Dead Night

by Tim O'Rourke

  “Yeah, maybe it was Gabriella,” Isidor said, staring at me. I couldn’t tell if he was being thick or just taking the piss.

  Ignoring him, I turned to look at Kayla’s butt sticking out of the car and said, “What are you doing?”

  Then, before she’d had a chance to say anything, the car rumbled into life. Kayla climbed from the car, and looking at me she said, “Stealing a car, of course. How else are we going to make our escape?”

  “Escape from where?” I asked her.

  “There,” she said, pointing in the direction of a nearby building.

  I looked through the driving rain to see a grey brick building on the other side of a small car park. Written on a sign that was attached to the side of the building were the words: County Mortuary “Kiera,” I breathed, heading towards the building, knowing that she was lying somewhere inside on a cold slab.

  “You wait with the car,” Isidor said, raising his arm as if to block me.

  “And who put you in charge?” I asked, eyeing him up and down.

  “We’ve been here longer than you, Gabriel,” Kayla smiled, and I caught her wink at Isidor. “We’ve had a chance to check out the place. Kiera is being worked on in a room on the other side of that door,” she added, pointing to a large double door which was big enough to reverse a hearse into. “Wait with the vehicle.”

  “I think I should...” I started.

  But before I’d had the chance to finish what I was about to say, Kayla and Isidor were racing across the car park towards the door set into the side of the building.

  I took a pack of cigarettes from my coat pocket, and cupping my hand around the tip of it so it didn’t burn out in the rain, I lit it. Leaning against the boot of the car, I watched Isidor and Kayla reach the door. It seemed that they both had everything figured out and well planned, and I wondered if being murdered and brought back from the dead hadn’t made them both grow up a bit. Then, watching Isidor raise his boot and smash the door in, I guessed that dying hadn’t changed them at all.

  As I circled around and around, the sky grew darker. Night had begun to draw in. I still had no idea how I was going to find out what had caused the world to be pushed, and what other changes had taken place, other than my favourite band changing names. But I knew that I wasn’t ready to go back to Hallowed Manor just yet.

  Kiera seemed to have her plans and I needed to formulate some of my own. I wasn’t intending to set myself up in practise as some private investigator, just on the off chance that a mystery might come along that could lead us to finding out what had happened to the world while we had been away. I loved Kiera, but the whole thing sounded too much like an episode of Scooby-Doo to me.

  But with Murphy gone and my only true friends enclosed behind the walls of Hallowed Manor, who else did I have to help me? Who else did I know in this world that could tell me what had happened while we had been away? Then, as I looped in the air, I thought of the only other person who had ever meant anything to me: Sophie. But the last time I’d ever seen her she had been peering back at me over the top of her bed sheet. I remembered the fear, revulsion, and hatred for me in her eyes.

  “Get away from me!” she’d screamed, kicking out with her feet. “You freak – you animal! Get out!”

  “I love -” I’d begged.

  “GET OUT!”

  So, jumping from her bed, where only moments before we had been making love, I went to the windows. Throwing them open, I climbed onto the ledge. I looked at her, two perfect green eyes staring back at me, and to see such fear in them had broken my heart.

  “I’m sorry,” I’d growled.

  Then, leaping from the window, I spread my wings and shot into the night sky. I hadn’t looked back, not once. It would have hurt too much to do so.

  But that was then, I told myself. Things were different now – the world was different.

  Would she even recognise me? Had that part of her life – the life that she had shared with me as a Vampyrus - been wiped away, just as the Elders had wiped away all the Vampyrus who had lived in secret amongst the humans? There was only one way to find out.

  With my wings pointed outwards, I back flipped in the air, then raced towards the Earth.

  2

  Sophie

  I hadn’t been a pathologist for very long, but even so, I had never seen a corpse sit up in the lab and go stumbling out into the night. The police officer had been taken into the main hospital building, screaming. His face had been the colour of ash, eyes bulging from their sockets as he begged the medical staff for pain relief.

  “Fix my legs! Please somebody do something! Fix my legs!” he had cried, as he was bundled onto a stretcher and taken away. The lab assistant, although not physically injured, had been taken away by the police officers who had arrived. They wanted to undertake an interview but I guessed by the state of him that he wouldn’t have made much sense at all.

  “She came back to life! She came back to life!” The lab assistant had kept mumbling to himself over and over again. “She just got up and walked right outta here!”

  “What about you?” one of the officers had asked me.

  “What about me?” I’d asked right back.

  “Are you okay?”

  Scraping my hair behind my ears and re-knotting my ponytail, I simply nodded and said, “I guess so.”

  “What happened here?” the officer asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  “Look, whatever took place, we’re going to need to speak to you,” the officer said, pulling his notepad from his shirt pocket.

  “Can’t it wait?” I had asked, yanking the latex gloves from my hands, rolling them into a ball, and throwing them into a nearby bin. “I need to tidy this place up and get my thoughts together.”

  “You can get your thoughts together, but not here. This place needs to be locked down. It’s a crime scene now,” the officer informed me.

  “A crime scene?” I asked, bewildered and not thinking straight.

  “Whatever took place here tonight, several things are clear: We have a suspected murder victim missing, a lab assistant jabbering on about a walking-talking corpse, my skipper has two broken legs, and frankly, you don’t look too good yourself. So taking everything into account, and until we have a clearer picture of what’s gone on, this place is being shut down. Okay?”

  Nodding, I looked about the lab. The metal mortuary table stood lopsided against the wall and for the first time, I noticed the tiles were cracked and broken behind it. The cracks in the wall ran vertically and I realised that was where the police sergeant had been standing when the corpse had rammed the table against him.

  Had she really pushed the table so hard against that officer’s legs that the sheer force had smashed the tiles in the wall behind him?

  I couldn’t believe it. That would’ve been impossible. Wouldn’t it?

  She would’ve had to have had the strength of…

  It was then that I noticed the corpse’s blood samples that I had requested for DNA and blood group analysis. The blood looked black, like undiluted blackcurrant squash, bottled in a thin plastic tube. Without thinking, I moved towards the counter on the opposite side of the lab where it sat.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” the officer asked me.

  I had forgotten that he was there.

  Snapping my head around, I looked back at the officer.

  “I’m getting my coat, is that okay?”

  “Sure, no worries,” the officer said. “Just don’t touch anything.”

  Turning, I moved across the room, my eyes fixed on the vial of blood that had been siphoned from the corpse.

  I need to get that blood tested. It might be the key…the code… to that woman who seemed to be able to grow her fingers and face back.

  Conscious that the police officer was scrutinising my every move, I made my way to my office which was next to the counter that contained the blood. Entering the office, I removed my white lab coat and
placed it on my desk. I took my own coat off the hook on the back of the door and hung it over my arm. Back in the lab, I looked at the officer who continued to watch me.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Yeah…no hang on a minute…where’s my mobile phone?” I said, taking the coat from over my arm and placing it on the counter, concealing the bottle of blood with it. Then, I searched the pockets of my coat as the officer stood and watched. Glancing over my shoulder, I smiled at him and said, “Oh, here it is. It was in my coat pocket the whole time. I’d be lost without it. How did we manage before the damn things were invented?”

  “Dunno. Can’t remember,” the officer said. “Can we just hurry it up? Scenes of Crime officers are waiting to get in here.”

  “Oh yeah, sorry,” I said, scooping up my coat, hiding the bottle of blood in the folds of its material. “I’m good to go.”

  The police officer ushered me out into the cold night air, and it was nice to be out of the lab.

  “How do you put up with that smell?” the officer asked me, steering me towards a police car.

  “What smell?” I asked, realising where I was being guided to.

  “Disinfectant!”

  “Oh that,” I said, the officer pulling open one of the rear passenger doors to the police car and motioning for me to climb inside. I clutched the bottle beneath my coat. “I’d rather ride in my own car, if you don’t mind?”

  “I’d rather you came along with me,” the officer said, stepping aside from the door so I could get in.

  “My car’s just over there, officer. How am I going to get back from the station when I’ve finished giving you my statement?”

  “Not to worry. I’ll drop you back when we’re done,” he assured me.

  Stepping away from the door, I said, “That’s very kind of you, officer, but I’d still rather…”

  “I insist,” he said, a fake smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

  Then, with a fake smile of my own, I said, “Am I under arrest, officer?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll then, I’d rather travel in my own car.” Turning away from him, I made my way towards my car, which sat in a pool of orange light from the streetlamp above.

  “I’ll follow you to the station,” I said. As I climbed into the driver’s seat I saw his face, he was looking at me with suspicion.

  Does he know about the bottle? No, if he did he would have stopped me by now.

  I pulled the driver’s door closed with a thump, placed my coat on the passenger’s seat, and watched him through the windscreen. The officer stood by the open door of the police car.

  He suspects something. He’s gonna come running over here any minute and arrest me…arrest me for what? For removing evidence from a crime scene – that’s what!

  It was then I saw his eyes as he stared at me from beneath the streetlamp. In the warm orange light, his eyes seemed to glow a fierce yellow and I knew then that he was a Skin-walker – once a wolf but now matched with a human.

  Trembling, I forced the key into the ignition and the car rumbled to life. The police officer then climbed into his own vehicle.

  What evidence have I taken? I wondered. Evidence that perhaps that corpse wasn’t completely human? But then again, neither was that cop.

  I watched as the taillights of the police car glowed like burning coals. Then, I eased forward and followed the officer as he swung his car away from the kerb and drove out of the hospital grounds.

  Keeping my eyes on the car in front, I searched the folds of my coat for the bottle. I closed my fingers around it. It felt warm. I knew that if it were to be any good for testing, I would have to get the blood sample into refrigeration -

  and quick.

  But where? Not home. I can’t take a detour back there. That would definitely raise the officer’s suspicions. Besides, that was mum and dad’s house, and I didn’t want them to get involved in this.

  The police car swung out onto the dual carriageway and I followed.

  Marty! I could take it to Marty’s. He could test it for me!

  As if driving on autopilot, I followed the officer. Marty seemed the natural choice. We had broken up six months ago and I had gone back to live with my parents. We had met while at medical school. I had studied pathology and Marty, the human genome. But what would his reaction be to me turning up on his doorstep in the middle of the night, clutching a bottle of blood?

  We hadn’t spoken for six months and the last time hadn’t been pleasant. Pleasant?

  Who am I trying to kid – it had been downright nasty.

  I eased up on the gas, letting the gap between my own car and the police car grow.

  He’d never gotten over the fact that I’d been awarded custody of Archie.

  I let the gap grow further still.

  Archie had always loved me more than him anyway!

  The gap grew.

  Hadn’t it always been me who had taken him to the park?

  The police vehicle slowed and narrowed the gap.

  Archie’s mine…

  I eased down on the accelerator. I didn’t want the officer to get suspicious.

  Would he still be bitter about Archie after all this time?

  I looked ahead and saw the police car’s left-hand indicator winking on and off, casting long orange shadows across the tarmac.

  Only one way to find out!

  I waited for the police officer to commit himself to the slip road, then, thumping my foot down on the accelerator, I sped away down the carriageway, leaving the officer behind.

  3

  Sophie

  “What do you want?” Marty asked me, pulling his dressing gown about him.

  I looked at his hair. It stuck out at the sides in untidy clumps like a clown. For the first time, I noted the grey streaks weaved amongst the dark brown curls and wondered how long he had had them. He was twenty four like me, way too young to be going grey. His face looked worn, and his cheeks and chin were covered in a spray of whiskers that protruded from his face like needlepoints. Lines had appeared around the corners of his eyes. Deep creases had formed around his mouth and streaked across his forehead. It was these that now wrinkled as he looked at me standing on his front step.

  “I said, what do you want, Sophie? It’s nearly three-thirty in the morning.”

  Pushing past him, I stepped out of the cold and into the hall.

  Closing the door, Marty said, “Sophie you can’t just turn up out of the blue like this and barge your way in.” Then, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling, he added, “I’ve got company.”

  “You always had company, if I remember rightly,” I said with a wry smile.

  I made my way to the rear of the house and sat down at the kitchen table. Marty followed me and switched on the kettle. “This had better be good, Sophie. I don’t appreciate you turning up like this.”

  “You’re not still mad at me about Archie, are you?” I asked.

  “I’d been trying to forget about him,”

  Marty told me, and heaped two teaspoons of coffee into mugs that he had snatched from the sink. “It hurts less when I try not to think about him.”

  “If he meant so much to you, how come you haven’t even paid him a visit in over six months?”

  Then, clutching the coffee cup to his chest he said, “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?

  Something’s happened to Archie. Oh my god what’s happened to him?”

  “Calm down,” I soothed. “Nothing’s happened to Archie.”

  “Are you sure? You’re not trying to break it gently to me, are you?”

  “For crying out loud, Marty!” I sighed.

  “There’s nothing wrong with Archie. He’s perfectly okay.”

  Marty splashed hot water into the mugs and brought them over to the table. He sat opposite me and pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his dressing gown.

  “Thought you’d packed them in?” I said, sipping the sweet, hot coffee.

>   Popping the cigarette between his lips, he lit it. “I’ve started again, okay?”

  “When?” I asked, watching him over the rim of the mug. It was then I remembered why I’d hated him smoking so much, it reminded me of someone else – someone I had once been scared of – but I just couldn’t remember who, however much I tried.

  “About six months ago. About the same time you stopped me from seeing Archie,” he explained.

  “You know those things will kill ya,” I started.

  “Please, Sophie, spare me the lecture.”

  “Look…” I began.

  “No, you look. Archie was my dog. It was me who saved him from that rescue centre. You didn’t even want a dog,” Marty argued.

  “Yeah I did. I’ve always been a dog lover,” I argued back.

  “Yeah whatever!” Marty said, squirting bluey-grey smoke from his nostrils. “I’m not gonna sit here arguing about Archie at this time of the morning.”

  “You started it,” I said.

  “No I never – you did!”

  “Didn’t,” I spat.

  Pitching out his cigarette, Marty sighed, “I take it you didn’t come all the way over here in the middle of the night just to bitch about Archie?”

  “No,” I said.

  “So what do I owe the pleasure, Sophie?”

  and he said my name as if he had just swallowed something disgusting and it was creeping back up his throat.

  “I need you to do something for me,” I said, and this time my voice softened.

  Pulling another cigarette from the pack, Marty grimaced. “I don’t believe you! I haven’t seen you in over six months and you suddenly show up expecting favours.”

  “Look, Marty, I wouldn’t have come all the way over here if it weren’t important.”

  Drawing on his cigarette, Marty eyed me and said, “You in some kinda trouble? What is it, a man?”

  “No it’s not a man! ” I huffed.

  “Well if it’s not a man, what is it?”

  I put my coat on the table and unrolled it.

  Then, picking up the capsule of blood, I held it out in front of me. The blood sloshed up the sides of the bottle and it looked thick and black.