23 Hours: A Vengeful Vampire Tale

9.

They checked Clara’s ID at a guard post, then waved her through. She drove up a long gravel drive toward the prison complex, a group of low brick buildings connected by brick walkways. There were fences everywhere, and rolls of barbed wire, and signs telling her not to get out of her car, not to use cameras or cell phones on the grounds, and whatever she did, to never, ever pick up hitchhikers. She pulled into a small parking lot directly underneath a looming brick wall between two watchtowers. Men with assault rifles looked down at her from the towers, waiting for her to try something.

Her stomach hurt. It was nerves, just nerves—nobody could really relax in a setting like this, and Clara had a lot to be nervous about anyway. She was going to tell Laura that it was over. She’d wrestled with the idea for a long time. She’d gone over and over in her head all the reasons why it had to be done. Why it was better to do it now than to wait. Why she had to say it in person. Her reasoning was sound. She didn’t need to feel guilty.

Their relationship had started at a bad time in Laura’s life.

Her previous girlfriend, Deanna, had been succumbing to a vampire’s curse. She had ended up taking her own life. Laura had clung then to Clara like a drowning woman holding on to a floating tree branch, and for a while it had been so good— she’d been so attentive, so affectionate. Clara had never had a relationship like that before.

But then the vampires hadn’t gone away. They kept coming back, and suddenly every time she reached out for Laura, Laura wasn’t there. She’d thought it was a temporary thing, maybe. That Laura would learn to balance her job and her love life. Instead the love life had been sacrificed for Laura’s obsessive quest to wipe out vampires once and for all. And even that had been okay—for a while. Because when your lover isn’t there, but it’s only because she’s out saving the world, well. You feel guilty if you start making demands. If you start drawing attention to your own needs. So Clara had done her best to support Laura, to always be there for her whenever she finally did come home.

Now she wasn’t coming home for years. It was too much to take. Clara was hardly of one mind about breaking up with Laura. But she knew she had to do it if she ever wanted to have any kind of life of her own. It was the smart thing to do. The mature, grown-up thing. To just make a clean break of it, so they could both get on with their lives.

And yet, she still felt like a sixteen-year-old about to take her first driver’s license test. Her stomach hurt, and she had a weird headache that wouldn’t go away. She hadn’t eaten anything all day because she hadn’t been hungry, and now, perversely enough, she felt ravenous. She could get something to eat when it was done.

Just do it, she told herself. Do it quickly, like pulling off a—

A big black dog shoved its wet nose against her window. Clara screamed a little. The dog wasn’t barking or snapping at her, but it had a suspicious look in its eye.

“Please step out of the car, ma’am,” a corrections officer in a blue stab-proof vest said. Clara nodded and opened her door. The dog lunged inside the car, sniffing at her skirt and her shoes. Clara held her hands up where they could be seen. She stepped out of the car and let the dog smell her, let it do its job.

“You here for a visitation?” the CO asked. “ID, please.”

Clara nodded and reached for her purse. The dog sat back on its haunches and stared at her, daring her to try something.

This wasn’t her first time visiting Laura. Clara knew the drill. The silver star on her lapel should have been enough, but she handed over her driver’s license and her U.S. Marshals Service ID card anyway. The CO shoved them in his pocket. “I’ll make a copy of these and they’ll be returned when you leave,” he told her. “This way.”

He grabbed up the dog’s leash and walked her toward a low, narrow gate in the wall. Inside she was led to a waiting room where a number of other visitors, mostly women, were sitting on plastic chairs watching a videotape about what they were allowed to bring inside the prison and what was expressly forbidden. COs with dogs circled the room, searching for contraband.

“Ms. Hsu? You’re with me,” another CO said. This one didn’t have a dog. “I’ll take you to the SHU visiting area now.”

Clara nodded gratefully. Behind her someone shouted, “Hey!”

It was a visitor, a middle-aged woman with dry hair wearing a tie-dyed sweatshirt.

“How come she gets to go first? I been waiting an hour,” she insisted.

“Watch the tape. We’ll come for you when it’s time,” a CO said.

“Shit,” the woman said, sitting back down. “And you can’t even smoke in here!”

Clara was taken through a series of gates, each of them designed to be opened electronically by a CO behind a bulletproof window. Finally she was brought into a little antechamber where her fingerprints were taken and a female CO brushed a long cotton swab across her shoulders and down the side of her skirt.

“Is this really necessary?” Clara asked. She hadn’t gone through this the last time.

The COs didn’t answer her. The female one pushed her swab into the waiting maw of an Ionscan machine that could detect even minute traces of explosives or narcotics. Everybody waited for forty-five seconds until the screen lit up red. “Gunpowder residue,” the female CO said.

The male CO, Clara’s guide, pulled a stun gun off his belt and held it down by his thigh. “Empty your pockets, now. Everything goes in the bucket.” He kicked a plastic bin at her so it skidded across the floor. “Watch, belt, shoes, too. Wallets, keys, cell phone. You have a camera on you?”

Clara frowned. She took her camera out of her purse and placed it carefully in the bin. Then, with exaggerated slowness, she opened her jacket and showed them her empty shoulder holster. “It’s okay,” she insisted. “I’m a federal agent. You’re picking up gunpowder residue because I normally carry a sidearm. I didn’t bring it in with me. I really don’t see why you need my belt.”

“No exceptions. In the bin, now!” the male CO demanded.

Clara did as she was told.

With one hand on her skirt to keep it from falling down, and wincing with every step—the prison floors were ice cold on her stockinged feet—she was finally allowed into a visitation room. A row of carrels ran down the middle of the room, each booth facing an identical one but separated from it by a plate of inch-thick Lexan. There was a telephone handset in the booth and one just like it on the other side.

“You will not be allowed physical contact with the prisoner,” the male CO told her. “Everything you say will be monitored, recorded, and analyzed. The recording may be used as evidence in a court of law. You may not use obscene language or any kind of code words, do you understand? And under no circumstances will you be allowed to remove your clothing during the visit. You will have one hour with the prisoner. If you do not wish to use the full hour, you may hang up your telephone handset at any time and the prisoner will be returned to her cell. Do you understand?”

“Yes, yes,” Clara said. She sat down in a hard wooden chair and stared forward, through the Lexan. This is it, she told herself. This is where you get your life back.

Then they brought Laura in.

She looked terrible. Her face was pale and lined. Her hair was lifeless and fell forward across her forehead. Laura had never spent a lot of time on hair care—she’d always said that was one of the chief benefits of being gay—but she’d always used a little mousse, always kept her spiky hair brushed and neat. Now it was all floppy and dull. She looked like k.d. lang on a bad day.

Laura rushed forward and grabbed her handset before she’d even sat down properly. “Clara,” she said. “Clara. I—I’m so glad you came.”

“Of course I did,” Clara told her. She should just clear her throat, she knew, and say it. Just say it in as few words as possible. It’s over, Laura.

Too cold.

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, and—

No. Too wishy-washy. Laura would try to argue with her.

I’ll still come and visit, but when you get out—

You know, you would do the same in my shoes—

It’s just so hard, being alone, and we were never that great together anyway—

“I need to talk to you about something,” Clara said. She could hear the blood rushing in her ears. “Something important.”

“Of course,” Laura said.

“It’s about.” Clara stopped. Her tongue wouldn’t work. She couldn’t say the next word.

“It’s okay, pumpkin,” Laura said. Her eyes were full of tears. “You can say anything to me. You can always say anything to me. If there’s something… something you need to discuss, something we have to talk through, you should just go ahead and get started. So we can work it out together.”

She knows. She knows why you came. So just say it.

“It’s,” Clara said, trying again. “It’s about—it’s about Malvern.”

You little chickenshit, she thought to herself. You coward.

But Laura’s face went hard and professional instantly. She wasn’t Laura anymore, she was Caxton, the vampire killer. “Okay,” she said. “Go ahead.”

“She’s stepped up her attacks,” Clara said. Relief flooded through her. This was ground she felt a lot more comfortable on. “She’s started hitting high-profile targets. Groups of victims, all together. This last time she even let a witness get away. He couldn’t tell us anything useful, but still—that isn’t like her.”

“No,” Caxton said.

Clara shrugged. “Deputy Marshal Fetlock says she must be getting desperate. She knows she can’t keep hunting forever, that we’ll eventually find her. So she must be changing her pattern, because she’s in some kind of death spiral. Ready to be caught. Glauer disagrees. He thinks it’s because she doesn’t think we’re a threat to her anymore, with you in here.”

“What do you think?”

Clara frowned. “I think she’s working some kind of angle.”

Caxton nodded. “Good thinking. If we know one thing about Malvern, it’s that she’s always got a plan. She’s always two steps ahead of you. Do not underestimate her. Don’t let Fetlock underestimate her, either.”

“I’ll do my best,” Clara said, with a little laugh. “It’s good to see you,” she said.

“Yeah. It’s good to talk about this stuff. I need to be back on the case,” Caxton said, and Clara could see the wheels turning behind her eyes.

When the hour was up, and the CO came to stand behind Caxton and put a hand on her shoulder, they’d managed not to talk about anything but vampires the whole time.

“I’ll see you in a month,” Clara said, with a sigh. “That’s the next visiting appointment I can get.”

Caxton nodded as if that was satisfactory. Then she let them take her away.

For a second Clara just slumped in her chair, unable to believe what had happened. Or what had failed to happen.

Eventually she got up and looked around for the CO who had brought her into the room. She needed to get her things back and get out of there. She needed to get back to Allentown before Fetlock knew she was gone. A CO came to get her—she didn’t think it was the same one, but it was hard to tell. They kind of all looked alike. This one had a bad scratch down the side of his cheek, though, which she didn’t remember from before. It was bright red and looked infected.

“Are you alright?” Clara asked.

He reached up and scratched vigorously at the wound. Clara thought about telling him he would just make it worse, but she doubted he wanted to hear that from her. “Come with me,” he said. “I’ll take you where you need to go.”

The CO didn’t lead her back to the anteroom, though. Instead he directed her down a long hallway that led deeper into the prison.

“What’s going on?” Clara asked. “I’m done here.”

The CO looked straight ahead. “The warden wants to see you for a second.”

Clara checked the name tag on his uniform. “What’s going on, Franklin? I’m not in any trouble here, am I?”

He straightened up a little. Making himself taller. “I’m sure you’ll want to cooperate with us.” There was something weird about his voice. It was a little too high-pitched for a man that size.

Regardless—he was starting to scare her. He had his stun gun in his hand. Held low, against his thigh. She glanced at it, then at his face, which was completely expressionless.

“I’m sure I do,” she said.