There was an electronic crackle, and a voice filled the room. "Welcome to initiation, Aurora. This test will last as long as you want"
I wanted out of this insane asylum. I rushed to the door and tried yanking down the silver handle, but it didn't budge.
I turned and my eyes raced over every square inch of the enclosed room. There was a metal table in the very center. I walked up to it and looked down at the weapons laid on top: a handgun, crossbow, hunting knife, ax, and wooden stake.
The intercom crackled back to life.
"Once the subject has fed on your blood you will need to choose a weapon and finish him off."
"What? No! I'm not killing anyone. Melcher? Let me out of here."
"Now!" I screamed.
"Good luck, Aurora."
I expected something horrible to occur after he signed off, but nothing happened.
I circled the table and kept glancing at the door. Trapped inside a windowless room with weapons that made my skin crawl. Fantastic. There wasn't even a clock to track the minutes dragging by. If they planned on keeping me locked up for so long they could've at least put a chair inside.
I folded my arms over my chest and looked at the two-way mirror.
"What's the matter with Dracula? Can't find his cape?" I chuckled, but it sounded nervous.
I walked over to the far corner of the room and leaned my back against the wall.
There was a hollow knock at the door across the room. It pounded three times in succession, producing an eerie, drawn-out echo.
I wanted to crack a joke, but something didn't feel right. My heart pounded its way up to my throat and I'd barely swallowed when the door flew open. A middle-aged man in flannel was thrown in. The door slammed shut behind him. He nearly fell on the floor, but caught himself. Long greasy hair covered his face as he bent forward. When he righted himself, I saw that his cheeks were sunken, lips bared over yellow teeth. He snarled and spit leaked out the corners of his mouth.
I stood up straight.
The motion caught his eye. He wheezed when he saw me. His eyes were bloodshot. His clothes looked like they hadn't been washed in months.
This was no vampire. This was a lunatic.
He crossed the room, passing the weapons laid out on the table. At least he showed no interest in those.
I sprang to life, skirting the wall as I hustled to the exit on the opposite side.
"Let me out of here!" I pounded on the door. "Let me out!" I screamed so hard my new lungs felt ready to rupture.
The lunatic came snarling toward me. That's what he was, not a vampire, but a deranged madman who'd been locked in the room with me by psychopaths. I was part of some kind of experiment. Maybe this was a test to see how I handled stress. Maybe they wanted me as an altogether different type of operative. They wanted to desensitize me by subjecting me to unimaginable horrors.
Well, I didn't care if I passed. I just wanted out - and not just out of that room.
I kicked the door and walked over to the two-way mirror, glaring so hard my temples throbbed. "Enjoying the show?"
I turned and began circling the room, always keeping the table between me and the madman. He kept coming at me slowly, like a zombie in a horror film. At least he'd shown no sudden bursts of locomotion.
We moved clockwise around the room. The space was so small it made me dizzy, but still I moved, matching the maniac's speed to keep him as far from me as possible.
My neck soon ached from constantly craning it over my shoulder to keep track of the lunatic's location. I suppose I had my physical therapist to thank for being able to walk for miles on end. Unfortunately, my pursuant showed no signs of fatigue, either.
Round and round we went until my stomach began turning and my vision blurred.
It took a while for the first feelings of exhaustion to creep inside my consciousness. A snarling, slobbering loony will keep a girl on her toes. But hours began to feel like days, and finally, I collapsed when rounding a corner. I hit an elbow as I landed, sending a tingle up my arm. My pursuer came toward me at the same creepy pace. His eyes opened wider and murky irises burned inside.
I scrambled back to my feet and stumbled forward. I glared into the two-way mirror.
"Why are you doing this to me?" I screamed.
I rushed to the table and picked up the revolver. Before this moment I'd never even held a gun. I pointed it at the madman. His stared back with vacant eyes, sunk inside a twisted face. "Stay where you are!"
He looked at me, not the gun, snarled, and kept coming.
I retreated and began sobbing when I re-entered the circle.
Make it end. Whatever it takes.
I turned suddenly and aimed the gun at the man's leg with a shaky hand. The last time I felt terror this all-consuming was right before that SUV took me out. My heart seized inside my chest as I pulled back the trigger.
Nothing happened.
"Shit!" I screamed.
I dropped the gun. It clattered over the floor as I sprinted away and resumed my place circling directly across from the man.
Tears leaked down the corners of my eyes. It could have been the middle of the night for all I knew. I could suddenly understand how people went crazy. Maybe that's what the agents were really up to - some sick experiment to make a loon out of me.
I glanced over my shoulder. The last of my energy was beginning to drain. I willed my feet to keep moving, but at some point they stopped and I stood rooted in place. The maniac's rasp was much too loud. It sounded like hissing. It was disgusting. The fear in my heart had lessened due to extreme fatigue, but as the foul being closed in on me, terror renewed itself like a jolt of electricity to the brain.
I intended to shove him onto the floor. He didn't look sure-footed enough to handle much force. Bracing myself, I slammed both palms against his chest, but instead of falling, the madman grabbed my arm in a bruising crush and pulled me toward him with a deafening snarl.
At that point, my heart stopped beating. I opened my mouth, but was unable to inhale or exhale.
A cold, sweaty hand gripped my face so hard it felt like my jaw would break.
I would have liked to know that in the last instant I struggled. That I fought for my life. But I didn't. I was paralyzed. I even suspected my own heart - at least the one I was given - might kill me before the madman did.
I felt his teeth at my neck. His hand loosened around my face. My heart began pounding inside my ears, thumping against my chest. His tore into my neck. He broke through my skin and pierced deep inside my flesh. It was invading and it was revolting and stirred a nauseating arousal inside me that I couldn't explain. Blood rushed to my head. My pulse pounded at my neck.
Then he began to suck.
I tilted my head back and closed my eyes. I envisioned needles extracting blood. Vials filling with thick, red gore. The clammy lips on my neck felt like a suction slowly draining the life from me.
With a sudden jerk, I was released. The thing, whatever it was, began to spasm beside me. It thrashed and gasped as though in agony. Its eyes widened until they looked like they would pop out of their sockets.
I lay spent across the floor, like a bloody human rag. I looked toward the mirror. "What did you do to me?"
"Congratulations, Aurora, you have poisoned your first vampire. As you can see, he is in a state of paralysis. He can barely move. Unfortunately, the effect is only temporary, a contingency we're working on, but eventually he will get up and want to feed again."
I felt like throwing up when I heard the word "feed." Instinctively I touched my neck and pulled back bloody fingers.
"This is your gift, Aurora. Your blood. Now finish the creature off."
I pushed myself into sitting position and looked toward the mirror. The ghoulish wheezing behind me didn't let up. Several minutes passed before the faint crackle reemerged.
"If you don't take the creature's life, you will have to do this all over again. We can't let you out of this room until the thing is dead. A word of warning - the creature is capable of killing. He could snap your neck or suffocate you."
I thought I was too overcome to allow terror to return, but the first shiver rocked through me. I'd avoided looking at the body behind me. The sounds it made were ghastly. I almost wanted to kill it just to make the noise stop. It was that four-letter word that anchored me to the ground.
Kill.
How could I?
"You're asking me to commit murder," I said to the mirror.
"Murder would involve killing another human. This is not human."
I gathered my knees in my arms and laid my head on them.
"Aurora, this creature is a killer. Before we captured it, it killed women and children without discrimination - hundreds, possibly thousands of victims over time. Think of the lives you could save. This isn't murder. This is justice."
"Please just let me out of this room."
"You know what you need to do to get out."
I looked up at the silver table in the center of the room. From the ground, I couldn't see the weapons. I got to my feet and stumbled on the first step. The weapons were spread across the metal table like a killer's buffet.
The gun had been a no go. The knife gave me shivers, as did the ax.
I grabbed the wooden stake, tightening my fist around the smooth handle.
The intercom was silent, but I could hear the static voice inside my head. "Good, Aurora. Now take that stake and drive it through the creature's heart."
I turned around. The vampire twitched on the floor. Blood trickled down his chin - my blood. I approached slowly. Now I was the hunter. I knelt so close to the body it touched me every time it convulsed. Its fetid breath prickled my nostrils. I raised the stake. I held my arm high, as though preparing to swing a hammer into a nail. The stake remained suspended in air. I was a photograph, a statue, a cartoon frozen in still life until the creature stopped twitching and attempted to lift himself off the ground.
I raised my arm higher then slammed the stake down. It pierced the vampire in the gut. The thing cried out and clawed at my ankle. I lifted the stake again.
It's like a peg, I told myself. It's like putting a peg inside a cribbage board.
I closed my eyes at the last minute and ended up puncturing the vampire in the throat. Blood gushed out. Bile filled my mouth. I swallowed and screamed; raised the stake again, aimed, and pounded the weapon into his heart.
The vampire went limp. I pulled out the stake. It slipped from my hand and clattered to the ground. For a moment I was only aware of my own shaky breath.
The door to the room opened and Agents Melcher and Crist walked in. Melcher applauded. "Bravo, Agent Sky."
I swiped several loose strands of hair off my forehead. I'd probably just rubbed blood over my face, but I didn't care. At the moment, I wanted to smear it like war paint over my cheeks, leap up, and attack Agent Melcher.
Melcher grinned. "It may not feel like it now, but you did well, Aurora. You passed."
I stood up slowly. My arms and shirt were covered in blood. "What happens to people who don't pass?"
"Some let themselves get killed by the creature." Agent Melcher walked over to the body. "This one nearly destroyed the last test subject."
"And you let him live?"
Agent Crist stepped in. "It is not up to us to kill it."
Melcher circled the body. "Some subjects try to take off after completing orientation, but we always catch them."
I caught his eye. "What do you do with people who try to run?"
"We don't kill them if that's what you're wondering. We make them useful in other foreign divisions - desk work." Melcher's grin widened. He had perfect white teeth. They were obnoxious.
"Then there are the ones who go crazy," Crist said.
Melcher clasped his hands together. "But! Let's talk about the ones who become agents, our team of vampire hunters. We didn't just bring you back to life, Aurora. We made you superhuman. Other agents dream of having your gift."
"What? To become a vampire's chew toy?"
Melcher chuckled. "You serve a far greater purpose than that."
"Yeah? And what purpose is that?"
"Haven't you been listening to a word I've said? Your purpose is to rid the world of evil." Melcher clapped his hands. "But that will come in time. For now, go home. Go to school. We want all our young agents to obtain a high school diploma and we encourage college, as well. You don't have to give up your life, Aurora. Far from it. In fact, we want to give you a chance to get back to normal."
How normal was he talking?
"Can I still go to Notre Dame?"
"Unfortunately not," Melcher said. "You're needed in Alaska. This state's become the latest hot spot for the reanimated dead. They appear to be gravitating to the dark."
"And cold," Agent Crist added.
All thoughts of vampires were momentarily forgotten as a horrifying thought occurred to me. "You mean I can't leave Alaska?"
"You get time off for vacation, naturally, but no, you can't move out of state."
They should never have revived me. They should have just let me die in peace. At least I might've had a shot at heaven, or even peaceful oblivion, opposed to a lifetime confined to this frozen hell.
"Does my mom know what you've recruited me for?"
"She's been briefed, but I warn you, she's under contract not to speak of it."
"Even to me?"
"You are the one who needs to hold your tongue, Aurora. Your work here is top secret."
"As is the existence of vampires," Crist said.
"We've dropped a bomb over you," Melcher said. "But I think you can handle it."
"A bomb?" I repeated and looked at the bloody corpse on the floor.
A terrifying thought occurred to me. "Will I get rabies now?"
Melcher shook his head. "You already have rabies. That's one of the viruses we injected you with and why you must take the antidote every year."
Crist shot me a snide look. "Unless you want to end up like him."
I cupped my palm over my bleeding neck and watched the body to see if it would turn to dust. It didn't.
"Don't worry about any more of those for a while," Melcher said. "We want you to train first. We can assign you a personal trainer on base or you can continue taking classes near home. The choice is yours."
"Can I take a shower now?"
"Of course, come with me." Agent Melcher turned his head to talk as he led me toward the open door. "I know this is a tough time to be taking on extracurricular activities, but at least it's your last semester of high school."
I focused on the exit. Melcher and Crist moved at a snail's pace, as though they were out for a winter stroll. They stopped in front of the door.
"Good work, Agent Sky," Melcher said with a smile.
Crist looked me over. "Try to make it less messy next time."
The agents exited first. I stepped out after them. The clinical white room led into more blinding whiteness. I got the feeling I wasn't escaping at all.
I was washed up and waiting in the lobby when my mother arrived.
"I came just as soon as I got your call," she said to Agent Melcher. "How did orientation go?"
"It went well, Mrs. Sky. You should be very proud of your daughter. I can see you've taught her to excel in all areas of life."
Mom's voice rose. "Oh. Thank you."
"I know it's not the future you envisioned for your daughter, but Aurora has a chance to make a difference in the world."
I tuned them out and stared at the clean sneakers on my feet. The old pair had been disposed of, as had my bloody clothes. The facility's showers were as white and clinical as the test room. Both locations made the blood more vivid. In the shower, it mixed with water and turned into a river of red that swirled around the tile by my feet before emptying down the drain.
I touched the bandage Crist had affixed to my neck. "Can we go now?"
My mother smiled. "I don't know." She turned to Agent Melcher. "Are we free to go?"
Melcher swept his arm open. "Of course. Aurora completed orientation with flying colors. Next we'll assign her a mentor - someone who has been through the same process and can show her the ropes. Thank you for making the trip down, Mrs. Sky. Aurora, we'll be in contact."
I nodded, but couldn't meet Melcher's eye. I didn't ever want to look at Melcher again except to give him the finger, and even then I didn't want to look into those smug, conniving eyes.