Chapter Thirty-Two

Good news visited Brenner twice in the same hour. Grace Mooney had detained Richard Cortez and delivered him to the wolf enclosure. That’s one hell of a rude awakening, huh, Richie? The bastard had kept secrets from him, secrets that not only threatened the future of the island, but his future too. The island was his salvation, and his secrets could be his own here. The blood was his to steal, the organs for him to devour, and nobody had a clue what kind of a monster he really was. But the PSA had known what he was since birth, and that’s why he was here.

The other bit of good news: the tunnel wall had been leveled, and a new corridor was discovered. He was summoned by Henry Dalley to return. They’d found compartments and suspicious rooms, but no vampires. He cut through the living quarters and the wall Addey Ruanova had escaped through and entered the access. It was blocked by upraised tables so nobody could view their work, though he removed them with ease. Everybody knew what they’d come upon. He couldn’t hide the truth any longer. Talk of an uprising was rampant throughout the facility.

He edged down the roughly chiseled corridor, the steps awkward and uneven. Studio lights had been propped to illuminate the way, blaring their harsh beams. Addey’s dried blood trail served as a guide. The dust was settling, the air thick with white mortar. The crew waited with protective masks dangling at their necks, many smoking a cigarette or drinking a beer as they enjoyed a break. Hard work merited such pleasures, Brenner believed. You give somebody what they want, and they’ll do just about anything you tell them to do.

Henry Dalley, a stout man in his fifties who oddly looked like the Monopoly cartoon character, and Marcus Kulson, a five-foot-tall African American wearing a Chicago Bulls jersey, both approached him.

Henry briefed him. “The wall came down. We’ve cleared out the debris. What you have here is another hallway. The rooms are a concern. They too have been recently emptied.”

Brenner was astonished by the length of the hall. It was roughly carved, the rock walls and ceiling a makeshift cave. Blood spattered the floor and the walls, a mix of dried and fresh. The rooms were the size of modest bedrooms. Some were like cubbyholes. Each was cleared of belongings.

“They left in a hurry, sir,” Marcus reported. “Every room has been evacuated.”

“I can smell them.” Brenner was repulsed at the stench of abandonment. “But there’s something new I’ve never experienced before. So strange. I can’t place the tang in the air.”

Henry and Marcus shared a concerned look and kept silent.

Brenner pointed at the iron door at the end of the hall. “Has anybody opened that yet?”

The two cohorts argued, and then Henry said, “We’ll have to dynamite that sucker. It’s too strong to kick down.”

“Is that such a good idea? Consider the structural integrity.”

“It’s safe. Just use the right amount of dynamite, and you’ve got yourself an opened door.”

Brenner pointed to the living quarters wing. “Clear everybody out of here. Only necessary personnel can stay.”

Whup-chink!

He gawked at the ceiling, his attention stolen by the odd metallic sound. “What the hell was that?”

A steel wall slammed down where they’d excavated through, and it pinned three workers down by their torsos. They wiggled and writhed, coughing up blood.

“We’re trapped!” Henry shouted, losing himself to panic. “We walked right into it!”

Zip! Zip! Zip!

Three saw blades shot from the ceiling, fired by an unknown device. One split Henry down the middle. He landed in two halves, twitching, sputtering, and unable to form words once his jaw, tongue, and lips were separated. The other two blades whizzed through Marcus’s neck and uprooted his head. Four bounces and the head rested in the corner, draining blood.

Brenner remained still.

The devices firing the saw blades were a one-time occurrence, he deduced, after staying in place for many moments.

“We gave you what you wanted,” he reasoned to whoever could be near and listening in, snarling the words with ice-cold contrition. “It satisfied me, so why couldn’t it satisfy you?”

He was afraid to move. The men pinned under the steel door stopped thrashing. They were dead.

Brenner couldn’t resist.

Three veins ripped out of his arms, thick as chains and as long as the hallway corridor. The ends of his veins opened as jagged-toothed maws suctioned the blood from the floor with crude slurping noises. Then the snakes invaded eyeballs and emptied the brains and chest cavities of precious blood and proteins.

I’ll need my strength.

His body returning to normal, Brenner studied the corridor again. There were no vents or grates to slip through. The rooms offered nothing but four walls. Air would be used up quickly.

Nobody’s here to see you as you are.

He checked the door that divided him from their lair. The veins ripped out of his forearms, each encased in sinewy pink material and bundles of arteries. The macabre lock pick slipped into the keyhole. The mechanism jangled, and moments later, after a series of meticulous movements of his veins, it unlocked.

He dared to ford the next corridor.

The traps had only begun.