Chapter Fourteen: Blood Testing:

Science never stops. Especially when there is a new development in sight. Linda never lost a chance to recreate the sun experiment or track their “daughter” as she called her test subject. Eric had learned to let his wife get it out of her system. But, he still had to ask this question.

“Babe,” he said one night in their hotel room.

“Yeah?” Linda asked as she read over their notes at the desk. Her husband sat up on the bed.

“What is the point of this experiment?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” his wife asked.

“Why are you making a vampire immune to sunlight?” Eric asked. “What is the purpose? Why would you want to do that?” Linda turned around from her desk.

“Why was the light bulb invented?” she asked.

“To brighten up rooms at night,” he said.

“And how do we know about gravity?”

“Countless scientists testing it.”

“Why do we have the medicines, technology, and safety measures that we do?”

Eric gave her a” confused look. “What are you trying to say?” Linda jumped onto the bed, facing him with a big smile on her face.

“It’s the nature of science,” she said. “All of those things came out of curiosity. Just like this project.”

“Well, yeah… But how will this human mankind?” Eric asked.

“That I don’t know,” she said. Her husband hung his head and sighed. Once his wife got like this, “stop” meant nothing to her. Linda put her arm around his shoulders.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Some good will come out of this, I swear it.” Eric forced himself to smile. She won’t listen to him now. Linda walked over to her notes.

“Come look at this,” she said. Her husband dropped his shoulders and walked over to the desk. Linda pointed to the formula on the paper.

“You see this here?” she asked.

“Isn’t that the formula we did for the first test?” Eric asked. Linda grinned.

“Correct!” she said.

“What am I looking at?”

“I made some additions to the formula.”

Eric blinked at first. “What?”

“I was bored last night and decided to play around with the formula. You know, increase elements here, reduce some there.” She pulled out a stack of papers. Linda couldn’t help but grin as she saw the look on her husband’s face.

“Impressive, huh?” she asked. Eric looked up with the color drained from his face.

“Uh… honey… What do you plan to do with all of this?” he asked. Linda leaned closed to his face with that grin of hers.

“What else?” she asked. “We’re going to test it on other vampires.”

“But how?” he asked.

“We’ll just track them down,” his wife said. “And capture them like last time.” He should say something. He really should say something.

“But aren’t taking this experiment too far?” Eric asked.

“Not a chance!” Linda shouted. Her husband rubbed his ear.

“I just don’t want us to get hurt or killed,” he said. His wife put her arm around his shoulders.

“It will be fine,” she insisted. “The world will thank us for it later.” I doubt that, Eric thought. Linda gently pushed him aside and sat down at her desk. He watched as she got back to work.

“Hm…” she said. “We’re going to need a comparison or control sample with all of this.” A light bulb went off in Linda’s head.

“Babe,” she said.

“Yes?” Eric asked, lifting his head. Linda turned around.

“We have to get back our daughter,” she said.

“But we don’t even know where she is,” he complained. His wife smiled as she held up her finger.

“Ah, but we have a way now!” she said. Eric gave her a confused look.

“How?” he asked. Linda smiled and turned on the TV. The screen showed a news anchor lady stood in front of the Palm Leaf Motel.

“Guests awoke to loud banging noises and screams in the early hours of the morning,” she said. “The managed and the owner found Room 18 covered in blood and a giant hole in the ceiling. The receptionist claims that he doesn’t remember that happened the night before. Police have yet to identify the victim, but they have collected the blood from the room.” Linda turned to Eric, giggling.

“See?” she asked. “We’re getting close. And the Palm Leaf Motel was just down the road from us.”

“But how are we going to track them down?” Eric asked. “We don’t know where she went? How can we be sure she was even there last night?” His wife grabbed him by the hands.

“How else?” she asked. “We go down to the motel and ask questions.”

“But the receptionist doesn’t remember anything. That’s what the lady said.”

“But he wasn’t the only one in the motel, was he? There has to be someone who saw something. They had to have!" Linda gathered up her notes and shoved them into her bag.

“Come on, babe!” she said. “We have to get going!”

“Wait, where are we going?” Eric asked. Linda turned her head.

“Where else?” she asked. “We’re going to the Palm Leaf Motel! Come on! Hurry up! Hurry up!” Eric sighed and stood up as Linda looked around for the rest of their things. He needed to stop this before it got out of hand. For now, he could only go along with this scheme before he found a way out of it.

“Did you not hear me?” Linda asked. “We have to get going! Hurry it up!” He put up his hands.

“Fine,” he grumbled. Eric started looking around the room for the reminder of their things. He really needed to put his foot down before things really got out of hand. She had to drag him further into her madness, didn’t she?