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The day went by in a blur. I felt numb with terror, knowing that Charles would come for me that night, and I would have no way to fight back, no hope of escape.
I emptied the buckets, not feeling the sting of ammonia in my eyes, without seeing my withering cousins on the bed. I didn’t smell the shit or feel the regret for their—our—lost lives. I just floated through the day, willing it to both end and not too.
That evening when they threw me back into my cell, I tripped and fell face-first to the ground. The door slammed shut behind me, and the lock clicked into place. I wanted to just lay there, I wished I'd just fall asleep and never wake up again, but I knew I’d get no such luck and resolved myself to somehow keep going. I peeled my face off of the cold linoleum floor under me, and as I went to get up, I saw my backpack tucked under the bed, and next to it, a bowl of slurry.
I felt too much all at once, happiness, confusion, hope, fear. Henry had come through. Somehow, someway. I didn’t know what to do with myself, but I knew I didn’t have long. So, after what felt like years, but was in actual fact just a few months, I set to work again. Tools out, building, reaching for sunshine.
This is the part of the movie where you’d see a montage of me inspecting my tools, and Bowser, pulling the new parts from my backpack; you’d see me sweating and building. You'd hear the uplifting music as I created hope from nothing. Then, finally, once the music died, you’d see me smiling, proud of the job I’d finished, then the camera would pan out to reveal the coolest, most arse-kicking robot guard dog on the planet, and then I'd punch the sky.
In reality, it took me two seconds. The jaw just clicks into place, and the baked bean battery is as easy as switching out the batteries in your hoverboard.
Bowser came back online. He didn’t wag his tail or lick me like a real dog, but when I told him to sit, he did, and that meant he’d follow my commands to the letter. I had a chance. My plan still had a chance, and with some luck, I might be able to save a few of the poor souls in that building.
I told Bowser to go back to where he’d been lying dead in the corner and then waited for the howling to start.
The howling never came, but the clip-clop of shoes came echoing down the hall and into my cell. A courtesy knock came, the lock clicked off and the door opened, revealing Giles. He stood in the doorway wearing a black suit he looked like a pallbearer about to carry a body to its grave. I looked at him, raising an eyebrow, and he smirked. I realised, then, that he’d worn this as a sick joke, and I narrowed my eyes, my rage building. They'd been mentally torturing me for months, and Giles was keeping it up right until the very end.
“It’s a sick joke, I know, but sometimes one cannot help themselves,” Giles said, a proud smile across his face.
“You like jokes?” I asked.
“On occasions.”
“I bet you like knock-knock jokes, right?” I started and continued before he could answer, “Knock-knock. Who’s there? Vampire. Vampire who? Vampire come to rip my mother's throat out. Get it. It’s funny because it’s true.”
Giles smile faded a little, “A little low-brow for my liking, I'm afraid. Come now. Let’s get this over with.”
“Wait! Please. Just one more joke. A real one this time.” I said. Giles looked a little annoyed and checked his watch. “Come on; I'll make it quick. With what you sick fucks are about to do to me, I should be able to tell one more joke at least?”
“Hmmm,” Giles sighed. “Okay but make it quick.”
I coughed, it was a horrible, phlegmy rasp now, and Giles looked down on me with equal parts disgust and pity. Once it had passed, I continued.
“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Bowser.”
“Bowser who?”
“Bowser, kill the vampire.”
A look of genuine terror flashed across Giles’ face, his metallic eyes darting to Bowser in the corner, then back to me.
I knew I’d got the sick fuck in that instant, and I savoured every millisecond of it. To see that fear in his eyes, the same fear that must have been in my eyes on that night many years ago. The same fear that I saw in my mother's eyes.
Bowser jumped to his feet in an instant and bounded toward Giles. Giles turned to run away, but Bowser was too quick; he’d closed the distance in just a couple of seconds. The click-ping of Bowser’s paws echoed in my ears with each footstep he took until there was silence as he leapt into the air aiming straight for Giles’ neck. Giles tried to get an arm up in time, but Bowser’s new jaw just tore straight through the one finger Giles managed to get up. A cry came from his throat but was quickly silenced as Bowsers jaws clamped down on his neck.
Bowser didn’t thrash or shake his head as you would expect of a real dog. Instead, the instant he clamped down, the electromagnet in his jaw activated.
Giles tried to scream, but all that came out was a stifled squeak. The next couple of seconds were a horror show. Giles stood, attempting to scream and shaking at the same time. His hand shot up first, going for the dog’s jaw. Next, he fell to the floor, before his knees shot up to the dog's jaw also, leaving him crouched, looking like he was trying to hug Bowser’s snout. The shaking intensified, and as it did so, Giles face and hands went redder and redder until the blood started to flow. I knew at that moment that, what I hoped would happen was happening. Bowser’s electromagnetic jaw was strong enough to literally suck all the nano-robots from Giles’ body. Blood seeped out of his eyes, his ears, his nose, from under his fingernails, from every pore in his body. The nano-robots ripped through his body and his clothes. By the time his squeaking screaming ceased and he was, finally, blessedly dead, his clothes and body looked like it had been through a shredder.
I didn’t have time to feel remorse; that would come later. He was, after all, still a human—a deeply disturbed human, but human none the less.
“Bowser, come,” I said, heading for the door after grabbing my backpack.
Bowser immediately dropped the limp mangled body, and it collapsed to the floor, lifeless. I walked down the hall, a featureless, dimly lit tunnel leading to more office-come-cells, and finally before the stairs and the exit out, the room that held The Herd. I could hear the tap of Bowsers claws over their groans and vowed to them that I'd be back.
I reached the end of the hall and glanced into the room full of captive people and couldn’t have timed it worse. A vampire nurse was bleeding the man on the end of the row and looked me dead in the eyes; her silver, mechanical eyes brightened in confusion. I didn’t give her the time to shout, and I didn’t set Bowser on her; that would have just made more of a commotion alerting everyone to my escape. Instead, I took off down the stairs.
I went as quickly as I could, two, three steps at a go. When I hit the 100th floor, an alarm started, no doubt raised by the nurse who spotted me. It was a high-pitched intermittent whir, screeching out my escape; in my ears, it sounded like a witch screaming ‘DIIIIIE- DIIIIIE - DIIIIIE over and over. My body tensed, and I expected a flood of vampires to converge on me from above and below. They never came.
Getting down the stairs was certainly easier, than going up, but my problem was The Bronch. By the time I hit the 65th floor, my lungs were starting to cry out for more air, and I was coughing every couple of floors I descended. The Bronch was stealing my lungs, bit by bit. I had to press on though; I had to get out. Bowser followed every step I took, I knew he could have bounded down all 111 floors in half the time it took me to get halfway down, but Bowser followed my every command and stayed with me.
When I came to the 13th floor, I was wheezing heavily, and I felt like I might pass out. I got to the landing and had to rest; I'd come down nearly 100 floors, my feet ached, and my body felt like it had been thrown in a tumble dryer for an hour. I hunched over, my hand on my knees trying to catch my breath when the door to the floor swung open, and a confused-looking vampire bumped into me, nearly knocking me down the rest of the stairs.
“Terribly sorry,” he said, and I even managed to marvel at the fact there was a polite vampire. “What’s going on?” he asked, then, “Oh shit.”
He must have seen Bowser.
“Ill im.” I croaked.
Bowser just stood by my side.
I looked up to see those characteristic silver eyes looking down at me. A confused look quickly went to one of anger and then indecision. I knew he wasn’t sure what to do; try to grab me or run and get help. Instead, he just froze, doing nothing, mouth agape.
I coughed once, clearing my throat. I was taking no chances. “Kill him,” I said, clear this time.
Bowser leapt into action, and soon, there was a bloody mess on the landing.
I took a deep breath, the short rest allowing me to gain some composure, and carried on down the stairs. I heard multiple shouts from above. They'd taken longer than I could ever have imagined or hoped for, but now the chase was on.
When I finally hit the ground floor, I came out in the garage where I had arrived. Standing there, waiting for me, were five vampires, four men, and a woman. I didn’t recognise them but wondered if the woman was Giles sister, the one who’d turned Henry. Judging by the look of sheer hate on her face, I thought it likely.
“Come quietly, you fucking bitch,” she said, “and I’ll make it quick.”
By now, I could barely breathe; my throat felt like it was closing up, and my vision was narrowing. I had to move now, or it would all be over, so I took one deep wheezing breath and said, “Bowser, kill her.”
Again, Bowser followed my command and went straight for the woman. The other vampires looked on in terror as blood bloomed all over her body, sucking out the nano-robots, making her a mangled, bloody mess, and killing her all at the same time. They all began to back off them, wanting to keep as much distance between themselves and Bowser.
I took that as my cue to leave and limped to the garage door. It wasn’t open, but that was easily rectified.
As I reached it, I turned back to Bowser, “Bowser, break this door down.” I rasped.
Bowser dropped the lifeless woman and took off, heading my way at full speed. He ran directly for the flimsy metal garage door and went straight through it, out into the Smog.
I hunched through the tattered hole he’d left and out into the grey once more; I hobbled after Bowser and soon found him, patiently waiting for me.
I looked around at the world and could only see grey. It was dark now, and the Smog was thick. I had no light, apart from that which spilt out of the garage behind me. I had no idea how I would get away. I was on the verge of collapse, and as I looked around, silver metal eyes began to stare back at me. Pair after pair shone out of the gloom, twenty, thirty pairs of eyes all trained on me. That’s when the howling started.
A chill descended over my body, and my hands shook with a deep, primal fear. This was surely it for me. I took a knee; I had too. Just for a moment, to catch my breath, before the end. I lowered my head and closed my eyes, thinking, trying to figure a way out. I had nothing.
I opened my eyes, trying my best to ignore the howls, and saw something on the paved floor next to Bowser. It was a hoverboard—the same make and model as the boys. I chuckled and staggered toward it, and the howls grew louder. What are the odds this thing’s broken, I thought? I knelt down, next to it, reached out a hand to the power switch on its base, and flicked it on.
The board ascended an inch off the ground and hovered happily. Without another thought, I jumped onto it and took off, screaming, “Bowser, make me a path through the vampires!”
Bowser bounded through two vampires, clearing me a way through. I pushed and pushed the hoverboard bringing it to its max speed as quickly as I could. I whizzed through the line of vampires and was away. Free from that house of horrors, at the centre of Hell City.
“Bowser, come!” I cried before my strength gave out, and I collapsed onto the board in a crouch, letting its momentum take me.
Bowser caught up to me; I grabbed his metal tail and told him to run.