“I’ll return in a few minutes.” The door creaked open and slipped shut.
My bottom hung in the air. I could only think of spiders and bugs. It took a while but my battle with my bladder ended with noise in the metal bucket. The smell of too yellow and thick urine wafted up. Claire returned and buttoned me up and slid the bucket across the floor to a far corner.
I counted two or three days before Claire again visited me.
I flinched as she approached. She touched my shoulders when she came to my side.
“Now, that’s what I like. Your heart is speeding up in anticipation already. You’ll be a good run today. But we have to do it in separate heats.”
“What do you mean?”
“I need a proof-of-life sample first.”
And then those teeth spaded my wrist like a fresh garden. Fire coursed through my veins out of the wound and again ravishing my body. Waves of pain and fire. My body responded with adrenaline like running from wolves … or vampires. My heart hammered inside my chest like a blacksmith working steel straps and my ears went numb. I couldn’t get enough air.
A cold smooth glass edge of something pressed against the wound. I panted and heard my blood squirt into the small container. I guessed a small container from the tight high-pitched echoes coming from it. Maybe a test tubes vial. That’s as much as the doctors collected. A pause as a cap or cork plugged it and crinkling of paper wrapping it and the scratches of putting it in a cardboard box.
“Ships overnight everywhere for a flat rate,” purred Claire.
“Where are you sending that?” I already guessed.
“Garin of course.”
“That will only make him want to find me.”
“That is what we want. For him to know it’s you. I assume he’s tasted you already?”
I sat silent.
“Silent on that huh? Well, we want Garin to have more incentive in completing his project.”
“What project? That will only make him come here and rescue me.”
“A top secret project.” Claire chuckled, “I’d have to kill you if I told you.” I heard her move a step toward the door and turn, her shoe scraping on the stone, “He won’t find us here. It’s too far and hidden too well. No. He needs to perform and then we can trade. But while he resists … You’re mine.” Her feet tapped up the steps and she must have left the door slightly ajar as the cool air currents flooded again across the basement floor. She whisked back into my basement prison.
“I had one of the other girls finish delivering the box to Garin.”
“All the girls are here?”
“Oh yes. Nearly all.” Claire crouched near me.
“You said we were alone the last time.”
“I say a lot of things that suit my purposes.”
“I –” I began but fangs pierced my arm deeply like stapling my wrist to the chair’s wooden arm. The pain flushed adrenaline into my system and the sprint went long and hard. Relentlessly up a mountain for what seemed like hours but bits of my mind clung to a sense the sprint must only be going for minutes. I tasted blood in the back of my throat. Strong and metallic. We kept going. Beyond exhaustion. On and on. My heart lumped in my chest. I pulled in air with such force that the bag pressed across my mouth and I sucked air through its fibers. Yet we kept going.
Points of light drained from the back of my eyes. A black red fog filtered across my vision. I knew my body slipped and fainted. I willed it forward. Gripping the edges of the darkness with my sharp nails. Digging them in. My lips curled back from my teeth that I clenched together. The darkness came too strong. It pulled at my body. Slowly my fingers released tip by tip. We kept going. But I could not.
The cup clicked against my teeth and Claire poured the chilled water into my mouth. I drank from the iron cup in hungry gasps. Nothing tasted sweeter as my body sponged it away immediately. Thankfully, Claire gave me a second cup full.
When she pulled it away, she said, “Now the real training starts. You’re one of the lucky runners that get a second wind. This will be fun for the two of us.”
I only knew she had gone when the locks snapped shut.
-:- Twenty-Four -:-
The HK lab door opened and one of the ubiquitous security guards strode in.
Reginald DeVar looked up from his microscope, “What’s up? You don’t usually barge in here in the middle of the night.”
“An urgent package came for you.”
“I don’t remember ordering anything.”
“It’s addressed to you and the delivery person at the gate demanded that you get it now or there would be a lot of problems. Something about blood products with a short shelf life.”
“It’s fortunate I wasn’t in the deeper pilot plant chambers with my bunny suit on. I’m only prepping for the next lab test.” Reginald stood up and wiped is hands on the sides of his lab coat out of habit. He pushed his wire rim glasses tighter against his face and took the package from the guard, “Uh, Thanks.”
“Sure. Good luck,” waved the guard as he walked back out. Reginald remained in the quietness of his lab again. “No sender return address. Now why didn’t the gate bomb-squad take a look at that?” He opened a bin under the makeshift desk at the side of the lab and found his large shears. He trimmed off the edges and opened the pouch. Inside laid a long thick box. He pulled it out and looked at the black marker scrawled along the top in a cursive hand that looked odd – or old, very old. Like his great-grandmother’s letters from a time when schoolchildren practiced penmanship instead of computer keyboarding. However, the strong strokes showed none of her shaky meandering hand. The black marker said, “Hello Reginald. This package came to you but it’s for your assistants.”
“I don’t have any assistants. This is my project and my lab. I can’t have any assistants mucking it up, bad enough getting the contractors to install the equipment correctly. Took them two tries to get it right.” He realized he talked to a box. He found the side flap of the clam-shell container and whisked the binding tape off with the shears.
He lifted the flap and inside laid a second smaller white box with a piece of paper wrapping it with more writing, “Yes, Reginald, this means you. The contents are only delivered to you. Another box is inside this one but for addressed to two different people. It will be dangerous for you to open that one. Leave it out for them on your lab bench. Maybe make a nice big sign for them. And don’t call security or your family will be in danger.”
Reginald’s fingers curled away from the phone receiver on his desk.
He knew too well, how big things could arrive in small packages. How many million viruses can fit in a milliliter size dribble? He knew because he produced such weapons in this lab. Nasty things only visible under a microscope.
Reginald carefully pushed equipment away from an unused lab bench by the door.
If anything is contaminated inside those boxes, he already touched it. So he opened the inner box and saw two names on it that he didn’t recognize.
“To: Garin or Branoc,” the box proclaimed in bold black script. Underneath it said, “Proof of life.”
Reginald went to his scrub station and washed up. He dumped the contents of his lab coat pockets into a bin and threw his coat into another bin. He scrubbed again under the water with the fume hood vacuuming the air. He took a fresh lab coat from the bio-laundry company sealed bag and put it on. Then he walked to the far corner of his lab, moved a chair over, sat down, and waited in the solitude watching the box and lab door. The big industrial clock mounted in the wall over the door pointed to half past midnight before he heard anything.
-:- -:- -:-
“What’s that?”
“What?”
Garin pointed to a little white box.
Branoc said, “It’s propped up waiting for us.”
A voice came from across the room, “Are you Garin or Branoc?”
Garin whirled around. Branoc already fixed the man with his eyes. Reginald froze as if s
tartled by fear more deeply than any military force he might ever had contact with, “Are you Garin or Branoc? That box came for you tonight.”
“Yes we are.”
“Don’t open it casually.”
“What do you mean?”
“There could be nasty things in there.”
“Why didn’t you burn it or have the site bomb squad take care of it?”
Reginald stood up slowly, non-threatening, his hands out, “They threatened my family. I work on military projects. And the box stinks of a bio-weapon delivery – that’s addressed to you, in my lab.”
Branoc asked, “You have a safe way to open it?”
“In my back labs. But it would be helpful to understand other things about the package before we try that or even try moving it. It said something about short shelf-life blood products and proof-of-life. I put the wrappers in the incinerator bin if you want to look but make sure you wash up after in the sink.”
“Any other details?”
“Only that they put my family in danger if I did not comply with their instructions to leave it out for you, not open it myself, and –”
“– not tell anyone about it?”
“Yes.”
“We’re under the same set of orders. Nice.”
Reginald walked across the lab toward the entrance to his deeper labs.
Garin reached for the box.
“– Don’t!” protested Reginald.
“How do we move it?”
Reginald pulled some beaker tongs from a yellow bin on a shelf, “Use these and then don’t touch the working end after we move it.” Reginald pushed the revolving door through an airlock, “follow me through one at a time and don’t drop the box.”
They made it through into the next lab. Boxes with ports on the side lined the room like incubators in a hospital ward – all empty. Reginald lifted the catch on the end of one of the boxes and opened its access door, “Put it in here.”
Garin pushed the tongs with the little white box into the incubator.
“Now drop the tongs in that red ‘autoclave’ bin over there.” Reginald snapped the box closed and opened a valve on an overhead vacuum line. “This line draws any air out of there up into a furnace that burns the air and any pathogens before releasing it to the atmosphere.” He stood back and took a perch on a high stainless steel stool in a far corner of the lab.
“Why are you over there?”
“You should see how often I make my kids wash their hands before meals.” He settled into his perch, “That box is addressed to you, I don’t know you, and don’t know the box’s owners. They sent it to this lab not a regular office or a person’s house. I’m staying over here until we learn more.”
Branoc asked, “So what’s next?”
“Whoever is the bravest need to put your hands through those side ports and slip those gloves on and then try opening the box.” “Oh, turn that box light on.”
Garin said, “I’ll do it. Not sure about bravery.” He put his hands inside the box and the silicone rubber gloves stretched to fit his hands. The material was much thicker than doctor office latex gloves. The silicone helped with pealing the edges of the tape sealing the box. He opened the lid slowly revealing a vial nestled between foam inserts and a red liquid splashed inside the vial.
“Looks like blood.”
Reginald said, “That’s what the label told me. But that’s still a potential weapon. Especially since I run a weapon lab here.”
“What do you think Branoc?”
Branoc looked through the glass at the small vial.
“Could it be a new version of the poisoned Massai?”
“That crazy drink at the bar?” Reginald looked at them quizzically. “I tested that once. It’s cow’s blood. Tastes horrendous. Not sure about these kids these days. Started with caffeine and then went to those energy drinks. And now drinking cow’s blood. But I guess some people drank it for centuries in Africa and in Europe it’s made into blood sausages.”
“Looks like pure blood.”
“Only one way to find out.” Branoc looked at Garin. He reached for the latch on the box.
“Shit!” Reginald flapped his arms as he scrambled for protective gear from the case next to him. He found a pair of filter masks that he pushed over his face. He muffled out, “Don’t open that containment box! We don’t know what it is!”
Branoc pulled the vial out of the foam holder and held it up to the light. Like Socrates must have contemplated his poison. He pulled the lid off the top and sniffed the contents. “Human blood.” he sniffed deeper, “familiar, not sure who.”
Garin held his hand out for the vial, he swirled it carefully, like peering at the legs of a fine wine in a goblet before smelling it cautiously, “No!”
Branoc said, “It’s only a sample. Proving life. Incentive to complete the task.”
“The scent of the dance.”
“Yes. But that would be on purpose, for you.”
Reginald gulped a hard swallow. “What are you talking about?”
Garin smelled again, and then put the tip of his finger against the meniscus layer of the blood. A drop leaped hungrily to his finger. He put the drop on his tongue. He let the flavor roll around his palette. “No!” His knees buckled slowly to the ground. His voice hoarse.
“It’s Anna’s.” Tears came uncontrolled. “And Claire’s venom driving Anna’s body to the brink of the sprint. She’ll kill her.”
“Garin, they sent that to keep you on path. They don’t dare push the dance.”
“I can’t control feeding during the dance. I don’t know how Claire can. It’s so easy to slip over the knife edge into murder.”
“It’s Claire’s age. She can control herself.”
“But it takes practice and training. You realize how many dances she ran to the brink if she has that kind of control?”
“Claire became a vampire five centuries ago. Morals and life expectations have changed since then.”
“W-what are you talking about?” Reginald’s foot slipped on the stool rung, almost falling off. “You care about her like I do my wife – if I got a package like that.”
“It’s beyond your science.”
“I’ve seen some wacky shit, but this, you got that detail from smelling and tasting blood?”
“His girlfriend’s blood.”
“– not girlfriend. She’s seeing someone else. I only care about her.”
“There’s more there than that, but yes.”
“Who are you? It takes this whole lab of equipment and days to figure out what you did, if I could.”
“It’d take too long to explain.”
“I have all night before I’m missed,” Reginald gulped, “I mean – I’m not getting any work done tonight and no one will know I don’t get anything accomplished until the first shift guys get in.”
Branoc said, “If you’re running this whole lab, who do you report to like that?”
“Everyone has to report to someone. Even with my PhD degrees from Michigan Technological University, the University of Michigan, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology I have to report to someone. I used to report to Sandro Gruber but since he’s disappeared I have to update others on the team.”
Garin stood, “You hopped universities because you couldn’t figure out what you wanted to do?”
“No I wanted to learn from the best about the best.” Reginald seemed to acquire more courage by explaining his training, “So who are you two anyway?”
Garin said to Branoc, “We could use his help tonight. He knows the equipment.”
“He has some levels of government security clearances. So he can keep secrets. And they have threatened him with silence already.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Reginald.
“Only this –” Garin and Branoc turned to face Reginald. Arms extended with clawed hands, full vampire fangs and snarling frightening faces. Reginald fell off his stool trying to back further into
the corner grasping the stool and holding its legs out to protect him, yet knowing nothing could keep him safe here. When Reginald saw they didn’t fly across the room and consume him he set the stool down and regained his footing.
Shrugging his shoulders, he straightened his back. “Vampires? They’re … you’re real? With so many stories … the legends and the myths; it had to come out of some sort of truth.” He stepped carefully forward, “You’re not drinking me, yet, so where do we go from here? What’s going on?”
“You took less time than most to process our existence.”
“When you believe in science instead of religion you have a different perspective.”
Branoc said, “Many think vampires are cast from the devil.”
“That may be. But science says you’re only another creature on the planet. A carnivore like any other that feeds on specific animals in specific ways. Some humming birds have extra long beaks adapted to deeper flowers. Even though you’re the top of the food chain your bodies obey rules of science regardless of your apparent magical powers.”
“Now you’re studying us.”
“Naturally.” He pushed his glasses hard up the bridge of his nose, “But what brought you to my lab?”
Garin said, “We are here to remove your pilot plant.”
“But you can’t. I have work to do with it. For the government.”
“Have they taken your family?”
“What do you mean?” Reginald reached for his cell phone in his back pocket.
“No, don’t use your phone.” Branoc looked around. “You said they warned you in the package. This group took Garin’s friend, his friend’s sister and her kids, and killed many others. I can’t imagine they’d spare your family if it came to anything.”
Reginald walked to the rear of the lab and pushed open another door, “You better come this way if we’re going to do this.”
-:- Twenty-Five -:-
The Vampires Of Livix Twin Pack (Volumes #2 & #3) Page 14