Page 15

The smell of leather dipped in shit is gone, but all is not well.

The headache I’ve developed, due to the stench, is replaced by an overwhelming wooziness I cannot shake or overcome.

Unable to sit up straight in my chair without assistance, I look around the spinning room and notice Don and Terry at my side and a large desk in front of me.

Don’s large hand is on my shoulder, keeping me from sliding off my chair.

Sunlight pours in through the only window in the office.

It’s glorious, as it’s the first time I’ve experienced natural light since being locked up.

Not only has God blessed me with fangs to help me access life’s most precious liquid, he’s also granted me the ability to absorb the sun, like his lesser creations.

“Where am I?” I ask.

“Shhh.” Terry motions to me to seal my lips.

“I don’t feel so good,” I say, ignoring his admonishment while slightly panting. “I don’t feel like myself.”

Don slides a small plastic trash bin with his foot next to mine. “If you feel like you are going to heave… here you go.”

“Gentlemen,” greets an unfamiliar voice.

I lift my head. A tall and slender man slides into a high-back chair behind a desk in front of me. My vision is blurred, but I’m able to make out his visage. Messiah-like would be the way I’d describe him. He has a full head of black hair and a manicured beard.

“Mr. Parker, how are you feeling?” he asks me.

“I don’t know. I can’t feel anything,” I reply.

“Good,” he says. “My name is Dr. Redfield, director of this hospital.”

“Nice to meet you,” I slur, determined to hide my growing panic since I can’t lift my arms.

“We’re disappointed by your actions,” Dr. Redfield advises. “Violently attacking our staff members is never tolerated here at Fulton.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

“Yes, I truly am.” I almost mean it.

“So, you are aware of your actions?”

“I believe so.”

“You claim to be a vampire,” the doctor says, raising his eyebrow skeptically.

“In the flesh. I’d show you my official membership card, but I’m strapped down at the moment.”

“Quite the dubious claim.”

“That depends on who you have been talking to,” I mutter, almost incoherently.

“Mr. Parker, I run a tight ship,” Dr. Redfield continues.

“I’m also facing severe budget cuts. Keeping you in isolation requires a tremendous amount of resources that I do not have at my disposal.

At present, I have two others in solitary confinement.

One, a sexual deviant who wants to screw everything that moves, and who has tried assaulting everyone, and I mean everyone, including Don here, who is by no means a lustful target. No offense, Don.”

“None taken,” Don replies.

“I have another patient who believes he’s a werewolf and has bitten ten times the number of people you have, but he’s been here three months.”

A werewolf? I’d be a hypocrite in saying I don’t believe in werewolves. Of course, I don’t believe in them. What kind of crazy fool would believe they’re a werewolf? But I have to ask.

“A werewolf? Wow, does he mark his territory on fire hydrants? Get zoomies at 3 a.m.? Do you have to buy extra-strength lint rollers? And does PetSmart even carry flea collars in his size?”

“Shut the hell up!” Don hisses, squeezing my shoulder.

I would’ve bitten his hand. Meanwhile, the more this Redfield fellow talks, the more arrogant he seems. Underneath his lab coat, I glimpse an expensive gray suit and a lavender tie. As my eyes regain focus, I notice his hair and beard are an unnatural black.

“Mr. Parker, when I look at you, I don’t see someone severely ill or handicapped by his condition. We’ve assessed that you might be suffering from a milder condition, an identity crisis of sorts. Similar to those suffering from homosexuality.”

“Oh, you’re one of those guys. You’ll be happy to know I am as straight as they come, but it wasn’t for me giving it the old college try for a wild weekend or two. Just saying, never go to a college theater party without a ride home. If you know what I’m getting at.” And I give him a big wink.

I briefly had a gay friend in tenth grade.

He never told me he was gay, but he was the most effeminate guy I’d ever met.

Nice, too, and he never made a move on me.

I mean, who would? I’m not sexy. I have the build and posture of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.

But he accepted me for who I was, fangs and all, and because of that, I thought he was a cool dude, and nowhere near the mental case Dr. Redfield insinuates he might be.

Redfield’s choice of a colorful tie seems odd, in light of his prejudices.

I notice a pendant hanging over it. I can’t make it out as it’s too small to decipher, especially in my drugged state.

I’ve been hanging out with goths over the past year, and its shape and inscription seem almost occult-like.

Perhaps he belongs to some kind of secret cult.

“Mr. Parker,” he says, calling for my attention as I lean forward, squinting at his pendant. “Mr. Parker?”

“Yes?”

“Have you involved yourself in any activities one might consider satanic in nature?”

“No, sir. I’m a man of God.”

“Really? I’ve always thought a man of God wouldn’t go around killing young women and biting their necks without their consent.”

“God would not have created me this way if He didn’t have a plan for me.”

Dr. Redfield sits back in his chair, absently stroking his beard.

“Mr. Parker, I am a man of faith myself. However, this is 1998, two years before the new millennium begins. I’m also a well-read man who trusts in the tenets of science.

I believe your physiology... and that your teeth are a result of a rare genetic occurrence. ”

“So be it,” I say. “It remains God’s will.”

“Regardless… while you are here in this hospital, your teeth are a dangerous weapon that must be neutralized for the protection of my staff and the patients we serve.”

Perhaps this is a chance to make a deal. After all, he doesn’t think I’m as mentally ill as his other patients. Maybe he feels I’m coherent enough for compromise.

“Mr. Redbull,” I slur.

“Redfield...”

“Right, Redfeel. Look, all I want is a little blood. No one gets hurt if I am given some every once in a while. I promise to be your best patient.”

“Mr. Parker, feeding a human being with blood is a health hazard. End of story.”

I shrug my shoulders and nod. The more I try negotiating, the more the realization sets in that I face two decades of being muzzled and starved into submission.

Dr. Redfield opens a file sitting on his desk. My file. Even with my fuzzy brain, I can tell it contains medical records, notes, and photographs of my fangs and x-rays I don’t remember taking.

He puts on a pair of reading glasses and studies the folder’s contents while bird songs from outside travel through the window, bringing life to the sterile and quiet office. I miss those serene sounds that I once took for granted.

Dr. Redfield places the contents back inside the folder, closes it, and pushes it aside. He orders Don and Terry to pick me up. Standing without saying a word, he walks out into the hallway with Don and Terry holding me up in tow by my arms.

The hospital halls and offices are all painted an off-white that hasn’t been reapplied in years. Everywhere I look, I see cracks and smudges.

We follow Redfield down a staircase and into what appears to be the hospital’s basement.

He walks a few steps down another narrow hallway and into a dark room.

Don, Terry, and I wait just outside the door.

Fluorescent lights reveal a single chair in the center of the room with an attached lamp above it.

It looks like a setup from a dentist’s office.

“What is this?” I ask warily.

“What does it look like, Mr. Parker?” Dr. Redfield picks up a corded phone hanging on the wall.

Everything feels wrong… Something bad is about to happen. What are they going to do? Are they going to destroy my teeth? I try unsuccessfully to slip from Don and Terry’s grasp, but I’m still restrained by both strong men.

“Relax,” Don says. “You’re not going to feel a thing.”

I have to somehow snap out of my stupor.

There has to be some way to stop the doctor from entering and violating my mouth and taking the only things that identify me and confirm who I am.

Unfortunately, they’ve drugged me up so thoroughly that my awareness isn’t trustworthy.

Even Don and Terry’s large claws seemingly wrapped around the entirety of my noodle arms feel dulled and phantom-like.

Sounds in the room are muted. I hear Dr. Redfield talking on the phone, but what he says sounds unintelligible, foreign. I close my eyes and after I open them, I’ve lost track of time, horrified to find myself on my back and with a goggled man forcing a metallic instrument into my mouth.

I try speaking, but my tongue feels as if it’s sinking toward the back of my throat, tickling my gag reflex. I feel warm chunks of food and sputum on my chin; apparently, I’ve vomited.

Rubber gloves, blue masks, eyeglasses, a pair of thick eyebrows, and yellow-handled pliers hover over me, and then I disappear into darkness. Not a sensation is felt, but I know as soon as I go into a slumber that I will no longer be able to call myself a vampire.

Annie died in vain.