Blood Farm

Chapter 6

I was standing at the back door to the clinic, waiting for the signal. Staring at the electronic panel that was the barrier between me and access, I hoped that this worked. It was an old code, one that was for a previous employee that I had forgotten to remove from the system. I knew not to use my own code; not only would it lead to me but there was the likely chance that Linus would have wiped it by now. I could see bear man at the corner, watching the front door. Waiting for utter bedlam to erupt in both the selling and the purchasing. The sun was beating down hard on me, sweat trickled down the side of my temple, slowly trailing down my face. I glanced casually over at Harry, leaning on the street post. He would look at his watch, check his phone, look around, scowl at me. I think I preferred to call him bear man. It certainly matched his persona. He growled and grumped and I wondered what Curtis saw in him. I liked to think that this soul mate business was accurate, but something just didn't click for me. Curtis was smitten, he looked up at bear man with big blue eyes and the most that I saw from bear man was the occasional soft smile, which I might add is very creepy, a playful wink and a bit of hugging. It seemed really odd to me but what could I say? Hurt my best friend by telling him I don't like his mate or that his mate doesn't like his best friend? No, sadly I knew if I did say anything that it would definitely hurt him and he would probably stop speaking to me. And that I couldn't handle.

Bear man took his cap off and wiped his hand over his head as if he was scratching his head, replacing the cap. That was the signal. I punched in the code and waited with baited breath for the little green light. Silently praying, hidden from the world by the overgrown bush. The very same bush that I had repeatedly told Linus was a security risk because it had grown over the camera. Now I was about to show him how much of a risk it was. I wiped the sweat from my face, checking over my shoulder for any people that might be watching what I'm doing. The panel pinged, the green light went on and I opened the door.

The back of the building was a long corridor that held several rooms. To the right was the tea room and bathrooms, refrigeration room and security room. To the left was the doctor's office for the doctor that never turned up to work, the staff locker room and the doorway to the selling section. I could hear the nightmare that was going on in there, the nurses overwhelmed with the sudden influx of humans wanting to donate, thus keeping them very occupied. And the door in front of me, well that held another nightmare. Slowly I opened the door, the hall leading toward the reception area. Linus had taken the bait, he was frantically trying to deal with the tiny reception area full of vampires, some of them were wanting to purchase, some of them were wanting to complain about off blood. All to cause a distraction. Even Rita was flustered. I crept towards his office that was on the left hand side, mine was on the right. Praying that each and every single vampire beyond that glass wall kept his attention for long enough. I slipped into his office, closing the door. Looking around it was as if nothing changed, his desk was still perfectly ordered, nothing askew. I was about to look for the key but strangely tugged on the first draw of the cabinet, it opened.

The first draw had barely anything in it, just a folder full of bank statements, about a years' worth of statements for the one account. I flicked through them, large deposits going into the account, all from one account. Someone was paying him big dollars for something. The next draw held two rather thick documents, one was a socio-economic study on the vampires in this city. The other was a scientific study of vampires and the last was the vampire-human laws that were created by the council. As I flicked through it, I could see that he had been highlighting certain texts. I stuffed the three documents into my back pack, it was too much for me to deal with here. The bank statements also went into the bag, along with a Rolodex that was sitting on his desk. In the third and final draw was maps, lots of maps that were worn along the fold lines, like they had been folded and unfolded countless times. They went into the back pack too.