Raw Ghosts Chap. 12-13

For Sam's sake, and for the sake of anyone else who wants to read it, I'm putting my drafts of my The Raw Ghosts of Thailand expansion up here so she can enjoy and comment, as I've decided to not post anything new on Fictionpress. For those who don't know, our favorite virtuous vampires Ferdinand and Nat have been coping with Ferdinand's suicide attempt in Dad and I Are Sort of Human by going on a vacation to Thailand. Unfortunately, they've been captured by Well-Intentioned Extremist scientists studying vampires as a possible source of an AIDS cure. Taylor Calvin, who was studying abroad, gets caught up in it. One of the other vampire test subjects, Miriam, has died giving birth to a baby that has gestated for three years.

Chapter 12: Alone, and Yet, Alive

They awoke when the metal door clanged open, and a squadron of technicians and other professional types with rubber gloves and surgical masks came to collect Miriam. None of the vampires said a word, concentrating on cowering against the walls. Taylor squeezed Ferdinand’s hand so tightly it hurt.

Then one of the scientists tried to grab the baby. Nat clutched onto Rivki as best he could, but he was tasered into unconsciousness and the howling infant wrenched from his insensible grasp. Something hot and acrid coiled in Ferdinand’s chest, and he extricated his fingers from Taylor’s.
“No!” he shouted, bolting up and trying to take the baby back.

“We need to run tests,” the scientist replied, attempting to hold Rivki’s writhing little body in one arm and menacing Ferdinand with the other.

“You let Miriam die. You wanted us to kill Taylor. I don’t trust you.” His voice was very quiet and full of seething rage.

“I don’t want to hurt you unnecessarily.”

“Oh, I do.” The ensuing punch that he managed to land - just before he, too, was sent into the electrical pain and silence - broke the scientist’s nose.

****

Ferdinand woke in complete darkness. He tried to sit up and promptly hit his head. A second, more cautious attempt allowed him to sit as long as he maintained a stooped posture. The walls were all just barely beyond arms’ length away; fingertips came upon a small, drafty gap that he supposed was allowing him air. He felt himself to be naked. It was cold.

He figured out quickly that this was meant as punitive solitary confinement. They would let him out eventually to do more tests, presuming that he’d learned a lesson and would “behave” to their liking. It was just a matter of mental toughness for however long they decided he should stay there.

Ferdinand felt the familiar silvery taste of depression at the back of his throat and contemplated using his fangs to score distracting wounds on his arms. He decided to keep that in reserve, a cold comfort to be his companion. He hugged himself to preserve what little body heat he had.

At least it wasn’t blisteringly bright in here. He preferred darkness. It occurred to him that he could test to see whether it was day or night by whether he could turn into a bat. Right now he couldn’t. He remembered Nat’s story, last told when Dianne was still in high school, about how he amused himself while stowing away on a ship headed for Vietnam. Ferdinand wasn’t that good with scores of musicals, but in what he admitted were self-indulgent melancholic fits he had memorized many different poems. He needed to hear something besides silence if he was going to keep his mind together. Maybe Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”? Words had always comforted him, and when he was at a loss for his own he quoted writers more eloquent than he would ever be. He spoke very softly so that he wouldn’t get thirsty from even mild exertion.

Unable to remember the beginning, he started with what he felt was a relevant verse. A small part of him considered how poetic it was for him to suffer so elegantly – and a larger part of him kicked at that impulse as temptation to, yet again, wallow in misery. The first part did have a point in that there was very little he could do right now about helping his fellow prisoners and getting them out.

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.

I only knew what hunted thought

Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

He’d read that over and over in the first months after Selene died from the AIDS he had given her unwittingly, caught from a mugger she could have easily defended herself from, and in any case he could have incapacitated without biting. But this well-traveled line of thought was making his throat constrict and eyes sting, so he dove into the next verse that he could grasp.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

Confident that Nat wouldn’t hear him, Ferdinand whispered, “I wish you were here with me. I’d forgive you if you were here.”

He does not sit with silent men
Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
The prison of its prey.

He had to live, though. Taylor and Rivki needed him. He didn’t regret hitting that man. Dying wish. Woman’s dying wish. Innocent downtrodden victim woman’s dying wish dying dying cold OH GOD…

Ferdinand steadied his breathing, realizing that the tempting friendship of hysteria had nearly pulled him in. He wasn’t a wimp-lightweight-weenie-softie for having trouble this early, was he? It was because they took away his Zoloft. He needed his Zoloft.

He was technically on Sertraline – the generic form – but when he was growing up there had been commercials for Zoloft, with big puffy animals becoming sad and crooning because of clinical depression. After being prescribed Zoloft they bounced happily again. Those would make great pets. Not as great as Luna, but if you could ride them (and assuming they didn’t constantly need Zoloft/Sertraline to function, because he didn’t think Edofine would prescribe him enough for both of them), they would make wonderful steeds. Also they should be big enough to hug. Maybe Derrick Jangoral could invent some like he created Luna using magic? They should be called “zum-zums”.

Now he was getting silly. Hell, what if this broke his brain somehow? He was going to be a grandfather in a few months and he didn’t want to be a gibbering wreck by that point. Assuming of course that Taylor wasn’t delusional and she indeed could communicate with Derrick telepathically – what, even when they were on different continents? – and he and Dianne were indeed coming and they didn’t get in trouble or killed or lost or arrested how dare she endanger his granddaughter like that? At least her husband was steady. Matthew Gabriel Spiralli, a nice boy. Nice boy with a job that was going to keep him in Laconia so Dianne wouldn’t leave him until she died, which would still be leaving him but maybe not so soon or so bad or…

“Hey, Ferdinand? Getting the signal – signal you’re…in and out…hard uncoordinated…gotta unison…I we are is am having trouble…”

“What?” Ferdinand said aloud, pressing his ear against one of the walls. But he wasn’t hearing voices with his ears. It was like two people, a man and a woman, talking at the same time, except they weren’t talking but thinking really hard.

“You have to imagine shouting things aloud for this to work. And it’s not…can’t…long…not…argh!”

“Who is this?” Ferdinand thought as clearly and distinctly as he could.

Telepathy in all the fictional media to which Ferdinand was exposed was like having a telephone inside your head. This was more like hearing a very weak channel on the radio, constantly static-ful, hissing, cracking, swiping.

“Taylor and Derrick together – we aren’t – um…the signal’s weak…we’ve never done this before…just with each other…but your mind was crying out because you had no stimuli and we were able to get through together…two stations broadcasting…same time…Dianne says don’t give up up up up….”

“Are you okay?”

“They’re doing a behavioral experiment with Nat and Sally because they defended…nicer room…toilet and sink and I’ve Taylor’s getting gotten food…they bastards don’t swear want to see…if they those them stay hungry long enough will vampires…even good vampires…give in…I’ll have you know Derrick says if I Taylor dies or gets hurt your remains will never be found, Derrick! Don’t think things like that! Sorry dear I’m worried…lines you don’t cross…let’s not fight in front of Good idea...you’ll probably join us…Ferdinand remember that time you told me Taylor to fear the dark…now we I she tells will tell you not to run towards it and let it swallow you did me a favor now I will do you one…don’t despair …we can tell stories…don’t despair…”

“I’m not despairing.” Ferdinand realized that while he struggled to decipher meaning from the confusing communication, he was also chewing on his left thumb.

The “male” stream of thought, bright and forceful, that Ferdinand now knew was Derrick became much more prominent. “My friend, you’re naked and trapped in a completely dark box. If this isn’t upsetting you, you’ve either got a fetish or you’re lying.”

“Stop chewing on your thumb,” went Taylor’s weaker but steadier undercurrent, a swift-flowing stream. “I can’t keep this level of perception…”

They merged once more, sunlight glittering through rushing waves. “I Taylor can’t keep it up much longer and since Derrick I is am is doing this by possessing Taylor’s body to boost boost it’s terrifying Dianne and Nat and Sally it’s really disturbing them so we’ll take a break before Taylor I get a migraine…”
Then he was alone.

Chapter 13: Ferdinand’s Prayer

“God, if I get out of this sane and alive, I’ll convert to the first religion I come across unless it’s Scientology or something else equally questionable. I swear. I swear. How much time has it been? Can you hear me? Can anyone? I’m cold and I’m hungry and this was supposed to be my relaxing vacation, You damn it! I swear. I swear. I swear. Please oh please. I don’t want to die. I guess that can be counted as progress from being suicidal? I mustn’t laugh at that; it’s not really funny and I get a feeling that if I start laughing I’m never going to stop, seeing how hard it was to get myself to stop banging my head a while ago. I wonder how long that was. Can’t change into a bat, it’s not night yet. I’ve been here less than a day. Unless…no…that would be too horrible…what if a whole night passed in between attempts? How would I know? And are they going to let me out at all? You’d think I was a valuable specimen, as they would put it, but maybe I’m an example to the others. They could let me starve in here and put my corpse on a pike. How long does it take vampires to starve to death? Months? Years? It’s bad enough for an ordinary human being!

“Any non-psycho religion, God, I mean it. And I’ll adopt Rivki and give him a home, and give a bigger chunk of my income to charity…I just want to see my grandchild…I want to hold Dianne…I want to…not sure what I want to do with Nat, really…please God. Please oh please. I swear.”