FEVER DREAM

By Dino Pollard

There was something amiss in Shadywood Manor.

Not the fact that it was run by vampires. Feeding off the residents of the Manor little by little, slowly sucking them dry. No, that was something the man who was once called Blade had come to terms with fairly quickly. It was something else.

The night before, Blade lay there as a large man with his face concealed by a hood snuck into his room. Blade was unable to see any of the man’s physical details. Aside from the red hair that poked from the hood. He poured something in Blade’s IV.

Overnight, whatever the mysterious visitor put in the IV began to take effect. When Blade was awake the next morning, he found himself able to sit up in bed. It was a knee-jerk reaction and he immediately fell back on the bed.

Feeling was never eliminated from his body, but there was something else. He could not only feel the muscles in his body, but he could even control them. Nothing too extreme, only very light. A twitch of a finger here. A bending of a knee there. The drugs were still in his system and he had been sedentary for who knows how long.

Blade’s senses operated with a startling clarity. A clarity he hadn’t felt in a long time. He could hear the footsteps coming from down the hall. When the lock was turned, he could hear the bolt sliding across as if he had his head right against the door. The instant the door opened and Blade’s caretaker stepped into the room, his scent filled Blade’s nostrils.

It wasn’t cologne that Blade smelled. Nor aftershave, deodorant, none of that. No, what Blade had smelled was much more metallic. The scent was faint at first, but once Fritz leaned over the bed and spoke, Blade could smell it on the man’s breath.

“How’s my favorite freak this morning?” he asked with a grin. And the scent was unmistakable.

Metallic. A bit salty.

Blood.

Blade had known that Fritz was a vampire. But that scent… smelling it on Fritz’s breath… it was almost too much for the Daywalker. His dark eyes turned upwards at Fritz and the vampire could see something he had not noticed in Blade before today. Before those eyes held only emptiness. The look of an empty shell. But today Fritz saw a change. There was a burning hatred lingering behind those dark eyes.

“…Right,” said Fritz. He pinned Blade’s arm to the bed and restrained it with a leather strap. Fritz repeated this process with Blade’s other arm and both his legs and then used a final strap for Blade’s torso.

Fritz knew something was wrong. The drugs, they were wearing off. The only explanation. But Fritz wondered how Benway’s treatment could fade so quickly. Even for someone as powerful as the Daywalker, it should have lasted longer.

On normal days, Fritz would put Blade into the wheelchair and take him into the common area. Leave him in front of the television all day until his nightly session with Benway. But today, after seeing that look, after strapping on the restraints, Fritz produced a long needle. He injected the former hunter with the liquid inside, then left the room, bolting the door.

Blade’s body tensed after that shot, but it quickly relaxed. His vision started to blur. His mouth was dry and every time he tried to move, he felt like he was swimming in thick molasses. Slowly, feeling faded from his body as the sedative took effect.

As he drifted off into the darkness, he could hear music. The sound of a jazz trumpet. The trumpet continued and Blade opened his eyes. He was surrounded by bodies. His body was sticky. Blade looked down and saw he was naked and covered from head to toe in blood. He was also a small… a child once again.

He fell back onto a few bodies and instantly jumped back to his feet in fear. The bodies stretched as far as the eye could see. He saw no way around them and his breathing became heavy. Slowly, his tongue inched past his lips and tasted the crimson liquid.

Metallic. A bit salty.

And he liked it. He wanted more.

His tongue moved forward once more and he felt something sharp in his mouth. Blade’s tongue explored his teeth and he found that a few were far longer and sharper than the rest. He gasped and started to panic.

The people… he had killed them. He was part vampire. His genes were corrupted and now he was becoming the… thing that killed his mother. One of the leeches he had dedicated his life to eradicating. Now, he was one of—

No, that’s not it.

That wasn’t the way it happened.

Blade was never a vampire. Deacon Frost’s assault simply left him immune to the effects of a vampire’s bite. Blade never shared anything else with the bloodsuckers. It was when Morbius bit him that he became something… different.

He started to run. Run from the bodies, from the carnage. Try and find some sort of refuge. Some place he could be safe from this life. Somewhere he could simply… avoid it all.

“Running again, are we?”

Blade stopped. The air was filled with the scent of butane and then… tobacco and nicotine. Behind him stood a disheveled man in a trench coat, a cigarette held in his fingers. He walked towards Blade.

“And just what will that accomplish? You should know by now that you can’t run from what you are.”

“H-Hannibal…” said Blade. “Hannibal King. What are you doing here?”

“Don’t ask me, it’s your fever dream,” said Hannibal. “How’s it feel, Blade?”

“How does what feel?” asked Blade.

“To become your own worst enemy,” said Hannibal. “How’s it feel to know that you’re a vampire?”

“I’m not…” said Blade. “I’m not a vampire. I’m something else.”

“Yeah, the word is ‘freak,’” said Hannibal. “You should just do the world a favor and end your sorry excuse for an existence.”

“You never did,” said Blade.

“That’s because your list of sins is easily much longer than mine, you psychopath,” said Hannibal. “Face it, Blade. I may be a vampire, but you? You’re a monster, pure and simple.”

“Then how about I show you what a monster can do?” asked Blade with a hiss. Now he was full-grown again. The fangs remained, though. He lifted clawed hands and crouched into a fighting stance.

Hannibal flicked his cigarette away as his own fangs extended. “Bring it on, freak.”

“Do you really think you have time for this, Blade?”

Blade growled and both him and Hannibal faced another arrival. A man with long blond hair and a beard with religious symbols carved into his body and he stared at Blade from behind a pair of round glasses. Another man from Blade’s past, Professor John Carik. Known as Bible John.

“There are other matters at stake,” said Bible John. “You may be incapacitated but you still have a job to do. You can’t waste time in your hallucinations.”

“He’s right, Blade.”

Another man appeared before Blade. This one was Frank Drake. “You can’t let my death have been for nothing.”

“You didn’t die,” said Blade.

“That’s not the point,” said Frank.

One by one, each of the men vanished from Blade’s sight. He heard a voice echoing all around him. “Oh come now, surely you can’t think you stand a chance?”

“Who…?” asked Blade.

“Who else?”

Blade blinked and when he opened his eyes again, he was strapped to a gurney. Dr. Benway stood over him with a chainsaw in his hands. He started laughing, blood running from his open mouth.

“IT’S BENWAY!” he cackled as he brought the chainsaw down on Blade’s body. “We’ll figure out how to make a Daywalker soon enough!”

He cut a large opening in Blade’s torso and jumped on the gurney. Benway reached his hands inside Blade’s body, pulling out organ after organ. “Liver… no. Lungs… no. Stomach… no. Kidneys… no. My god, man. Why are you wasting so much space with all this crap? None of this can help me out!”

“Stop…” muttered Blade.

“But I’m not even close to being finished yet!” said Benway. “I have to find the secret behind the Daywalker! I have to find out what makes you such a freak!”

“Burn…” cursed Blade.

“A bit dramatic, aren’t we?” asked Benway, still grinning. “Come now, man! I haven’t time for this bullshit! I wonder… what’s it like being a freak? At least vampires, we have each other. Humans have other humans, too. Demons have other demons, and so on and so forth. But you? What do you have? All your friends are either dead or hate you. That’s why you’ve been completely abandoned, left in my hands. Don’t you see, Blade? No one wants you. So why not just give in?”

Blade clenched his fists and strained his arms against the gurney’s restraints. He could feel the anger rising up in him, screaming for a release. The vampiric strength bubbled over and he began to give in to the creature inside of him. His heart pounded and he looked up at Benway with dark, angry eyes and through gritted teeth he hissed, “because I’m takin’ you with me, you worthless sack of shit.”

The restraints broke under the pressure and Blade pulled his arms free. He grabbed the chainsaw from Benway and turned it on its former owner. Blade cackled as the chainsaw tore through Benway’s flesh, splattering blood all over the gurney and bathing Blade himself in it.

“Don’t worry, Benway. You’re a vampire so it’s not like this can kill you!” said Blade, laughing with a maniacal intensity. The chainsaw growled in rhythm with Benway’s screams of protest and Blade savored those sounds.

An arm here, a leg there. One by one, body parts were separated from the mad doctor. This time, Blade was the surgeon. And this time, he took great pleasure in the pain he inflicted on his tormentor. Even if none of it was real.

Bit by bit, Benway was reduced to nothing. His body was carved into a number of pieces and Benway himself was now simply a head resting on the gurney. When he opened his mouth, blood poured out.

“Blade… please…” he began.

“What’s that, Benway? You gonna beg now?” asked Blade.

“Yes… please I beg you…” he said. “…tell me what it’s like being a freak!”

Benway started to laugh again. Blade laughed with him, then grabbed the head and repeatedly slammed it onto the gurney. With each successive strike, Blade caused the head to cave more and more in until the head was nothing more than a red stain on his hand.

The Daywalker turned away and caught sight of himself in a mirror. He was covered in blood and he was smiling. The smile began to fade from his features when he saw what he had become. A hand fell on his shoulder and a young woman who bore more than a similarity to him came beside him.

“Oh Eric… I wanted so much more for you…” she said.

“Mother…” said Blade. “I’m sorry… I… I was just trying to avenge you.”

“Avenge me?” asked his mother. “Eric, did it ever occur to you that I didn’t want vengeance? All I ever wanted was for you to live a better life than I did. You ruined that, turned yourself into a monster. I’m ashamed of you, Eric. I’m ashamed to call you my son.”

“But…”

“Get away from me!” she screamed and when she pushed him, he flew back into the distance. He saw her form retreating faster and faster with her final words echoing in his mind. Those words were, “you’re definitely your father’s son.”

Something stopped Blade. Thin arms wrapped around him, cradling him. “Shh… it’s okay, son. It’s all okay now. Daddy’s here.”

Blade turned his eyes up towards his savior and saw a man dressed all in black with a hat. The brim kept his face hidden in shadows, save for the glowing red eyes and the gleaming white fangs.

“Deacon Frost is here, my son!”

Fritz was about to inject another sedative into Blade’s arm. This time, a hand snapped up and gripped the orderly’s wrist. Fritz looked down in shock and saw Blade staring up at him, a smile on his face.

“Mornin’ Fritz,” he said. “Time to play.”