Symbiosis: A Vampire Psycho-Thriller

by Louise Atkins

  ‘This is their families, their friends up there.’ Her tone did not even begin to contain the rebuke she felt fitting.

  ‘So? You must have family up there too.’

  ‘Yes, but not anyone I can remember. These are people they knew. Probably people they watched die.’ Emily shut her mouth before her voice faltered. The fact that she could only begin to imagine how the vampires felt brought both relief and shame.

  ‘Come on. One hundred and fifty years is a long time.’

  ‘It might be like yesterday for them.’

  ‘Do you know Emily, I think you might be feeling sorry for them.’ His words contained no warmth of admiration for such an emotion and Emily stepped away from him slightly.

  ‘I do. I think it’s sad. It must be so hard for them on days like today. To remember what they’ve lost.’

  ‘They’re vampires Emily. They drink human blood. Don’t ever forget that.’

  ‘I’m sure you won’t let me, but I am entitled to my own opinion.’ She made no attempt to keep the haughtiness from her voice.

  For a moment, their silence matched those whose heads were bowed at the wall. Simon said,

  ‘I bet you even know your family’s colour and number don’t you?’

  ‘I do, as a matter of fact.’

  Simon’s laugh was a crow’s call, cutting the quiet. A few heads turned from the Wall, heavy eyes betraying little true curiosity, grief not tempered by interruption. But it was enough for Emily. Without a word, she shoved her hands into her pockets and began to walk away, away from the Wall, away from Simon.

  ‘Oh Emily – come on …’

  He hurried to catch up with her, but his words contained some degree of merriment and incredulity at her reaction, she could just tell.

  ‘Emily, come on. They’re only names. It’s the past. Let it be.’

  ‘It’s not the names. It’s your lack of respect for other human beings that makes me angry.’

  ‘They’re vampires. Not human beings.’ His voice was soft, so soft now.

  ‘No. You’re wrong,’ was all she said and then she was gone once more.

  *

  A raucous laugh slashed the air, bit into his blackness. Lucas turned to see a human man, head thrown back, laughter almost showing on his face. He was with a woman, whom he was now walking after. Something about her pulled at Lucas, but it was too soon. Too soon to rise from his grief; he hadn’t drunk deeply enough yet. He turned back to see the names, his names, flicker over into the names of strangers.

  *

  Emily quickened her pace. Simon caught her, touched her shoulder. She pulled away.

  ‘Emily, stop. Please.’

  She obeyed but did not turn around. Simon was forced to move in front of her.

  ‘You’re crying.’ Emily made no move to brush the tears snaking hot tracks down her cold face.

  ‘Yes. Because, no matter what you think, they must hate today because it brings everything back. And all you can do is mock.’

  The square they now stood in was reasonably busy. The museum was at the opposite end. People milled around, despite the cold, breath marking their presence on the day. Emily found she didn’t care if they saw her crying or not.

  ‘I don’t really know what to say,’ Simon shook his head.

  ‘Makes a change.’

  ‘I didn’t mean… I didn’t think it would upset you. You know what I think about vampires.’

  ‘And you know what I think.’

  He nodded, a rueful expression on his face. He slowly raised a hand to wipe away a tear. She let him. Let him press his lips to hers, but made no response herself.

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t help what I think, but I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  ‘I’m not just upset. You’ve made me angry too.’

  ‘I know. And I know I keep doing it. And although I can’t ever imagine agreeing to disagree, let’s call a truce. For today.’

  ‘No more comments then?’

  ‘No more.’

  ‘Promise?’

  Emily was unsure whether to believe him. Would it be possible?

  ‘Promise. It’s the first day we’ve had to spend together. I don’t want to mess it up.’

  Emily raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Mess it up any more than I already have, I mean,’ Simon said.

  His perception and apparent humility softened her. A little.

  ‘You’re forgiven. Temporarily at least.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Simon moved to kiss her, but the ringing of his mobile cut off the rest of the gesture. He cursed and moved a little away to answer it.

  ‘I suppose you need to go?’ Emily asked, now dry eyed, although the tears had left their ghost memory in taut cheeks.

  ‘No. It’s okay. It’s all under control.’

  Emily raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Don’t forget your promise to tell what the big mystery is.’

  ‘I won’t, I won’t.’ He held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Come on. Let’s go to the museum.’

  He put an arm around her shoulders that she did not shrug off and they crossed the square to the museum.

  *

  It was no use. He had been forced to swim for the surface too soon and his dive back down had been too shallow. Lucas turned away from the Wall. His names were gone. His time was up.

  Not really knowing, or caring where he went, he began to walk. His feet took their own path, took their own time. His eyes merely served their basest function of avoidance of obstacles. He was inside himself.

  Until, eventually, he ended up on the steps outside the museum. The weak afternoon light had finally given itself over to the darkness. Fire buckets glowed in the square where he now stood, orange fingers pushing away the night. The normal street lights in the square were dimmed. Each year it was the same. Fire to warm, to light and to honour the dead.

  Finally, looking at his watch, he saw it had taken him an hour to get there. Where that time had gone, he did not know, but he did feel better. His left hand in his pocket registered an object that it might have been clutching for some time. His camera. Why was it there? It was only a spare, small, no extra lens, but still powerful. As if it were an alien thing, Lucas directed its gaze at one of the fire buckets, clicked down, viewed and then erased the image. He could do better. He concentrated on adapting the camera’s settings, clicked again. Nodded with increasing satisfaction and took some more pictures. He widened his focus, let people back in.

  Satisfied, he turned his back on the darkness. Camera still in hand, he climbed the steps to the museum.

  The harsh fluorescent lights inside may have been efficient to run, but they did little, in Lucas’s opinion, to enhance the objects they illuminated. The challenge of taking a good photograph in these conditions began to seep into him and brought him fully back to himself.

  He paid scant attention to the halls of fine art, the displays on HaemX – he didn’t need a museum to teach him about that, especially not today. No. What he wanted was the Hall of Gadgets.

  The room was a cavern, off-white walls, high ceiling, no windows but filled with curiosity, for here was cradled the technology of the past. For most people at least. For him – these were the gadgets that had filled his everyday existence before the post epidemic world had warranted newer, more efficient tools for its survivors.

  But the Hall was not for him to wallow in nostalgia – it was for him to capture the confusion and sometimes delight of others as they pieced together the instructions and breathed seconds of life into the technology once more.

  Angle and expression were what he desired. He adjusted the light settings once more and began to focus with different eyes. There were others taking photos too; parents with children - a record for the digital family album. He turned away from them. There were soloists like himself – an interesting mix of his kind and humans, he noted. Generally they were going for close-up shots at crazy angles, allowing a single part to command the foc
us and speak for the whole. Lucas permitted himself the luxury of an inward sneer – no doubt they considered themselves Artists.

  What he wanted today was unconscious interest. Natural enthusiasm. Real life. He scanned the room carefully and began to click.

  He stopped and began to flick through the pictures he’d taken. Normally he refused himself, and his cameras, this functionality – what he took, he took. But today felt different. He scrolled through his images. The irony of his taking a picture of one of the other photographers brought a wry smile to his face. He used the camera’s buttons to zoom in further on that one, and then, halted.

  In the background was a figure. A figure with long, straight dark hair. The girl from the tram. In an instant, he knew it was her. No doubt. He inhaled. Where was it? There. He caught the faintest trace of her scent, and only then did he raise his eyes to seek the reality of her.

  He had caught her in the photograph viewing a wall screen, a smile just beginning to curve upon her lips. His eyes began their journey there and then swept the room for her, greedy to consume what chance had offered.

  There. In the centre of the room, long black coat draped over a chair, she was playing on a long outdated computer, no doubt marvelling at its lack of touch screen, or its clunky key board or some such antiquated feature.

  She had tucked her hair behind her ear, and it spun its silky path around her shoulders. He knew how soft, how smooth it would feel if he slid it through his fingers.

  He tried to force himself back to his camera’s objectivity in his description. Her features were even, her face symmetrical. She was pretty rather than beautiful. Oh, but if he knew her, if only he knew her, then pretty would become true beauty, of that he was sure. His blood banged through his veins. He could almost feel his heart beating. He fought the urge to raise the camera once more, to use it to zoom in, to feast on the extra details it would provide.

  Then, she turned from the computer, looked up and over her shoulder as a man approached. A man. A boyfriend? A lover? He casually dropped a hand onto her shoulder. Her expression did not change. He spoke. She turned her face back to the computer relic. Her hair hid her expression from the man, but not from him. He could see the frown she tried to hide. It was only brief, a shadow, but it was there.

  He watched as the man reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out his phone. Something tugged at Lucas’s memory. Where had he seen this man before? The Gadget Hall was noisy, but Lucas still felt distinct annoyance at one who would take a call in a museum. The man hardly spoke, nodded a few times, glanced at the back of his girlfriend, nodded once more.

  Lucas kept the girl as part of his picture, ran a movie camera in his head. Her attention still held by the computer in front of her, her face was now devoid of expression, her fingers hovered over the keyboard. Was she listening?

  Phone call complete, the man hesitated, then bent down to kiss the cheek of the girl. Was she as indifferent as her lack of reaction to his gesture made her seem? She turned sideways to face him. Lucas willed her to turn no further. The man shrugged, placed what Lucas took to be an apologetic look on his face and spoke to her. She looked back at the computer screen, regretfully maybe, gathered her coat and stood with him. Don’t leave, he implored. But they did. Together.

  He forced his feet to remain. He could not follow them. Could not follow her. His eyes fell from her departing back. He felt bereft. Sadness entered him once more. But not like at the Wall. Nothing could be like that. Anger beat at his soft sadness. No. Not like that. But still, she held him tight. And he could hold her too. All he needed was a few leads and his computer. He left.

  Twenty One

  What a night. I am so very weary. So many vampires out in the darkness of this night of remembrance. You would think their memories for their lost loved ones would keep them at home. Safe.

  But no. Safety in numbers? Misery loves company? But when that company departs, when those numbers diminish, it’s such an opportunity.

  Tonight I have ended the time of what seems hundreds, but I know that truly it isn’t. I’d like to say I lost count, but I would never do something as reckless as that, as well you know. It’s been a satisfactory night. More still to be done obviously, but still a night to remember. Definitely a night to celebrate.

  Twenty Two

  Simon tornado slammed through the office and back to his chair. It wasn’t just Emily with raised eyebrows following his progress. Emily looked at her computer screen, but kept ears alert for any clues as to the cause of Simon’s mood.

  There was a dull thud as he punished the underneath of his desk with a kick. Risking a glance while pretending to search for something in her side drawer, Emily watched him stand, and push his chair away so forcefully it clattered into the wall behind his desk. She noted more raised eyebrows from colleagues. Simon stood, staring out of the window into the growing darkness of the early afternoon. No one approached him.

  He stood for a long time. The world continued around him. Emily pondered whilst sending client emails. Since their date which he had cut short on E-Day, she’d seen him for evening drinks, surreptitious meetings after work, but nothing more. Even then, he had been distant, thinking about something that wasn’t her. The fact that he still hadn’t spilled whatever he was working on annoyed her as much as his inattention.

  Around her, people began greeting their evening counterparts and filling them in on the details of the day. Giving Simon’s hunched shoulders one final look, Emily began to tidy her workstation and list the things she need to pass on to Amanda. She was part-way through the list of follow up calls to be made when a message marked ‘highest priority’ flashed up on her screen. No one ever sent her highest priority messages; she wasn’t important enough.

  With a slight frown, she tapped the screen to open and read the message and then risked a query glance across the room at Simon. He nodded at her and she turned back and reread what he had sent.

  I need your help.

  What? She returned, frown furrow deepening.

  Can’t say. Meet me in the staff room.

  Can’t. Got to handover.

  This is important. Leave her a message.

  Emily mulled over her response to that one.

  No. She’ll be here in five minutes.

  I’m going there now. Hurry up.

  Emily found finishing her list rather more difficult with the blood furiously pumping in her brain. Simon almost ran into Amanda as she entered the office.

  ‘Hi Em, what’s with him?’ she asked as she took the seat Emily vacated.

  ‘Not sure. He stormed in about half an hour ago. Maybe he’s got the sack?’ She tried to keep the tremor from her voice.

  ‘Nah. He’s still here and besides, he’s so far in with Bernstein, sacking him would be nearly impossible.’

  ‘Suppose so.’ Emily tried something out. ‘I heard he was working on a big story,’ she said, attention firmly fixed on fastening her coat.

  ‘So did I.’

  She wasn’t the only one who knew then. Whatever it was he needed help with, her price was definitely going to be a full in on whatever he was working on.

  She made it to him in three minutes and caught him pacing the room.

  ‘At last. You took your time.’

  ‘If you’re going to speak to me like that, then I’m leaving now.’

  ‘Okay, okay. Sorry.’

  ‘What’s this all about?’

  ‘Bernstein. And what he’s just said.’

  ‘Bernstein? Said about what?’

  Simon crossed to the computer in the corner of the room and drew up two achingly hard plastic chairs. Their scraped journey across the floor seemed impossibly loud in the empty room. No vampires were entitled to a break yet and day staff saw no reason to be in the building any longer than necessary.

  ‘Look.’ He indicated the screen. Emily joined him.

  ‘Before I do, I should tell you that there is no way I’m helping you with w
hatever this is, until you tell me exactly what’s going on. What your big story is.’

  ‘This is the big story, as you call it. Only it’s not going to be that big unless you help me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Bernstein, patronising bastard that he is, is insisting that I rewrite it.’ Anger forced him to resume his pacing once more.

  ‘Rewrite it?’

  ‘Said that it needed to be more sympathetic to the vampires. Sympathetic? We’re a newspaper. We report facts. Not sympathy. He’s such a hypocrite; he’s no vampire lover. Bastard.’

  ‘And what do you expect me to do?’

  ‘Read it. Help me. You love the blood suckers. Help me change it. I’ve given up trying.’

  Emily dragged her eyes from him and read.

  She sat back. Silent. Hardly aware that Simon had joined her at the screen.

  ‘Is it true?’ Her voice was low.

  ‘Every word.’

  ‘Thirty vampires missing?’

  ‘And that’s just the ones we know about, those that had friends to report them missing.’

  ‘Do you think there’s more?’

  ‘Who knows? The figures doubled after E-Day. That’s why I’ve been so busy, at night, not sleeping. Nothing like this has ever happened before. And now damn Bernstein …’

  She cut him off.

  ‘But you don’t say what’s happened to them.’ She turned her attention back to the article.

  ‘I can’t. Don’t know. They’re either hiding out somewhere, or they’ve all opted out without telling their friends or they’re …’

  ‘Dead.’ Emily finished.

  ‘They’re already dead.’ The cold edge to his tone snapped her back.

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘That’s what I think. I think someone’s making their opt out decision for them. Forcing them out of existence.’

  ‘That’s awful.’

  ‘No one seems to know anything.’ Excitement rushed his words. ‘The Security Forces haven’t said a word and are refusing to comment. I’ve even got hold of Ivor Nesbit, the minister for Vampire Affairs. He didn’t know anything about it. Practically accused me of making it up.’