Pale Death

by Aimée Thurlo

  On the inside of the exterior door above the handle was an electronic lock with another keypad. Apparently, employees had to enter a code number to get out as well. This “to hell with fire codes” attitude reminded him more of a prison than a research facility. But maybe it all depended on the kind of research being done. If it was an air quality research center, then the equipment being used must have been priceless.

  The hot wires were from an outlet, and had been literally ripped from the wall, creating a long, jagged hole in the sheetrock. Diane handed him the rock, and he used it to prop the door wide open so she could see inside as well. He stretched out his arm, grabbed the two wires, then, making sure he didn’t handle them where the insulation was missing, touched them against the metal in the wall outlet box. Nothing happened. “The circuit breaker has been tripped now, so we don’t have to worry about getting fried.” He bent the wires up and out of the way.

  “Before anyone messes with the main panel, remind me to have something done with those bare wires,” Diane said.

  “Ma’am?” It was the Navajo officer who’d been in the parking lot.

  Diane turned. “Got an ID?”

  “The red Mercedes out there belongs to the dead woman. And all the vehicles have been vandalized. There are ignition wires and modules scattered about. None can be started, even with the keys, until they’re repaired.”

  “All three victims must have worked here,” Lee said. “Can you check out the names of the other vehicle owners, then see if any match with the IDs the OMI got from those other bodies?” Lee said to the officer, then turned to Diane. “Okay with that?”

  Diane nodded her approval to the Navajo officer, but as he turned, she suddenly called out, “Wait!”

  The officer looked back.

  “Be very careful what you touch. We’ve already found a hot wire—a booby trap left by someone, probably the killer—and there may be more,” Diane added.

  “Thanks. I’ll tell the others.” The officer hurried back out toward the parking area, looking around for his own people.

  Diane joined Lee, who was examining the interior door without touching it. “Locked?”

  “No. I tried the handle. I was just wondering, before we went any farther, what happened to the other three people here—the guards, I imagine.”

  “I counted five vehicles too. Well, I guess we’re about to find out.” She stood back, aiming her light, as Lee opened the door.

  CHAPTER 3

  The building appeared to be unoccupied by the living or dead, though there were various security and other unique modifications to the structure that would have puzzled anyone not thinking about vampires. A room serving as a laboratory contained light sources that would allow researchers to select a wide spectrum of wavelengths for illumination. Some of the sources, unlike normal artificial lighting, would be dangerous or lethal to a vampire.

  In one hallway they found signs of a violent struggle, with blood splattered along the floor and up the walls. In several places large dents and holes in the wall suggested that someone in the struggle had bounced off the wall so hard they broke through the surface. They even found drag marks through the blood, but still no bodies—other than those already found, a few miles away, down by the river.

  Locked strongboxes were found attached to the walls in the office area that had the word “Emergency” written on them, but the containers couldn’t be forced open without tools, even by Lee. One box, however, had been opened, and two wooden stakes, exactly like those found in the victims’ chests, were still inside the box. There was also a dart pistol, and two loaded darts containing a knockout drug Lee recognized was used for sedating large animals.

  After groping around in the dark with her small flashlight for about fifteen minutes, Diane finally had enough. “Dammit, Lee, you can see in the dark, but having to use this flashlight is a pain in the ass. We haven’t found any more live wires, so let’s check the main panel and see if we can get the power back on.”

  Lee managed to find some electrical supplies in a small toolbox in the lab, and tied off the exposed wires in the foyer with a screw-on wire nut. Meanwhile, Diane had located a closet containing the main panel. When they were ready, she started flipping the breakers.

  “Hey, turn that last one back off!” Lee yelled, ducking out of the foyer. He could feel the heat on his fingers.

  Diane came to see what had happened and found him applying sunblock to his upper arms and hands. “The light in the foyer?”

  “Would have fried a full vampire without sunblock. Got me on my fingers where the protection was starting to wear thin. With that light on, no unprotected vampire could stay here more than a few seconds before they started to cook.”

  “It could just be a coincidence. What if our suspicions are wrong and these people were some kind of natural light health nuts trying to enhance their creative karma?”

  “For that we’d have to ignore everything else we’ve seen. Diane, I think we have a vampire situation here,” Lee said, then clamped his mouth shut, a terrible thought suddenly occurring to him. He whipped out his pocket notebook and scribbled Diane a note. “Hope this place isn’t bugged.”

  “Let’s assume it is, Lee,” she answered aloud, nodding her head. “And let’s go into all these other rooms very carefully.”

  Fortunately none of the other rooms had lighting that was hazardous to a vampire’s health, except for the lab area. Diane was trying to decide if she wanted to start going through desks when she got a phone call. She spoke for a few moments, then hung up and turned to Lee.

  “Cooper and Dr. Wayne have IDs on the other victims now, and are trying to contact their next of kin. The men were MDs, one named Prescott, the other Krause. Their vehicles are among those outside. The tribal cops are going over the cars now, but I got the feeling they’re not too eager to come into this facility. Could it have something to do with that Navajo belief in the chindi, the bad part of a person that’s left behind when they die?”

  “Could be, though the spot where they actually died is the most dangerous place to be,” Lee answered. “But maybe they’re worried that there are more bodies in here someplace.”

  “That’s a real possibility. The blood we found in the hall might not be from the victims beside the river. Maybe we’d better give this place a real going over. There were supposed to be security guards, right?” Diane said. “Let’s check out every closet and behind every cabinet—and in them.”

  He and Diane checked every obvious spot, then Lee thought of something they’d been overlooking. “There’s no blood around the foyer—the only way out—but blood is all over the hallway where a kick-ass struggle took place. Chances are, it doesn’t belong to those found outside, so take a closer look at the blood trail and see if we can find the source.”

  They went back to the hall, which continued in a big L across the center of the building. Though most of the blood spills were near the hall where it dead-ended, they managed to find a few drops farther down. The trail led to a big closet that housed a heating unit, one they’d looked inside earlier while searching for more victims. The metal box was resting on a big plywood sheet, and had a big electric cord leading to a wall socket. Lee looked at the connection closely.

  “This doesn’t look right, somehow,” Diane commented, shining the light around the enclosure. “There’s a power cord, but there aren’t any ducts at the top to transfer the hot air.” She stepped into the closet and looked around the back of the unit. “There aren’t any coming out the rear of the unit, or the bottom, either. How could this heat anything except the closet?”

  “It couldn’t. So either it’s a boondoggle or a dummy unit. But why?” He looked around the enclosure and noticed a light switch inside. But there was no light fixture or bulb, nor was there a thermostat or heater switch anywhere, inside or along the hall. “Let’s see what happens.”

  He flipped the switch, and the floor began to move. Diane stepped back, and they both watch
ed the heating unit rotate to the left, into an opening that appeared as a hinged section of the wall recessed farther back to accept the unit. Where the heater had been there was an entrance to a short hall that extended another eight feet, then disappeared to the right. Lee studied the light in the ceiling of the passage.

  “I don’t trust that light. See the color?” Lee pointed out. “It’s one of those natural bulbs—vampire-proof. He stepped into the closet, trying to see around the next corner.”I hear something. Yelling, I think.”

  She listened for a moment. “Must be your sensitive ears. I’m getting nothing.”

  “It’s coming from farther ahead,” Lee whispered. “Somebody’s still alive.”

  “I’ll go first,” Diane said brusquely, pushing her way past him, “just in case there’s another vampire-resistant spot.”

  Lee followed her into the narrow hall, then into a small room with a massive, barred steel door on the opposite side. Overhead were three high-wattage lamps and no wall switch to turn them off. The bulbs were intense, and shielded behind thick glass or plastic, and a heavy wire frame.

  “Definitely vampire-resistant. Nothing a vamp could do to avoid getting fried unless he was covered up. For a full vampire, any sunblock wouldn’t last long. And that voice. It’s louder now,” he said.

  “Step back into the hall while I check out the door,” Diane suggested, then she stopped talking. “I can hear it now. A voice.”

  Lee nodded. “I can smell blood too, lots of it. Behind the door.” He stepped over quickly and swung up the heavy metal brace that kept the door from being forced from the other side. “No need for locks, not if you’re keeping a dangerous animal behind this door.”

  “Or a vampire as a prisoner,” she added. They both brought out their weapons, and Lee pulled the heavy door open as she kept her sights on the opening. A flight of stairs led down to a darkened room with a bare concrete floor. Diane directed her flashlight and found a light switch just inside. She flipped it on. “Oh, shit.”

  “The guards?” Lee asked, joining her as she rushed down the steps. The lighting was a normal, fluorescent fixture in the concrete box of a room. A bed, sink, and simple toilet were all that occupied the cell-like room—except for the pools of blood, two battered, motionless men on the floor, and a naked, beaten man curled up on the bed in a fetal position.

  The one on the bed reacted to the light, a good sign of consciousness. His face was swollen, and from the bruises on his body, he probably had some broken bones as well.

  “Thank God you heard me,” the man on the bed managed. “My voice …”

  Lee started to take off his jacket to cover the man up and save him any more embarrassment, but Diane held up her hand. “Let me do this.”

  Because you’ll be needing yours for light protection, Lee knew. Diane didn’t have to speak the words out loud for him to understand. And she was right.

  He checked the men on the floor for signs of life. “They’re both dead.” They’d been pummeled with an iron fist, like Lynette Alderete, and their heads were askew.

  “Broken necks,” Lee added, taking a quick glance around the room to confirm his thoughts. Whoever was being kept here, in an obvious cell, hadn’t been given any covers. There were no blankets and not even a sheet on the mattress.

  The absence of one set of clothes, taken from the guard that was closest to the right size, suggested that the prisoner had been naked. It made sense. If a vampire had been held here, they would have wanted him to have no way of covering himself up and keeping the light from burning his skin if he somehow managed to get past the gate. The guard’s clothing size had saved his life. The killer hadn’t wanted to wear a bloody outfit.

  Diane pulled out her cell phone, then realized she wasn’t getting a signal. “I need to call for medical help, but it’ll have to be from another location. See if our friend here can tell you what happened, Officer Hawk.”

  Diane hurried up the steps, and Lee moved over to the officer, who seemed a bit more relaxed with the center of his body covered by the jacket. He found a paper cup, filled it with water from the sink, and held it to the man’s lip so he could drink.

  “I’m State Police Officer Hawk,” Lee introduced himself. He decided to make the first question an easy one. “What’s your name, friend?”

  The man finished the water. “Gus Mendez.” His voice was raspy, almost gone now despite the drink.

  “Call me Lee. What happened here, Gus, and who did this to you?”

  “The others. Did they get away?” The man’s eyes were starting to well with tears.

  Lee had to shake his head. “I’m sorry. They made it as far as the river, then the man wearing the boots caught up to them. Three are dead. Were there more?” Lee wondered why Gus was still alive. He looked to be smaller than the other two guards, though he was still at least six feet tall.

  “He got all … except me.”

  “He—who? The man who was being kept in this cage—prison—cell—whatever the hell this is?” Lee wanted to know everything Gus knew. All the evidence so far added up to a vampire being kept prisoner here.

  “He took my clothes. Stewart. Sunlight causes terrible burns on his skin. Drives him crazy. Had to be locked up.”

  “Stewart was the prisoner, right? Kept naked?”

  The man sobbed silently for a moment. “See what he did to Ralph and Leo? He’s insane. Took my boots, clothes, wallet. Bastard. Probably took my pickup too.”

  “The big white Dodge?”

  “Still outside? Must have stolen someone else’s.” Gus was whispering now, but Lee needed to know as much as possible.

  “How many vehicles should be out there?”

  Gus thought about it for a few seconds. “Five. They rode together.” He tried to gesture toward the bodies on the floor, paying for the movement with a groan of pain.

  Diane came back into the room just then. “EMTs are on their way from the fire station at Kirtland. Should be here in ten minutes or so.” She smiled at the badly injured man. “How you doing … ?”

  “Gus. Feel like shit. Take me outside. This room … secret.”

  “No way,” Diane said firmly.

  “Need my job. Nobody is supposed to know about …”

  “The work here has just ended, Gus. The patient won’t be coming back,” Lee said. “Just stay put. We need you alive to tell us what happened so we can catch this guy—Stewart.”

  “Stewart? Last name or first?” Diane asked.

  Gus shrugged, then grimaced.

  “What triggered the violence?” Lee prodded. Once the EMTs arrived, some questions might be tricky to ask. And if Gus needed to be sedated, they’d lose even more time. The only thing Lee knew for certain was that if the “patient” was a vampire, he’d be holed up now inside a vehicle, dwelling, or somewhere out of direct sunlight. “What happened, Gus?” he repeated.

  “Lightning. Power went out. Taking Stewart back to his cell. Handcuffs didn’t stop him. He found us in the dark, somehow. I got knocked out. Woke up here on the floor. Crawled to door. No good, locked. Quiet. Afraid he’d come back if he heard. Finally decided—fuck it. Started yelling.”

  “Gus, we’ve got a killer to catch, so we’re going to need all the help we can get,” Diane said. “I need to find out all I can about this patient—Stewart. Where are the keys needed to get into the desks and files around here?”

  “Key in phony electrical outlet in break room. Gets you into Prescott’s file cabinet. More there.” Gus started coughing, and Lee got him more water from the sink.

  Diane looked at her watch. “I’ll go find that key. Officer Hawk, you stay here. Officer Toledo said he’d find us once the EMTs arrived, and they should be here anytime. Make sure everyone’s got gloves on before they come in here, because we’re going to need to dust this cell for Stewart’s fingerprints. We need to know who we’re dealing with.”

  Lee nodded. If Stewart could do all this damage in one night, they couldn’t affor
d to give him another.

  CHAPTER 4

  Two hours later, with the bodies rei-noved and Gus Mendez in the emergency room at the Regional Medical Center in Farmington, Lee and Diane had the laboratory to themselves.

  A quick dusting of Stewart’s cell had turned up several fingerprints. According to Gus, only the guards and Stewart ever entered the cell, and the guards’ fingerprints were on file and quickly identified. A search hadn’t turned up a match on the unknowns, so they were forced to look elsewhere for a lead on Stewart’s identity.

  Prescott’s file cabinet had contained a folder with duplicate keys for all the other locks and a list of the current access codes to the computers—and the main entrance keypads. At least they now had all they needed to get into every room in the lab.

  The entire facility was being treated as the crime scene, so no one was allowed to enter without Diane’s permission. Navajo officers had processed all the evidence they could find outside, on the grounds, turned what they had over to Diane, then left, not eager to stick around.

  Diane had gone through channels and given all other local agencies Security Officer Mendez’s description of the missing patient—Stewart—and a copy of his fingerprints.

  Law enforcement officers in four states were keeping a eye out for the mass murderer, possibly dressed in a gray security guard’s uniform, and Lee and Diane were going through records trying to find a photograph of Stewart, as well as any other pertinent information.

  Diane was using Lynette Alderete’s computer, reading the reports of experiments conducted on “Patient Beta,” exposing him to various wavelengths, intensity, and duration of light. Also recorded was the practical effectiveness of several materials, including glass, fabric, and sunscreen, in preventing changes on Patient Beta’s skin. Anecdotes followed that related his quick healing after each episode where he suffered skin damage.

  Lee was searching Dr. Prescott’s desk and work area, trying to discover where he’d hidden the combination to the heavy safe attached to the floor. After going through several drawers, and even looking under the desk pad, Lee sat back and tried to think of places to hide a password or combination. Where could someone conceal it, yet insure it was always available in case the user forgot it? Lee knew people, and most would have had it somewhere nearby. Hopefully it hadn’t been in the doctor’s wallet, because that, along with the other evidence recovered from the victims, was locked up in the evidence room at Farmington’s main police station.