The vampire that used to be Captain Stein was lying in the corner of a dark, empty room many floors below the entrance to the base. His body was doubled over and he was weeping in agony. His insides were on fire and the hunger that burned in his stomach was like nothing he had ever felt before.
He would have screamed out if he thought any one of the soldiers who walked past the door and peered through the window would have helped him.
They all want to kill me. Would that be a better fate than what is in front of me?
Familiar and unfamiliar thoughts pierced through his brain. One thought remained constant; the same thought that came first to anyone who had been wronged.
Revenge.
If I ever see that cop again, that devil who made me this way, I’m going to kill him. I’m going to rip that fucker limb from limb.
There was a metallic clunk and the door that kept Captain Stein from following his new instincts opened. He was faced with General Graham, who was holding a pistol in his right hand and a flashlight in his left.
Stein looked up at him and tried to get to his feet, but thanks to the detective, he no longer had any feet. All he had were bandaged, bloody stumps at the ends of his legs. The stumps were slowly growing, which provided Stein with a mixture of emotions; happiness that he would soon be able to walk again but also anger because it meant he was turning into a vampire and there was nothing he could do about it.
‘Stay where you are,’ General Graham said, his voice booming around the stone walls.
‘Help me,’ Stein pleaded, ‘You have to help me. Get me the treatment.’
‘The primary treatment?’ General Graham smirked, knowing it would kill him.
‘No, the cure the doctors were working on. It can make me human again.’
Stein’s voice was almost unrecognisable from the way he had spoken when he was human. He had always been assertive and authoritative, but now he was desperate.
Every fibre in his being wanted to be relieved of the curse that had been cast upon him the second Detective Ryder sank his teeth into his neck. Stein no longer cared about the priorities of The Brotherhood. He paid no mind to the work he had done to sabotage the research into a cure for the virus that was now coursing through his veins. He wanted it.
He needed it.
‘I can help you,’ said the general without any emotion in his voice, ‘but first you have to tell me what happened.’
‘No, you have to give me the treatment!’
General Graham holstered his pistol and took the flashlight in his right hand. He turned it on and a violet circle appeared on the wall next to him. He shone the light directly in Stein’s face.
After a second, Stein screamed and tried to crawl away from the corner of the room. The general turned off the flashlight and looked at Stein’s face. It was bright red.
‘Tell me what I want to know. It’s only going to get worse.’
Stein groaned in pain again and conceded that he was in no position to negotiate.
‘Agent Simpson brought him to us.’
‘Detective Ryder?’
‘Yes. He had been bitten after we picked up Doctor Owen. Jane disobeyed her orders and brought him to the doctor to use as a test subject.’
‘That was before the attack on Hartley House?’
‘They were evacuated and came here. One of the men on the recovery team was one of them and brought infected bodies into the base. They broke out of the morgue and killed everyone.’
‘So where are they now?’
‘Ryder, Jane and the doctor escaped with one of my men, Skinner is his name. On the way out Ryder killed the commander and did this to me.’
‘Shit. I’m sure you know what happened the last time one of the doc’s guinea pigs escaped. Do you know where they were going?’
‘No.’
‘What about the other doctor?’
‘We couldn’t find him. I was going to send a search party out for him tomorrow.’
‘Why couldn’t you find him?’
‘There were no leads. We couldn’t find any family or friends.’
‘Thank you, Captain Stein.’
General Graham turned to walk out of the room.
‘Wait!’ Stein shouted, ‘What about the treatment?’
‘What about it?’ the general asked, ‘there’s nothing here. If you help us get the doctor back, you’ll get your treatment.’
He slammed the door behind him as he left. Stein’s muffled screams were only just audible from outside the cell.
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