Leaving the Light
By: Christine Schnell
Chapter 3
Bram came by to see me a couple more times that week but he
avoided all questions about this place, and I avoided all
conversation about his feelings for me, or mine for his, as I
still wasn't quite sure what they were. We just enjoyed each
other's company. We were like two kids, each trying to discover
everything about he other, bouncing back and forth between
friendship and suspicion and banging our heads together in the
process.
He kept his word about being my personal trainer. He showed me
to a wondrous Olympic size swimming pool as I had told him that
was my favorite form of exercise. The workout room was nothing
to scoff at either. He knew of my shyness to exercise around
people so he always brought me there when no one was around, and
he would only allow me to swim if I had a really good workout.
He was conditioning me using it as a reward, I knew it, and
worst of all I let him. I guess it was just the fact that I
liked spending time with him.
The last time I saw him that week he took me to a place I would
never have imagined them having in the secluded place like this.
It soon became my favorite room to spend time in as I was not
surrounded by hoards of people and their annoying whispering.
It was a library. Not just any library, but a library that
would contend with the Library of Congress. It was contained on
three separate floors, each with rows upon rows upon shelves
upon walls of books, old and new, of all shapes and sizes and
genre's. I was to simply put it awe struck. I didn't know
where to begin, any book, no matter how obscure I could think of
was there. They had my favorite Poe, to my not so favorite
Collins. My first thought upon seeing this was "I'll never be
able to read all these!" I loved books, and I loved to read,
and there was a fountain of knowledge at my fingertips just
waiting for me to drink from it.
Bram took me by the hand and strode me over to a shelf and
seemingly at random he pulled a book off it. "This is as good a
place to start as any." The book he had handed me was
ironically one I had always wanted to read, but never found the
time to get but a few paragraphs at a time. It was a book about
one of my favorite subjects, King Arthur, and Le Morte Darthur
by Sir Thomas Malory no less. "I think we have a copy of it
untranslated as well." He casually pulled out a book not too
far away and beheld it. Sure enough it was in the original
Middle English, though at the time I had no hope of
understanding a word of it. "The story of Sir Tristam has
always been my favorite." He muttered as he flipped through the
pages and it appeared he was actually reading passages at a
time. "Though most of it is speculation and exaggeration, it
still seems to have some basis in fact."
"How can you tell? Are there other versions that weren't taken
directly from his story?"
He shrugged and put the book away. "Not stories per say, just
knowledge that has been passed down. Besides, what do you
expect of a story written nearly a thousand years after the
fact."
"I'd like to see this resource. I'm always interested in rare
tidbits."
He seemed to be off in another world as he was staring past me.
"Yes perhaps sometime later." In his half dream state he took
my chin in his hand. "Stay here as long as you like. I'm
afraid I have to go." He didn't even give me time to reply
before he had left my side and disappeared behind a shelf before
I even turned to watch him go.
Unsure of what to do next I sat and began reading. Half a page
in someone blocked my light.
I looked up to find Dr. Wendel waiting there. "I thought I
warned you about him."
"You did." I admit that I didn't like being told what to do
and so he began to annoy me the moment he spoke.
"You've been getting too close to him."
I slowly closed the book and rose with the intention of leaving
him behind. "I may be here to work, but that doesn't mean I
can't live my own life."
"Yes it does."
"What!?"
Dr. Wendel met my outraged expression with a complete
seriousness. "Sit down, it's time I explain everything to you."
"Everything including that last comment?"
No smile crossed his face. "Sit." He left no room for
argument.
Still I stayed standing, defiant.
"All right." He must have sensed that it would take more to
get me to listen to him than a simple command. "You're not here
just to work. You are a servant here, we all are. We have no
rights."
"Servant?" I never got past that word. "Like in being a maid
or something?"
"Servitude, in every sense of the word. You must do what
you're told at every instant."
"Servant?" I was stuck again, so stuck I couldn't concentrate
on standing and fell into my chair.
He watched me with only a small bit of sympathy. "We're here
for one purpose and one only."
I looked up expecting him to say something to soothe me with
his wonderful bedside manner. "To serve our captors in any way
they wish, which doesn't include living your own life."
"Exactly what is that supposed to mean?" My question was not
harsh.
He sighed seeing he had finally at least got me to listen. "We
do what we're told nothing more. If you go against what you're
told, there will be dire circumstances."
"Should I ask?"
He shook his head. "There's more." He said anticipating my
next question. "You've probably been wondering who our captors
are exactly."
"You're finally gonna answer that one huh?"
"Yes, though it might be a little hard for you to believe."
"After being told I'm a servant? Not hardly." I've always
thought the loss of my freedom would be the biggest shock I
could get in my life, and to tell the truth I still wasn't over
it and hardly heard him when he spoke next.
"They're vampires."
"Vampires?" I laughed, that was as corny as Bram's line he
used on me. It didn't shock me at all, though he was right
about me not believing it. "There's no such thing as vampires."
"I suppose you don't believe in ghosts or aliens either?" The
doctor asked. For someone of science you would think he
wouldn't believe either.
"Aliens maybe, after all they have some basis in scientific
fact. But vampires? No way." Past the initial shock I was
able to think half way rationally. "If you can get past all the
superstitions, like them being able to fly and be immortal;
which are completely against the laws of physics, there's only a
couple things I could see that is plausible."
"Go on." He allowed me to make my case.
"Their combustibility in light could be explained by living in
the dark for years, naturally going out in the sun after that
would hurt, but of course it wouldn't kill, unless they got
cancer or something, but that takes years to kill a person.
Then there's the need for blood I guess can be explained by some
kind of virus or iron deficiency, but I just don't get the
relation between drinking it and it helping out for those
deficiencies, as the blood would go through the digestive track
and not straight into the bloodstream."
"Some things defy all logic."
"Impossible, there is a scientific explanation for everything.
As a doctor you should know that."
"Yes, but I also know vampires exist." He paused perhaps for
effect. "And that we are their servants."
I had about as much of this that I could take and stood to
leave. He grabbed my arm not allowing me to take even one step.
"There's more."
"No there's not. If you'll excuse me." I took my arm from his
grip and began to move out of the library.
He stopped me with five words. "Bram is one of them."
My thoughts traced back to when he had warned me not to
befriend Bram, this had obviously been what he meant by Bram's
untrusting associates. Yet, vampires? No! "No." That was it,
that was the straw, I couldn't take this any longer. He wasn't
about to tell me someone like Bram was a vampire. "No. Uh uh,
not a chance, no." I was defiantly in denial. With my hand on
the door handle I was this close to leaving.
"You can ask him yourself if you don't believe me."
"No, no way. This is a joke right. One big joke. Vampires,
servants, yeah, who would believe it." I asked rhetorically,
then another thought struck me. "But who would go through the
expense of putting me up here? A conspiracy then. Yes, for
some strange reason someone saw it fit to bring me here and
create a conspiracy to drive me crazy. It's certainly working
isn't it?"
"No conspiracy, no joke, what I'm telling you is true. You
have been brought here to do what the vampires ask and to allow
them to drink from you whenever they need to."
Yeah, this is defiantly a joke despite his admission that it
wasn't. "Drink from me? You mean my blood? I suppose they
sleep in coffins, and are afraid of crosses as well?" If they
believe they are vampires I may be able to use those weaknesses
to my advantage and get the hell out of there before I did go
crazy.
"I don't believe they're afraid of crosses, never seen one with
one so I wouldn't know. They don't sleep in coffins, as we're
underground where the sun can't harm them, they have normal
beds, for their own comfort and ours to share with them."
I popped out of my trance, I was in thinking about these
beasts. "Excuse me?!"
"At their will, you will share their bed."
"Share their bed, you mean sleep with them? No, there's no way
I'll fall in love with one of those bastards."
"Love has nothing to do with sleeping with them, besides you
already have."
"What?"
"You can not deny it, after all it's obvious."
Yes I couldn't deny it as it was not true, but only to a point.
"You mistake love for infatuation. Something I have not done.
And that infatuation ends now."
The look in his eyes told me he didn't believe it. "It doesn't
matter now anyway. Love, hate, depression, nothing matters. If
Bram asks you into his bed you go. If another vampire asks you
to feed them, you do. Above all whatever the King asks, you do."
"What you're describing, it's not just servitude, that's
slavery!"
"Yes, you can call it that, we are slaves, but servant is a
much nicer word."
"I thought at worst we were prisoners of some sort, but slaves?
Slavery was outlawed centuries ago!"
"Outlawed for those who are citizens of the United States.
They do not consider themselves or us citizens. You'll have to
live with it."
"Hell no! I don't have to. I'm free! I was born in the
freest nation in the world. I was born and lived all my life in
California for God's sake, you can't get much freer than that!
I will not submit to this! I will not allow them to control me."
"I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm afraid I've upset you too
much, as your doctor I'm ordering you to go get some sleep.
Tomorrow you will start your duties."
The tables had turned now I didn't want to let him go that
easily. "Duties?" He didn't answer me. I didn't want to let
him just walk away without a fight. I didn't want to give in.
But I did. As he stepped away I asked one final question of
him. "Tell me one thing. Why me?"
He stopped put a hand on my shoulder and said. "Get some
sleep, you'll need it." Then he left without answering my
question. I was completely flabbergasted. I never was very
good at arguing and debating, but normally I could at least get
a little more in than I did with him. I sat there for some time
unable to think of anything but his words, and the one's I kept
coming back to was "You already did." How could he say I've
fallen in love with Bram? I didn't even know what love is.
Love? A vampire? Impossible!
