The Vampiric Housewife (2 page)

Chapter Two

The Laboratory

    
Charlie worked at the St. Vladimir Hospital. It was a fifteen story building that sat on the edge of town atop a hill, the front was a sheet of windows that looked down and across the neighborhoods of the valley. In fact one had to pass the imposing, towering building to come in or out of Sangre Valley. Palm lined Redemption Road was the only road in or out of town. Every single day for the last ten years, Charlie fantasized about flooring the gas pedal of the green Ford Fairlane, speeding past the hospital, leaving the town in his rearview mirror, and never looking back. About a mile outside of town stood a guard station. They wouldn’t be able to stop him. They wouldn’t even try. But they would know that he left without permission, and he would never be allowed to come back. He’d never see his family again. He might even be hunted down and disposed of, his fate forever a mystery to his family. That was why Charlie dutifully pulled into the hospital and drove around back to the employee entrance like he did every Monday thru Friday. There, too, stood a guard station. Barbwire encircled the perimeter. Every time he flashed his work badge to enter, he felt as if he might never come out again.

    
Inside the sterile lobby the receptionist greeted him cheerfully. “Goodnight Mr. Murray,” she smiled. She was a human, middle aged and unattractive, no longer afraid of working with a different species, one that could easily separate her head from the rest of her body and enjoy the fountain of blood. He could hear her heart beating—steady, slow, calm. The scent of her sweet blood called to him. It was he who was frightened of her, this plump, elderly woman. He never knew fear of humans until he met Dr. Venjamin.

    
Charlie nodded at her and rushed into the elevator. He held a special, privileged position at the hospital which meant he worked directly with the revered Dr. Tobar Venjamin in the underground offices. Thankfully he rode the elevator down alone. As he descended into a whole new realm of Hell, he felt the weight of the dirt on top of him and anxiety filled him. By the time the doors opened, he thought he would have a full blown panic attack. He didn’t know how much longer he could do this.

    
“Hey Charlie,” Rhett Miller called out from his office as Charlie walked by. He was pale beneath his dark skin, his nose broad and his lips thick. He was an undeniably handsome man. He was like Charlie—a man with a family. He had only one child though, a son around Harry’s age. He and his family were special too. It was for that reason that he had been promoted to Dr. Venjamin’s secret, underground research. Only men with families worked closely with the doctor. “I was thinking about a hunting trip next weekend. Dr. Venjamin’s already okayed it. Are you okay, man? You look like you need this trip. A good, fresh kill, that’s what you need.”

    
Charlie cleared his throat. “Sounds good.” A hunting trip. Get of Sangre Valley, away from the house and the hospital. Taste freedom again. After every trip, it became harder and harder to come back home, to give up the freedom. At one time he looked forward to his trips, now he dreaded them fearing that one of these days, he might not be able to drag himself back into his cage in Sangre Valley.

    
In his cramped, windowless office Charlie traded his jacket for a white lab coat. On his desk sat a black and white picture of Valerie at age seventeen when Dr. Venjamin first introduced him to her. She looked almost identical to the woman she was now, just a little less sure of herself, a little shy maybe. God, how he loved her.

    
Next to Valerie’s black and white photo, sat one of his wife with their three wonderful children, all smiling up at him. John, just a year younger than he was now, in his red and white letterman jacket. He swore the boy slept in it. But Charlie loved that letterman jacket just as much as his son. He had never been a jock. To the contrary, he had always hated and envied boys like John, the ones that had it so easy . . . the sports, the grades, the popularity, the girls. John was everything Charlie had always wanted to be. He was everything Charlie was not. And that was a good thing.

    
Then there was his darling Amelia, the apple of his eye. Beautiful. Smart as a whip. But more like he had been. A loner. Sensitive. But she didn’t cling to hate the way he had. She wasn’t consumed with anger either. She was lost but . . . not confused. She knew too much. That was her problem. At fifteen, he could already see that she would grow out of her awkwardness, and her confidence would ripen into the poise that her mother possessed. Yet, it was her future that worried him the most. What kind of life could a smart girl like her live in a town like Sangre Valley?

    
Secretly, Charlie may have loved Harry the most. Harry was his son through and through even if physically his son barely resembled him. Mischievous with street smarts, though how he gained that type of knowledge in pristine little Sangre Valley, Charlie didn’t know. But the boy knew how to take care of himself. Just like his old man. But what really got him, what really made him love Harry was his bloodlust. Finally someone else who was sick of cold blood out of plastic pouches and animal meat. Someone who couldn’t just leave or take blood, but someone who craved it, dreamed about it, would kill for it. It made Valerie worry that he wasn’t a normal little boy. But it made Charlie feel like he, himself, was normal.

    
But he shouldn’t have been thinking about his family. He had a stack of research sitting on his desk, photos, stats, medical reports, observations. It was the Romanian Project, the project that Charlie was responsible for. He was supposed to have a report of his subjects on Dr. Venjamin’s desk by the end of the day. Charlie had invested seventeen years into this project. They were more than just . . . some kind of lab rats to him. He had never really seen them as subjects to be honest. He wasn’t a scientific man. Never had been. But now he couldn’t bear to have other people view them that way. So how was he supposed to type up a cold summary of the last month? About how much food they consumed, how much rest they got, or the frequency of their bowel movements.

    
Charlie never really believed he had a conscience before. He was like Rhett down the hall. Cold. Selfish. Callous. And free. He had done a lot of damage in his life and never cared. But now . . . he had things—people—to care about, perhaps for the first time. He did not want to damage that which meant he didn’t know how much longer he could work both sides of the game. Lie to his boss. Lie to his family. It was wearing him thin. Destroying his sanity. For the first time in his life, he knew guilt. He did not like its foul taste.

    
He heard a knock and looked up to see the kindly faced Dr. Venjamin standing in the doorway with a smile. It worried Charlie that he had gotten so accustomed to living with beating hearts that he hadn’t heard Venjamin’s heart coming, or that he hadn’t smelled his earthy, sweet scent until he was already in the room. Was he losing his instincts and senses after years of being fed like a domesticated animal? He already sat and rolled over on command.

    
Dr. Tobar Venjamin had the appearance of a benevolent old man with his thick head of wavy white hair, neatly trimmed beard, and spectacled blues eyes buried in a cushion of wrinkles. He, too, was pale from lack of sunlight. Nearly as pale as everyone else in Sangre Valley yet of late he had an ashen tint to his skin. He had always been a plump, well-fed man, his argyle sweater stretched over his padded belly beneath his lab coat, but over the past few weeks, the pounds had melted off of him leaving layers of sagging skin. There was an easy, soft spoken manner about the doctor; his smile inspired others to smile, he radiated amicability. But that was only one of Dr. Venjamin’s faces. When a frown overtook the smile, his whole face darkened, new circles under his eyes appeared giving him a sinister aura, and he chilled your blood—well, would have if it had been warm to begin with. He could threatened and belittle with such venom that you shrank and trembled. There was no doubt that the doctor was brilliant. However some wondered—Charlie among them—about his sanity.