Preparations
[Sunday. Before dawn]
Sam stood in the elevator’s corner, covering her chest with the free hand, more for warmth and comfort than to hide from him. She was cold, but still sweating, feeling like a bobblehead figure – head both heavy and floating loose; she had to lean it against the wall to prevent dizziness from overwhelming her. He turned sideways, weapon ready, watching Sam and the entrance.
“Drink!” a sharp command set her straight.
She took another sip. The liquid was salty and bitter, with a metallic aftertaste, and also a hint of… garlic?
“What’s in it?” she asked.
“No questions!” he barked again, but when she flinched and raised the bottle, he added in a milder manner, “Medicine. A couple of them. I’ll tell you all later, I promise.”
She downed it all and threw the bottle away. He picked it up and hid, annoyance showing in his moves, but said nothing. The feeling of impending doom intensified, and she couldn’t figure out how much of it was completely rational fear, and how much was blood loss.
Her other hand, now free, went to cover her private parts, peeking from under the torn material. Touching them, she sensed that – against all odds – the excitation that was building up just a few minutes ago had not fully dissipated yet. Everything else aside, that was a pretty good head, she thought, trying to take her attention away from the fear. Maybe even better than…
“We must go back to the party,” she shouted with as much insistence as her weak body could bring up.
“What did you just agree to? Fuck, I should’ve just shot you.”
“You don’t understand. My friend is there, with the… the vampires,” she used the word for the first time, and the sound of it coming out of her mouth threw her off, making her end on a weak note.
“Nope. There were only two of them. Both dead now. And the party is over.” He paused. “Seems no one really enjoys a murder on the dance floor.”
It sounded almost like a joke, but the tone didn’t match. It had the same sharp, commanding focus as before. He continued without interruption.
“Your friend must have fled with the others. Now. No. More. Arguing.”
Elevator stopped. He took her by the elbow and half lead, half dragged through a maze of unlit, unfinished corridors. The sharp light danced around, bringing glary, chaotic shapes out of the darkness, almost physically painful to follow in her disoriented state.
When they finally passed a small door to the outside, the sudden rush of cold air made her shiver. She tried to stop, but the stranger was in a hurry. He led Sam through a hole in the fence – not the one Cassie found earlier; they were on a different side of the building; she noticed – and along a short, winding path among scratchy bushes. Thorns raked her skin and tried to grab the remains of the dress, but he didn’t care, his own body shielded by the thick fabric.
It led into an improvised parking on an overgrown riverside lot. An old, beaten up pickup was waiting for them; quite unremarkable, apart from a big cargo chest on the back. There, he released her arm.
Sam straightened up and looked around, searching for… help? Witnesses? And what would she do? Run away, seek medical care? She knew damn well that there was no standard treatment for ‘vampirism’.
The stranger seemed to know what he was doing. Despite the little detail of nearly murdering her, he might have been her safest bet.
Nobody else was around, anyway. No nearby buildings; they were all on the other side of the construction site they’d just left. He opened the cargo chest and leaned inside. Sam heard a click, and the trunk lit up – even the open cover. The shine was similar to the light that killed the … vampire… only even brighter.
He jumped back down, but before he gave her another order, she squeezed in a question.
“Do you have some clothes? I can’t go on like this.”
“No, you can’t.”
He grabbed the remains of her dress and tore it off, leaving her completely nude.
At first she didn’t react, stunned by how abruptly it happened. Any thought of protesting got nipped in the bud right after, as he threw the shreds on the ground and burned them with the flamethrower. An image of herself, writhing in flames like the vampire did, appeared in her mind. She gulped.
“Get in the trunk. Now.”
He pointed the weapon at her to reinforce his command. Sam clumsily scrambled onto the truck bed, legs shaking and head spinning, and stepped inside the chest. It was just large enough to fit her. She looked up, but the blinding light already washed out the gloomy outside world, leaving only him, glare reflected by the eyepieces of the black tactical mask, staring at her wordlessly like something out of a nightmare. She sat down and lay on her side, curling up tightly, as much from fear as from lack of space. The lid snapped shut, and she closed her eyes, blinded, feeling like she herself was slowly dissolving in light.
Hard plexiglass lined the trunk, and when the car left the paved road, she got tossed around like a toy in a box shaken by an impatient child. She hid her head between her arms, but only the snug fit kept her from cracking her skull. The heat from the lights built up, and every so often, she heard a fan spin up and icy air blasted inside, making her overheat and shiver in turns. Cold, clammy sweat covered her from head to toe. The shaky movement, blood loss, stranger’s suspicious medicine, or they all together, gave her nausea. She couldn’t really do anything, but the physical intensity of it all made her feel like she was fighting, and that at least pushed the fear deeper and kept her from thinking about what happens next. The box, somehow, became an extension of her own ways.
When the car finally stopped, she felt like someone beat her up during the hardest hangover in her life. But the cramps in her underbelly were probably the worst part. An uncomfortable gurgling clawed through her gut, spreading warmth and weight that grew into an urgency. She couldn't stay in there any minute longer.
Fortunately, her… Rescuer? Captor? … seemed to hurry just as much. He opened the trunk mere seconds after the engine went off and dragged her out. Vertigo hit when she stood on her feet, and she stumbled before finally being able to glance around.
They were somewhere in the desert, near an old shack, surrounded by what she could only register as piles of nondescript trash. The frigid pre-dawn air sobered her, yet it proved insufficient against blood loss and whatever the… vampire (she still couldn’t think about him in this way) did to her; she was barely keeping herself upright. Stranger helped her get off the truck bed and turned her around to face the shed.
“Listen to me. I know you feel like shit right now, but this is important. You were bitten. You’re basically a dead woman. But,” he exclaimed, enthusiastic tone getting through the mask, “it’s still curable. I can do it. We can. It will be the worst weekend of your life, but if you get in there, you will get back out, healthy.”
“And if I don’t?” She gathered enough strength to whisper coarsely.
“I’ll leave you out here, in that cage over there. The infection will kill you. You’ll become a vampire. And the sun will turn you into a pile of ash.”
“Not much… of a choice.”
“You need to choose now. There’s no turning back.”
“Got… a toilet… down there?”
He nodded, and she stumbled towards the shack. After a few steps, she tripped, her bare feet not able to navigate the sharp rocks safely. He caught her and, with a grunt, threw her over his arm like a fireman. I want the vampire back, she thought, as her already hurting abdomen got squeezed. He hurried into the building and down the metal stairs inside, flipping light switches and opening doors with his free hand. As she bounced on his arm, trying to keep everything inside her, she wondered how many people he carried down here – and if anyone ever got back up.
He seemed to be well aware of what was happening within her. As they approached the toilet, he asked, “Which side first?”
“Bottom.”
She was too distressed to mind his directness. She got dropped on the toilet, noticing the small benefits of losing her clothing – she did not feel capable of undressing herself now. He stepped back and started opening a padlock securing a wall panel next to the entrance to the narrow room they were in.
“Some privacy, please?”
“Not for the next few days. But I can turn around,” he said, as he opened the panel.
A switch flipped, flooding the entire room with the same artificial sunlight. It was a perfect imitation, warmth on skin including, as if they suddenly found themselves outside, on a crisp spring morning. He broke his promise and didn’t turn away; merely to the side, feigning disinterest. His slightly turned head suggested that he was still observing her from the corner of his eye. She wanted to protest, but couldn’t wait anymore. With just a slight push, a stream of warm liquid flowed out, taking with it what little strength she had left. She started to fall off the seat, but this was apparently what he expected. He caught her, flushed the toilet and pulled up her limp body.
“The other side?”
She shook her head. The nausea was lessening, and she knew she had nothing in her stomach.
“You can’t pass out now. Just a few more minutes.”
He dragged her into a corner where a drain in the floor gaped, leaving her sitting against the wall. She closed her eyes only for a second – and opened them wide, screaming, when a stream of ice cold water hit her chest.
“Awake? Good. If you sleep, you die. What’s your blood type?”
Why? She had so many questions, but she felt the urgency of the situation in every cell of her body, breaking down and failing. The water became warmer, and she could answer without her teeth chattering.
“A minus. You got blood here?”
“Yes, I’ll plug you up in a minute. But first, we need to remove all traces of him. Did he come inside you?”
“What kind of question…”
“We have no time! Answer!”
“I think so.”
As they talked, he finished showering her and dropped the showerhead on the ground, still running, getting himself wet. He seemed not to notice, immediately grabbing her under her arms.
She got ready to be lifted, but to her surprise, he dragged her forward instead, and pushed her on the cold tiles, face down, bottom up. She protested.
“Wait, what… no…”
“No time for this, either. Imagine you have fucked a… a radioactive monster. Every piece of him will try to kill you. We need to get you clean. All of you.”
As he talked, words mumbled by the mask he still had on him, he detached the showerhead, and the sprinkling of many droplets turned into a whoosh of a single stream. Sitting beside her, he locked her thighs firmly with his legs, and put his hand on her back, pushing it down. The concentrated water jet hit her buttocks, quickly becoming stronger and focusing on…
“Aaaargh,” she screamed, as the stream of water entered her, and her most delicate places got an extremely rough wash.
“Vampire spunk, bleah,” said the man with disgust, as he removed the water source and pointed the flow down, rinsing her thighs. She let herself breathe again, paralyzed, unable to react. But it was not over. The stream hit her buttocks once more and focused on…
“No no no, he did not touch thaaaa…”
Her words ended with a scream as a cold, hard object entered another, even more unwanted place.
“I know. It needs to be done. I’ll tell you everything later.”
She felt her bowels fill up as she struggled to move herself away from him, but the way he positioned himself made it impossible. How many times had he done this?
“Please, stop. It hurts.”
“Tsss. Almost done. Now… Hey, not in the eyes!” He shouted, as he removed the shower head, and she immediately pushed all the liquid back out.
“Just kidding. You did well. You’ll get some rest soon. And some… fresh blood.”
After cleaning her back and legs once more, he stood up and let her fall to the side. The water stopped flowing.
She laid there, in the slowly draining puddle, looking at him leaving the room, a picture through a stained glass, unclear and unreachable. She tried extending her hand and saw it moving with strange slowness, but it was as if it belonged to someone else, obeying orders, but lacking connection.
Everything was becoming darker and darker, until a shadow descended on her, embraced her and lifted, this time gently.
“Is it you, dream boy?” she asked, struggling to keep awake.
“Depends on how lame your dreams are.”
The voice was different, strained from picking her up, but not muffled anymore by the mask, and somehow familiar. She was carried to another room, and the shadow raised her up. Soft supports slid under her armpits and between her legs, as some hard, cold clamp had closed around her waist. Her arm got extended and immobilized in some kind of restraint, followed by the other one. Then, a sting registered in the crook of her elbow. Then, a touch of coarse fabric on her body, everywhere, drying her up.
“You made it through the first step. You’ll feel better soon. I’ll go get myself clean. I still have some vampire cum on me, and I didn’t even have any fun myself…”
Where did she hear this voice?
Everything was dark, as if the entire world was made of shadows. She tried to think, but even her thoughts felt distant, like her own mind had left her and hovered outside her body, in some space she couldn’t reach.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Machines were humming. The shower was running in the distance. Gradually, her vision improved, and across the dimly lit room, she noticed a figure.
It was a woman, naked, standing in some sort of frame like a Da Vinci drawing. Her arms spread to the sides, trapped by transparent clamps, similar to the one around the waist. Legs split a foot apart by a triangular support between them. More padded shapes extended from behind her, hugging her from all sides. She had an IV attached to her arm. Her head rested on the padding, long, dark, wet hair fell down onto her shoulder. As Sam moved to see the woman better, she realized it was her. Out of body experience, again? She looked down and saw herself directly. It was just a mirror. Why did he put her in front of a mirror?
She looked towards the IV bag. The markings were unclear but recognizable. Blood, A minus. That’s… good.
So… did all this really take place? Those few minutes before she almost passed out resembled a nightmare. But… she still had droplets on her skin, in places where he did not reach with the towel. There was mild discomfort and uneasiness in both her entrances. It really happened. It was violent and quick, another violent and quick thing she was unprepared for, and now a kind of… network lag… hindered her emotions, as if the events overloaded her ability to process feelings. She could barely register what had happened on an intellectual level, and she could not understand most of it. How should she even feel? Afraid? Yes, she was scared and extremely stressed, judging by the reactions of her body, though the blood loss made it difficult to distinguish. Hurt? Traumatized? She couldn’t tell. The encounter with the vampire… if real… was not that bad, she had much worse dates – until he tried to kill her, that is. But the other one? She got penetrated against her will, but was she raped? Or just washed? The guy acted like he didn’t have a choice. He was rough, but there was no trace of lust or sadism in it. And they were in a hurry – she could feel that without the transfusion she would be unconscious by now. But did he need to clean her out first, rushing so much that she didn’t get a chance to consent to anything? Well, she did shit herself, so there was that. It would be even more degrading to stand here covered in diarrhea. And what was it he said, about the need to remove all traces of vampire from her…? If that was true, then he did what he had to, with no time to debate. But was it? There was no way for her to know.
She remembered a conversation she had with Cassie after one especially … unexpected … situation. “Ok, so you didn’t like it, but there was no actual harm done, right? My advice: if you can get over it, get over it, and do it now. Nobody likes a perpetual victim.”
She could be a real asshole sometimes, but she had a point.
Sam recalled the last time she saw her friend in the crowd. The man she went with looked… normal? She couldn’t remember his face. She’d allow doing anything to herself, if it would mean Cassie was safe.
Sam followed the advice. If he doesn’t mention it, she won’t either. There were more important concerns. What exactly happened? What is the plan? And when will she finally get something to wear? Her nakedness was the one thing she knew how she felt about – not comfortable.
He appeared in the mirror, coming back from the other room. He wore a plain gray tracksuit and dried his hair with a towel. Despite all the terrifying strangeness that had already passed, she still gasped with surprise.
“You?”
It was the redhead guy from the party.
“Should’ve listened to me.”
Out of his combat suit, he was different. His voice lacked the rough decisiveness, and even his moves were not as energetic.
“Should’ve been more convincing.”
Somehow now she became angry, even though none of what happened at the party was his fault. It was almost as if the revelation had… disappointed her, at some level. Definitely made her less afraid… and more exposed.
“How? Tell you a vampire is after you? You’d laugh. Convincing is not… part of my skill set. I trained for… other things.”
He managed a darker tone again, stemming the stream of complaints that formed in her head. He looked at her blood IV, nearly empty, and opened a metal locker at the side wall.
“I still don’t quite believe it,” she said, trying to look sideways to see what he was up to.
“Nobody does. Until it’s too late. And if they somehow walk away, they just think it was a dream. The bites vanish, and a couple days later – boom, new vampire. But that hardly ever happens now. Bloodsuckers care more about population control than environmentalists at a climate summit.”
She was not sure if it was a joke, as his tone remained flat. He approached her with two IVs and quickly attached them to her arm.
“Strong enough to stand on your feet again?”
“Yes!”
She almost yelled, enthusiastically, hoping that it meant he’ll release her from the frame. But he only stepped behind and pulled away the paddings that supported her. Now she was even more uncovered, the transparent restraints barely visible on her mirror reflection. He rolled in some directional lights that shined on her from back and front.
“Those sunbeam LEDs are expensive as fuck; I don’t have a full set in this room yet,” he said, apologising, as if it were the shoddy light fixtures that bothered her the most. He moved the frame closer to the mirror.
“See? The wounds have closed already.”
Sam saw two red dots on her neck. The wounds indeed looked like they were a couple of days old. Similar ones were on her left breast, and the two she had even lower were hidden inside…
“Hey, don’t touch that!”
“We already went through this,” he sighed. “I’m doing everything I can to keep you alive, I swear. But we can’t afford privacy right now. Just drop it, okay?”
She bit her lip, unhappy, glancing away, as he parted her other lips to see the third wound. Then she rolled her eyes and looked down. Two red dots were visible next to her clit, which was still pinkish and enlarged – or maybe the sharp light and the unusual focus it received made it appear so. He touched it by accident when removing his hand, sending chills through her. Not quite unpleasant, but unexpected and unwanted.
“Can I have some clothes, please?”
“No. Seriously, forget about it. This is not your biggest problem now. See these lights?”
“Yeah, I see them. And I get it. Sunlight. Vampires. The one you burned had clothes. People tan in bikinis. Why do I need to be naked?”
“Well, it would make sense, right? I thought so too – stick a victim on a chair in her underwear, shine some lights, and boom, problem solved.”
He went to another big locker and started looking through its contents. Before she replied, he said in a lighthearted, conversational way.
“She died. Horribly.”
His impassive way of speaking made it hard to tell, but the calm seemed fake. Sam closed her mouth and waited for him to continue.
“This thing… it’s like cancer. It develops wherever it can and devours the rest of the body in hours. Seconds, if pushed to the limit. And just like cancer, you need a combo treatment. Radiotherapy – everywhere it can reach, literally everywhere. Luckily, it’s just sunlight, not X-rays. And chemo.”
He nodded at the IVs.
“Miss a spot, miss anything, and there will be metastatic growth. Quit too soon, and a relapse will follow. A relapse that jumps on other people and kills them, even before it kills you, if it feels threatened…”
As he rambled on, he spoke faster and faster.
“So, not quite like cancer. More resembling… have you seen ‘The Thing’? The first one, not the newer one.”
He paused, so she nodded to get him to move on.
“Well, let’s say I got the real-life version of it right here.”
He paused again, looked at her, her big eyes open wide, and reflected on what he just said.
“I… I don’t think I should go into details right now. Maybe later. What I need you to know is, this thing is dead serious. But not hopeless.”
That was a little too much to process. She wasn’t sure what would be more terrifying: that he was crazy, or that he wasn’t.
Thinking about it won’t help her, so for now she focused on something she could handle. She looked at the IV bags. One was a new batch of blood. A murky, mysterious fluid filled the other. Now that she had put her attention on them, she felt a strange warmth travelling up her arm from the injection point. It must have been there for a while, gradually getting stronger.
“What’s in the other drip?”
“Mostly painkillers. Ibuprofen mixed with acetaminophen. And… garlic extract. And colloidal silver. And caffeine. You looked like you needed a coffee.”
Garlic and silver in my bloodstream, that’s just amazing. FDA approved for sure, she thought. He was right on, though. Being naked was not the biggest problem here. Soon enough, it will not even be in her top ten.
“You are going all in with the vampire ‘lore’, aren’t you?”
“And you better be serious about it, too. Haven’t you seen your bite marks? The damn thing flying? Didn’t you feel the blood loss?”
Sam wanted to say that seeing or feeling things meant little in her case these days, but she let it go. If he thought she was hallucinating, he might decide it was too late to save her – and burn her on the spot. For all his awkwardness, she had to remember he was a killer. Instead, she asked about something else.
“Why painkillers?”
“I… I don’t want to scare you.”
“Mission not fucking accomplished.”
“Let’s just say you will feel… worse… before you feel better again.”
“How much worse?”
“Much.”
“Something ibuprofen can handle?”
“Not really, no.”
Something about his tone made her feel more scared than anything that happened up to this point. Cancer, he said. Cancer hurts. A lot.
“Can you put me under? I can help. Could you get some Propofol? Or Thiopental?”
Surprise took him aback, but he went for a detailed answer again. He’s one of those guys who like to talk about his job; she thought. If only she could not be part of his job.
“Can’t do. I already tried. The victim turns almost immediately under anesthesia – like, you know, the infection knows this is its one shot. And before you ask, morphine does the same thing, just slower. No sedatives… nothing that slows you down works.”
“I can take the risk.”
“It’s not a risk, it’s a death sentence. And I won’t take it. Freshly transformed vampires are most dangerous. You know how many times I almost died in here? And I won’t give you up, not when I have this finally nailed down.”
He ended on a quiet note, as if he had said too much. The words ‘how many times’ and ‘finally nailed down’ echoed in her head, bringing a fresh wave of desperation.
“Do you even know what you’re doing? Has it ever worked?”
“It does… It did… a couple of times. It will.”
“Numbers, please.”
Technical wording of that request helped him compose himself, she noticed.
“For the latest approach, the success rate is fifty percent.”
“That’s… not as bad as I thought.”
“And I think I know what I did wrong with the other one.”
“So it worked… once?”
“Let’s say it worked… eventually. It’s a progression, not a lottery. I said I have it nailed down. The earlier failures shouldn’t matter… to you. But sedatives are out.”
She looked at the metal locker from which he took the IVs.
“Okay, then let me see your stash.”
“I won’t untie you until we heal you. You could jump on me any minute now.”
She didn’t feel like jumping on anyone, especially him. She felt more like hiding in some dark place and curling up. Was it the infection thinking for her, already?
Well, she definitely got infected with his crazy ideas.
She shook her arms, annoyed, but the clamps were holding them firmly. She had to play by his rules… for now.
“Okay – you tell me, what else do you have there?”
He looked at her with curiosity, but the intensity in her voice made him comply. He started rummaging through the locker.
“Benadryl…”
“That’s an antihistamine. Useless.”
“Metoprolol.”
“Blood pressure.”
“Valium, hell no. Ephedrine?”
“Nope.”
“Gabapentin?”
“Hmmm… maybe… but too slow. Where did you get all this stuff?”
“No time for that now. Let’s make a deal: you survive, and I will tell you everything later. Ketamine?”
“In small doses… yeah. Would work.”
“Nope. I remember now; it will put you under.”
“Only if you use a lot. A little will work. Maybe some hallucinations, but no sedation.”
He stared back, longer than before, then snapped a question.
“And you know all that, how? Who made you a doctor?”
“The state licensing board?”
He paused and blinked, making the same ‘system rebooting’ face she saw before at the bar.
“You’re a doctor? Well, you don’t look like one.”
He looked her body up and down again, awkwardly stopping at her chest area, likely realizing how idiotic his reaction was.
“You know, biology hangs those on all kinds of people,” she said, enraged by his disbelief, motioning towards her breasts with her eyes and flexing her pectorals to make them move a bit.
As the blood transfusion made her feel better with every passing minute, her nipples annoyingly chose this moment to pop out like hard candies. Nothing to be excited about, you pink little pair of morons. We’re going to die in here, she thought, embarrassed, as they both stared at them for a short while.
“And was it biology who squeezed them into a see-through dress and sent them to a basement of doom to seek vampire cock?” he asked, then reflected on his question. Just as she answered, they both said together.
“Yeah, probably.”
The awkwardness hung between them for a beat. He broke the silence first.
“Well, it was not biology’s best idea. The basement, I mean. Breasts are okay,” he added apologetically.
Fucking ‘okay’, really? She felt a pang of indignation, and then got more angry at herself for even noticing the unlucky phrase, while about to get an invasive medical procedure performed on her by a murderous redneck.
“Anyway, I want that ketamine. I’ll tell you the dosage.”
“And what if it knocks you out, anyway?”
“Then give me ephedrine too. You mentioned it before. Or better yet, amphetamine, if you’ve got it. That’ll keep me up no matter what.”
“I don’t like this.”
“You want me to trust you? Then you gotta trust me. This won’t kill me.”
He thought for a few seconds and said.
“Ok. But it goes both ways. You trust me, and you work with me, right?”
She nodded, wondering how she could work on anything when tied up like this. Providing moral support?
[Sunday. Early morning]
He prepared the injection according to her instructions and attached the syringe to the IV side port. Sam remembered the dosage from her ER stint. She felt annoyed but did not protest when he double checked it on the packaging. Better safe than sorry.
Before he pushed the piston, he looked up and asked.
“Are you really a doctor? Not a druggie?”
“Check my diploma. I carry a copy rolled up in my ass just for such occasions.”
The words escaped her, and she blushed, as it was rather something that Cassie would say. She wasn’t sure if this meant she was getting close to breaking down, or rather that she was getting somehow used to the situation. He chuckled and said, in a way that disturbingly didn’t sound like a joke.
“Okay. I’ll check it later.”
He pressed the plunger. As ketamine entered her bloodstream, she felt the heat moving through her veins lessening… for now.
“How long will it all take?”
“The… difficult… part? Around twenty hours. You’ll know when it’s over.”
“How?”
“You’ll be able to think again.”
That didn’t sound encouraging. She swallowed and said,
“Okay, do the same dosage every six to ten hours. Depending on the intensity…”
“Then six it is.”
I am so fucked. She tried to chase the fear away, asking with cheerful intensity.
“What else, then? We have the chemo, the radio.” She nodded at the lights. “Now we wait?”
He shook his head slowly, with a very serious, almost grim expression. That made her more anxious, if it was even possible. He spoke his next sentences carefully, as if easing her into something.
“No, not these. They just slow it down while we work. The infection comes out at night – these lights trick it into staying asleep. But to kill it, we need something stronger, even more intense than actual sunlight.”
He turned the frame towards the darker part of the room, which she had paid no attention to yet. There was a large jury-rigged device there, looking like… a press? A tanning bed? Shaped like a narrow pool table, with another matching part hanging above it.
“I call it the oven. This frame you’re in, it turns horizontal, and it goes in there.”
Ok, that’s… kind of logical, right? Could be worse, she tried to convince herself.
“More intensity than sunlight? For twenty hours? An oven indeed. Is this what… hurts?”
“By itself, without the infection, no. There’s cooling. Multiple… ways… of cooling. And I will take you out every hour, apply skin protection, and turn you over, so that you would not suffer from bed… frame… sores.”
“Sounds like a busy day ahead of you.”
She tried to sound nonchalant, but thanks to her apparent calm, his desire to explain briefly took over again.
“The process grew to be… quite complex. Originally, I started with just a trunk. You know, the one you came in here.”
“The Bright, Bouncy Box of Concussion. I remember. I assume it didn’t work?”
“No. Body was shading itself too much, I think. When I opened it…”
“‘80s special effects. I get it.” And I still don’t want to think about it. “So I have to be spread out like this, to not allow for any shadows.”
“Yeah, that’s… one improvement.”
There was some additional discomfort in his voice.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“You’re smart. Figure it out. Look in the mirror.”
He turned the frame back towards it.
“Right. And why is there a mirror here?”
“For… transparency? I figured that when the bite victim sees what is happening to her, she’ll be more calm.”
“Does it work?” she asked skeptically.
“You tell me. So, what problems do you see?”
That I am naked and tied down in a basement by some guy who wants to fry me was her first thought, but saying that aloud would accomplish nothing. She looked at her reflection. The position she was forced into was deceptively calm, somehow reminding her now of the woman pictured in Voyager probe’s message, even though the pose was different.
She was very pale. When was the last time she went to the beach? She couldn’t remember. Well, this at least will get fixed soon. Radiotherapy, everywhere it can reach. I mean literally everywhere. The clean look she got between her legs was painfully embarrassing now, but the silver lining was that she had shaved it by herself, because otherwise he would probably have to – Oh no.
She looked at her hair, flowing down on her shoulder in a dark, messy stream.
“You want to cut my hair.”
A silent nod. She said, putting as much pressure in her voice as she mustered.
“Don’t you dare touch it! Do you have any idea how long it took to grow it like this?”
How long indeed? She started on them when she met Cassie, who told her that the tomboyish look was kinda cute, but if she puts some effort into it, she could be a real beauty. So, six years, give or take. And now, it will be gone.
“And do you know how long it takes to grow a mouth full of sharp teeth on top of your head, when the infection has nowhere else to go?”
He waited just for a beat before answering himself.
“About two hours. Less in later phases, depends on…”
With visible effort, he stopped himself from digressing.
“Anyway, this is unavoidable. You know it. That’s why I wanted you to figure it out on your own.”
He paused, letting her process the situation. She wished to keep protesting, but her rational mind could not argue with his logic. She started to hate her rational mind.
He took her silence for agreement.
“You can pretend, later, you are a cancer survivor. It’s close enough.”
All she could do about it was to cry, and she shed a few tears when all her beautiful waves fell down, and he shaved her head smooth. She didn’t know if she was angrier at him or herself, that after all of… this, it was a haircut that made her weep. Why was it so?
Because it will stay. You’ll pretend that it was all a dream, but this fucking bald head will stay with you and remind you it was real. But hey, at least if you are worried about that, it means you believe you will get out of here. Optimism, yay!
The voice in her mind sounded a lot like her friend.
“Can you… keep it somewhere, for me?” she asked, trying to seem calm, as he finished and cleaned up.
“For a wig? Sure, good idea,” he said, but it didn’t sound like his heart was in it.
There was something more looming, something he was not telling her. Something, somehow, even worse than hours upon hours of intense pain. Though she didn’t really want to know, she could not stop herself from guessing.
He gathered all the hair with deliberate care, placing it aside as if to reassure her it was safe, a subtle gesture meant to calm her down. For a second, she wondered whether he would burn them, too, if he would have to burn her. No. No point in letting her mind go in that direction.
While she was chasing her fear away, he left her alone with the mirror. With her hair gone, her reflection resembled a mannequin in a display window. The smooth, hairless skull seemed both striking and anonymous. Her body was posed in a way that appeared relaxed but was entirely beyond her control, like something set by a shop assistant. A mannequin, stripped of her previous outfit, awaiting her next form; what she will become wasn’t hers to decide.
“You look… good.”
He tried to lighten the mood as he came back, wanting either to cheer her up, or himself, because he still looked distressed.
“There was an old movie, where some pretty, bald alien girl was visiting a human spaceship… actually it was Enterprise, so it must have been some Star Trek…”
“First Star Trek movie, and it was not an alien, but an avatar of Voyager probe,” she corrected him, relieved by the chance to think of something else. “Aliens made her so powerful that she could do everything, even destroy the planet. Lucky her.”
Well, so much for cheering up. She tried a lighter tone.
“I was thinking about Voyager before, that I kind of looked like… and what exactly are you doing down there?”
He was kneeling, eye level with her private parts. She got somewhat used to being exposed already, but apparently not used enough.
“Adjusting leg… supports.”
He seemed to avoid the word ‘restraints’, but it only underscored it.
“You are standing, but won’t be able to stand sideways. I’d put you in them earlier, but it seems I built it for someone with a little less… ambitious legs. I need to deal with this now.”
Screwdriver in hand, he was struggling with some parts of the frame, but she couldn’t clearly see in the mirror what the problem was, because even the screws were transparent. His head moved left and right, sometimes getting closer and then further away again. She leaned out and looked down.
Between the breasts, over her flat, toned stomach, she could see the upper part of her pubic mound, glistening from sweat, sticking out just a little, and his head right in front of it. He seemed not to pay any attention to the complete lack of modesty in this situation, even though his hair or ear sometimes passed a mere inch from her privates. It was unnerving, observing them getting closer and back away again, as if they were a live wire, jumping, ready to electrocute her.
The worst part was that the more she thought about it, the more she was bracing internally against some random touch, the more she felt blood flowing into the vulnerable area, making it even more tense and itching for attention. This is not the vampire. This will not happen again. Calm the fuck down. Sam attempted to get her body onto the same page her mind was: a terrified and angry one. She could only hope that he would not notice any physical reaction. She tried to tilt her pelvis forward and push her buttocks out, as much as the waist restraint allowed. The aim was to hide the unruly parts deep between her legs, without drawing more attention to them. It didn’t work.
“Hey, don’t move now. I need to measure you.”
He started by measuring the outer side of her leg. Yet soon, just as she was afraid, he stuck his hand with the end of the tape right between her thighs, as high as it went. The touch was completely innocent, but it made her shiver. Fortunately, he didn’t know what kind of shiver it was.
“Sorry, my hands are cold. Almost done.”
She looked away, searching for distractions, yet finding only grim prospects.
“You’re awfully quiet. You aren’t turning now, are you?”
“No!” she exclaimed in a hurry, a flashback of the vampire in flames going before her eyes. “I… am just thinking about what you asked before. What else is missing.”
“And?”
“What if I need to pee?”
He nodded. “The catheter will solve that.”
Ouch. So that was one detail he kept from her. And for a good reason. Any shades of a comfort zone she tried to build for herself were gone. But she changed his mind once already…
“Can’t I just pee in a bucket when you take me out?”
It was so… absurd. Not long ago, she would consider peeing in front of him the most embarrassing thing ever, and now she was trying to negotiate for it as the least horrible option. He looked up, clearly annoyed, and said, “You could, but you won’t hold it in when it gets rough. I’ll have to keep you well hydrated through all this. And if you pee inside the machine, you might get electrocuted. Or worse, break my equipment.”
“We could try…”
“NO.”
He raised his voice, and for a moment sounded like when he was wearing the mask.
“You got your drug. We are done trying things. I am done trying. I killed enough people, trying. Now, we won’t try. We’ll do what is needed to keep you alive. Exactly that, all of that, and nothing else. We had a deal, remember? You work with me.”
As he said it, he raised one of her legs and forced it into restraints, which clicked and closed, one around the thigh, one around the shank. It went so fast that she didn’t have time to react, but there was something wrong with the position it ended up in, so when he tried moving the other one, she resisted. He groaned with surprise as she pushed him back, and he needed to change his placement and use both arms to get the leg in.
“Damn, you are one strong lady. Are you sure you aren’t turning?”
Anger and fear kept her from looking at him. She snarled through clenched teeth.
“How… the hell… would I know? You are the ‘expert’.”
“So… LISTEN… to the expert.”
He went away, once more leaving her facing her mirror reflection. Within the transparent frame, she looked like she was floating in the air. The earlier miscalculation forced him to put her legs quite high to the sides, bending at an almost straight angle at both hips and knees. She was split wide open. All that she tried to hide just a moment ago was in plain view, in the very center of the picture, more exposed than she could imagine possible. The association she made with the calmness of Voyager’s figure drawings was now gone. She thought of a butterfly in a display case, wings open, their fleeting colors for all to see, fragile, immobilized. Dead.
By the time he got back, she tested her restraints thoroughly, and found out that she could do nothing, except make all her muscles hurt. At least, through the exertion, she calmed herself down a little. Yet the feeling that the worst was still ahead of her was almost unbearable. She saw the catheter in his gloved hands and winced. But the weaker and more vulnerable she felt, the less she wanted him to know about it.
“How do you feel?”
“Drafty.”
The answer came out much more flippant than she felt.
“No, I mean…”
“I feel the heat inside my veins again. And this position is not comfortable. Like at all. On a scale from one to ten, minus two. Apart from that, just fucking great.”
He hesitated. She wasn’t sure how long she could keep up this facade.
“Just be done with it.”
She turned her head away once more and waited for him to kneel and face her wide open lady parts. Soon, the tube jabbed her in the worst area imaginable, looking for the entrance.
He found it, and she felt it going in, a strange, cold glide, soon to get stuck. Her pelvis must have been in the wrong position, but that was all on him. The restraints made sure she could not help with that, even if she wanted. She could only hope he will not turn her bladder into a sieve, trying to get through. He knows what he is doing, right? He must have done it before.
The tiny tube moved around, bringing out different, unexpected sensations, ranging from pain to strange, but not unpleasant, tingling. She felt him trying to be as gentle as possible, afraid to push stronger. Anxious, she took a peek down between her breasts again, just in time to see his other hand approaching her wide open bits, and carefully reaching for… oh. Her clit was still enlarged, and very, very sensitive. She suspected the infection was at work here, because there was no other way she could keep even a trace of physical excitement in this situation. She jerked in restraints when he took it between his fingers and pulled up, just a little. He started moving it around, likely trying to straighten up the pee pipe running through it. He was very cautious, but that made the touch even more insufferable. A muffled groan escaped her. She tried to cover for it, her words stifled with something that, she hoped, could pass for anger.
“This is not a knob, you know?”
“Sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. Almost over.”
She almost wished ‘hurting’ would be the problem here, but it was quite the opposite. She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw, determined to not make another sound, whatever… else… happens. Luckily, soon the tube went in deeper, and she heard liquid flowing out. He moved his hands away, and she felt relieved, noticing bitterly how her perception shifted again: now she was forced to feel happy about losing her bladder control.
He taped the tube to her thigh restraint and stood up. His face was sweaty and grim. He cleared his throat and asked.
“Ok, what else do you think we are missing?”
Please, nothing else. I had enough, she thought. But she chose to keep up the tough act for as long as she could.
“I’m tired of this game. I told you already. Do what you need and let me fry.”
“I want you to understand all this, because otherwise…”
He paused, but the meaning was quite clear to her.
“I think I already hate you, so don’t worry. If you need to talk first, talk. But I’m feeling hotter inside already, so let’s maybe fucking hurry.”
She didn’t feel that bad yet, but she desperately wanted to control something. If not even her own body’s reactions, then maybe at least the conversation. He nodded and started to talk, eyes stuck on the floor.
“Ok, so one thing is the head support. It will hold your head when you are horizontal, so that your neck can rest.”
“How kind.”
“The other thing is… well. I told you that the light… the radio… needs to be everywhere.”
“And you already made sure it will access every inch of my body.”
“No. Just every inch of your skin.”
What? But… how? She looked at him, puzzled. His indirectness forced her into problem-solving mode again, instead of the one she wanted to be in – emotional break down mode. It was the goddamn rational mind again. Sometimes, she thought she befriended Cassie specifically to spite it. He let her process this for a few more seconds before continuing.
“So, the brain is safe. As far as I understand, the thing that separates it from the rest – ”
“Brain-blood barrier,” she said automatically, and cursed herself silently for nerding out at such a moment.
“Yes, so it only gets across this when you die. But there is a lot of other blood flow… like, internal… that needs to be affected… somehow.”
“You are making it all up, right?”
Her calm started to crack, as her suspicions began to materialize into something horrific.
“No. Like… imagine someone dies, even though everything looks good, and you approach the body with a flamethrower, the usual way…”
She glimpsed an image of herself in flames and chased it away.
“And then…”
“John Carpenter happens. Heard that already.”
“Close. Ridley Scott happens. A tiny baby vampire, made from internal organs, bursts out of the chest and jumps on you.”
She was too emotionally exhausted to find this vision scary. It felt abstract. Whatever he had in mind to prevent it, on the other hand… She had a suspicion that whatever she comes up with, reality will be worse.
“But… you can’t cut me open to let the light in. Not in here, not without anesthesia. If what you said is true, it would just make me transform.”
“No. But there are… other ways.”
She shook her head.
“Like, what? You want to put a light bulb up my ass?”
“No. Not a bulb. A… light cord. With LEDs, and cooling. Lack of internal cooling kills, too. I built it from a colonoscopy device.”
“Nope.”
“And there is another one that goes into the stomach.”
“No.”
“I am not negotiating; I am explaining.”
“I AM NOT NEGOTIATING EITHER. FUCK OFF. JUST FUCK OFF. JUST FUCKING FUCK OFF ALREADY. You won’t stuff me like a fucking turkey. No. Kill me, if you want, I don’t care. Just leave me alone, you… freak.”
Her outburst didn’t surprise him. He looked… relieved. As if the thing he was worried about has finally happened. As she was panting, he said, in a surprisingly normal voice, in round, full sentences, that had to be rehearsed in his head.
“I understand you. I really, really do. And whatever else happens, I want you to know that you are extremely brave. Getting this far, through all of it, without breaking into pieces is absolutely amazing. You have already won, and even if you won’t make it, I will always remember you.”
She wanted to spit in his face, but it would be childish. Seems even now, she still had some sort of facade to keep up.
“But I need you to understand that the one choice you had was up there, at the entrance. You came in here, and here I will do everything necessary to save you. Everything. Whether you like it or not. I’m talking now, with you, wasting precious minutes, because your cooperation will save me even more time. It will be faster if you work with me, and it will be safer for you. That’s all. I’m not asking you to accept it. I’m not asking you to like me. I’m asking you to think, whether you are still strong enough to choose the path that offers you the best chance to stay alive… or if you’ve reached the end, and I’ll have to push you through the rest of it. You have two minutes.”
He left once more. When he came back, announced by the rattling of small wheels on the concrete, she was still avoiding looking at him. He asked gently.
“Which side first?”
“Bottom,” she said, hating herself for it even more than she hated him.
[Sunday. Midmorning… probably]
Sam observed his preparations in the mirror, not even sure how to brace herself for what was coming, or how she should act now. She tried being sarcastic; she tried being tough, but in the end, none of it mattered. None of her talking mattered.
He would always do to her exactly what he wanted, nothing more, nothing less. He has given her a laxative as the very first thing after their meeting, she understood now, to prepare her for this. Everything was unfolding like a scripted scenario. Was the small success she had with ketamine even real? Or was it simply irrelevant to him, and all the discussion they had, he faked to make her feel better?
She kept staring at her reflection. Few hours ago, she was embarrassed about strangers catching a peek of her boobs. She had no idea, back then, how many layers of nakedness there can be, under a see-through dress. Under the skin itself. Now, even her guards, fragments of her personality, were torn off and thrown away, useless, exposing… what exactly? What was she left with?
Fear. Of turning. Of fire. Of him. The heat building up in her veins, growing stronger, slowly closing on the verge of pain. And… another kind of heat, skimming the surface of her skin, that she didn’t understand. Not unlike… the one she felt when she danced with the vampire. It was flaming up a little each time she looked upon herself, trapped, in the mirror. It made her wary of every touch, and within the caution… anticipating. It must be connected to the infection, somehow, or the lingering vampiric charm. It cannot be her own.
Sam was almost glad that soon he would take away her ability to talk. She will not need to pretend anymore, choose a mask for herself and fight to keep it. She will just silently… suffer. Suffering seemed somehow… easier.
He set up the device, an old model he must have salvaged from the trash, and put on medical gloves. He seemed tired but oddly peaceful, almost as though confronting her about this had been the hardest part, and now it was downhill for him. She wished it could be the same for her.
She glanced at the cord – it was definitely non-standard. Thicker than it should be. She wasn’t completely unprepared for this, physically – Cassie’s idea of fun had seen to that years ago – but she hadn’t expected to find much relaxation in these circumstances. Now a small, insistent voice in her head cursed her for treating the situation like a problem to solve rather than the absolute fucking horror it was. But what else could she do?
He caught her nervous glances and opened his mouth for another explanatory rant. She wished she could shut it with the barrel of his own flamethrower and pull the trigger. Still, she listened.
“Yes, I know. It’s a little larger than the original. But it needs to have all the LEDs, liquid cooling channels, and see here? This part is insulated, with a temperature sensor on the outside, so it will help me adjust the cooling. There are multiple sensors, also for heart rate…” He trailed off. At least he had enough self-awareness to notice the complete lack of appreciation for his ingenuity. “It looks scary, sure, but it’s still narrower than what usually… comes out, so it shouldn’t harm you. And hey, free colonoscopy. That’s a few hundred bucks saved.”
For a moment, she wondered if he was mocking her, but no – he was just that bad at comforting people. Her voice was flat, as if she were speaking out of habit rather than intent.
“I have health insurance.”
And I’m going to need it if I ever get out of here.
“Ah, makes sense, doctor. My job benefits are… very limited.”
Except for dragging women into your basement to torture them, she thought, but only said, “I can put a word in for you. If you ever let me out. And if they ever need… whatever the fuck you are.”
Her voice faded to nothing as the sentence trailed off. Sarcasm didn’t even feel like a conscious effort anymore – it was purely mechanical. Talking to him was pointless. He answered anyway, as though this was just a normal conversation.
“I worked as a paramedic for a while, actually… okay, this will be a little cold.”
For a second, she tensed, thinking he meant to start already, but it was just the gel. He applied it carefully, muttering an awkward “sorry” as he slid one finger in. She managed not to make a sound as he turned it gently, probing. It wasn’t as intense as what he’d done to her front, but she still wished she could trade some of her hypersensitivity for pain. Pain, at least, would have kept her mind clear and properly hostile.
“Ok, are you ready?”
“Wait.”
Sam couldn’t will herself not to be tense, but she had one trick she knew from training. She inhaled deeply, clenched all her muscles as hard as she could, counted to three, and released them with a slow exhale. She repeated the process twice, ignoring his puzzled expression. Finally, she whispered.
“Go.”
“Well, that was easy enough,” he said a few seconds later, surprised. “See? This is what I was talking about. Working together.”
Her stomach turned at his characterization of what ‘they’ did ‘together’, but she was too tired to argue.
“Can you do something for me?”
“Sure…” he seemed caught off guard.
“Shut up.”
They stayed silent through the rest of the process. She moaned softly a few times when, despite his careful movements, he hit something delicate. He had angled the display so she could see it in the mirror, but she refused to look, instead focusing on the sensations: the uncomfortable fullness building in her abdomen, the cold touch of the cord against her sphincter, as it slid in with maddeningly uneven interruptions, and the unexpected prickling from small, irregular protrusions – sensors, maybe. It was strange, yet not entirely unpleasant – though she would prefer if it were.
Finally, he announced, “Ok, I think this is it. Does it hurt?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Please, answer. I can fix something now, but not later.”
“You can’t fix anything.”
She paused, her voice cold and detached.
“It’s… fine. I barely feel it.”
“Good. Can you do that relaxation trick again?”
She glared at him as he showed her the hollow, transparent plug – wider than the cord but narrowing at the base. At least this time, he didn’t bother to explain its purpose. She clenched, exhaled, and nodded.
He was annoyingly cautious with it, taking forever before the widest part went through, and it all sank into position, the feeling more strange than uncomfortable.
“Now try pushing. Make sure it doesn’t fall out.”
“Get lost,” Sam snapped, but she obeyed anyway. Arguing was harder than complying.
The plug stayed firmly in place. She looked at her reflection. It was invisible from her angle, and the thin part of the cord running out looked more like another IV line. Time to start pretending this never happened, she thought. But before she could settle into that denial, he started again, connecting another tube to the device.
“Listen, there’s this thing. I need to close your mouth now. And… there’s a chance you won’t make it. A slight one, but… if you don’t, there’ll be nothing left of you. Just some dust.”
If he wanted to wake her from the numbness by pissing her off, he succeeded.
“You just put a yard of pipe up my ass, and somehow the thing that I hate most about you are your pep talks.”
He let out a nervous chuckle and corrected himself.
“No, I mean… it’s just that I don’t even know your name. If you don’t come back, no one will know what happened. Do you want me to tell anyone anything? Your odds are pretty good, but… just in case. Family? That friend you mentioned?”
“You keep away from her!” she snarled.
But she thought about his question for a moment. What would he even say? Sorry, Sam’s dead, because… reasons. Don’t look for her, there’s no body. No. It would only make things worse.
“No,” she said firmly. “I don’t want you to have anything to do with any of them.”
“Okay. So… do you have anything you want to say? Last chance.”
She stared at him, eyes cold and lips twisted, until he looked away.
“All right. Let’s do it.”
The second tube seemed less intimidating at first – thinner, smoother. Almost resembling real medical equipment.
“This one should be easier,” he said. “No sensors, less cooling. Just the lights.”
It slid in with surprising ease, meeting no resistance beyond the reflexive gag as it reached her throat. But as it settled into place, she realized he didn’t know what he was talking about.
Breathing became a calculated effort, shallow and awkward, each breath caught between a spasm of her esophagus and the tube pressing relentlessly against it. The pressure wasn’t painful, but it was constant.
Meanwhile, her stomach churned at the intrusion, its muscles fluttering indecisively, caught between trying to expel it and dragging it deeper.
As she fought the rebellion within her own body, he held up the locking element for her to see – a piece resembling a set of plastic teeth, with a slight gap between the upper and lower jaws, to accommodate the supply line.
“It doubles as a teether,” he said matter-of-factly. “So you’ll have something to bite on when it gets… rough.”
That the “rough part” was still ahead of her felt like an abstract joke, but she was more worried about her breathing now. She tilted her hand upward, the only motion her restraints allowed, signaling him to wait, as a rising tide of organic panic took hold.
This differed from the constant dull fear that had shadowed her since entering the basement. This was raw, immediate. Her vision darkened, and she felt a regular, hollow thud of her own pulse in her ears, like heavy footsteps. There was nothing he could help her with. This was between her and her body.
But she had been trained for this, or at least something close enough. She closed her eyes and drew on the only tool she had left: breath control. Inhale – one beat, two, three. Exhale – one, two. Repeat.
Not a minute later, her breathing steadied, and the overwhelming panic subsided to a manageable hum. She opened her mouth and let him insert the locking device. He might mistake her compliance for cooperation again, but the truth was simpler: she was spent.
Yet, there seemed to be no pause for her.
“Ok, now the head support.”
The transparent hoop locked in place around her head, pinning her movement. It wasn’t supportive; it was restrictive, taking away one of the last ways she could communicate with him. She looked for a silver lining: maybe he won’t need anything more from her, and she won’t need to force herself into acting brave, calm… or rational.
She was left staring at the only thing that remained in her field of vision. Her own reflection, still, suspended in the void. Cords and tubes were running into her body like some sort of life support, like if she was an astronaut, hibernating on an endless journey into the unknown. Only the faint rise and fall of her chest, and her eyes, barely held open, reminded that she was still alive, somehow.
The agonizing intensity of the past minutes had one small mercy: it left her no space to process how she felt on a physical level. Now, forced into stillness, her mind turned inward, fixating on every discomfort. Her muscles ached from the pounding she received inside the box, the futile struggles against her bonds, and the unnatural strain of her legs pinned in place. Restraints pressed into her skin. The tube lodged in her throat, while becoming bearable, made her acutely aware of the saliva pooling in her mouth, forcing her to swallow deliberately. The other end was a… different kind of intrusion. She caught herself reflexively clenching her muscles around the plug, tensing and releasing them, as if testing its presence. The action felt involuntary, and a wave of embarrassment crept over her as she wondered if it was visible.
“Temperature and heart rate are still normal-ish,” he said, scanning the screen. “Looks like we have some time left before it really kicks in. And we’re almost done. Good. Let’s check something.”
He pressed a button, and as the LEDs on the surface of the tubes started to shine, both intruders began to warm up.
Slowly, the heat turned into discomfort, pressing against the edge of the pain.
Just as panic began to flicker in her chest, a low hum started, accompanied by the subtle vibration of the tubes, and the warmth shifted. It dropped into a frigid cold that made her body shudder, and she let out a cry muffled by the icy tube.
“Ok, now it should stabilize,” he said, more to himself than to her, and to her relief, he was right.
“I want to show you something. I think we’re safe enough to turn this off for a moment.”
She didn’t know what he meant until he moved toward the light fixtures. He wouldn’t’. He’d told her the lights were the only thing keeping the infection at bay.
Her pulse spiked as the darkness swallowed her.
For a moment, she swore she could feel something, some unknown, dark presence circling them, waiting for its chance. As her eyes adjusted, she started seeing something real in front of her.
A disembodied smile floated in the dark, glowing faintly like a remnant of the Cheshire cat. It took her a moment to realize it was her own mouth, held slightly open by the glowing plastic of the mouthpiece.
Her neck came next, a pinkish glow shining through her skin, just bright enough to reveal the faint outline of her breasts below.
Finally, she picked out her abdomen, radiating a deep red, dim but just clear enough to allow her to trace the shape of her body. A fire burning inside me.
“See-through really is your thing,” he stepped closer, his voice calm, almost admiring. “Bright like a night light. I’ve never seen someone this… translucent before. It’s good. The infection will have nowhere to hide.”
His fascination felt inhuman, but her tired mind understood it. The grotesque beauty of what they saw. Night light.
She imagined herself encased in a frame, like some piece of art on a wall, hung above a bed in some stranger’s bedroom, glowing brightly. A thought came to her, unwanted: Was it the real purpose of this all, his true plan? Was he turning her into a work of art?
And she felt a fleeting, strange desire to see it put into reality, if just for a moment.
“Watch out,” he said sharply.
The front light came back on, and her vision shattered into blinding white. When she opened her eyes again, he was standing in front of her, blinking and rubbing his own. She saw her reflection – and behind her, a shadow. It was larger than her, distorted by the angle of the light, but it was unmistakably hers. She stared as it appeared to move, shifting and bending like a living thing.
The shadow lurched. She could swear it wasn’t just her imagination. It grew, stretched forward, and reached toward him, as he walked behind her to turn on the second light, and for a moment, she thought the shadow would grab him, pull him into itself.
Then the second light flicked on, and the shadow dissolved.
She let out a shaky exhale. It was just the ketamine, twisting her senses – she’d known it could do this, but that didn’t make it any less frightening.
Her brief excursion into the dark void had brought no new physical discomfort, but it left her mind deeply unsettled.
The resigned, almost peaceful exhaustion was replaced by a growing sense of strangeness and detachment. Even her fear felt abstract now – no longer tethered to her immediate suffering, instead orbiting the fundamental, unnatural wrongness of her situation. Her reflection stared back at her, fragmented and alien, as if her body were slowly disconnecting from itself, each part separate and meaningless on its own.
“Hold on – just a couple more steps. Now, first batch of skin protection.”
His irritating voice dragged her back into the moment.
He carried over a whole bucket of suspicious, clear gel and started applying it from the top of her head. She grimaced, but the cool sensation wasn’t entirely unwelcome, and the smell was surprisingly pleasant. Menthol and aloe were unmistakable, but there was also a hint of… lavender? Noticing her sniffing, he said almost cheerfully, “Wondering what’s in this? I can’t give you actual sunblock – it’d ruin the whole point. But this should help you not fry like a lobster. Antioxidants, menthol, aloe, lavender, chamomile, all sorts of good stuff. Hydrogel base. When I retire, I might sell this – it works wonders. Now, try to relax. Might be your last chance for a while.”
He worked methodically, releasing her restraints one by one to reach the skin beneath them, only to secure her again immediately after. It wasn’t exactly a spa treatment – his hands were rough, and he was clearly in a hurry – but compared to what had come before, the sensation was a relief. Her sore muscles welcomed the fleeting respite. She closed her eyes, half to block out the sight of his hands on her body, and half to follow his advice. Annoyingly, it made sense.
He finished her head, shoulders, and arms before unlocking the waist clamp to access the entire length of her back. For the first time in hours, she could shift slightly, her body no longer pinned completely still. A fleeting thought to resist flickered, but she dismissed it. She lacked the strength, the opportunity, and even the will to try.
From time to time, he stopped the application and touched spots on her skin with some small pencil-like object, leaving a bright dot behind. Moving to her front, he coated her stomach, his touch getting lighter, to not push upon the nested tube, but still thorough. Then he reached her chest.
“Sorry,” he muttered when she reflexively shook herself, as much as the restraints allowed, trying to escape his touch.
“I’m being careful, but you’ll need to get used to this. I’ll have to reapply it every hour to keep you from burning… more than necessary.”
She wished he understood that his carefulness was the problem. His deliberate, gentle touch sent her body along a path she desperately wanted to avoid. It wasn’t the place, the time, or – least of all – the person. Yet as much as she hated it, he was right: she had no choice but to endure it.
Determined not to show him any sign of her struggle, she focused instead on understanding why her body seemed to betray her. This situation should have been enough to make any normal woman’s body recoil, yet she felt the opposite. It had to be the infection – or perhaps some lingering effect of the vampire’s charm. Whatever the reason, he either didn’t notice or didn’t care, his attention limited to his task.
When he reached her hips, thighs, and buttocks, she kept her composure. But as he approached her most sensitive area – again, for the third time today, she thought bitterly – her focus began to slip. His touch was methodical, carefully coating the outer lips, inside, and finally the area around the catheter. A soft moan escaped her, barely audible, but enough to make her cheeks burn with embarrassment. Worse than the sound, though, was the fleeting, shameful thought that followed: wishing he would just finish what the vampire had started so she could endure the rest with a clear mind. The thought was gone almost as quickly as it had come, but the heat in her face lingered.
After returning from washing his hands, he said.
“OK, this part will be the last one.”
His voice was suddenly darker, edged with hesitation, alarming her. He cleared his throat.
“I hope you understand that everything we’ve done so far, as much as you must have hated it, was for your protection. And we did well. You did well. I’m almost certain now that this will work.”
He tried to sound reassuring, but the same tension he’d shown before revealing the tubes clung to his voice, sending her mind racing. What the hell did he want now?
“Now, I’ll need us to do something for me,” he said.
The words felt like a record scratch, tearing through every justification she’d built for his actions. Her mind reeled. Motherfucker.
Half-terrified, half-amazed, she realized how long he’d played her. It was like seeing the black cup in the picture shift into two white faces. All those “accidental” touches, those “serious, necessary” procedures – it had been some twisted foreplay all along. She’d known, hadn’t she? He couldn’t have been so calm, so indifferent around her, when she was put out like this, so helpless and available…
She looked in the mirror at her immodestly open entrance, the only part of her he hadn’t touched yet. Of course, he’d been saving it for later… for himself. Her focus made the warmth that she felt there intensify, and an even more terrible thought came – that right now she would not mind it happening. She’d kill him for it… but afterwards. She pushed back on this feeling, furiously, trying to lock it up in some dark, filthy place in her mind where it came from.
Then he spoke again, noticing her fury and fear.
“Sorry, no. I didn’t mean… whatever you’re thinking. I meant doing something for my safety. As opposed to yours.” He hesitated. “Fuck, I’m so bad at this ‘talking to humans’ thing.”
She almost passed out from the emotional whiplash. Breathing hard, she tried to regain control as he waited for her to recover. Then he began, once more, in his infuriating roundabout way.
“Do you know about flash boiling? When water’s heated above its boiling point under high pressure, but stays liquid – then the pressure’s released, and it all turns to steam at once, like a bomb going off?”
He paused, waiting for her confirmation. She knew what he was talking about, but how the hell should she even tell him that now? She blinked, but he missed that. So she settled for a ‘fuck you’, said in a tone of confirmation, and it came out as an approving grunt.
“Ok, so… there was this one time. I had a victim here in the oven. It was the peak of the process. Infection was almost eliminated, but it also fought hardest at this moment. I had to step out,” he nodded at the small room where the entire ordeal started. “And I closed the door because it felt weird…”
Her annoyed look turned into a glare. So he did care about privacy after all, when it was his own?
“And this is the only reason I’m alive now. Something must have happened: a power flicker, something with the drip, or the process itself… I don’t know. I saw the security footage, but the frame rate was too low. In one moment, she was in there…”
He always calls the victims ‘she’, Sam realized now.
“… in the next frame, the oven was exploding. Third frame, a blurred shape, not even resembling a human, halfway across the room already. Flash boiling.”
Just great. So, after all she went through, it could still fail for no apparent reason. But what had it got to do with anything?
“It destroyed most of my shit and ran away before I got back here. I never found it. So, I rebuilt everything better. Faster auxiliary power, stronger restraints, better camera even, all I could think of. But… still no clue if it would help.”
She was waiting for the point.
“I might have taken the risk again, but for one thing. There is a road some ten miles north of here.”
Sam filed down the piece of geographical information as ‘useful’.
“…and on it there was a car, flipped on the side, front smashed like it hit a deer. Inside… a family. Man, woman… a child. I think just one. I hope.”
A chill gripped her.
“Let’s just say that the accident did not kill them. I did. When I let the thing escape. And I don’t know how many others, later.”
“So, long story short, I need to make sure that you will not get out of here alive… unless you are healed, that is.”
He waited for her confirmation, but she could not make herself do it. She understood him, but agreeing to… whatever he wanted to do… was beyond her.
“So, I built the triggers. Power goes down, you die. You break up the frame, you die. That’s the idea.”
Her heart almost stopped, waiting for him to finish.
“But I could not figure out the… method. First, I set up flamethrowers all around the oven. But the flame would be too slow, and I could not make the triggers perfect. The thought I would burn a person alive because I made some minor mistake…”
He shook his head, but whatever discomfort he was referencing was nothing compared to what overcame her. Her worst fear that was haunting her since she got in here… made real, just a single malfunction of redneck technology away. She started panting once more, her mind not able to control it anymore. He saw her struggle but only talked faster, as if his talking could fix it.
“I thought about other ways. There is one thing that can be quick and almost painless, and it will kill a human and a vampire just the same. Wooden stake through the heart.”
Stay calm… you won’t burn. You won’t burn.
“Then I build this.”
He brought a device into her view, held in both arms because of its size. It was constructed around a long wooden pole. On one side, it ended with a large mechanical cylinder. The other end was surrounded by a clear case with a disturbingly familiar shape. Still trying to settle her breath, she did not get a good look, nor did she want to. This was less scary than his flamethrower, but only marginally. But for some reason, he needed her to understand it all. He held it upright, angling it away like a loaded gun. With a flick of his hand, it activated, and in an instant, over two feet of the stake were sticking out from the front case, high above their heads. “See, so quick. If anything happens, you will never know it did.”
He really thought he was calming her up with this. She could have laughed at his cluelessness if she was not paragliding over an open furnace of panic.
“So I tested it… Not on a human, don’t worry. I went full discovery channel with a medical skeleton and ballistic gel. But it wasn’t good enough. Half the time, the stake would slide on the ribs. And I realized it needs to hit from below, where the heart is not protected. But there was no way to mount it there. The angle was all wrong, and the stake gun would cast a shadow. Unless…”
Oh god. She knew. She knew what he would do. Sam would come up with the same solution – if it was an abstract problem. But it was her body. Her rational, problem-solving mind and her feelings were now on completely different planets.
“Unless I put the end inside… the body. Then, it will keep it aimed at the target. Even if you move, you won’t be able to get away in time.”
He was still talking, but she didn’t listen anymore. She started to push on her restraints again. She pushed, and pushed, and pushed so hard that she heard the thigh restraints creaking, and felt them move, just a little.
But it wasn’t enough.
He watched her futile struggle with something almost like admiration.
“You’re strong. But if you fight like this after I install the safety, you might kill yourself. Probably not. I built it for resisting the procedure, but… you know. If you need to vent, do it now.”
Vent. Was it what you call a complete, final rejection of this nightmare she got stuck in? Yet the rejection was as futile as it was ‘final’. Eventually, her legs gave way, and she had no choice but to give up. She went limp, allowing even her eyes to lose focus.
This was all she had. There was nothing left she could do.
He brought back the bucket with gel and kneeled in front of her. She didn’t look, feeling numb and distant, as if her mind had already left her body. But the body she left behind defied her one final time. It let his fingers slide in with no resistance, and he mumbled to himself, surprised.
“Did I do this already? I really need a checklist.”
He continued to apply the gel anyway, preparing her for the monstrous device. He put more fingers in and turned them around, firing up every nerve ending she had there. Her body did not care anymore about death nor dignity. It was denied what it wanted so many times already, gathering up unseen frustration. Now that the goal was finally within reach, all else be damned.
Soon she felt she was on the verge, and moaned in pleading desperation, torn between two needs. Her body wanted him to finish it already, but what she wanted most was to avoid coming while his hand was still inside her, making him aware of every contraction. He looked up and asked.
“Are you ready?”
How come he did this to her again? So many times she tried to hide inside herself, and he brought her out and manipulated her into becoming an accomplice of her own torture. And all the time, he acted as if he did not even know what was happening with her. She didn’t want to answer his question at all, because it was like signing on whatever he did to her.
Yet he kept moving his fingers, waiting for her sign, and before long she was forced to groan something resembling a confirmation.
“Ok, here it goes.”
He pushed the device in. It felt larger than even that horrible toy – the one that Cassie bought her as a joke, and she tried out only once, on a drunken dare. Yet smoothly it went in, and with this single, final stroke, she was brought over the edge.
The long-awaited spasms were almost painfully strong, as if the body changed its mind and tried now to crush the intruder. It was not designed as a toy, its surface unpleasantly hard, yet the lifeless indifference was still much preferable over the receptive flesh of his fingers.
Her powerful reaction startled him, but as her climax turned smoothly into crying, which shook her body almost in the same manner, he nodded understandingly. With a grim, guilty expression on his face, he attached the other end of the device to the frame.
She closed her eyes again, trying to hold the tears in until she felt herself suddenly tilting back. She caught the last glimpse of the mirror before she faced the ceiling.
He approached her head with some soft fabric and gently wiped her eyes. Such a stupid, pointless gesture, she thought. But it was not even that. He held one of her eyes open, and quickly put something on it, blocking her view.
“If you opened your eyes in there, it would be like staring at the sun. Sunglasses are out, so… contact lenses. Silver-coated, they won’t heat up.”
He put on the other one, and just like that, she went blind.
As he slid her into the sun-like glow of the device, she could see the darkness in front of her eyes getting only a little brighter.
“My part is over. You are in control. Remember, the fire is not real.”
She heard a loud hum and multiple streams of cool air hit her body. So, this was it. The turkey got stuffed, and now it was time for the oven.
As she lay in there, still feeling aftershocks of the most unwanted, yet strongest climax of her lifetime, torn between fear, anger, and guilt, she started to see things. At first, it was just blots of color, but they slowly started resembling images. Stress, sensory deprivation, and ketamine, her rational mind thought. What did he mean, the fire is not real? She felt the sunlight all over her body, its warmth instantly washed away by the cool air. Then she remembered the other fire, the one inside her veins. Now, when she had nothing else to focus on, she felt it creeping up again. Soon, a similar feeling began slowly rising inside her skin. It felt very real.