A Little Undead Page 6

  As he stood up I caught him staring longingly towards the paper towels. Paper towels which I had no intention of lowering my guard to hand to him. “You're really strange, whatever you are,” he said as he lifted the door out of the way. “You know, it's funny, but you really do smell almost human.”

  “Mmn,” I responded as vague confirmation, not really sure what to make of that observation. Soul searching was interrupted when I flinched as splinters fell to the ground from the ruined door as he set it back in place behind him. “He never said he'd pay for that door, did he,” I muttered. On top of that my apartment now reeked from the throw up and I was sporting a pair of ivory fangs that weren't showing any sign of going away. I decided to deal with the easier of the two problems first. Attacking the stain before it could set into the carpet I was able to get the place back to rights. “Rich indeed, I bet real vampires never have to clean their own floors. Dracula had a mansion or a castle or something, didn't he?” He was also a lady's man, and I couldn't keep a boyfriend for a week. How was that fair?

  Hopefully I'd gotten all the splinters that had fallen so far. From what I heard they tended to ruin the barefoot experience. My one lucky break was that the ant farm hadn't gotten knocked over in the scuffle. '4:55. I hope when he said to come in after five he didn't mean precisely after.' I needed to stay on my toes for the time being. This was nothing at all like the laid-back atmosphere in Haven. There the militia handled everything noteworthy, I just had to keep Haegle happy during my apprenticeship for a good recommendation and help him bring in the occasional drunkard or surly twelve-year-old vandal. My worst experience while working there was when one of the kids thought I was thirteen and tried to hit on me. This Boston gig was a whole different ballgame. Hopefully everyone would mellow out after Chains was caught. If this was how the force always was I would really need to start making some friends outside of work.

  Then again, maybe I just hadn't gone through the ritual hazing process yet like they had in all the old movies. Still, my potential future as a police officer wasn't my primary concern at that moment. No, that award belonged to the sweet smell of honeyed chestnuts slowly driving me mad. It seemed utterly tantalizing, even if a faint hint of copper was polluting its purity. 'Where is it coming from?' I dug my fingers into my thighs to try and distract myself from my growing hunger, nails pricking my skin through my pants. 'No way...' I held my hands up in front of me, twisting them back and forth, disbelieving. My perfectly trimmed nails were now just one step short of claws. Black and yet faintly iridescent, they curved to sharp points an inch from my fingertips.

  “Why won't it stop?” I could sense the change now as all concern I had for the world outside my body shrank away. I could feel the slow metamorphosis that didn't see fit to stop at claws and fangs. A nervous, hungry energy crept along my limbs, begging to be used, belying the hungry void I felt at my center. My jaw creaked open as if to yawn, tense and eager to bite. As the sun-limned windows suddenly burst into eye-burning intensity I could bear it no longer despite the dark tint of my sunglasses. Covering my eyes I ran to the bathroom mirror to see what other changes were coming upon me that refused to stop despite all my wishing.

  How is it that one moment can change an entire life? Plenty of people called me strange over the years, even twisted, but I'd always had my family to fall back on. I'd laughed at things that weren't meant to be jokes, and played with spiders and snakes and things that most people seemed to have an instinctual fear or loathing of. Even so, I'd always felt there was a place I could belong, that I could help people, protect them from the predators in this world. I'd never considered I could be anything other than human. Now I wondered if I could ever be human again. There was no white in my eyes, no shining blue iris – only a terrifying violet so deep as to appear black. I was a predator. Every movement of my hand in the lightless bathroom was caught with utmost clarity, but the unmoving wall behind me was painted in shades of gray to my unholy eyes. I knew what it meant: I was a creature built to kill.

  Hysteria gripped me as I finally caught sight of it, that small splash of blood in my hair from when I had broken his nose. I turned the shower on full blast, as hot as it would go. My scalp burned as I scrubbed viciously, nails cutting at my skin in my haste. Fear of my own transforming self was all that allowed me to resist the temptation of consuming his spilled blood rather than washing it away. I stripped out of my soaked uniform and resolved to wash it twice before wearing it. The last thing I needed was for some leftover drop of blood to set me off in the middle of the police office.

  'Is this all it takes? A few drops of blood to turn me into a monster?' I turned off the water, slumping to the ground with my back against the toilet bowl. 'This isn't a game anymore. What if this time I don't turn back? Maybe the transformation has gone too far and I'll be stuck as this thing forever.' Water from my sodden hair trickled down my face, blurring further my already teary eyes. I wanted to call Mom but something like this... she'd never believe me. Besides, what could she do even if she did?

  “Why can't I remember!” I pounded the floor, a tile cracking from the force. It was infuriatingly difficult to remember anything before Haven. Every time I felt a memory coming back it slipped out of my grasp like a squirming eel. But there had to be something behind the fog in my mind, something dark. They said I lost my memory in an accident, but what if it was because I looked like this? It would have been no surprise that they attacked me, only learning later that my heart still beat. How much would they have rationalized away about my appearance as a trick of the light if I reverted to normal after being struck unconscious? 'Who am I? What am I? Was I ever even human at all, or was I born as this abomination?' One thing was clear: no ordinary little girl walks out of a red zone with a feverish little sister in tow singing Christmas carols. What kind of monster might I have become to survive out there in the zombie-infested wilderness?

  'I'm stronger than this.' At this point I had to be. Life certainly hadn't been all sunshine and daisies up until now but my mood was dark enough to believe that things would get worse before they got better. Despite my pessimism, I felt a small glimmer of relief as I felt my jaw finally relaxed. I was changing back to normal, however slowly. Dragging myself to my feet as if I didn't feel strong enough to lift a car I stared into the mirror. It wasn't my physical strength that was lacking, only my will.

  I didn't really look all that different from my normal self. And now that my mouth wasn't hinged open I looked less like a man-eating savage or mutant piranha-snake. My skin wasn't green, I didn't have antennae coming out of my forehead, and – at least so far – there had only ever been two people I'd felt like drinking blood from. The taxi-cab driver didn't count. I wasn't planning on ever getting stuck in a confined space with someone ever again, or at least not without the windows open. There was no reason to believe this condition wasn't manageable.

  'I wonder if I should get checked for anemia. List of symptoms: Rapid physical transformation and an incredible thirst for blood. Yeah, that would go over well. They probably don’t hand out snack-packs of blood to just anyone who walks in off the street.' I wasn't even entirely certain that they even did blood transfusions anymore, considering organ transplants were forbidden due to the Animator virus. The closest thing to open surgery that happened these days was an appendectomy.

  The water from the shower felt itchy against my skin, even after toweling off. Though I regretted the time wasted I couldn't deny the hair dryer was a good choice as I ran it through my hair. The warmth and simple comfort of doing something routine made my worries seem less frightening. With regret I left my bastion of normality to step back into the chaos that was my new reality. Hopping into my only spare uniform I shifted the door aside with one hand, straightening my new apparel as I stepped outside. 'At least I look good in sunglasses.'

  Sunglasses at night were rarely looked on as fashionable, but I was hardly the only strangely dressed person on the public bus at six o'clock in the e
vening. Most respectable folks didn't head back home with so little time to spare before nightfall. I really wished I had chosen a seat closer to the front. I kept my nose close to the window, but there was no hiding the miasma of odors emanating from my fellow commuters. The seductive scent of the blood beneath their skin was thankfully faint enough to ignore due to my two seat buffer from the other passengers, but my oddly sensitive nose kept picking out various offensive body odors. At least the squelching of my feet in my still sodden boots was annoying enough to keep my mind partially distracted.

  Some amount of time later I found myself staring from across the street at the police station, wondering how I could possibly pull this off. So far I had shown no signs of returning entirely to normal. My hands, currently stuffed into my pockets, still sported fingernails that looked far more threatening than even the most aggressive clip on nails I'd seen outside of Halloween. Not to mention that the police force wasn't exactly the proper environment for long nails: fake, real, or supernatural. I could probably hide my fangs if I was careful of how I spoke, but with the sun dipping below Boston's crowded skyline I doubted wearing my sunglasses would fly for very long. Well, if nothing else, my time on the bus had proven that while slightly curious how human blood tasted in comparison to werewolf I wasn't ravenously driven to attack normal humans. It really brought into perspective all those fantasy stories about vampire versus werewolf wars. The violent little things tasted like candy, it was a tragedy bound to happen.

  There was something bugging me though, something I'd missed from our conversation. “He said Queenie didn't have a name.” Past tense. As in either deposed, or well and truly dead. It had sounded like vampire hunters had ceased their hunt as well. If they were anywhere near as gung ho as Van Helsing that would only have happened if all the vampires were... no longer walking around. Was it possible that they hated vampires so much as to hunt them (us?) to extinction? 'Of course they do.' I saw it in Alex's eyes when he pressed the crucifix to my forehead, hoping to watch me burn.

  An ember of disgust and disappointment lit in my chest. If I was in fact a vampire, was it possible all the stories were wrong? Maybe people weren't made into vampires, but born as them. I'd lived eleven years in Haven and caused considerably less mayhem than most of the other children. To suddenly be denied my right to exist simply because of this affliction was galling. I was sure that if I could just find another vampire they could teach me how to curb my thirst for blood. I was not a parasite. I had a good job that helped the community, and there was no way a stupid werewolf or a pair of fangs would keep me from doing it. The walk symbol on the crosswalk chose that moment to blink out and with it my courage.

  A short while later I regrouped, now with a giant cup of hot chocolate in hand from the corner café. It tasted a little different than normal, but not “bad” different, exactly. Regardless, with this little pick-me-up I was ready to face anything. Anything, I realized as I finally entered the double doors, hopefully included the always-watchful Fred. “Officer Fisher, you're late,” he said, his tone slightly biting. 'Does he have eyes in the back of his head?' Stepping over to the side of his desk revealed the secret. 'Oh, he's in charge of the cameras. Not a wizard then, though these days maybe I can't be too sure.'

  “Sorry, some issues came up with the landlord and I ran late.” I kept my lips as tightly together as possible as I spoke, wary of showing my teeth. My fingers tapped at his desk nervously as he continued to stare at the computer screen. Eyes widening at my mistake I quickly pulled them back into my pockets, thankful he hadn't seen their black, pointed tips. 'I haven't lied this much since I got caught stealing apples.' Lying to a cop, even if I was one myself, was doing nothing good for my already rattled nerves.

  Tapping his pen twice he presented me with a small stack of papers. “Let's get this over with so I can get out of here.” 'Alright, not the warmest greeting but he does look like death warmed over.' “I've hardly made it home since this damned case started. Twelve murders and it's only been a week. You'd think we lived in Old Chicago or something.” 'Well that explains his appearance – wait, twelve! My home town only had one confirmed murder in the past decade and they've had twelve in a week?' Plenty of deaths, of course, but thanks to the Animator virus murders were harder than ever to prove.

  “Are all twelve of them related to this Chains person?” Twelve in a week seemed a bit high, whether it was a serial killer or a vampire – though maybe not if it were both combined. My bottom lip curled inwards as I mused on the situation. Out of habit I started to bite at it before my fangs made themselves known. 'Owe!' My lips squeezed close just in time as Fred turned towards me.

  He slapped a pen down on top of the stack. “Focus on the signing.”

  “Uh, right. Will do.” A few calls came in while I filled out the forms, but nothing too serious. Something which, now that I was about to start working cases rather than reading about them, I should wish for. For the forms, on the other hand, I sincerely dreamed of something a little spicier. My final task before officially becoming a servant of the Republic was proving to be at least ninety percent redundant. One page echoed another which itself asked for information I'd already given months ago to presumably the same department. 'Maybe I should have become a secret agent. I bet they don't have to fill out paperwork. They probably even get to shoot the fax machine if it gets too many paper jams.'

  Three quarters of the way through the stack I remembered I was overdue for my check in with Mom. She was a little excitable and the last thing I needed was for her to call the captain to check up on me. “I'll be right back,” I said in a rush as Fred shot me a hateful glare. 'I really need a cell phone. Then at least I could have a semi-legitimate excuse for skipping out on the paperwork,' I mused. It was a shame I wasn't still dating Alex. He actually owned his own car so a cell phone was probably chump change. It would've been a nice gift for our one week dating anniversary.

  A telephone booth was right on the corner. It seemed bigger than the one's I'd seen in movies, but given that I was four inches shy of five feet that tended to be true of a lot of things. Stepping inside the box I slid the latch shut, marveling at the weight of it. The phone booth wasn't a leftover from the twentieth century, but a newly-built public safety device. The walls were double-reinforced glass and held in a steel frame as thick as my wrist. They might not last long against a concerted attack by a mob of undead, but with a little luck they'd stay up until help arrived. It made me feel a little bit better about standing out here so late in the day, but I kept a hand on the glass to remind myself the transparent material was still there. Sunset wasn't until after seven these days but the shadows had already grown long enough to hint at things unseen.

  What was I thinking? I was a police officer now, and this was no time to waste watching shadows. I popped in a couple credits and waited as the call routed into Haven. The voice that answered was one very familiar to me. “How are you doing baby? I hadn't heard from you so I was about to call. You settling in alright?”

  “I'm fine, Mom. But this really isn't a good time to talk, could I call you back later?”

  My mother is like a tank in conversations. There's really no stopping her until she runs out of gas. “You're not getting mixed up in that serial killer case, are you? He was on the national news last night. Oh and before I forget, Holly wanted to ask you for a fake id.”

  'Yay for my little sister roping Mom into her jokes.' “I'm just the rookie, no chasing after serial killers for me, I swear.” I'd let thoughts of paperwork slide away by now, idly pacing inside the glass booth. “No fake id making, either,” I added. I turned away from the street at the end of my circuit, my eyes catching Bruce's as he opened the station doors to walk inside. His lips curled ever so slightly as he left me alone on the curb.

  'Did he hear me from where he was?' Even if he had smirked for some other reason, the brief hint of bloodlust I'd felt rise inside me even from twenty feet left me wary. If he was human he might not have
the strength to throw me off like Alex did when I'd started feeding. Being a foot shorter than him wouldn't count for much if my fangs were in his neck with my super strength engaged. And, as disturbing as the thought was, I suspected I wouldn't be able to bring myself to stop if he tasted as delicious as Alex had. If he was a werewolf, well, that was no good either. I hardly needed a second wolf-man out to kill me.

  “... meet any nice boys?” I ground my heel into my toes just hard enough to be painful. 'Why is it so hard to focus?' I'd always been a bit overly energetic at night, but during the day I was normally focused and meticulous, even if I never did feel quite awake.

  “Listen, Mom, this really isn't a good time. I promise I'll call you back, alright? Bye.” I tried to say goodbye cheerfully but I'm not sure I quite pulled it off. She wouldn't be happy with me blowing her off, and in truth I didn't feel right about it myself, but it had to be done. The world was changing and far too quickly, but for the moment all I could do was forge ahead as best I could.

  I gave a quick check through the glass for Bruce before heading back inside to take up my place once more in front of forms. Fred seemed to have finished whatever busywork he had left to do at the end of a who knows how many hours long shift and seemed content to just stare at me. My left hand was curled into a loose fist to hide my talons, arm across the page to hide my right hand as I wrote but my confidence in the deception was far from high.

  My patience snapped. “So what are those for?” I said, nodding my head towards a stack of red-marked papers. I didn't like asking questions. People always talked down to me if I did, and I was generally pretty good about finding out answers on my own anyways. Well, whatever, it wasn't as if we had great opinions of each other to start with. Besides, short of saying Elvis was standing behind him I couldn't think of anything else to divert his attention from me.