The vampires had begun to re-emerge in the latter stages of the 20th century, after laying dormant, for the most part, for hundreds of years. As human kind became larger and larger, it became safe to pick off the stragglers off of it: the weak, the unregistered, and the fringes of society. Vampires began to rise to positions of power, and more prominent members of society began to disappear in ever increasing numbers. From time to time people would attempt to find out what was happening, and they too would disappear. Police and official government lines dismissed them as a vicious street gang. Some figured out the truth, and attempted to tell the authorities, only to be locked up in mental asylums for their trouble. The vampires' numbers grew, leading to more and more mysterious deaths. Groups sprang up to attempt to combat the new threat, hunted just as much by the authorities as the vampires themselves. A vicious underground war had begun.
Some less scrupulous humans joined the vampires as some sort of cult, fascinated by the legends of familiars, others begging for immortality and power. Others joined out of sheer terror, trying to stay alive, by providing fresh victims for the vampires in exchange for their own life. Few lasted very long, merely pawns in a game to the vampires. Some vampires were content with just existed. Others wanted power, true power, to essentially, rule the world, a world of fear and blood. These were the truly dangerous ones. With huge ambitions, they entered the human world of commerce, gaining power and followers that way.
Edward was one of the forced followers. He was a policeman doing his regular beat one cold dark night in December in London, 2064. He was just 23, only having just completed his training in Police College. Trudging through the alleys winding between the 20th century buildings, falling apart, the Slums of London, he was grabbed by a vampire and dragged into a pitch-black doorway before he could react in anyway. A hiss, a breath against his neck, colder than the air around him. He had no idea what was going on. For some reason the vampire stopped. He still didn't move. The vampire let go and turned him round in the light, face hidden in the dark.
" Why aren't you afraid?" asked the shape in the doorway
Edward hesitated, attempting to judge his invisible attacker.
" What's the point?" he replied calmly.
The creature stepped into the faint moonlight, and Edward stumbled backwards. It grinned a demons smile, bearing all its teeth.
" That's more like it…" hissed the apparently female vamp, as she moved in for the kill.
Edward drew his taser and fired, making the monster shudder with pleasure as the electricity rippled across its body. It did not scream or make any noise. It merely looked at him, amused, and stopped. Seeing its lack of affect, he pulled his very non-issue knife and dropped into a fighting stance, and charged. The vampire sidestepped with supernatural speed and grace, stuck out its arm, smashing him across the chest, whilst simultaneously grabbing him and dumping him onto the floor, crouching with him as he fell. His knife skittered across the alley, his grip lost as he hit the solid concrete floor, all wind knocked out of him.
" I could do with someone like you… very useful indeed…" she said as he struggled to breathe. She grabbed his hair and pulled his head to the side, teeth bared to bite.
Edward finally found his voice as fear took over.
" NO! I could help you somehow! Anything!" he shouted, frozen in fear.
She paused, hovering just above his exposed neck.
" What use would I have of you, in your current, weak form?"
Stammering, thinking on his feet, he spluttered
" I could be a bodyguard, I have training!"
" I have better bodyguards of my own ilk".
Panic set in. Police College never told him about this. He fainted as he ran out of ideas. The woman let go of his hair, dumping his head onto the floor.
He woke up in a grey breezeblock room, naked other than his boxer shorts, a single light hanging bare from the high ceiling. 'At least I'm not dead' he thought. 'But where am I?'
He stood up, and all of a sudden he realised he was shackled by his ankles to the floor. Looking down, he received an electric shock that brought him to his knees instantly. His scream echoed round the room. He blacked out again.
A few hours, days, or minutes later he awoke to the sound of boots clicking around his prone form. Someone was pacing around him slowly and purposefully. He decided not to react, and pretend to be unconscious still. He caught sneak peeks of black stiletto boots pacing around him. Attempting to remember what the hell had happened, Edward remembered the woman with the fangs. What was she? As he pondered, the boots stopped.
" I know you're awake," said a familiar voice
Edward groaned on the floor as he recognised the voice as his attacker in the alley.
" Who the hell are you? You won't get away with this!" he croaked back, his voice dry and hoarse.
" Who? Who does not matter at the moment. The question is what. I am a vampire."
" What sort of crappy gang name is that?" coughed Edward
The woman, as she appeared, swooped down on him, grasping his chin and pulling it up close to her face.
" We are real. We have lain dormant these 5 centuries. We are ready once again to take our rightful place at the top of the food chain. This time humanities own ignorance and decadence will be its downfall. We will have control of all humanity, replacing YOU as the dominant species."
The woman's face suddenly twisted and contorted into the monstrous countenance he had seen in the alley. He recoiled in fear again. Once again that same pitying and remorseless smile.
" How come I haven't heard about you before now if you're so powerful?"
" You have. All the disappearances, all the people screaming about vampires and monsters. They were all right. And you put them all in mental institutions. Ironic isn't it?" grinned the now revealed vampire as she stood up over his prone, curled form.
He squinted up at her, the light blurring his already damaged vision.
" What do you want with me then? If you're a vampire, aren't you supposed to drink my blood and shit?" challenged the mostly naked police officer.
The vampire, clad in a dirty white vest and black PVC trousers, laughed quietly.
" We can't just invade a country and take over like that. We have to control by guile. At the moment we aren't strong enough to reveal ourselves. We are numerous, and grow everyday, but not as numerous as humanity. Don't worry. We have our plans for humanity"
She stepped over him and lent against the door. He struggled to sit down cross-legged and hunched over, head in his hands. He was surprised to find he wasn't shackled anymore
" The shackles were just little things of mine. Fun toys, eh? I was going to make you join us, become one of us. But for some reason that didn't seem quite right… or rather, wrong enough. You will still serve a purpose. We need human emissaries to perform certain tasks." Stated the woman, her face having returned to normal.
" I'm not going to do anything for you. If you really are vampires, then why would I help you? You'll only keep me alive for as long as you want."
"Hahahaha… I've always wanted a pet you see."
His right eyebrow shot skywards, wondering what the hell this beast had in store for him.
She pointed to his neck, " You will do as I say, or ill simply kill you. We will win with or without you. We plan to keep humans as you keep cattle. Maybe if you help us you can ensure some more… hospitable treatment in their short lives."
He felt his neck, and got the sensation of cold smooth metal. He tried to move his hands underneath the ring of metal to remove it, but the metal had some sort of soft foam that shaped to his neck, allowing him to breath and move as he wished, which would explain why we didn't feel it earlier.
" What the fuck is this? A collar? Your one sick shit, woman" he spat at the pale thin woman.
" Not just a simple collar. If you fuck us around, we just activate it, and it drains your blood… sort of like a nice little snackette than can be stored in the fridge. Great for parties."
He stopped struggling to remove the metal ring, staring at the vampire.
" Fuck you. I'm not helping anything like you"
She stood up straight and bit her bottom lip, looking straight into his eyes.
" I had hoped you would say that. See you later."
She turned and stalked out of the room, the thick, heavy steel door slamming shut. The room was silent apart from the slight sound of air passing through the vent in the top of the room. He sat in the middle of the room, thinking about what the hell was going on, how he was going to get out of this and how long he'd been out cold. He began to get remarkably tired. His mind filled with odd shapes and patches of darkness. In a brief moment of clarity, his head snapped back, lolling gently on the momentum, and he looked at the vent.
" Fuckers, fucking… Vents…"
His eyes rolled backwards into his head, and the last thing he remembered was the sound of his own body smashing heavily to the floor.
Fluorescent white light turned the inside of his eyelids red as he struggled to wake up. Edward's eyes flickered open, then clamped shut again, recoiling from the lights aimed straight into his face. He felt battered and bruised. Images of the woman blowing him into the corner with a water cannon rushed through his head. Images of being dangled upside down for an hour or two at a time, of being put in stress positions, white noise screaming at him from all sides. The pain flooded back to him and he groaned loudly in sympathy for his battered body. He tried to lift his left arm but found it was held down. Same with his right. He couldn't move his head either. It appeared his head was in some sort of clamp. He couldn't tell if he was wearing anything or not. Just pain, and lots of it.
He heard the noise of rubber boots again, and tensed ready for the next round. Tensing just hurt more, and he was forced to relax as he yelled out to nothing. A snigger echoed around the room
" It hurts to fight, it hurts to surrender." Came a sterile voice, similar to that of a regular doctor. Had he been a regular doctor, he would have been very good, as he knew every part of the human body of by heart. That could possibly cause pain.
Edward heard the rattle of drawer, followed by sound of metal on metal.
" Aaah. This will do nicely. Haven't used this one yet. " Said the voice, as though this were the most normal thing in the world.
" Please! No more… no more " sobbed the immobilised Edward. Even sobbing had begun to hurt.
A female laugh drifted out from the corner of the room. She was watching him again.
"He'll break" she casually stated standing up straight and walking past the table on which the Doctor was performing a very delicate and horrifically painful operation, making incisions into areas sensitive to pain and then putting acidic compounds on them.
"He'll break," she repeated.
Once again, he passed out, pain overwhelming him. He flickered in and out of conscious memory for two more weeks of torture.
He woke this time in a soft bed, in a pleasantly decorated room, with a television and soft lighting, and a table full of food. After all the agony he had been through, this sudden softness thoroughly perplexed him. Not willing to let the opportunity pass, he lunged at the table full of food, as his tormentors had fed him the bare minimum to keep him alive. He swiped at a plateful of chips, their strong smell giving him an incredible high. He chewed once and swallowed handfuls at a time. Soft music began to pipe into the room, but he was too occupied with the food to notice it. Shovelling food into his mouth, using his hands like scoops he moaned in happiness through a mouthful of food. Then the music suddenly turned to screaming at an ear splitting volume. He collapsed to the ground, covering his ears from the excruciatingly loud noise, but even that didn't stop it. Just as quickly as it had started it stopped, the screaming replaced by the female voice.
" Every single piece of food you just ate carried traces of minor but disgusting viruses. Thanks to your own greed you will be now vomiting for the next week. Whilst having shocking bouts of diahorrea and fever. And the screaming? That was your own voice. " Stated the woman through the speakers.
He began to babble insanely, as people dressed in white coats came in and removed all the food. Then two people who could quite easily have been bouncers in another life came for him. He fell to the floor on his knees, and stared a thousand yard stare at the ceiling. They picked him up underneath his armpits and dragged him out, his knees gliding over the carpet, until he reached the cold concrete floor of a corridor, poorly lit. His knees began to bleed. He barely noticed. Exhaustion and brutal torture was beginning to finally break him. His recognition of time had been lost, as he hadn't seen sun since the day before he was attacked. Had he been coherent in mind enough to care, he would have noticed the woman watching him be dragged away back to his cell and smiling. The two bouncers physically threw him into his prison, for both his mind and body, and he stayed in the exact position as he hit the floor in, still chattering madly. He stayed in this position for hours, still talking to nothing, until the men in white coats came and got him, and put him back in the room that had broken him. He didn't notice. He was lost inside his own mind, pictures of what had been done to him flashing through his mind, attacking him. He stayed awake for two days straight, babbling and clawing at air from time to time, and when he appeared close to falling unconscious he would begin screaming. All of a sudden he fell silent and collapsed on the bed where he had been left.
" Wake up Edward. Wake up." Said a kind sounding voice, stirring him from his deep sleep. His eyes flickered open, vision blurred, breathing ragged, and he saw a black outline surrounded by white light. He assumed he had died, and began to smile.
" Damn, he's still not quite ready. He's still broken…" said the voice again, all trace of kindness gone
" Well we could simply begin now, rather than waiting for him to recover. It's only a matter of time before he does so," said a voice above his head.
" Is that safe? I quite like this one."
" I don't see why not, Madam," said the voice, with an air of confidence
" Then do it. I want him to be ours." A swish of air as she left the room.
Eyes still blurred and head lolling, he was grasped by the arms and dragged down dark corridors, into a dark room and dumped roughly into a chair. His head was manoeuvred into a headrest, and clamps locked his body in place. A television screen ignited in front of him. Audio and visual propaganda began to bombard him. His eyes began to focus on the screen. He watched and absorbed, just as they had planned. After three days and nights of constant pro-vampire media, his mind had repaired itself. He struggled to escape his constraints. The woman and the "Doctor" entered the room within five minutes.
" Do you have something to say?" asked the Doctor
Edward glared at the Doctor with vengeance written in his eyes. He bellowed in rage and veins stood up all across his body as he tried to escape.
The pair merely watched his futile attempts to break free. Their faces impassive, he asked again
" Do you have anything to say?" impatience tingeing his voice
He stopped struggling and slumped as much as he could in the confines of the chair.
" Let me off this chair. I can't take anymore. Please. Just let me go." He whispered.
" No no no… we can't do that. If you remember, in the alley all those weeks ago, we made a deal." Said the female, stepping forward up close to the chair
"I'm going to let you go in a minute. You will do as I say. You know you will."
The bound human did not move, merely stared at his captor.
" Good." She reached forward and pressed a button behind his head, and all the clamps holding his body in position snapped open as one.
" Kill the Doctor," she stated, stepping aside to let the brutalised human see the Doctor.
" Pardon Madam?" asked the Doctor as the door behind him hissed shut; the sound of heavy duty mechanical bolts clicking into place echoing around the darkness of the room.
Edward's rage vocalised vibrated round the room as he leapt from the chair, entirely naked. The Doctor's eyes widened in horror as he realised he had just been yet another pawn in the woman's game. Like some sort of ravening beast, the pale naked human barrelled towards the frozen doctor, his eyes never leaving his. Edward's primal anger sped him forward faster than normally possible, and he leapt onto the Doctor's chest, smashing him to the ground. His fists pounded on the Doctor's face. Mid-swing, Edward stopped, as he realised the Doctor had changed. He was a vampire as well. He grinned as only a vampire can, and punched both fists into the human's chest, sending him flying into the air, and landing back with a gristly thump on the floor. The Doctor stood back up. Brushing off his white lab coat, he clenched his fists, as his already monstrous face contorted with anger.
Edward struggled back up, the force from the punch clearly taking its toll. He shook his head, and straightened up, and turned around. His face was a picture of calm, of humanity and peace.
" I think Madam, he may have broken again" laughed the Doctor.
Edward blinked slowly. The Doctor's smile dropped into an angry grimace, and he ran towards the defiant human. His natural vampire speed made him barely a blur to the human, but still he stood there. The vampire jumped towards him, feet outstretched in a two footed flying kick. As if time had stopped for a second, Edward moved as a blur, suddenly dropping into a low fighting stance, moving forward and grabbing a foot with each hand, and span as hard as he could. The vampire's momentum changed and he dropped to the floor. Lights came on, illuminating the dust from the vampire's impact. Other vampires lined the walls of the deceptively large room. The woman still stood by the chair. Edward jumped up in the air and landed on the vampire's chest, air bursting from its mouth as the chest cavity was compressed by 13 stone dead weight. Crouching on his wincing enemy, he gripped the Doctors temples, digging his thumbs into them and pulling the head towards his own.
" You cut me." His head drew back and sped forward, connecting forcefully with the vampires already slightly compacted nose, rocketing its head into the floor. Blood flecked the vampire's mouth and chin as it erupted from his nose. The primal bellow began again, and, taking advantage of the vampire's pain, he increased the pressure on the vampire's temples, and began to pump its head into the ground. The vampire screamed a high hoarse scream as it realised its skull was being powdered against the floor. The Doctor was helpless against the pure rage of the human Suddenly the scream stopped, only to be replaced with dull wet thwack of flesh and bone and blood being compacted. All that remained was the face and ears; the rest was gristle and strings of flesh. A knife span over the floor towards his hand, and he let go of the head and snapped up the knife. Plunging it into the Doctor's eyes. He then proceeded to saw its head off. As the final tendon gave way, a voice from hell itself began to scream, and the body burst into flame, the skeleton visible through the flames. The flames did not burn Edward, but he leapt off in horror nevertheless. The body twitched and rolled and screamed as it burnt to nothing but ash.
He stood back from where the body had been scant seconds ago, and dropped the knife to the floor. A cold hand brushed his naked shoulder.
" I knew you'd join us" came a voice, breath tickling his ear. A tongue flashed out and its unnaturally pointed end licked his neck, up his face to his temple. He shuddered and sagged, collapsing to his knees, accepting his fate. The lights switched off, the room plunged into darkness once more, the door unlocked and hundreds of vampires filed out, chatting about the spectacle they had witnessed, leaving the two in the room together. He began to sob, head in his hands.
" Now now my pet, don't cry" came the matriarchal voice from above
He sniffed, wiped his eyes, and looked up at his leader, for better or worse.
" What do you want me to do?" he croaked
She smiled and ran a finger under his chin, tilting his head back.
" Whatever I want you to do" standing upright and turning and walking towards the door. " Your room is next to mine. Follow me."
He rose from his knees, and followed his woman silently.
Interesting little torture thingy I thought. Quite proud of some of my inventions, especially liking the " blood collar "…. Teehee… good for parties… I do make myself chuckle…
