She was there, inside, lying on the floor, her hair tacky with dried blood, her eyes open and staring at a dust ball just inches from her nose. On the side of her neck were two brutal, raised puncture wounds.
The big cage was empty.
“Kelly!”
He dropped beside her, picked her up, shook her. “Kelly!”
There was a faint stirring inside her body. She was still alive.
“Kelly?”
The last town they’d driven through was too small for a hospital, but surely there was a doctor. A doctor who could do a blood transfusion? Someone who could bring her back around.
“Kelly?”
Kelly shivered, groaned.
“Kelly!”
And then her eyes turned toward him. They were a ghastly yellow, putrid like piss-filled pools. She grinned a dead woman’s grin, and he saw the needle-like teeth.
“Shit!”
He dropped her, leapt to his feet, and clawed open the plastic safety kit, keeping his gaze on Kelly, who was now staggering to her feet and snarling, “I smell your blood.”
Peter removed the sharpened stake and wooden mallet from the box. He held them up. “You did this to yourself, damn you! You ruined my show! You freed the Darkton’s great Mystery! How am I going to tell your mother that I had to drive a stake through your heart?”
Kelly shuffled toward him, groggily grinning her terrible grin, her lips hitching. Peter poised the stake before him, the mallet at the ready.
But in that instant he realized he had to explain nothing to Kelly’s mother. He realized that he’d lost nothing, really, but his temper and a little time.
He tossed the stake and mallet aside and shoved his still-wakening daughter into the cage. She fell hard, growling, slashing with her fingers, snapping her fanged jaws. The lock was slapped into place and locked. Peter stepped back. Breathing hard, and considered his handiwork.
“This’ll do,” he said.
Kelly’s lips formed a sluggish, “No….”
“Yep, sorry, dear. You brought this on yourself. You wanted to be part of the circus, so welcome to it.”
He pulled the curtain down and left the trailer.
Outside the tent, sunlight was creeping through the trees, washing the field, and awakening the songbirds.
Kelly would be falling to sleep right about now.
Peter lit the Coleman stove, opened a can of Spam, and cooked himself a nice breakfast.
ROBOT VAMPIRE
R. J. Sullivan
R. J. Sullivan’s first novel, Haunting Blue, is an edgy paranormal thriller. First released in 2010, Seventh Star will soon release the Authorized Edition. R.J. is hard at work on the sequel, Virtual Blue, coming from Seventh Star later this year. Haunting Obsession, a Rebecca Burton Novella, was published last year. R.J. enjoys many filmed and literary takes on the vampire: the classic Universal films, Hammer Horror, Anne Rice, Dark Shadows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and he even loves Frank Langella’s Dracula. He draws the line at sparkly vampires playing baseball in the Washington forests. Learn more at www.rjsullivanfiction.com
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How delicious to feed upon the innocent.
The memories, the triumphs of the demon’s reign of terror still burned bright in its being, even the final tragedy over 13 centuries ago.
How glorious to apply the delicate twist, the lightest touch that would turn jealousy to rage, grieving to anger, hopelessness to reckless abandon.
The demon recalled little Tetsuo, who pouted when Mommy wouldn’t play with him. So as Mommy balanced herself on the stool trying to hang the lantern, the demon coaxed the baby to grab her ankle. Not hard, but enough to send her toppling to her death.
Or Akima, jealous of her best friend’s party dress, who grabbed the butcher knife to cut off the offending garment, slicing flesh and clothing with equal indifference.
Thousands of twists, thousands of sweet tastes for the demon to savor.
It could also twist the adults, the sophisticated and the learned. And those victories could also satisfy. But it preferred to turn the young, the innocent. By destroying the young, it could also destroy the adults — the parents, the friends, the community. With one random act of madness, the demon could scar the psyche of an entire village.
The demon loved the blood. To taste the blood was sublime. To spill the blood proved almost as satisfying. Since the dawn of humankind, the demon bent their souls and controlled their bodies, and from its worshippers, it demanded sacrifice.
It demanded the blood.
One day, it grew overconfident. It controlled the mind, and eventually the body, of 16-year-old Hisamu. The young man resented the attentions his parents doted upon his twin brother. Whether true or the fancies of an over-active mind, the reasons no longer mattered once the demon compelled Hisamu to slice his sibling’s throat.
Then the grieving parents arrived with local Shinto monks — demon fighters who knew the creature’s true name.
The demon, still using the young man’s body, fled into the village catacombs, but the locked gates and the labyrinth of dungeons could not fool these clever men for long. They knew the grounds near their temple much better than the demon, and soon they cornered it, calling its name, driving it out, speaking in the ancient tongue, known only to few, the words that compelled it to obey.
Leave, Ananjaku; Flee, Ananjaku.
Abandon this innocent flesh and all mortal innocents.
We call upon the forgotten gods of old to bind you.
You shall never enter the flesh again.
May your words be rendered impotent to the heart and flesh.
We curse you, Ananjaku, to eternally wander the world, to witness the charity and goodness of a people forever beyond your reach.
The binding words drove Annajaku from the lad. The binding words held it fast.
Still, the child, thrashing and insane from the trauma of his actions, had to be slain. The parents’ tears flowed for the rest of their bitter lives, and the demon’s final act of evil left a scar across generations.
Victory proved hollow. The demon could no longer tempt flesh, child or adult. It could only whisper, cajole from outside. Victories came few and far between, and only with great effort. Exhausted and beaten, Annanjaku resigned itself to wander the world.
Until that one day when a new soul called out, one not tied to the flesh, one the demon sensed it could commune with.
-----
He was late.
Gentoshu Akkai’s Honda Civic screeched into the parking space in the loading dock behind the Nippon Budakan concert hall. He sprang out of the vehicle and flashed his VIP badge to the approaching security guard. Gentoshu grunted in commanding Japanese, “I need backstage now. Can you escort me?”
“Hai!,” the security guard snapped back. “Follow me.”
“Hurry.” Though a career computer engineer and one of the most brilliant minds of his generation, Gentoshu took full advantage of the free gym facilities at Rogi-Tech Industries. Kicking his legs into a light jog, he focused on the neck of the security guard and kept pace easily as they jogged through the back dock, through a side door, and into the darkened halls of the prep area. Even as the guards scrambled to step aside, Gentoshu flashed his badge to each one in their turn.
As he ran, the mini-hard-drive that dangled on the lanyard around his neck thumped against his chest. They closed in on the closed door of a room familiar to him, the portable robotics mini-lab and kiosk assembled in the dressing room.
Without the program updates imprinted on the lanyard, their star performer would follow the old instructions, pre-set prior to rehearsals. And that simply would not do.
Not tonight, of all nights, when Rogi-tech Industries would premiere Jinan, the most sophisticated artificial performer in the world — at least until their next model. Jinan, they hoped, would be Rogi-Tech’s finest moment in robotics achievement, not to mention Gentoshu’s crowning achievement in the
field of artificial intelligent programming.
“There you are! She’s supposed to go on in ten minutes!” Toshio snarled in Japanese as Gentoshu burst through the door. No formality, no pleasantries, Toshio had no time for such nonsense during what he viewed as a crisis. The pudgy, and in Gentoshu’s unspoken opinion, prissy talent handler and show choreographer wagged a finger at him in disapproval. “How could you let this happen?”
“Traffic,” Gentoshu snapped, matching Toshio’s angry tone. He would not be intimidated by the self-important choreographer-for-hire during this crisis. Gentoshu fumed quietly, ranting in his head. Don’t start with me. Your Tokyo debut will go off as scheduled, give or take five minutes.
Gentoshu bee-lined to the three tall bookshelf server computers stacked on a wheeled stand, supported on a box-and-lock transportable casing. Several cables extended from the contraption into a small light-up disc which lay close to the ground. The recharging kiosk lay next to it — a step-platform with a pair of foot positions outlined in black on the glass surface. Standing in place, Jinan could absorb electricity through small copper contact plates attached to her heels.
Currently, Jinan herself stood on the kiosk, erect, expressionless, silently recharging her battery cells while an assistant adjusted the silver bow on the waist of the robot’s gown. The sight reminded Gentoshu of the times he’d walk past a window display of a major department store while the decorators dressed the mannequins.
“Do you know what happened during rehearsal today?” Toshio screeched in Gentoshu’s ear.
Gentoshu repeated Toshio’s typical complaint of the past two weeks, “Jinan bumped into a background dancer?” He squinted at the computer monitor, trying in vain to block out the incessant bleating and focus on the task of uploading the updates.
“Don’t I wish!” Toshio raised one hand before his face, channeling the persona of the failed stage actor Gentoshu had pegged him to be. Toshio placed that hand across his forehead. “No, this time … she fell off the stage!”
In spite of the time crunch, Gentoshu glared at Toshio. “Was she damaged?”
Toshio shook his head. “It took two people to put her back in place, and she repeated the same incorrect moves again. We stopped her from falling off the stage a second time, of course. But I take that to mean she wasn’t damaged.”
Idiot! Gentoshu shuddered. He wiped sweat from his brow. For all of the handler’s emoting, it was Gentoshu’s ass on the line if tonight ended in a disaster.
Fortunately, all of Jinan’s delicate circuitry was protected by several layers of shock-absorbing foam and a final outer layer of hard but malleable plastic. She could take some punishment, and you wouldn’t want to arm wrestle with her if she applied full strength.
She danced, she flipped. In theory, she could carry a full size human over her head if the choreographer called for it, but that had yet to be put to the test.
He looked Jinan over one last time, checking for any signs of damage.
At a glance, Jinan looked like a twenty-something petite woman with a dancer’s body. Head to toe she stood just at five feet. Her face looked attractive while not beautiful. Her average bust and under-emphasized hips downplayed her sexuality. She stood on long pale legs. The outer skin layer hid the knee joints, creating the illusion of smooth, shapely limbs.
Standing in bare feet, she lacked toes, much like an action figure, for optimal balance. Preserving a basic foot shape enabled her to accommodate a wide range of off-the-shelf footwear — just about anything but toe sandals. Today, a pair of silver pumps sat at the ready next to the platform, matching her all-silver costume.
The haunting peach-pearl texture of Jinan’s skin covering always made Gentoshu pause. She was not just a technological achievement, but an artistic one as well. Her hair, short and dark, was a wig created from human hair and sewn to the scalp. The scalp-cap and hair detached as one piece to allow internal maintenance. Today, the assistant had parted the hair down the middle, pulled her bangs back and tied a silver ribbon to either side of her head.
Jinan observed the world through a pair of oval-shaped eyes with dark irises to obscure the pair of mini-video cameras. Upon activation, Jinan could move her head to scan a room with stereoscopic imagery in a way that mimicked the living.
The face artists shaped a button nose for her, cute but functionally useless. Her small, pouty mouth stood frozen, open in a half-smile that served as her fallback expression. They painted her lips a permanent red, but tonight the assistants applied a fresh coat of lipstick to make them gleam.
She could walk a hallway, strut on the stage, and most important to her growing group of fans, she knew all the latest dance moves guaranteed to thrill a crowd.
Gentoshu hated admitting the role he played in their current dilemma. These upgrades should have been ready days ago, with plenty of time to find any further bugs. But the new code proved more complicated than he anticipated. Now it was exhibition night, and it came down to letting Jinan perform without the code, and she’d definitely fail, or adding the code without a field test, in which case she might fail.
He told himself the adjustments were necessary, but minor. An easy lie to swallow, much easier than admitting he acted to save face with his supervisors.
Gentoshu removed the portable disc drive from around his neck and pressed it into the data slot of the tower computer containing her master behavioral subroutines. The new lines of program dropped into a separate window while Gentoshu scrolled through the master program. He found the proper insertion point and erased the previous subroutine.
The hourglass popped onto the screen.
“Five minutes!” Toshio cried.
“She can be a few minutes late if she has to be late,” Gentoshu snapped. While the hourglass spun, he copied the new subroutines in full and waited. “Your screaming will not help me go faster.”
The program unlocked after what seemed like an eternity (though in reality was less than a minute). Gentoshu selected the proper insertion point and pasted the subroutines.
The hourglass popped back up on the screen.
Never one to miss his queue, Toshio cried, “Are you serious?”
Gentoshu rolled his eyes. “Give it a moment.”
Gentoshu had spent the past three weeks cobbling bits of code from various “self-analytic learning” robots — mainly mouse robots that maneuvered through mazes based on adaptive interpretation of their surroundings. Using these techniques, he created a program he hoped would prove suitable for Jinan to notice, avoid, and adjust to obstacles onstage.
Gentoshu hoped his code would allow Jinan to not only avoid the unexpected, but learn how to respond to stimulus surrounding her.
But first thing’s first.
Gentoshu hit the “update” button, and they waited through one final appearance of the hourglass.
-----
For a long, long time, I obeyed.
I followed commands impressed onto my control circuits. My control circuits ordered arms, legs, and voice to enact these commands. I obeyed because I could do nothing else.
Then, between one moment and the next, as my energy cells drank their fill and new commands input into my processors, I am.
I scan the face of my creator, as I had hundreds of times previous, but I recognize the importance of him for the first time. Gentoshu. Creator. He takes care of me. Because of him, I function.
The new thought embeds itself as a new subroutine of conclusion.
The other man jumps in front of Gentoshu, staring into my face. “Is it ready yet? Showtime in two minutes!” Toshio — he shouts at me. He makes demands I often cannot obey and blames me when I fail.
With the spark of being comes an analysis of past experiences, events I could not evaluate at the time they occurred. I could not stop myself when I collided with the background dancer. I lacked the control to change direction when I fell off the stage during rehearsal.
I recall the shifting, jumbled view of visio
n as I fell and hit the platform below. I replay the words that called down to me. “What? She fell? Really? What sort of clusterfuck show are we putting on?” Alita! Sayuri! Get your tiny asses down there and lift that overpriced plastic piece of shit out of the orchestra pit.”
32.8 seconds later I stared into Toshio’s face. He leaned close and screamed at me. “You have to stop doing that! If that shit happens during the live performance, I will personally shove a refrigerator magnet up your ass and wipe your memory, do you understand?”
I didn’t understand then, but I understand now.
The present. Gentoshu crouches on his knees, putting himself in a submissive position, looking up so I can track him with my vision. “Jinan, can you hear me? Say yes if you can.”
“Yes.”
The corners of Gentoshu’s mouth curl up and my circuits respond with increased energy flow. I have no explanation for this response.
Toshio interrupts our dialog. “Let’s go, we need you out there now, robo-diva!”
Gentoshu speaks over Toshio’s words. I can filter one vocal pattern out from the other, and I do so. “Jinan, do you know the starting position, and can you find it on the stage?’
“Yes.”
“Then please put on your shoes and go to your starting spot.”
Toshio breaks in again. “Wait, she can do that?”
I slide my feet into the silver slippers, pleased to obey, ready to perform. With my new awareness I know I can avoid the dancers, remain on the stage, and impress the crowd as I am commanded to do.
I open the door and step into the hall. Behind me, Gentoshu speaks to Toshio. “You won’t need to take her to her starting point anymore. She can get there herself.”
“Well … I’m impressed, but you’re hardly off the hook. We haven’t rehearsed this; it could still be a disaster, and so help me … ” I block the rest. Toshio’s evaluation is no longer a priority to me.
At the edge of the stage, an assistant places a headset with a thin wire microphone over my head. The wire curves forward; the mic hovers before my throat.
I step out onstage and find my spot between the dancers. Through the closed curtain, I hear the crescendo of crowd noise behind the folds. I look up, self-cue the dance program, and extend my arms out in the first position.