Night Runner (7 page)

I spent most of my time thinking about Maximilian. I imagined telling him everything about my life here. And introducing him to Charlie. As silly as it sounds, I pictured him getting married to Nurse Ophelia so that I could live with them both after he adopted me. I even imagined us hunting other vampires, like Peter Cushing and Anthony Hopkins in the movies. And avenging my father.

Five hours passed this way. By the end, the rubber track on the treadmill was smoking. It smelled like I'd set fire to it. I hadn't really noticed because I was off in my own little world. A world that was now full of vampires.

When I thought more about it, I remembered that we vampires weren't actually living creatures. We weren't dead, but we weren't alive, either. We were
undead
. Trapped between life and death forever. It seemed like a bunch of baloney to me, but in all the stories I'd ever read and the movies I'd watched, that was the word they'd used. And the first step was dying. Once you got infected, that is. Then your human life came to an end and your life as a vampire began.

I wondered when my first death had happened. My human death. It wasn't like I'd been dropped in a pit with a rabid
Tyrannosaurus rex
. Did I die in my coma? Or just after I was bitten? You'd think a guy would remember something important like that. But then again, maybe not. Death might have been so scary, my mind wouldn't let me remember.

In the end, I couldn't figure it out, mostly because the word
undead
didn't really make any sense. I certainly felt alive. But I might have been wrong about that. I'd basically forgotten what life was like for normal people, so maybe I didn't feel alive at all, I just thought I did. Maybe what I felt was something different. It took a while to put my finger on it, but then I figured it out. What I felt was excited. And alive or undead, after eight boring years in a mental ward being
spoon-fed one hairball theory after another about what was wrong with me and how to fix it, well, things were looking up.

 

 

As soon as my run was over, I tried again to find Nurse Ophelia. I needed to eat. Exercise usually made my appetite go away, but only while I was moving. Now that I had stopped, it was going to come on even stronger. I was in a race with my stomach. Soon it would be freaking out. I didn't see her anywhere, but I quickly found Nurse Roberta outside one of the rooms. She'd been checking up on one of the older patients I didn't know very well.

“Is she here yet?” I asked.

“No. And she didn't call in sick, either. She's a no-show. That means they'll dock her a night's pay.” Then she muttered something colourful under her breath about all the work she'd been left to finish on her own. She had a clipboard in her hand. She was checking something off.

“I haven't eaten yet,” I said. “I'm starving.”

Nurse Roberta's head fell back just a bit and her shoulders slumped. I could tell she felt bad even before she apologized. “I totally forgot.” Then she raised the clipboard and tapped it against her forehead, as though she was reminding herself not to be so stupid. “Well, come on, then. We'd better get you something.”

We got to the kitchen just in time. My eyeballs were aching and my stomach sounded like an angry bear.

“I haven't done this in a while,” she said. “Do you know where everything is?”

While she got the blender ready, I fished in the fridge for what I needed.

“You can't have that,” Nurse Roberta said when she saw the box full of syrup bags.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Nurse Ophelia always puts one of these in.”

Nurse Roberta looked confused. Her face wrinkled up and she pointed to the label on the box. It said “Warning: Not for Human Consumption.” I'd never noticed before. I guess I hadn't looked that closely.

I took out one of the bags. It suddenly dawned on me what the red syrup was, and it sure wasn't strawberries. My hands started shaking.

Nurse Roberta took the bag from me and gently squeezed it with her fingers. “Must be some kind of gel. Looks a bit like grenadine.”

I had no idea what grenadine was, but I wasn't going to correct her.

“Well, sorry,” she said, “but I can't let you have that.” She closed the fridge and put her hands on her hips. “We'll have to think of something else.”

I looked at her very closely. I had been wrong about her. She really was very pretty. But maybe I just thought so because she was trying to be helpful. Or maybe it was because I was hungry . . .

For some reason I got thinking about what Dracula might do at a moment like this. With all his bizarre talents, he was easily the undisputed heavyweight champion of the undead world. He could climb walls, turn into a bat, or a wolf, or mist. He could make himself thin and slip through cracks. He could command rats and other night creatures to do his bidding. He could even go out in the daytime.

I figured that stuff was poppycock. I'd been infected for eight years and I couldn't even keep my room clean.

But some of his talents weren't so unrealistic. And they were certainly better suited for a time like this. Hungry. Alone with a beautiful woman. He certainly wouldn't let himself starve. So I took a page out of his book and made my move.

First, I opened my eyes so they were really wide. Then I sort of
raised my hand with the fingers spread wide. “You will let me have my dinner,” I said to Nurse Roberta in a slow, commanding voice.

She still had her hands on her hips. Her chin dropped just a little. Then she opened her eyes very wide and raised her hand. “No, we'll have to find you something else,” she said. Her imitation was flawless.

And so I learned something very valuable about my power to charm. I guess I still needed a few centuries of practice before I could command humans to do my bidding. Dracula would have been very disappointed.

I put my hand down. I must have been blushing because the skin on my face felt really tight. “I don't think I can have anything else,” I told her. “All I know is that Nurse Ophelia mixes one of those in with the rest of my medications.”

Nurse Roberta shook her head gently. “Zachary, you aren't on any medications. You haven't been for months. Not since last year. Didn't you know that?”

I shook my head. Then my stomach started to kung-fu my other organs. And my throat started itching as well. Like I had ants crawling around in there.

Nurse Roberta reached out and gently took hold of my hand. “Don't do that,” she said.

I'd been scratching at my neck.

“We'd better find you something else,” she added.

I shook my head. “Honestly, this is what she uses. I watch her. It's the same thing every time.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded.

She looked a little cross. “You'd better be. If you drop dead on me, and it costs me my job . . .”—she spread her fingers wide and made her eyes bug out—“. . . I'll kill you!” Then she cut the bag open and poured it into the blender.

I realized that it didn't look like blood. I'd seen the real stuff when the old man on the stolen motorcycle got shot. This stuff was much thicker.

“We should water that down a bit,” I suggested.

A few seconds later, I was drinking. It tasted exactly the same as normal. And it was gone in a blink.

“You gonna be okay?” she asked.

I nodded and smiled. Then I blushed again. I was feeling guilty. I'd been a bit too hard on her, thinking she was cranky all the time.

We left the kitchen and I made my way back to my room. With food in my stomach, I felt a lot better. And so I enjoyed another chapter of
The Hobbit
. Enough to see Bilbo and the gang safely to the house of Elrond. Then I closed my window, lowered the blinds, drew the curtains and went to sleep.

I
woke from a deep sleep around noon. Someone was knocking at the door. The cadence was hurried, but soft. Just to be safe, when I rose out of bed I picked up the chair by my desk and held it up over my shoulder. Then I asked who was there.

“It's your uncle,” said a voice. “Maximilian.”

I told him he could come in. He opened the door and slipped inside. I noticed his suit was different. He didn't have his briefcase with him, but he was holding a folder in one hand. When he saw me standing in the middle of the empty room, I put the chair back down.

“Redecorating?” he asked. Then his expression changed and he started to cough, worse than before. He had to work pretty hard to clear his throat afterwards.

“Excuse me,” he said, thumping his chest with a large fist. “I hope it's okay that I woke you? I was going to slip this file under the door, but I decided that it made more sense to talk face to face, in case you
had any questions. I didn't want you to get too worked up, although there is reason for concern.”

He tapped the folder against his palm a few times.

“I have been meeting with the hospital admin all morning in hopes of getting you moved out of here,” he said, “but because of your condition and your sensitivity to sunlight, they won't give me permission. Not until I become your legal guardian, and that could take some time. I don't think it's safe for you to stay here another night, but at the moment, I don't have the authority to force anyone's hand.”

As he spoke, he opened the folder and removed a photograph. It was a picture of a scruffy-looking man in an overcoat. He had a cane and a long, pink scar under his eye.

“I came across some interesting information last night,” he continued, “and I wanted to share it with you.” He tapped a thick finger on the photo of the scruffy man. “This is Everett Johansson, former Toronto police detective. He retired to Peterborough eight years ago.”

I picked up the photograph and examined it closely.

“Ever see him before?” my uncle asked.

I shook my head.

“Your father had a term he used to describe men like this. He called them ‘the Fallen,' people who have forsaken humanity and entered into the service of vampires. This man is dangerous. He has eyes all over the city. My contacts tell me that he's looking for you.”

I looked at the photo more closely. “Is this why the old man on the motorcycle warned me to stay away from the police?”

“I wouldn't dismiss the idea.”

Everett Johansson. The Fallen. He didn't look all that dangerous. Not compared to my uncle. But if he served a vampire, he didn't have to be dangerous himself.

“Does he work for Vrolok?” I asked.

My uncle looked at me, then down at the photograph. “I don't
know,” he began. “I am assuming he does. Vrolok is in Canada. And as far as I know, he's never travelled to the New World before.”

“New World?”

“North America. He's never before risked crossing the Atlantic. He's found out about you from someone. And I suspect that someone is Johansson.”

“How would he know I was here? I've never seen him before.”

My uncle shook his head slowly. “You wouldn't have to see him. He has many people working under him, in all walks of life. Maybe a delivery person saw you. Or a security guard. Or any one of the police officers who've been here. And there is no way to know, when you see someone, if they are one of the Fallen. They look like ordinary people. They
are
ordinary people. With dangerous friends.”

I thought of everyone I came into contact with each day. There weren't that many. But the night the old man crashed through the lobby, there were a lot of different people on the scene, and I was centre stage. It might easily have happened then.

“I think you should stay in your room, just to be safe.” Then he smiled and fished into the inside pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a small piece of paper. It had “Maximilian” written across the middle in red letters. Across the top in black was “Iron Spike Enterprises.” The
I
in “Iron” was a metal spike. He took out a pen and scribbled a number underneath his name.

“That's my cell number,” he said. “Don't hesitate to call if you sense trouble. Or if you get any more strange visitors, like that old man who stole the motorcycle.”

“Did you find out who he was?”

“Not yet, but I will. In the meantime, we can't afford to take any chances. Experience has taught me that we should assume the worst. That Johansson knows you're here, and that he's working for Vrolok. I'm betting that's why the old man came to warn you. We'll have to get you out of here right away.”

I looked at the window. It was just after noon. I didn't want to go anywhere unless it involved a tunnel or an armoured car.

“What should I do?” I asked.

“Well, sit tight for now. The sun is up. We can't risk moving you in the daytime. I'll do some more legwork this afternoon. Find out what I can, then come back later tonight. Don't worry. We'll get you out of here.”