23 Hours: A Vengeful Vampire Tale

17.

The stun gun pressed hard against Caxton’s back. It was a flat plastic weapon, almost all grip, with just a pair of metal stubs sticking out from the business end. When they both connected with conductive material, like human flesh, they formed a circuit and an electric current passed between them.

The current wasn’t particularly strong. It had a high voltage, upward of fifty thousand volts, but extremely low amperage— it wasn’t designed to electrocute the victim, simply to send a pulsed charge through their nervous system that mimicked the body’s own neural signals, essentially sending a message to every muscle in the victim’s body telling it to activate at full strength and not release.

The amount of power that required was easily delivered by a standard nine-volt battery. To the victim, however, it felt like being hit by a truck.

Electricity surged through Caxton’s body. Her muscles spasmed, some contracting, some expanding, all of them fighting each other. Her eyeballs quivered in their sockets and she felt a pure white bolt of pain run up her spine to explode inside her head.

Darkness grabbed her up in its velvety arms and held her like a child.

But just for a second.

When she came to, she felt like she’d been flash-fried. She was lying on the floor. Staring up at the glare of the klieg lights in the ceiling. She blinked her eyes. It was about all she could manage. Eventually she was able to lick her lips.

A boot prodded her in the rib cage. She tried to roll over and get away from it, but that just took too much energy.

Harelip squatted down next to her. “Don’t try to get up,” she said.

“Okay,” Caxton squeaked.

The CO rubbed at her face. “Listen. I guess I owe you for your help. I guess we saved the unit, together. And I’m not going to forget that. But there are rules, and they’re good rules, and they’re there for a reason.”

“Ah,” Caxton said.

“It ain’t easy, being a CO. I know you cons think we’re all sadistic assholes. That’s only, see, it’s just because you can’t see our side of it, you know? You used to be a cop. You know what it’s like when you’re looking at somebody who would kill you if they could. Who would take any chance to fuck with you, just because of who you are.”

Caxton had to admit that was true. Every vampire she’d ever dealt with had felt that way, as well as a few human criminals she’d encountered.

“Imagine you were surrounded by that kind of aggro every single day of your life. Imagine if the second you came on the floor of a unit, a hundred eyeballs was watching your every move, looking for you to make one little mistake. To forget one little thing, so they could take advantage. It’s possible—-just possible—in that kind of a situation, to keep your head above the shit. But you got to be a serious hard case to make it work.”

Caxton lifted her left hand a fraction of an inch. Her muscles felt sore and rubbery and they didn’t want to obey her commands, but they were starting to listen on a provisional basis.

“Don’t,” Harelip said, and pressed her hand back against the cement floor with the tip of her baton. “Just chill.”

“You got it,” Caxton said.

“We get plenty of training before they set us loose in here. They make us take all kinds of courses. One of the things they teach is what’s called CTS. Contain the Situation. That means no matter what happens, when you’re a CO, you’re in charge. No matter how bad things get you have to be on top of it. And if you gotta be a little mean, you do it. If you gotta call people names that aren’t so nice, or even if you gotta stun somebody when their back is turned, you have no damned choice but to do just that. There are no exceptions to CTS. There is no way I can let you walk around outside your cell, ever. So I’m going to have to put you back in. I’m going to have to lock you in. I will protect you, I promise. I will get you out of this situation. I’ll evacuate you and all the other prisoners once the warden sends an all-clear signal. Okay?”

Caxton swiveled her head from side to side. “No. Please. Just give me a chance to explain. They’re not going to stop trying to get through that door. They’ll bring down cutting equipment and they’ll get through. On your own you might stop the first wave, but they’ll send more of those things. And if that doesn’t work, Malvern will come herself. She’s weak, for a vampire, but that doesn’t mean much. She’ll have fed—a lot—and regained enough strength that you won’t stand a chance against her. I know how to kill her, but it’s not something I can teach you in the time we have. We—”

She stopped speaking, because suddenly the floor was moving underneath her. Or—no. That wasn’t it. She was moving along the floor. She was being dragged by her heels across the rough cement. Her head bounced painfully and she tried to hold it up. She could just see Harelip pulling her along. Then the female CO bent down and picked Caxton up and slung her over one shoulder. Harelip grunted with the effort, but she managed to get Caxton inside her cell. She dumped Caxton on Gert’s bunk—Caxton saw the pictures of Gert’s babies directly across from her face.

She struggled to get back full control of her body, but it was still fighting her. She managed to flop off of the bunk and get up on one knee—-just in time to see the cell door close in front of her, and hear the metallic thunk as the mechanical lock was engaged.

No, she screamed, inside her head. No!

She grabbed at the padding on the door and pulled and tugged at it, but it was designed to resist tearing and she could barely get a handhold. She slammed herself against the door, over and over again, knowing full well she would never manage to get through it.

Eventually she calmed down. There had to be something she could do. There had to be a way to communicate with Harelip. She stared out through the window in the door, but there was nothing to see out there except for the bodies of the dead prisoners and the crushed arm of the half-dead. Harelip was nowhere in sight.

She could hear something, though.

It sounded like someone was having trouble swallowing.

Like they were gagging on a piece of gristly food. Caxton couldn’t quite figure it out. She pressed her face up against the glass, trying to get a better view, but she couldn’t see anything. Eventually she gave up and started pacing back and forth in the cell. The sound went away. It had never been very loud—maybe it wasn’t even something happening in the SHU, she decided. Maybe it was just water flowing through pipes in the walls.

She was still pacing, clutching herself for comfort, when the door opened again.

Caxton whirled around in shock. She hadn’t had a chance to prepare herself. What if someone was coming to kill her?

The figure that appeared in the doorway was covered in blood. It was clutching the serrated hunting knife, and it was wearing a blue stab-proof vest. But the vest had been strapped on over the orange jumpsuit of a prisoner.

The face was wracked by a grimace of pure madness. It took Caxton a long time to realize that she recognized it. First she had to consider a fact that hadn’t yet gripped her: Gert wasn’t in the cell. She hadn’t been inside when Harelip dragged Caxton in.

Gert had been busy, apparently. She must have sneaked out of the cell while Caxton and Harelip were wrestling with the SHU’s main door. She must have found her way to the cell where Caxton had fought the half-dead, and found the knife there.

Now—she had found a use for it.

“Where’s the CO?” Caxton demanded, even though she knew perfectly well.

“I told you I could be useful,” Gert said, and stepped inside.