She reached around and gripped him by the back of the neck, her nails digging into his flesh. Her mouth opened and two fangs glistened.
Brian elbowed her in the ribs and pushed her to the floor, then started in disbelief. “Mom, I didn’t mean—”
“You little son of a bitch, you’ll die for that!” She stood and slapped him so hard he flew into the hallway wall behind him.
Drywall buckled. Wood split. Dust and debris tumbled upon him as he coughed up blood and brought himself to his hands and knees.
He knew then that his mother was lost to him. He scrambled to his feet and sprinted into the kitchen. If he could make it to the basement and out the cellar doors to the back yard, he could alert a neighbor. But she was on his heels. He grabbed a large knife from the counter and wheeled about, arm back so he could throw it at her. But she advanced so quickly, he didn’t have time to toss it. He chucked it to the floor instead and cursed under his breath.
“Ah, ah, ah, Brian. Cursing isn’t allowed in this house. Now you have to pay!” She giggled in his ear, right beside him.
He reached for the basement door and almost pulled it off its hinges. Searing pain wracked his back as she raked those deadly claws against him, but it didn’t matter. He needed to get out and find help. Fast.
He took the stairs two at a time. He miscalculated the height of the final two steps and fell flat on his face. There was heavy panting behind him, like a wolf on the prowl. He rolled over and stared in horror as his mother—the thing who used to be his mother—bounded down the entire flight of stairs and landed with her legs straddling his prone body. He stiffened and fought back tears.
“Quiver, honey. Quiver.” She bent close, her breath rancid, like rotting cabbage.
A nail dragged across his cheek. Blood trickled down his face and he relaxed, dropping his head to the cement floor. There was nothing he could do. Resigned to his fate, he rolled his eyes back into his head and awaited the final deathblow.
The shovel. His eyelids fluttered open and he craned his neck back, sighting the tool. It rested against the wall perpendicular to him, feet away, where he’d left it the previous day after burying Brownie.
He made eye contact with his mother. Tears flowed down his cheek, mixing with the blood. He licked his lips, tasted salt. He’d never forget her or all the sacrifices she’d made in order to better his future.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
She raised an eyebrow and paused. It was long enough for him to kick off the last stair and slide out from under her. He held his hands in front of his head and gripped the wooden handle of the shovel. In an over-handed swing, he strained and brought the spade down on top of her head. There was a sickening thud. She stiffened. Her head shoved down into her neck.
Sobbing and wailing, Brian stood, gripping the shovel like a baseball bat.
His mother braced the palms of her hands against her temples and pulled up. Amidst the loud popping noises, he heard her giggle.
She stalked toward him again, a mischievous grin spreading from cheek to cheek.
Chapter 8
Brian reacted out of fear and hammered her over the head again and again until she crumpled to the floor and was left lying in a pond of her own blood.
But she still didn’t die. She was unconscious but not dead.
His mind was clouded. He was frightened and disgusted with his actions but knew he had to restrain her. He located thick chains and dragged his mother over to the largest grounded pipe he could find. He looped the chains around the pipe, then around her torso, wrists, and ankles. He rifled through old toolboxes, found the largest lock, and secured all the ends of the chains together, around her back so it would be more difficult for her to get loose.
Then he curled up beneath the stairs and cried himself to sleep.
When he awoke, his mother was still unconscious. He spared several hours to clean everything the best he could, trying to estimate the damage to the wall in the hallway. Luckily it was the weekend and he would be able to focus on repairs and nursing his mother back to health.
…If that was even plausible. He’d never heard of any type of disease that could explain her recent behavior. He was reminded of folklore, of a creature of the night. The resemblance to his mother’s condition was uncanny but impossible.
Such creatures didn’t exist.
When he returned to the basement, she was awake. Her eyes remained black but her demeanor was more complacent. Blood caked her skin in dark layers, hair matted to her head. Abrasions had somehow knitted themselves back together. No scratches, no bruises. She beckoned him.
He sat down cross-legged and just out of her reach. His lips trembled. He needed to hug her, to feel reassured that he hadn’t harmed her or invoked her disapproval. “Mom, I’m—”
“I know, honey. I know. You did well,” she said. “I didn’t mean to attack you. You have to believe me. It’s just that…Well, I can’t control it.”
“What’s happening to you, Mom?”
“I’ve become an abomination even God would shun.” She glanced at the window above her and reached her arm out into a ray of sunlight. Smoke billowed and the stench of burning skin filled the room. She pulled her arm back in toward her body, pain etched onto her features. “I think I’m a vampire.”
He shook his head and held his ears. “Vampires aren’t real!” he screamed, tears streaming down his face once again.
She sat before him, wrapped in chains, dried blood covering her from head to foot. “Whatever it is, it’s an infestation, a disease—not something to turn a blind eye to and destroy. I want you to swear you’ll find a way to cure it. Can you promise me that?”
“I can get help for you, Mom. Just let me get you some help. A doctor, someone.”
“That won’t do. You need to kill me, Brian. Kill me and take what I’ve bequeathed upon you and cure this disease.”
“No!”
“Brian James Koltz!” She lunged. The chain holding her right wrist snapped. She plucked him off the ground, squeezing his neck. “I-I can’t control it any longer!”
Brian wrenched her hand away and stepped out of reach. He looked into her eyes. Unadulterated fear. Sorrow. Anger. There lurked an inner struggle she couldn’t possibly win. Her lips were pressed tight together. Tears streamed down her face as it twisted into something far more evil and feral.
She lurched once again. All of the chains confining her exploded, metallic links flying across the room. Brian ducked under her outstretched arms, knowing she wasn’t human anymore, knowing he couldn’t save her. He grabbed the shovel that rested against the wall, turned to face her, and swung with all of his might.
The spade sliced through his mother’s neck. Her head plopped to the ground, mouth agape, black eyes wide.
There was a brilliant flare followed by a cloud of smoke. Brian closed his eyes against the glare.
When he opened them again, a pile of ashes greeted him.
***
“I stayed home for a week. Cleaned the entire place. Hardly ate. I lied to anyone who happened by or called, told them my mother and I were both ill. Contagious.
“I discovered my mother had left me everything I needed to forge ahead on my own. Credit cards with sky-high limits. A six-figure savings account. All of her check books. She also left me something in the refrigerator: A test tube filled with blood. I thought it’d been a snack for her, but I remembered her exact usage of the word ‘bequeathed.’ It implied something more than her dying wish for me to find the cure to what she called a disease.
“She’d left me a vial of her blood.
“I went out and bought a freezing kit and every piece of scientific equipment I could find. Another week passed and finally I couldn’t contain it. I told Keith. First I made him swear he wouldn’t tell anyone what’d happened. Vampires didn’t exist, point blank. Until I could come up with something more plausible and logical, I asked him to remain silent. He agreed, even helped me cover up her death. Since
I had access to my mother’s amassed fortune, it wasn’t difficult. I called her daytime job and told them she wasn’t coming back. They never questioned it. There were no headlines in the local newspaper regarding any incidents at the meat plant either.” Brian paused and swallowed hard. “She disappeared and not a goddamned soul cared.” He raked his arm across his face, tasting the salt of a tear. A wave of heat rolled through him. He shouldn’t allow Ruby to see him at his most vulnerable.
“Oh, Brian.” She reached through the bars and caressed his upper leg. “I had no idea.”
“Not many people did. And no one believed me anyway. I mean, I’d discovered the parasitic, symbiotic organism that existed in my mother’s blood and presented evidence to the government, top world scientists, anyone willing to listen. Still, they scoffed at me, thought I had created some bullshit virus and fictionalized its origin.
“Then Ashmore stumbled upon vampires, and the government busted down my door and asked me to head the URC. They offered me everything I could want, but I turned down the initial offer. I figured somebody else was more qualified. Someone more prominent in the field of vampirism, like a folklorist, someone more familiar with the creatures as we’d always imagined them to be.
“Strajowskie had done some in-depth investigative work, though. When I declined the offer, he used my past as leverage. He told me I’d have everything I needed to accomplish what my mother had asked of me. I never questioned how he got the information. I’d revealed the truth to several Harvard colleagues, although they thought I was eccentric.
“I figured if he’d gone to such lengths to dig up my past, he was willing to help me. I accepted the offer and began my work at the URC, gathering data on vampires, using my mother’s vial of blood as a control.
“I also pursued my hobby in the meantime: Botany. Mycology, actually. I was multi-tasking late one night, transporting a vial of vampire blood from one room to the next, and it spilled on a Morel mushroom I’d been transplanting to a new pot. Glass cut my thumb. I grabbed the mushroom and veins suddenly sprouted atop it. I was able to extract a few milliliters of blood before it withered away, and the proof was irrefutable: It had produced human blood.
“But even with the platelet mushroom a possibility, Strajowskie wouldn’t budge.” Brian snickered. “Stubborn ass.” He stared into Ruby’s eyes. “Now do you see why I have to do this? Why I think it might be the best option?”
“You feel betrayed by someone who offered you a way to honor a promise you made to your mother years ago.” Ruby lowered her voice. “But do you really believe Barnaby will help you any more than Strajowskie has?”
Brian hesitated. She was right. She usually was. In the one year she’d been his intern, Ruby had been right about everything from debunking vampire mythology to football team history. But he had to trust his instincts, muddled as they were.
“It’s not like I have any other choices at the moment. I’m stuck in a cage inside the vampire leader’s castle. And as much as I’d like to believe he’ll let us go if I say no, I’m not so sure he will.”
“Good point,” she muttered.
“Completing a platelet mushroom with a willing volunteer and full financial backing are decent fringe benefits of accepting the offer, too.”
“Do you really need to become a vampire, though? Why not see if Barnaby will allow you to do everything without becoming immortal?”
Because one lifetime may not be enough to perfect the platelet mushroom. But he couldn’t admit that aloud.
He yawned, suddenly weary. The drugs in his system were wearing off, causing his body and adrenaline to crash as well. He leaned back, fingers laced behind his head. “I’ll sleep on it.”
Ruby also yawned and settled back into her cage. “Just don’t rush into this. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
He didn’t reply. He couldn’t tell her that he was wracked with fear of his uncharted future. That he feared losing his humanity.
That he’d already made his decision.
***
Around the bend in the stairway, a figure stood rigid until he was certain the occupants of the adjacent room were asleep. He’d overheard a majority of their conversation. Some of it had been muffled, garbled. Had he heard his own name once or twice? He wasn’t certain.
Not that it mattered. If it was true Barnaby had offered the male scientist immortality, then that marked him as an enemy. His master had never offered him the chance to be immortal. His master had never offered to give him whatever he wanted. His master had only offered a pitiful life of servitude.
He was disappointed that the scientist would be of no help. He might have been, had the master not shown such favoritism. Together, they could’ve exacted revenge. But if the scientist was pondering the proposal, that made him a dangerous ally to his master. And that wouldn’t work at all.
John Ashmore pulled the cowl of his robe lower, until it touched the bridge of his nose, and walked back up two steps. He pressed a jagged stone in the side of the stairwell, one marked with a nearly indiscernible blue tint. A hidden door swung inward, the hinges recently oiled.
The castle kept no secrets from him. He knew the secret passageways and stairwells, and he knew the secrets of many of the inhabitants. Now he knew the secret weakness of the scientist.
He hadn’t glimpsed either of the guests in the old prison chamber, but images came to mind: a male who resembled his master and a female who resembled a Gorgon of forgotten mythology. Ugly, horrible, vile creatures. Perfect for each other.
With a look of utter disgust etched onto his face, he walked into the hidden passageway. The door swung shut silently behind him. He trudged down hidden stairs deeper into the bowels of the castle, his mind mulling over the upcoming plans.
The voices buzzed in his head, returned after a one-day hiatus.
The scientist must die.
Chapter 9
“Christ, Keith. It’s six in the morning. And I’ve already told ‘em everything.”
Keith stood with his arms crossed before his chest, blocking Greg from clambering into the hallway. “I want to hear it myself.”
He grabbed the pencil he’d stuck behind his ear. His scalp felt like sandpaper, and he was exhausted. He’d called all pertinent personnel, alerting them to the abduction. Within hours, the facility was shut down and all roads in and out of Phoenix were barricaded. Investigators had rifled through the observation room and combed the grounds for clues. President Strajowskie had even turned his private jet around while flying back to Los Angeles.
Keith had found Greg inside the cafeteria, asleep on one of the booth seats. After investigators had questioned him, Keith had decided to ask a few questions himself.
Greg shook his head, his long grey hair flying from side to side. He looked like a hippie, except he was so against drugs even headache relief was a sin in his eyes. “I grabbed my first cup of coffee and took it upstairs. Then I disassembled the emergency equipment for routine maintenance. Then I got some hunger pangs and came down here to grab some donuts. I flipped on the television and crashed.” He clenched his jaw. “Clear enough for ya?”
Keith scribbled on a clean sheet of paper in one of Brian’s notebooks. “Why’d you leave the emergency equipment disconnected?”
“I only planned on bein’ gone for a few minutes.”
Keith nodded. That would explain the cup of coffee and the wires hanging below the desk in the observation room.
“Do you really think they been kidnapped or kill’t?” Greg asked.
“Not sure. We’ll see what the investigators say.”
“How long d’ya think they’ll be up there? I got a lot of work to do yet. Like that damn sunroof. Piece of shit.”
Keith sipped from his cup and raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with the sunroof?”
“Hardly opens when you want ‘er to. Sometimes takes a few minutes before it cooperates.”
They were all tired and agitated, and Keith knew he wo
uldn’t get any further by drilling Greg for more answers when he was obviously innocent. “Sorry for detaining you. Get out of here, all right? Go home, get some sleep, and we’ll call you later if we’re open.”
Greg obliged and left Keith to stand alone in the cafeteria. Keith plopped into a booth and stared at the blaring big-screen television mounted on the opposite wall. He then opened the top notebook in the stack spread before him. He reviewed Greg’s responses. If it hadn’t been an inside job, how had the Undead discovered a way around their security measures?
Brian and Ruby would never have gone into the training room together. It was against policy, and Brian was a stickler for safety. With the emergency equipment out of service and the sunroof malfunctioning, one of them had to have been in serious trouble for the other to forgo safety procedures.
He didn’t like it. He also didn’t like being cordoned off from the third floor by FBI agents. He didn’t like the incessant verbal drilling by them either. He wanted to do more for Brian and Ruby. He wanted to be more involved with discovering what happened, yet the facility was crawling with spooks that refused to let some cartographer in on the investigation.
He sighed, stood, stretched, and meandered toward the coffee machine. He needed to go home, rest, and return the following day to—
To what? To mope around all day? Would he be able to focus on work? Or would he be side-tracked?
What would Brian expect of him?
The dull whir of the coffee machine lulled him into submission. Brian would expect him to forge ahead. He would expect Keith to continue to map the lands and help with whatever experiments he was able to. Keith wasn’t a physician, but Brian had taught him many things throughout the years, including dissection, bodily structures, how to use a microscope, and what to look for in blood samples. Maybe one of the other scientists could use his help.
The Human-Undead War Trilogy (Book 1): Dark Intentions Page 6