Dark Discovery
The sun set at 4:49 PM in Chicago. It was getting darker and colder, and it was only November tenth. The Metra commuter rail station was only a few more blocks and I quickened my pace. I approached what I called the tunnel which was a shortcut behind a high rise next to the river. It was poorly lit and there were several alcoves from where a mugger could jump out at you. If I was alone it would be scary, but fertile ground for a would-be horror writer. I would have to work it into a novel someday. My fellow commuters didn’t seem to notice their peril.
After I emerged on to Wells Street, I turned and looked back down the tunnel to get a different perspective. A tall man in a hooded coat stood fifty feet into the passage and faced in my direction. I couldn’t see his features, but his posture was odd. He was standing with one foot pointed toward me and the other behind it at a right angle. We both just stood there for a few moments and then I turned and continued on to my train. Okay, that was weird.
As the train pulled out of the station I looked out the window and a shadowy figure caught my eye standing at the end of the platform. This person had the same odd stance as the man in the tunnel. As I swept by, the figure turned its posture towards me and I watched him fade as the train angled west. Now that was really weird.
My new Razor flip-phone chirped and rescued me from my imagination. “Hey Benny, what’s up?”
“Last week I sent your manuscript to Danube Publishing.”
“Never heard of them.”
“Neither have I, but they’re here in Chicago and want to meet you Thursday night.”
It took me a year to land Benny Weyland as a literary agent and until now had had zero luck convincing a publisher to even look at my vampire book. Maybe there just wasn’t a market for dark vampire fiction. I liked Benny; he was young, energetic and worked hard. This was the best lead so far and at this point, he’d take anything; and so would I.
“Great! I’m in.”
Three nights later I looked up at the old office building. I checked the address Benny gave me again and frowned. He said he would be late and to start without him. The edifice was narrow with twelve floors of over-sized double hung windows four across. It was made of brick that had seen a lot of years. The small entryway led to a long foyer with a reception desk at its end.
“Frank Toland,” I said to the man sitting behind the desk and he called the elevator for me. There were no buttons in the elevator car and I freaked out for a few seconds as the car ascended. The door opened and I stepped into a windowless ante room. The floor looked like worn marble and the lighting fixtures had to be a hundred years old. The room had only two doors, both of them unmarked. The elevator door closed and there was no call button to retrieve it. Shit!
One of the massive wooden doors opened inward behind me catching me by surprise.
“Mr. Toland, thank you for coming. I am Otto Von Scherr. Please walk this way,” a man who looked about forty said holding the door open. His voice had a trace of an accent. With a name like Otto I figured it was German. I found it odd that we didn’t shake hands. He was dressed in a contemporary dark business suit and white shirt. I followed him down an ornate hallway and into a large, high ceilinged room with an antique conference table surrounded by high-backed chairs. Only the table was well lit leaving the rest of the room in shadow.
“Please make yourself comfortable.”
He sat across from me and placed a stack of papers on the table. His features were sharp and his long fingers were delicate, like a surgeon’s. His hair was as black as his suit without a hint of grey; his eyes were dark brown and intense.
“We have examined your manuscript.”
The words hung in the air for a few desperate moments. Examined? What an odd choice of words.
“It was quite something. What did you do for research?”
“Research?”
“Yes, the vampire research?”
“Ah, well, mostly I just made it up.” His eyes flared then narrowed like he didn’t believe me.
“You made it up.” He said each word slowly, deliberately. “You didn’t talk to, or interview, anyone?”
“No.”
“You had an editor, yes?”
I had always hated when people asked questions ending in yes or no. Learn the language, Fritz. I needed to cool my jets and remember why I was there. The publishing industry hadn’t exactly been pounding down my door.
“Yes, my agent hooked me up with Hennesay, out of New York.”
He nodded slightly and continued to stare at me with his hypnotic dark eyes.
“Sunlight and silver are the most potent weapons against the vampire?”
“Yes, I…”
“Not a crucifix or holy water?”
“No, I believe the lore of vampires predates the birth of Christ.”
“Really, and how did you come to that conclusion?”
“I thought it made sense. If vampires were a subspecies related to modern man, then it must have taken some time for them to evolve. The same would be true if they were a mutation of some sort. The contemporary vampire fiction has become a collection of lame teen love stories. I think in a more realistic portrayal, they would be much darker and more cunning. I mean, come on, if these guys have lived for centuries, then they must have control of their feeding and be masters at concealing their presence. Not to mention, rich.”
“Indeed. And your description of the turning process; am I to presume that you made that up as well?”
“I figured it couldn’t be as easy as biting someone’s neck and waiting two or three nights. If that were true, the world would be overrun with vampires in all the lore. It must be much more controlled. This led me to presume that it was the responsibility of each vampire clan to control the people they turned.”
“So, vampires take over the world with no single consciousness or mind control?”
“Correct, I always thought that was metaphysical bullshit.”
A smile almost graced his lips when he asked, “What about killing the head vampire?”
“Yeah, and all the vampires he has turned vaporize; more bullshit. How could that possibly work?”
“You don’t believe in happy endings?” Von Scherr asked with more of a smile.
“Only after a massage.” All right that one was a cheap shot, but I had crossed the line from creeped out to annoyed. The man sat there and stared at me with a smirk plastered on his face like it was carved there. Nearly a minute passed in silence and I decided to go on offense.
“What is it that you do here, Mr. Von Scherr?”
“I am senior editor.”
“So why all the questions about my research sources? This is a work of fiction. Who gives a shit if I spent months in the library reading Bram Stoker or just pulled of all this out of my ass? The objective is to entertain, is it not?” I can talk like a snobby asshole, too. After five minutes with this guy I didn’t give a damn if he was the last publisher in the world.
“It would appear that we share a common need for rational explanations. Mysticism and superstitions are weapons only effective against the ill-informed,” Von Scherr said. “These are different times. The curious have more information than ever before, accessible in an instant. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes, but so much of it is noise that drowns out the truth.”
“And what is the truth?”
I didn’t want to get into a philosophical debate with this guy, so I decided to go back to smart ass again. “If I knew the truth I would write nonfiction.”
The stiff ignored one of the best snarky lines of my professional career.
“Are you planning on writing more books, Mr. Toland?”
“Yes, I have a few ideas and some notes…”
“Books about vampires?”
What’s with this guy? Maybe the genre attracts only nut jobs. “Yes, a few of them have vampires as central characters. But, I have a few thrillers that…”
“Why vampires, Mr. Toland?”
That one surprised me. My wife asked me the same question when she read my manuscript. She determined it was a morbid fascination. The truth was something different.
“They are the top of the food chain and pass through time with great strength and speed. They have the knowledge of the ages by experience, not by reading about it through the filter of others’ thoughts and prejudices. As a writer, they give me so many possibilities.”
“Would you ever want to be one?”
“What?” That really caught me off guard. Not the question as much as the eagerness in jolly old Otto’s eyes. It was the first time that he betrayed any emotion. I was back to being creeped out. No, I was more than a little afraid.
“A vampire. If you could, would you want to be one?”
“No.”
“No? But you just blathered on about gaining the knowledge of the ages, and their strength.”
“Yes, I did. But, there are reasons I would never want to be one.”
“Do tell me.”
“There would be no sunlight, so no sunrises or sunsets. They have to hide from the rest of the world, and live off the blood and loss of their victims. And I think living forever would lessen the importance of living every day.”
“Is that why you came up with your, vampire math scheme to draw blood from living humans, to save human lives?”
“It doesn’t solve the other issues, but it seems more sensible, and sustainable.”
“Indeed it does.” This came from a deeper voice in the darkness with a thicker accent than Von Scherr’s. “We should have thought of it sooner.”
An older man entered the circle of light. His hair was completely gray and worn long, almost to his shoulders and he wore a long suit coat over a shirt with elaborate cuffs and a frilly collar. Who the hell is this fruitcake?
“The population rebalancing in favor of females is much like a dairy farm, no? You don’t need many bulls to run a farm,” the older man added. Something about the way he talked unnerved me. It was so measured, but not slow, and all the while his eyes never left mine even as he paced in and out of the light.
“And a plague to start the whole process, brilliant.”
“Thank you,” I managed to mumble. Something began to form in my mind. It was impossible, of course, but it kept gnawing at the edges of reason. “Benny told me Danube Publishing was primarily interested in paranormal, and ah, horror fiction. My book is, well, light on blood and guts but I think it makes up for it in…”
“Substance and original thinking,” the older man broke in. “Yes, we thought so, too. It is not exactly, commercial fiction, however. Fortunately for you, we are more interested in content than commercial appeal.”
“Great. Great, what else have you published?” My two hosts looked at each other and nodded as if silently agreeing to tell me a secret.
“In Danube Publishing’s two hundred and thirty two year history, we haven’t published a thing.” Both men smiled and I mistook my earlier unease as a gut feeling that I was being jerked around. I had the strongest urge to stand up and walk out the door. They must have sensed this and stopped grinning.
“Well then, ah, what the hell am I doing here?”
“Relax Mr. Toland. We wanted to meet you face to face; and take measure. We have every intention of buying your book and your next ten books,” the older man said. I was stunned. I should have been giddy, but somehow this all seemed wrong. What was taking Benny so long?
“You’re going to buy them, you mean publish them, right?”
“Not exactly. We will buy your manuscript and all the rights to it and your next ten books, if you decide to write them.” As the older man was talking, Von Scherr pushed a set of papers in front of me from his stack. I picked up the pages of a contract written by hand in beautiful cursive on thick cottony paper. Where the hell was Benny? I am no good at contracts. The terms were straight forward, however, and I finished reading the document in a few minutes. The bottom line was that these clowns were willing to pay me more than a year’s salary to hand over all paper and electronic copies of my finished manuscript, my rough drafts, notes and all my research material. Not only that, they would pay the same price for my next ten books over the next fifteen years. I should have been kissing their asses, but I was uneasy.
“Hold the phone here fellas. Are you telling me that Danube Publishing will pay me all this money for my writing and you have never published a book before? How do you know it will sell?”
“We aren’t going to sell it,” Von Scherr said his face cold as stone.
“I don’t get it. What’s in it for you?”
“We can’t allow your manuscript to be published, Mr. Toland,” the older man said. “By anyone.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too close to the truth,” Von Scherr responded boring into me with those hard dark eyes.
“The truth?”
“Yes, we were quite certain one of us had talked out of school, as it were. But, now I am convinced that you came up with all this on your own, as unlikely as that seemed.” The older man said.
Von Scherr pushed two more documents across the table to me. “The first is a comprehensive non-disclosure agreement. You will tell no one of your agreements, conversations or dealings with Danube Publishing, its employees, officers, directors or agents for a term of twenty years. The second is a transfer of agency from Mr. Benjamin R. Weyland of the Taubman Literary Agency to me at Danube Publishing,” Von Scherr explained.
The transfer agreement was already signed by Benny, or so it seemed. His usually neat signature, that I had come to know on sight, was rougher as if signed in a hurry. I can’t believe Benny would have agreed to this without calling me. Without thinking, I touched the signature and the ink smeared. Benny must have signed this within the last thirty minutes. Just before I got here.
“Is Benny Weyland here?” I asked in a whisper before I could stop myself.
My two hosts looked at each other again, but I couldn’t read anything from their faces. Von Scherr slowly rose and walked out of the circle of light. He opened a door in the back of the room and the light from a hallway spilled into the conference room. “If you will follow me, Mr. Toland.”
With the greatest apprehension I rose, walked around the table and followed Von Scherr down the hallway. There were six doors only on the right side and he stopped in front of the last one. He turned to me, smiled and opened the door. I stepped back in horror and Von Scherr propelled me into the room with a shove from behind.
Benny Weyland was stripped down to his undershirt and boxers and hung upside down strapped to a rack of some sort. A red tube was taped to his neck and ran to a small machine humming on the floor. Benny shook violently and his eyes were huge, pleading for help. A second red tube came out of the machine and ran into a lidded five-gallon plastic bucket. Another man was in the room and appeared to be monitoring the process. I back pedaled and was seized from behind like a vice. I struggled but was held fast.
“You see Mr. Toland, there are worse things than writing stories and signing papers. Mr. Weyland became difficult, and no longer was part of the solution.” Von Scherr purred in my ear.
“What are you doing to him?” But, I already knew.
“Why, we are bleeding him, of course. Our methods are much more refined than the ones you described in your manuscript. Keeping him upside down uses gravity to keep his brain alive and his heart beating. The pump’s suction drains his body of blood even after his heart stops. Injecting saline into his calf replaces the blood as we drain it. Unlike in your story, Mr. Toland, technology needn’t be our enemy. After he is bled, he will be decapitated and burned, much as you have described. Except he will be found burned in his car.”
I pushed against Von Scherr trying to get away from the spectacle and lost my balance. He tossed me against the wall like I was a rag doll.
“Perhaps we should return to the conference room? Miles, please help Mr. Toland.”
Miles moved with cat-like speed for such a large man and hoisted me on his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. The room was spinning and I saw Benny’s eyes flutter as I turned the corner.
“Well, Mr. Toland, did you enjoy your little reunion?” the older man said when I was seated back in my chair at the conference table. I couldn’t stop shaking. “Now that you know who we are, perhaps you can better understand our motives, yes?”
“Why did you have to kill him?”
“He made all manner of threats and over played his hand. Money and subtleties didn’t work fast enough,” Von Scherr said.
“You’ll never get away with it. The forensic evidence will point to foul play and someone else must’ve known he was coming here tonight. It will all lead back to you.”
“This, as you Americans say, isn’t exactly our first rodeo,’’ the older man said with a smile. “We have been disposing of bodies for centuries and we have players in place to make sure nothing leads back to us. He won’t be the last human we will deem, expendable.”
Expendable. I almost couldn’t ask the question, but I had to know. “Am I, expendable?”
The question hung in the air.
“Everyone is expendable, Mr. Toland. Your friend didn’t buy into who we were and what we were prepared to do, but I think you know better. Besides, unlike Mr. Weyland, who recently moved here from New York, you have a family and friends, and colleagues,” the older man said.
“And, let’s not forget, you wrote a manuscript and have sent it out to hundreds of publishers, editors and agents. It wouldn’t do for you to go missing,” Von Scherr added. “That would lead to too many questions. It is simpler to buy your silence.”
I looked back down at the documents arranged neatly on the table. “How do you know I will cooperate long term?” When I looked up both men were staring at me intently.
“Because we have seen you in your little house with two mortgages and a patched roof. We have seen you drive your twelve-year-old car with bald tires and squeaky brakes from the train station every night, coming home from your miserable dead end job in a declining industry. We have seen your wife drop your children off at Fairhaven Elementary School on her way to work. How difficult would it be to snatch your son, or daughter, or your wife? We could take them all as you sleep,” the old man said. He nodded to Von Scherr who placed three objects on the table in front of me. The first was a small stuffed elephant that was my daughter’s and the second a plastic T-Rex that was my son’s. The third was the picture of my wife and me from our honeymoon that was on the night table next to my side of the bed. I sat there numb.
“You have been a man teetering at the edge of the abyss for a long time and you would do anything not to fall into it. You would have never been more than you are now.” The old man was standing over me when he delivered that last stinging blow.
“We know all about your pathetic existence. It was so predictable. But this…” Von Scherr placed his hand on my manuscript and drummed his long, well-manicured fingers. “This, was most unexpected.”
“You hold all the cards. How do I know you will keep your word?”
“You have a fifteen-year contract in front of you. We recognize your talent and may require your services for other, projects. However, we will also need a list of all people not in the publishing industry who have read the manuscript, unless you want us to include your entire family and all your friends and neighbors,” the older man said.
“No. I will tell you who has seen it,” I whispered.
“Excellent,” Von Scherr said.
“Who are you guys?”
“We are the frontline. We monitor publishing, both traditional and the Internet. Our biggest concentration is on this new Internet, thing. Most threats to our exposure now start there. But, that is not where we found you. Mr. Weyland dropped you into our laps when he sent us an email trying to market your book,” the older man explained.
I bowed my head. Sorry Benny. There was a silent minute and I finally looked up at my hosts and asked, “How many others have you offered this deal to?”
“You are the first,” the older man said.
“We see you as a man at the edge of the abyss writing every night about dystopian horror; maybe adding what we know of history,” Von Scherr said from across the table. “Most importantly, we see a man we can work with. We will give it fifteen years and then we will reevaluate.”
“Why fifteen years?”
“Would you prefer ten?” the older man pressed.
“No.” I sat there and tried to think. There really weren’t any other options. If I went to the police they would laugh at me and when Benny’s body surfaced, I could be implicated. I didn’t have enough money or time to get my family and run, and where would I go? What about my friends?
“You can forget about running, Mr. Toland. We have people everywhere and our resources are vast beyond imagining,” Von Scherr said as if he read my thoughts.
But, they were offering me money and time for my compliance. And my cooperation wouldn’t lead to any real harm, would it? With the time and the money I could come up with an escape plan or some way to expose these fiends. I looked at each of them in turn and I realized they knew what I was thinking. After all, this wasn’t exactly their first rodeo.
It was all a rationalization; a band aid on my conscience for trading my life and my family’s lives for an unholy alliance. I wasn’t exactly a religious man, but I was quite sure that I wasn’t the first person to be coerced in the eternal battle of good against evil. I looked at the three artifacts of my life sitting on the table in front of me. What wouldn’t I do to keep my family and friends safe? Would I feel differently in a month, or a year? No, there would be no heroes here. I found myself reaching for the expensive pen and willingly signed my name three times.
Evil smiled.
