Vampire Breed (6 page)

“You might think about escaping,” he said, still not looking at me, “but even if you did, you would only come back.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” I scoffed. “If I ever did get out of here, I couldn’t think of one reason that would entice me back to this filthy, godforsaken place.”

“I can,” he said.

“And what’s that?” I demanded.

“Human flesh,” he barked softly. “You’re an addict, Kiera.”

Hearing those words made my stomach somersault, but this time not with hunger of desperate cravings, but revulsion. In my heart, I knew that the raw meat that had been passed to me through the hatch had been human flesh, but in my head I had convinced myself that it had been raw steak or anything but human. But to hear it spoken aloud by Nik had pulled the curtain aside that I had so conveniently hung over what was really feeding my addiction.

Not wanting to reveal my own self-loathing and revulsion at what I’d been eating, I swallowed hard and said, “I could find more if I really wanted to.”

“Believe me, you really would want to find some more,” Nik woofed and looked up at me. “But human meat is in short supply in these parts.”

I shot forward in my chair and said, “How long has it been since you’ve seen a human?”

“Months,” he said, flicking away a swarm of flies with his tail.

“What, they’re all
dead?”
I asked, not believing what I was hearing.

“In this area, yes,” he replied. “I don’t venture out of the zoo much – but there is a town nearby to the east, its called Wasp Water. But all the humans there are dead.”

Hearing him say this upset me and made me fearful for what I would find if I ever managed to escape from my cell. But unwittingly, he was giving me information just like the jailer’s daughter had helped Mister Toad in
The Wind in the Willows
, and again I glanced down at the book where Phillips had tossed it. To know that the town of Wasp Water was to the east of the zoo told me that I was still in Cumbria in the north of England. Wasp Water had been one of the towns that Murphy had skirted us around on our way to the monastery, so I knew that I wasn’t far from the lake and the Fountain of Souls.

It wasn’t much, but it was something. It gave me some bearings – a direction to head in when I broke out of here. But if all the people were dead there, what would be the point? There would be shelter, cars, technology – anything that I might be able to use to get as far away from Cumbria as possible or at least tell the rest of the world what was really going on behind and beneath the Cumbria Mountains.

“So if all the people are dead in Wasp Water, where has the…the
meat
been coming from?” I asked him.

“The Vampyrus rounded up several hundred of them and they’re being kept here at the zoo in cages,” he said.

Hearing this reminded me of something my mother had said to me in my cell beneath the mountains. Hadn’t she said something about keeping humans like animals in factory farms?

“But you can’t keep people locked up in a zoo!” I hissed.

Looking at me with his yellow stare, Nik said, “It’s the only zoo in the world where the humans are the exhibits and the animals come to visit.”

“This isn’t some kinda joke, you know!” I yelled at him. “We’re talking about human beings!”

“Of which you’re not one,” he said, standing on all fours.

And every time someone or
thing
reminded me of that, my heart sunk a little bit deeper inside my chest and I couldn’t help but reach round and gently poke those bony black fingers that protruded from my back. They were my constant reminder that Nik was right. I was fast losing my human side, and becoming just like them – an
animal
. But that didn’t mean I had to behave like one of them. No longer was I going to eat that meat they pushed through the hatch at me. I wouldn’t have another mouthful even if it meant killing me.

With a swish of his tail, Nik headed towards the cell door.

“What’s going to happen to me?” I called after him. “What’s going to happen to Kayla and Isidor?”

“If Phillips has his way, you and your friends will all soon be dead.” Then Nik was gone, disappearing beyond the door and leaving me alone again.

Chapter Eleven

“
Dead!
” I yelled at the closed door. Lashing out in frustration, I kicked the chair across my cell. Immediately my leg roared in pain and I dropped to the floor and held my shin.

My desire to escape was even stronger than ever and I looked up at the hole above me. I couldn’t believe that the world just outside its walls was now being run by a bunch of talking animals who intended to kill me and my friends. I needed to find out for myself if it were all true. Finding myself locked up with the Vampyrus and Lycanthrope was enough to drive anyone insane – but to think that my friends might soon die on the strength of my scabby leg – that was more than I would or
could
comprehend.

The pain in my leg began to ease, so I shuffled across the floor to the chair. On the way, I noticed that a fresh bowl of food and water had been placed by the hatch and I guessed the paw had put it there while I had been sleeping earlier. I stopped long enough to devour half of the water, leaving some to aid me with my escape later. Looking down at the bowl of meat…flesh sitting in its bloody puddle, I reached out for it. But the images of people locked up in cages, being taken away and butchered to feed my cravings was enough to make me push the bowl aside. Even though I turned away, in the back of my mind, I knew that it was there, red and ripe and succulent.

“Stop it!” I hissed out loud as my stomach began to knot, my throat turning dry and my skin beginning to prickle with heat.

“I won’t eat it!” I seethed.

Knowing that I had to stop thinking about the meat, I pulled the chair across the floor and stationed it under the hole. I tipped it up and removed one of the caps. I was mindful not to use the same cap from the previous night, as that leg was now full of the debris I had hidden in there.

Carefully, I climbed onto the chair and hoisted myself up. I removed the paper that I had put in place and began to scrape away at the edges of the hole.

Throughout the night I worked, stopping every so often to rest my aching arms and sip some of the water I had saved. I figured that I possibly had only one more night after this before Phillips came for me. I really needed to be in a position to make my escape before first light of the following day.

But what about Isidor and Kayla?
I wondered. I had to take them with me. There was no way I was leaving them in the zoo. And what about Luke? Where was he? Then, remembering how he’d looked on the floor of my cell beneath the mountains, I feared that he might not be alive anymore. Not wanting to think about that, I pushed those pictures of his battered and cut body from my mind and focused on my escape.

Once out of the cell where would I go?
I wondered.

I had no idea of my exact whereabouts in the zoo, but I reckoned that if I could at least find my way to the main entrance, I’d stand a good chance of escaping. I doubted that the animals would have locked the main gates. If what Nik had told me was true about there being no more humans other than me, Isidor, and Kayla, then the animals would have no reason to keep the gates shut – they could come and go as they pleased in their new world.

“But you’re not one of them!” I heard Nik say in my head.

But I was human – in part at least- the better part. I’d always believed myself to be human and I wasn’t going to stop believing that now. I feared that if I did, I would never get that half of me back. There was no way I was going to live like an animal, behave like an animal and eat like one. I was going to get out of this cell, out of this zoo and take my friends with me.
I’m Kiera Hudson.
I kept telling myself that over and over again in my head. I had to keep hold of that – I had to keep hold of me.

But once I had escaped from my cell, what then? How would I find Kayla and Isidor?
I didn’t have the answer to that. But nevertheless, I kept chipping away at the concrete around the wire mesh above me. I had to keep going, I had to keep thinking, planning as it took my mind off that bowl of red stuff that my stomach was now aching for, my throat was thirsty for.

Keep planning Kiera – keep thinking ahead,
I told myself
.

I’d already decided that once I was out of the zoo, I would head straight for the town of Wasp Water. I would be in familiar territory then –
human
territory. There would be a million and one places for Kayla, Isidor, and me to hide.

What about food?
a little voice spoke up from within side me, and I glanced down at the red stuff.
Just one little bite wouldn’t…

There would be shops. The shelves would be stacked with cans of food –
normal
food. The cans would probably still be in date as they lasted for years. I would be able to find clothes and shoes in disused department stores. We would be alright.

Then what?

With sweat running off my brow into my eyes, the cravings for the red stuff in the bowl gnawed away at my insides. My stomach was beginning to cramp in sharp violent spasms, and several times I had to stop chipping away at the concrete to lean forward and double up until the pain passed. My throat felt as if it was on fire, but I couldn’t even quench it with the water as I would need that later. Mopping my feverish brow with the sleeve of my hospital gown, I reached up and continued to scrape away the ceiling around the wire mesh.

By daybreak, I had completely removed the plaster around one entire edge of the mesh. I poked and pulled at it with my fingers and yanked it free. The wire gave under the strain and bent downwards revealing a gap big enough for me to put my arms through.

The urge to carry on throughout the day was overpowering, as the smell of freedom now seemed intoxicating. It was so strong that it even masked the stench from that hole in the corner of the cell, which I had been using as my toilet. But I had to be focused. If I were to be caught now, I would certainly never be given the chance to escape again.

So I climbed down from the chair, piled up the lose chippings and poured them into the hollow chair leg and replaced the cap. The hole in the ceiling was now twice as large as the one I had made the previous night and would definitely be noticed by any one of the animals that came into my cell.

Reluctantly, I ripped some pages from my book – or perhaps it was my escape manual? I worried that if Phillips, Sparky, or Nik happened to pick up
‘The Wind in the Willows’
they would notice that the pages had been torn out.

Once I had ripped the pages into strips, I placed them in what was left of the water and filled in the gaps above me. When I had papered over the last of the cracks, I climbed off the chair and looked up. The paper was a different shade to the ceiling and it did look more obvious than the papier-mâché I’d created the night before. I now had to cover a larger area with it. Screwing up my eyes, I squinted up at my handy work, and like that it didn’t look too bad. It looked like a big damp patch. That was the best I could do in these circumstances and I just prayed that none of my captors noticed it.

Confident that I’d hidden every trace of the work I’d carried out overnight, I curled up in the corner of my cell and closed my eyes. My stomach ached, and I felt as if I was going to be sick. My skin felt hot and clammy. I knew that I could make the pain go away and I looked over at the bowl that sat by the hatch. Turning away, I tried not to think about that red sticky meat and my head raced with thoughts of escape. Over and over again, I tried to plan for every conceivable outcome – but at no point did I ever consider failure – because for me, that wasn’t an option.

The thought of being free of this stinking cell, to be wearing clean clothes, and to sink into a nice warm bath was overwhelming. I imagined walking free along a beach, with waves crashing up onto the shore and I could smell…

Chapter Twelve

…
disinfectant. I knew it was disinfectant that they were spraying up and down the corridor outside because it wafted through the gaps beneath the door. It smelt bitter and it made my nostrils sore and my eyes sting.

Doctor Hunt sat beside my bed and read from a book. Mister McGregor was chasing a rabbit named Peter through the vegetable patch. Peter Rabbit was trying to escape!

With bleary eyes I studied Doctor Hunt’s face, well the top half, as he continued to hide the lower part of his face behind that blue surgical mask.

His eyes looked older somehow as if since his last visit to my room much time had passed. Nets of wrinkles were engraved around the corners of his eyes and I was sure that they hadn’t been there before. The Doctor’s usually jet-black hair was now spattered with flecks of grey and his hands looked boney and worn as they curled around the edges of the book that he held in his lap.

“Have you gotten older?” I mumbled feeling half asleep.

Doctor Hunt closed the book and looked at me.

“No,” he replied softly. But even his voice had sounded different, and I realised that it was worry – fear – in his voice that I could hear and see in the wrinkles around his eyes.

“How long have I been here?” I asked.

“Two months,” he whispered and glanced over his shoulder at the door to my room, as if making sure that it was closed.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, sensing his fear.

Hunt looked at me and his eyes smiled, but his look was insincere and hid his true feelings.

“I’ve performed a miracle, Kiera,” he whispered, snatching another quick look back over his shoulder.

“What sort of a miracle?” I asked him, my foggy mind trying to make sense of what he was telling me.