The first door Luke checked along the hallway was a supply closet filled with industrial cleaning supplies. The second, however, proved to be far more interesting.
Through the barely opened door it looked like a quarantine triage or a mental asylum from bad days of mental health care. Row after row of occupied beds, their patients strapped down with leather cuffs and thick leather waist bands, lined the room; every mouth was gagged. Luke slowly pushed open the door enough to slide inside. Save for its secured patients, the room was otherwise empty. He cautiously approached the nearest bed and checked for a pulse but found none. From bed to bed, body after body, dead.
Two thirds of the way down, he placed his fingers on the neck of a woman and found a steady heartbeat. She struggled against her bonds, screaming into her gag. Her eyes shot open and looked around, unfocused and wild. Luke lurched backwards, tripping over another bed, and tumbled over the corpse he’d just checked. He crashed to the ground in an unceremonious heap. Making sure he hadn’t attracted unwanted attention, he leapt to his feet. No alarm sounded, no one came running.
With his hands raised, Luke took slow steps and made soothing noises, trying to calm the woman. “It’s OK. No one is going to hurt you. I’m going to free you.”
He repeated the words over and over until they finally seemed to sink in. Her eyes, still full of terror and near panic, finally focused on him. Her breathing was labored, but steady.
He sheathed his gladius and set the rudis down on the bed closest to hers. “I’m going to get that gag out of your mouth, OK?”
She nodded as best as she could with her head strapped down. Luke gently unstrapped her head, reassuring her with soothing words as he worked. He tried to pull the gag out from her mouth but couldn’t. It was too tight.
“OK, I’m going to have to try to untie this. Can you turn your head for me, please?” She complied, but the knot stubbornly refused to budge. “Shit, this thing isn’t moving. I’m going to have to cut it. I need you to lay absolutely still, all right?”
She swallowed and nodded. Luke pulled out the poniard from its sheath on the inside of his left forearm. Moving slowly to avoid a panic, he worked a finger under the gag. There was no give at all to pull it further from her. “Sorry, I know it’s scary looking, but it’s the thinnest blade I have. Hold still.”
Luke carefully slid the thin tip with the flat along his finger until he had enough blade under the gag to give it a gentle sawing motion. The fibers frayed and split, making the cutting easier until the last bit gave way. He sheathed his dagger and gently removed the gag from her mouth.
She opened and closed her jaw, working it around to loosen it up. After a few moments, she spoke, “Please. Please, get me out of here. I don’t want to get eaten, please…”
Luke loosened all the straps, freeing her at last. “Take your time getting up; work some blood back into your arms and legs. I’m going to check to see if anyone else is alive.” Luke continued his procession but found no life. The woman was the lone survivor in the horrid chamber of death.
A scream tore through the tense quiet. The woman he’d freed had plastered herself against the wall and was sliding toward Luke, attention fixed on one of the beds. Its occupant was thrashing wildly against their restraints. Luke ran to free them, but as he got closer, he noticed the movements were wrong. A clenched fist uncurled, fingernails turning to claws. The beds didn’t contain the deceased; they were incubating vampires. With just one human to feed them.
Luke drew his weapons as he approached the writhing vampire. Razor sharp fangs descended from a mouth clenched in a feral snarl. Its predatory gaze landed on Luke as he scrambled around the foot of the bed. The vamp’s eyes conveyed one thought: lunch. It redoubled its efforts to break free of its restraints, shaking the bed. Springs and metal groaned and creaked. Luke slammed the gladius through the baby vamp’s ribs into its heart. A violent screech filled with fury echoed too loudly to go unnoticed as it dissolved into ichor on the bleached white bedding.
“Get out of here. If you go right, it’ll take you back to the main cell block. My friends are waiting there. Hurry, go!”
She violently shook her head, her face a mask of terror. “Please, don’t make me go. There might be more of those things out there.”
Luke made a snap decision, “Fine, just stay behind me and away from the beds.”
He put his gladius back in its scabbard but kept the rudis at the ready. Jogging down to the end of the line of beds, Luke slid the wooden blade into the chest of the next undead body twitching with unlife. Taking advantage of the restraints, he performed the ritual that transferred the vampire’s vitality to him.
Newly juiced up, he staked corpse after corpse whether they were starting to reanimate or not; better to be safe than sorry. But he couldn’t put them down fast enough. The remaining few were shaking like a scene from a horror movie, beds bouncing off the floor. Metals bars groaned, and the welds snapped. They had found the new depths of their strength and were using it to rip themselves free.
Luke drew his gladius and rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen the tension. “Get in the corner and stay back,” he ordered, hoping she would listen. “I need room to work.”
He caught a flash out of the corner of his eye as the woman darted into the corner, squishing herself back as far as she could go. Luke set about disassembling the vampires before they could get entirely free. He stabbed, sliced, and hacked any bit of flesh he could, parting heads from bodies, arms from torsos, and if the opportunity presented itself, a kill shot to the heart. As the numbers thinned, Luke worked to clean up the remaining unstaked, hopefully keeping them from harming the woman or anyone else.
“That was a close—” A powerful blow to the back cut him off, sending him tumbling to the ground. His weapons clattered to the floor. Air whooshed out of is his lungs and stars exploded in his eyes as his head hit the concrete floor. He tried pushing himself up, but his hands slid in the thick pool of vampire sludge. Whatever had tackled him was scrabbling up his back, tangling themselves in his cloak.
Trapped between the pinned weight and the slick floor, Luke couldn’t get up, and his swords were just out of reach. Something slid up along his left side—a hand, trying to claw its way through the scarf he wore to pad his armor. He punched out, striking something’s face. His left fist had only made a weak connection, but it was enough to make his attacker to recoil. Luke slammed his armored elbow into its face and heard the crunch of nose cartilage snapping. The body went momentarily limp; Lucius rolled it off of him. Snatching up his gladius, he found his footing and met his attacker.
The woman he’d rescued shook her head, trying to clear the daze. Black ichor flowed thickly from her nose and over her needle-sharp fangs.
Luke sighed and lopped off her head. Picking up his rudis, he sent her on her way, the quiet giving him a moment for a quick drain to patch himself up. Hope and optimism had fooled him into turning his back on her. He’d just wanted to save at least one person from this vile hell.