Chapter 11
Sunday, December 22nd
8: 34 P. M.
The vampires woke up a little later than usual, due to the crisis that afternoon. As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, Doc felt the familiar thirst come over him. "Did George leave that bottle down here?" he muttered, looking around.
Mysteria looked around too. "Guess not. We'll have to head upstairs."
"The stuff tastes horrible cold anyway," Doc admitted. "I hope the McFlys can postpone their questioning until after we've fed."
They exited the basement to find Marty waiting for them. "You overslept," he announced with a fiendish grin. Doc was always teasing him about sleeping late.
"I can afford to," Doc shot back. "I assume your family's waiting."
"You bet. Jenny and I told them about the blood, so Mom warmed up two cups for you. They were so relieved to find out it wasn't human."
"Great! I'm hungry," Mysteria said as they entered the living room.
"I know. Your eyes are glowing." Marty looked at Doc curiously. "What causes that, anyway?"
"I don't know," Doc admitted, smiling at the rest of the McFlys and Jennifer.
"It's spooky," Linda shivered.
"They'll become dark again as soon as I get something to drink." He happily accepted his cup from Lorraine. "Thank you for warming it."
"I figured that you wouldn't want to drink cold blood," Lorraine shrugged. Doc and Mysteria drained their cups in one gulp. "Why wasn't it all gooey?"
"Special anticoagulant," Mystie told her. "A few drops of my own blood. Vampire blood never coagulates, so it prevents the rest of the blood from doing so."
George was jiggling his leg impatiently. On his lap he was balancing a notepad. "Notes?" Mystie asked. "George...."
"Okay, okay, no notes." With immense reluctance, he put the notepad aside. Doc and Mystie sat down, wondering how to begin. "So," Doc said, "what do you already know about vampires?"
"They drink blood," Dave said immediately.
"They can fly," Linda said, dreamily.
"They can change into bats and other animals," Lorraine offered.
"They don't have a reflection, they have fangs, they have to sleep on their native soil," George said with confidence. "And they can't have sex."
"No sex?" Mysteria repeated.
"Well, the guys at least can't have sex. And you can't go to the bathroom either."
"Where are you getting your information?" Doc demanded.
"Fred Saberhagen!"
"Fred Saberhagen writes vampire books?" Mysteria said, surprised. "I thought he only wrote the 'Berserker' series."
"If Dad says Fred Saberhagen writes vampire books, Fred Saberhagen writes vampire books," Marty promised her.
"He worships the man," Lorraine added.
"At the risk of committing heresy, Fred Saberhagen is wrong, George," Doc said. "I still go to the bathroom regularly. And, as far as I know, I can still- perform."
"I'm sure of it. I've had sex with male vampires before," Mysteria said. "Sorry to burst your bubble."
"It's all right," George said, a little disappointment in his voice. "What is true about vampires?"
"You can forget a lot of the superstitions about us. We reflect in mirrors and all of that. Garlic does bother us, but it won't make us deathly ill. In fact, only George's 'fangs' and Linda's 'can fly' apply to real vampires."
"You can fly? How?" Linda squealed.
Doc unfolded his wings through slits he had cut in his shirt for the purpose. The four McFlys gaped. "It's a genetic mutation," Doc shrugged. "Vampis Vireria changes a vampire's DNA code, and this is one of the various mutations we experience."
"What the hell is Vampis Vireria?" Dave asked.
"It's what causes vampirism. I discovered it in a medical lab I've been visiting on the sly."
"So that's where you go in the DeLorean," George nodded, understanding. "But what is a vireria? I've only heard of viruses and bacteria."
"I had too, which is why the disease puzzled me so at first. A vireria acts like both a virus and a bacteria. During the initial infection, it causes a flu-like illness, much like a virus. But after the infection is complete, it simply lives in the blood, like a bacteria, reproducing itself only occasionally. I named it Vampis Vireria for obvious reasons."
"Apparently, it can also kill you and bring you back to life," Lorraine commented.
"Nuh-huh. Emmett was alive those 3 days he was buried. Only a vampire could tell, though."
"Doc, I'm really sorry for burying you," George apologized.
"It's okay, George. You didn't know. It was frightening, waking up in a grave, but it could have been worse. I could have woken up in the morgue and killed someone."
"Or while you were being embalmed," Linda added.
"Don't remind me."
"Why didn't Dr. Conner tell us about this? When he called, he said you were fine."
"I hypnotized him into saying that," Mystie confessed. "I didn't want him to know."
"All sorts of interesting things happen to a vampire once it has changed," Doc said, only too ready to discuss his findings. "Only recently I had the chance to autopsy a vampire body."
"Where'd you get a vampire body?" asked Jennifer.
Doc smiled, almost evilly. "What do you think happened to Sucker?"
"Who's Sucker?"
"The vampire who made me what I am and tried to kill Marty. I studied him after I staked him."
"You must have really hated him," Mysteria commented. "Vampires don't die when they're staked," she added for the McFly's benefit.
"Or beheaded," Doc added helpfully. Everyone looked at him strangely. "I'm serious! I tested it. The cells grow back together when a limb or the head is replaced. I believe all the cells in the vampire body are capable of extreme rapid growth, so all of our various systems are regenerative. We can grow back what we've lost."
"What else? This is interesting," George said, trying to sneak his notepad back onto his lap. Mystie gave him a warning look.
Doc snapped into 'Scientific Lecture' mode. "The nervous system is not much affected by Vampis Vireria. The only change I observed was when I cut a nerve. It immediately grew together again, which isn't possible in human bodies.
"The digestive system is the most radically changed. The vireria is able to neutralize the stomach acid, so the stomach functions as little more than a holding pouch. Most of the small intestine and all of the large atrophies from disuse, as blood is a food that can be digested almost perfectly. Since no solids are taken in, there is no solid waste in the body. The liver, kidneys, and bladder all remain normal, though.
"In regards to the circulatory/respiratory system, the one major change is to the blood. The hemoglobin is thicker and darker than normal, and there is an increased number of white blood cells and platelets. This means that whenever an injury is taken or an illness caught, it is immediately dealt with and healed or cured. The blood is also where Vampis Vireria lives in its bacterial stage.
"The muscular system is much changed. 75% of the muscles are of the fast-twitch variety, as opposed to 50% for humans. All of the muscles can stretch farther and for longer, allowing superhuman feats of strength. Extra muscles devoted to flight develop in the chest and back.
"As I mentioned before, all our cuts heal instantly due to advanced cellular growth. The same holds for the bones. They possess denser outer layers, but the inside is hollow, an adaptation for flight. In regards to the skin, the epidermis is about a cell thicker than normal.
"For the senses, our pupils can hyperdilate to see in perfect darkness, and we have more rods than cones in our eyes. Both the ears and nose have twice the number of receptor cells. The skin is hypersensitive to touch and pain. However, I'm still stumped on why our eyes change color when we feel a strong emotion."
Doc took a breath. He suddenly noticed that everyone had the same lost look on their face as Marty tended to get when he talked about science. "In your language-" everyone smiled "-the gist of it is, when I say we're immortal, I mean immortal. Fire is the only thing that can truly kill us, as it destroys all our cells. I dumped Sucker in the local crematorium."
"That seems rather cruel," Lorraine said.
"Mom, you don't know what he was," Marty told her, shivering as he recalled Sucker's vicious attack on him. "He was a soulless vampire. Mystie told us about them. They go crazy when they become vampires."
"That's right. They become the worst kind of sadists," Mysteria agreed. "They live for pain. I've had unpleasant run-ins with a few."
"At least you haven't had your blood sucked by one," Doc shuddered. "He tortured me before he fed from me. It was agony. I wanted nothing else but to die to stop the pain. I probably would have if Sucker's blood hadn't mixed with mine. That's how Vampis Vireria is passed into a new host. All other bodily fluids kill it."
"So why have Marty drink it?" Dave asked.
"I suppose that the changes the vireria causes to the hemoglobin is part of what gives us our superhuman powers. Ingesting the hemoglobin somehow transferred some of our powers to Marty and Jennifer."
"You had Jennifer drink your blood too?"
"No, I'm the one who blood-linked with Jennifer," Mysteria corrected. She reiterated what she had told Doc to the McFlys.
"Which finally explains how Marty yanked his door off its hinges this morning," George said when she finished.
"And how I not only beat my dad at arm wrestling, but nearly put his hand through the table," Jennifer blushed.
"Try doing things at have the effort," Doc counseled. "That's basically it. Is there anything you would like to tell us?"
"We'll keep your secret," George said, as the rest of the family nodded. "But I think I should tell you that Biff Tannen knows about vampires too." He described his conversation with him last night to everyone. "Now I understand what he meant. He was going to have a vampire friend blood-link with Marty. The problem is, he wanted Lorraine for the favor. I told him to go to hell."
"That bastard," Lorraine growled. "Even when he was married to Jill, he wanted to bed me. No wonder they got divorced."
Doc exchanged worried glances with his posse. "We know Biff knows about vampires," he told the McFlys. "In fact, we suspect he's trying to organize the soulless vampires!"
George, who had been drinking some coffee, spit it out in shock. "What?!?"
Doc told them about Sucker's attack on him at Biff's house, and the probable reason of the diary. "I don't know why Sucker left me alive. Maybe he thought my injuries were so severe I would die. Biff certainly wasn't happy to see me alive when he visited.
"And let me guess," Linda said. "Sucker attacked Marty to make up for not killing you."
Doc and Marty looked at each other. Neither had considered that possibility. "That's probably right, Linda. I never thought about it that way. Biff, incensed that Sucker had botched the job with me, must have threatened him with a punishment. To avoid the punishment, Sucker tried to kill Marty." Doc eyes glowed briefly from rage, then regained his composure. "He's dead now. We won't have to worry about him anymore."
There was a brief moment of silence. Then Jennifer said with a shrug, "So what now, Doc? We've heard all we need to know. We're all gonna keep quiet. Marty and I will try to hide our powers. Do we just go on with our lives, trying to stay away from Biff?"
"I guess," Doc shrugged back.
"Maybe not," George said quietly. "When Biff left, he left mad. I told him I thought he belonged in a sanitarium, and he told me he'd make me sorry for saying that." He looked at the vampires with frightened eyes. "I could take him down in a fair fist fight. I've done it before. But I don't know how I could defend myself against his friends."
Mystie frowned. "That doesn't sound good. Biff might try to kill us. Emmett, what do you think?"
"I think that everyone who is currently here should stay here tonight. If Biff sends any soulless vampires after us, we'll need help in combating them."
"Do you really think that's such a great idea, Doc?" Dave probed. "I've got my own apartment. I might be safer there than at the house."
"Soulless vampires may be insane, but they're not stupid," Doc warned. "Sucker certainly wasn't. And don't forget, Biff knows your new address."
"Is that the reason for having me stick around too?" asked Jennifer.
"Yes, plus the fact your new strength will be an advantage to us," Mysteria told her. "But if any soulless vampires try to lay their fangs on your throat, they'll have to deal with me."
"That goes for me too. And if the enemies are of the more standard sort, everything will be fine," Doc finished.
"Whew! I'm glad we've talked that subject to death," Lorraine said. "Who wants to talk about something else?"
"Gladly. Which leads me to the subject of your snoring, George...."