Lamps flickered down the sullied corridor. The shadows cast from trash bins and corner tables danced on the tiled floor. Beneath the cold light, the once ruddy pools of blood stagnated and shone like a viscous black oil slick.
“Useless,” Alrich spouted as he turned the corner. A phone rang in the distance. With a scowl smeared across his mug, he ignored the ringing and muttered to himself about the failed applicants. He shook his head and took off his dirty glasses. “Losing to a half-breed…” With the tip of his finger, he scraped the droplets of coagulated blood off the lens and wiped his hand on the bottom of his lab coat.
Alrich watched the custodians haul the eviscerated corpses from the room. As they collected the bodies down the hall, the disheveled dead slumped over one another. Like rotting fish, their jaws hung open in twisted agony, exposing their discolored bloating tongues. Their clouded, milky white eyes rolled upward towards the ceiling, as small flies buzzed in circles around their bruised, swollen faces.
The state of their remains served at best as good compost. With their blood and juices running over the floor, the stink of their decaying flesh clung to every surface. One by one, the custodians gagged at the mere sight of the carnage, much less the pungent stench. However, surrounded by the mangled entrails and open gashes, Alrich walked unfazed through the dead.
Alrich grit his teeth. “A fucking half-breed.” No matter how many bodies littered the hallway, nothing angered him more than knowing a dhampir earned Mendelson’s employment. Unless involving dissection, working with a dhampir, even one winning Mendelson’s favor, infuriated Alrich. In his travels and studies, a dhampir’s contorted DNA led their mortality to crash and burn. With each case, the contributed genetics of the vampire parent and its breed either hastened or prolonged their monstrosity and inevitable descent into madness.
Tiny voices spoke little rants into Alrich’s mind. He ignored them and rubbed his lens harder, “Motherfucker.” Aggravated by his dirtied lenses, he pocketed his glasses and discarded his stained lab coat on top of a mound of entrails. The voices stopped.
As Alrich walked, the phone continued to ring in the room behind him. As he glared in the phone’s direction, one name sprung into his mind on who kept dialing that number. Averting his ears from the ringing, Alrich spotted Mendelson in an adjacent hallway. “There he is,” he sighed. He waved and gestured to the room next to him. “Freudric, phone for you.” Mendelson didn’t respond. Alrich lowered his hand. “Freudric?”
“That was better than I thought it’d be,” Mendelson said, chuckling. The results of the employment application thrilled him. As he rolled his pen between his fingers, his grin widened at his new assistant’s victory. “Gabriel.” The splintering crack of spines and gushing slit throats churned in his mind. He cooed her name, “Gabriel.” Her rage enticed him as he imagined his fingers running through her black hair. His hands trembled and began to sweat, as he thought about her slickened blood-drenched body. He whispered to himself, fawning over her crimson iris, “Oh, the things you’ll do.”
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Professional Blurbs:
“L. M. Labat writes like a rotted angel. Haunting and suspenseful, this book will leave a pretty little scar on your psyche.” – Charles Gramlich, Author of Midnight Rosary
“I was greatly satisfied with the follow up and its continuous detailed delivery. Thank you L. M. Labat for the opportunity and introducing me into your wondrous world of dhampirs.” – Jennie Cruz, Eye Know Horror
“This sequel scratches the soul like ‘hard bristles scrubbing the blood’ from the walls and floors of another Mendelson massacre of innocents. Labat’s tale warns against the bigger monsters that walk among us.” – Al Kennedy, Author of Big Chief Harrison and the Mardi Gras Indians
“More depravity and mystery! Und mein Gott! Es gibt so viel Blut!” – Peter Kalle