MANIAC AT THE MANOR

By Dino Pollard

“Mornin’ Fritz,” he said with a snarling grin. “Time to play.”

Dark fingers, each one like stone, wrapped around the vampire’s neck. Blade pulled the orderly so their faces were inches apart and then he thrust his arm forward with all the strength he could muster, releasing Fritz once his arm was fully extended.

Fritz hit the back wall, easily ten feet away, with a massive thud. He recovered quickly, but it apparently wasn’t fast enough. Blade was already out of bed, naked except for a pair of Spider-Man boxer shorts. By the time Fritz stood, Blade’s elbow drove his face against the concrete, leaving an indentation behind. Blade raised Fritz over his head and slammed him onto the bed with so much force, the frame broke.

“Aluminum, figures,” muttered the Daywalker with a hiss. He grabbed a jagged piece of the broken bed frame and used it as a bat against Fritz’s head, knocking the vampire back down as he tried to rise.

“The hell you doing, freak?” asked the blood-sucker. “You really think you can get outta here? We already hocked your gear. You gotshit. No weapons, no friends, nothing!”

“You’d be surprised how easy you can get on without that stuff.”

Fritz let out a cry of anger and charged forward, grabbing Blade by the legs and pulling him to the ground. His fists began to pummel the hunter but instead of grimacing from the pain, Fritz was shocked to hear laughter between the sounds of his fists smacking against the flesh now caked with blood.

“What the fuck are you laughing at, you sick bastard?” asked Fritz.

“Y’know, for a while now, you’ve had me wastin’ away in my own filth, keeping me just conscious enough so I know what’s goin’ on. But now, the tables have turned, eh Fritzy? And the big, bad vampire is now scared shitless.”

“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you!”

He threw another punch and Blade grabbed his fist. He twisted it, breaking it at the wrist and Fritz pulled back. “AARGH, YOU SONNUVA BITCH!”

“Watch your mouth, son,” said Blade, rising to his feet. He picked up a jagged aluminum rod and threw it forward, sending it right through Fritz’s chest where it became lodged.

“Goddammit!” said Fritz. He tried to pull the rod out with his good hand, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Need a hand with that?” Blade jumped forward, grabbing the rod and tearing it from Fritz’s chest. He swung it around and impaled Fritz again, this time through the crotch and digging the rod into the floor beneath, pinning the vampire in a very painful position.

“YOU SICK FUCK!”

“Don’t worry about it, Fritz,” he said, wrapping his hands around Fritz’s head. “You won’t be needing your boys anymore.”

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“You ever see The Exorcist?”

Blade began to twist Fritz’s head around, relishing in the vampire’s cries of pain. There was a crack as Blade broke the neck, but still Fritz screamed and still Blade twisted. He wrapped his whole arm around the head, Fritz’s face resting in his bent  elbow, and he pulled with all his strength.

SCHLUP

“You know, Fritz,” he began, looking into the eyes of his tormentor’s decapitated head. “I always thought you were a piece of shit.”

Blade dropped the vampire’s head by the body it once belonged to. The remains of Fritz then disintegrated rapidly into ash, leaving very little trace of the creature other than the scrubs he wore. Blade pulled the rod out of the ground and stalked towards the door, opening it and peering into the hallway.

Several feet away, he saw a nurse leaving a room, wiping her lips of blood. She had her back to him and as she started walking down the hall, Blade stepped out, got into a stance and hurled the rod like a javelin. It went through the back of the vampire’s neck and blood began bubbling out of her mouth, causing her to choke on it. Blade came up behind her, wrapped his arm around her forehead, and tore it from her neck. He let the head drop to her body.

“I could get used to this,” he said with a smile. He saw light emitting from the crack in the door to another room. Carefully, he opened the door and peered inside. One of the doctors leaned over the bed, feeding on an elderly patient. Blade noticed a dinner tray with empty plates near the door. He carefully took it in his hands and moved forward.

“Hey doc!”

The doctor spun around and hissed, baring his blood-stained fangs at the Daywalker. Blade held the tray in both hands and threw his arms forward, the dishes flying and breaking against the vampire. In the next instant, Blade smacked him with the tray, causing him to spin around. When the vampire recovered, Blade swatted him again. He kicked the doctor’s legs, toppling the creature and then stepped on his chest to keep him on the floor.

Blade held the metal dinner tray in both hands and raised it above his head, holding it vertically. He brought his arms down, relying on his supernatural strength and driving the tray into the vampire’s neck. The force caused the doctor’s head to sever.

The Daywalker next went to the common room. As always, the residents sat there quietly, watching the television set, paying no attention to the people around them. Blade felt a tinge of sympathy for them, wasting away in this living hell, like zombies. Possessed of no mind of their own. Or at least, not any more.

A nurse caught sight of him standing in the doorway and smiled sweetly as she approached him. Blade noticed that she had her hands behind her back. She was a young thing with a tight little body and blond hair that spilled down the front of a uniform she must have stolen from a porn set.

“Now, now Mr. Brooks, you know you shouldn’t be up and about,” she said with a sneer. “Don’t you have a session with Dr. Benway? And just where is Fritz, anyway?”

“My room’s a little… dusty,” said Blade with a smile, his own fangs appearing on display.

“Then we’ll just have to see to it that you’re all clean,” she said. She brought her hands forward, her fingers elongated to long, razor-sharp claws. Blade leapt back as she tried to slice into his flesh. She slashed several times in succession, moving closer and closer and each time, Blade jumped further back to keep her and her claws just out of reach.

When she thrust forward this time, Blade bent backwards, the claws passing right over his torso and he grabbed her hands and held them apart as he head butted her. He grabbed both of her slim wrists in one hand and punched her before he threw her over the patients, who didn’t notice a single thing and just watched reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond.

Blade was on top of her, grabbing her by the hair and lifting her up. He looked at the television set and thrust her head-first into it, shattering the glass and stepping back as the electricity coursed through her body. It would only stun her momentarily, soon the blood-sucking bitch would recover. Blade grabbed her legs and pulled, the glass cutting through her and severing her head. He lifted one of her arms and tore the clawed hand free from the elbow.

“Hope you don’t mind if I borrow this,” he said. “I’ve got an appointment with Dr. Benway.”

The elevator brought him down to the basement level. The doors opened and he stepped into that familiar dungeon, slowly walking down the long, dark hall. How many times had he been pushed down here by Fritz? He couldn’t even remember anymore. He could scarcely remember a time when this walk hadn’t been part of his daily routine.

In one hand he held the aluminum rod he used to impale the nurse in the hall. In the other, he held the clawed hand of the nurse who attacked him. They weren’t a stake or gun or his personal favorite, a sword, but they would get the job done.

As Blade walked through the hall, he made a mental note of the boiler room to his left. He could easily send all of Shadywood up in flames right here, right now. But after everything Benway had done to him, Blade wanted to make the vicious bastard suffer. He wanted to hear Benway’s screams of mercy more than anything else in this world.

He turned the latch and pushed open the heavy, metal door. Benway’s back was to him, and when he heard the door, he slowly began to turn. “You’re late tonight, Fritz. You’d better have a good excuse for―”

When Benway turned around fully and caught sight of his victim, he just sighed. No fear, just a look of disappointment. “Well, this is certainly unprecedented, Eric. You know you shouldn’t be walking around without an escort. Although how you’re even able to walk around is a mystery in and of itself.”

“Don’t know and don’t really care,” said Blade. “I’m more interested in takin’ your ass out after the past few months.”

Benway looked at the nurse’s arm and the aluminum rod. “I see you have some new toys as well. How many of my staff have you killed so far?”

“Not nearly enough,” said Blade. “But it’s a good start. Fritz was the first.”

“Yes, I would expect that he was,” said Benway.

“Two nurses and a doctor,” said Blade. “Tore their heads off with my bare hands.”

“Not bad for a guy who’s spent the past few months pissing himself,” said Benway.

Blade threw the rod and Benway stepped to the side, snatching it from the air. The Daywalker crossed the distance between them in a few large strides, the nurse’s clawed arm thrust forward. Benway deflected it with the rod.

“This isn’t very helpful, Eric. Not in the least. I really have no interest in maiming you unless it’s in the name of science. So please, just drop the arm and we can go back to cutting you open and seeing what makes you tick.”

“RRARGH!” growled Blade in response. He kicked the metal gurney over and Benway jumped on top of it. Benway swung the rod, striking Blade’s skull. The Daywalker growled as blood started to seep from the broken skin. Benway tried to strike again, but Blade grabbed the rod, yanking it from the scientist’s grip as he drove the nurse’s claws into his foe’s abdomen.

Blade grabbed Benway by his hair and threw him to the ground. Once there, Blade stomped on his head, driving it into the floor. He turned the gurney over and threw Benway on top of it, strapping him down.

“Nice little toys you’ve got here,” said Blade, looking at Benway’s instruments of torture. He selected the power drill and tested it. “I remember this one. You know what it feels like to have someone drill a hole into your chest?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” said Benway with a grin. “My second wife was into experimentation.”

“You wanted to see what makes me tick, Benway,” said Blade. He also lifted a surgical saw and walked over to Benway. “And I’m going to return the favor. I wanna have a look at the brain of a guy who takes pleasure in this kind of depravity.”

Blade set the bit against Benway’s forehead and pulled back on the button. The drill burrowed into Benway’s skull, smoke rising as he burned into the bone. Blood seeped down Benway’s forehead, spilling into his eyes and clouding his vision. But he wouldn’t scream. The one thing Blade wanted and Benway refused to give him that satisfaction.

He pulled the drill out and picked up the saw. Slowly, he carved into Benway’s skull, pulling the top portion of his head off and revealing the vampire’s gray brain matter. Blade cut into the brain, drilling into it at different spots. Each time, Benway just laughed at the Daywalker’s torture.

“You think you can break me, Blade?” he asked between chuckles. “You won’t even come close. I’ve been to Hell and back, my boy. There are other factors here and while you may shut down Shadywood, we’ll have a new one up and running within days. Not weeks, not months, but days. We’re everywhere and now, you’ve got nothing.”

“Then it’s back to basics,” said Blade. He unfastened the restraints and lifted Benway from the gurney, slamming him headfirst into the ground. Blade then began to stomp on the twisted vampire’s head, more and more blood spilling onto the hard surface. He continued to stomp, laughing with each one, relishing in the sight of the growing pool of blood. And finally, he stopped when Benway had been essentially decapitated by Blade physically pounding his head into the ground until there was simply nothing left.

On his way out the corridor, Blade punctured the gas tank, allowing the halls to fill with the scent of natural gas. He had a butane torch he took from Benway’s workroom. As the elevator began to rise, Blade turned on the torch and tossed it into the corridor.

He escaped just before Shadywood Manor went up in a ball of flames.

James Young paused when the news came in. He held the phone to his ear, listening to the person tell him about the events at Shadywood Manor. Carefully, he set the phone down on its cradle, rubbed his eyes, and stood from his desk. He left his office, traveling down the long corridor to large, wooden doors at the end. A secretary sat at a desk outside.

“Mr. Young, Mr. Venginian is busy right now.”

“This is important,” said Young. “Trust me, he’ll want to know about this.”

“Just a moment.” She picked up her phone and pressed the button for Venginian’s line. “Sir? Mr. Young is here to see you, he says it’s urgent…uh-huh…okay.” She lowered the phone from her mouth. “He said come back later.”

“Tell him it’s about Shadywood,” said Young.

She moved the phone back to her mouth. “Sir? He says it’s about―oh, okay.” She hung up. “You can go inside.”

Young walked through the doors, closing them behind him. The office was dark and it possessed no windows. Large and spacious, decorated in a Victorian style. There was a large portrait of a man who looked like a European aristocrat, wearing a black cape with red lining and possessed of pale skin, dark hair and goatee, and piercing red eyes. Every time Young looked at the portrait, it sent a shiver down his spine.

“Mr. Young.”

The man behind the desk was Darius Venginian. The flame from a lighter briefly illuminated his face as he lit a cigar.  He puffed on the cigar, the orange tip acting like a beacon in the dark office.

“Would you care to inform me about our interest with Shadywood Manor?”

“I just received a call from one of our delivery guys,” said Young. “He arrived at Shadywood but found that it blew up. As far as we know, there are no survivors.”

“Release a statement to the press that says Shadywood Manor experienced a gas leak that resulted in an explosion, leaving no survivors,” said Venginian. “That’s all we want anyone knowing.”

“Forgive me for asking sir, but isn’t that exactly what happened?” asked Young.

Venginian exhaled a plume of smoke. Young could see the corporate CEO’s eyes glowing a bright yellow in the darkness. “Mr. Young, are you truly that naive?”

“I don’t follow…”

“Do you think it’s simple coincidence that Shadywood goes up in flames shortly after the Daywalker is put there?”

Young shuffled his feet, his eyes focused on them.

“This was no accident,” said Venginian. “Inform the Council that Blade is active once again. And I want to know how it happened.”