Arthur Cromwell reveled in his anachronism. It was just one of a myriad of holdovers from his Becoming. His waistcoat and ascot were impeccable and he fancied they added to his inscrutability. The monocle that hung from his neck was a ruse intended to imply intelligence. He believed the fact that he had labored under Thomas Edison made him a genius.
He was of course wrong.
Arthur Cromwell was a scientist, true, but knowing the scientific method never helped him achieve anything more than a staff position in Edison’s company. He was mostly relegated to writing reports on others’ work. In reality, true abstract thought confounded Cromwell.
Though not the brightest of bulbs at Edison, he was savvy enough to parlay his position into power. Harnessing electricity was the hottest topic of the day and he inflated his importance to its development. It brought him status and wealth through duping investors, a manor house overlooking Boston Bay and a seemingly endless string of women of loose morals.
Unfortunately for Mr. Cromwell, it also brought him the attention of a particularly covetous vampire who turned him after cruelly relieving him of his property.
Robbed of his humanity, wealth and status, Cromwell wandered aimlessly for decades; He skulked in graveyards and dark alleys because that what he imagined vampires did. But slowly even Arthur Cromwell managed to gather up his broken life and scratch out an existence that included a modest laboratory in a quiet suburb of Washington DC. No one suspected the eccentric neighborhood scientist was also the fiend preying on the fringes of the town’s residents.
The new millennium stirred feelings of loneliness in Cromwell. At the turn of the last century he was an important man and now he was nothing more than a laughable suburbanite. Realizing his past proclivities caused his current unfortunate situation, he began to seek out a more appropriate companion. One whose intellect would complement his own.
And as fate would have it, she lived in the same town.
Michelle Allen nee McAllister, was one of those people you’d hate for being so attractive, intelligent and successful – if she wasn’t so kind and happy. Her joy was infectious and she was generous with her smile and her money.
Michelle had been a child prodigy in music and mathematics. She was accepted to an ivy league school and completed her undergraduate degree at age 12. She earned a PhD in both history and psychology and graduated top of her medical school class.
The FBI took notice of her talents early on and heavily recruiter her throughout her college career. She joined the Bureau at age 18 and became one of their top forensic scientists and profilers. When she was not on a case, she taught criminal psychology at the local University. Her resume earned her many accolades and she was written of in many publications.
Which is how Cromwell discovered her.
“What absolute perfection,” thought Cromwell, “A fitting eternal companion! I must endeavor to acquire a sample of her blood; I must have assurance that her Becoming will be flawless!”
Acquiring this blood sample was a tedious process, but it mattered not – time was something Arthur Cromwell possessed in abundance. In the end, time and money can buy just about anything and this was no exception. The young lab assistant was not only easy to corrupt, but also made a tasty morsel after a late night meeting designed to exchange Michelle’s blood sample for the paltry sum of $75,000.
***
In a darkened corner of Cromwell’s basement laboratory, Arthur mingled his own vampiric blood with Michelle’s. His hubris led him to believe his experiments were original, though they were actually simplistic and based on shaky suppositions. Under the microscope, Cromwell observed the reaction. If all went according to plan, Michelle’s red blood cells should accept the vampire pathogen and transmogrify into new vampire blood. But something wasn’t quite right.
According to his notes, if the blood cells transmogrify, the host is a perfect match. If they exhibit rapid decay, the host will become a mindless flesh-hungry revenant. Michelle Allen’s blood cells, however, displayed an anomalous behavior. They accepted the pathogen, but the transmogrification did not fully complete; The cells ceased activity.
Eschewing scientific method, Arthur concluded that the age of the sample was the culprit. The blood was from a battery of tests all new FBI agents endure before receiving their first assignment.
“Elementary,” he thought, “A child could make such a deduction! She is a perfect host!”
He was of course wrong.
Nevertheless, he began constructing the plot to make Michelle Allen his bride – a simple matter of stealthy entry to the suburban home she shared with her husband Stewart Allen, and bestowing the gift of immortality upon her.
The watching and waiting began anew and when a few months of observation had passed, Arthur Cromwell felt ready to complete his diabolical plan. The evening finally arrived. It was a lazy Autumn Sunday, perfect for apple cider, fireplaces and vampires.
As the sun ducked beneath the horizon, Arthur Cromwell, scientist and vampire, crept out of his parlor and into the cool suburban night.
***
Michelle’s had met her husband, Stewart Allen in med school. Though it was over a cadaver in a fundamental anatomy class, they felt an instant bond. Both had been outstanding academics at a young age and both had entered medical school for essentially the same reason – it sounded interesting.
Their talks of what the future held for them individually soon became what they would discover together. They served out their residency together and were soon married.
When the FBI recruited Michelle she convinced Stewart to join as well. As a PhD in human behavior and doctor of medicine, Stewart soon found himself in a special research project, studying the chemical causes and prevention of criminal insanity.
Ten years of marriage found the Allens living a comfortable life in a suburb of Washington D.C. Even Stewart Allen’s appearance was one of comfort: His thick red hair was always unruly and he enjoyed that it, along with his horn-rimmed glasses, made him appear all the more a ‘mad scientist’. He wore a full beard because he could seemingly grow one ‘in a day’, as was often remarked by his coworkers. He was physically active – he had to be for the FBI – but had allowed himself a bit of a paunch due to his relish of good food, wine and especially beer.
He often reflected on how he had just about everything he could want in life: a career that actually challenged him, a beautiful, amazing wife, a quiet neighborhood and an HD television. He would always add that last one in casual conversation with a chuckle.
Football was his major non-academic indulgence. Though the Redskins confounded reason with their uneven play and seemingly random management choices, Stewart remained a faithful supporter and attended most home games.
Tonight, however, was an away game. The ‘Skins were playing a Sunday night game vs. the Philadelphia Eagles. Stewart had been anticipating this prime-time event for a few months and had taken Monday off so he could enjoy a few beers and the late hour without worry of an alarm clock. The contest was no disappointment and the hours passed quick away towards a heart-pounding fourth quarter touchdown that tied the game and sent it into overtime.
Stewart blinked and rubbed his eyes. “What time is it?” he thought as he set aside his bag of jalapeno tortilla chips and bottle of Schlitz beer.
He smirked at his own choice of beverage, “So what if it’s not fancy?” he thought, “It seems appropriate for football and junk food!”
It was nearing 11pm and a cool Autumn breeze was blowing the dead leaves along the patio outside his living room window and was rattling the shutters ever so slightly. He smiled at the character of his aging home and rose to lock the doors and draw the shades. He made the rounds along the ground floor and climbed the stairs to say goodnight to Michelle – who still had to work in the morning. He found her already in bed, reading a trashy vampire romance novel. He stood there a moment to admire her lovingly and to again count his blessings. Michelle’s mouse-brown hair cascaded over her shoulders as she scanned the pages of her book through kitschy ‘cat glasses’. She had these endearing flights of fancy that drove her towards quirky things like her reading glasses and like the lamp she was reading by – a cartoonish Frankenstein figurine with a lampshade instead of a head. She was wearing a flimsy t-shirt that read ‘Kick Some Asphalt!’ and bore a picture of a monster truck. The loose fabric revealed her taut figure and Stewart smiled and silently thanked the FBI’s training regimen.
“What?” she smiled and broke his reverie, “How many beers have you had?” she laughed.
“Three-point-one-four,” Stewart replied. It was their inside joke – their pat-answer to any question involving numbers, “No – I’m just always amazed at how stunning you are.”
“You have been drinking,” she demurred. She smiled again and asked, “Is the game over, hon?”
“Nope. Overtime! Just wanted to say goodnight to my best girl,” he chuckled and leaned in to kiss her, “Seeing as how I don’t have to go to work tomorrow…”
“Braggart! OK, go finish watching your football game and I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight!”
Stewart just smiled and lingered, daydreaming again until Michelle tossed a pillow at his head.
“Get outta here, weirdo!” she giggled, “I love you, goodnight!”
“I’m gone, sweetheart. I love you too!”
He descended the stairs and, “What the hell? I’m off tomorrow!” grabbed another beer. He settled into his recliner for what turned out to be a rather anti-climatic overtime. The Redskins had won the coin-toss and marched down the field to score an easy touchdown on an Eagle’s defense that had, until then, been quite tenacious. Overtime faded into post-game interviews and highlights and Stewart Allen, filled with beer and contented thoughts, drifted off to sleep.
Outside in the quiet suburban night, Arthur Cromwell peered through the Allens’ living room window, knowing the hour had finally arrived for him to take his bride.
***
Ascending the front-porch pillars on to the roof was but a trifle for Arthur Cromwell. The preternatural strength afforded him by his very being assured him that no climb was ever to high or too steep. Why, if he had more of a flair for the dramatic, he supposed he could have leaped on to the roof.
But now was not the time for theatrics. He had serious business to conduct and he did not want to jostle the delicate instruments he now carried in his antique doctor’s satchel.
He crept along the roof to the bedroom window. The shades had been drawn, but the light had been dowsed for over an hour. He turned his head and his heightened sense of hearing picked out Michelle Allen’s breathing, slow and even – the deepest part of her sleep cycle had been reached. He pressed his hands against the glass and pushed upward, the unlocked window easily rising in its pane. He mused over the absurdity of most humans’ tendency to leave their second-story windows unlocked as he slipped silently into the bedroom.
With the care of a surgeon he set up his mobile lab, gently assembling the blood-transfusion apparatus. Most vampires – beasts – he’d encountered were decidedly barbaric and commingled the blood through vicious attacks. “Messy and uncouth,” thought Cromwell, “and completely unnecessary.”
The mask he had placed over Michelle Allen’s mouth and nose hissed, quietly dispensing the proper amount of ether to assure a peaceful transfusion. Pulling the covers back, he cradled her left arm, searching for a vein near the surface of her skin. With practiced precision, he jabbed a needle into her wrist and affixed a clear tube to the end of it. The tube meandered over the edge of the bed and terminated into a rubber stopper that was plugging the top of an old brown apothecary jar. Michelle’s blood ebbed ever so slowly through this tube and collected in the jar.
As he watched, Arthur Cromwell grew hungry. The ancient longing for blood was a constant reminder of what he was – no longer human, yet so much more. He steeled himself against those bestial urges and muttered silently to himself, reciting the periodic table of the elements to grant himself patience.
The apothecary jar slowly filled as Cromwell finished constructing the transfusion station. When the jar was filled, he simply transferred tubes from the needle in Michelle’s arm and connected one of his own. The connection reversed, and the blood of Arthur Cromwell, vampire, began flowing into Michelle Allen’s veins.
Despite the ether, Michelle stirred and Arthur thought he may have to use a stronger sedative, but his fears were soon allayed.
She was simply talking in her sleep – a muffled, “Goodnight… I love you.”
“Reliving her last conversation with that prat of a husband,” Cromwell chuckled, “We’ll soon find out who loves whom!”
As the transfusion continued, Cromwell mused on his brilliant plan. He knew the Becoming process took a full 24 hours. As well, he knew that once Michelle Allen had Become a vampire, she would be hungry – and who better to slake the vampire’s thirst than her foolish husband. Then, as she wept over her inferior husband and her departing the world of sunlight, he, Arthur Cromwell, would arrive a hero and save her from the mundane world of humanity to spend eternity together.
“A rather romantic notion,” he thought, “and it probably wouldn’t play out exactly that way, but it is a lovely thought.”
Actually, he figured that it would probably go pear-shaped, but he was prepared for that. A newly created vampire was often an impressionable thing, but he would bend her to his will whether it took one night or a thousand years. He was nothing if not a patient man.
The transfusion done, Cromwell pressed a bandage to the wound on Michelle’s arm. A small bruise was blooming but that soon would be healed once her Becoming was complete. He returned his instruments to their rightful places in his doctor’s bag and finally retrieved the jar full of Allen’s blood. He held it up to the window and peered into the amber glass. Almost a liter-and-a-half – the perfect amount! The proper amount of his blood was now commingled in Michelle Allen’s veins, transmogrifying it and transforming her forever.
He removed the rubber stopper and drank the contents – a satisfying reward for a task well done. And with that, he stole back out of the bedroom window and closed it behind him, returning to his lair to await his prize.
***
Stewart Allen snuffled awake. An infomercial blazed across the television set wherein a British man was selling amazing compact vacuum-cleaners to a rapt audience of housewives and the elderly. Stewart found wanting one of these technological marvels himself until he realized it was three in the morning and he had been sleeping off a beer-buzz. He laughed and clicked off the set. Setting the remote aside he rose and slouched up the stairs to get ready for bed.
Brushing his teeth, he looked in the mirror and realized his beard was getting long, even for him.
“I look like a freakin’ pirate,” he thought, “I’ll cut this tomorrow. It’s got to be driving Michelle nuts.”
He rinsed, turned off the light and slunk into the bedroom. Michelle was sleeping very peacefully on her side of the bed.
“Hmm. She’s normally sprawled all over my side!” he thought, “Or tossing around like a fish out of water. Maybe that book wasn’t as scary as she’d hoped.”
He shrugged, slipped under the covers and immediately fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.
***
Michelle Allen’s blood was rushing angrily through her veins, despite her apparent calm. On a cellular level the transmogrification process was going horribly awry. The virus-like vampire infection had infiltrated her blood cells, but Michelle Allen was not a perfect host. Indeed, she was not even a candidate for the vampire infection to create a zombie-like revenant. Deep within her arteries, Michelle Allen’s cells began an accelerated decay which soon spread from her blood to her circulatory system throughout her body.
Michelle Allen never woke up from her Sunday night sleep and was dead long before morning. When first light arrived, her body had reached such a state of decomposition she resembled a long-dead corpse, exhumed from an ancient slumber…
***
Stewart Allen awoke quite dehydrated, his head throbbing and his mouth dry. He licked his lips and glanced at the alarm clock on his nightstand. “10:30am,” read the numbers of his clock which happened to be a replica of a block of c-4 explosive with a timer on it – something he’d knocked together one slow day in the lab. He yawned and noticed an acrid smell.
“Are they working on the sewer again?” he thought, “Didn’t they just fix that?”
He rolled over and saw what had become of his wife and screamed.
He scrambled off his side of the bed, bumping his head on the corner of his nightstand, opening a gash above his left eye that trickled blood down his cheek. He lurched to his feet, clapped his hand over his mouth and screamed again. He doubled over and began to dry-heave, again and again until breathless, he sank to his knees. He grabbed his bed covers and pressed them against his face while his body was wracked with gut-wrenching sobs until finally, exhausted, he leaned against his nightstand and wept.
After what seemed like an eternity, Stewart pulled himself off the bedroom floor. His FBI Crisis Training finally taking hold, he dropped his sheets and assessed the situation. His rational mind would not allow him to imagine that the near-liquefied corpse lying in his bed was his wife Michelle, yet his logical mind could not deny it. She still wore the t-shirt she had put on the night before, her hair was still loose about her shoulders. He could see the dental implant in her lower jaw that she had gotten after hers was knocked loose during the obstacle course they both had to complete as rookie agents. It was she. It couldn’t possibly be – but it was.
This was no longer his bedroom – it was a crime scene. Stewart strode purposefully into his second-floor office and opened the file-folder marked, Operation Volstagg. This was the set of instructions impressed upon agents faced with a crisis of personal nature. He scanned down to step ten, “If this crisis is of unexplainable nature, place a call from a non-landline phone and speak code: Gamma 92. Hang up and await further orders.”
He picked up his mobile phone and dialed the number outlined in the report.
“Department of Justice: Bureau of Investigations, Mr. Camp’s office…”
“Gamma 92,” said Stewart and disconnected the call. He walked to the bathroom, shaved off his beard and showered. He placed a small bandage over the cut on his forehead, dressed himself in slacks, a white button-up shirt and a green tie – Michelle’s favorite outfit of his – and opened another beer.
As he drank, emotions welled up again from within his gut. He grit his teeth and squeezed the bottle tightly in his hands, then hurled it through the Plexiglas of his television set, screaming, “Why?!”
He had little indication of how long he stood staring at the hole in his TV. The cut above his eye had begun to bleed again, but no tears would come.
Finally he gained resolve and began to formulate a course of action.
He reasoned that whatever had happened to Michelle was no accident – it had been done to her by someone. He could not figure out why someone would want to do this to her, or him – as far as he knew, they had no enemies and every wanted criminal they had helped capture was still behind bars – or dead. At the same time, Stewart knew how things worked even in federal penitentiaries. Arrangements could be made for just about anything – even orders for contract killings. He had to protect himself.
He realized he was supposed to wait for instructions, but this was his wife – the woman with whom he had shared so much was gone forever and he had little care for protocol at this particular moment. He assumed that whoever had done this to Michelle would be back for him since he and Michelle had worked hand-in-hand on most of the cases that went to trial. He stumbled into the den and approached the gun locker.
Firearms were a necessary evil of the FBI and until very recently were things he regarded with distaste. Now he was glad of them. Keying the proper numerical sequence into the combination lock opened the thick metal doors of the locker. An array of firearms were kept neatly in their places, from standard-issue handguns to a sawed-off shotgun. The latter still bore a tag reading, “Welcome to the FBI – have a blast!” It was given to him by his firearms instructor as a gag gift – he was a terrible shot. He removed it from its place and tore the tag from the finger-guard. He snapped it open and loaded it with Brenneke slugs from the ammunition drawer. He snapped the barrel back into place and cocked the gun. Grabbing the box of ammunition, he closed and locked the locker door and moved to the kitchen.
He removed a case of Schlitz from the refrigerator and mechanically climbed the stairs to the bedroom. He soon found himself in Michelle’s reading chair; From there, he found that he could cover the door to the bedroom and the only window in the room that overlooked the front of the house. Laying the gun across his lap and the case of beer on the floor, he began to drink.
***
Another perfect night crept over the suburban town, dispelling children from ballparks and frantic commuters from streets. Soon after the sun had slipped below the horizon there was a hand on a doorknob and a splitting of wood. The door jamb broken, Arthur Cromwell triumphantly crossed the threshold into the dark house.
It was as deadly silent as he expected it to be. There air smelled of ozone and he noticed the crackle of a short circuit. Proceeding through the foyer into the living room, he saw the source of the crackling electronics – the broken television. He regarded the scene momentarily then turned back towards the stairs.
“Perhaps this cur of a husband had more fight than I expected,” he thought, “No matter. I’m sure my new bride has made short work of him.”
He strode confidently up the stairs, but his pace slackened when he reached the apex and noticed the rotting smell.
“She must have been more ravenous than I’d imagined,” he assured himself. While they rarely disemboweled their victims, it was not unheard of for a newly created vampire to be clumsy with their first kill; The bloodlust was quite powerful and required willpower to control.With morbid curiosity, he crossed into the darkened bedroom.
His eyes widened and his throat tightened as he beheld the bed and the corpse of his bride-to-be. Forgetting caution, he rushed to her side and beheld what was left of Michelle Allen. The body smelled of decay and a rictus grin defined what used to be her beautiful face. Her tissues had by now were almost completely liquefied and what was left of her skin draped over her bones. Empty eye sockets stared blankly at the ceiling below her perfect, mouse-brown hair.
Suddenly Arthur Cromwell was aware of someone else in the room, but before he could react, the barrel of a shotgun pressed into his cheek.
“What did you do to my wife?” croaked Stewart Allen, his voice coming only with great difficulty, “And make it quick. I get impatient when I’m drunk.”
“She-she was supposed to be turned!” blubbered Cromwell, becoming distressed at the loss of Michelle, rather than the gun, “She was a perfect host for the vampire-”
“Don’t fucking bullshit me!” shouted Allen, “What the fuck are you, some kind of fucking eco-terrorist?”
Slowly regaining his composure Cromwell straightened up, “You’re supposed to be dead, not her. The first victim of her Becoming. She was to live out eternity with me,” he brushed down the front of his waistcoat, smoothing the fabric. “No matter, I shall kill you myself. It may take some time to find a new bride, but I can wait. I must have miscalcu-”
He was cut off by the deafening roar of the shotgun.
The slug striking at such a close range turned Arthur Cromwell’s face into a bloody mist, his brains and fragments of skull and hair splattering against the opposite wall of the bedroom. His heart pumped one last time, sending a gush skyward, spilling over his immaculate clothes, tinting them blood-red. At last the body crumpled and lay still on the floor, soaking the gray carpet.
Stewart Allen rose from the chair and stood over the body of Arthur Cromwell, studying the damage the shotgun had done.
To his horror the destroyed flesh began to bubble and creep. Sickeningly the flesh began to regenerate and repair itself and the gaping hole that was once Arthur Cromwell’s face began to close.
Stewart cocked the shotgun and fired point-blank into the gore, again splashing the room with blood. He stepped back to the chair and reloaded when a sound from the door of the bedroom startled him. He spun towards the sound and fired, the slug missing the man standing in the doorway.
“Damnit son,” the man cried “I’m on your side! I’m from the government – I’m here to help.”
Allen gaped at the man standing in his bedroom. The man held out a badge at arm’s length.
“That’s a joke, son,” he said, “Ronald Reagan said it, but this time we mean it.”
The man was in his 60’s, white hair and mustache punctuating a grizzled face. His bulky frame was stuffed into a black suit and tie and his wire rimmed glasses glinted in the moonlight.
“Director William Davis Camp, Department of Justice, Bureau of Investigations.” he said, “You called my office earlier. I’m here to clean up this mess. You can lower the gun now. Thank God you can’t shoot for shit beyond 2 feet.”
Stewart lowered the gun and sunk into the chair. Several men in suits entered the bedroom pushing an ambulance gurney and circled the fallen Arthur Cromwell. They administered some sort of intravenous drug to the regenerating body then with precision hoisted it onto the gurney and pushed it out the door.
Camp moved towards Stewart Allen.
“Sorry we gotta take that thing, son.” he said, “But I can’t let an opportunity like this go to waste. We don’t usually get to take a living vampire into custody.”
Stewart look at Camp, horrified, “A vam-”
“Vampire.” said Camp.
Stewart glanced towards the bed where another team of men was preparing removal of Michelle’s body.
“Sorry about your wife. She was a good agent,” said Camp, “And I hate to be callous at a time like this, but that’s part of my job. That part of your life is over, but the rest is about to begin. You’re working for me now, son.”
“But-”
“No buts. You want revenge against that thing that killed Michelle? Well you gonna get the chance to have your revenge against all vampires – everywhere. Hopefully prevent this kind of thing,” he swept his arm towards the bed, “from happening again.”
“How?” Stewart goggled.
“You’ve been officially transferred, agent Allen. You work for me now.”
“It’s all official,” said Camp as he handed Stewart a black file folder.
“Welcome to the Agency.”
Recent Comments