I needed to do something about my life.
I lived alone, unless you counted the cockroaches and whatever it was scurrying about above my bedroom ceiling every night. I had a job I hated, with no prospects apart from me getting more and more frustrated.
I could not really blame anyone else for my situation. I had made no effort at school and left as soon as I could, without any qualifications.
A few years down the line it was obvious how stupid I had been, how arrogant and naïve.
So, I made a decision: I would go back to school.
I immediately hit a brick wall. All the courses I looked at cost way more than I could afford.
Then, one evening, being rattled around on the bus back home from work and trying to ignore the angry drunk muttering to himself on the seat next to me, I picked up a newspaper someone had left behind.
It was trash. Pretty much just gossip and inflammatory accusations pretending to be journalism, but in the back pages, just before the sports, I spotted an advert:
The Institute: We provide learning opportunities to people of all abilities. Pay what you can afford.
Those last five words made my eyes light up.
At last, I thought, the break I needed.
There wasn’t much more to the advert, just an invitation to call round in person to see them, an address, and their opening hours: eight to eleven pm.
Which was the icing on the cake. As much as I loathed my job, I needed the money. From the looks of it, I could study at night after work then hopefully move on up in life.
Dreaming already of the moment when I walked into my boss’ office and told him, I quit and you can put your lousy job where the sun does not sign, I got off the bus and caught another one with a stop near the Institute.
The place where my future would begin.
The building housing the Institute was one of the few ones on the street not to have graffiti-covered security shutters already pulled down for the night. The words that sprung to mind as I looked up at it were ‘faded grandeur’.
There were a pair of gargoyles high up on the wall. I could see they were chipped, with parts of their scowling stone faces missing. There was a large, intimidating wooden door. An ornate brass knocker would not have looked out of place on the door, but there wasn’t one. There wasn’t a buzzer either that I could see, so, after taking a deep breath, I pushed.
The door swung open at my touch. Thankfully for my nerves, it did not creak.
I found myself in a corridor that reminded me instinctively of my old school, only everything was higher and wider and much dustier.
There was a noticeboard on the wall, an old-fashioned corkboard, with announcements about health and safety stuck on with tacks. And there was a bell over it – it looked like something out of a museum.
This made me smile. It all did.
To my left there was a door with a sign on it reading ‘Reception’.
Still smiling, I knocked.
Twenty minutes later, a form for my home address, contact phone number and the like filled in, and holding a prospectus that looked like it had been made on a photocopier, I headed off to find room 20A.
I’d chosen to sit in on a class on Accountancy.
The Institute offered a range of courses, everything from Archaeology to Zoology. A lot of them sounded really interesting.
Accountancy struck me as bone dry, but I was determined to learn only things that would help me get a new well-paid job as quickly as possible.
After wandering along what felt like an endless series of corridors and up and down flights of stairs, I finally found the room.
It turned out to be a large lecture theatre, with seats sloping down from the back towards a small stage where a teacher stood in front of a chalk board. Modern technology appeared not to have reached the Institute yet.
There were no windows and the lighting was subdued – which made for a relaxed atmosphere.
There were a dozen of so people dotted about the room, and no one – thankfully – seemed to have noticed me arriving late.
I lifted the little wooden table of the seat nearest to me and manoeuvred my way into it. I realised I did not have a pen or pad to make notes with but decided that was fine for this evening.
I was just dipping my toe into the great ocean of knowledge and tomorrow I would go to a budget store and get myself some stationary.
The details of the lesson kind of washed over me after that and when the teacher wrapped things up by telling us what chapters of a textbook to read before next week’s lesson, I nodded enthusiastically even though I had no idea what book he was talking about.
Then I filed out of the room, once more smiling to myself.
When I had registered, I had entered ‘Zero’ in the box asking what I could afford to pay and, as I left the Institute, I had already decided I would take full advantage of this, and be back there every evening, attending as many classes as I could until I achieved my dream.
The next day at work felt more soul destroying than ever. When I arrived at the Institute that evening, clutching a value bumper notebook and five pens in a little plastic wrapper, I was ready to soak myself up some knowledge.
I decided to attend a class on Marketing. Picturing myself in an expensive suit sipping super strong coffee creating campaigns, I went looking for the lecture room.
I arrived, despite once again having to contend with the warren of corridors and stairs, and settled myself down near the back.
This time, I wasn’t the last to arrive. The teacher had started speaking when I noticed a young woman slip into the room and take a seat on the same row as me.
She had long dark hair and a very pale complexion.
There was something about her. She was striking. Unsettling.
She looked at me and raised her eyebrows in a quizzical gesture, and I realised I was staring.
I looked down at my feet, my cheeks burning with embarrassment.
It probably won’t come as a huge surprise when I say that I was useless around women. I got really nervous and usually said something stupid.
I listened to the rest of the lecture, trying to focus, trying to learn, but I kept thinking about the woman sitting just along from me.
When the lecture finished, I closed the notebook in which I had written nothing.
I glanced over to where the woman had been sitting. She was still there – and she was smiling at me.
One part of my brain told me to smile back, another part – which won the argument – told me to sit there with my mouth hanging open like a complete loser.
Meanwhile she was standing up and heading my way.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hi,” I mumbled in reply.
“Are you a new student?” she asked.
I swallowed. Even saying the simplest of words – such as, Yes – was suddenly a massive challenge.
I swallowed again. “I am,” I finally managed to say. “A student. A new one. Yes, that’s me.”
Now the words were pouring out of me, and I did not seem to be able to stop them.
“How about you? Are you a student as well? Like me, you know studying?”
I would not have blamed her for deciding that talking to me was a mistake and walking away but, for some reason, she laughed instead and sat down next to me.
“I’m not a student, no. I work here. My name’s Marie,” she said and held out a hand.
My hands were feeling pretty sweaty by this point. I wanted to wipe them on the legs of my jeans before shaking her hand but that would have looked too weird, so I took her hand in mine as lightly as I could.
Her skin was very cold.
I started to tingle all over.
She once more made with the quizzical gesture, this time arching her head slightly to one side. “And you are?” she asked.
My mind raced through an A to Z of subject matters before I realised she wanted to know my name.
“Tony,” I gulped the word out.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind me coming over to talk to you?”
I nodded, which I hoped she understood meant I was OK with the fact she had come over to talk to me.
She smiled again and asked me why I was studying at night instead of watching TV or hanging around a bar.
My stop-start words flowed again and I told her everything. About my dead-end job and about my dreams. I talked for what felt like a long time.
It’s something lonely people do when they have the opportunity.
She listened patiently and, when I had finished, she said, “I think that’s special, what you are trying to do, and you seem like a really nice person as well. Good luck with everything, Tony.”
Then she got up and walked away without another word.
I was gutted, to be honest. I thought, maybe, she was going to ask me if I wanted to go for a drink.
Or say that she’d see me around again.
But there was nothing.
I sighed and gathered up my things and headed for the door.
Once I got home, I slept badly for what was left of the night. I could not stop thinking about Marie. In the moments we had spent together she had totally got under my skin.
Work the next day dragged so badly. Then, as darkness was falling, I found myself standing outside the Institute. I was not thinking about bettering myself anymore.
I was thinking about her.
I knew I was being stupid. That was I overreacting. But I couldn’t help myself.
If infatuation was a slippery slope, I was falling out of control.
I smoothed down imaginary creases on my jacket and went inside.
I did not attend one lecture. I went instead from classroom to classroom. Each time I entered a new room my pulse beat faster as I looked around, then when I did not see Marie, I sat down and told myself to get a grip. Then I would leave and do the whole thing over again.
After hours of this, the corridors were busy with students leaving.
I was gutted and slumped with my back against a wall. Soon, I was on my own.
Until a door further down the corridor opened and there she was. She had a clipboard in her hand and was studying it.
I did not stop to think. I walked up to her and, trying to act as if it was no big deal, said, “Hey, nice to see you again.”
“Oh, Hi,” she replied, a little startled, I think.
I put my hands in my trouser pockets. Mr Casual, that was me.
“So, I didn’t see you in any lectures tonight,” I went on, and immediately regretted saying such a weird thing.
Thankfully, this didn’t seem to creep her out and she answered, “No, I’ve been too busy.”
“What do you actually do here?” I asked.
“Well,” she replied, “We also do research at the Institute. I work on a programme studying sleep patterns. We recruit volunteers from the students. It takes up a lot of my time and I don’t have a life outside work to speak of, so I like to sit in on lectures and sometimes I try and meet new people. I like to talk to them about their lives, their hopes. It reminds me that there is a world out there. A world of possibilities.”
I wanted to say how amazing that sounded, how I felt there was a connection between us, but before I could, she said, “I’m sorry, but I have to get on.”
I did not want that to be it. I did not want her to just walk away again, so I blurted out, “I volunteer.”
That way, I figured, I could see her again.
She hesitated.
I did not give up. “I’d like to volunteer for the programme, if you’ll have me?”
Her smile was gentle when she said, “I’m sorry, Tony, I don’t think you’re a suitable subject,”
Then she walked away.
I watched as she punched a code into a security pad by a door at the end of the corridor and stepped through. The door clicked locked behind her.
My shoulders slumped. Then, I stood up straight.
No, I wasn’t going to give up.
I strode purposely towards the door. I’d seen the combination she had used and entered it. My hand was shaking as I pressed on the door. To my relief, it opened and I stepped into a narrow corridor lined by small rooms.
They all had a large window, through which I could see in each some kind of medical monitor with wires coming out of it, and a bed. They looked very plain and made me think of hospital beds, only with one difference.
All of the beds had restraints on them. Four leather straps, two at the top, two at the bottom.
That’s odd, I thought as I made my way down the corridor. There was no sign of Marie, but I saw that one of the rooms was occupied.
A young man, around my age, was in one of the beds. He wrists and ankles were held down by the restraints and, as I stood in front of the window gawping, he started to thrash around.
He looked upset as well.
His eyes stayed closed, though.
He must, I figured, be fast asleep.
Then the man started to scream.
His voice was a little muffled by the glass but there was no mistaking the terror in his voice.
As he screamed, his body jerked and pulled at the restraints, but they held firm.
What the hell was going on? I wondered. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement further down the corridor.
A bead of sweat trickled down my face. I wasn’t meant to be there, and it suddenly dawned on me that Marie would be angry that I had followed her.
Silently cursing my own stupidity, I darted into the empty room behind me and ducked down out of view.
Against the background of the screaming, I could just about make out two voices coming closer. One sounded like Marie, the other was male.
I heard the sound of a door opening, and being closed, and decided to chance a look at what was happening.
It was Marie. She was in the room opposite, and she was with an older man. His head was shaven and his skin was as pale as hers. He was looking down at the man in the bed – and he was smiling.
Marie stood watching, the clipboard held against her chest.
Neither was speaking now but the screaming continued, a relentless, primal cry of fear.
Still smiling, the shaven-headed man leant over, and I lost sight of him briefly, until he stood back up straight.
A coldness flooded my body.
His lips were dark with blood.
I watched, transfixed by horror, as he said something to Marie too quiet for me to hear then left the room and walked away. I ducked back down just in time.
There was silence now. The man in the bed had stopped screaming.
What the hell had they done to him!
I felt light-headed and nauseous, but I managed to stand and walked out into the corridor, then into the room where Maria still stood.
Her eyes widened with shock when she saw me. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I wanted to see you, to be with you.” I was shaking as I spoke. “But this…” I looked at the man in the bed. He was no longer thrashing about. He was lying still. Two small wounds on his arm shone with fresh blood.
“What did you do?” I asked. “You, and that man!”
She started to shake her head and said angrily, “You don’t know what you’re dealing with here. You need to get out and never come back.”
The adrenaline pulsing through me made me shout, “No! I won’t leave!”
I did not see her drop the clipboard, did not see her move. I only felt her slam into me and suddenly she was pinning me against the wall.
My feet were off the floor. She was holding me up as if I weighed nothing.
“Leave,” she said. I felt her breath against my face. It was colder than her skin had been, colder than any winter breeze.
“No,” I pleaded.
Darkness flared in her eyes. Her lips curled back, revealing fangs, curved and dagger-sharp. “Leave,” she said again, a whisper this time.
I began to weep.
She let go of me.
I dropped to the floor.
I don’t know how I found my way out, along the tangle of corridors and the rise and fall of the stairs, but I emerged into a starless night. In the distance, a siren howled.
A couple of people walked past on the other side of the street arguing. Oblivious to the horrors inside the Institute.
I went home and fell into bed. I felt exhausted and feverish.
I don’t know how long I slept for before I was woken up by a tapping at the door. It was dark outside. I lay there wondering if I had dreamt the tapping, then it happened again.
I dragged myself out of bed. “Wh… who is it?” I called out weakly.
The answer came from the other side of the door: “Marie.”
My heart began to race and my hands were shaking so badly I struggled to unlock the door. Finally, I managed it.
She stood in the hallway. Tears streaked the pale skin of her face.
“Will you invite me in?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “You can come in.”
As she passed me on the way in, her arm brushed against me. Once again, I felt how cold she was. How strange.
And yet I was suddenly happy. Because I was with her.
We stood and looked at each other.
“I…” I began to say.
She held up a hand, stopping me, and said, “You were seen on a security camera in the research facility, when I was there, and the others demanded to know why I let you leave.
“I told them I wanted you to leave, because you had so much life in you that was unfulfilled. Because of your dreams. They raged at this. They told me that I had risked everything that we had done.”
Fresh tears fell down her face.
“What were you doing?” I asked.
“We were surviving she replied. “We, my kind, need to drink blood. But we have been trying to do this without the brutality of the past and without risk of discovery. That is why we set up the sleep programme. It was a cover. The man in the room you saw was a volunteer. He was unharmed apart from the wounds, which he believed were from a needle. He does not know he was fed on.
“As for the rest of what you saw… Blood that is taken from the living is sweet. But blood that is taken while they are terrified is the sweetest. And we are able to induce a state of sleep in the volunteers that will result in an incidence of Night Terrors. We then feed on them. In this way, our desires are sated.
“And we were surviving, until my weakness in letting you leave ruined everything.”
She covered her face with her hands.
“What happens now?” I asked.
She sighed. “The Institute has closed its doors for now. And I… I am Exiled.”
She moved her hands away from her face. “They can do no worse to me, but I came here to tell you that I think they will come for you. They will want to silence you. So, you need to flee.”
I knew immediately that there was another way. Knew this in my heart.
In the hours of daylight, I am safe: they cannot leave their sanctuary at the Institute. At dusk, I bolt the door and cover the windows.
Once night falls outside, the scraping begins against the glass, and against the door. And the voices say, “Let us in. Let us in.”
They promise me they will not harm me. That they just want to make me forget, and once all knowledge of them is seared from my mind they will leave me in peace.
I do not believe them. I believe they will kill me to keep their secrets.
So, I do not invite them in and because of this I remain safe, as long as I stay inside my apartment until dawn.
I have told them as well, that I have made a record of what I saw and heard and that if I do not log in to my laptop every twelve hours that record will be made public.
I will be dead, but their secrets will be revealed.
I am afraid every moment of every night that this will happen, that somehow they will find a way to get to me.
But, I am not alone.
She has taken shelter with me, Marie. She lies alongside me at night in my apartment, her coldness against my skin a joy, a wonder.
And I accept the fear, for it means I am with her, and that is the most incredible thing.
Held close in the arms of my undead love, I am truly alive.