When last we spent time with our vampire, he had managed to enter the dilapidated manor and proceed to the lower levels. We were introduced to the Manor’s disarray, the Column, and mystery compounding on mystery. You can catch up on Part IV here. Now, what does our vampire find in the depths of the Column? Let’s find out.
With some uneasiness, the vampire watched as the door to the barrows—a massive thing, quite like a bank vault—swung open. The low hum of the interior incandescents reached him, indicating all was working as it should within the confines of these lower levels. Using his preternatural senses, he felt for anything troublesome before stepping into the vault-like atmosphere.
The air was fresh. He could hear and feel the rush of circulating air as the pumps did their work deep inside the walls. It was cool, though this was expected. The vampire moved into the barrows with caution, moving past the rows and columns of lockers set up for personal affects; moving past the cold rooms housing refrigerated blood; and finally into the main room. The entire space was devoid of movement, and the vampire relaxed somewhat, tracking back to the vault-like door to close it. Once completed, he returned to the main room.
This room lacked elegance, having been designed for utility rather than comfort. On the walls to either side of the entrance were rows of mortuary coolers, with the noticeable difference in their apparent size; one simply did not sleep on a slab of steel for several decades. The enlarged containers held modified coffins in which hibernating vampires might fall asleep with some ease, and they maintained a base level of comfort through the duration of a vampire's rest. These, however, were not designed to withstand a slumber exceeding any more than two or three decades at most, and most vampires who made use of this facility were rarely strong enough to slumber for even that long.
The vampire walked along the walls and took notice of a number of lights indicating a cooler’s use. About half of the lights were active on one wall; a third of the lights were active on the other. He stopped at the end of one wall and activated a terminal there. The screen lit up, ready and waiting to serve its user. The vampire entered his credentials and the terminal displayed the state of the coolers. Everything appeared to be in good working order: the vitals of the slumbering vampires appeared normal, and the machinery managing the temperature, the humidity, and operations all appeared to be functioning. Content with the lack of surprise here, the vampire swiped on the screen to display the list of current inhabitants. He reviewed the dates and was dismayed to find most inhabitants exceeded the three-decade deadline. He turned his attention to the wall of coolers on which the terminal was embedded, and looked more closely at the lights beside the occupied coolers. They were lit up in red.
Under normal circumstances, there would be a team of human scientists who would manage the barrows. They kept a watchful eye on the mechanisms keeping this space in good working order, prepared vampires for their slumber, and assisted those coming out of it, ensuring their timely waking. Given the current state of the manor, the vampire surmised humans had vacated this place long ago.
He stood back from the terminal. While vitals of the hibernating vampires were normal, this merely indicated their bodies were in no worse condition than when they went into hibernation. Their minds, however, would likely be going to rot without the elixir of life—the precious life-blood of other living beings—to keep their powers in good form to maintain their cerebral prowess. Out of the entire wall, he may be able to salvage—that is, to return to a meaningful life—perhaps one out of every ten. All the rest would be consumed by madness upon waking, or else be reduced to animated comatose corpses. He would worry about this later. The most pressing issue was discovering what occurred in the manor and when. He turned and strode to the opposing wall and activated the terminal there.
Continued after the break
on sale now
An old woman risks everything to discover what became of her husband. A tale from the Odds ‘n’ Endings Boutique.
The list of inhabitants on this wall did not inspire any more confidence than the other. The prospect of having to release their souls was grim, but a necessity the vampire would need to undertake, as there was little chance in saving many of those in hibernation. Still, he was going to try. Despite this, he noticed there were a couple inhabitants who had very recently—"recent" indicating about two decades' time—interred themselves. They were younglings, though this mattered little to the vampire. Most of the other vampires in the coven were considered younglings, though this was a relative term. A wry smile stole to his lips; where he was concerned, everyone but the other two elders were younglings.
He picked a cooler at random from among the more recent-interred and set it for release. The process was not unknown to him, though he was unaware of the details, and thus surprised when the terminal displayed a time frame of close to two hours before the latch would be unlocked and the coffin expelled. Very well, there was much to keep him busy in the meantime. He stepped away from the terminal and turned toward the entryway. He moved swiftly to the refrigerated rooms and inspected a few of the blood bags in storage. The blood in these had been preserved remarkably well; he nodded in approval to the memory of the scientists who once roamed these vaults. He retrieved a number of blood bags and set them in an alcove just inside the main room, designed to warm the blood. He then walked to the lockers holding the inhabitants' personal affects and popped open the one for the inhabitant in process of awakening. He removed the contents and stopped short upon perceiving a particularly troublesome item among them.
A Screech Collar.
A shiver shot straight down the vampire's spine. Screech collars were reserved for the more rambunctious and troublesome younglings. Most vampires, when turned, undergo a process of transmutation which can reduce the clarity of the human mind to its most base animal state if not properly tended to. This occurs when a creator turns a human and leaves them to transform on their own. In these cases, other vampires will find them out and eliminate both the careless creator and their monster spawn. When guided well by a creator, the new vampire learns to control the worst of their cravings and can be entrusted with autonomy in short order. The more troublesome vampires, however, are those who gain the capacity to control their impulses but choose not to, thus threatening the coven's livelihood. This is where the Screech Collar is most useful. Its original use was to force a human into servitude, though this became unnecessary as a coven and their human slaves leaned into a symbiotic relationship. At this juncture, the Screech Collar was repurposed to bring into submission and properly train the more feral younglings.
Not that he feared having to deal with such a one as was relegated to wearing such a collar. He was old and this provided him immense advantage over the rest of the coven. Nay, what came welling up was the singular concern such a one may have contributed to the demise of the coven, and the manor.
The vampire made one hell of a choice of whom first to draw from hibernation.
Well isn’t that interesting? A Screech Collar. What does it mean? What lies in wait for our vampire? Will we soon be trooping along with two vampires? Will the awakening vampire consume our resident vampire, and we follow along with this new arrival? Or will our resident vampire consume the awakening vampire, and back through this process we go? You can read Part VI here.
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