‘Legacy’ by Helen C. Murphy
Cats: Featured Writers|“An intriguing case by anyone’s standards, Dr Carfax,” the painfully young junior doctor burbled excitedly, consulting his notes. “The patient..-”
“Thinks she’s bleedin’ Count Dracula, pardon the pun,” a burly nurse sniffed from the paper-strewn desk, meaty tattooed arms crossed across his white-uniformed chest.
Ignoring the interruption, casting as scathing a glance as he dared, the junior doctor flipped over page after page in a new brown manila folder, cursing as he dropped a flurry of papers. Hastily bending to retrieve them, he jammed them back into the folder, pushing his glasses further up his densely freckled snub nose. He was new to psychiatric assessment, overly excitable when it came to the constant stream of weird and wonderful patients who ended up incarcerated for being a menace to society.
“As I was saying,” he continued, “The patient exhibits classic signs of delusional haematomania, and an extreme sensitivity to daylight, but tests negative for porphyria or any related genetic disorder… And actually, Jonathan, she thinks she’s Lucy Westenra, not Dracula.”
Allowing himself an inner smile as his young colleague bristled at the dour, singularly unimpressed nurse, Dr Carfax took hold of the folder and flicked through, hazel eyes scanning the virtually unintelligible blue biro scrawl & photocopied black. Delving in his trouser pocket, the nurse produced a crumpled cigarette and a battered Zippo lighter. Leaning back in his chair, he puffed away contentedly, expelling clouds of grey smoke, completely ignoring the no smoking sign on the wall.
“Well,” Carfax drawled laconically. “Let’s go and have a little chat with Miss Lucy, shall we?”
Striding through dimly lit corridors that stank of abrasive antiseptic, mouldy cabbages and old sweat, brown Hushpuppies slapping softly at the lino floor, Carfax ignored the random chorus of voices footsteps provoked. Dutiful as ever, the junior doctor hurried along behind him, white lab coat flapping.
“Doctor, doctor!! I need my tablets! I need, I nnnnnnneeeeeeeeeedddddddd!”
“Let me out, I’ll cut your throat, ya wee scrawny bastard!”
“The Master is near! The Master is coming! He is the giver of gifts and only the faithful shall benefit from his generosity!”
Passing by countless locked doors with tiny viewing grills, some occupied, furtive eyes peering from the dark, some silent and empty, the two doctors came to the isolation wing where new admissions were assessed. Abruptly nervous, the junior doctor fiddled with his absurd Mickey Mouse tie, unnecessarily smoothing it, tugging at it as if it were a noose about his throat.
“We’ll have to be careful,” he whispered, eyes sliding left to right in his pale freckled face. “She’s stronger than she looks, she’s already bitten Arthur, he had to have three stitches and a tetanus injection.”
Nodding, Carfax patted his arm placatingly, going some way to reassure the agitated young man. Carfax had that effect on many people, his soothing voice of liquid emollience, kind hazel eyes and authoritative air had been known to subdue the most deranged of patients. Calling to the nurse stationed at the end of the corridor to unlock the door and wait outside in case the patient decided to get physical, the two psychiatrists entered the room.
It was dark, the small cell sketched in blocks of inky black and charcoal grey, thin strips of insipid moonlight from the minute barred window painting the floor translucent yellow. The patient screamed constantly at an ear-splitting pitch if the electric light was turned on. Lingering by the door, the junior doctor stood behind Carfax like a small boy hiding behind his father’s knees. Moving further into the room, Carfax spoke quietly, as if to a fractious child.
“Lucy? My name’s Dr Carfax, I wonder, would it be alright if I talked to you for a while?”
A soft, purring laugh floated from the darkness, the sudden flash of a white hospital issue gown proclaiming movement in the far corner of the room.
“Carfax? How appropriate… As long as your name isn’t Van Helsing, doctor, you can talk until you’re blue in the face.” Hers was a young, exceptionally feminine voice that spoke of a moneyed background and an expensive private education.
Encouraged, Carfax beckoned, peering into the shadowy recesses of the room. The junior doctor hung back, his left eye had a nervous tick that grew prominent when he was tired or stressed. The lid began to twitch, she had sounded just as calm and wryly amused before she had lunged for a nurse’s throat like a terrier.
“Can you come over here where we can see you, please, Lucy.”
Another laugh as feline as the first, but faintly bitter, came from the darkness. The creaking of restraints reached the ears of the two men.
“It’s hard when you’re strapped to the bed like Hannibal Lecter… anyone would think I was a lunatic.”
Carfax turned reproachfully to his colleague, one woolly eyebrow escalating towards his receding hairline.
“Was that really necessary, Dr Hawkins?” he asked, sotto voce so the patient would not hear, frowning at the junior doctor. “This room is padded, she can’t hurt herself.”
Hawkins reddened like a ripening tomato, the tick in his left eye becoming more pronounced by the moment. It seemed he had a small live rodent trapped beneath his lower lid.
“S-she was a danger to herself and others,” he offered lamely. “After she bit Arthur…”
Carfax irritably waved him into silence, hazel eyes darkening with disapproval. The patient waited with silent expectation. Turning, he smiled into the blackness.
“Well, we’ll see what we can do about that… how would you like to come into another room for a chat?”
Beckoning to Hawkins, he had him fetch the nurse, and together they undid the padded restraints holding her to the narrow hospital cot. A short time later, they relocated to a nearby room that held an oblong table and three plastic chairs. All four pieces of furniture were securely bolted to the floor, preventing them from becoming unexpectedly airborne. Leaning across the table, Carfax gave his soothing opiate smile, fingers laced together.
“Now, isn’t that much better?” Without waiting for a reply, he gestured to the unseen light on the ceiling. “Do you mind if we put the light on? I know you don’t like it, but I like to see who I’m talking to.”
In the absence of protest, Carfax got up and flicked the light switch on the wall behind him. Flickering into life, the harsh fluorescent light bathed their faces with an unflattering electric white luminance. Freckled like an egg, Hawkins was reduced to a gawky schoolboy playing at being a doctor, his stiff-starched lab coat hanging awkwardly from his skinny frame, thick Coke-bottle lenses flashing. Scalp showing shiny through his thinning chestnut hair, each crinkle at the corner of his eyes highlighted, the coarse hair in his nostrils picked out by the unforgiving light, Carfax pulled the top from a costly gold-nibbed fountain pen.
“Now, Lucy-”
“My name is Lucille, doctor, my great grandmother’s name was Lucy,” she said coldly, eyes narrowed against the brightness.
Spreading his hands amiably, Carfax shrugged apologetically. At his side, Hawkins was scribbling furiously away in a spiral-bound notebook with a stubby chewed pencil. Even in a shapeless wash-worn hospital gown, her face stained with tears, hair in disarray, she was shockingly, achingly beautiful. She raised a delicate hand to the mussed hair that framed her oval face with pale curling flame. Rimmed with rich gold lashes, her eyes were large, a startling vivid kingfisher blue. An intense purposeful intelligence lit her expression from within, she was incarcerated, but not defeated. Tugging the short gown over her knees, she crossed her long slender legs, small feet shod in ugly rubber-soled mules given to her by a nurse.
“Lucille Westenra,” Carfax murmured thoughtfully. “Is this your real name?”
“Yes,” she said, directing a long glance of displeasure and disdain at the furtively scribbling Hawkins. “If you’d bothered to check with my family you’d know that.”
Carfax shuffled his papers for a moment, clearing his throat and reflectively scratching his head. He looked questioningly at Hawkins, who shrugged his scrawny shoulders noncommittally.
“She could’ve changed it by deed poll,” he sniffed.
The hospital’s temperamental air-conditioning had decided to blow in frigid air, making Lucille shiver and rub at the goosebumps rising on her arms. The two doctors appeared not to notice how cold she was.
“I see… Now, Lucille, may I call you Lucille?” without waiting for permission, he continued. “Would you like to tell me about, um, Count Dracula and why you bit one of the nurses and drank his blood?”
The patient’s expression grew frosty, her full lips crimped and she sat a little straighter. A faint strawberry flush of indignation bloomed across her cheeks, deepening the hue of her eyes.
“Firstly, I didn’t bite that nurse to drink his blood, I am under no delusions that I am a vampire, Dr Carfax. He had his hand over my face, I couldn’t breathe, so I bit him until he let go.”
The senior doctor absorbed her explanation without comment, tapping lightly on the table with the lid of his fountain pen. With each hollow tap on the hard Formica surface, another muscle tightened across Lucille’s shoulders until they began to hurt. Hawkins ceased his incessant note-taking long enough to stare over the top of his glasses at her with the uncharitable curiosity of a scientist about to perform an experiment on a squealing, helpless rabbit.
“Hmmm…,” Carfax let the sound out in a long, coffee-scented exhalation. “You were struggling quite considerably, Lucille. I understand you objected to being brought here?”
Sudden icy fury twisting her mouth, painting comets in her kingfisher blue eyes, she uncoiled, leaning forward on her elbows to hiss at the psychiatrist.
“Wouldn’t you object to being forcefully committed to an asylum for no other reason than to hide an uncomfortable truth?”
Such was the vehemence in her voice, that Hawkins’s fingers danced back to grip the edges of the table with involuntary alarm. Carfax remained unruffled by her outburst, years of dealing with varying degrees of insanity required a calm temperament. Casting a sidelong glance at his younger colleague, he made a mental note to write to the hospital manager, Hawkins was too skittish for this kind of work. He practically fainted every time a paranoid schizophrenic had a violent episode. Sensing he was making progress in discovering the specifics of her delusion, he pursed his lips.
“And what truth would that be?”
Throwing her long pale hands up in disgust, she sat back, turning her face away from the two men. As she did so, the stylized tattoos decorating the soft flesh of her inner wrists flashed, a small red dragon on the right, a black eagle on the left. In profile her features were perfect, sculpted by an idealistic artist from flawless creamy alabaster, eyes fringed with gold.
“My brother, Quincey, convinced the family physician that I was mad,” she paused and gave a humourless smile, displaying a row of even, pearly teeth. “He wants me out of the way, kept under lock and key… he doesn’t want another Westenra woman disappearing off the face of the planet. The poor idiot thinks he’s ‘saving’ me.”
Carfax leaned forward, fingers steepled beneath his chin. The room had warmed somewhat in the previous few minutes, the air-vents reluctantly emitting heated air with pained groans and clanks.
“Saving you? From who, Count Dracula?”
Slowly turning her head, Lucille gave the psychiatrist a withering glare, conveying her opinion that he was several rungs below maggots on the evolutionary ladder. She drummed her pianist’s fingers on the tabletop, the electric light winking from the glossy silver polish on her well-manicured nails.
“You could at least try to keep the sarcasm from your tone… yes, to put it bluntly, he thinks he’s saving me from Vlad Tepes, otherwise known as Dracula… and by the way, he’s not a Count, he was once a Wallachian Prince…” she stopped and grimaced. “He’ll be furious when he finds out what Quincey’s done.”
Carfax gave another of his famous benevolent smiles, listening as the scratch of Hawkins’s pencil increased. Loud in the tiny dingy room, the lead snapped and the junior doctor cursed under his breath. Scrabbling in his pocket for a sharpener, he laboured over the pencil, depositing a small pile of shavings on the table.
“But Lucille, Dracula isn’t real,” the psychiatrist’s voice was soft and ingratiating. “He’s a character from a novel.”
The patient seemed to shudder inwardly, to have difficulty controlling her temper for the first time. Hawkins swept the pencil shavings into his palm, peering anxiously over his spectacles.
“Oh, you’re only half right,” she snapped with a flaring of temper. “And seeing as you already think I’m two sandwiches short of a picnic, there’s no reason not to tell you the truth. I could hardly be portrayed as anymore insane, now could I? A version of the truth sanctioned by my great grandmother’s family was written by a sexually repressed Irishman who ate a bad serving of crabmeat!”
She leaned across the table, tone low and ferocious, blue eyes molten and piercing. Hawkins’s nervous tick was threatening to rip the left side of his face from his skull.
“My great grandmother didn’t die, though she nearly did thanks to Van Helsing’s superstitious crap, she was exiled to America to spare the family name, where she married a certain Quincey P. Morris, who, incidentally, didn’t die either!” Collecting herself, Lucille sat back and drew a deep, shuddering breath. “After my great grandfather died, she reverted to her maiden name, changed the children’s names… there was some sort of a scandal surrounding Quincey’s death, the Morris name was poison in Texas.”
She smiled thinly as she realised her audience was rapt. Carfax was gripping his fountain pen tightly, oblivious to the large stain of blue ink spreading across his coarse fingers, dripping onto the tabletop. Hawkins, who had been testing his newly sharpened pencil, was staring intently at her, his mouth a slack loop filled with crooked, heavily filled teeth.
“Dracula had followed Lucy to Texas, he made sure the children were provided for when she contracted T.B and died.” Lucille’s educated voice faltered and her eyes trembled with the threat of tears. “He loved her, knew she didn’t want to become like he was, allowed her to live her life, marry Quincey and have children… she begged him to save her when she was dying, but he couldn’t, the transformation wouldn’t have cured such advanced tuberculosis. He watched over the family, followed when they emigrated back to England in the fifties-”
“All very interesting, I’m sure,” Carfax interrupted suddenly, annoyed with himself for allowing her to ramble, keen to reach the heart of her delusion.
“But what has this to do with you? Why do you think your brother had you institutionalised?”
Lucille frowned at his abruptness, echoed by Hawkins, who, realising his place, coughed into his hand with embarrassment at how easily he had become enraptured by her narrative. Silent for long moments, communicating her umbrage at being interrupted so rudely, the patient bowed her flamy head.
“I am taking up the family legacy,” she declared with a mixture of pride, longing and a ghosted touch of fear. “Each generation, Dracula comes to the women of the Westenra family with the offer of immortality… the last person to accept was my grandfather’s sister, Wilhemina, but she disappeared not long after.” Raising her head, blue eyes radiating fierce defiance, she glared directly at the two doctors. “You must understand, acceptance is entirely voluntary, and the offer is made only once… and he didn’t kill Great Aunt Wilhemina, no matter what Quincey says, he didn’t, he promised me he didn’t…” She trailed off, gaze dropping, shoulders slumped.
Carfax exchanged glances with his colleague, clearly, her delusion was more complex and deep-seated than they had first believed. Seemingly spent, Lucille sat slumped in her uncomfortable plastic chair, fingers toying with the frayed hem of her gown.
“And you are waiting for Count, sorry Prince Dracula, to come for you?” Carfax asked quietly. “To make you immortal?”
“Yes,” she affirmed colourlessly, all the emotion drained from her voice and expression. “He will come for me, soon, and no-one, not you, not Quincey, not all the locks, bolts and high-tech security systems in the world can stop him.”
At a gesture from his superior, Hawkins scuttled from the room, lab coat flapping in his wake like the sails of a rudderless ship. He returned within minutes bearing a glinting hypodermic filled with a milky, noxious-looking serum. Carfax took the needle, flicking the barrel with his index finger to dispel any air bubbles. He stepped around the table, holding it aloft. Lucille looked at him dispassionately, not seeming to care one way or the other.
“Now,” he murmured soothingly, taking up her arm and pushing back the sleeve. “Just a little something to help you sleep, and it’ll all look better in the morning, I promise you.”
It was dark and cooler than she would have liked. Waking with a start, Lucille opened her eyes and stared into the blackness. She had been at the asylum for three days, three days of other patients screaming and ranting, three days of meals consisting of meat tough as old boot leather and vegetables cooked to an unidentifiable vaguely organic mush. Worse than the periods lying in the darkness listening to the wailing of unseen people was the brief time she had been allowed in the day room, surrounded by silent, empty-eyed zombies. Drugged mannequins who had no will or independence, who sat and stared in a single direction until a nurse took their arm to move them.
She had watched them with pity and revulsion. The nearest, a large middle-aged man, stared unblinkingly at a cobweb on the ceiling, a thin drool of ropy saliva dangling from his bulbous lower lip. Desperate to escape, she had sneaked to a fire exit, only to be caught and dragged back kicking, screaming, thrashing and biting. An anonymous white-coated doctor had given her a painful injection and the cruel world faded into humming oblivion. She had woken to find herself strapped to the bed by softly padded restraints, dried tears crusting her face from eye to lip.
Drawing a long breath, she shuddered beneath the single meagre blanket, cursing her human susceptibility to the cold. Thankful she was no longer restrained, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, shivering as her bare toes encountered the cool lino floor. Wiggling the kinks from her back, hearing the lumpy, badly sprung bed groan beneath her, she froze. Vibrant blue eyes wide and anxious, lips slightly parted, she knew there was someone else in the room.
“Who’s there?” she whispered, gripping the edge of the bed.
The quiet squeak of rubber-soled shoes reached her ears as someone took several steps across the room. Dull and overcast, the night sky was moonless, a mass of turgid silver-streaked blackness. Faintly, the regular drumming of torrential rain began to beat against the roof. Identifying the person by the rhythm of their footsteps, she peered into the unbroken lightlessness.
“Dr Carfax? Have you come to give me another injection?”
“Oh, you’re only half right, Lucille.” The psychiatrist’s voice floated from the dark, darkly amused, tinged with hunger.
There was something about his voice, a growling undertone that spoke of unsatisfied appetites, which frightened her. It occurred to her with terrifying certainty that he could do virtually anything to her and nobody would believe her because she was certified insane. Knees pressed close together, hugging her elbows, she shrank back against the tubular metal bedstead.
Carfax emerged from the blackness into her field of vision, hands thrust nonchalantly into the pockets of his baggy corduroy trousers. The face was the same, jowly, bag-eyed, chestnut hair receding at the crown and temples, but he seemed a different man. He no longer had an air of patronising authority, his hazel eyes were devoid of the irritating mild kindness that made Lucille want to kick his teeth down his throat. A look of slowly rising longing suffused his expression, a ruthless, predatory desire.
“What d’you want?” she demanded, fighting the onslaught of panic.
He took a step forward, Hushpuppies creaking, and changed. Darkening, lengthening, the male pattern baldness disappeared as his hair spilled over his collar. Bulldog jowls evaporated as the cheekbones moved with a faint, nauseating popping sound. Beneath his check shirt, slabs of flesh crawled across his torso. Every line and wrinkle of late middle age erased, the paunch that indicated a fondness for ale and pork pies gone, he flexed his shoulders with a click. Newly young and muscular, Carfax smiled, his hazel eyes shining queerly in the darkness. Formerly an unpleasant doughy colour from long hours under hospital lights, his complexion was a flawless, inhuman white. Protruding over his lower lip like ivory barbs, his incisors gleamed sharply.
“Just a quick blood test,” he said, words an obscene echo of the pacifying tone he used with patients.
Uttering a strangled gasp of horror, unable to accept what she saw, Lucille leapt from the bed and dashed for the door, only to be caught by the wrist. Yanked about, a burst of bright agony erupting at her shoulder blade, she cried out. An cold, powerful hand clamped itself across her mouth, shutting off her screams. Forcibly turning her head, thumb biting into the softness of her cheek, he stared into her eyes. She could not look away, pinioned by an intangible force. Feeling her will and strength seeping away, she could not move or protest, an irresistible narcotic sleepiness stealing over her. Etiolated face inches from her own, Carfax smiled toothily and bit deeply into her throat.
The pain was intense, twin hot nails driving into her neck. It was not gentle love bites or sipped mouthfuls of passion, it was brutal, gluttonous feeding. Tears ran down her cheeks, staining her gown, plopping soundlessly to the cold lino floor. Rough, uncaring hands quested across her body, bruising her breasts and buttocks, leaving weals on the tender flesh of her thighs. Unable to struggle, forced into submission, she silently wept and screamed inside her mind. Her vision began to fog, the night crowding in, polka-dotted with crimson.
Pulling away with a wet slurping, long pink tongue cleansing the film of blood from his teeth and lips, Carfax traced a glistening pool of saliva across her puncture wounds. They began to itch unbearably as he flung her onto the narrow bed. The bedsprings squealed and sagged, too worn for such treatment. Drained almost to the point of unconsciousness, Lucille fought to hold her head up, clutching the torn shreds of her gown.
“What’re these?” he demanded, snatching up her wrists and pointing to the tattoos. “Some sort of heraldic crests?”
Summoning a bitter, humourless grin, Lucille moistened her dry mouth enough to speak, ignoring the growing pressure on the delicate bones of her wrists.
“The dragon family crest of Dracul and the Wallachian eagle,” she croaked.
Carfax laughed quietly, an unpleasant, malicious sound. He stroked his incisors with the tip of his tongue as they retreated into his gums. His breath came in short, quick panting gasps, pale face flushed with stolen blood.
“Silly, deluded girl, Dracula is a myth, a story cobbled together from Romanian legend by a ‘sexually repressed Irishman’,” he quoted, shaking her.
When she did not respond with the expected hysteria or begging for immortality, Carfax sniffed disgustedly, deprived of his sport. Rearranging her malleable limbs on the bed so she lay on her back with her hands folded across her chest, he gazed down at her. Allowing her to watch as his features swarmed, jowls returning, hair thinning, stomach expanding, he turned to leave. He was at the door when he heard her voice, trembling, but defiant.
“He’ll kill you for this, you’re a dead man walking.”
A slow smile spread across Carfax’s fleshy features, eyes marked at the corners with crow’s feet, brow scored by laughter lines. Her courage was quite remarkable.
“I have been for more years than I care to remember,” he chuckled. “Just another urban legend, a non-existent monster like your beloved Dracula.”
Slipping out and locking the door behind him, he strolled down the corridor past the cells, whistling softly under his breath. He was the epitome of a respectable, trustworthy doctor, a façade behind which he hid his hunger. In her locked room, too weak to move from the rickety bed, Lucille closed her burning eyes and prayed for salvation.
Dr Hawkins was thoroughly perplexed by the demeanour of the haematomaniac patient. He still mentally labelled her as such, despite the fact she had not shown the slightest inclination to bite or scratch anyone since the Arthur incident. If anything, she was growing gradually more listless and physically feeble by the day. Pausing at the door to the day room, he looked around, picking out her distinctive fiery golden mane from the mumbling sea of identically clad patients. She sat in a padded armchair before the chattering television, shoulders slumped, head bowed. Her iridescent sapphire eyes were dull and inexpressive, sunk into blue grey hollows, all the life and tenacity ebbing away.
Frowning, he jotted a note in his spiral-bound pad to have her tested for anaemia, Dr Carfax would not be pleased if his pet project ended up being carted away. Sitting down in the chair next to her, Hawkins hesitantly touched her shoulder.
“Lucille? It’s Dr Hawkins, how are you feeling today?”
She slowly looked up at his voice, face ghastly pale, a ghosted smile touching her bluish lips. Gesturing at the other occupants of the room, those who were too drugged or docile to cause any upset, she gave a short, dry laugh.
“Better than her.” She pointed to an elderly woman engrossed in conversation with her own shadow. Gazing around conspiratorially, she leaned forward. “Dr Carfax, he’s not here, is he?”
Hawkins raised an eyebrow, taking off his glasses and polishing them on the hem of his lab coat. Examining the thick lenses for smudges, squinting myopically, he replaced them on his freckled nose.
“No, not yet,” he answered. “He doesn’t start for about another half an hour, he does the nightshift.”
The statement provoked another burst of humourless laughter that turned into a bout of violent coughing. Hastily pouring a beaker of water from a plastic jug on a nearby table, Hawkins handed it to her, waiting for her to speak. After swallowing several gulping mouthfuls and clearing her throat, Lucille fixed him with her tired, misery-filled gaze.
“Have you noticed, Dr Hawkins, that Dr Carfax only works the nightshift, he never works during the day?”
The psychiatrist pondered the question for long moments, perplexed. The woman chatting to her shadow began to laugh at an unheard joke, rocking back and forth, tears of merriment spilling down her lined cheeks.
“Yes, I have, now you come to mention it.” He shrugged his bony shoulders dismissively. “But it suits some people, their body clocks can handle it. Why d’you ask?”
Hatred and fury suddenly disfigured her fine-boned features, and she clawed at her sleeve, tugging it up to reveal scarlet, weeping scratches and mottled purple bruises winding up her arm.
“He did this to me!” she hissed venomously, shaking with rage. “And this!”
She swept aside her heavy curtain of hair to reveal twin red crescents and severe bruising below her left ear over the jugular. Hawkins peered at the partially healed wounds and sighed sadly, hypothesising the use of fingernails or screws prised from a bedstead or doorframe.
“Lucille,” he said wearily. “I thought we’d been over this already, you’ve been hurting yourself again, haven’t you?”
Dropping the hank of gleaming red gold hair, shoving her sleeve down, she balled her fists and shook her head emphatically. She was becoming increasingly agitated, causing Hawkins to fear he would be forced to sedate her.
“No!!” she ground the word out from between tightly clenched teeth. “He did it! He’s a vampire, he’s killing me,” she grabbed the doctor’s spindly arm pleadingly. “Please, you’ve got to help me, get me out of here, another hospital if you must, but get me out of here!!”
Her voice rose, shrill and frightened, disturbing the other patients in the day room. Some looked around in bewilderment, others began to shout loudly, yet more continued staring fixedly ahead. Startled at her sudden outburst, Hawkins vainly tried to prise her fingers from his arm. She was relatively healthy, despite her recent pale lethargy, desperation lending her a manic strength.
“Please,” she begged, crystalline tears starting in her eyes. “Please, Dr Hawkins, you must help me, or he’ll kill me.”
Flustered, the junior doctor stammered reassurances that he would help, struggling to free himself and call for a nurse to administer a sedative. The shadow-conversing old woman began a high-pitched keening, distressed by the noise. Two sets of strong male hands took hold of Lucille’s arms and hauled her away from the red-faced Hawkins. She writhed in the nurses’ inescapable grasp, bright hair whipping her face.
“Now then,” a deceptively kind voice said. “What’s all this fuss over, hmmm?”
Dr Carfax strode into the day room, green paisley tie neatly knotted, sparse hair smoothed down with a lick of gel. He held an open packet of spearmints in his podgy hand, the silver foil glinting in the strip lights. Lucille froze, expression horrified and stricken.
“Noooooooooooo!!!” she screeched discordantly, struggling like a trapped animal. “Keep him away from me!!”
Nodding to the two grim-faced nurses to hold her down, Carfax produced a hypodermic from his pocket. Pulling back her sleeve, he looked at the scratches and bruises.
“Ah, Lucille,” he murmured. “Haven’t we been a bad girl?”
Imprisoned, limbs immobilised, head anchored by a meaty forearm, she could only wail helplessly as he selected a vein and slipped in the needle. Presently, her thrashing grew less, the resistance leaving her taut body as the drug took effect. Scooping her up from the stained lino, the two nurses carried her away to her room. Carfax watched them, eyes glacial and calculating.
“Her delusion has shifted its focus,” Hawkins observed from behind him. “She thinks you’re a vampire now, that you’re trying to kill her.”
Carfax turned, eyes growing soft and sympathetic, expression appropriately regretful. The old shadow woman watched him with suspicious eyes, mumbling unintelligibly to herself. He patted his colleague’s arm and offered him a mint, which he took.
“I’ve seen it before,” he disclosed with a sigh. “Patients becoming obsessed with their psychiatrists, thinking they love or hate them… we obviously need to take a more radical approach…”
Earnestly discussing proposed courses of therapy and treatment, the two doctors left the day room and headed for Carfax’s office. Crossing herself, the woman talking to her shadow spat on the floor after him and shuddered. Within minutes, she had stolen a black wax crayon from another patient and begun scrawling passages from the bible on the bare painted walls. Standing back, the tip of her tongue showing between her lips, she stared at the last sentence.
“For blood is the life,” she said clearly, and throwing back her sleek silver head, began to howl with laughter.
Replacing a sheaf of papers in the topmost folder of a large pile, Carfax gathered them up and strode to the military grey filing cabinet. Opening the middle drawer, he carefully filed each folder away, pleased with the neatness, the regular rows of brown manila sleeves organised in date and alphabetical order. He was fanatical about his filing system, as the various secretaries over the years had discovered to their cost if they let it slip. Looking around his cramped office, at the well-watered potted palm in the corner, the old oak desk and comfortable leather executive chair, he smiled. Everything was as it should be, his paperwork was nearly done, desk immaculate, patients put to bed for the night.
Readjusting the position of the gold-lettered name plaque given to him one Christmas by the nursing staff, he admired the way the light reflected from the bold gilded characters. Lowering himself into the chair, hearing the soft leather sigh as it accepted his considerable bulk, he placed an open hand on the next pile of folders. The name on the uppermost file caused a tightening from stomach to loins; Lucille Westenra. Trying to control the sudden resurgence of hunger, Carfax shuddered with longing.
He was going to have to exercise self-restraint, he had fed on the wretched, raving mad girl too much in the last week. Any further depletion of her blood would bring her condition to the attention of the other doctors, who would be puzzled and ask inconvenient questions. Hawkins was beginning to suspect something was not quite right, the jittery idiot. He had supervised as Lucille was strapped down one night, then discovered fresh scratches the next morning, which he pointed out to Carfax with guileless concern. Time to transfer the good doctor to a hospital at the far end of the country.
Remembering the taste of her blood, its rich honeyed sweetness made tart by fear, he felt his mouth begin to water, incisors aching. Though her body was weakening, her spirit remained curiously, tantalisingly indomitable. Carfax liked nothing better than to break his victims before he killed them. Sensing his presence in her dark, cold room, she would raise her head and glare poisonous, defiant hatred with those startling cobalt-blue eyes, hair a streak of flame on the worn pillows. Tempted beyond endurance, recalling how she trembled with rage and terror when he stood over her, he pushed back his chair. Another tiny mouthful of her nectar would not hurt.
Striding along the poorly lit corridors, silencing his footsteps beyond anything natural so the other patients would not be disturbed, he felt his form shifting as he turned the corner to the next wing. He felt lighter, invincible, the excess weight melting away, newly grown hair tickling his ears. Touching a hand to his head, he ran his fingers through it, savouring the length and luxuriant texture. His fat, middle-aged body, with its wrinkles and fleshy baggage served its purpose magnificently, but he preferred his true form. If he happened to meet any of the nurses, they would be alarmed by this handsome young stranger wearing Dr Carfax’s clothes. Alarm would turn to terror as he picked them up by the throat and commanded their weak human minds to forget what they had just seen.
Unable to repress it, a broad smile spread across his pallid features as he reached Lucille’s door. He could smell her, the spiced scent of her young, firm flesh, the iron tang of blood flowing beneath her soft skin. Of their own volition, his incisors lengthened, sliding into place with an audible click. She was fast becoming an addiction. Over the years there had been other fatal addictions, other beautiful men and women in places all over the world. Most had been unwilling recipients of his attention, many had not survived it. As he flung the door open, Carfax reminded himself to take only a little, not to hurt her too much. He wanted this particular addiction to last as long as possible.
Hurrying inside the small, sparse cell with its stained padding on the walls and metal bed bolted to the floor, he saw her. She was sitting on the bed, fiery gold hair streaked by fingers of brilliant moonlight reaching in through the barred window. Her long delicate hands were folded in her lap, the chipped remnants of silver polish glinting on her nails. One of the kinder-hearted nurses had given her a red ankle-length chenille dressing gown when she complained about the cold. She wore it now, tightly belted, the rich warm fabric plush as velvet.
Eerily composed, her kingfisher blue eyes lifted and rested on him, sparkling in the fey luminance. At the pale column of her throat, the pulse beat strongly, a steady seductive tempo indicative of life and vitality. Growling, overcome with blood lust, Carfax advanced across the frigid lino floor.
“I wouldn’t come any further,” she said quietly. “For your own sake.”
He stopped short and stared at her incredulously, did she imagine there was anything she could possibly do to stop him? To his utter astonishment, she gave a slow, lazily contemptuous smile, soft mouth curving to reveal sparkling teeth. Her terror seemed to have evaporated, she did not shrink away or cower and whimper unheard pleas for him to stop and leave her alone. Beating back a sudden, bestial surge of anger, Carfax raised an eyebrow.
“Oh?” he said, deciding to humour her for the moment. “And why is that?”
Victims had such diverse ways of reacting to him, some begged and fought, some acquiesced with a kind of helpless terror or welcomed him with open arms, and others showed no fear at all. He had found mental patients to be especially rewarding when it came to a broad range of reaction, their psychological reactions were so much stronger, tastier. Shifting position so her bare feet were tucked beneath her, she inclined her head, long golden lashes sweeping her milky cheek as she blinked.
“Because although you are going to die, Dr Carfax, if that’s your real name, the manner of your death depends very much on whether or not you try to touch me,” she revealed calmly. “I said you were a dead man walking, and I meant it.”
Comprehension exploded in Carfax’s inhuman brain and he shook with silent laughter, shoulders trembling, blood-tinged moisture gathering in his icy hazel eyes. Almost bent double with mirth, he slapped his thigh and straightened, controlling his laughter with difficulty.
“So that’s it!” he gasped, holding his stomach. “You think your precious Dracula is here to save you… ah, Lucille, Lucille, I’ve told you before, he’s a figment of your poor twisted imagination, that’s why you were put in here in the first place.” He spread his arms wide, white features creased with laughter. “Where is he then, under the bed, perhaps, in the corner?”
Sapphires starred with cobalt, Lucille’s eyes moved to a point behind Carfax, near the cell door. The psychiatrist rolled his eyes wearily, sharp-nailed hands planted on his hips. He took a step forward, bored with situation, eager to fill his ravenous belly. With a metallic clang like deadened thunder, the cell door slammed shut, the deadbolts shrieking into their housings without the aid of the key which hung at Carfax’s belt. Shocked, he leapt from the floor and remained airborne a little longer than gravity dictated. The skin on the back of his neck crawling, every unnatural instinct he possessed telling him he was trapped, he turned around.
Nobody human could have approached without him sensing their presence, nobody human could have shot the deadbolts without the key. His throat tightening, he studied the other vampire. Taller than he was by head and shoulders, with the compact musculature of the horsemen who rode with Attila, he moved with a feral, liquid elegance. Thick crow black hair fell to his waist, held back by a heavily decorated silver clasp that would have appeared feminine on another man. His features were chiselled from cool ivory, high angular cheekbones, a long narrow nose set above a generous mouth.
Framed by thick brows, his eyes were dark, pinpointed with glistening maroon lights. Clean-shaven, he was dressed in an exquisite handmade black worsted suit, a soft white linen shirt with a mandarin collar and polished Church’s brogues. A heavy gold brooch shone at his throat, set with a huge oval cabochon ruby that shone like bloody tears. The ring finger of his right hand was covered to the knuckle by a similar jewel. Both were ancient, predating the fall of Constantinople. His stance was not aggressive, but he radiated menace, generating the impression of latent power held in check. Staring at the mild, scholarly expression on the ascetic face, Carfax saw his death reflected in the red black eyes.
“You expect me to believe you’re Dracula?” he blustered, trying to cover his growing unease. “Ridiculous! Who are you?”
The other vampire did not quite smile, a razor incisor momentarily peeping over his lower lip. He seemed almost amused by Carfax, in the way a jaguar is entertained watching a domestic cat stalk a sparrow. Carfax had been treated in many ways during his vastly extended existence, but never with tolerant amusement. “I am Vlad Tepes, who is also called Dracula,” he said with a swift, courteous bow.
His voice was somewhere between demonic and divine, deep as the Carpathian forests, smoothed by the centuries, accented with the savage music of his native tongue. His English was perfect, a lifetime away from the guttural semi-fluency of Stoker’s book. Expression and mouth hardening dangerously, his crimson-lit eyes narrowed.
“And you, sir,” he added softly, “are arrogant and presumptuous in the extreme.”
Carfax felt his mouth dry, suddenly having no doubt that this creature was whom he claimed to be. The psychiatrist had tangled with his own kind before, victorious due to the relative youth and inexperience of his opponents. On this occasion, he knew himself to be of a more recent vintage and thus considerably less powerful. Fear was an unaccustomed feeling for Carfax, he caused it on a regular basis, but had not experienced it for a very long time.
“I-I didn’t know,” he stammered, loathing the whining weakness of his words. “I-I thought you didn’t exist… I wouldn’t have touched her had I known.”
Dracula’s chin lifted and by his sides his white hands clenched into fists. His fury had driven the Turks from his lands, impaled thousands on stakes. During his reign, it was said a gold drinking cup could be left at a well and not be stolen, such was the fear of his wrath. He blinked slowly, red black eyes glittering, and appeared at Lucille’s side. Even with Carfax’s superior vampire sight, he moved too quickly to be seen. He opened his arms and she slithered from the dingy bed to embrace him, resting her tousled head on his shoulder.
Lids momentarily falling shut as he savoured her nearness, her human warmth, his bone pale fingers laced through her fiery golden hair, ran caressingly down her spine. Pressing his alabaster face into her hair, breathing in its scent, his voice was barely audible.
“This cur, who is beneath contempt, he hurt you, stole the blood which is mine alone to taste. He continued to hurt you after you told him whose protection you fell under?”
Lucille shuddered against him, holding tightly onto him, her hands locked around his back. She nodded, nose filled with the clean smell of his shirt, purging her of the fetid urine and disinfectant stench of the asylum. He had come for her just as he promised, proving she was not insane, that she had not imagined Carfax had violated her and drank her blood. Dracula’s presence soothed and overwhelmed her, excited her beyond reason, yet made her want to curl up and sleep soundly for the first time in what seemed an eternity, her safety assured.
“Yes,” she whispered into his chest, not wanting to look at Carfax. “He took what should’ve been yours alone.”
She felt the swelling rage inside him, the gathering of an inner darkness, a power augmented by the centuries. An electric thrill tingled through her, partly secret delight, partly fear. He had never shown her anything other than kindness, generosity and passion. He lavished her with carefully chosen gifts, taking her to the finest restaurants and the opera, indulging her every whim and intellectual curiosity. They discussed her hopes, dreams, her favourite books, pieces of music, the places she had never been to but longed to see. Vampiric in her hunger, she drank up all he had to offer with innocent abandon. She had not seen what he was capable of firsthand, put aside the thought that the hands that caressed her so tenderly had killed more than once, that the mouth that gave such pleasure could inflict cruellest pain.
“You do not have to see this,” he murmured in her ear, one large hand cradling the back of her head, cool lips brushing her cheek. “The car is outside, you can wait for me there. It shall not take long.”
Such was the assurance of the vampire’s tone, that uneasy fear instantly exploded into outright panic, and had he been human, Carfax would have vomited with terror. Dread robbed him of his vampire strength, leaving him quivering with expectation of attack. He started forward, hands outstretched in supplication.
“Wait! I-I didn’t mean it, I-I mean… if I’d known!!” he cried desperately.
“That matters not,” Dracula growled dismissively, spearing the younger vampire with a glare. “You have transgressed against me and mine, and that I cannot ignore.”
His gaze dropped to Lucille, fondness softening the crimson lights in his eyes, expression growing gentler. He tipped her chin upwards so their eyes met.
“Do you wish to wait outside?” he asked.
Lucille twisted her face about and regarded Carfax, who was shifting from foot to foot, darting periodic glances at the locked door. She did not care to speculate on the murky definition of true evil, but reckoned the thing who posed as a doctor in order to satisfy his appetites came close enough. Kingfisher blue eyes met pale hazel. Even through the rampaging fear clouding them, she could still discern echoes of his lust, knew that he did not feel any remorse or shame. He was merely terrified out of his conceited immortal mind that he was going to die in a less than pleasant fashion. Unconsciously, his upper lip curled in a sneer, he would suck her dry like a ripe orange in a heartbeat, given half a chance.
Forcing her rigid fingers to unlock, she moved out of the older vampire’s protective embrace, smoothing her port wine red chenille robe like it was a satin ball gown. She would have her dignity returned to her, she would be released. Facing Carfax, her remarkable cerulean eyes turned glacial, burning with unwavering resolve.”I’ll stay,” she said, voice steady. “Then I’ll know he won’t ever hurt me – or anyone else- again.”
She felt rather than saw Dracula’s approval, his impossibly strong fingers alighting on her slim shoulder. A low, despairing moan rose from Carfax, who was confounded by his own previously undiscovered capacity for unadulterated fear. He expected to be uneasy in the presence of an older immortal, but the palpable terror this black-eyed demon inspired was something completely alien to him. Blood-suffused tears filled his hazel eyes, jaw clenching until his sharp incisors punctured the delicate skin of his lower lip. No one had ever reduced him to such a state in his lifetime, both living and undead. The man known as Vlad The Impaler in centuries gone by had accomplished this feat without even raising his voice.
The atmosphere in the tiny padded room changed, the air shivered, cowering with fearful anticipation of savagery. A darker, intense sliver of night in the moonlit cell, snowy skin gleaming with a preternatural luminance, Dracula turned his lethal orbs on Carfax, flashing brilliant crimson like feline eyes caught by glancing light. A muffler of cloud shrouded the bright face of the moon, plunging the cell into complete darkness. Desperate, feeling the metal fists of Dracula’s rage beat against him, the psychiatrist whirled about and sprinted for the door, clawing at his belt for the key.
Lucille watched with a mixture of fascinated horror and vindictive satisfaction as Dracula unerringly moved to intercept. Crossing the room in two strides, arm snaking out in a black blur, he plucked the other vampire from the floor, his battered brown Hushpuppies dangling. Swinging from the inescapable bloodless fist like a stringless puppet, Carfax extruded vicious chitinous talons, slashing at his captor’s chest and abdomen. Fine black wool and crisp Egyptian linen ripped, violent poppy red blooms soaking the expensive material as flesh parted.
Maddened by the aromatic scent, Carfax snarled and bared his unsheathed fangs, struggling to free himself. Showing not the slightest trace of pain or discomfort, Dracula’s lips twitched in a quick blade of a smile. His injured flesh rippled, shimmering like oiled water, the gashes healing to invisibility in moments.
“As you draw my blood, Englishman, so I draw yours,” he breathed, voice a low sanguinary bass note.
Wrenching back the younger vampire’s head with an audible snap, exposing his palpitating throat, he lunged and sank his tumescent incisors into the carotid artery. Wild hazel eyes bulging, Carfax howled with impotent fury and terror as he felt the blood ripping from his veins, lamprey mouth a round screaming hole. His skin blanched from glistening white to lustreless tin grey as he was drained, sealing to the knobbed ivory contours of bones as his flesh dissolved. Tightening over thick ropy tendons, the moist gelatinous packages of shrinking muscle, it began to flake away in dry parchment yellow scales as every drop of vital fluid was drawn out.
The sculpted cheekbones he was so vainly proud of dwindled to fleshless prominent ridges, mouth a rictus skull grin sealed by the drumskin flanges of his lips. Sinking back into their sockets, his eyes were desiccated, shrunken grapes. Unfastening his fangs, Dracula let the brittle husk drop to the floor. It landed with a sound like dry clattering twigs, a grotesque scarecrow clothed in a red-spattered lab coat. Opening his mouth, the master vampire contemptuously disgorged the blood he had taken in a long glittering stream that splashed blackly across the far wall.
Silver blue, moonlight flooded the small room as the clouds scurried onwards across the night sky, transforming his features into a resplendent frosty harlequin mask. Taking a silk handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped his lips, as if to rid himself of an offensive taste. Delirious with relief and joy, almost sobbing, Lucille flew into his arms in whirling flurry of her thick dressing gown. Ecstatic as she felt them settle around her, she lifted her face to be kissed. Dracula shook his dark head, placing a finger to her warm lips.
“I shall not kiss you with a mouth still sullied by this cur’s blood,” he said, pulling her closer as she shivered with the cold. “But take care, he lives still.”
Disbelievingly, eyes wide, lips a perfect cherry ring, she peered down at the crinkled mummy-brown form. An involuntary cry of fright escaped her as a single parched eye rolled grittily in her direction, a skeletal finger crooked.
“I don’t believe it,” she whispered, stepping away from the questing digit. “He can survive, even like this?”
Dracula nodded solemnly, maroon-swirled eyes growing fierce. His mouth turned down at the corners, lips thinning. This close to him, close enough to feel the disconcertingly slow beat of his undead heart, Lucille once again marvelled at the peculiar alchemy that bestowed such power and devastating, bewitching presence. She could not have refused her legacy had she wanted to.
“Yes, even like this,” he echoed. “He would recover if left to heal. My kind are resilient as the worm, cunning as the wolf. He lives… but not for long.”
At his words, the desiccated vampire began to twitch infinitesimally, muffled inarticulate wails of protest and terror gagged by sealed lips. Reaching down, he took hold of the fibrous stem of Carfax’s neck and with a powerful twisting jerk, snapped the spinal column. The lingering traces of intelligent consciousness that had so horrified Lucille faded from the withered prune-like eyes as Dracula tore the head free, trailing a clinking string of yellowed vertebrae. There was no blood, just a sparse powdering of brownish flaking tissue.
Tossing the grisly hunk of dead matter to the floor, dusting off his murderous hands, his red black gaze flickered to the door. Of their own accord, the deadbolts clanked back and the door swung open with a metallic creak. The tiny cell immediately grew warmer as heated air from the wide corridor flooded in.
“Come,” he invited softly, holding out his open hand to Lucille, moonlight turning the long nails translucent.
Sensing a residual worry, he gave a small half smile. “The remains will be destroyed by the rising sun, there will be nothing left for a pathologist to examine.”
Reassured and thrilled, ignoring an insistent twinge of fear, she slipped her warm hand into his and allowed herself to be led from the miserable confines of the cell. As they walked through corridors strangely devoid of key-jangling staff, Lucille felt cold and light-headed, but fired with a frenetic energy. She knew she was ill, Carfax’s appetite having wrought havoc with her bodily strength, but she was free. The constraints of her old life were slipping away, she was no longer governed by the wishes of her elderly father and well-meaning but stifling brother who had her institutionalised.
Her fury at Quincey seemed to have receded, it no longer mattered. He had been smothering her, not protecting her, leaching the life and vitality from her just as surely as Carfax had done. Shivering, she tightened her grip on the large pale hand encircling hers. A male voice, hoarse from too many hours of incessant bellowing emerged from a cell further along the corridor.
“The Master is here!! Bow down all ye puny mortals!! The Master has come to punish the infidels!! MASTER!! MASTER!!”
A complaining chorus of answering shouts drifted from other rooms as the patients were woken by the ranting. Two torn-knuckled hands thrust themselves through the open grill beseechingly, maniacal eyes flashing in the darkness.
“You! The pretty woman! Run, get away… don’t stay if you value your soul!!… MASTER! I have served you… MASTER!!”
Grimly amused, yet inexplicably unnerved, Lucille ignored him and quickened her pace, eager to leave the morbid off-white corridors and cold lino floors of the hospital. She felt hot and nauseous. His cries echoed along the darkened corridor, growing fainter as they passed through a set of double fire doors.
“Master!! Don’t leave me… MASTER!! I have served…”
Leaning dazedly on Dracula’s arm, Lucille saw the floor tip and yawn up to meet her as she fainted. When she awoke, she was surrounded by the luxurious gleaming black leather interior of a sleek Mercedes limousine. Wrapped in a heavy woollen blanket, she could hear the slow beat of Dracula’s heart beneath her ear and the low purring hum of the car engine. A cut-crystal tumbler containing a generous measure of the finest brandy was pressed into her hand. She sipped at it slowly, coughing as its smooth smoky burn scalded her parched throat.
Warm for the first time in over a fortnight, she felt the strong spirit settle as comfortable fire in her belly. Sighing, she let herself melt against his chest, listening to the Magyar endearments he murmured into her hair. The car cruised onwards, driven by a silent coal-eyed chauffeur in a shiny peaked cap. She did not know or care where their destination was. The last thing she heard before surrendering to exhausted slumber was Dracula’s resonant, quietly triumphant voice.
“Now, Lucille, there is nothing to stop you claiming your legacy.”
Wakey, wakey, sleepy head,” the curly-haired nurse called, throwing back the thin flowery curtains from the barred window. “Breakfast in fifteen minutes.”
A non-violent patient occupied this room, meaning little extras like curtains were permitted. A small, well-stocked bookshelf occupied the wall opposite the bed, and next to that, a compact desk littered with papers. Frowning, square hands on her ample hips, the nurse leaned over the bed.
“C’mon, young lady, no lying-in this morning,” she chided. “Just think of all the nice long chats with your shadow you’ll be missing out on!”
The silver-haired elderly woman in the bed did not stir, blue eyes firmly closed, feathered at the corners by spidery lines. A beauty in her youth, madness and age had robbed her of the inner luminance that had attracted admirers in hordes. Concerned now, the nurse folded back the blanket.
“Wilhemina?” she said anxiously. “Miss Westenra?”
Feeling beneath the patient’s jaw for a pulse, she hung her head and sighed sadly.
“Oh, Mina,” she murmured tearfully. “Why did you have to go and do that for?”
Poking her head around the door, she called for the charge nurse, who rang for a doctor to verify the death. Padding into the room, the charge nurse patted her upset colleague’s arm comfortingly.
“She was old, love, been here for years… shame really, she was a really nice lady during her lucid episodes, and clever, too… well, you’ve seen her books.”
The nurse drew a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose noisily, embarrassed at how much a patient’s death had affected her. One age-spotted hand lay curled on top of the blankets, a scrap of paper crumpled in the palm. Noticing it, the nurse carefully extracted the white paper from the limp fingers. A message was written in black wax crayon.
“Blood is the life no longer, I am free,” she read aloud, looking puzzled. “What d’you suppose that means?”
The charge nurse shrugged and folded her arms, “Haven’t the foggiest… what’s taking that doctor so long? I’ve rounds to do.”
Looking down at Wilhemina Westenra’s seamed face, the subtle contented smile curving her papery lips, the nurse shook her head.
“I don’t know, she was fine yesterday, talking away to herself as usual… I’m sure Dr Carfax checked on her last night. Oh, well.”
The two nurses chatted about the banal until a flustered Hawkins ran in and blurted that there had been an escape, telling them to attend an emergency staff meeting.
“What, right now?” the charge nurse asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Hawkins stammered. “Right now…. does either of you know where we could contact Dr Carfax? He’s not answering his pager or home phone.”
“Excuse me, Dr Hawkins,” the other nurse interjected. “But what about Mina?”
Hawkins looked even more flustered, his left eye twitching rabidly.
“What?! Oh, I’ll deal with that later, she’s not going anywhere,” Hawkins snapped. “Now, the meeting, they’re waiting for us.”
Exchanging glances, the two nurses reluctantly did as they were asked, locking the door behind them as they left. The small room was silent, warming beneath the rays of the steadily rising autumnal sun. The light encroached into the room, striping the bedcovers with brightness, bathing Wilhemina’s still features in a golden wash. It illuminated the twin, almost imperceptible, red crescent wounds marring the flesh of her throat.
(c) Helen C. Murphy, All Rights Reserved
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