Dark Season: The Complete Box Set (133 page)

Abigail

"I'm not like you," I say suddenly, my voice sounding so small in this cavernous space. I hadn't been planning to say anything; I was just going to stand and watch him die, but now I feel I should speak. I should tell him how much I hate him. "I'll never be like you," I continue. "There's a part of you in my soul, but I'll keep it pushed down. I'll never let it take over."

I wait for him to reply. After all, now that he's close to death, surely he'll speak? Just a few words would be enough, so that he might try to explain his actions. Perhaps he could apologize for all the people he's hurt, or for all the mistakes he's made. After a moment, though, I realize that I'll never hear his voice. Even if he wanted to say something, he's so weak that I doubt he could even move his lips. The time for Patrick to speak is over.

"I'll be okay," I tell him. "Benjamin's looking after me now. He's going to make sure I stay safe. He's been a better father to me than you could ever have been." I feel a strange sense of satisfaction at the thought that my words might actually hurt Patrick, even though I doubt he really has any emotions at all. He's just a hateful, murderous, angry ball of violence, unable to feel love or even sympathy for anyone else. "I'm going to live a full life," I continue, "and I'm going to be the opposite of you. I'm going to help people, and I'm going to make people's lives better instead of causing them pain."

Taking a deep breath, I step closer. He's clearly no longer a threat, and I feel he deserves to know the truth about how much I hate him.

"Why did you kill my mother?" I ask, kneeling next to him. I look down into his half-open eyes, and I see that he's looking at me. There's no emotion in his expression, though; he's just an animal, waiting to die. "Why couldn't you have died instead?" I ask, feeling tears in my eyes. "Why couldn't you have died, and then she could have lived, and then maybe everything would have been okay? Why couldn't..." I pause, determined not to get too emotional. "I wish you'd been the one who I never met. If you had, I probably wouldn't hate you so much."

Still, he doesn't reply. He just stares at me, and I'm not even certain that he's capable of hearing what I'm saying. The moment of death must be almost here, and it'll give me some satisfaction to witness his final breath. Once he's dead, his miserable existence will be over and his breed of vampire will be gone forever. I'll be alone, except I won't
really
be alone... I'll have Benjamin. I don't need anyone else.

"Any last words?" I ask, as a single tear rolls down my cheek. Damn it, why do I even care that Patrick is dying? I've barely spent any time with him, and he's done nothing but kill those around me. "Come on" I continue. "You haven't said anything for so long, surely you've had time to think of some profound final message?" I pause, staring into his eyes. "How old are you? A thousand years? And this is how it ends? After all that time, you still don't have anything to say in your final moment. Isn't that kind of pathetic?" I lean closer. "I swear to God, I will never be anything like you. I'll be able to love. I'll care about people. I'll see beauty in the world, instead of violence and blood." For a moment, I think back to Shelley's dead body, and I taste her blood in my mouth. "I've tried being like you," I say, "and I didn't like it."

Realizing there's no point talking to him, I stand up and take a few steps back. There are tears in my eyes, but I don't know why. Patrick might be my father, but he means nothing to me. At best, he's a shining example of the kind of person I'll never be. He's a monster, and a killer. Taking a deep breath, I watch as his mouth slowly opens, and for a moment it seems as if he's trying to say something.

"What?" I ask, feeling my heart pounding in my chest. "What is it?"

A very faint sound comes from his throat, but he's too weak to form any actual words.

"Don't expect any grand speeches," says a voice behind me, and I turn to find that Benjamin has arrived. "Patrick will die as he lived," he continues as he walks over to me and stares down at Patrick's pitiful, dying body. "Such a tragic waste. He could have been so much more, but he chose to embrace darkness and hatred. Look at him, Abigail, and learn a valuable lesson. This is what happens when you live a life devoid of love." Turning to me, he smiles. "Are you ready for this moment? Are you ready to become the last vampire, and the first of a new breed?"

"Yeah," I say, nodding, though to be honest I'm not entirely sure what he means. Now that I'm faced with the reality of Patrick's impending death, I realize I'm going to be the only one of my kind in the whole world.

"It's okay," Benjamin says, walking over to Patrick and looking down at him. "Death is a part of life. Death is a door through which we must all pass. Even you, Abigail. You'll live a very long time, many thousands of years I'd imagine, but all creatures must die one day." With his foot, he rolls Patrick onto his back and then gives his tired, battered face a gentle kick.

"Is he dead?" I ask.

Benjamin stares at him for a moment. "Yes," he says finally. "It's strange, but I rather expected more. I thought there'd be some other sign of his physical destruction, but it seems we're to be left with just a body." He pauses for a moment, before smiling. "I shall have my men come and collect the carcass. Can you imagine the scientific discoveries that can be made once I start carving into this corpse? As far as I know, no man on Earth has ever had the honor of performing a vampire's autopsy." He sighs. "It's a responsibility I shall take extremely seriously."

We stand in silence for a moment. "What about the ghosts?" I ask.

"They'll be gone now," he replies. "They were just the spectral remains of a few hundred vampires who refused to leave the physical plain. They believed that, while Patrick lived, there was a chance for them to perhaps regain their bodies. Now that Patrick is gone, they'll have to give up and follow the rest of their species into total oblivion." He smiles. "Don't be sad, Abigail. It's a good thing. Those poor, haunted souls had no place among the living. Their final act was to lead you here, hoping that somehow you'd save Patrick and that their lineage would survive. Now their pain is over."

I look down at Patrick. "It's hard to believe he's really gone," I say. "It's hard to believe someone like him could die." I step a little closer, looking at his ragged face. "He looks so old now, like he's falling apart."

"Don't dwell on his death," Benjamin says, putting an arm around my shoulder and leading me across the cavern. "One must simply recognize death when it comes, and allow it to pass. Patrick didn't suffer in his final moments, unlike many of those he killed over the years. He deserved a far more painful death. If you're interested, I have extensive logs that detail many of his victims. Some of my best operatives, men such as Martin Keller and Charles Nimrod, died at Patrick's hands, and I can assure you that their deaths were both agonizing and unnecessary. And of course there's your own mother, who was disemboweled in this very place."

I pause, realizing that Benjamin is leading me not over to the exit but toward a set of stone steps that seem to lead down further into the cavern. "Where are we going?" I ask.

He smiles. "Your parents are both dead, but that doesn't mean you're alone, Abigail. I think the time has come for you to meet the rest of your family."

"There's more?" I ask, my mind racing. "Who?"

He smiles. "Come with me. Let me introduce you to your brothers and sisters."

"I don't..." I pause. The only 'sister' I'm aware of was Gwendoline, and she's dead. "I have brothers and sisters?"

"Thousands of them," he says. "And they're very, very keen to meet you."

He takes my hand and leads me down the steps, into a corridor so dark that I can barely see anything. After a moment, though, I realize that there's a noise coming from somewhere ahead of us. At first, it sounds like a low rustling sound, but moments later it changes to become some kind of muffled chatter, as if hundreds of thousands of minds are reaching out to me. Feeling a growing sense of fear in my chest, I finally start to make out a shape in the darkness, and the sound becomes so deafeningly loud that I stop in my tracks. Staring ahead, I finally realize what I'm looking at. Frozen in terror, I feel the life force of thousands of minds flooding into my head, all of them crying out in pain.

Patrick

"Now what?"

Still on the cold, rocky ground, I open my eyes and look up. At first, I see nothing, but finally a face appears. It has been many years since Vincent died, and his ghost has visited me sparingly. Sometimes, I felt that he kept away because he trusted me and knew I would do the right thing when it came to Abigail; at other times, I felt that he despaired of my actions and could not bring himself to watch me ruin my daughter's life. Now I find that he has come to bid me farewell, and to join me in mourning Abigail's descent into Benjamin's world.

"I tried so hard to guide you," Vincent says. "I wanted you to step back and realize the true impact of your actions, but you wouldn't listen. You blundered into everything, assuming that physical strength could solve every problem. Did you ever stop to think that maybe you should have shown a little kindness to those around you? Did it ever occur to you that maybe you should have broken this ridiculous vow of silence?"

He's wrong. He might have been a wise man while he was alive, and he might now have the benefit of being dead, but on this point he is absolutely wrong. I did what I had to do, and I made the decisions I had to make. If I had spoken, I would have risked drawing the ghosts of Gothos back to the realm of the living. All those years ago, when I ended the vampire war and destroyed the rest of my species, it was a condition of the prophecy that I must never speak again. Perhaps I should have tested my constraints a little more, but I was content to live my life in this way. After all, Sophie recognized my love for her, even though I could never put it into words; she saw it in my eyes.

"That poor little girl," Vincent says with a sigh. "Abigail's not ready for any of this, you know. She's young and she'll be easily tricked by Benjamin. She desperately wants to understand her place in the world, and he'll offer her the answers she wants. In return, he'll force her to bend to his will. Even if she one day rebels against him, the damage will already have been done." He pauses. "I understand why you did what you did, Patrick. I understand your intentions, and they were noble. But you mis-calculated horribly. You expected too much of her, and you under-estimated Benjamin's allure. You also under-estimated yourself. You could have been the father she needed, if only you'd tried. It's an inescapable fact, really. You've doomed your daughter before her life has really begun."

On this point, he's correct. If I had acted differently, Abigail could have learned from me. I could have trained her, and I could have shown her how to avoid making the same mistakes I made. I could have been a proper father to her.

"I understand why you chose to die," Vincent says. "You've craved death for so long, and you held on to life so that you could fulfill the prophecy and wait for Sophie to carry your child. Then you believed your job was done, so you decided the moment had come, and now it's too late to turn back the clock. And I suppose all's not lost. I mean, Abigail might still realize all of this by herself one day, and take a stand against Benjamin. I doubt it, though. I mean, when you were your age, would you have been so strong?" He pauses. "By the time she has the maturity to see the truth, her soul will have been twisted out of all recognition."

With that, his image fades from before me. Left alone on the rocky ground, I notice for the first time a distant sound. Somewhere below, there are voices screaming in the dark. Benjamin's vile experiments, which started all those years ago in an abandoned house in the Louisiana swamp, are finally coming to fruition. Trying to summon up enough strength to go and help Abigail, I strain to stand, but the effort is too much and I collapse back onto the ground. When she needs me the most, I'm too weak to help her. If only I'd taught her to be stronger, so that she might be able to help herself...

Abigail

"You have no idea how much work went into this place," Benjamin says, standing proudly next to me as we survey the vast rows of small glass jars that line the walls of this huge room. "You can't even begin to imagine how many experiments I undertook, only to fail and have to start again. There were times when I thought I'd never be able to achieve my objective, but I kept pushing on regardless. Finally, when I realized you were due to be born, I understood that you could provide the final missing ingredient to make this whole endeavor a success. The moment has arrived, and the balance of power across the entire planet is going to change."

All around us, there are rows of glass jars attached to the walls. Many thousands of jars, each barely any bigger than a soda can, but each filled with a murky yellow liquid in which - suspended - there is a small creature. It's hard to tell exactly what the creatures are supposed to be, but on closer inspection I realize that they're small embryo-like beings that seem to be growing around some kind of wire mesh. Peering more closely into one of the jars, to get a better look at one of the creatures, I'm shocked to see it slowly start to move, turning its face toward me and staring directly at me with two large black eyes. Whatever it is, it's definitely alive, but it's like nothing I've ever seen before.

"Are you proud?" Benjamin asks, reaching out and tapping the jar gently. The creature reacts again, turning to look at him. "There are more than three thousand of these creations growing down here, created using a new technique I call DNA Stamping. I take a random piece of organic matter and stamp it with a new DNA map, and then I grow the resulting creatures on a dot-cell digital matrix. They might look weak and insubstantial at the moment, but I promise you that within a few months they will all have grown to become full-sized replicas of their DNA originator. A whole army, grown in jars and programmed with the most amazing abilities. A whole army of you, Abigail."

Staring at the little creature in the jar, I'm filled with dread as I realize what he means. These are clones, growing slowly but destined to eventually take their place in the world. Suddenly, everything Benjamin has been talking about since I first met him is starting to become clear, and I understand whose DNA has been used to create each and every one of these 'things'. It's mine. Thousands and thousands of clones of my body, and my mind.

"It's ironic," Benjamin continues. "You must have felt so alone in the world. Abandoned by your mother and father, left separated from your own identity, and suddenly you find you have the largest family that has ever existed. Each of them is genetically identical to you, Abigail. They'll grow up to be your brothers and sisters, all of them exactly like you and all of them, I promise, able to understand you. You'll never have to feel alone again."

Looking more closely, I see that there are wires running out of the creatures' bodies. "What are you doing to them?" I ask, noticing that the creatures seem to be twitching a little.

"Over the past few days, I've been training you to withstand pain," Benjamin explains. "Your brothers and sisters, however, will have the benefit of being trained from the moment of creation. Pain won't be an outside force that afflicts their bodies. Pain will be a part of their genetic make-up. Eventually it'll be absorbed into their consciousness, and they won't even notice it."

"You're hurting them?" I ask, as the creature in front of me looks straight in my direction. "How much pain are they in?"

"Some of them die," he says, "but that's acceptable. A certain percentage of every batch will always be substandard. Currently, the rate is around five per cent, but I'm hoping to reduce that number in order to minimize waste."

Taking a step back, I turn and look around the room. It's hard to get my head around what I'm seeing: thousands of tiny clones of myself, growing slowly in jars while wires deliver unimaginable pain directly into their developing nervous systems. For most creatures, pain is something to be avoided; for these things, pain is going to be an integral part of their bodies. They're going to grow up knowing nothing but pain, and inevitably this will mean that they see the world differently. I can't imagine what it must be like to feel agony from your first moment, and to face a lifetime without respite. I trust Benjamin implicitly, and I would never dare to doubt him, but something about this whole arrangement feels very wrong.

"It's a lot to take in," he says. "Don't worry, you have four or five months before the first prototypes are ready to be tested. I've grown a few previous specimens to full size, but that was back when I lacked your DNA. They were weak and hard to maintain. The other problem was that I was working with primitive tools. Back before I joined the Watchers, I conducted my own experiments in my home down in Louisiana. I worked so hard, but only one of the creatures ever grew to become a sustainable being, and even that was a pitiful failure. Now, though, I feel as if we're on the verge of a great advance. Imagine what we can do with an army of vampires, Abigail. An army of
you
."

"What can we do?" I ask, turning to him. "What do you
want
?"

"We can establish a new order," he says, smiling. "We can help the world. Humans will still have a place, but they'll undoubtedly become subordinate to our creations. It's only natural that the strong will prosper while the weak will decline. Vampires have always existed in the shadows, hiding their greatness and preventing humanity from knowing the truth about their existence, but it doesn't always have to be that way. Why should such noble creatures skulk around, when they could rule the world? Why should the weak prosper while the strong hide themselves away? It's not natural." He turns to marvel at his own creations. "
This
is natural.
This
is how the world should be."

Turning and walking across the room, I try to listen to the faint murmur in the back of my mind. It's as if all the creatures are reaching out to me, trying to make contact. I can't make out what they're saying, and I doubt they're even capable of communicating properly. Nevertheless, it's as if I'm able to sense some part of them.

"Here!" Benjamin says. He's standing by one of the jars, inspecting a creature that appears to be more active than the others. Twisting and writhing in its jar of yellow liquid, the creature seems to be in distress. "This one is unable to cope with the pain," Benjamin continues. "It's a weak specimen. If we allowed it to live, it would be sub-standard. It would pollute the species." Reaching out, he pushes a switch on the front of the jar; seconds later, a dark, inky substance floods into the chamber, and the creature twitches a couple of times before falling still. I feel its mind reach out to me for a moment, before its presence drifts away.

"I know this might seem harsh," Benjamin says, "but it's necessary for the good of the project. I can promise you, however, that every failed specimen causes me a little pain of my own. I've yet to fully understand why some of the creatures are unable to handle their training, but genetic variation is something I wish to wipe out completely over time."

Staring at the dead creature in its jar, I feel an overwhelming sense of pity. The poor little thing lived a short life, tortured by a kind of pain that it couldn't possibly understand. While I understand what Benjamin is saying about the need to protect the rest of the species from weak specimens, I can't help thinking that there might have been a place for
this
particular creature to somehow survive. Surely there's some room for the weak to still live, even if they can't take on the same role as the others? Just because they can't be in the army, they might be able to make some other contribution.

"Don't get sentimental," Benjamin continues. "If you pause to consider every loss, every failure, you'll quickly become overwhelmed. These are your brothers and sisters, but at this early stage they're barely aware of anything other than the specific sensations we choose to deliver."

"Like pain," I reply, staring at another of the creatures. As I watch, it seems to turn and look at the jar of its dead neighbor, as if it understands what it's seeing.

"How interesting," Benjamin says, leaning closer. "This one seems to have noticed that I killed its brother. Perhaps it feels pity." He pauses, before flicking a switch on this second jar; again, an inky black cloud enters the liquid, and moments later the second creature is also dead. "Pity is a weakness for these things. They must not be allowed to develop in such a way. What matters, more than anything, is that they focus on the task at hand." He turns to me. "Don't worry, Abigail. This is just the first wave. We can afford to lose a few more in order to protect the integrity of the swarm." He pauses for a moment. "Don't let your emotions get the better of you. See this through my eyes. See the opportunity we have to change the world."

I nod slowly. While I don't agree with what Benjamin is doing, I know that his intelligence is unparalleled. It would be wrong of me to question his plans; instead, I must watch and learn, and hope that eventually I'm able to see things his way. I must be patient while I wait for my old ideas to fade away.

"Do you want to see the finished article?" Benjamin asks. "There's a single prototype that managed to survive the initial batch, and I think you should meet it. Of course, it's unfinished, and it's unstable, but it'll help you to understand how the project will ultimately work." Taking my hand, he smiles as he leads me across the room. "I can see in your eyes, Abigail, that you're starting to understand my philosophy. I admit that what I'm doing is somewhat controversial, and I'm sure there are plenty of people who would object that I'm being unethical or cruel. But I think you're smarter than that, aren't you? You're starting to see the world through my eyes."

We reach a door, behind which there's a smaller room with another, heavily-fortified door. Benjamin pulls a pass-card from his pocket and swipes it, unlocking the door.

"Meet yourself," he says, stepping aside as I walk into the next room. It's dark, and for a moment I struggle to see anything, but finally I start to make out a shape. Chained to the floor, covered from head to toe in some kind of bloody, proto-plasmic residue, there's a creature. It looks human, but I can tell it's not: its mind is already reaching out to mine, trying to find a way to connect with my deepest thoughts; although I reject its attempts, I can feel it furiously trying again and again, seeking to break down my resistance. Slowly, the creature raises its head and looks straight at me. It has dark, soulless eyes, and a mouth full of fangs... and it looks exactly like me.