WEP Challenge June 2019: Caged Bird

Image by Mary Gorobchenko from Pixabay

When Bernie came to, he found himself in a five-foot by five-foot windowless metal cell. He tried to stop his claustrophobia from kicking in and throwing him into a panic, but the fear of being trapped in a confined space quickly overtook him. The young vampire screamed in terror and threw himself against the door of the cell until he was completely exhausted. He crawled into a corner of the box, weeping brokenly.

“Please, please, you can’t do this!” Bernie begged. “I’ll need to feed. I don’t need a person, I don’t want an animal, I’m pretty much a vegetarian. You can get me a blood bag, a nice sterile blood bag, like from a blood bank or something. Whatever you need, just let me out of here and I’ll cooperate with you. Let Ahmose go. He shouldn’t have to go through this. He was already a prisoner once. Please…OH GOD, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH AHMOSE???”

Bernie collapsed to the floor, sobbing brokenly. He thought of what Ahmose had said before their captors had separated them. Bernie watched, astounded, as the treacherous vampire sorceress Paraji prostrated herself before cold-hearted Captain Abigail Botterill, the head of the Alien and Supernatural Search Squadron and kissed Captain Botterill’s red-painted toes in deference.

“Never got the foot thing, myself,” Ahmose had imparted telepathically to Bernie. “Feet aren’t pretty, and mine, at any rate, are ticklish. I do appreciate a good foot massage, however.”

“I’ll give you a good all-over massage when we’ve been sprung from this trap,” Bernie thought, giving Ahmose a swift smile and a quick wink.

Moments later, Paraji’s Djinn guards had separated the captives, dragging them each into examination rooms. Bernie remembered fighting as technicians wearing protective suits attempted to strap him to a gurney, and then everything went black.

“Not quite so sure of ourselves now, are we, Bernard?”

Captain Botterill’s mocking voice piped through a speaker in a corner of the cell’s ceiling. Bernie looked up to see a camera beside the speaker, which didn’t surprise him.

“Captain Botterill, please, I’ll cooperate with your tests,” Bernie begged. “Just please, let me out of here, and let the others go. You can do anything you want with me. I promise I won’t try to escape again. It’s just that I don’t like being immobilized. It freaks me out. If you let me out, I’ll be good and quiet, docile like a lamb. You won’t hear a peep out of me.”

“I’m glad to see that you’ve learned a lesson, Bernie, but I’m still not sure I can trust you and your terrible sharp teethies near my luscious, swan-like neck,” Captain Botterill chuckled. Bernie could hear mocking laughter in the background, and his temper flared.

“Katou, you goddamn traitor!” Bernie snarled. “If I ever get out of here, the first thing I’m going to do is wring your cold, Undead neck! You’re no better than the goddamn hen who sells her sisters to the fucking fox!”

“Oh, Bernie, I’m awfully frightened,” the treacherous vampire Mondo Katou jeered. “But in case you don’t recall, it was me who came close to wringing your cold, Undead neck. You may be able to convince some easy marks that you’re a big, bad vampire now because you can bench-press your own weight of—oh, what would you say, Captain, 120 pounds?”

“Yes, Katou, I imagine you’re about on the mark,” Captain Botterill snickered.

“But in case you forget, Vamp Ingenue, you have been a vampire for a little over six months. I was turned seventy-five years ago. I could tear your heart from your chest, rip your head from your neck, burn you to ashes, and scatter you to the four winds. Do not test me.”

“Ahmose is gone in any case, Bernie,” Captain Botterill continued. “We made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. He very quickly forgot your wretched existence when we returned his beloved Gregory to him hale and hardy. The two of them are probably off in a luxurious motel somewhere having a passionate roll between satin sheets, sharing blood like wine, catching up on old times. He was tremendously swift to forget about you, I daresay. Why even I considered the cold-hearted way he tossed you aside without a second thought utterly brutal.”

“It isn’t true!” Bernie cried. “Gregory fell in love with Theodoric Elms back in Manzanar. Even if Ahmose wanted to get back together with Gregory, he wouldn’t abandon me. He’s coming back for me! He’s fucking coming back for me, you liars, you goddamn rotten liars!”

Bernie curled into a fetal position. Bloody tears soaked through the fabric of his hospital gown and ran down his legs. He wept until he could weep no more, and then he fell asleep and dreamed of the Halloween party where he had met Ahmose.

Bernie couldn’t believe that the gorgeous slim but muscular Asian goth guy in the tight leather pants and vest was checking his geeky ginger self out with obvious admiration. Bernie would never have had the guts to talk to a guy like that, but Ahmose was, fortunately, more self-assured. As the night went on, Bernie learned more about his sexy and mysterious admirer, including the fact that Ahmose was a vampire.

Being the lover of a brilliant, sweet, and smoking hot creature of the night was the sort of thing that Bernie assumed would only happen in the erotic fantasies he wrote on late nights spent in his own company, but come the morning, Bernie had been turned, and his heart belonged to his maker.

“Ahmose, you couldn’t,” Bernie sobbed as he woke, remembering Captain Botterill’s revelation which pierced his heart like ice. “After all we’ve been to each other, how could you?”

“Bernie!” Ahmose wailed, struggling to no avail as the silver shackles seared his flesh and the laughter of Captain Abigail Botterill and his old enemy, Mondo Katou, echoed in his ears. “Please don’t listen to them! It’s you for me, now and forever.”

~Cie & Lil~

Note:

This is the first chapter in Team Netherworld's WIP, Carnal Invasion XIII: Caged Birds. You lucky ducks (and whatever other waterfowl may be reading this post) may be used to our Weekend Writing Warriors snippets. Well, this time you've got an entire chapter to feast on!