Head Full of Ghosts

Chapter 22 - No Water Left to Tread

Late in the night, the vampire came again.

Eli almost more felt his presence than sensed it by any other means. It was like a shroud of death and decay, hanging in the air like mist as he moved down the aisles, surveying the sleeping bodies.

Or the bodies of those pretending to sleep, as Eli knew was more likely the case.

Then, with the soft shuffle of a door, the mist was gone, the tension lifted, and real sleep returned to the room.

Eli was awoken in pre-dawn morning by other members of the kitchen staff, and was a little surprised to find he had even been asleep.

He rose and followed them, taking note that one more bed seemed to be empty than he could account for with the kitchen staff.

They couldn't come every night and take someone away, he reasoned. They would run out of people too quickly. Not even this place could possibly have enough humans in it to sustain that much feeding.

As Eli closed the door to the barracks, he took note of the fact that it was made of metal. He took a few steps back and looked over the entire building, noting that it seemed to be made entirely of stone, metal, and concrete. As was the kitchen building, he realized. And the supply shack. And, as far as he could remember, so was the entryway he'd come through and the hospital he'd stayed in. Even the guard towers he could make out from where he stood seemed to be entirely built out of metal. The beds they slept in were metal frames and metal springs. When he got to the kitchen, he surreptitiously looked over all the kitchen utensils and cooking gear.

All metal.

Nothing anywhere in the entire camp was made of wood.

The vampires had been careful.

It was also ironic. The woods were everywhere outside the camp. You could see them on the other side of the fence no matter where you looked. It was as though the vampires had chosen this location to further mock their prisoners. The thing they needed to fight their jailors was always there, tantalizingly just out of reach. Most of those imprisoned probably had no idea the creatures could be killed with a wooden stake to the heart, but Eli had little doubt the creatures took great delight in the knowledge of the torture this provided to those who did know.

More and more mind games, everywhere he looked.

At the least, the vampire didn't come by again that night, and no new beds appeared to be empty the next morning. And it was the same for the night after that. Eli couldn't help but wonder if the first two nights it had been done all for him. To show the new blood the way things were done around here. To break his spirits before hope even had a chance to take root.

On the third night since the last vampire visit, as they were all preparing for bed, Eli once again caught the eye of his neighbor, the woman who had warned him not to move on that first night. She narrowed her eyes questioningly at him and he nodded. "I'm Eli, by the way," he said.

Her eyes went wide for a moment, and then she quickly climbed into her bed, pulled up her covers, and turned to face away from him again.

Eli sighed and climbed into his own bed.

The night passed once more without event, and in the morning Eli again rose with the kitchen staff and headed off to work. At his daily checkup at the hospital that day they told him his wounds were mostly healed up nicely and he could drop his visits to every other day for a while.

On his way out, he saw a sheet of paper lying between a desk and a wall. He glanced around to make sure nobody was looking, then quickly snatched it up. He turned it over, glancing at both sides. It was blank. Unused and probably forgotten. He hurriedly folded it and shoved it into his pocket.