Chapter 5

November Fifteenth

Dr. Nolan's thin lips pressed together in distaste as he again hurried down the long, windowless corridor to visit his unwilling charge. He had grown to hate his time with the monster.

He had tried to resign from his position on a number of occasions, but each time the general had refused to accept it. The general had insisted that there was no one else for the job, that Nolan's experience in Pittsburgh combined with his doctorate in biochemistry made him the one and only choice.

The worst part about it was that, despite all of the horrific acts in which they had engaged, they had learned so little about the nature of the beast. The unique cells of the vampire remained a complete mystery. In the presence of injured flesh, they somehow caused rapid, almost instantaneous, mitosis in the surrounding tissue. They did not, however, appear to give off any chemical, protein or radiation that would account for this. In an uninjured, living host the cells were completely dormant, dying out in less than a day. Similarly, when introduced to a dead host, the cells remained quiescent and shortly expired. While they could heal the injuries of an animal, they were never able to take hold fully.

When they were present in sufficient numbers at the moment of a human host's death, however, something amazing occurred. The cells divided at a rate far greater than exponential; a single cell might spontaneously split into five or more, each with the same size and volume as the original. Some of the cells then aligned with, engulfed, and replaced nerve fibers and neural tissues while others moved sluggishly, amoeba-like, through the host's circulatory system, pushing the host's other fluids slowly in front of them.

In this way, the host was restored to a semblance of life, or, at least, necrosis did not occur. Dr. Nolan was still trying to think of a term for the state. It couldn't be called life: there was no respiration; no ATP synthesis; and no elimination or any apparent waste product. In short, the cells violated nearly every principle of biology, chemistry and physics known to man.

After the preliminary results of the study had been released, the general had ordered him to explore the military applications of vampirism. It had soon become clear that he wanted nothing less than a 'super soldier' program; like a cliche from an old X-files.

Again he had protested. In response, the general had pointed out the peaceful applications that might arise from the study. If they could harness the vampire's regenerative abilities, disease, disfigurement, birth defects, cancer, even death itself, would all be things of the past. The general had also carefully explained how ruinous a dismissal from government service could be to a career. To his shame, the carrot and the stick had their intended effect: he had agreed to stay on. Within a week, the first group of aging, hopeful volunteers had arrived. All were men who had once been in one of the nation's Special Forces units, but were now on the verge of retirement. None were married or had other close family. None would be missed.

Following scientific method, Nolan's first task had been to discover how many of the unusual cells were necessary to change a person into a vampire. The quantity had turned out to be surprisingly small. Even so, there had been a number of regrettable errors in the beginning. After receiving the shots - Nolan refused to think about what was in the syringes that didn't contain the cells, but knew that it was likely similar to what was used to execute prisoners by lethal injection - many of those first men had awoken as little more than beasts. After Nolan and Susan took samples and readings, the mindless, raging men were carted away. Nolan didn't like to think about their ultimate fate, but he saw each of their faces in his nightmares every time he slept.

Their first true success had also been a disaster. The medic who had gone to check on the man had found that he had undone the simple straps that had been used to bind him to the gurney. The medic had been attacked without warning. His shouts had attracted the attention of the guards, but the two of them hadn't been able to extricate the medic from the vampire's grasp. Reinforcements had been summoned, but the medic was dead by the time they arrived. Nolan had gotten there just as the grief stricken new vampire had risen from his kill.

Several days later, the new vampire, consumed by guilt, had tried to hang himself. The effort had, of course, failed, but it had taken hours before someone had been able to get close enough to the flailing man to cut him down. There had been talk of leaving him hanging there until dawn, but Nolan wouldn't allow such an unnecessary indignity to be heaped upon the already badly traumatized man.

Nolan had again tried to convince the general to cancel the program. Again he had failed. The general had merely ordered him to use better restraints each time they went through the creation process.

Now there were twenty freshly created vampires; all growing increasingly hungry on their diet of rats. Seven volunteers had been lost as a result of waking up as raging beasts. Another five had not risen at all, for reasons that Nolan could not ascertain. Despite the losses, the joint branch advisory board that the general had implemented had insisted on keeping the program active until there were ten more. The applications in the field, they insisted, were endless.

From an academic point of view, Nolan had to admit that they had learned a great deal more from the new cadre than they had from the monster. First and foremost, it seemed that all of McNelly's grim warnings about mind control and memory alteration were completely unfounded. While a few of the volunteers reported that they were occasionally able to pick up an image from the mind of another, that was the full extent of it. That was not to say, however, that vampirism did not confer certain advantages. The increases in speed, strength and agility were astounding, as was the restoration of youth and rapid regenerative ability.

As he began the procedure to open the outer door to Arthur's prison, he realized that this could very well be the last night that he had to deal with the monster. All of the volunteers had reported a peculiar mental sensation, and the board wanted to know why. With any luck, he wouldn't even need Arthur's cooperation to gain the information the board wanted.

Once that question was answered, the board had given their consent to have Arthur returned to his grave. Nolan was relieved. As dangerous as he knew the new vampires were, there was something about Arthur that disturbed him deeply. As a man of science, he had never believed in the existence of evil, except in terms of relative morality. Arthur had shaken that conviction to the core.

A moment later, as he stared down the barrel of the guard's weapon, he asked, "Did you get the amendments to the access list?"

"Yes, sir," the guard answered.

After carefully comparing Dr. Nolan's ID to his face and the list on the wall, the sergeant gestured toward the latter and lowered his gun. Twisting his head around, Dr. Nolan verified that five names had been appended to the bottom of the list.

That had been another matter upon which the board had vetoed his suggestion. He had recommended that the new vampires not be brought into Arthur's presence. He had argued that they still knew too little about the nature of the beasts to take the risk. The board, in turn, had cited to his report that refuted the existence of any sort of special mental abilities based on a study of the volunteers. While he believed that his report was accurate based on the available evidence, there was still too much they didn't know.

He turned on the lights in Arthur's prison, and then he and the guard used their keys to open the inner door. Dr. Nolan strode quickly across the room; while he still feared Arthur, he had grown confident in the effectiveness of the bonds that held him.

Arthur lifted his head at the doctor's approach, the lead cap that crowned his head clanging dully against the steel support post. "Ahh, good to see you, doctor," he said in the strangely emotionless voice that he had been using for the past month. "I trust you are well this evening." His dull, murky eyes narrowed as he added, "I believe my liver has finished regrowing, if you should need another."

Blanching slightly in shame at Arthur's statement, Nolan blurted out his question, "We have created several vampires using your fluids. Each of them reports a foreign presence in their mind. Each of them can also point unerringly in your direction even if taken blindfolded to a remote location. What can you tell me about this phenomena?"

"I have no idea of what you're talking about, doctor," Arthur replied. "Perhaps it is the result of the unnatural way in which they were created."

"Uh huh," Dr. Nolan said skeptically.

"You have reason to doubt my honesty?" Arthur asked indifferently.

Annoyance overcame Nolan's fear, at least for the moment. "Well, let's see," he replied. "From what you've told me so far, you are somewhere between three years old and thirty million; vampires are either alien invaders, the last of God's angels, souls that escaped from hell, or naturally evolved predators of humanity; you were staked by George Clooney or slipped and happened to fall on a shard of wood; and - hmmm, what else? - oh, you would very much like to brutally violate Miss Wong's anus. I think that pretty much sums up everything you have told us over the past few months. So, do you know why I think you're lying? Because your lips are moving."

"Come now, doctor, that's hardly fair. The last of those observations is certainly true enough."

"Yes, I'm sure it is," Dr. Nolan replied dryly.

They both turned to look as the door to the room opened. Susan entered, pushing a large piece of machinery ahead of her. With only a nod of greeting to Dr. Nolan, she plugged the machine in and extended or otherwise deployed a wide variety of antennas. After flicking a few switches, turning a few dials and pushing a number of buttons, she gazed at the monitors on the top of the device for a few minutes.