Dark Season: The Complete Box Set (41 page)

Dr. Penfold

“
Take her to her room!” I shout at Dr. Lucas before putting the phone down. I turn to look out the window. It's already starting to get dark, and spots of rain are falling.

The plan was that by tonight Sophie would have been through the electro-shock and she'd be ready to talk. Now we have to waste another day until we can find a way to get her to the other facility. And there's the question of what the hell happened to that damn van. Four guards overpowered, three of them killed and the fourth still missing. Why? And by whom? Well, the answer is obvious: Patrick. He wasn't supposed to start interfering, not yet, but it seems he's picked up on the scent.

I sit at my desk. We don't have time for this. I have to think of something.

The phone rings. I pick it up.

“Dr. Penfold, we found Styles,” says a voice I immediately recognize as one of my assistants, Davies.

“
Who?” I bark.

“
Styles,” Davies says. “The fourth guard. The one who got away. We found him”.

“
Is he alive?”

“
No, sir,” Davies says. “He's dead. Very dead”.

I think about this for a moment. “How did he die?”

“Blood loss, I think” Davies says. “His neck's been ripped open, his chest's been all messed up, he's barely got any blood left in his body at all. But there's not much blood nearby. It's like the blood's just... gone”.

A shiver goes up my spine. “Keep this to yourself,” I say. “No-one else needs to know”.

“Understood”. There's a pause. “Sir, it looks like... I've seen people who've been killed by animals before, sir. I've seen bodies where bits and pieces have been eaten. But this... it's like whatever killed him, was just playing with his dead body, sir. For fun”.

I nod slowly. There's a flash of lightning in the gray sky outside, followed a few moments later by a clap of thunder. “How far did he get from the van?” I ask.

“That's the other thing, sir. The body... it's nowhere near the van”.

“
Where is it?” I ask.

“
Sir, come over to the window”.

I stand up and walk over to my office window. The sky above looks ominously dark. There's going to be a hell of a storm tonight. But then I look down and I see something that truly horrifies me. Davies is standing right below my window, phone in his hand, looking up at me. Next to him, on the grass, is the mangled, ripped-apart body of Styles.

“Here?” I stammer.

“
He was left right outside your window, Sir,” Davies says. He looks around. “I'm coming in,” he says. “I don't like it out here”.

“
Bolt the doors,” I say. “All of them. We're going into full lock-down. No-one leaves, no-one enters. And check all the windows, all the alarms. I want this place secured”.

“
Okay,” says Davies. “What about the body?”

I look down at the corpse below my window. “It's just meat,” I say. “Leave it there until the morning. Unless you feel like staying outside all night after the lock-down starts?”

Davies disconnects his phone and hurries inside. I walk over to my desk, pick up the microphone and hit the blue button to make an announcement to the whole facility. “This is Dr. Penfold,” I say. “Due to a possible escaped patient, I am instituting a complete lock-down, effective immediately”. I put the microphone down.

“
Do you understand?” asks a voice.

I look across the room. Standing in my doorway there's a boy. I recognize him, he's one of the patients, but I've never really spoken to him. Dr. Lucas looks after him.

“Go away,” I say.

“
Do you understand?” he asks again.

“
Yes, now go away”.

The boy smiles, then turns and walks away. The phone rings again. I answer.

“It's me,” says Dr. Lucas. “What's going on up there? John Tarmey just started screaming his head off”.

Sighing, I slam the phone down and hurry to the basement. I don't have time to deal with John Tarmey's problems right now. When I get to the bottom of the stairs, I run along the corridor and finally I push open the door to the treatment room, just as Davies wheels the heavy equipment inside. This is old machinery, something I tucked away in the storage room many years ago and never, ever thought I'd be using again. Desperate times call for desperate measures, however; if I can't get Sophie Hart to the other facility for her electro-shock treatment, I'll just have to be inventive. This machine worked just fine forty years ago. Sure, it's a little less subtle than the modern methods, but the blunt truth is, the long-term prognosis for Sophie doesn't really matter. Just as long as we get the information we need in the short-term, I can live with the fact that she might end up as little more than a vegetable. She's already delivered the baby, so her survival is of no importance.

“Get her,” I say to Davies.

As he leaves the room, Dr. Lucas arrives. “What are you doing?” he asks. “Are you coming to help me with Tarmey?”

“Is he in his room?” I ask.

“
Of course”.

“
Is the door shut?”

“
Yes”.

“
Then there's no problem,” I say, starting to set up the equipment.

“
He's screaming,” says Dr. Lucas. “He's never screamed before, not like this. Not when he's in his room. He's terrified, and I can't work out why. He just started”. After a moment, Dr. Lucas starts to recognize the equipment I'm preparing. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“
Emergency treatment,” I say, hooking the system up to the main power outlet. “That girl really needs her treatment tonight. I can't afford to wait”.

“
This is unethical,” says Dr. Lucas.

“
So's this,” says a voice from the shadows. Before I have a chance to react, my dark visitor reaches out, grabs Dr. Lucas by the neck, pulls him to the side and snaps his neck. He lets go, and Dr. Lucas falls to the floor, instantly dead.

“
You could have let him live,” I say.

“
It was irrelevant,” says the voice. “It was mildly inconvenient to have him alive. He was wasting precious seconds. You know that Patrick is here, don't you?”

“
He's outside,” I say. “He's not in the building yet”.

“
Isn't he?” says the voice. “Have you checked
all
the doors and windows? Do you really think a creature that can kill three security guards in less than a minute will have much trouble getting into a dilapidated old hospital?”

“
He won't stop us,” I say. “The equipment is ready. I'm just waiting for Davies to bring the girl”.

“
Saving the girl is an afterthought,” says the voice. “Not even important to him. He's after John Tarmey first”.

I start the machine. Despite being old and unloved, it's working rather well. “What's so special about John Tarmey anyway?” I ask. “Why does Patrick hate him so much?”

“Patrick has always hated other vampires,” says the voice. “Especially ones he thought he'd killed hundreds of years ago”.

Sophie

“
Do you understand?” asks Alex.

I'm sitting on the edge of my bed, trying to get my head around everything that's been happening. “No,” I say. “This time, Alex, I don't think I understand at all”.

“That's understandable,” he says. “Things get pretty complex around here”.

The door opens and one of Dr. Penfold's assistants, a stocky man named Davies, waves at me to come over.

“See you later,” I say to Alex, walking over to Davies. “What now?”

He grabs my arm and pulls me along the corridor.

“Get off!” I shout, trying to slip out of his tight grip. “You're hurting me!”

“
We're going downstairs,” he says. “No fucking about”.

“
I'll come!” I insist. “Just stop hurting my arm!”

Refusing to let go, he leads me down some stairs and soon we're going into a room in the basement. Dr. Penfold is waiting, with a bed laid out in the corner and some kind of machine nearby.

“You can leave us now, Davies,” says Dr. Penfold. “But keep checking the perimeter. Don't stop until I tell you it's safe to do so, do you understand me?”

Davies nods and leaves the room.

“I'm very sorry about the little incident in the van,” Dr. Penfold says. “I hope you're sufficiently recovered”.

“
It was pretty intense,” I say.

“
I imagine so,” he replies. “I expect it was Patrick, your vampire friend, taking out some of his frustration”.

I stare at him. “You don't believe Patrick is real,” I say. "You said -"

“It's nothing to do with believing or not believing,” Dr. Penfold replies, interrupting me. “I know he's real. I even saw him once, out of the corner of my eye. And some of my friends have had considerably more involved dealings with him”.

There's a noise behind me and I turn, but I don't see anyone. All I see is the dark shadows on the other side of the room.

“There's nothing there,” says Dr. Penfold. “Now listen, I've decided to finally admit to you that I believe you because I have something to offer you”. He turns to admire the machine. “This is the most amazing gadget. It's good old-fashioned electro-shock of the variety used in the days when we were really allowed to cure our patients. It's not as subtle as the equipment I was hoping to use on you, and to be honest, the potential side-effects are a little more strong. But I'm assuming you want to know what happened to you in that year when you were missing. I'm also assuming you want to know what happened to the baby? I mean, what kind of a mother are you?”

I stare at the machine. It looks old, like something out of a horror movie. Wires are sticking out the top, and the arms of the bed have thick leather straps.

“I can wait,” I say.

“
This
can't
wait,” Dr. Penfold says. “It's becoming too serious. I hope you understand, Sophie, there's no time to lose. That baby could be dying. You might have left it in some remote abandoned house, or in a cave, or anywhere. This is a matter of life and death, and the survival of your child – your son or daughter – is at stake. Won't you accept a little pain and risk in order to safeguard your child?”

“
I don't have a child,” I say.

“
Sit down, Sophie,” he says, gesturing toward the bed. “I know that you accept the truth. Somewhere out there, you have a child. We have to find that child before it's too late. Either the poor little thing is all alone, or it's with Patrick. Which of those options do you really think is preferable?”

“
I don't have a child,” I repeat. “It's just not possible to -”

“
There's a year of your life that's missing!” he shouts. “In your mind, you went to this Gothos place last week and then you woke up here. But in reality, you were away for a year and then on Monday you were found outside your house, bleeding and almost dead”.

“
What?” This is the first I've heard of being almost dead.

“
You don't remember, do you?” he says. “You were rushed to hospital. You had wounds on your arms, on your neck. Haven't you seen the scars, Sophie?”

I look down at my arms. There are scratches and cuts, but I... I touch the side of my neck and feel something odd. Stitches! Something
did
happen to me...

“
I think he did this to you,” says Dr. Penfold. “I think you put your trust in Patrick, and he stole your baby and he almost killed you, and now you're willing to let that baby suffer and perhaps even die because you still have some misguided loyalty to this selfish, arrogant vampire who believes he can just order you about”.

I look at the electro-shock machine.

“This machine can unblock your memory,” he says. “Yes, it's crude. Yes, it will probably be extremely uncomfortable. But it
will
work, and then we can help you to find that baby and get it away from the vampire. What do you think he plans to do with it?”

I have this horrible, hollow feeling inside. I feel like I should sacrifice my safety, perhaps my sanity, to undergo this treatment and try to help my baby. I
should
care enough to do that. But I don't. I've never seen the baby, I have no memory of being pregnant, and I have no connection with this... thing that they keep saying is my child. So how can I sacrifice so much to protect something that I don't really know? Besides, if it exists, the baby must be with Patrick.

“
Do the right thing, Sophie,” says Dr. Penfold. “The vampire almost killed you. There's no way you can believe that you owe him anything. The only person to whom you owe anything is that child. Be a good mother. Be a good human being, and sit down so I can perform this procedure before it's too late!”

From somewhere else in the building, there's a crashing sound. The lights flicker.

“What was that?” I ask.

“
Probably just Mr. Tarmey having another one of his fits,” Dr. Penfold says, looking concerned. “Don't let him distract you”.

I take a deep breath. “First, you have to tell me about John Tarmey. Who is he?
What
is he?”

“
He's a patient,” says Dr. Penfold, sounding somewhat annoyed that I'm delaying things. “Just like you, just like everyone else up there”.

“
But he's not up there, is he?” I say. “He's down here. All the time. What's so special about him? Why's he treated so differently to everyone else?”

“
It's just a matter of procedure,” says Dr. Penfold.

There's another distant crash, and the lights flicker again. Somewhere off in another part of the building, something's happening. I run to the door, pull it open and immediately realize something's very wrong. There are shouts from another corridor.

“What's happening?” I ask, but suddenly a hand is placed over my mouth and I'm pulled back into the room as the door is kicked shut. Dr. Penfold drags me across the floor to the bed, and although I try to fight back, I can't stop him from shoving me down. Before I can react, he's strapped one of the leather restraints around my arm. As I struggle, I see something in the darkness over on the other side of the room. I can't quite make it out, but it seems to be a person.

“
Patrick!” I shout. “Help me!”

The figure doesn't move.

“Patrick!” I shout again.

“
It's not Patrick,” hisses Dr. Penfold. “Shut the fuck up”.

As I stare into the darkness, the figure moves slightly, and for a moment I get a better view of its face. It looks damaged and dead, like a walking charred and burnt corpse, with vivid round white eyes staring out from a bloody face.

I feel something being lowered onto my head.

“
This will only take a moment,” says Dr. Penfold. “It might hurt a little, but it will save your child's life. And that, after all, is the only thing that matters now." With that, he reaches over and flicks a switch on the side of the machine.