Author's Note: Finished this chapter completely now. I'm reading Clive
Barker at the moment hence I'm a little more morbid than I'd normally be.
Also, I had trouble writing from Dr. Murdoch's perspective so the last bit
is a little...uh...forced? Anyway, that is all for now.
Circle Three: In the Hands of Small Children
The parking lot outside the 'Thunder Roadhouse' seemed still save for the occasional drunk who staggered with intoxicated defiance to whatever broken down automobile happened to be their's ... each completely sure they could drive without the actual use of their brain. Nick watched one such fool for a moment, half-bemused, then turned his attention back to Sherry who smiled when she caught his gaze.
God, she was hot.
Any other thought that may have existed in his adolescent male mind melted into one plain and simple assertion: he was looking at the most beautiful girl in the world. The way her hair fell in sweet honey and copper curls made his fingers itch to touch it and that mouth ... his thoughts meandered off to its various possible uses and he grinned. Even the shirt she wore added to her mischievous allure; it was a cute little black thing boasting a zig-zag line of purple-blue sparkles on the chest, the likes of which a pop star like Britney Spears might be seen prancing mindlessly around in.
Nick's body jerked with sudden shock as a screeching wail spewed forth from the mouth of the alleyway next to the 'Roadhouse', poisoning the placid peace of the nighttime air with its venom. At first, it sounded like an animal ... some pitiable creature being horribly torn apart ... then it tapered off into a forlorn little sob which had the sharp and painful ring of a child's miserable weeping.
"What was that?" Sherry's eyes were wide and the mixture of surprise and fear that swirled in their depth made them appear almost dizzy.
"I don't know ... it sounded like a kid," Nick moved towards the source of the hopeless crying, Sherry following a few steps behind.
He peered into the darkness and sure enough saw a wraithlike little form crouching like a serpent in the shadows. The child was sickly pale, its pallor becoming ever more evident in the dancing gloom of the garbage strewn path. It wore only a pair of tattered blue jeans and was bare chested ... it was so woefully thin that its ribs were visible, jutting out sharply beneath the child's drawn and wan flesh. When it stood Nick saw that its face was eerily gaunt, the eyes sunken to the point that dark smudges of grey and purple encircled them ... and it wore a strangely blissful smile on its blue-tinged lips which sent a shiver of terror trickling down his spine.
"Hi," he said gently, taking a few calculated steps into the alley. He told himself that it was stupid to be afraid of a little kid, especially one that looked like a strong breeze might break him in two, yet his trepidation was obvious in the slowness of his motions. It was stupid ... but he was terrified none the less. "You alright little guy? Did someone hurt you?"
Its small face crumpled with sudden sadness; a saccharine mockery of human emotion like the ghastly grin of a clown mask. "Y-y-yes," its narrow chest hitched. "I'm so scared," it lowered its head somewhat, making its dirty dark curls fumble forward into its face, and its bottom lip trembled a little.
"Nick don't," Sherry caught his arm as he tried to approach the boy. "If something's wrong we can go and get help, okay?"
He shrugged out of her grip. "It's just a kid, what's there to be scared of?" he said, more to assure himself than her, and closed the distance between he and the child ... leaving Sherry to simply gape after him helplessly.
It lunged, taking him off his feet with little effort. He felt it on him, all teeth and claws, tearing into his throat, ripping at his shirt, shredding the skin beneath the fabric like damp paper. He thrashed uselessly beneath the small, gruesome creature even as the pain began to make the realm of consciousness diluted and unreal. His cries were silenced by the tiny palm pressed against his lips and soon the darkness consumed the last vestiges of his mind.
...
Sherry couldn't move ... couldn't think. Terror had choked whatever screams she might have mustered, strangling them savagely in her throat. A peculiar paralysis diffused through her body making her legs ignore the need to run, her tongue dumb and her eyes wide with horror. She could only stare, morbidly transfixed, at the nightmare before her.
The little creature knelt on Nick's chest, the fingers of one of its babyish hands tangled tenderly in his hair, holding his head at an awkward ... broken ... angle. It made sickly little wet noises as it licked and bit at the wound it had torn in his poor neck, sounding almost as though it were chewing raw meat.
The child lifted its blood spattered face and pressed its small bow of a mouth to Nick's in what seemed a sadistic and disgusting parody of a goodnight kiss. When it drew back, however, she saw it had clamped the tip of Nick's tongue between its teeth, stretching the flesh grotesquely like warm taffy until it finally tore with a sick ripping sound. The child tilted its head back, letting the appendage slide down its throat like a snake swallowing a rodent, then it turned to her and it smiled.
Sherry found her voice then.
And she began to scream.
Circle Four: Plip
Murdoch's office looked much like a wasteland; a devastated graveyard where essays and poorly done book reports went to die. He stood at the window with his shoulders drawn into an anguished line and body slumping somewhat ... looking little better than the papers that were strewn atop his desk.
He had received the call little over an hour ago and still he found himself reeling from the news. It was always heart wrenching when someone so young died, but it seemed especially disturbing when it was so violently. He wasn't sure whether or not it was a blessing that Sherry had screamed loudly enough to draw attention to the situation ... in death she might have been spared the nightmares that were sure to come after what he was told she had been witness to.
That was a morbid thought, he scolded himself. Of course living was better, wasn't it? He closed his eyes against the light in the room which, through his liquid and grieving eyes, suddenly seemed much too bright.
"Reginald Murdoch," the voice was familiar but he still jumped, shocked despite his normal demeanor of composure. He turned to see Marian Hackett, harshly blond with features seeming, as always, oddly cruel and sharp. Her clothing was dark, a black leather vest pulled over a turtleneck and inky colored pants ... she looked like some sort of huntress or perhaps a dominatrix.
"What can I do for you Miss Hackett?" he knew his voice sounded choked and he honestly didn't care. She had no right to be here. She never did. She was a parasite and he'd never loathed her so instinctively and completely as he did in that instant.
Her face was unreadable as slunk into the room, moving like a shadow. "You, of course know there was a vampire attack tonight ... a boy was killed," she lay three photos on the desk, splaying them like a deck of playing cards. All of them were horrible, bloody, death scenes where Nick lay utterly broken and discarded, looking so ... small. Murdoch felt his stomach clench into a sickly fist as he gaped at the phantom images then at the female-reaper that had laid them out before him.
"Why in heaven's name would you..."
"Sometimes getting information requires visual aids," she looked at him with dispassion. "Perhaps now you'll be willing to tell me what you know about the vampire infestation in this place ... before something like this can happen again," she added the last bit with a slick of venom to her tone.
His hands clenched into fists so violently that his nails bit the flesh of his palms, "Get out of my office."
Her brow furrowed, "I am a Federal..."
"You are a Federal pain in my ass!" he cut her off mid-sentence, shocking himself more than he had startled her with his sudden use of profanity. His voice struggled to full volume when he spoke again, "Now leave before I have you forcibly removed, Miss Hackett."
She gaped at him for a moment, as if she suspected some parade of clowns might at any moment pounce out from behind his desk and pronounce that the earth was indeed flat, then she turned on her heels. "I'll be back with a warrant, you will regret this Dr. Murdoch."
"As I generally regret any interaction with you," he spat. "Good day, Miss Hackett."
The woman made a small disgusted noise as she exited the room and Murdoch sat down at his desk, cradling his head in his hands. He wanted to banish the horrible images that had been etched into the surface of his thoughts but they persisted as incessantly as the sting of a paper cut.
Finally, drawing a quavering breath, he lifted his gaze to see the repulsive pictures still lay on his desk, their glossy surfaces gleaming in the glow the lamps. He resisted the urge to destroy them ... though, it would have been so simple to just throw them in the trash or run them through the 'shredder'. Carefully, after suppressing the urge to retch, he examined the images.
The boy's head was turned so that his cheek lay on the pavement, his eyes were bleak and staring ... and his mouth hung open so that a thin line of drool and blood was faintly visible drizzling from the corner of his slack lips. Murdoch flinched his gaze away from Nick's face to his throat; the wounds there were the tiny punctures that were the signature of a vampire bite. However, upon closer inspection he guessed that they were little over an inch apart. That in and of itself wasn't odd, he deduced, the bite had just been caused by a creature with a smaller and more delicate jaw. His mind mulled over this simple idea for a moment, thrusting forth a few varied hypothesis ... it was perhaps a female vampire or...
Or a child.
Merrill's vague and troubled description of what she had seen in Drew's mind hit him then with all the fury of a Mac Truck. 'It was a like a child calling to him,' she had muttered, her words bleeding into a monotonous litany, 'but it was so... so full of hate.'
He was struck with the force of the revelation.
Reality slowed to a lurch before him as his thoughts whirred on. He pulled his hair back with the haphazard rake of one hand's splayed fingers, then stood, groping blindly for the vulgar images that lay atop his desk. He clutched the pictures for a moment, holding them like they were utterly alien to his eyes and touch, then tossed the vile things into the trash-bin which swallowed them up hungrily with a mouth of discarded papers.
When the world again seemed to move at a steady pace before his eyes, he walked towards the ornate shield which marked the entrance to the wine cellar. He pressed an age-weathered hand to its cool, metal surface and gave it an almost too violent twist. His efforts were greeted with a familiar grind of gears as the entrance unlocked and he stepped into the murky stairwell.
He took a few confused steps downward before he found his balance; too wrapped up in his thoughts to notice the form that was climbing the stairs before him.
"Dr. Murdoch?" Essie's voice shattered his concentration.
The darkness made her face a vague and haunting image of white skin and dark eyes. He stared at her, dumbstruck and almost ... repulsed. It wasn't the girl herself that made him inwardly recoil ... it was her nature, that subtle shadow of evil that tainted her blood and made her what she was. He tried to find words but his mouth refused and his tongue stumbled.
"I have to talk to you," she pressed.
"Essie I don't have the time just now..."
Her face changed in the shadows as she took another step towards him, it was sorrowful and concerned ... the expression that a child which was about to ask him where people went when they died might wear. Whatever revulsion he'd felt at her presence faded to the fatherly compassion she and the others always invoked within him.
"It's about Drew ... about what he heard," she toiled to find the right words and her features creased with thought.
"Go on," he said gently, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"He heard his dead brother's voice," she concluded. "He ... he killed the boy the night he was made or ... or at least he thought he did ..."
The images and thoughts, which had a moment ago been disjointed and ill-formed in his mind, came together with an abrupt and painful click ... like a broken bone being jerked back into place and set.
...they were indeed dealing with a child vampire.
Oh god ... The vile little creatures were the least human among vampiric kind simply because of their youth upon creation. Their morals died as their ties to the mortal world faded into bloodlust and, often, madness. However, it was rare that one survived beyond their first few nights of life ... most, in their infantile innocence, stumbled out into the sun and perished or simply starved to death.
How had this wretch stayed alive without the nurturing of an elder vampire? He supposed that didn't matter ... at the moment only one option of any consequence surfaced through the whirlwind of his thoughts.
It had to be destroyed.
Murdoch pressed a hand against the wall to steady himself, fear drizzling through him slow and dizzying as a snake's venom.
Circle Three: In the Hands of Small Children
The parking lot outside the 'Thunder Roadhouse' seemed still save for the occasional drunk who staggered with intoxicated defiance to whatever broken down automobile happened to be their's ... each completely sure they could drive without the actual use of their brain. Nick watched one such fool for a moment, half-bemused, then turned his attention back to Sherry who smiled when she caught his gaze.
God, she was hot.
Any other thought that may have existed in his adolescent male mind melted into one plain and simple assertion: he was looking at the most beautiful girl in the world. The way her hair fell in sweet honey and copper curls made his fingers itch to touch it and that mouth ... his thoughts meandered off to its various possible uses and he grinned. Even the shirt she wore added to her mischievous allure; it was a cute little black thing boasting a zig-zag line of purple-blue sparkles on the chest, the likes of which a pop star like Britney Spears might be seen prancing mindlessly around in.
Nick's body jerked with sudden shock as a screeching wail spewed forth from the mouth of the alleyway next to the 'Roadhouse', poisoning the placid peace of the nighttime air with its venom. At first, it sounded like an animal ... some pitiable creature being horribly torn apart ... then it tapered off into a forlorn little sob which had the sharp and painful ring of a child's miserable weeping.
"What was that?" Sherry's eyes were wide and the mixture of surprise and fear that swirled in their depth made them appear almost dizzy.
"I don't know ... it sounded like a kid," Nick moved towards the source of the hopeless crying, Sherry following a few steps behind.
He peered into the darkness and sure enough saw a wraithlike little form crouching like a serpent in the shadows. The child was sickly pale, its pallor becoming ever more evident in the dancing gloom of the garbage strewn path. It wore only a pair of tattered blue jeans and was bare chested ... it was so woefully thin that its ribs were visible, jutting out sharply beneath the child's drawn and wan flesh. When it stood Nick saw that its face was eerily gaunt, the eyes sunken to the point that dark smudges of grey and purple encircled them ... and it wore a strangely blissful smile on its blue-tinged lips which sent a shiver of terror trickling down his spine.
"Hi," he said gently, taking a few calculated steps into the alley. He told himself that it was stupid to be afraid of a little kid, especially one that looked like a strong breeze might break him in two, yet his trepidation was obvious in the slowness of his motions. It was stupid ... but he was terrified none the less. "You alright little guy? Did someone hurt you?"
Its small face crumpled with sudden sadness; a saccharine mockery of human emotion like the ghastly grin of a clown mask. "Y-y-yes," its narrow chest hitched. "I'm so scared," it lowered its head somewhat, making its dirty dark curls fumble forward into its face, and its bottom lip trembled a little.
"Nick don't," Sherry caught his arm as he tried to approach the boy. "If something's wrong we can go and get help, okay?"
He shrugged out of her grip. "It's just a kid, what's there to be scared of?" he said, more to assure himself than her, and closed the distance between he and the child ... leaving Sherry to simply gape after him helplessly.
It lunged, taking him off his feet with little effort. He felt it on him, all teeth and claws, tearing into his throat, ripping at his shirt, shredding the skin beneath the fabric like damp paper. He thrashed uselessly beneath the small, gruesome creature even as the pain began to make the realm of consciousness diluted and unreal. His cries were silenced by the tiny palm pressed against his lips and soon the darkness consumed the last vestiges of his mind.
...
Sherry couldn't move ... couldn't think. Terror had choked whatever screams she might have mustered, strangling them savagely in her throat. A peculiar paralysis diffused through her body making her legs ignore the need to run, her tongue dumb and her eyes wide with horror. She could only stare, morbidly transfixed, at the nightmare before her.
The little creature knelt on Nick's chest, the fingers of one of its babyish hands tangled tenderly in his hair, holding his head at an awkward ... broken ... angle. It made sickly little wet noises as it licked and bit at the wound it had torn in his poor neck, sounding almost as though it were chewing raw meat.
The child lifted its blood spattered face and pressed its small bow of a mouth to Nick's in what seemed a sadistic and disgusting parody of a goodnight kiss. When it drew back, however, she saw it had clamped the tip of Nick's tongue between its teeth, stretching the flesh grotesquely like warm taffy until it finally tore with a sick ripping sound. The child tilted its head back, letting the appendage slide down its throat like a snake swallowing a rodent, then it turned to her and it smiled.
Sherry found her voice then.
And she began to scream.
Circle Four: Plip
Murdoch's office looked much like a wasteland; a devastated graveyard where essays and poorly done book reports went to die. He stood at the window with his shoulders drawn into an anguished line and body slumping somewhat ... looking little better than the papers that were strewn atop his desk.
He had received the call little over an hour ago and still he found himself reeling from the news. It was always heart wrenching when someone so young died, but it seemed especially disturbing when it was so violently. He wasn't sure whether or not it was a blessing that Sherry had screamed loudly enough to draw attention to the situation ... in death she might have been spared the nightmares that were sure to come after what he was told she had been witness to.
That was a morbid thought, he scolded himself. Of course living was better, wasn't it? He closed his eyes against the light in the room which, through his liquid and grieving eyes, suddenly seemed much too bright.
"Reginald Murdoch," the voice was familiar but he still jumped, shocked despite his normal demeanor of composure. He turned to see Marian Hackett, harshly blond with features seeming, as always, oddly cruel and sharp. Her clothing was dark, a black leather vest pulled over a turtleneck and inky colored pants ... she looked like some sort of huntress or perhaps a dominatrix.
"What can I do for you Miss Hackett?" he knew his voice sounded choked and he honestly didn't care. She had no right to be here. She never did. She was a parasite and he'd never loathed her so instinctively and completely as he did in that instant.
Her face was unreadable as slunk into the room, moving like a shadow. "You, of course know there was a vampire attack tonight ... a boy was killed," she lay three photos on the desk, splaying them like a deck of playing cards. All of them were horrible, bloody, death scenes where Nick lay utterly broken and discarded, looking so ... small. Murdoch felt his stomach clench into a sickly fist as he gaped at the phantom images then at the female-reaper that had laid them out before him.
"Why in heaven's name would you..."
"Sometimes getting information requires visual aids," she looked at him with dispassion. "Perhaps now you'll be willing to tell me what you know about the vampire infestation in this place ... before something like this can happen again," she added the last bit with a slick of venom to her tone.
His hands clenched into fists so violently that his nails bit the flesh of his palms, "Get out of my office."
Her brow furrowed, "I am a Federal..."
"You are a Federal pain in my ass!" he cut her off mid-sentence, shocking himself more than he had startled her with his sudden use of profanity. His voice struggled to full volume when he spoke again, "Now leave before I have you forcibly removed, Miss Hackett."
She gaped at him for a moment, as if she suspected some parade of clowns might at any moment pounce out from behind his desk and pronounce that the earth was indeed flat, then she turned on her heels. "I'll be back with a warrant, you will regret this Dr. Murdoch."
"As I generally regret any interaction with you," he spat. "Good day, Miss Hackett."
The woman made a small disgusted noise as she exited the room and Murdoch sat down at his desk, cradling his head in his hands. He wanted to banish the horrible images that had been etched into the surface of his thoughts but they persisted as incessantly as the sting of a paper cut.
Finally, drawing a quavering breath, he lifted his gaze to see the repulsive pictures still lay on his desk, their glossy surfaces gleaming in the glow the lamps. He resisted the urge to destroy them ... though, it would have been so simple to just throw them in the trash or run them through the 'shredder'. Carefully, after suppressing the urge to retch, he examined the images.
The boy's head was turned so that his cheek lay on the pavement, his eyes were bleak and staring ... and his mouth hung open so that a thin line of drool and blood was faintly visible drizzling from the corner of his slack lips. Murdoch flinched his gaze away from Nick's face to his throat; the wounds there were the tiny punctures that were the signature of a vampire bite. However, upon closer inspection he guessed that they were little over an inch apart. That in and of itself wasn't odd, he deduced, the bite had just been caused by a creature with a smaller and more delicate jaw. His mind mulled over this simple idea for a moment, thrusting forth a few varied hypothesis ... it was perhaps a female vampire or...
Or a child.
Merrill's vague and troubled description of what she had seen in Drew's mind hit him then with all the fury of a Mac Truck. 'It was a like a child calling to him,' she had muttered, her words bleeding into a monotonous litany, 'but it was so... so full of hate.'
He was struck with the force of the revelation.
Reality slowed to a lurch before him as his thoughts whirred on. He pulled his hair back with the haphazard rake of one hand's splayed fingers, then stood, groping blindly for the vulgar images that lay atop his desk. He clutched the pictures for a moment, holding them like they were utterly alien to his eyes and touch, then tossed the vile things into the trash-bin which swallowed them up hungrily with a mouth of discarded papers.
When the world again seemed to move at a steady pace before his eyes, he walked towards the ornate shield which marked the entrance to the wine cellar. He pressed an age-weathered hand to its cool, metal surface and gave it an almost too violent twist. His efforts were greeted with a familiar grind of gears as the entrance unlocked and he stepped into the murky stairwell.
He took a few confused steps downward before he found his balance; too wrapped up in his thoughts to notice the form that was climbing the stairs before him.
"Dr. Murdoch?" Essie's voice shattered his concentration.
The darkness made her face a vague and haunting image of white skin and dark eyes. He stared at her, dumbstruck and almost ... repulsed. It wasn't the girl herself that made him inwardly recoil ... it was her nature, that subtle shadow of evil that tainted her blood and made her what she was. He tried to find words but his mouth refused and his tongue stumbled.
"I have to talk to you," she pressed.
"Essie I don't have the time just now..."
Her face changed in the shadows as she took another step towards him, it was sorrowful and concerned ... the expression that a child which was about to ask him where people went when they died might wear. Whatever revulsion he'd felt at her presence faded to the fatherly compassion she and the others always invoked within him.
"It's about Drew ... about what he heard," she toiled to find the right words and her features creased with thought.
"Go on," he said gently, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"He heard his dead brother's voice," she concluded. "He ... he killed the boy the night he was made or ... or at least he thought he did ..."
The images and thoughts, which had a moment ago been disjointed and ill-formed in his mind, came together with an abrupt and painful click ... like a broken bone being jerked back into place and set.
...they were indeed dealing with a child vampire.
Oh god ... The vile little creatures were the least human among vampiric kind simply because of their youth upon creation. Their morals died as their ties to the mortal world faded into bloodlust and, often, madness. However, it was rare that one survived beyond their first few nights of life ... most, in their infantile innocence, stumbled out into the sun and perished or simply starved to death.
How had this wretch stayed alive without the nurturing of an elder vampire? He supposed that didn't matter ... at the moment only one option of any consequence surfaced through the whirlwind of his thoughts.
It had to be destroyed.
Murdoch pressed a hand against the wall to steady himself, fear drizzling through him slow and dizzying as a snake's venom.