Arnold's Cousin 5

The next day Linda didn't get up until half past one. She had pretended to be asleep when Arnold came back up, but she didn't fall sleep until it turned light outside and she was too tired to stay awake. She fell asleep and dreamed. Neil entered the room. The bed sheets were tangled up and rumpled and the bed was empty. He scanned the room. Linda from where she sat in the corner shivering from fear and the reality of her dream, saw his silhouette in the doorway. She shuddered. He came down to her, and she turned away. He approached her cautiously. "Linda?"

"Don't hurt me."

"What?" He was startled, caught off guard a moment. Her words seemed unreal. "Why would you say that? I would never hurt you."
"You already have. I want Arnold." She turned back to him. "That's why I ran away you know, and then I come to this. Maybe I'll come back to you after all." Neil grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard. Her head shook involuntarily and she woke up. "Neil!" He was glad to hear the relief in her voice.

"Tell me your dream."

She sat up straight and told him. "I've been having this dream where I'm in the cemetery. I follow the hill through the trees. It's dark and I'm alone, but someone's calling me to come further. I go, but I'm scared. I walk to the edge of the woods and I know-I know---something's in there." She pauses, but Neil didn't let her think about it.

"Go on."

Large blue eyes look up at him, just like Arnold's. "I go to the end of the woods, and there's a cliff. I know I'm supposed to jump off, but that's crazy. I stand there arguing with myself, and the black wind comes and blows through and makes me cold to my bones. It saps all my energy and when I'm too tired to stand, I almost jump, but I wake up instead. Sometimes, when I feel all that energy leaving me I cry out for somebody, anybody, to help me. Then I remember there's no one, until Arnold comes. Sometimes Ron does, or you do. They come behind me, I turn and they're there. And then they look up and their eyes are black, and I know they aren't real. Then I know, I truly am alone. They've already given everything to the black wind."

"Does Zack ever come?" Neil couldn't help asking.

"No. But I always wake up. Tonight was different. I was in a house and there was a room full of darkness. I was all alone. This darkness was petrifying, it terrified me. I hear Arnold's voice calling inside, and my real dad's, and my dead brother Eric's, and the voices of my friends but I'm scared to death. Then they come out and physically pull me in. Their faces are distorted and lifeless, and there's holes for their eyes. I'm in the room, and they all float out the window. That's all I can see, the window with a full moon shining through it. And I want to go after them so bad, but I don't."

"Why not?" We've all jumped long ago.

"Because I'm afraid. Afraid of this dark room, but afraid of what's outside the window." She sighed and straightened. "I'm afraid." She didn't meet his eyes. "I keep having this dream and I'm afraid eventually either my friends or their voices, will make me do what I don't want to do."

"Maybe you just don't understand it. Maybe it's not so bad out there in the darkness."
"Maybe. But deep down inside I know it is. Maybe I'll jump out and won't like it, and I'll never be able to back." She looked around. "Are the others awake?"
"No. They were exhausted." He lied.
"Good. Don't wake them." She got up and picked up off the floor a slip of paper. She stood in the middle of the room and Neil did too. "I'm fine."
"I'll go then." She didn't say anything while he left. For a moment she considered the paper, an address for an apartment for rent Arnold had slipped under her door. Then she put it on a shelf.

The next day they grilled. As usual, the guys ate a lot of meat and drank a lot of red wine. The meat was spicy.
"Did you put more...whatever in here than usual?" She asked. Neil looked up at her from a mouthful of steak, extra thick. "You know I'm going to be hurt if you don't eat all of that."
"I've already eaten one."
"Still, don't be hurting my feelings." She ate most of it.
"Wine?" Arnold held out a glass. Linda stared him in the eyes and smiled. "Sure." She drank, and went to bed early, and slept a dreamless sleep.

She woke to the sound of someone screaming. The sound shocked her awake and continued as she shivered. The sound went through her, and then stopped. Linda had never been good with horror. She lay curled up under the covers trembling, any effects of the drugs and wine shocked away. She remembered unexpectedly the last thing that happened to her before going asleep. She was really tired and walking up the stairs to go to her room when someone came up behind her and grabbed her arm. It was Neil. He said. "Don't resist." She remembered his words didn't make sense in the fogginess in her brain. She'd mumbled "F'course not..." before stumbling into the room and falling in bed.

Someone was calling her name. "Lindaaaaaa." A voice in agony shrieked "Don't come down!" It hardly sounded human. And suddenly she was afraid it was Arnold's. She sprang out of bed and paused, scared to death in the middle of her room. What should she do? The only phone was downstairs and she didn't have a cell phone. She glanced out her window but knew the roof went straight down under it. She was trapped in her room if she wanted to stay, but she didn't. She opened her door and ran out into the hallways. She ran in the dark all around the top floor, tripping in her haste and falling lengthwise on the carpet. She tried Arnold's door, it was locked. She tried Ron's door in a different hall and found it also locked. At this last door she groaned in despair and whipped around when she realized she wasn't alone.

"They're sleeping." The dark, sultry voice came from the hallway. "You couldn't wake them even if you got in."
"You drugged them too? Why?" She cried, straining to see him.
"Neil helped me. To get to you of course. Every month that passes, I get thirstier. They weren't enough for me, and they don't understand how thirsty I get." She ran from him, around the corner of the hall back to the stairs and down them. She ran for the phone and tripped over something on the floor. A hand came up and grabbed her, and she found herself looking in horror at the white, still-conscious face of Neil.

"I'd forgotten being called was like. The fear, the horror right before you give in. I had to help him Linda." His eyes had pleaded for her to understand. "But I tried to help you too."..." His black eyes were wide open and huge. "Run! Run Linda. He'll kill you!" He'd stopped talking, he'd lost consciousness. She ran for the phone, lifted it, but there was no dial tone. She saw it was unplugged.

"Don't run little Linda." Zack's voice came from the top of the stairs. She ran for the door, but collided with a desk shoved in front of it. She was in the dark, the windows were blocked up. Suddenly, he was downstairs. "They thought they could control it. I thought I could control it. We were so clever with our plan to keep me sated. A little blood from each of my friends once a month, meat and milk the rest of the time or substitute blood from a cow...we didn't UNDERSTAND." She ran to the only place left to her, the basement.

She dashed down the stairs expecting at any moment to feel his hands at her shoulders. Instead she found herself in a confusing layout of hallways and connecting rooms and heard Zack's laughter overhead at the top of the stairs. Linda felt like a trapped rat. She kept running from hallway to hallway, blind, alone, terrified. She ran smack into a desk, and then turn in blind panic and ran down a different hallway. Most of the doors were closed, but finally she entered a room and found to her immense relief, that she could lock it. A second later another door opened. Zack's lax voice came from the other end of the room. "I guess you didn't realize there was a connecting bathroom. Face it Linda, there is no escape. Give up."

She could see his outline. He stood casually in the face of her terror. "Don't you understand what I am?" His voice took on a throaty, hoarse tone. He stepped closer into the moonlight. The ray of light revealed wide, black eyes, dead skin drawn tight over his cheeks. His mouth was open in a leer and sharp fangs gleamed. In a fluid movement he was across the room and in front of her. She was back as far as she could go, up against the wall. She only had time to squeal in terror as his hands grabbed her shoulders in a death grip. There was intense pain mixed with shock and intense terror; his teeth were sinking into her neck. She felt hot blood rush up her neck, being sucked out of her. Suddenly he withdrew his teeth from her. She felt them being extracted and by twisting could just see him grimace. She could barely make out his features because he was so close. Abruptly he drew away, letting go. She saw him in the moonlight, and her blood was smeared all over his face. She bolted from the room, tearing at the knob in her frenzy, ran straight down a hall and found herself at the stairs. She rushed up the stairs without looking back.

Zack recovered quickly and she heard him running after her. She was up in the living room in the next second it seemed, her eyes adjusted to the black and her head clear in her fight for life. She ran straight to the door and strained at the desk, warm blood running down her neck. With no time to try to move the desk or plug-in the phone she ran into the kitchen, avoiding Neil who lay pale and still on the floor. In the kitchen she looked for a place to hide but Zack was in the doorway. She opened the fridge door and crouched behind it. He came up, panting, his mouth open and his long, evil canines stained with her blood.

"Garlic won't help you now." He growled in the same raspy voice. "Only by ingestion can it harm me. It was in your blood, Neil must have gone soft and fed it to you. Neither will that kill me." He said, looking at the knife she'd taken off the counter. "A stake to the heart, remember? But I don't have one anymore. I think it died when that vampire attacked me in the graveyard a year ago."

"How about this?" The lights came on suddenly, blinding them both and Ron was there with a baseball bat. He swung and hit Zack across the head full force. The vampire was flung to the floor, but in the next instant he was up, unharmed. Ron swung again and missed, because Zack dodged. In the light he was totally unrecognizable as the cool, reserved Zack Linda had seen once or twice. The fire that burned in his eyes had come out and taken control. Dried blood stained his chin and teeth, he was panting, his eyes wide and maniacal. The blow to the head didn't seem to faze him at all. He crouched on the floor a moment like an animal, hair wild and veins popping out of his sinewy white arms. Then he sprang.

At the same instant he howled and flung his arm over his face at the tiny cross Ron was holding in his hand. Midleap he crumpled and ended up on the floor once more, he twisted in the air and landed on all floors. Sirens were sounding outdoors, coming up the street. Zack sprang over the counter, shoved the desk like it was nothing from the door and burst out of it, escaping into the night.

Linda and Ron went into the living room to see Arnold on the floor beside Neil, checking for a pulse. The phone was plugged back in and in his hand. "I feel a pulse." IN the glow of the orange light Neil looked more sickly than ever, especially in contrast to his normally tan skin. Policemen burst in and ordered them on the floor where they were frisked. Paramedics ran and gathered around Neil. Linda got up.

"The guy who did this to us escaped. He needs a blood transfusion."
"What happened?" A policeman asked the same time a paramedic asked what his blood type was.
"He was bitten by a vampire." Ron answered simultaneously with Arnold's "Type B." They stared at Ron.
"Look at this." Linda pulled back her hair to reveal crusted blood, black and red where it still seeped from two holes. where Zack had bitten her. They ended up riding to the hospital in police cars. While Neil was getting a blood transfusion she was treated as well. They didn't know how to deal with vampire bites so she was shot for everything, including rabies. Then, while they waited outside Arnold explained everything to her in the presence of several police officers, one of which was taking notes.

"When Zack got bitten, out in the graveyard, we thought he was dead. We found him the next day and took him home. But that night he arose, and we came up with this plan to keep him alive but not a full practicing vampire. By that time we had lived together for four years and we were already closer than brothers, we thought. We swore we wouldn't let him go through this alone, no matter what it took. We found out that only full vampires, vampires by birth from vampire parents, can turn other people into vampires. That it wouldn't affect us. However after the first feeding, I also read that second hand vampires usually don't allow their victims to live, just like genetic vampires. The one that bit Zack Christmas day was probably already sated, he just stumbled in on him on the wrong time and he didn't finish Zack off." Ron said.

Arnold continued. "Once a month he would drink from one of us and supplement it with cowblood and raw meat. We also made him drink a lot of milk and take vitamins to make up for the sun and vegetables he wasn't getting. After he turned he absolutely refused to eat fruit or vegetables, though he agreed to the rest of it. His body completely changed. It was like he was a different creature with Zack's personality. He scared Ron and I, but we swore we'd see him through. I don't think Neil ever thought he'd changed that much. But the last few times...I think he understood how serious this was. But we didn't know what to do. We didn't know if he could be stopped, and we didn't have the heart to hand him over to be...killed...as long as the damage was just contained within the three of us. And then you came." He looked at Linda."He liked the same stuff, joked around and stuff, but he wouldn't go out in the sun, woke only during the night, grew fangs and turned a pasty white."

"What happened to the Vampire who bit him?" Someone asked."We killed him." Ron said. "But we couldn't kill Zack."
"How long has this been going on?"
"About a year."
"And how long before you would tell me all this?" Linda burst out.
"We were hoping you'd move out. It was too dangerous a secret. He was starting to need more and more blood, but wenever thought he'd get to the point of attacking someone else. I guess the animal inside got to be too much for him."
"Then, I think Neil finally decided that we weren't enough for him, and decided to include you. I don't know if he intended to let Zack kill you, or what. I don't know."
"And now he's at large." The policeman said.
"Yes."
"We're going to have to hunt him down and either lock him up for life or send him to Death Row."

Ron spoke up. "There's another option. It's a vampire rehabilitation lace that opened up twelve years ago called SilverCross Rehab. I've been looking into it on my own."
"You want to send him there?"
"Well, if we find him."
"I wanted it to be his choice, but we'll take him there when you find him."
"If we find him, we will put him in custody."
"I know where he is." Arnold said. "In the graveyard probably."
"Are we free to go?" Linda asked.
"You all will be spending the night here in the jail."
"I'd really rather not. Could I please check into a motel instead?" She asked, not looking at the guys.

After lengthy consideration they said she could, and someone escorted her to one. The next day Ron and Arnold found she had left. Neil recovered and they did find Zack the next day. Together with several officers they told him about the Rehab place and he agreed to go. They entered the building at 8:00 at night, after having called in advance. He'd been sentenced to spend nine months there, and then five years under observation. It was a government funded place, with a nice interior, marble floor and an office. A woman receptionist greeted them and checked them in. "Not many of our clients walk in here on their own. They are all captured. I'll be honest with you." She said, looking at the four friends in turn. "This is more of a testing facility than anything, where true vampires were brought after being caught to see if they could be rehabilitated. He will be the first to come in of his own free will."

"He has no other choice. He's getting it off so easily because of these people's bizarre in-house arrangement. IF he had killed anyone he would probably be on death row." Said one of the officers in charge.
"No. Our head has a deal few know about, and any vampires caught are sent here." The woman said matter-of-factly.
"Don't you feel insecure working here?" A cop asked. She touched a red button lightly. "With this I can summon several dozen highly trained operatives. This is however, an extremely serious operation and we hire only the best." She pressed a green button beside it. "Mr. Dehron has arrived. Please escort him to his holding room."
"Can we go with him?" Ron asked.
She shook her head. "Due to the nature of our business no one is allowed in the facility besides clients and operatives. However when you see him again I promise he will be a changed man."

She smiled and Zack whispered, "She hasn't looked at me once."

Two men came in and took him away. They were wearing thick suits, covered from head to toe in some sort of thick, flexible material. Goggles, gloves, and masks. The cops stared at them. They snapped a strange contraption over Zack's head, much like a muzzle, and silver ringlets around his arms that they held onto. He looked over his shoulder at his friends before he was led through the metal door and it closed behind them. The inside was as different from the cleaned up office as night is from day. It was all concrete, with a high ceiling and fluorescent lighting. He was immediately flanked by three people, and led down the wide hallways of the SilverCross Rehab center. Zack looked around through the wire mesh of his face mask and thought, 'It's for the best.'

Linda sat on a chair in her apartment in a different state. She had been there for several weeks. There had been no trial because Zack had volunteered to go into rehab, so she had not seen any of them since that night. She was tired and alone and sad, but she no longer suffered from nightmares. They were all gone. She burned a candle until late at night though, and took comfort in the smallness of her room. It was too small and simple for anything to come out of anywhere. It was without even a closet or a bed; she slept on the floor in a sleeping bag.

During the day however, the loneliness of her situation struck her, especially in the mornings when she ran. She had no job, nowhere to go. She would stay here until her money ran out and then what? Get another job, continue living. She wished life weren't so empty. The doorbell rang. Through the thin curtain she saw someone standing in front of her door and her heart gave an unexpected leap of joy. Was it Arnold? She rose, went to the door, and put her hand on the doorknob, knowing the improbability that it was someone she actually longed to see. She opened the door and it was Ron standing there, his hair glowing in the hot summer sunlight. It felt unexpectedly good to see him, but she didn't say anything.

"Zack going to be in rehab for 9 months, and then under watch the next 5 years. I've been looking for you. Arnold finally tipped me off as to where you were. Will you forgive me for not telling you, not protecting you?"

"You tried."

"Not hard enough." It was hard for him to say, but he said it. "I'll admit, I entertained Neil's exact feelings for a while. I thought I would use you to siphon off some of Zack's bloodlust. Will you forgive me for that too?""I would have as well, if I were in your shoes."
He shifted feet. "I'm going to my mom's house. She lives in Lenexa, Kansas. Far away from here. I wanted to know if you would come with me. I want to take you out of here." She hesitated, and he looked past her into the bare apartment. "It doesn't look like you've settled in."

"I have to pay rent for four months."

"But you don't have to live here while you do. I'll take care of it. Come away with me." She believed him, and in a few hours they were gone.