Kelly looked up at Raymond as he entered her hospital room and the first thing he noticed was how pale her face was and the dark circles around her eyes. It gave her the look of a skeleton, so much that Raymond had to hold back a shudder. With a weak smile she motioned for him to sit down on the chair next to her bed, pushing away a table holding a tray of untouched hospital food while he sat down and pulled out a small notebook.
“I look worse than I feel, doctor says he thinks I’ll make a full recovery in a couple more days” she said.
Raymond felt a small pang of guilt for his reaction when he walked in, he’d never had a problem with bodies at a crime scene or the brutal wounds he sometimes had to photograph on victims, but the sight of someone who looked so close to death always unnerved him.
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said finally, “I hope your doctor treats you a little better than he did me just a second ago.” He tried to make the joke light-hearted and ease the poor girl into his questions, but the only reaction he got was her rolling her eyes.
“Yea, he’s just awful. I don’t think he could say anything nice if he tried. My parents said he’s very good though and that I should just put up with it. Personally, I think I’d rather have someone not so good if he’s always gonna be like that.” She motioned to the small notepad in his hand and finally smiled. “I thought all you guys were using laptops and tablets now, what’s with the paper?”
Raymond chuckled and sat back in his chair, it felt like he was sitting on a rock but he made himself look as comfortable as he could. “I guess I’m just old-fashioned, never did like those computers. If you think you’re up to it, I’d like to ask you some questions about the attack.”
“Go ahead,” she said, “I can’t get it out of my head anyways. I even dreamed about it when I was knocked out from whatever poison they said I had in me.”
“OK,” Raymond said gently, “start from the beginning and tell me what you remember.”
She took a deep breath and pulled a small silver cross on a gold chain out from under her hospital gown, wrapping the chain around her fingers she looked back to Raymond. “Sorry,” she said, “it keeps me calm when I think about it. My dad gave it to me after I was baptized years ago. He told me my faith could protect me from whatever evil’s out there, I just wish I had it on when I was running, maybe it would have stopped him.” Tears were starting to form in the corners of her eyes as she fumbled with the cross, all Raymond could think to do was give her an encouraging nod.
“That’s ok” Raymond said, motioning for her to go on.
“Well I stopped off on Potter Road to take my afternoon jog. I’ve been going there for years ever since I read the Harry Potter series,” she laughed to herself softly, “silly, I know, but it always seemed to bring me luck at the track meets. Anyways, I was trying to make it a fast jog because I started late and wanted to get done before it got too dark. I was on my way back to my car when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around but no one was there, so I just kept going. I thought it was just my imagination since I was still running, but then I felt someone run their fingers through my hair. I remember taking my headphones out and calling, but nobody answered. That’s when I felt cold fingers touching my face. I looked around again and didn’t see anybody, but I heard him laughing at me. I remember panicking and running away, but then he grabbed my ankle and I fell. Then I….”
At that point Kelly started to cry, she held up the hand holding the cross for him to wait just a second. Raymond didn’t say anything, he let her cry. A few minutes later she managed to stop, then she tapped the cross on the side of the cast on her other hand like she was using it to knock on a door. With a final sniffle she looked back to Raymond.
“Sorry, it’s just hard to think about it” she said with a weak smile.
“Do you need a break? I can get you a soda or something” Raymond offered. Kelly just shook her head no and kept going.
“No, I need to get this done. After I fell, I yelled out and asked what he wanted. Then he put his hand, his cold dirty hand, over my mouth and told me he wanted my blood.” Stopping for a moment, Kelly shivered and gripped the cross tight against her chest, covering the right cast with fingers sticking out of her left cast.
“That was when he picked me up and carried me into the woods. I swear we were moving so fast I thought I was on a roller coaster. I didn’t know anything could move that fast in real life…”
Raymond thought about what Keith had told him earlier about the thief moving too fast to be real. This case was turning out to be too much.
“Do you need a break” Kelly asked, noticing Raymond looking off. He shook his head at her and smiled.
“Sorry about that, us old guys do that from time to time, keep going, I promise I’m listening.”
“It’s ok, I know I sound crazy” she said with a small, unsure laugh.
Raymond was about to tell her she didn’t but just as he opened his mouth to say it she held up one finger and kept talking.
“When he brought me into the woods, that’s when things got really bad. I was fighting and screaming, I don’t even remember when he broke my wrists, I just know I screamed louder when he did. Then he ripped off my shirt and I thought he wanted to… well, you know. That seemed worse to me than anything else, until he brought out that knife. He said he didn’t want to turn me, whatever that meant, that he wanted to go slow… that’s when he cut me.” While she talked, her eyes started to get wide as she stared off at the wall, remembering that awful night.
“His breath was cold,” she said still looking at the wall, “but when he put his mouth on me, when he licked me, it burned. I think that was the poison the doctors told me about, something on his tongue, all I know is it felt like fire. He was sucking the blood out of my cut when the other showed up and pulled him off.”
“The other” Raymond asked, interrupting her.
She looked over to him, confused.
“You didn’t know? He’s the one who brought me here.”
“Who was he? What did he look like?” Raymond asked. Kelly just shrugged.
“Don’t know, it was too dark. He was bigger than the other, he threw the smaller one around like a doll. I think I was losing it by then because I swear he pulled a glowing sword out from nowhere and stabbed the smaller one. They said something to each other before he did, but I couldn’t hear it. The last thing I remember was the smaller one that attacked me looked like he caught fire for a split second, a bright blue fire, then fell down and burst into dust. I was screaming when the bigger one walked over to me and, and I swear his eyes were glowing yellow in the middle. Anyways, that’s all I saw before I passed out and woke up in the hospital.”
“Is there anything you can tell me about the bigger one? Any features you remember? Hair long or short? Stuff like that.”
She shook her head. Still holding her cross, Kelly settled further into her bed and shivered. Raymond could see she was getting too tired to talk much more, and he wanted to check out the security footage before he left. “No, just that he was bigger than the one that attacked me and his eyes…”
“You said they were yellow? I thought it was too dark by then to tell that.”
“No,” she said quietly, “they were glowing yellow. They looked like the reflection you see when a cat looks at you sometimes, but they weren’t reflecting anything, they had their own light.”
Raymond breathed in heavily. Poor girl must have been out of it pretty bad by then, he thought. A buzzing in his pocket distracted him, frowning, he reached in and took his cell phone out. Keith had sent him a text message. He fumbled with the phone for a second, muttering to himself, he was never any good with these things. Kelly looked over and giggled softly, then held her hand out for the phone.
“Let me see it, don’t worry, I won’t read it, just pull it up for you” she assured him.
Raymond really didn’t want to hand it over to the girl, but then again, it may be important and he didn’t want to wait till he saw Keith again to figure out what he wanted. He really hated cell phones. Embarrassed, he handed it over. Kelly took it from his hand and touched a couple of buttons before handing it back over, “just hit the big one in the middle, it’ll pull up the message.”
“Thanks,” Raymond said, hitting the button she pointed out.
“Sorry buddy, nothing left at the crime scene, looks like the animals tore it up just before we got there.”
“Damn,” he muttered to himself. Donald may not get what he wanted after all, it may have to go into evidence.
“What did you say” Kelly asked. Raymond looked over to her and shook his head.
“Sorry about that, just talking to myself. I’ll let you get some sleep.”
She smiled at him tiredly from the bed, “thank you, I am getting tired. Feel a little funny too, guess I need some sleep.”
Raymond stood up to leave, then a thought occurred to him, he turned back to Kelly. “What was it you told your parents you thought attacked you anyways? I promise I won’t think you’re crazy.”
She looked up at him from the bed, Raymond thought the circles around her eyes had gotten darker in the short time since he had walked in. Finally, she answered him in an almost matter of fact tone.
“Isn’t it obvious? It was a vampire.”
….
Walking down the white hallways, Raymond felt sorry for the poor girl once more. She had been through a lot in the last week and now he was afraid it was going to take her years to get past it, if ever. There was no way he could believe she was anything but delusional.
Vampires didn’t exist outside of horror movies and folk tales, and they certainly didn’t exist in the small town of Conway, New Hampshire. This was going to make the case harder to solve, and even if they did find the sick SOB who attacked her, no jury or judge in the world was going to believe her story.
Another thing was bothering Raymond as well. With the evidence stolen from both the station and the lab part of the sample was sent to, he was going to have to use the ashes that currently sat in his pocket to try to solve this case. It may be the only thing that will link the attacker to the girl in terms of physical evidence, the clothing that she had worn the day of the attack were still at the lab and he had little confidence that they would find the same ashes on them.
When he reached the small security room, the door was slightly ajar. Peeking in, Raymond saw a young man staring at several screens that were running through various parts of the hospital. He gave a knock on the door and the young man turned around quickly, startled by the appearance of someone at the door. Raymond held out his badge.
“I’m Raymond Steward, Conway police department. I’m here to ask about the night Kelly Johnson was found outside of the emergency room.” He put the badge away and held out his hand, the young man stood up and gave it a quick shake.
“Name’s Doug Harrison. Sorry, I wasn’t working here that night but I’m happy to help you out any way I can.”
Raymond stepped into the small room and pulled a chair out from under the set of TV screens. He raised his eyebrows to Doug in a silent question and Doug motioned for him to have a seat. “I’d like to see the tapes of that night if you have them, specifically the ones from the emergency room doorway where she was found. Also, do you have the name of the nurse on duty that night?”
Doug shrugged and gave Raymond a regretful look. “I can show you the tape, I just don’t think it’s going to do you any good. The screens may show different parts of the hospital, but every camera has a 24 hour memory. We saved the tapes from the emergency room that night but they don’t show anything except an empty entrance way, then they shut off and when they come back on the girl is laying alone just inside the doorway. The nurse on duty that night was away from the desk at that time and didn’t see how she arrived.”
Raymond raised his eyebrows again, “What do you mean they shut off? I’ve never heard of a camera just shutting off.”
“Neither have I. Here, have a look,” Doug replied, sliding his chair over to a blank television screen. He turned it on and pulled an old VHS tape off the shelf. It was blank eccept for a piece of masking tape with question marks hastily scribbled with a marker. “Don’t laugh at my tape,” he told Raymond with half a grin, “it’s all we can afford in the budget.”
He pushed the tape in and pressed play before Raymond could respond. The quality of the tape wasn’t all that great, but Raymond didn’t have any trouble seeing what was going on. The doorway to the emergency room was lit bright enough for the camera to see clearly through the glass and into the drive up lane just past the sidewalk. Doug pointed to a corner of the screen. “Pay attention to the time, notice it’s just past 9:25 pm here, then…”
The screen started to flicker, then at 9:26 the screen filled with static. It stayed that way for about half a second before coming back to life once more, first flickering static, then a shot of Kelly laying in the entranceway alone. When Kelly’s image came up, Doug tapped the corner of the screen. It showed 9:28 pm. “It may not look like much of a difference, but it is. My supervisor blew it off but I couldn’t, that’s why I made an extra copy of the tape. I’ve never once seen an almost two minute lapse in footage. The strangest part is that the camera still had power running to it, otherwise it wouldn’t have kept track of the time. Having to reset the timers on the security system after power failures is part of my job.”
While Doug was talking, Raymond watched the screen, it took nearly five minutes for the nurse to come back and find the girl on the floor. Whoever dropped her off must have brought her in at almost the same moment she had left her desk. He jotted some notes down in his notebook and stood up to leave. “Can I get a copy of the tape for my records” he asked Doug.
“Sure thing, I’ll have one sent to the station today. I hope you catch the bastard.” He stood up and shook Raymond’s hand. Raymond thanked him and left the room, then a thought occurred to him.
He looked back down at the notes of his interview with Kelly and something didn’t make sense. If she got attacked just at dark, then why did it take more than an hour for the girl to be brought to a hospital that was just over twenty minutes away?
He decided to stop at her room one more time to see if she was awake. Maybe she could remember something about that time, maybe not, but he at least wanted her to think of it in case something came back to her later. He was just about to her door when he heard her begin to scream horribly inside. Without knocking, he opened the door and rushed in.
Kelly was screaming at a pitch that almost seemed inhuman. Her back was arched to the point that only the top of her head and feet were still touching the bed. Her eyes were rolled up into her head, and to Raymond’s horror it looked as if the whites of her eyes were full of blood.
Before he could call for help a nurse ran into the room and rushed to Kelly’s side. She tried to get a needle out when Kelly grabbed hold of her arm, and still screaming, began to thrash around. The nurse dropped the needle to the floor and started to scream, her eyes wide with pain. Raymond felt his stomach lurch as he heard the bones in her arm break.
Now, it was the nurses turn to thrash around. She tried to pull her arm free of the smaller girl’s grip without success, her hand was turning blue and hanging at a strange angle. Raymond ran over and tried to help pry Kelly’s hand free of the broken arm, her fingers felt like steel cords and he was unable to budge them.
In his panic, Raymond didn’t notice other nurses and doctors running into the room to help. The next thing he knew Kelly threw both him and the nurse she was holding across the room, he landed on top of the nurse’s shattered arm and heard her scream out loud enough to make his ears ring. Still panicking, Raymond jumped up and pulled the nurse to her feet with her good arm. In his old age he didn’t know he could still lift someone like that.
By then there were too many people in the room to have a clear view of Kelly but he could still hear her screaming, although by now her screams were getting quieter, turning into inhuman moans and sickening gurgles. For a moment, he was tempted to force himself back to her bedside, the desire to help someone in trouble was still strong after all his years on the force. When he looked at the doctors and nurses crowded around her bed, he decided against it, he’d just get in the way.
Raymond led the crying nurse out around the crowd of people trying without success to hold Kelly down. The few words he picked up from their shouting at each other didn’t sound good for the girl. With effort, Raymond got the nurse to the emergency desk where she was quickly led away by another team of nurses, her arm had swollen to at least twice its size and had turned a horrible mixture of blacks, blues, and reds.
Heart beating out of his chest, Raymond flopped down onto a chair behind him, closing his eyes and trying to calm his breathing down. After a few minutes he felt a tap on his shoulder. One of the nurses who had come into the room after they had been thrown was standing over him with a look of concern on her face.
“Sir, are you alright? Do you need attention” she asked hastily.
Raymond shook his head, his heart had calmed down and his breathing was almost back to normal. “No, no, I’ll be ok. How’s the nurse doing?”
“Both bones in her upper arm were shattered. She’ll be ok eventually though.”
“And the girl?”
The nurse gave him a sorry expression and shook her head, “I’m sorry, the poor girl died just after you got out of the room.” And with that she walked away.
Raymond bent over and put his head in his hands. He was going to have to get to the station and fill out a report. He was also going to have to turn in the ashes he had picked up this morning and fill out some kind of report to explain why he had them in the first place. In the meantime, he had a phone call to make, not like the day could get much worse anyways.
When he got out of the hospital, he pulled his cell out and dialed the number to Donald’s office. After a few rings a woman answered. “Hello, how can I help you” she demanded.
“Oh, sorry, I was trying to reach Donald Harris, did he move to a different office?”
“No sir, I’m sorry. This is his office, I’m Cheryl Cunningham, I work for the university. Did you have and appointment with Donald?”
“Not today, he’s expecting me this week though and I was trying to call about that. Can you leave a message for me” Raymond asked urgently.
“I’m so sorry to inform you sir, but Donald Harris was found dead this morning by one of the custodians. He hung himself.”