The Fangs of Bloodhaven (10 page)

“Almost,” the doctor conceded.

“So,” Everett continued, watching Dr. Transton closely. “I haven’t changed. Why did you?”

Dr. Transton nodded as if pleased with something. “That may be the best question you could have asked.” He fell quiet for a moment, then said, “I want to show you something.”

Chapter Nine

Dr. Transton walked back to the elevator and stepped inside. He put his finger to a small metal square above the set of floor buttons. To Everett’s amazement numbers lit up above the first ten ranging from eleven to thirty-three.

“There aren’t that many floors,” Everett said, staring at the numbers. “Outside, I counted ten. There can’t be thirty-three.”

Dr. Transton pushed the button for floor thirty-two without replying. The elevator started up.

“This place just keeps getting weirder,” Everett said under his breath.

He saw Dr. Transton smile out of the corner of his eye.

The elevator stopped at floor thirty-two and dinged. The doors slid open. The room revealed was fairly normal. Couches, chairs, a video screen, and a small dining area took up the majority of the space. Pictures hung on the walls and sat on shelves. In appearances, it looked like a normal apartment flat.

Then the smell hit Everett. He covered his nose with one hand at the assault of decay. The scent of rotting corpse made his eyes water. He glanced at Dr. Transton, worried at the dismay he would see on the doctor’s face at the fact that one of their tenants had died.

“You get used to it,” the doctor said quietly without looking at him.

The human walked into the room, his footsteps soft on the thick beige carpet.

Everett followed, keeping his nose plugged and breathing shallow; even so, the scent of death permeated everything.

“Monique?” Dr. Transton called. His voice was soft and gentle. He paused near the tiled kitchenette. “Monique, sweetheart, where are you?”

Everett stopped near him, unsure what to do. A moment later, a small groan emitted from a room that branched off of the main one.

“That’s it, darling. Come say hi,” Dr. Transton said.

The sound of slow, shuffling footsteps followed.

Everett glanced at the doctor, wondering what he was about to see. The footsteps drew closer and a face emerged from the shadows. Everett fought back the urge to run.

The girl’s features were twisted and hanging as though they had been made of wax and then left in the sunlight. Her eyes were dull and didn’t look at anything in particular. Her hair, a dirty blonde color, hung limp and tangled about her shoulders. The tee-shirt and pants she wore did little to hide the way her skin hung from the bones, gray and discolored, and in places torn and gaping.

“S-she’s a...” Everett couldn’t say the word.

“A zombie,” Dr. Transton completed in a voice just above a whisper. He cleared his throat and smiled. “That’s it, Monique. Good girl. It’s good to see you.”

To Everett’s dismay, the doctor then crossed to the zombie and gave her a loose hug. The zombie made no move to return the embrace. Her arms appeared locked at the joints, able to move only slightly with a lift of the shoulders. The scent of decay rose with Dr. Transton’s hug.

“Did you have a good day?” he asked when he stepped back.

A soft moan replied. Her mouth didn’t move, but the sound emanated from behind her rotten teeth.

“Good, good,” the doctor replied, patting her shoulder softly. “I’m glad to hear it.”

He glanced back at Everett as if he just remembered the vampire’s presence. The doctor gave him a small, sad smile.

“Everett, Monique. Monique, this is Everett. He’s the vampire I told you about.”

Another low moan followed.

Dr. Transton chuckled. “Yes, the one I chased from the Asylum. You were right; I acted hastily. But can you blame me?”

Her teeth closed together with a sound that sent a chill up Everett’s spine. His feet were frozen to the floor. If she came after him, he didn’t know if he would be able to run.

Dr. Transton looked out the closest window. “It’s about that time, sweetheart. Should we head to the roof?”

The zombie didn’t answer, but she began her shuffling steps once more. Though the progress was slow, all Everett could do was watch as she drew near. Every fiber in his body screamed for him to run, to fight, to do anything but let her touch him or bite him. The stories he had heard about zombies after the Ending War flooded his mind, tales of terror and fear that usually ended with fire engulfing the creatures.

His muscles tensed as his fight or flight instincts kicked in. He was about to run when he noticed the look on Dr. Transton’s face.

The doctor watched him as Monique drew near. There was fear on his face, stark fear as though he didn’t know what to do, but the fear wasn’t for Everett’s sake. Instead, the all-encompassing worry he saw in Dr. Transton’s eyes was for the zombie. The closer she drew to him, the deeper the doctor’s fear became. It looked as though Dr. Transton feared he would snap Monique’s neck or set her on fire and he wouldn’t be able to reach them in time.

Realization that he was filled with the same prejudices that had caused Dr. Transton to banish him from the Asylum hit Everett hard. He didn’t know anything about zombies other than what he had been told as a child. The books in his father’s library had barely made mention of them, and the only stories were filled with terror. The voice in the back of his mind noted that the same thing applied to what he had read about vampires.

Everett took a calming breath. He pulled his lips up in a small, tight smile that didn’t show his teeth.

“Hello, Monique. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said carefully.

The zombie let out a breathy moan and she shuffled past Everett without looking at him. He didn’t turn at the sigh of relief the doctor didn’t quite stifle. When Dr. Transton followed Monique, Everett fell in behind him. The doctor pushed the up button on the elevator, waited until the zombie made her slow way inside, and pushed the button for floor thirty-three.

The smell of decay that filled the elevator made it hard to breathe. Everett was about to hold his nose when he noticed the doctor merely subtly breathing through his mouth. Determined to keep making strides with Dr. Transton, Everett did the same. It didn’t do much to lessen the stench, but kept him from passing out before the door opened again.

Monique gave a quiet moan and shuffled out. Her arm hit on the side of the elevator door, but she didn’t appear to feel it. The full force of her very meager attention was on the pair of glass doors set in a glass wall halfway across the room. Everett looked up to find more glass above them. All of the walls to the doors were made of glass squares, rectangles, triangles, and octagons. The effect was a wash of pale radiance from the half moon and starlight above.

A light shot across the glass, then another. Everett stared in awe at the tiny shooting stars trailing from one pane of glass to the other. It was beautiful, but didn’t make sense.

“How does the glass do that?” he asked.

“Magic,” Dr. Transton replied, his attention on the zombie.

“Magic?” Everett repeated doubtfully. “Magic isn’t real.”

“Neither are vampires,” the doctor said. Before Everett could reply, Dr. Transton held up a hand. “Patience, Everett. Look.”

Everett followed his gaze.

Monique had reached the glass doors. They slid open automatically. The instant the undiluted moonlight touched her skin, Monique changed. It wasn’t as though her rotten skin and appearance disappeared, but another image settled over her. Her blonde hair shimmered, her gray skin glowed, and her gaze softened with her smile. It was as if, with the moonlight, Everett was able to see Monique as she had been before she was turned into a zombie.

She put out her hands, her arms bending at the elbows as they hadn’t been able to do inside. Monique lifted her chin and turned in a circle. The girl who had been a zombie danced in the light of the moon.

Everett barely dared to breathe for fear of breaking the spell. He swore he had never seen anything as beautiful as the girl who twirled and walked on her tiptoes, pirouetting in time to music only she could hear.

“That’s my little girl,” Dr. Transton said.

Everett glanced at him and saw tears brimming in the doctor’s eyes.

“What happened to her?” he asked.

Dr. Transton was quiet for so long Everett didn’t think he would answer. The doctor’s gaze remained on his daughter, following Monique’s graceful dance across the rooftop.

“Do you know how zombies are made?” the doctor finally asked.

It hadn’t been in Everett’s reading. He wished, not for the first time, that his father had been interested in studying monsters instead of plants and insects. It certainly would have made his life a lot easier. He shook his head.

Dr. Transton glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “A zombie is made when a vampire bites a human.”

The words hit Everett with the force of a battering ram. He didn’t know what to say or do. Memories swarmed. He saw a familiar face and heard a laugh. He shook his head and it drifted away. The emotions that rose with it refused to go away as easily.

“I know what you’ve probably heard in fairy tales, but this is the reality,” Dr. Transton said quietly.

A thick silence settled between them.

Monique didn’t appear to tire. She covered every inch of the walled-in roof with her graceful dance. She never looked at the pair or acknowledged their presence. Her steps didn’t slow until gray touched the edges of the sky. As dawn rose and washed out the moonlight, Monique’s movements became jerky and rough. A moan finally escaped her at the early sunlight that broke free of the horizon. Without a backwards look, she made her shuffling way back inside the glass room.

Everett barely flinched when she shuffled past them without appearing to even notice they were there. Her otherworldly glow had vanished, leaving the glassy-eyed, decaying monster. She made it to the elevator and waited for the door to open, moaning every once in a while quietly.

“How does the moon do that?” Everett asked.

Dr. Transton shook his head. “I’m not sure. I’ve studied it for years in the hopes of capturing or prolonging the effects, but to no avail.”

“Can you talk to her when she’s, um, transformed?” Everett pressed.

The sorrow on the doctor’s face was answer enough. He dropped his gaze and said, “She’s not there, not the way she was before. What we get to see is only a shell of her former self. The grace which was her defining asset remains somewhere within her soul, but that is all that’s left.”

Sadness hit Everett hard. He couldn’t imagine being a father and watching something like that happen to his daughter. He followed the doctor to the elevator.

“That’s why you built the Monster Asylum,” he said.

Dr. Transton nodded wordlessly and pushed the button to go down. They paused at the thirty-second floor and Monique shuffled off.

“Goodbye, sweetheart,” Dr. Transton said. “I’ll see you again tonight.”

Monique made her way across the floor without acknowledging that her father had spoken.

When the elevator doors closed again, Everett didn’t know what to say. The doctor pushed the button for the bottom floor. By the time the doors opened again, Everett still hadn’t come up with a response to what he had seen. The fact that his kind was responsible for Monique’s condition had hit hard. He couldn’t help the guilt that washed over him.

He stepped out and took two steps down the dark, musty hallway when Dr. Transton’s voice stopped him.

“You can come back whenever you want.”

Everett turned and stared. “Are you sure? After your daughter, I can’t blame you for not wanting vampires anywhere near here.”

A small but kind smile touched the doctor’s lips. “You’re different, Everett. Adrielle tried to tell me that, and so did you, but I didn’t want to believe it. The way you sacrificed yourself to save that boy convinced me.”

“I didn’t do it to convince you of anything,” Everett replied quietly.

Dr. Transton nodded. “I know. That’s why you can come back, but you’ve got to promise me you’ll keep this place a secret from everyone. You can’t tell a soul. The fate of everyone here depends on it.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Everett promised. He turned and started toward the door. He paused about halfway there. “What’s the password to get in? Xander said we’re not supposed to come in without a password.”

The doctor’s eyes creased at the corners in humor. “Vampires are the enemy.”

“Vampires are the enemy,” Everett repeated. No wonder Adrielle hadn’t used the password when she showed him the Asylum; it wouldn’t exactly have started the tour off on a good note.

Dr. Transton pushed the button for the elevator. When Everett reached the door, he hesitated with a hand on it.

“Thanks for letting me in,” he told Xander.

The ogren appeared surprised at being addressed. He gave what sounded like a pleased grunt. “Welcome.”

Everett pushed the door open. It shut behind him with a resounding thud. He looked up, expecting to see thirty-three stories. Instead, only ten showed above the alley. Everett shook his head in amazement and hurried to the closest tunnel entrance before the sunlight became too bright.