Scarlet Prison

Chapter 9

            "Good morning, Vince!" I said cheerfully.  I walked into his office at 7:30 p.m., half an hour late.  I came in later and later every day.  Not on purpose.  But since he didn't seem to care, I kept accidentally spending a little more time showering or brushing my teeth or filing my nails. 

            "You're late," Vince announced, obviously frustrated.  That surprised me.  Normally, he couldn't care less.  Maybe he had just been hoping that my tardiness was a fluke.  Half an hour had been pushing it, even for me.  You'd think I would have learned, since being late got me in this mess in the first place.

            I shrugged in response.

            "There's a new shipment coming in..." Vince glanced at the clock and handed me the digital clipboard that seemed to be becoming a daily part of my life, "...now."  He looked pretty stressed out.

            "I'm on it," I said, taking the clipboard.  I turned to leave.

            "Wait," Vince said, and I turned to face him.  "Bring them to the room at the back."  He handed me a key card.  "Keep it.  I have my own."

            "Sounds good," I said, suddenly curious about the back room.  I had never been in it, since it was kept locked.

            While ascending the stairs, I examined the clipboard.  This shipment had little resemblance to the last.  I didn't recognize any of the words that made up the items on the list.  They almost seemed like names...

            "Nova!"

            "Hey Garret," I said.  The sun hadn't completely set yet, and I could see him clearly. The white t-shirt hanging over his beer belly was tainted with multicolored splotches, and his fingers were stained with a brownish color. The greasy tufts of his hair appeared equally neglected. "What happened to you?" I asked, making a show of looking him up and down.

            He glanced down at himself. "Oh, I got caught up in the studio and didn't have time to change. Or sleep." He nervously scratched the back of his head. "I've been up all day, actually. The piece I've been working on has been driving me crazy. I couldn't get the faces right, you know? Then, last night, I was sipping some O neutral, wondering if I should just abandon the piece completely, when I was hit by a sudden burst of inspiration. I almost painted straight through my shift at work. I would've, if Lilly hadn't been there to snap me out of the trance."

            "You're a painter?" I asked, surprised that his life consisted of more than just driving a truck and drinking blood. I tended to assume that all vampires were blood thirsty fends with two dimensional personalities, which was a belief that became more and more unfounded every day.

            He shrugged and shifted uneasily. "It's just something that I like to do. Something that I need to do. It keeps me sane."

            "I'd like to see your paintings, sometime," I said, because I felt obligated to show some interest.

            "Yeah? Well, maybe..." He glanced around, avoiding eye contact with me. Then his attention landed on the truck. He motioned for me to accompany him to the rear. "Listen, most of this batch is compound bred.  There's nine of them, from two different compounds, and only one that's been raised as a Vein.  They've already had their ID chips implanted, so if they give you any trouble, just give them a shock.  They're all hooked up to the same remote right now, so if one misbehaves, you'll have to shock them all.  If one of them wanders too far from this remote, they'll be shocked until they come back."  He handed me a black remote with one button.