To Cure A Vampire

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2“‘The vampire disease’?” Sharon asked dubiously, peering over Abby’s shoulder. She’d washed the blood off and was now in fresh clothes. “That’s your research?”

“It’s porphyria,” Abby replied, moving the cursor to circle the title of the study. “See?”

“Yeah, but the subtitle says otherwise.”

“Can you just let me research?”

Sharon scoffed and moved back to her computer. They’d found two laptops in the level above and brought them back to the basement.

A short while later, screams issued from Sharon’s computer. Abby spun around in her chair to see what was happening on her sister’s screen. “Really? Vampire movies?”

“Some of them draw on legends. Considering what happened tonight, maybe there’s truth to them.”

“That’s not research.” Abby sniffed as the vampire in the movie leaned in to kiss a human. “And you scoff at my way of researching.”

“There are common themes in every vampire movie.” Sharon started listing them on her fingers. “Can’t go in the sun, craves blood—which is exactly what Crazy Lady told me would happen—super strength, speed, immortality, vampires forming communities and collectively living in ‘dens’.”

Abby frowned. “If you want to research myths and legends about vampires, why don’t you just go to the source of them? Like—where did the legends originate?”

“Lots of cultures have myths about them.”

“Then look them up instead of wasting time on movies!”

“Fine! But I’m still going to watch the movie.”

Abby turned back to her research. If vampires existed, then maybe someone mistook vampirism for porphyria. If so, it would have ended in disaster—at least, Abby assumed it would. She looked at Sharon out of the corner of her eye. Her sister was hunched over the laptop, glaring at the monitor.

Abby searched the terms ‘disasters’ and ‘porphyria’.

After scrolling through a few pages, during which time the vampire and human in the Sharon’s movie moved their relationship to the bed, Abby found an article about scientists placing a call to the police and asking for help, literally saying, ‘She’s a vampire! She’s already killed three people and drank—actually drank, mouth to neck—the blood from four others! Please, send a force, send the military. We need help!’ But by the time the police arrived, the lab was in flames.

No one survived.

Abby kept searching and discovered similar incidents around the world. A lab. A terrified phone call to the police. The place in flames by the time the police arrived.

“Almost as if someone is trying to destroy evidence,” Abby muttered to herself.

In Sharon’s movie, someone stabbed a vampire in the heart with a wooden stake.

Sharon was pale, all research abandoned, and was staring at the screen.

“You saved me!” said the beautiful heroine.

“I’m a vampire hunter, ma’am. Killing the undead is my job,” the man replied, giving his most charming smile.

Sharon and Abby met each other’s eyes.

“Vampire hunters,” they said together.

***

Abby’s fingers flew over her keyboard. She discovered that silver knives had been found at three of the destroyed labs. She found a photograph of one.

A sturdily crafted handle. A long, thin, double-edged blade. Smooth, non-serrated edges.

There were nicks in its metal, as if the weapon had been used often. Yet it was sharpened, keeping its edge. It was also well cared for: not a speck of dirt visible, and polished to a shine.

So maybe—actually, definitely, given the evidence of cover-ups—there were vampire hunters out there.

Which meant Abby needed to keep her sister safe from them, while keeping herself safe from her sister.

Breathing became difficult for a moment.

At least she’d found a weapon to use against vampires. Even if she never wanted to use such a knife against Sharon, it might help Abby control her sister when she Turned into a vampire.

She winced and shifted her focus. “Okay, how are we going to train you?”

“I thought you were going to figure that out.”

Abby sighed. She didn’t want to tell her sister about the many labs that had been destroyed and the countless scientists who’d died. “I figured you’d want a say on how you’re trained.”

Sharon scratched her cheek. “In this series—” now she was watching one about a vampire detective falling in love with a human “—the detective was restrained by another vampire and fed humans until he could control himself around the living. Then he was released.”

Abby shifted uncomfortably on her seat. “Restrained?” she asked, uncertain.

Sharon met her gaze. “Yes, as in tied up.”

Abby looked away. “That’s a bit weird.”

“Would you rather I kill you while you’re ‘training’ me?”

Abby went silent.

“So, you’re restraining me,” Sharon said definitively. “Now we just need to figure out what you’re restraining me with.”

“You’ll be strong,” Abby replied, trying not to think too hard about the consequences of this conversation.

“So you think we’ll need bars?”

Silver bars? “I don’t know.”

“But I could escape. I think I might need to be actually tied down to … something.”

“Something?”

They were both diligently avoiding one another’s eyes.

“Where … are we going to keep you?” Abby asked.

“Here. I can’t think of anywhere else. I mean, it’s a basement. Your apartment is really sunny and the morning sun is always hitting mine, no matter what I do.”

“Okay, but …”

“What if someone finds me?”

“Yeah.”

Sharon rubbed her forehead. “Let’s hope they won’t.”

Abby stared at her.

“Or we can lock this place up?” Sharon shrugged.

“That sounds better.”

“Wait a sec—let me try something.” Sharon paused her show, typed something into a browser search bar and then showed Abby a website that specialised in making cages for animal research.

Abby felt sick.

Sharon clicked around the website until she found a cage large enough for a human to stand in comfortably. There was an option for plating the steel with different metals—silver being one of them.

“It’s expensive,” Abby pointed out.

“We can sell stuff to pay for it.”

“We’d have to sell a lot of stuff.”

“I’ve got savings. Besides, I’m leaving everything to you in my will.”

“Won’t that be … suspicious?”

“As long as you’re not the last person to see me.”

Abby dropped her head in her hands. “This is crazy. I really wish I was drugged with some hallucinogen.”

“Same here,” Sharon whispered. Abby scrutinised her but she abruptly brightened. “I’ll just give you my account details, so you can log in and withdraw whenever you want.”

“I don’t think I like that either.”

“Too bad.” Sharon brandished the piece of paper with her bank account login and password at Abby, forcing her to take it. “Besides, I’ll probably be regarded as a missing person and won’t be legally declared dead for another seven years. Which means you won’t ‘inherit’ my savings until then. And considering it’s my money, I want you to use it to help me.”

She had a point, but that didn’t mean Abby had to like it. “Fine,” Abby said, taking the paper.

“Think of it as an investment in your research,” Sharon added.

Abby sighed. “How am I going to give you blood intravenously?”

“That’s how you’ll do it?”

“Do you suggest I offer you my arm instead?”

Sharon crinkled her nose. “No. We can restrain just one of my arms … maybe.”

And hope she doesn’t grab me with her other arm. Abby pushed this thought away.

“No, I don’t like the cage idea. I reckon I need to be fully restrained.” Sharon obviously had the same thought as Abby. “Plus, this cage will take months to get made and shipped. Whereas we can get steel cables easily, and it shouldn’t be too hard to find a steel workbench.”

“True.”

They spent the rest of the night discussing restraining and training options.

***

Abby woke with paper stuck to her cheek and a shrill ringing in her ears. It was six in the morning, and she’d fallen asleep at her desk in the basement again.

In the last three days, they’d found a hardware store that would deliver the materials needed to rig the restraints. Now they just had to buy them.

Abby realised the ringing noise was her phone. It was her mother. Great.

“Hello?” she asked, trying to make her nose sound stuffy.

“Are you really sick, or are you just faking?”

Abby crossed her arms over her chest. “Mum, I’m actually sick.”

“I just think it’s coincidental that Sharon’s sick too. This reminds me a little too much of the time you both feigned sickness to stay home from school and instead of resting—like you said you would—you bounced on your beds so much you broke the frames.”

Abby bit her lip—that was a fond memory, until the beds had broken. “It’s not like that. We’re adults, in case you forgot.”

“How does she know I’m not at work?” Sharon whispered from her desk.

Good question. Abby asked her mother.

“I’m at that fashion show. She said she’d be here and when I couldn’t find her, I asked.”

Sharon swore quietly and put her hands on either side of her head. “The biggest moment of the season and I’m not there!”

Abby shushed her. “Look, Mum, the kettle just boiled. I’m in the middle of making chicken soup. Can I talk to you later?”

Their mother huffed. “Fine. Get well soon. And tell Sharon to call me.”

Abby put the phone down gingerly. “She wouldn’t fire her own daughter for skipping work, would she?”

“She might not, but Dad would.”

Abby cringed. “Let’s go get those cables.”

***

At the hardware store, Sharon asked, “How are we getting all this into Mum’s lab?”

“It’s got heavy-duty hand trolleys.”

“And what if Mr Flirt Guard sees us?”

“His name is James.”

“My question still stands.”

Abby chewed her lip. “Maybe we can rope him into it and say Mum needs this to go to the basement?”

“And you think he’ll believe it?”

We’ll think of something.” Abby pulled out her phone and researched the company’s orders. “There’s a delivery coming in three days. Let’s sneak it in then—I’ll make the arrangements.”

“Isn’t that cutting it a little fine?” Sharon asked.

They had seven days and had both agreed that Sharon should be restrained by the sixth day. “Do you have a better idea?”

Sharon said nothing.

***

Finally, the sixth day came.

And, of course, the hardware store delivery was late.

Abby shifted on her feet as the she and Sharon waited in the delivery bay.

“Do you think we should call them again?” Sharon asked.

“They said they’d be here in five minutes.”

“But that was fifteen minutes ago.”

They both fell silent as the regular scientific equipment delivery truck pulled up. Men jumped out and opened the doors.

Abby decided that she may as well be useful while she was here, and directed the men to move the equipment to the appropriate rooms.

And suddenly, the truck was empty. Abby refused to look at Sharon, knowing that now they’d have to come up with a different plan to get the cables and table into the building.

They were alone on the bay, and Sharon pulled out her phone. “I’m calling them again.”

But at that moment, a truck roared around the corner and started beeping as it reversed into the delivery bay.

“Oh,” Abby said, covering Sharon’s phone with her hand, “I’ve never been so happy to hear that reverse warning siren.”

The hardware truck pulled up alongside the equipment truck, and two men came out carrying a steel table, followed by a box of cables. “Just leave it all here,” Abby said.

Someone started whistling in the corridor behind them—it sounded like James.

Sharon signed for the delivery as Abby tried to wheel the heavy items on the heavy-duty trolleys closer to the scientific truck.

“Thank you and bye,” Sharon said, trying to get rid of them.

All the while, the whistling got closer.

Abby and Sharon exchanged a panicked look as the truck roared to life, then slowly—far too slowly for Abby’s liking—pulled away from the bay.

Just then, James turned the corner.

He halted his whistled tune, eyes darting to the retreating hardware truck. “What were they doing here?”

“They got the wrong address,” Abby said, hoping her lie was smooth.

James scrutinised the truck for a terrifyingly long moment. Then he shrugged. “Do you need help with those?”

Abby wiped the sweat gathering on her brow. Sharon looked away.

Then James spotted Sharon. “Oh, and by the way, Miss Sharon Rormton, Abby went through with her dare the other night. I’m witness to her bravery.”

“See,” Abby said, trying to sound easy, “I told you so.”

Sharon held a hand up. “Well, I guess I can believe you then.”

James took one of the trolleys. “What are you doing here, anyway, Sharon? Shouldn’t you be at a glamorous fashion show?”

“Actually, she had nothing better to do today,” Abby replied.

Sharon sent her a glare. “Do you have to rub it in that I got fired?” This was their excuse. Sharon had actually quit her job.

Abby smirked. “Well at least you’re here instead of at home, wasting time watching those romance movies.”

“Ah, here are the delivery men,” James said, spotting the workers emerging from the building.

“Can you move these to the basement, please?” Abby asked, gesturing to the table and the box of cables.

***

But the cables and table didn’t make it to the basement.

“The delivery guys must have left them in the holding room—I’ll go find them,” Abby said.

“Hurry,” Sharon said, eyes darting around. “I feel strange.” She scratched her upper arms, leaving trails of blood. Her breath came fast. “Hurry!” she said again.

It was the same desperate tone of voice she’d used on Abby the night of the attack.

Abby raced to the lift, screams echoing down the hall behind her.

The elevator opened and Abby punched the button for the holding room. It took only twenty seconds for the elevator to deliver her to the right floor, but it felt like an hour.

Abby rushed out and bumped into James. “Sorry—can’t stop!” she said, dodging past him.

“Abby?” he called after her.

Sure enough, the cables and table were in the holding room. Abby started lugging them onto a trolley.

“Here, let me help.” James appeared beside her.

“Follow me,” Abby told him when they’d finished loading the trolley.

As they waited for the suddenly extremely slow elevator, Abby couldn’t stop thinking about the scientists who’d died before having their labs destroyed by vampire hunters.

Her hands started to shake.

“Abby, what’s going on?” James asked. The elevator dinged its arrival.

This wasn’t good. She needed to ditch James. But how? “Oh, I forgot something. Could you go get it for me?” she asked desperately.

“Sure. What is it?”

Abby described the first thing that came to her mind. “The cell separation equipment.”

“Hold the lift for me. I won’t be long.”

But the moment he was gone, she wheeled her trolley inside and hit the Close Doors button. She didn’t have time to feel bad about lying to him. If anything, she might have just saved his life.

The elevator opened on the basement floor. Sharon was still screaming.

Abby parked the trolley between the elevator doors so it wouldn’t leave.

Her sister was on the floor, tears rolling down her cheeks. “It hurts, Abby. It hurts!”

Abby hurriedly set the table up, then went back to get the cables. She locked the door to the hallway and then strapped Sharon down. Next, she set up an intravenous drip, including pain killers, and whispered soothing words to Sharon.

Sharon’s breathing came fast and her eyes drifted closed. Then she jerked up and snapped her eyes open. “You need to leave,” she whispered.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Sharon’s heart was beating in fits and spurts. She convulsed, spasms wracking her body, her fists and jaw clenched.

Then her heart beat its last drum.

Abby stared at her sister, then looked down at the heart monitor to check what she already knew.

Sharon was dead.

***

Abby unhooked the intravenous anaesthetic and swapped it with a bag of blood pilfered from the stockpile upstairs. A lump formed in Abby’s throat. Even if she becomes a vampire, I still want to see her open her eyes and look at me. Just one more time.

Her vision blurred and she turned to grab a tissue to wipe her tears away.

Suddenly, goosebumps crawled along her skin.

Something was wrong.

Abby turned and looked at her sister.

But Sharon wasn’t the pale human she’d been minutes ago. Her eyes were open and trained on the pulse at Abby’s throat.