by Bones Monroe
“You? Kindly old Oliver will bring down all the inhumans? One ice cream at a time,” Ben chimed in. “That’s rich.”
Oliver gave Ben a not so friendly slap across the head. “Not just me. I never said it was only me. I am part of a secret network of agents working toward a common goal. Reclaim the planet for humans.”
“But … but you’re not even human!” Grace said in exasperation.
Oliver shrugged. “They’ll take care of me … when all this is over.”
“I can’t believe you! You are the worst kind of traitor!” Grace seethed. The disgust she had for Oliver burned in her eyes.
“Such anger!” Oliver said in mock indignation. “Things aren’t always so black and white, my dear. Shades of gray.”
“Not like that!” Grace retorted.
Oliver nodded slowly. “You know, I really must thank you,” he said, changing the subject abruptly.
“Way?” Grace asked hotly.
“The flavor boost, aka Goil, was a hit. People were gobbling it up, except the one person I wanted to infect. She never really indulged in anything remotely unhealthy. She thought those things were not of her age. She fancied herself as being old school. But then you came along, befriended her, and let me tell you, she really liked the pair of you. So when you brought her ice cream, she ate it. You got me in!” Oliver finished with a cackle.
Chapter 22
The revelation left Grace stunned. She was the reason that Lamia was destroyed? It was all her fault. She remembered all the times she had taken her friend ice cream. The first time Grace brought the ice cream, Lamia didn’t eat the sweet treat immediately. Grace was put off
She remembered that Lamia promised her she would eat it. She said she tried to stay away from that kind of food, but gave in. When she gave it glowing reviews, Grace took it upon herself to bring her more.
I thought I was being nice, Grace thought as the magnitude of what she had done to her friend settled on her shoulders like an extremely overweight parrot. And now, she’s gone because of me.
Oliver and Captain Bob wheeled Ben back to his cell. Ben called out, still trying to trying to comfort Grace.
“It wasn’t your fault!”
“You were duped!”
“She was lactose intolerant!”
SLAM, they shut the door.
Grace wallowed in self-pity.
I did this.
It was all my fault.
Why did I want to be a vampire in the first place?
She didn’t deserve this.
That’s why he always wore gloves when serving ice cream.
Who else did I kill?
He’s a traitor to his own kind.
He tricked me.
He tricked everyone.
As her thoughts careened inside her head, slowly, her sorrow morphed. The more she thought about how she was taken advantage of, how Lamia merely wanted everyone to work together in peace, how they beat her father, the more her sorrow was replaced with anger.
Not a mere flash in the pan rage, but something deeper. A slow, smoldering anger that bubbled up from deep within her. A moving river of lava that fueled her fury at how unfair all of this was. This trumped up disease, her incarceration, the beatings, the mistreatment of inhumans. They all built on top of one another making her shake in her mania. This was the anger that stuck around for a long time. This was the anger that changed a person.
She hated this feeling of being helplessness, of being impotent. Useless.
They took advantage of me once. They will not find it so easy again, she seethed.
Grace knew some vampires could shape shift. She tried concentrating, imagining herself as a bat, then as a wolf, a cloud of gas, a cat. Nothing worked. If only I would have had a few more days with Lamia, she would have taught me so much, she thought.
Time for Plan B.
She pressed her back against the wall of her cell. She tensed, gathering her courage. This was the endgame for her, the point of no return.
With a parting thought, I’m coming for you Daddy, she launched herself forward with all her strength.
She crossed the cell in a flash, so fast she would have put Usain Bolt to shame.
She reached the point where she knew she would trigger the traps, yet she pushed forward. The holy water sprinklers cascaded a fine mist of liquid fire on her. Still, she grabbed the bars, ignoring the searing pain of the Goil on her hands and pulled the bars apart. The silver crosses popped up, blinding her and causing her to wince and blink uncontrollably.
Although every fiber of her was screaming in pain and she wanted to cower away, she forced herself to endure the agony. Slowly, ever so slowly, the bars moved, bending open.
Smoke rose from Grace’s skin. The rivulets of holy water burned searing trenches in her forearms, making her skin bubble and boil. The palms of her hands melted into the steel where they contacted the Goil.
Grace clamped her mouth shut as tears flowed freely down her cheeks.
Then the sirens wailed – too late. She had pulled the bars wide enough to slip through. Screaming from the pain, she tore her hands off the bar, even as the skin ripped away.
She tried squeezing through the opening, but her shoulders didn’t fit. By twisting sideways, she began to push her way through. When she was almost out, the last CURE trick surprised her. A guillotine blade fell from the ceiling.
It cleaved her right shoulder, neatly snipping off her arm.
That was clever, she thought numbly as she stared at her appendage. I’m right-handed. How do I write? Can I wave with my left? Brushing my teeth will be awkward. These and several other inane thoughts flitted through her mind as she watched the arm slowly decompose into dust before her eyes.
She shook her head, snapping herself out of her daze. She had to get to her father.
CURE didn’t have all the cards. While they were wheeling Ben away, she kept listening to him call out to her until the door slammed. She knew exactly where he was.
She quickly hobbled down the hallway. The mixed effects of the holy water, Goil, crosses and her losing an arm seriously messed her up. She was weak and had trouble walking.
The sirens continued their incessant wailing. They will be here soon, she worried.
She got to Ben’s cell and pushed against the door. Of course, it was locked.
“Who’s there?” Ben asked.
“It’s me, Dad. I’ll get you out of here. Get away from the door.”
“The sirens, is that because of you?”
“Yeah, I made a mess. And I’m not cleaning it up. Now step away.”
Grace put her only good shoulder against the door and shoved hard. The metal structure bent but held firm. A few more tries and she made progress, but the reinforced steel still held. She didn’t have time for this.
She backed up a few steps and threw herself at the door.
It gave way, flying open and spinning to the other side of the room.
She made quite the entrance. With half-molten skin, she looked like a plastic doll inadvertently left in an oven.
“GRACE! What happened to you,” Ben screamed over the sirens. “What happened to your arm? Can we reattach it? You’ll need it. You know how you always like those clutch purses.”
“Now, is NOT the time, Father. We need to get out of here,” she said thinking about how right he was. How would she look fashionable with only one arm? Technically, now since she escaped, she was a criminal. Would they call her a one-armed bandit? Would that moniker follow her for the rest of her existence? She would have to ponder these unlife questions later.
Chapter 23
Ben and Grace exited the cell making sure no one saw them. The coast was clear even though the sirens still wailed, the red security lights flashed continuously but inexplicably, and no CURE agents jammed the corridors. They were alone. Where was everyone? An inmate escaping CURE headquarters would certainly merit a full CURE agent strike force. Maybe they were on break? She’d heard talk
about a unionization effort. Had everybody clocked out for the required fifteen-minute break. If so, that would be their saving grace (pun intended).
“This way,” Ben said, pointing down the left hallway. “We’re deep underground, but I remember the way out. Those idiots never blindfolded me.”
Ben ran for a few feet but stopped when he saw he had left Grace behind She was badly injured and couldn’t run as fast as he could. Ben dashed back to his cell, grabbed a sheet and wrapped it around Grace. “We can use this as a makeshift bandage until we get you some medical attention.”
“Dad,” Grace said rolling her eyes. “I’m a vampire now, remember? I’m dead. I think I’m well beyond medical attention. I don’t know if they can fix this.”
“Well, yeah, I know that, but I’m sure there’s something we can do. We have to ask around. Can we talk about that later? For now, let’s get out of here and try to get help, okay?”
Grace nodded, grateful Ben hadn’t made a big deal about her new unlife status. Maybe he was finally accepting her? Unfortunately, she had to die for him to open up to her. Better late than never.
Ben put his arm under Grace’s armpits and helped her move along. She rested her head against his shoulder.
“Just like when you were little girl. Remember?” he said.
“Mmmmhmmm,” she mumbled. Those days were nice, she thought to herself.
Up the stairwell and down the hall, through double doors but they still they saw no one in the depths of the CURE headquarters. At the next stairwell, they stopped and listened. Under the cacophony of the sirens, they heard noise. Sounds of battle. Men screaming, shrieks of terror, gunfire and now they felt it. Periodic tremors that shook the floor.
“I don’t think those sirens are for me,” Grace said.
“No sweetheart, I don’t think so either. Something big is afoot. We need to be careful.”
They cautiously made their way up the next flight of stairs. At the top they found a window where they could peek outside.
It was pure pandemonium.
The CURE headquarters was under assault. Agents in full body armor were shooting, as well as lobbing grenades, holy water balloons, and satchels of potpourri laced with wolfsbane at a vengeful horde of inhumans. Agents moved strategically from one spot to another to gain better cover or get a clear shot at the invaders.
The agents were losing. The vast majority of the CURE agents were taking their last breaths or being pummeled by a variety of inhuman assailants.
The skies filled with squadrons of vampire bats, blocking blocked out the sun. The ground was overrun with rats, wolves, coyotes and all other manner of shifters.
Ben and Grace stared at each other in amazement. “They attacked CURE headquarters?” Grace asked dumbfounded. “Where did they all come from? There aren’t that many inhumans in North Wellon.”
“I don’t know,” Ben replied. “They must’ve gotten reinforcements from somewhere. But where?”
“Hey.” The faintest of whispers floated in the air beside them.
Ben and Grace slowly turned to the spot where they thought the word came from, but it looked like empty space.
Then Grace saw it first. A faint outline of a man dressed in a tuxedo with a top hat.
He bowed to her and kissed the back of her hand.
“You see him, Dad?”
“No. I don’t think I’m in the right frame of mind. It’s a spirit, right? Ask him what’s going on.”
“I am John Walthorn. And I assume you are Grace and this gentleman is Benjamin?”
Grace nodded.
“They showed me a picture of you so I could find you, but you don’t resemble the … I see you have gone through some … trying times,” he said spying her disfigurements.
“What’s going on?” Grace asked John.
“The inhuman revolt has started. Precipitated by you.” He bowed deeply. “They sent here me to find you and hopefully get you out unharmed. One out of two ain’t bad.”
“By me?”
“Indeed, what first started out as a rescue mission then became a rescue mission tinged with heavy overtones of revenge for the deaths of Lamia and Vionica.”
“Vionica’s dead?”
“Yes. That’s what set Valfred off. The simmering anger at CURE boiled over. We discovered other anti-human groups of inhumans preparing for the revolt. They hadn’t contacted us because we were not ready. They had agents in our midst, and when they saw we were serious, they joined us.”
“I can’t believe it, Ben said. This changes everything. Society will never be the same.”
“I must get you out of here,” John told them.
“No,” Ben said. “You need to do something much more important. You need to go back and tell everyone the truth. They don’t know the whole story.”
Ben and Grace filled in the specter on how CURE had developed Goil and was surreptitiously feeding it to the inhumans in North Wellon. Oliver was a turncoat and behind all the sicknesses and death that had plagued them these last few weeks.
“Can’t you just float through the walls and tell them?” Grace asked John.
John shook his phantom head. “Alas, the leaded glass and walls sprayed with Specter-B-Gone prevent any ghosts from phasing through. I can still fly though,” he said drifting away. “I’ll tell everyone. That will pump up their spirits. Will you to be okay? Can you find a way out?”
“Yes, yes, go,” Ben said, hurriedly waving John off. “Don’t worry about us, spread the word!”
Ben and Grace watched John float off and fade away into nothingness.
“At least he can get the word out,” Ben said with relief. “People have to know about this! This is a mess. I saw Oliver kill a CURE captain and frame it so it looked like I did it. Oliver’s dangerous, CURE’s dangerous.” Ben shook his head in dismay.
“Ohh now, you’re worried about the inhumans?” Grace asked sarcastically.
“Hey, some of my best friends are inhumans!” Ben protested.
“That is so wrong, Father. You didn’t like me hanging out with my old undead friends, but now they’re your best friends?”
“I had nothing against those kids! It was that you were sneaking out of the house without permission.”
Grace pressed him. “You’re such a liar. What about all that wrong type of people stuff you used to say?”
“I wanted the best for—” Ben stopped himself as he realized that he was slipping into his old ways.
“AHA! See, I knew it! You think they’re less than you.” Grace held up her hand stopping Ben from replying. “Oh, sorry, I misspoke. I meant to say: you think I am less than you.” Grace glared at Ben.
“No, no. You’re my daughter. I think we can find a wizard that can reverse the…condition. I was researching a few days ago and there are a few clinical trials we can apply for.”
“That’s all hogwash, Father. I know where you saw that. On TV. We saw that same infomercial. Don’t tell me you sent for the free vampire evaluation kit?”
Ben looked at the floor sheepishly. “I might have.”
“I can’t believe you! Is that why you asked me for some cash the other day? I thought you needed money for the dry cleaners for an interview?” Grace stamped her foot in anger. “I should’ve known you were up to something when you asked for $49.95! And wasn’t that evaluation kit free? What’s the money for then?”
“Shipping charges,” Ben answered meekly.
“Oh, brother! I can’t believe you.”
“When this is over, can you give me a lock of your hair and spit into the plastic container?” Ben asked thinking this was a good a time as any. “They need to run tests.”
“You really think that’s a good idea?! What if I like being undead?” she asked.
“You can’t be serious. You’re a fresh undead. We can change you back! I want to be a grandfather!” Ben complained.
“There are benefits to being undead. I can’t get sick, don’t have to poop, no more
acne, impervious to the flu, and I might be the type of vampire that can shift into an animal form. I have to figure out how.”
“And you must wear super strong sunblock. Your body is at room temperature, no one will ever want to cuddle with you. You can never go to church again. And then the blood thing. Really? You want to drink blood for eternity, Grace?” Ben countered.
“If it means not getting the flu, then yes! That’s a sacrifice I will make!” she said vehemently.
“Ok, let’s talk about this later. Just keep an open mind when I bring it up again,” Ben said. He was making little progress convincing her. He would have to think of a more subtle approach. Maybe he could snip a lock of her hair when she was asleep. Getting the saliva would be more difficult.
“Let’s go,” Grace said, leading the way.
They finished ascending the staircase. At the landing, a shadow fell over them. “Well, well, look who we have here,” a familiar voice said.
Ben and Grace froze in their tracks. They turned slowly to see Captain Bob standing a few feet away, pointing a strange contraption at them. He, much like Grace, had seen better days. A large, deep gash ran down the side of his face, the blood oozing and seeping onto his CURE-issued flak jacket. He had several minor cuts and bruises on his arms. He turned his head sideways, coughed up something nasty and spit it out along with a tooth.
“That was bothering me,” he mumbled as his tongue moved around probing the new gap in his mouth. He gave them a ghastly smile. He had lost his incisor. The black gap in his smile did little to improve his appearance. Drool escaped through the gap, and he slurped it up.
“Your brethren fight like banshees,” Capt. Bob said to Grace. “At least those that aren’t banshees. The banshees fight like you would expect.”
Bob appraised Grace, eyeing her injuries and the missing appendage. “That’s part of the price you pay for trying to escape CURE,” he sneered. “You’re on the installment plan, first an arm. Now I’m here to collect a leg!”