Dead End

by Tim O'Rourke

  In the distance I could see swathes of male and female Vampyrus swooping through the air. They raced between the stalagmites that hung from the darkness. They zipped between them, diving and darting at speed, and I knew what they were doing. They were practicing for war. The war that Luke was planning to rage above ground. The war that the wolves had no idea was coming and would destroy all of them. With the humans weakened, there would be no one to stop Luke now from wiping out the wolves and taking the world for the Vampyrus – for himself.

  Coanda left me at the medical caves and set off again to ready his soldiers for war. Doctor Ravenwood looked just how I’d remembered him to be. Like some kind of owl. But the last time I had seen him, Ravenwood had been lying dead on the floor of his tiny cottage in the grounds of the hangar where Luke had been carrying out his freakish experiments on the half-breeds. It was in that hangar I had been disturbed so much by the discovery of deformed looking doubles of me. I’m glad that nightmare was over, but was it any worse than the nightmare I was living now.

  Ravenwood wore blue scrubs and his large, claw-like hands were covered in a pair of latex gloves. Glasses were perched on his pointed nose and his face was covered in lengths of thick white hair. He was plump and aged about fifty, and his long, mottled wings trailed behind him as he shuffled across the cave that doubled as some kind of emergency room. The walls were made from rock, the floor was stone, and torches flickered in each corner, casting the room in a warm glow. There was a wooden trolley and a table near to the bed where Melody lay bleeding. On the trolley was an array of tools, some were knives, others rusty-looking saws. They were the kind of tools someone would use to create Frankenstein. He glanced up at me, then down at Melody. Blood ran from the gunshot wounds that covered her body. The red stuff oozed over the pink roses that tattooed her skin from head to toe.

  “My name is Doctor Ravenwood,” he said.

  I knew he didn’t recognise me, just like Coanda hadn’t. It was like he had never seen or met me before. In this pushed world, he hadn’t. We were nothing more than strangers. In this world, Ravenwood was just like all the other Vampyrus, he lived underground where the Elders had shut them away. I looked with horror at the contraption Doctor Ravenwood had placed on the table next to Melody. It looked like some kind of ancient camera, but I knew exactly what it was. The front had a long protruding lens which stuck out like an accordion with handles. He picked it up.

  “What’s that?” I asked. My heart started to race.

  “It’s just like a camera, really, but it takes pictures of what’s going on inside…” he started.

  “Like an x-ray?” I asked.

  He glanced at me over the top of his glasses. “You’ve spent too much time above ground, boy.”

  Had I said the wrong thing? Put my foot in it? Then remembering how Coanda had jumped to the conclusion that Melody and I had been scouting above ground, I said, “I’ve learnt a thing or two about the wolves and humans.”

  Ravenwood picked up the camera. If he used that on Melody, he would soon discover she wasn’t a Vampyrus, but a wolf. He would see that she didn’t have wings hidden inside of her.

  “What are you going to do with that?” I asked, taking a step closer to the bed where Melody lay. Her eyes were closed and I doubted she knew how much danger she was in.

  “I’m going to take some pictures of your friend’s wounds,” he said, lifting the camera and pointing it toward Melody.

  “Is that really necessary?” I asked, beads of sweat starting to break out on my brow. The atmosphere in the cave felt suddenly suffocating. Pointing at the gunshot wounds peppering Melody’s body, I quickly added, “Can’t you see the wounds clearly enough?”

  “I need to take a look inside and see what damage the bullets might have caused,” he said, taking aim with the odd-looking camera.

  “The wounds look as if they are healing already,” I blustered. “Some of them have started to scab over already. My friend is a quick healer. She’ll be back on her feet in no time.” I leant over Melody and shook her gently by the shoulders. I wanted to wake her, just in case we had to make our escape, but more than that, I wanted to block Ravenwood from getting a clear shot of her with his camera. Melody stirred at my touch, her eyelids flickering open.

  “Isidor…” she murmured as if coming awake.

  “How do you feel?” I asked.

  “Sore,” she groaned, her full lips now looking cracked and dry.

  “See? She’s feeling better already,” I said, looking back over my shoulder at Ravenwood, who was now spying through the camera lens at us.

  “Can you please get out of my way?” he ordered. “I’m trying to take a photograph of my patient. If you don’t move, I’ll have to ask you to leave and come back when she’s feeling better.”

  “But she’s already feeling better,” I said, trying to ease Melody into a sitting position on the bed.

  She cried out in pain, winced, and grabbed her side.

  “Will you please leave the girl alone?” Ravenwood said stiffly, peering over the top of the camera he held before his face. “Her wounds might be healing on the outside, but I need to see if she has damaged her wings. The membrane can take longer to heal, and if the humerus or the radius and ulna have been shattered then I need to know, as her wings could be damaged beyond repair. We need as many fit and able Vampyrus we can find if we are to launch our attack from Snake Weed within the next two days.”

  “Snake Weed?” I said with a frown. “Why the town of Snake Weed?”

  “Bishop has a vast number of wolves gathered at Wasp Water,” Ravenwood started to explain, the camera still in his hands. “That’s where the original treaty between the wolves and the humans was signed. He has already caught one of the Dead Angels and has executed him...”

  “What was this Dead Angel’s name?” I asked fearful for my friends.

  “Porker…I think,” he said, sounding distracted.

  “Don’t you mean, Potter?” I asked, hoping that he had been mistaken.

  “That’s the one. Now if you don’t mind, could you move out of the way? I’m trying to take a picture here,” he said, flapping one of his giant latex covered claws at me.

  Although I felt suddenly ill and in shock at the news that Potter was dead, I tried to hide my growing emotions and said, “So what exactly is Luke Bishop’s plan?”

  “The Vampyrus are going to go above ground in the town of Snake Weed. Some have already started to gather there. Snake Weed is hidden in a valley and protected on all sides by hills and mountains. Here he can prepare his armies safely and away from the wolves. The town is in easy striking distance of Wasp Water. The Vampyrus will be able to sneak up on the wolves and surround Wasp Water on all sides and from above.” He peered at me over the top of his glasses again and added, “I thought you would have known all of this, seeing as you and your friend have been acting as scouts above ground. Now let me take this photograph. We’re wasting valuable seconds.”

  Knowing I needed to buy myself some more time, I lingered in front of Melody again and said, “What about this Potter – the dead angel? Why kill him?”

  “It’s just another part of Bishop’s trap. He knows that the dead angel, Kiera Hudson, will go to Wasp Water to avenge the death of the man she loves. The wolves know this too. They want her dead, as it has been prophesised that she has come back to destroy the wolves; that’s another reason that the wolves have gathered there. They want to see their nemesis die.”

  “But it isn’t Kiera Hudson who is going to destroy the wolves, it’s Bishop, who they believe is the wolf man,” I said, glancing down at Melody. Her eyes were now fully open as she lay and listened to how her race was going to be slaughtered.

  “We know that, but the wolves don’t,” Ravenwood grinned, looking suddenly evil. “Bishop has been using this dead angel – Kiera Hudson –

  as bait too. He has it all figured out.”

  Coming forward, Ravenwood pushed me aside, and befor
e I’d had the chance to stop him, he had taken a picture of Melody with his weird-looking camera. The cave flashed bright with blinding white light and both Melody and I covered our eyes with our hands. The camera made a whirring noise, followed by a series of clicks. Taking my hands from over my eyes, I looked at Melody and she stared back at me. We both knew that it was only going to be moments now before Ravenwood discovered that Melody wasn’t a Vampyrus, but a wolf. Melody still looked too weak to escape. She might be able to get up and hobble a few steps, and although some of the gunshot wounds covering her body looked to have scabbed over, some still looked open and raw.

  I feared that we were now trapped in The Hollows.

  Chapter Three

  Potter

  “Those cracks are growing bigger and deeper,” Kayla said over the rumbling boom of thunder.

  I followed her stare and looked up at the darkening sky. It was mauve and the cracks were black, like deep fractures. We had been walking in silence since leaving the woods where Kayla and Sam had gone through the crack with who they believed was Sam’s mother. But it had really been Jessica Hudson, the woman who had once ripped out my heart in The Hollows. I’d now ripped hers out, so I guessed that made us both even. I think, like me, Kayla had been trying to make sense of everything we had both learnt, passing back and forth through the cracks, taking photographs and playing errand boy while delivering those lover letters I had once written to Sophie. I wished now that I had never written those fucking letters. They had caused nothing but heartache to both me and Sophie, but most of all to Kiera. But back then, just after Sophie had broken my heart, how was I supposed to have known that I would have met Kiera and truly known what love was? I knew now that what Sophie and I had once shared was nothing more than an infatuation, or more aptly put, I couldn’t keep my pecker in my pants.

  I glanced at Kayla and she at me as the sky shook overhead and those cracks grew ever bigger. Kayla didn’t look scared at the thought that this pushed world might be falling apart, she just looked sad.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked, setting off back across the field we were standing in. It was cold and I wrapped my coat about me. It flapped about my legs like a tattered cape.

  “I’m not thinking about anything,” Kayla said, setting off after me.

  “Liar,” I said, taking a cigarette from my pocket and struggling to light it in the howling wind. “Are you upset about Sam?”

  “About him dying, you mean?” she asked, drawing alongside me, as I finally got my smoke to light.

  “Yeah,” I said, looking at her.

  “I wish he was with us now,” she said, combing her bright red hair behind her ears. “But I can’t believe that he is dead. I know I will see him again.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I asked, leading her to the edge of the field and into a crop of trees where the wind wasn’t blowing so hard.

  “He told me that we had once met before, remember?” Kayla said.

  And I did remember. Kayla had told me how Sam had been convinced he had met Kayla on some beach. It was the day that Luke Bishop and Jessica Hudson, the people who had stolen him as a baby, had disappeared from his life during some boating trip. It all sounded a bit fucking odd, if I were to be honest. I never thought the boy, Sam was too bright and spent most of his time with his head up his arse, but I didn’t want to tell Kayla this. If believing that she would someday meet Sam again and it was that which helped her grieve, I wasn’t going to piss all over it. Besides, what the fuck did I know? Things were changing in this pushed world by the hour. Anything seemed possible now. But there was still a part of me that believed false hope was a bad thing and she would someday have to confront the fact that Sam was dead.

  “If it helps, keep believing that, Kayla. But remember me and you know better than most now that there are plenty of different whens and wheres, and Sam seeing you on that beach could have been in any one of them,” I said, desperate not to break her heart, but not wanting her to put all her faith in something that might never happen either. What sort of friend would do that? Kayla was my friend – more than a friend after everything we had been through – she was like a kid sister to me.

  “No, it definitely happens in this where and when,” Kayla insisted as we made our way through the crop of trees which led into a dense and overgrown wood. “He told me he saw me just before his father – Bishop – disappeared on that boat and he got sent to Ravenwood School.” Kayla reached into her coat pocket and pulled something out. “He showed me this newspaper cutting, which had the story about me and Isidor being killed by our father. Sam said that when he saw me arrive at the school, at first he thought he was seeing a ghost as he knew I was dead, which I was in this pushed world. On that beach, apparently, I tell Sam everything is going to be okay. But I don’t remember ever meeting Sam before going to Ravenwood School, so it couldn’t have happened yet which means that one day, in this where and when or another, I know I will meet Sam again.”

  “So I was right then,” I said, smoking my cigarette. “You have been thinking about Sam.”

  Kayla shook her head. “No, I’ve been thinking about Isidor.”

  “Isidor?” I frowned.

  “Don’t you remember what we heard Luke saying about Isidor?” she said, still clutching the newspaper cutting. “Luke was pissed off that Sam had come back with a picture of Jack Seth and his brother Nik and not Isidor and Melody Rose.”

  “So?” I asked, fearing where this might be leading.

  “So, perhaps the reason Sam snapped a picture of Jack and Nik and not Isidor and Melody was because something changed somehow. And that change might mean that Isidor is still alive. Even Luke thought that.” Then, glancing up at the sky through the leafless branches, Kayla added, “Perhaps that’s why the sky is cracking. Perhaps Jack changed something? Maybe Jack took Isidor’s place?”

  Flicking the smouldering butt of my cigarette away, I said, “If you really believe that piece of murdering scum would give his life to save Isidor, than you’re out of your tiny mind, Kayla. Jack wouldn’t save Isidor’s life, he would take it.”

  “But you said Nik swapped places to save you,” Kayla reminded me.

  “That wasn’t to save me, that was to save Kiera,” I told her.

  “Then perhaps Jack saved Isidor to help Kiera?”

  I stopped and looked at her. “Kayla, you need a serious reality check. Wolves don’t help people. They kill them. Take a look around. Think back to what the wolves have been doing to all those human kids they rounded up and placed in that school. They’ve been stealing their skins, they’ve been stealing their souls. For as long as I can remember, the wolves have been nothing but child murdering scum, and they wouldn’t help the likes of us.”

  “Sam helped us, and he was a wolf,” Kayla said with defiance. “He looked for the crack which helped us escape Luke, Phillips, Rom, and Taylor. If it hadn’t have been for Sam showing me that crack, we would be dead right now.”

  “Big deal,” I said, shrugging my shoulders and lighting another smoke.

  “Pen helped you, and she’s a wolf,” Kayla said, jabbing at my conscience.

  “The jury is still out on her,” I remarked, chewing the butt of my cigarette between my front teeth.

  Then taking me by the arm and turning me so I had to face her, Kayla slowed and said, “You told me that Kiera is half wolf. Do you hate her, too?”

  “That’s different,” I barked, shrugging her hand free of my hand and striding away.

  “Why’s it different?” she yelled, coming after me through the trees.

  “Kiera isn’t no child killer,” I shouted back over my shoulder.

  “Neither was Sam, and neither is Pen – Lilly Blu,” Kayla reminded me. Then snatching hold of my arm again so I couldn’t go on, she spun me around to face her again. “Not all wolves are the same. Just like we’re different from Luke Bishop and the other Vampyrus that have always wanted to kill humans and not protect them. Not everyone is
the same.”

  I looked at Kayla and I knew deep down that she was right, about Sam and Pen at least.

  “I think Isidor is still alive. And if he is, we should go after him,” Kayla said, her voice calmer now that she had my full attention.

  “No way, Kayla,” I said. “We go to the Dead Waters where you can bathe. It’s the only way your skin will stop cracking, and to beat your thirst for the red stuff, and then we head straight for Wasp Water. Kiera believes I’m dead…”

  “Please, Potter,” Kayla said, her eyes dark and round. “My brother could be in danger. I don’t want to lose him again.”

  “Kayla, take a look at yourself,” I said, grabbing hold of the hand that held the newspaper cutting. “Your skin is starting to harden and crack, and before long you’ll be climbing the freaking walls in need for the red stuff. We need to get you to the Dead Waters. And besides, where would we start looking for him? Who knows with Isidor…”

  “He’ll go looking for Melody Rose,” Kayla said, holding up the slip of newspaper. “We know she is alive in this pushed world, as she is the reporter who wrote this story about mine and Isidor’s deaths.”

  “And where are we going to find her?” I sighed in frustration.

  “The town of Lake Lure, because that’s where she lived before the world got pushed. Isidor told us that,” Kayla explained.

  “But that doesn’t mean she’ll be living there now,” I tried to convince her. But I knew I was pissing against the wind.

  “It doesn’t matter if she lives there or not, I’m trying to find my brother, not Melody Rose,” Kayla said.

  “So what’s the fucking point in going to Lake Lure?” I wanted to scream.