by Ian Hall
“Let’s go!” I hissed. I grabbed the box and tucked it under my arm. I had no time to explain what I was doing, but I quietly got out and hunched behind the car. I began to make my way steadily away from Amos to the side door. A delivery truck drove past us going to the rear, and we ran beside it for a few seconds, just enough for us to get around the corner. As I arrived, hunching at the doorway, I felt a nudge in my back; Reynolds crouched right behind me.
As we stood at the door, the delivery truck opened its back roller door, and I suddenly heard Mandy’s voice, a muffled scream from inside. I turned, frantically trying to decide what to do. I watched for a moment, then two guys appeared from the back of the truck and pulled a long box into view. Mandy’s screams were louder, but I shook my head trying to think clearly. I knew I had to ignore her and get inside. If I didn’t get to the observation room to see where the canisters were being fitted, the whole plan might be up in the air. Suddenly we had more than Mandy to think about.
Reynolds made my mind up for me as he leant past me and ran the card through the slot. The small green light lit first time. The door clicked, and we sidled inside.
“Change of plan, boss?”
“Slightly.” I looked around trying to get my bearings, then chose my direction. “I heard Amos planning something for tomorrow. He talked about planting canisters in the observation lounge.”
He looked at me. “You’ve got good hearing.”
I nodded, ignoring the question in the air between us. “Could be poison. Gas. Anything.”
We walked slowly, but I kept us on track, the corridors were empty, but lights shone from behind at least one of the doors.
As I walked, the beauty of Amos’s plan flooded into my mind. He’d worked his way into Unicorps just for this one day. He’d release the poisonous gas, and kill half the Helsings in the country in one fell swoop. And of course, like any megalomaniac, he’d watch from below, just for the pure heck of it.
Suddenly, a door opened in front of us, but I kept walking.
“Can I help you?”
“No, it’s okay,” I said, walking past him nonchalantly.
“Excuse me,” he insisted, and I stopped, turning.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“What exactly are you here for? It’s late.”
I laughed. “Yeah, and if you want Dave Muscat running all over you on Monday, you’d better get off our ass, and let us get on with our job.” I lifted the FedEx box slightly. “This has to be installed in the observation room before tomorrow morning.”
The guy had flinched at the mention of Dave’s name, and returned to his room without so much as an apology.
With a few more swiped doorways and a couple of turns, we found ourselves at the door to the observation lounge. The wired glass showed a light on inside. I slid to the door, and peeked in. The guy from the truck lay on the floor near the main observation window, fiddling inside a ventilation hatch. I watched for a while, then he sat up, pulled the grille in place, and began to screw it back into the wall.
The man stood up, and we ran back down the corridor, past the elevator. No more than ten seconds later, he walked to the elevator and was gone.
“So he’s been here, what, ten minutes, tops?” I asked Reynolds as I retraced our steps to the room. Once inside, I used a blade from my small multi-tool to open the grille again.
Inside lay a small canister, attached to the inside ducting by a magnet.
Little insects were nibbling at my fingertips. Munch, munch, much. I felt my thumbnail taken down to nubs. The tender skin underneath complained against the air.
“Miranda,” …oh, talking insects. That’s weird. “Look at this - under its nails. Tucker’s skin.”
“That bitch really did a number on him; scratched his jugular clean open.”
Something rubbery pulled at the skin on my hand until it burned. No - not rubber. Plastic? Latex. Gloves. My eyes fluttered open; at first nothing but colored sparks like the Fourth of July. Then bright, overwhelming light. I tried to shake it away but it got inside my head.
A bag filled with this green stuff hung from a metal hanger. I followed the tube down to a line in my arm, suddenly noticing how much my veins burned. That Helsing juice was some pretty wicked shit; it numbed my wits without taking anything away from the pain.
“I’ll do her one better,” said the female insect.
Sharp metal scraped at the cuticles of my fingernails, but they didn’t stop there. They cut the surrounding skin and peeled it away. Then something thick and blunt got inserted under the nails; one by one, they were ripped from my fingers, leaving bloody, throbbing stumps. I wanted to jerk my hands free, protect them, but they were secured at the wrist by dense, unbreakable steel.
“Let’s see how the kitty does without its claws.”
Laughter.
“Okay…Lansing, get behind it and hold its head down.”
My neck got jerked back, sending shocks of pain down through my shoulders. A large silhouette eclipsed the lamp above me; looking up, all I could see were two dark eyes peering down. The rest of his face lay hidden behind some surgical mask.
I never saw the pair of hands that pried my jaw open. Something big and blocky was delivered into my mouth on what looked like salad tongs. I bit against it, trying to crush it between my molars. Like the shackles, it held true.
One blue-gloved hand reached over my face. “Curette.”
Another blue hand placed some long, pencil-shaped instrument into the first’s. I felt it forced up under my gums, angling and tearing the tissues from around my teeth. Bone cracked somewhere up in my sinuses as the Helsing took their time, gouging and bending until the root gave way. Blood and spit pooled in the back of my throat, gagging me.
“Forceps.”
Two hard yanks. My fangs were tossed callously into a metal dish that must’ve been sitting on my chest.
“Look at those motherfuckers,” the masked woman exclaimed like she’d just reeled in a prize-winning trout. “Sherry, make note: incisor roots nearly twice the length of a human’s; enamel hard as goddamn marble. I think I might keep those bad boys for a souvenir.”
Chuckle. “Got it, Miranda.”
Back to the salad tongs. This time they removed the chunk of metal impeding my bite. My sore jaw clamped shut like a sprung bear trap; the thick liquid rushed down to my stomach and I immediately vomited it back up. I couldn’t turn my head to spit it out, so I held it in my mouth and just let the acid corrode through the new holes in my gums.
“Thanks, Lansing. You can let it go.”
The pressure on my forehead released. I turned and spat.
“You stupid, fucking cunt! You got it all over me!”
Whap. A brutal backhand met me square in the cheek. Stars – oh, my God, the stars! I wanted to lose consciousness but the glaring light forced me alert. It bled through my lids.
A voice behind me - Lansing, I think, “This one really hates that light.”
“Ah. Poor baby.” Miranda’s eyes bent over my face, smiling. “Can you hold it for another second?”
“Bitch better not puke on me again…”
Lansing repositioned himself behind me. Eclipse. A split second of relief. Then his arm came down over my forehead and he leaned all his weight on it. For a minute I got excited - one quick snap of the neck and it’d all be over with. But, it soon transpired that Lansing was no angel of mercy.
“Got it! Do it!”
The dry rubber fingers peeled my eyelids open. Drip-drop. Warm liquid filled them and they were taped in place. I felt my pupils swell, triple in size. Lansing pulled back quickly and my eyes were engorged with the burning, bleached light.
“That’s for Tucker,” he sneered in my ear.
“Alright. Now for the fun part.”
Next thing I knew, the bottom part of the table fell away. My feet were bound to a pair of stirrups and my knees drawn up into the air. Only then did I realize I lay naked on the table.
Dr. Helsing inserted the cold, dry steel and forced her way inside, scraping at my cervix like shaving mold off a hunk of cheese. I writhed against the invasion, howling; couldn’t even close my eyes to hide from the humiliation.
“We can keep it in the stirrups for you if you’d like a few minutes,” the doctor goaded as she collapsed and removed the speculum.
Lansing scoffed, “I’m not sticking my dick in this thing.”
“Don’t say I didn’t offer.”
They inserted another probe up my back door. Still brutal, but this time much quicker. Then the doctor jabbed my arm with a fat needle, drawing vial after vial until the vein ran dry.
“Sherry, get these samples to the lab.”
“Sure thing, Miranda.”
I tried to follow her with my eyes. Sherry was nothing but a white lab coat against the white light as she collected her little keepsakes and whisked them out the door. A drone, a worker bee. Black ponytail, though. I’d remember that.
But Miranda was another thing altogether; blue eye shadow, thick and freaking gothic. It was all I had to go on but that’d be enough. If I got out of this, Lansing and Miranda were going down.
Lansing, though…that guy never got within my line of sight. He was just a ghost with mocking eyes. Didn’t see me worth the trouble to rape; but I thought up plenty of ways I could fuck him.
“Let’s get her washed and draped and ready for the rite.”
Miranda came around and smoothed the hair back from my face.
“And may God have mercy on your soul.”
It took us two hours, but we opened every vent in the room, then closed them back up again. Two cylinders sat on the small table against the wall, both tied to magnets. They also both had a device on the cap; it was clearly a trigger, with some form of automated control lever to be triggered remotely. On examination, there were markings on each cylinder, which Reynolds phoned a friend about.
Two minutes later we knew the identity of the contents; hydrogen cyanide. We were warned of its incredible toxicity, and we gave the canisters even more respect than before.
With the canisters carefully held upright, I led the way back to the doctor’s office.
“What do we do with them?” I asked, “We can’t leave them here, someone could get killed, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid.”
“One of us has to take them outside, and throw them in a river or something.”
“That’s maybe worse. We’ve got to just put them back in the car.”
Reynolds almost grabbed the first one. “I’ll go. If anything happens to the one outside, it’s better to be me.”
Reynolds led the way back to the outside door and went out into the dark parking lot. I prayed audibly as he came back into sight, minutes later. I let him inside.
“I put them in the backseat, covered with a jacket.”
“Ok, let’s get to the furnace room before they bring Mandy in.”
I led him through the passages I recognized, then took my leap-of-faith turns, which brought us out in the changing rooms. I let out a great sigh, then watching ahead for activity, I strode into the execution chamber, followed by Reynolds.
Small lights high on the ceiling cast a dim glow over the tables, but it proved enough to let us see across to the furnace door, and in seconds we were in the safety of the furnace room. It felt like I had never been so grateful for anything before, when the door closed behind us.
“Stage one complete,” I whispered. My words held no echo in the room. The only sound; the steady hum of the furnace. The red figures said 1302f.
I glanced at my phone ‘s display; eleven-sixteen. We had almost twelve hours to go, but we were inside.
I sat on the floor, and we took turns at the door, watching through the small window, to wait for Mandy’s arrival. I used no meds, just kept my internal calming mantra. I needed to be a vampire for Amos.
At six o’clock almost to the dot, we heard activity outside. I chanced taking a look as the room behind me was so dark, I couldn’t possibly be seen.
The outer doors opened, and Mandy got wheeled into the execution room on a gurney. She was unconscious, her head cast back against the bare table. She had been stripped and changed, now wearing a simple halter gym top and shorts. Four men hovering around her, with four more standing back, looking on with coagulant guns at the ready. With one move, the four lifted her swiftly onto the table, and began the job of strapping her body down. I watched as each checked the straps in turn. They were leaving nothing to chance. Every bond checked multiple times. Eventually they injected her upper arm with something, and left.
I kept inside the furnace room, regardless of what my emotions wanted me to do. Something told me that they would be in to check her again before the show began, and I couldn’t chance getting caught at this late stage.
She did look quite magnificent though. Her blonde hair had been brushed, and those mounds under her halter top did not diminish much with the elastic in the material. Slowly she woke, at first haltingly, but then she became aware of her surroundings. She looked at her bonds, then shook her head.
“Mary-Christine! I’ll rip your frigging throat out!” she screamed, the sinew in her throat straining. Her voice sounded strange, like she’d been drugged for a while.
I ducked from view as she looked at my door. “Lyman! Lyman, get out here, you fucking piece of shit. I can smell you, goddamn it!”
Reynolds joined me at the door. “You’ve got to tell her to shut up, she’ll attract the guys, and she’ll give us away.”
“Lyman, you bastard! Open the door!”
Shaking my head, I entered the execution room and strode purposely towards her. “Shut up!” I hissed; my raging expression silenced her. “I’m part of the rescue team, so just shut up.”
“Get me off this thing.” Her eyes were tearful, and despite her attempts at bravado, clearly terrified. A smear of blood tainted her lip. I wiped it off with a handkerchief. “Lyman,” she sobbed. All trace of vampire had gone from her face; suddenly she was just lonely orphan Mandy Cross. “Lyman, they pulled my teeth. No painkiller, nothing. They just pulled them.”
She opened her mouth and I saw the still-bleeding gaps. “Bastards.”
“Get me out of here.” There were real tears now.
“You have to stay here.” I glanced repeatedly at the door. “This is your plan, remember.” My own tears were now slipping down my cheeks. “I’m sorry, Mandy, we have to be strong now. This is your plan.”
“Yeah, but I never meant me to be the bait.”
“Plans change in war.” I moved away from the table.
“Don’t leave me,” she pleaded. It took all my resolve to walk to the furnace room door.
“You have to be really fucking strong right now, Mandy. You have to convince Amos that you hate us.”
I blew her a kiss, then left her on her own.
Like a fucking seagull, Lyman’s little kiss flew over my face and shit in my eye. I had to “convince” Amos that I hated the Helsings? That wouldn’t be hard to do.
They’d turned me over. I’d been killed, kidnapped, and tortured. Soon to be killed again - this time, for good.
“How could you just leave me here!” I screamed at the door Lyman had just disappeared through.
Face it, Mandy, he’s not coming back.
I don’t know how much time passed, but people started to file into the glass-encased room above me; only a few. The first was a tall, neatly-groomed man in a dark suit, followed by a refined-looking woman, likewise dressed for a funeral. I got a good look at her; Mary-Christine’s face with twenty years on it. The Muscats.
Behind them came an older man. He marched in and pivoted toward the glass in military style. His features had been reshaped over the years but there was no mistaking Amos Blanche’s cold, evil eyes. How could the Helsings not have recognized him?
More arrived, and soon the windows above me were filled with expectant faces.
&n
bsp; Lastly, she filed in. Mary-Christine. She wore a pink polo shirt; dressed for a Sunday picnic. This was her big day, after all. I wanted her to look up, meet me face-to-face but her eyes never left the floor.
Into the execution room itself strolled a portly, aging man in clergy robes. Catholic, I figured. I’m Presbyterian, you assholes!
He was flanked by two armed Helsings that positioned themselves on either side of me.
The priest spoke in Latin and sprinkled holy water at me from a safe distance. His ceremony ended with the sketch of a cross in midair. Without further ado, he turned away from me and to the lookie-loos above.
“Mr. Candy, Miss Muscat…whenever you are ready, you may proceed.”
Amos Blanche bowed to Mr. and Mrs. Muscat, taking his leave in those same measured, confident strides he came in with. Mary-Christine lingered at the glass.
Finally, she glanced up at me. Where I thought I’d find fear or maybe even triumph, there sat just a blank, unreadable expression.
Mrs. Muscat placed a comforting arm around her daughter’s shoulder. I could hear her clearly through the glass, “You don’t have to go through with this.”
Mary-Christine kept her gaze steadily on me. “Yes, I do.”
I could hear it in her tone, see it in her face. It wasn’t just a show of courage for the Helsings. It was a vow of allegiance.
In the Corporate Lair
I followed Mandy’s gaze and saw Dave Muscat, then Amos. My heart leapt; how could we have got it so wrong? Amos wasn’t going to do the execution?
I wondered how the plan would change, then I saw Mary-Christine. “Shit, shit shit.” My breath misted the glass.
“What’s up?” Reynolds said, nudging me.
“Mary-Christine’s upstairs in the viewing area. Wait.” Her dad kissed her, and she left the window. “Slight change of order, maybe not the whole plan.”
I can’t remember how long it took me to get changed into my black T-shirt when I officiated an execution, but I reckoned it took at least ten minutes.
We checked the guns again, for the umpteenth time, ready to bust into the execution room.