"His death won"t get the grant back, Auger. You just killed him out of spite."
He laid a cold hand on my arm. "Calm down. By next week we"ll all be famous.
You won"t have to take that cheap job in New York. You"ll be the most pre-eminent witchdoctor in America."
"You"re making me sick." I wrenched my arm away and walked out. "Good-bye, Kevin. It was swell while it lasted. Leave my name off the article. I want to forget that any of this happened."
Marlowe had a hurt-little-boy look on his face. "But you can"t just leave."
"Watch me," I muttered.
It was pitch black already, but I"d walked it a dozen times. When my feet felt asphalt instead of gravel, I turned right and headed uphill. A pa.s.sing car lit up the road, and I moved to the side. The tail-lights dwindled in the distance, and in their faint afterglow I saw a tall figure come from the driveway.Auger.
Following me.
Then it was black again. I saw two eyes, shining like a deer"s, only red. They were all I could see: the stars above, the two red eyes. They stared right at me, the nightsight of the predator.
Auger spoke softly, his voice carrying in the stillness.
"It won"t hurt. You know you want it."
I panicked and started running, going by the sound of my feet on the blacktop, my hands outstretched as I ran blind. My heart was pounding with fear and cold sweat poured down my body, but the supercharge of adrenalin Kept me going.
I saw the glimmer of light on the mailbox. I could turn down the driveway, run the quarter-mile to my home. Home, light, safety...
Something cut off the glow of the mailbox; and I knew it was Auger, in front of me now, blocking the driveway. Six feet above the ground, two red eyes.
I swerved and plunged into the forest. Branches whipped against my face and caught in my clothes and hair. I tripped and fell in the stream, got up and kept running.
Hands caught me from behind and pulled me against a body, invisible in the dark.
I was conscious of an inhumanly strong grip, and a coat smelling of wool and chemicals. I started pounding and flailing, but he ignored my blows.
He caught my hands and held them in one ice-like hand.
"Don"t fight it," he whispered. "You"ll enjoy it."
I felt his breath on my neck, and tried to scream, but I couldn"t. I was too scared.
This can"t be happening to me, I thought. Not me.
The bite was sharp and painful, followed by a warm sensation as my blood welled up through the punctures. I started struggling again, but he was oblivious to everything but the blood he was greedily sucking in.
My mind went clinical on me. Two pints equals fifteen percent blood volume.
Moderate shock will set in. I could feel the symptoms start. He"s killing me.
My knees gave out and I sank to the ground, Auger still drinking from my left jugular. Over the roaring in my ears I could hear my gasping breath and the vampire"s gross panting and s...o...b..ring. I was too weak to fight any more. The summer constellations gazed down uncaring, and became part of a light show as lack of oxygen brought hallucinations, and a strange feeling of euphoria.
The dying started to feel good.
CONCLUSIONS. Throughout history the vampire has been maligned as a villain and demon. Now that the etiology of the condition is understood, there is noreason why the vampire cannot take his place as a functioning member of society.
With prescription availability of blood, the disease will be limited to present victims. Under these conditions it need not even be cla.s.sified as contagious.
I woke up under an oak tree. A spider had used my left arm to anchor its web, and earwigs were nesting in my hair.
"Ohhh. I must have tied one on good," I groaned, and pulled myself into a sitting position, leaning against the oak. I felt like h.e.l.l. Weak, cold, splitting headache, and hungry. Never so hungry in all my life. The feeling of hunger seemed to fill every inch of my body.
Absently, I put two fingers to my wrist to take my pulse.
There was none.
I reached up to check the carotid. Every movement hurt.
My heart wasn"t beating.
I withdrew my hand and stared at my fingers. They were pale: dead white.
I was dead. I was a vampire. I tongued my canines and felt their new sharpness.
Auger did this to me. I remembered it all, and felt nauseated.
He"d be in the lab.
And blood. They had blood there. Whole refrigerators full. Rabbit blood. Rat blood.
Human blood.
The new moon is still a sliver in the sky, but I can see in the dark now. A deer crosses my path and freezes in terror until I pa.s.s. As I approach the house I can hear Marlowe typing the article the d.a.m.ned article.
It will even be possible, through a controlled infection of Pseudo-bacteria augeria, to conquer death, allowing us to revive and preserve indefinitely great minds and
"Kevin. Get me some blood. Quick, before I bite you."
I clutch at a chair to control myself. When I look down, I see that my new vampiric strength has crushed the hard plastic.
Marlowe tremulously hands me a liter of O-negative. I gulp it down. It"s cold, cramping my stomach.
"More."
It takes six liters before I can look at Marlowe without wanting to attack him.Then I clean up some, comb my hair, cover my filthy clothes with a lab coat, and slip a filled syringe into the pocket.
"Where is he, Kevin?"
"You"re alive, Mae, that"s what counts. Let"s not-"
"He sucked me d.a.m.n near dry. Where is he?"
"It didn"t hurt you. He said it wouldn"t-"
I grab his arm, and he flinches at the touch. "Feel it, Kevin, dead flesh. Is a n.o.bel going to keep either of us warm at night?"
"Add this to the conclusion, Kevin: "Where there is no longer any death, murder must be redefined." Welcome back, Dr. Sanger."
Auger stands in the lab doorway. I realize that I"m shaking.
He can"t hurt me now, I repeat over and over. But I want to flee. Or else cry.
"Refrigerated blood is nothing. Wait until you"ve drunk warm, pulsing, living blood."
"Shut up," I whisper.
"And the power. The strength. You"ve always admired strength. You"ll enjoy being a vampire, Dr. Sanger."
"No. No, I won"t become power-crazy. I won"t kill, I"m trained to save, to heal...
I won"t be like you!"
He laughes.
"Biology isn"t destiny!" I scream.
He laughs more. I almost don"t blame him.
"I thought we"d give you a chance. All right, Kevin, stake her."
I spin around. Marlowe has a wooden stake and a mallet, but he"s vacillating, as usual. I pick him up and toss him to the floor before Auger.
Auger curses and s.n.a.t.c.hes up the stake.
"Am I to a.s.sume this won"t hurt either?" I ask.
"I"ve always admired the late doctor"s resilient sense of humor," he says.
I pull the syringe from my pocket, duck in close, ram it into his side and push the plunger.
"Admire that-twenty cc of tetracycline."
He roars and throws a table at me. I duck, and it crashes into a shelf of chemicals.
"You"re cured, Auger. I"ve killed those little bugs, the ones that are keeping you alive."
He picks up a 200-pound spectrometer and tosses it at me. It bowls me into the cages, liberating a half-dozen specimens. Vampire rabbits scurry about underfoot. Iget up and dust myself off.
"Temper, temper. That"s Foundation equipment."
Marlowe watches dumbfounded as Auger throws the gas chromatograph at me. It shatters on the floor, sparks igniting the spilled chemicals. A brisk fire begins, punctuated by explosions of bottled reagents.
Auger closes in and grabs me, but this time I push him back, pick up the wooden stake, and shove it into his heart.
He looks surprised.
"Why me?" he asks, and dies again.
"Kevin. Come on. The place is burning up."
"Get away from me," he yells. "Don"t touch me, vampire!" He pulls open his shirt to show a cross on a chain.
"Don"t be stupid, Kevin."
The fire has reached the chemical stockroom. I run for the window, and plunge through in a cloud of gla.s.s. The lab behind me explodes.
Marlowe"s screams die out.
Charred paper blows away as heated air rushes out the shattered windows. The plastic on the typewriter melts and runs, laying bare the sparking wires inside. The metal letters writhe and bend and wrap around each other, and then melt into an indistinguishable lump.
I go home and clean up, and get back in time to watch the firemen. Not much is left of the old farmhouse.
"I"m a physician. Can I help?"
"They"re beyond help, Mae." The fire chief remembers me from 4H. "Think you could identify the bodies?"
They"ve covered them with yellow plastic blankets, two gross, body-shaped chunks of charred meat. The fire chief looks at me sympathetically.
"I guess their own mothers wouldn"t know them... you"re pale, Mae. Johnny, you better walk her home."
A husky young fireman takes my arm and steers me up the path, away from the lights and smoke.
"They were scientists?" he asks. "What were they doing in there?"
"Working on things man was not meant to know," I say. He doesn"t recognize the quote.
I stare sideways at my escort.He"s young and strong and healthy.