The Vampire Shrink kk-1

by Lynda Hilburn

  This might be a good time to explain my greatest fear.

  When I was young I saw an old movie called Premature Burial, where – due to a strange illness that caused complete paralysis mimicking death – people were buried before they were dead. The afflicted were put in boxes, placed in holes in the ground and were very aware of the dirt being piled on top of their supposedly deceased selves. They couldn’t communicate their aliveness to any of the grieving mourners, so they slowly suffocated. When the illness was finally discovered and the Unfortunate Buried Alive were dug up, it became clear that at some point in the process the paralysis had worn off and the bloody fingernails of the Unwillingly Interred gave evidence of their vain attempts to escape. It was a hideous death. I couldn’t sleep for weeks after watching that movie.

  A psychic later told me that I’d died in a previous life due to being buried alive or maybe drowned or perhaps suffocated with a pillow – just choose one of the air-restricted methods – and that was why the movie had affected me so profoundly. I can’t verify the accuracy of my previous causes of death, but I do know that anything dealing with being unable to breathe thrusts me into spasms of terror.

  It was perhaps lucky that I didn’t know right away that I’d woken up in a coffin. The first thing I noticed was a putrid smell, a unique stench consisting of backed-up sewer, rotted meat, blood, mould, mildew and death. The smell was so horribly potent that it caused me to become aware of the second thing: it was very dark. The reason the smell triggered me to notice the darkness was because as soon as I got a good whiff of it, my stomach heaved. I tried to sit up, or roll over, because I didn’t want to throw up on myself, and I was certain that barf was in my immediate future.

  My attempt to sit up caused me to bang my head against an unexpected barrier, which led me to discover there was a ceiling directly above my body. I began to push against it and quickly deduced it was an immovable object, or at least a very heavy one.

  Then I panicked.

  The feeling of my hands pushing against the resisting material immediately triggered a cellular memory of the aforementioned movie and I started to scream, which shifted my attention away from throwing up. This proved to be very helpful: fear is a powerful motivator. Like the mothers who lift multi-ton vehicles off their children, imagining myself locked in a box for my ride up the Entry Ramp to Eternity allowed me to become Hulk-like in my strength, and to force open what turned out to be the bulky lid of an old coffin.

  I sat up, still screaming, the sound reverberating off the walls of the small, decrepit building I’d awakened in. A building that smelled extraordinarily bad.

  Raising the lid on the coffin allowed me to see the sunlight filtering in through the broken front door. I couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but it was obviously daytime. A chunk of my life was missing. I valiantly tried to reconstruct the chain of events that had brought me to this moment, and failed.

  I stopped screaming – mostly because it hurt my throat – and let my eyes adjust to the dim light. Being able to see where I was made things worse. Instead of only suspecting I was up shit creek, I now had verification.

  The building was an old, run-down mausoleum. Low spots in the cement floor were filled with stagnant, rancid water mixed with blood from several dead bodies. Even in the limited light, it was clear that no one in any state of alive-ness could be the colour of the remains scattered around that room. The place looked like a human slaughterhouse. Back in a corner were bones and pieces of rotting clothing, which gave evidence to the likelihood that whatever was going on here had been going on for a very long time.

  Needless to say, I had to get out.

  I assumed that whoever had killed all those people was probably coming back to get me. I didn’t have time to think about why I was still breathing, why the murderer had left me in the coffin instead of adding me to the collection on the floor. It occurred to me I was probably in shock, which explained the strange fuzzy feeling in my head.

  Since the lid of the coffin had only swung back on its hinges and was still standing straight, I couldn’t brace myself by holding on to both sides. Grabbing the available edge, I put my other hand down alongside my legs and felt it sink into clumps of dirt or sand. As I pulled my knees underneath me, I heard a soft clattering sound as something knocked against the inside of the coffin. I reached my hand out to find what had made the noise and closed my fingers around a long stick-like thing. I brought it up into the light and found myself in possession of a human bone. I had been lying on top of whoever had been buried in that coffin.

  Holy shit!

  My stomach lurched again and I rose to my feet as if pulled by ropes. Looking down, I could clearly see the remains of the original resident. With shaking hands I brushed off as much of the desiccated decomposed material as I could from the rear of my trousers and apologised silently to the person I had scattered into the air.

  The coffin I was now standing in was situated on a pedestal about three feet off the floor. The area close around it was filled with dead bodies and pools of bloody water. I would have to jump, which under the best of circumstances called on grace I hadn’t cultivated, and to jump while wearing four-inch heels would guarantee a painful outcome. But if my choice was to wait in the coffin for the psychopath to return or take my chances with a sprained ankle, I’d choose the sprain anytime.

  Since I was far from adept in physical situations, it took me a moment to work out that I could sit on the open edge of the coffin, swing my legs out and scoot down, then find a small space for the ball of my foot on one of the few dry spaces on the floor and ease myself away from the pedestal.

  Kismet the nerd who flunked gym class in ninth grade.

  That’s what I did, all the while listening for any sound that would alert me to the return of the monster who’d brought me there.

  I walked on tiptoes through the carnage to the door, unable to avoid wading through puddles of slimy, bloody water, and finally reached the stairs leading up to the light. My stomach had been clenched so tightly I’d barely breathed since I left the coffin. I climbed up the stone steps and shoved the door. It swung open on rusty hinges, making that sound always present in horror movies. Then I stepped out into the sunshine and found myself in the middle of an old graveyard.

  I heard sounds of traffic nearby and moved in that direction. I kept glancing behind me to see if it had been a trap, if someone – or something – was going to spring out at me from behind one of the huge gravestones and haul me back into the pit of hell, but I was alone.

  Doubtless I must have been quite a sight as I walked out of the ornate cast-iron gates of the graveyard and crossed the parking lot of McDonald’s.

  CHAPTER 13

  I had no idea where I was.

  Another beautiful day in Paradise had got all dressed up and started without me. The sun beamed almost directly overhead, making it about noon. I shielded my eyes with my hand, spun in a slow circle, and searched for the mountains to give me a sense of location. Denver is a consistent distance from various distinctive peaks, and I always got my bearings by checking my position in relation to them, as well as the ever-present downtown skyscrapers.

  Turns out I was within walking distance of Devereux’s club. I never knew there was an old graveyard tucked away back behind Fast-Food Row. Well, you know what they say about learning something new every day . . .

  High-pitched giggles drew my attention down from the horizon and I found myself gazing at a gaggle of little girls. They all held dripping ice cream cones. As the children surrounded me, one sticky-fingered angel said, ‘You’re funny!’ This caused another wave of gleeful laughter.

  ‘I’m funny?’

  That was apparently hilarious.

  Another sweet cherub said, ‘What are you doing in the middle of the parking lot? Are you dancing? What’s all that stuff on you?’

  I looked down at myself and saw I was covered in samples of everything I’d found back in the death pit in the g
raveyard, including dried blood, which stained my hands.

  With a gasp, I immediately leaped to the most drastic conclusion: that the blood was mine. I inspected myself, searching for wounds or cuts, anything that would explain the stains, but I found nothing. Since I had no recollection of what’d transpired during the missing hours – and at that moment I wasn’t up for exploring the disgusting possibilities – I gave myself permission to stuff the entire matter deep inside my psychological Do Not Enter zone.

  A pretty little brown-eyed tyke ventured a couple of tentative steps in my direction, pointed, and yelled, ‘You smell!’

  That was definitely some kind of cosmic cue. Simultaneously, anxious mothers scurried forth from everywhere, retrieved their children and whisked them back to the play area.

  ‘What did I tell you? Never talk to strangers!’ one mother scolded as she pulled her child away, tossing frightened glances back over her shoulder.

  I raised my arm up to my nose and sniffed. Yuck. I did smell. In fact, I smelled worse than horrible. Just like that ghastly place. No wonder the moms had treated me like a carrier of the Black Death. I could only imagine what I looked like.

  Wondering if my cell phone had survived the ghastly experience, I retrieved it from my pocket and hit the ‘on’ switch. It was as dead as the bodies in the tomb.

  Shit! Perfect.

  I fished in my pocket to see if the cash I’d put there the night before had survived my mysterious experience. I pulled out a handful of bills and coins. Even though I could’ve walked to Devereux’s club, the memories of the previous night left a bad taste in my mouth. I had no desire to make a return visit. All I wanted to do was go home, take off the toe-smashing boots and crawl into a hot bath.

  I’d just spied an old telephone booth and headed in that direction to call for a cab when a police cruiser pulled into the parking lot and blocked my path. Either I really did look suspicious enough to draw the attention of a passing cop car, or someone in the restaurant had alerted the police to deal with the crazy lady.

  Two very young officers exited the car and walked cautiously over to me. One looked like a computer geek and the other a football player. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t what I got.

  ‘Are you Dr Knight?’ the computer geek asked.

  ‘How do you know that? I mean, yes.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes. No. I’m not all right. I just woke up in a coffin in a graveyard and I’m covered in substances I don’t even want to think about.’

  ‘Are you wounded?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. Not physically, anyway.’

  ‘Is that your blood on your hands, Dr Knight?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I held my hands out and inspected them again. ‘How do you know my name?’

  ‘An FBI agent working with the Denver PD put out a red flag on you, said you’d gone missing last night. Your photo’s been running on the local TV stations all morning. You must be an important person because we’re not usually allowed to act this fast on a missing-person report. It looks like you’ve had a rough time. If you’ll come with us, we can sort everything out and get you some help.’

  He took another step towards me and scrunched up his nose as he approached. ‘Wow. Where did you say you’ve been?’

  A quick visual communication passed between them, eye contact so covert that if I hadn’t been trained to notice such things, I’d have missed it. The look said ‘Potential Disturbed Person’. I knew that look well, having shared it with other professionals in various mental health settings. It was a shorthand code for a set of behaviours – behaviours that calmed the patient and encouraged cooperation. While I could understand why they might slide me into that category, I wasn’t willing to assume the role.

  I was in no mood to be cooperative or polite. My brain had finally kicked back into gear. Along with the fear and confusion I’d experienced since waking up in one of the levels of Hades, I was also pissed off – pissed off at whoever had dragged me to this place, and pissed off at being manipulated. The officers clearly thought I was hallucinating about waking up in a coffin in a graveyard so I decided to cut to the chase.

  I’d been abducted, brought to a maniac’s lair and who knew what else. Now was as good a time as any to take the cops on a tour of Horror Central. I pivoted and trotted back towards the entrance gate to the old graveyard.

  ‘Hey! Stop! Where are you going?’ the football player yelled.

  ‘I’m going to show you where I’ve been.’ I called on my last reserves of glucose and sprinted through the gate into ‘Capitol Hill Cemetery, an Historical Landmark’ with the cops close on my heels.

  ‘Dr Knight! You’ve obviously had some kind of trauma. You’re not thinking clearly. Let us take you downtown. Stop or we’ll have to restrain you.’

  ‘Restrain me, my ass. You’ll have to catch me first.’

  If they were going to assume I was irrational, at least I could add some interesting fuel to the fire. I didn’t like being treated as an incompetent – even if they meant well – and I never had played nicely with authority figures. It occurred to me that the officers might not know the old graveyard was back there either, since it was well hidden. If that were the case, it was little wonder my story sounded even more fantastic than it would’ve anyway.

  My run through the graveyard was really quite impressive. I managed to find my way back to the ramshackle mausoleum without falling, being obstructed by the city’s finest or turning an ankle. There was something to be said for adrenalin.

  I heard one of the officers yell into his communicator, requesting backup, as they chased along behind me, dodging gravestones and statues.

  ‘Dr Knight! Stop! We’re only trying to help you!’

  I skidded to a halt a few feet from the door of the death chamber and pointed. The police hadn’t expected the race to end so suddenly, and they barely managed to avoid crashing into me as they slammed on their own brakes.

  ‘There!’ I jabbed my finger towards the mausoleum. ‘Through that door is a stairway. There are dead bodies inside.’

  The lean, cerebral-looking officer reached out and grabbed my upper arm and tugged gently, coaxing me to accompany him as he started walking back towards the cemetery entrance.

  ‘Come on, Dr Knight. No more games. Let’s get you back to the police station and you can explain everything to the detectives. We’ve been instructed to bring you in immediately. The orders came straight from the chief.’ He glanced at his partner. ‘Did you know there was a cemetery back here?’ The beefy guy shook his head.

  For some reason, getting me back to the police station seemed more important than investigating my story, so I opted for drastic measures. I wrenched my arm out of his hand and leaped over to the door and pulled it open. The smell made my stomach turn. I doubled over and yelled at the cops, ‘Go on! Nothing normal can smell that bad. You at least have to check it out!’

  Each officer raised a hand up to his face, covered his mouth and pinched his nose, trying to stave off the odour. The larger one gagged. ‘That is one god-awful smell. Maybe some animal died in there. Let’s take a look.’

  I moved away from the door and put as much space as possible between me and the stench. I bent forwards, bracing my hands just above my knees, still trying not to vomit.

  ‘I’ll go down and see what we’ve got. You stay up here with Dr Knight.’

  The thin cop went through the door and down the stairs. Only a couple of seconds passed before he yelled, ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ and scrambled back up the stairs, his face gone pasty and his eyes wide.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, McCarthy? You’re pale as a ghost!’

  ‘Go down and see for yourself, Landers. A picture’s worth a thousand words.’

  Landers went through the door. Moments later I heard a gagging sound followed by ‘Shit!’ He raced back up the stairs and out into the slightly fresher air just as the requested backup arrived. They covered
their noses, too.

  A few minutes later, I was leaning against a large statue of an angel, drinking from the cup of steaming McDonald’s coffee one of the officers had handed me while the new arrivals investigated the carnage inside the tomb. Finding something that grotesque had to be the worst part of police work.

  McCarthy called for the officers whose job would be to get up close and personal with the contents of the gory scene. Then he turned to me and stared, appearing a little green around the edges. ‘I apologise, Dr Knight. You were right – there are dead bodies down there. I haven’t been on the force that long, but this definitely qualifies as the worst thing I’ve seen. Were you really in there all night?’

  ‘I guess so. I can’t remember. All I know for sure is that I woke up there this morning.’

  ‘This place is going to be swarming with experts any minute, so it would probably be best if you let us take you downtown, away from here. You know the media’s going to show up, too, and I don’t think you want to face the world in that condition.’ He pointed to my grisly attire and shook his head. ‘Do you have a psychologist to talk to?’

  I snorted. ‘I’m not sure any of them would believe me. I’m not even sure I believe me.’

  He signalled to a female cop who’d just arrived. ‘Take Dr Knight downtown.’ Then he studied me again. ‘I’m glad you were persistent.’

  ‘That’s a nice word for it.’

  He walked away, talking into his cell phone.

  Exhausted, my stomach churning, I followed the policewoman out of the cemetery and into her black-and-white. She opened all the windows, then glanced at me in the rearview mirror and said, ‘No offence.’ We pulled away just as the caravan of TV news vehicles arrived and I was grateful I didn’t have to try to string two coherent sentences together because I would have failed. I hoped the process at the police station would be quick, but suspected I was doomed to disappointment.

  Thanks to the manic media circus camped out around police headquarters, I had to be smuggled in via the underground parking structure and secretly ushered in through an old fire exit. My fifteen minutes of fame had apparently caused quite a frenzy. My abduction had been linked with the murder investigation, and the vampire theme was simply too rich for the tabloids to pass up.