I ran after Michael, Sheldon following me quickly behind. Out in the corridor Michael was forcing the elevator doors open. Holding his gun he peered up the elevator shaft and then aimed. Five loud gun shots followed assaulting my sensitive vampire ears. Sheldon protectively clamped his hands over my ears to protect them as Michael then angrily emptied the clip into the darkness. Thrusting the gun back into his waistband he violently punched the half opened elevator door. Metal crunched beneath his fist and I caught the faint smell of his blood in the air. Breaking away from Sheldon and ran to Michael just before he was about to hit the metal door again. Catching his bleeding fist I gently enclosed my fingers around it and tearfully said,

“Please stop.”

The angry rage inside Michael subsided when he looked down at my eyes wide with anxiety and fear. His breathe caught in his throat and he place his hand over mine and brought them to his lips in a brief tender gesture of affection. The phone in the pocket of his sweat pants began to vibrate, Michael pulled his phone out and answered it. A loud angry voice screamed at him down the phone, I recognised that voice, Gabriel.

“You stupid dumb fucking ignoramus!”

Michael lifted the handset away from his ear as the verbal onslaught continued.

“You already shot me once in the ass! What the fuck is wrong with you, you know I’m stood in the elevator so why the hell are you shooting at me.”

“The V-3 wanted Lorna’s scent.” Michael said.

There was silence on the phone, Michael glanced down at me and said, “I need to talk in private, you and Sheldon go back to the apartment.”

I didn’t like secrets. I didn’t like when Michael was hiding information from me. Reluctantly I went back to the apartment and sat down on the couch. Sheldon looked really rattled. He went into the kitchen and poured two glasses of blood and brought it into the loungue.

“That was some fucked up shit.” He said taking a stiff gulp of blood.

“What do you think Michael meant-” Before I had finished my sentence Sheldon held his hands defensively up.

“Don’t look at me, I haven’t the foggiest.” He replied.

“You know what- fuck my life.” I snapped kicking the coffee table over.

 Sheldon raised his glass, “I can toast to that.” He said taking another gulp.

“For fucksake! Why I can’t live goddam normal  life?” I said.

“Um maybe because we are not ‘normal’ human beings. We are adolescent vampires, our puberty lasts a few decades.” Sheldon said pulling a hip flask of tequila from his jacket.

“Then why can’t I live a goddam normal vampire life?” I said.

“Do you want some tequila to take the edge off your nerves?” Sheldon asked.

I shook my head leaning back into the cushions.  Touching my face I felt the cold slimy residue of the monsters salvia clinging to skin from where it had licked me. Why the hell would it want my scent? These animals seemed to be cold ruthless killing machines with no conscious thought. Each encounter I have had with them they have always acted on instinct which was driven by hunger. Twice I have seen seemly gentle people turn into these monsters and devour humans, but tonight it held back. Tonight wasn’t about the hunger- it was about executing a plan. I groaned and slumped further into the couch covering my head with a large oversized cushion. Sheldon lifted up the cushion peeking at my face and said,

“Have a tequila?”

“No.” I said shaking my head.

When things got tough Micah would always turn to the bottle, I was stronger than Micah and I refused to go and find courage at the bottom of a shot glass. Instead I would have my five minute paddy and then reform into my poise and composed old self once again ready to face life head on. Getting up I headed into the bathroom mumbling,

“I need to wash my face.”

The monster had licked me and had left a sticky residue on my face that was actually quite gross. Closing the bath room door I saw where the monster had crawled out the bath pulling off the shower curtain as it went. I shuddered when I thought of that man deformed and disfigured starring up at me with those big black saucer like eyes. I looked into the bath and saw the rags of clothes which he broken free of. Washing my face I patted my skin dry with a towel and picked up the bathroom bin and grabbed the rags in the bath and dumped them into the bin. As cluthed what looked like a trouser pocket a white thin plastic card came tumbling out of the pocket onto the bathroom floor. Pulling the card off the floor I examined it carefully, it was an ID card. There was a poor photo of the man in bath looking much smarter and healthier. He was wearing a white coat and glasses and looked very serious and official. His name was written next to the photograph: Dr Peter Harper. The card had a serial number and an expiry date that had run out a couple of years back, on the back of the card was a large logo: HOWE pharmaceuticals- if found please return to Howe Research Park, Cumbria. . Cumbria was a county in the northwest of England also known as the Lake District. Many of the tourists that stayed in the hotel had plans to travel up to Cumbria to see the beautiful landscape and lakes that it had to offer. I myself, if I was human, was tempted to go but alas in my current baby vampire position putting one toe outside the hotel was nearly impossible.

This guy once had a job, a very good job. He was some sort of scientist working up in Cumbria for this Howe pharmacy company. I wondered if he had family or kids. Taking the card I went outside the bathroom into the lounge and showed Sheldon.

“Look at this.” I said.

Sheldon took the card and read it, he looked at the photo with a passive interest and then flipped the card over. Suddenly his eyes widen and swore loudly, “Holy shit.”

“What?” I said jumping.

“This is from the research park up in Cumbria.”

“Yeah, I know. I read the card.”

“No you don’t fucking know.” Sheldon said getting up and going into my room and retrieving my laptop. Opening it up he typed in ‘Howe disaster’ into the computer and pressed enter. The screen flashed thousands of results up, clicking on a page Sheldon handed the it over for me to read.

“MARCH 17 2004- HOWE RESEARCH LABS- CUMBRIA- 67 FATALITIES- 38 MISSING (PRESUMED DEAD); friends and relatives of HOWE RESEARCH LABS employees contacted local police authorities when employees did not return home on Wednesday 5th March 2004.

Initial police response was to contact the research security via telecoms system, which failed. Police then sent a patrol vehicle to the research facility and found there had been evidence of an unidentified incident. Police closed off area around the HOWE labs and called in environmental health suspecting potential chemical or bio hazards incident. Officers entered laboratory building and discovered five fatalities in the foyer. The coroner report that all five deaths had been caused by massive haemorrhage through laceration of major blood vessels in the throat- “

I wasn’t any medical guru but ‘laceration of major blood vessels in the neck’ translated to me as ‘having their throats torn out’. My blood turned to ice and felt my skin break out in goose pimples like someone had walked over my grave.

“ -CCTV footage shows a group of animal rights activists breaking into the lab and releasing the four vampire hybrids. The hybrids killed the group except their leader, a US national, Micah Roberts who was seen entering the second floor thirty seconds before CCTV camera were destroyed. The remains of Micah Roberts was not found along with the 21 bodies found on floor 2 including that of lead researcher Dr Tessa Logan-”

I couldn’t read anymore. My hands were shaking so hard. The information in the report was making gruesome correlations with the dream I had of Michael. Michael killed all those research people while Micah watched helplessly through a thick Perspex screen. The images of archangels devouring the animal protestors flashed into my mind. I naively thought that even if my dream was real, I could forgive Michael for accidently killing one person. But my eyes kept wandering back to the header of the report- 67 fatalities. My boyfriend was a murderer. I had been sleeping with a murderer. I could feel my heart imploding inside. I thought he had killed one or two people accidently, not all these people. Michael always warned me not to pry into his business, he always said I would not like what I found- was this was what he was warning me about? Was this why he didn’t want me to find Micah because he knew the truth?

I got up staggering towards the bathroom feeling ill, “All those people died.” I murmured.

I wanted to curl up into a ball and die.

My heart was breaking.