wearing a dress I had once, but you're nothing like me, not where it counts". She looks down, to where there's a large patch of blood across her belly. "You're your father's daughter, and you know what your father did to me".
"You're not my mother," I say, trying to stay calm.
"I look like her," she replies.
I shake my head. "You look like how I imagine her, but I've never actually seen her face".
"Same difference," he replies.
Getting to my feet, I hurry over to the door. It's still locked, but that doesn't mean I can't get out. I back up for a moment, before running at the door and trying to smash it through; unfortunately, I just bounce back into the room, landing hard on the floor.
"Where do you think you're going?" asks the image of Sophie, before changing back to Donna again. "You can't get out of here until I decide it's time, and I really don't see that happening any time soon". She pauses. "And if I'm really just an extension of your mind, that means you don't want to leave the room anyway. You want to stay here forever, wrapped up safe where no-one can hurt you and where you can't hurt anyone else".
"You're not real," I say, getting to my feet and crossing to the other side of the room. I take a deep breath, before charging at the door. Once again, however, I thud into it and fall back without causing any damage.
"You're safe in here, Abigail," Donna says, taunting me, "and other people are safe from you. Just accept that it's better if you stay in here forever. No-one needs you out there. You'll just end up hurting people. I promise you, there'll be more deaths if you ever get away from this place. More pain. Just stay here, in the dark, talking to me or to yourself or to whoever or whatever you think I am. You don't need anyone else".
I turn to look at her. She's not real. She's just a projection of my own thoughts; she has to be an illusion. I'm alone in here, trapping myself. I hurry to the other side of the room, ready to try breaking down the door again, but my foot brushes against something. Looking down, I see a shape in the darkness. After a moment, I realize it's a dead body: the skin is withered and dry, and the eyes are open, staring up at me. I step back, and I realize there are others. This whole corner of the room is filled with half a dozen bodies.
"Others have been in here before you," Donna says. "None of them ever got out".
I put my hand over my face, trying to not smell the stench of death that's rising from these corpses.
"You're not real," I say again, turning to Donna.
"Maybe not," she replies, "but they are".
Behind me, I hear a creaking sound. I turn and look down to see one of the dead bodies slowly moving its arm. Moments later, its head turns to look at me, and another body starts to stir.
"Relax," Donna says. "It might seem bad now, but soon you'll be just like them. Won't it feel good to belong? Isn't that what you've always wanted? To fit in? To be like everyone else?"
The first of the corpses gets to its feet, its bones creaking with every movement. Behind it, the others are following suit.
"They want to make you be like them," Donna continues. "You'll be part of the gang. Won't that feel great? You'll be popular".
As I turn and stare at her, I see that there's a window on the other side of the room. My first thought is that there's no way I can climb out the window. I've never been very good with heights and the idea of climbing out onto the ledge is enough to give me cold shivers. At the same time, the door isn't going to break, no matter how hard I run at it. Maybe I'll get strong enough to smash it down eventually, but I don't have time to wait. Donna might not be real, but these dead bodies are very very real and they're slowly moving toward me. It's taking them time to move, probably because they've been still for so long, but they seem to be getting faster.
"Don't even think about going out the window," Donna says. "Think how high up we are. This is a big building and we're on the top floor. It's a thirty or forty meter drop out there. Imagine perching on the edge, trying to find a way down. You can't do it. You're too weak. You'll fall".
"Yeah," I say, turning and running at the window. "You're right. I will fall". I know I'll chicken out if I climb out, so I have to take more drastic action. Everyone says I'm like my father, and my abilities seem to be getting stronger every day. I guess it's time to see if I'm really like him. Running as fast as I can, I throw myself shoulder-first against the glass and I feel it break against my weight. I smash through the window, keeping my eyes closed tight shut as I feel my skin getting torn by sharp slivers. Everything seems to go in slow motion as I feel my whole body emerge into the night air, and finally I open my eyes and see that I'm high up above the dark garden. Starting to fall, I try to turn my body so that I'll land on my side. I fall and fall and fall, and finally everything seems to speed up as I get to the bottom and I smash into the concrete patio. Every bone in my body shatters and I let out a scream of pain as I lose consciousness.
Patrick
The journey takes long than I had expected. Up ahead, the light burns through the night, and as I get closer I see that it's a campfire. There doesn't appear to be anyone nearby, though I'm picking up the scent of someone who has been here recently. Rather than wander straight over to the fire, and into what might be a trap, I walk around the area, trying to work out what exactly's going on. A campfire can't have simply built and lit itself, so someone must be nearby, but there's no way anyone could have come out here without being seen. This is dead land, filled with the scattered bones of dead vampires, and it makes no sense that there would be someone here. In the distance, the lights of Gothos are plainly visible. Why would someone camp here, rather than going down to the house?
"Hello!" says a voice from behind me.
I turn around, shocked to find that a man has emerged from the darkness. Usually it would be impossible for anyone to ever sneak up on me like that, but in my current state I'm not as alert as I once was. The man appears to be an elderly human, perhaps the oldest I've ever seen, with tired, sad eyes but a big smile. He's holding a small collection of wood in his arms, evidently to keep the fire burning.
"Now this is something I don't see every day," he continues, grinning as he walks past me and heads over to the fire. "I don't get many visitors up here. In fact, you're the first in a very long time". He drops the wood on the ground, before bending over and dropping a couple of logs into the flame. "It's so hard to keep a fire going, but starting one up from scratch is even worse. With my old joints, I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep it going". As he stands up straight, I hear several clicks and groans from his body.
Warming his hands on the fire, the
old man stares at me for a moment. "You come from the house, don't you? Gothos". He laughs. "Well, it's the only place you could have come from. Tell me, how are things going down there? I've been meaning to pay a visit, but I don't think I could manage the journey. My legs would damn near fall off if I walked more than a few meters at a time. Trust me, being old's not much fun". He chuckles to himself. "Then again, I get the feeling I might be the younger one out of the two of us. How old are you, boy?"
I pause, trying to work out who this old man might be. He looks like a human, he smells like a human, he sounds like a human, he acts like a human... but he can't be a human. There's no way a human could be living out here in the wilderness, among the bones of the vampires. He'd starve to death, for one thing, and then there's the question of how he got here. No human can come to this place, not unless he's invited by someone who already knows the way.
"It's okay," he continues, "I know who you are. You're Patrick. You're not looking so good right now, but I saw you years ago when you were in your prime. I saw you fighting the good fight, all over this land. How many vampires died in that war? Relax, I know the answer to that question. All of them. All except one". He grins. "You must be cold over there. Even vampires can feel the cold, right? Come and warm yourself by the fire. Don't worry, I don't bite".
Walking over to join him, I hold my hands out to feel the heat of the flames. The old man is right: it is cold out here, but the fire quickly warms me. It has been a long time since someone showed me the kind of simple generosity that this man is demonstrating; the last person who genuinely seemed to want to help me was Sophie, and that was so long ago. Still, I must be on my guard. The old man was able to creep up on me, which means I'm losing my faculties. Other creatures could be out here in the dark, and they might notice that I'm getting weaker. It's not inconceivable that one of them will decide to attack me, hoping to score a lucky hit. In my current condition, I'm not sure I could fight off such an assault.