by HC Hammond
Harold brushed past the two agents, gritting his teeth against the pain. He pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat ever so gingerly in it. The agents stood opposite him at the table. As one, they sat and clasped their hands in front of them.
“We know you’ve been speaking with Zork without our surveillance. Do you know its origins?”
Harold yawned to feign boredom and revealed more than a little of his tiredness. “Philly?”
The agents frowned at Harold.
“Many strange things exist under the sun, or shall we say fast crawling away from it.” The shorter agent exchanged a grin with his partner. “But not even Earth can spawn that slug.”
Over the course of his life, Harold never heard of any monster slug variations of Abeos. He’d just assumed it was because Zork was born with it or had a pretty rare strain. Of course, when Zork told him it was from outer space, Harold thought it was joking around. Now, a strange feeling crept up Harold’s spine. The switch flipped in his mind, that dim light bulb that Harold called a brain lit up and he knew, he just knew.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Harold asked.
“We’re saying E.T. has landed, Mr. Blank.”
Harold touched his face and winced. “So Zork is from,” He pointed a finger straight up at the ceiling and whistled the theme song from X-Files.
“Yes.”
“Holy Toledo,” Harold shook his head, “no wonder you watch him all the time… ” He trailed off.
The two men stared at Harold.
“So you want me to keep tabs on him too?” Harold asked.
The two agents grinned at each other. Potts choking back laughter and looking about ready to bust his gut.
“Do you think we’d rely on a half-baked vampire to guard an asset as volatile as the slug?”
Ouch.
“Fine. You told me get out.” Harold gestured to the door and yelped. The tight, charred flesh on his shoulders split open from the unexpected movement. A trickle of blood oozed from the crack.
Agent Potts did chortle, the strata of his chins bouncing upon one another in the minor earthquake. Bergstom spoke up, “We have the slug well in hand Harry. No need to be upset.”
Harold was unused to people not reacting to him with fear. It irked Harold. He glanced around his sparse apartment, unsure of what to do next. These days he had a hard time figuring out his next move from hour to hour. It’s a vampire who dies young, what tries to sit in the sun, he thought.
Harold grunted and grabbed some paper napkins from the table, trying not to hiss as he daubed up the blood on his shoulders. The coppery scent caught in his nostrils. His own blood never made him hungry the way everyone else’s did. He could smell all of the same ingredients, and a mixture of adrenaline and other chemicals leached into the bloodstream by his frightened brain. Harold hoped to God, Bergstrom didn’t have the same sensitive faculties to pick it up. His stomach roiled inside with buildup tension.
“We know you’ve got to sleep with those nasty burns,” Potts paused for effect, “so we’ll make this short.”
Harold tensed when Agent Potts reached into his front jacket pocket, expecting some monster-killing weapon or worse a gun, only to see the man pull out a few papers and a pen.
He laid them on the table in front of Harold’s chair. “Sign these.”
The vampire edged over to the table and peered down at the papers. “What are these?”
“NDAs, the government wants assurance in writing that you won’t tell anyone about Zork.”
Harold glanced between the two men in confusion before giggling. He sank into his chair as not so steady legs gave out. “That’s what this shit-scare has been about,” Harold laughed again.
The agents said nothing.
“Sure,” he said, “I’ll sign your papers.” Harold picked up the pen and scrawled out his current alias on the dotted lines.
“Good,” Potts said. The agents gathered up their paperwork. Can’t have evidence lying around in questionable hands.
“Now,” Bergstrom said, folding long-fingered hands in front of himself on the table, “You are assigned to stay in the halfway house, yet you ignore those rules and stay here. This won’t do.”
Harold shifted in the chair, wondering if he could make it all the way to his car in full daylight and whether or not the pain would be worth it.
“If we are to get any information at all from your insertion into FEBs you must start spending more time with Donald and the other group members. Otherwise,” Agent Potts leaned back, while his partner leaned forward, “We’ll be forced to end your stint in the program. Got it?”
“I got it.”
After a moment, they stood and Harold followed them at a snail’s pace to the front door. When Bergstrom opened the door, Harold skirted around the crack of sunlight slithering in through the opening.
Bergstrom turned to Harold. “One more thing,” he said, pulling down his glasses, “Don’t tell the slug about this.”
Chapter Six
“Well, I don’t like the idea one bit,” Maria said from the bathroom where she stood curling her dark hair.
Harold was lighting candles and spreading incense. Maria peeked out of the room. He shook his head and picked up one of the pillows from the bed. “You think I want this? They’ve got me by the balls and I can’t do a damn thing except cooperate,” Harold said. He finally broke down when Maria came home that evening and told her about the feds. She needed to know, since they could show up at the door any minute and he’d be spending a lot more time at the halfway house now. He beat the pillow with his fists and slapped it back on the bed. He reached over and grabbed the other pillow to beat the crap out of it.
“I wish you wouldn’t talk that way,” Maria said. She finished curling her hair and shook her pretty head at the mirror. She smacked her lips together and picked up some sort of lipstick or lip liner. Harold couldn’t tell which, but kind of hoped it was the orange-flavored gloss. Harold pulled the comforter back and fluffed it up.
“Turn on the music,” Maria said. Harold turned on the radio. He flipped through the channels until hitting on some slow R&B. Harold took off his shirt and threw it at the laundry bin, taking a moment to run his hands over new, pink, healthy flesh with a relieved sigh. Every night was a new start when you were a vampire.
Maria came out of the bathroom in skimpy, black negligee. Harold got an eye full of arms and thighs and cleavage. It made him very hungry in a very different way.
“What do you think?” Maria whispered. She leaned against the doorframe in a most seductive pose.
“Good,” Harold said, “very good.”
After ravishing Maria, Harold left her snoring softly in bed and got ready for work. He had a spring in his step as he locked the apartment door and walked to his car. Things were starting to pick up for the night. He’d gotten a good twelve hours of sleep after those asshole agents left. His beauty sleep left skin and burns now completely healed. Harold just had great sex and managed to keep from having a fight with Maria during the short time they were together. He was even feeling slightly ravished himself. He slipped into his car, noting the time on the dash when he started the engine. He’d have to stop off for some dinner before work to really feel like himself again.
A short drive through downtown led Harold to a dark, lonely street off the Brewery district. He parked and slipped out of the car. Junk and trash thumped along the sidewalk, urged along by the wind slithering around the corners and up his trench coat. As Harold adjusted to the surroundings his sharp senses picked up on signs of prey. The soft chuckle of a woman standing with her man echoed down the street from a block away, lurid noises deadened by the walls of buildings around him, a scurrying sound jumped out from behind Harold, causing him to turn and spy a rat running along the gutter. Nighttime only sharpened his vision. He saw used things stuck to the black cement, old gum, wrappers, and condoms. Harold stopped to pick up a dirty dollar bill shoved into
the groove of a lamppost. His skin prickled with the nearby heat of his next victim.
The man called to him from the corner of an alley. Whispering softly of promises and the good stuff, brain candy in exchange for money. He proffered dime bags and variety packs, a deep discount for first time buyers and the anonymity of night. Harold could smell the fear and excitement in the man, see the second man hidden in the darkest corner behind the drug dealer. He, a sheep in wolf’s clothing and Harold, insatiable hunger, moved towards each other with similar intentions. He already knew which of them would come out on top. The question is, would the third man get away unscathed?
They collided in a scene straight out of a comic book. Bam. Pow. The gun flew out of the second man’s hand. Harold slapped him, popping his jaw. He twisted around on his feet.
Harold sank his teeth in and gnawed. Warm blood flowed from the jugular. The sounds of ripping and tearing mingled with strangled cries. It wasn’t like the movies with a couple of quick pricks and two neat, tiny holes. This was violence and gorging and eating. Nature at her most natural and yet, unnatural.
The man that Harold had smacked screamed and ran out of the alley. He might tell, go to the cops or find friends to help him. More than likely, the man would seek out a very crowded, well-lit, public place until dawn and never, never sleep with the lights off again. Not that it made much difference to him.
Dinner fell to the ground in a heap of clothes and flesh. It was an older man, goateed, tasting of petty theft and drug dealing and a little hard time in the slammer. A full life. Harold bent down to check his pulse. This moment always bothered him. That second or two waiting for his victim’s pulse to beat or not against his fingertips. It became an eternity lingering between life and death and then, the soft blub of a heartbeat. Still alive.
He’d have to finish the job. Bending back towards the man a second time was a lot harder. Stomach full, urges blunted, this now seemed wrong. Excess blood spilled onto the cold concrete, but even these few seconds after the attack, Harold could see it slowing, coagulating as he hadn’t gone very deep and the body began the slow process of recovery. The sheep would live to fear another day. Harold pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his mouth and shaking hands. In a few hours the man would awaken and stagger out to the nearest person. He tucked it back into his pocket, tugged the trench coat tightly around himself and left the alley.
Soon the adrenaline pulsing through his veins dried up, leaving Harold with a full stomach and knowledge of his actions. The rest of his trip into work remained uneventful.
The hospital’s sterile hallways welcomed him in from the night. He gratefully wandered down to the office, memories of the previous week’s events fading under the bright, cool lights. He had a job, an anchor and things didn’t seem so bad after all. Things were always better on a full stomach.
In the lab, David stood at the one desk they shared talking with a small Asian woman in glasses. When Harold walked in, he coughed and turned away from the door.
The woman saw Harold and came at him with her arm outstretched. “You must be Harold Blank. I’m Katherine Orlen with the Red Cross. The hospital noticed a few discrepancies in blood unit numbers coming in and out of here. They’ve asked us to come in and review your procedures to try to determine the problem.” She smiled, catching and holding his eyes while they shook hands. Her red-rimmed lips seemed awfully familiar.
“I’m sure it’s just a filing error, but here I am. You know how important our blood supplies are… Can’t have people bleeding to death in the ER.” Katherine Orlen erupted with a small titter of laughter, “Of course I’ll need to speak with you Mr. Blank. Mr. Caul here,” she gestured to David, “says you are pretty much in charge of keeping track of the units.”
David had suddenly found something in the desk drawer to be extremely interesting. He and David were both responsible for tracking blood units, but that didn’t matter. Harold was keeping back a few dozen or so to take home each month. What David didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Right? So, why the heck was he passing this off on Harold? Unless he suspected something.
“Can I just put my stuff away and clock in first, Katherine?” Harold asked.
“Ms. Orlen,” She corrected with a tap of her pencil on her clipboard. “Certainly, I’ll just wait here and have another word with Mr. Caul.”
I bet you will, Harold thought. He slipped through another door in the office to the back room with a few lockers for hospital employees. Harold put his stuff away, rinsed out his bloody handkerchief, spent ten minutes scrubbing his fingernails until they shone white and pale and checked himself in the mirror for any stains.
After double-checking his locker for anything he might have forgotten, Harold came back out to find Orlen and David deep in conversation. Orlen stood inside David’s comfort zone talking up at him in hushed tones. David stood his ground but leaned as far from Orlen as he could without falling over. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, glinting like bright beacons under the overhead lights. “I’m not sure I can follow through on this,” David whispered.
“There’s no need to worry Mr. Caul. As long as you play along your debts to Mephisto’s will be canceled. If you can’t stay in control of yourself, I’ll be forced to take action.”
David saw Harold in the doorway and jumped back from her with a sheepish smile. Orlen turned to Harold, not a hint of worry on her face. “Shall we take a look at the blood units?” She asked.
“All right.” Harold pulled on his lab coat and ushered her into the cold storage room. He thought about taking a great big bite out of her and blaming the bloody death on David. After all, backstabbing can work both ways. Ah, but then he’d have to talk with the cops and there was already so much to handle. Harold’s stomach clenched around that last meal.
“This is the check sheet where we mark how many units get taken out and put in. Here is where we do daily counts to make sure everything stays put.” And where I also fiddle with the numbers a bit when making a personal withdrawal, he thought. Orlen took a close look at each of the documents pasted to the inside of the cold storage door, writing notes on her clipboard. She moved around inside the cold room, peering into glass cases, double-checking random bags of blood, even checking the floors, corners, and ceiling of the room.
“You also have a computer registry?” She asked.
“Yep.” Harold led her out of the room. David worked on some urine samples at the testing station. Harold sat at their shared desk and kick started the computer, pulling up the software showing how many units of what went where within and outside the hospital. “We also record the information on every blood unit in this program and who it went to, under which doctor’s orders.”
“Do you have any kind of double-checking system for each other when blood units are withdrawn?” Orlen asked.
Harold looked over at David’s back. He should really kill David and make him disappear. Blame the whole missing blood thing on him. Harold was already under so much scrutiny from the feds and Harold didn’t want any more attention brought his way. At the moment, privacy laws kept hospitals from randomly testing their people for Abeos, but an employee messing with the blood supply would give the hospital cause to test everyone, including Harold. Harold sighed. He also needed to question David about this Mephisto’s.
“Only the two of us working in close quarters, those on other shifts and the video cameras,” Harold muttered.
Orlen paused in her note-taking to peer up at him. She pursed her lips, but apparently opted to ignore the tone because Orlen finished writing and placed the pen in her bag.
“Well, I’ll be speaking with some other employees at the hospital today, only to ensure the blood units have been going where they are listed as going on the registry. I’m positive things are just fine here,” Ms. Orlen said with sugary sweetness, “but I will drop you a line if anything pops up.” Orlen smiled and slipped out of the small office, leaving behind a strained silence.
Harold glared
at David, willing the bastard to turn around and face him. He didn’t, so Harold walked right up behind him, close enough to see the minute creases mapping the back of David’s neck. Harold snorted on the man.
David turned and slid around Harold. “Don’t fucking do that,” David said. Harold followed him to the desk, crowding him along the way. David tried to push Harold back. Soon he hit the wall, trying with all his weight to push Harold back. “What?” He yelled, “What the fuck do you want?” A nurse walking by their office checked in with concern. Harold backed up a few steps.
He waved at the nurse with a smile. She was a nosey old woman who patrolled the floor and spent her time getting into other’s business. Harold wondered if she already knew there were discrepancies in the number of blood units going in and out of their bank. He didn’t need her spreading gossip around the hospital.
The nurse frowned and continued on her way. Harold went to the door and closed the blinds on its glass window and lowered and closed the blinds on the other two large windows facing into the office. He needed to find out how much David knew about the missing blood units and this might not look pretty to anyone walking by. When Harold turned to David he was standing by the edge of their desk, ready to bolt for the locker rooms. He held up a hand to stop Harold from advancing on him. As if that would stop Harold from ripping his limbs off one by one.
“Look man, I didn’t think you’d get so pissed.” He rushed from the door to the locker area, but Harold was too fast. With a couple fistfuls of David’s scrubs, he pulled the man back into the room. Face-to-face with David, Harold did his best impression of a cold-blooded monster. “I panicked, dude. Let me explain.”
“Then explain, stop running.” Harold eased his grip on the man’s clothes. David swallowed and started talking fast. “That woman thinks I’m at fault.”
“No, no, not really… ”
“What are you trying to pull?” Harold muttered, shaking David for some emphasis.