NOT SUITABLE FOR READERS UNDER 12
Chapter 4: Contagion Conjecture
“Oh come ohn!” Muriel dropped the paper into her lap, “can you believe that?!”
Velma entered the room with a warm glass of lemon squash. “You’re out of lemon. I just finished the bottle. Sorry.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I didn’t even notice you’d left the room. Have you seen this?” She handed the paper to Velma.
Velma glanced at the headline and raised her eyebrows. “Wow. So they did go with disease,” she muttered to herself while failing to suppress a slight smile, “I thought I was kidding myself about that.”
“Can you believe it?!” Muriel repeated. “I think it’s scaremongering. It says here the place was trashed – obvious signs of a struggle. Murder. Not disease!”
Velma skimmed the few descriptive paragraphs and shrugged. “I guess they think if it was murder there’d be blood at the scene. Says here there wasn’t any.”
“Yeah, okay, that’s weird. But where do they get contagion from? Where’s their evidence of that?”
Velma shrugged. “I guess they’re not telling us everything here. There must be more to it.”
“Exactly my point!” Muriel was vehement. “So they shouldn’t be speculating when they don’t know. This is gonna really scare people!”
“And revive sales of PPE – goodness knows our streets and hedgerows could do with a few more blue gloves and wet wipes.”
Muriel laughed. “And masks. Don’t forget masks.” Her grin reverted to a frown and she went on, “seriously though, I think this is rubbish. I might investigate it myself.”
“Really Columbo? How are you gonna do that? Where would you start?” Velma was only slightly concerned. Muriel tended to get excited in the moment, but she was more passionate than practical. When she calmed down she would realise she had nothing to go on.
Just then there was a ring at the door and Muriel went to buzz Andy in.
“Aw, Sammy!” Velma reached out for a hug.
“Sorry Vel, he only wants me I’m afraid.”
Muriel put a bowl of water on the floor. “Not really surprising though is it?” she said, “after what he’s been through. You’ll probably be the only one he trusts for a while.”
Andy sat down with Sammy on his lap. “Yeah, he won’t let me out of his sight! Even follows me to the bathroom!”
“Good job you work from home,” Muriel smiled, “taking him to Andy was a good call, Vel. It’s so lucky you found him. I mean, what are the chances?”
Velma nodded. “Quite good actually, considering how many people Beryl talks to. You know – the woman who comes to the cafe every day at 4 o’clock and she’s usually still there when I get to work? She often complained about her neighbour who she said was always angry and unpleasant, but she’d never mentioned before that he had a dog.”
“Until last week,” added Andy.
“Yeah, sorry, you’ve heard it before,” Velma smiled.
“I haven’t! I want to hear it!” said Muriel, “I want the whole story.”
“When the guy died there was no one to look after his dog so she brought him to me,” explained Andy helpfully.
“No, I want to hear it from Velma! She tells it better.”
Sammy whined so Andy took him to the water bowl. He had to stand with him while he drank because he daren’t start lapping without his guardian by his side.
Muriel broke off a chunk of Vego and looked meaningfully at Velma. “What happened?”
“Beryl told me where she lived and I found myself walking past there one night when I couldn’t sleep.”
“Go on,” Muriel leaned in closer.
“I heard a shout and a yelp, coming from the guy’s back garden, so I went to check it out, like you do, and I saw Sammy, chained up, licking an empty bowl.”
“Aw, poor Sammy. So what did you do?!”
“Well, I was going to call the RSPCA but then the guy died so I didn’t need to. And I took Sammy coz I happened to know someone who would give him a good home.”
“Yeah ya did!” Andy grinned and Sammy tried to get behind him as Muriel reached over to give him some fuss. “It’s gonna take some time, but I’m sure he’ll let you in eventually.”
“What did the vet say?” Velma asked.
“He’s malnourished. Had fleas, worms, couple o’ ticks. His back end’s bruised – like someone’s kicked him she said – but no broken bones thankfully.”
Muriel frowned, “I hate to say it, but I’m glad that guy died.”
Velma only smiled, and Sammy snuggled his head inside Andy’s cardigan. “I feel like Mastermind today!” she declared. “I know it’s only a two person game but we can take it in turns. And you look like you’re not free to play at the moment anyway mate.”
Andy agreed and Muriel grabbed the game from her chaotic cupboard.
*
The following evening was Velma’s night off, which was good because she’d taken a casual job – just one shift – as a waitress called Brenda. The neighbouring town’s Grand Hotel was hosting Invigo Bio Tech‘s Annual Gala and they needed a handful of temps to supplement their regular staff.
Invigo Bio Tech Ltd was a contract testing laboratory whose clients included pharmaceutical companies, pesticide companies, detergent companies and numerous other types of chemical companies. Their slogan was “Delivering scientific excellence and an outstanding customer experience that helps you secure the potential of life enhancing research and products globally“. And global it was. As well as their laboratories in the UK, they owned labs in the USA, Asia and Australia. And the main speaker at this Gala event was going to announce their success in making yet another acquisition. Invigo Bio Tech was a monster. In more ways than one.
Velma was well aware what this company did. She knew how much misery and agony it visited upon a myriad of aquatic, avian and terrestrial species, large and small. A twisted form of science was its tool, used not in the pursuit of truth, but of money.
She also knew that she couldn’t shut it down. But she could aggravate it. Just a bit. And that’s what she intended to do.
Invigo’s big boss, the CEO, Chief or whatever you want to call him, was to be the keynote speaker and Velma had her eyes on him. Mr Bernard Viyal CBE couldn’t get a moment to himself that night. There was never a second when someone wasn’t trying to bend his ear about something and he was starting to get a bit of a headache. Unable to feign any more interest in the monotonous ramblings of his Chief Financial Officer, he looked at his watch. It was 7.45 and he needed to be on stage at 8.30 for his speech.
“Er, yeah, thanks Mel,” he interrupted the CFO, “we’ll definitely look into that but, if you’ll excuse me -” He left the throng and headed for the elevators.
Velma was careful not to follow too closely, but she saw that he went to the top floor. The Presidential Suite. His room for the night. She put down the tray of drinks she’d been carrying and headed for the stairs. As soon as she closed the door on the party, she ducked behind the archway entrance to main reception, became the mist and moved towards the staircase.
“What is that – smoke?” asked an attendee with concern.
“Dry ice I think,” her colleague responded, “excuse me,” he touched the arm of a passing member of staff, “is that dry ice? Is there supposed to be dry ice at this thing?”
The concierge was extremely alarmed, “er, no, no there isn’t. Excuse me,” and he dashed for the front office.
Velma moved swiftly up the stairs and out of sight before anyone sounded the alarm. By the time the general manager was on the scene there was no sign of ‘smoke’ and it was concluded someone had played a prank. They had been expecting disruptions of one kind or another, given the company’s unpopularity in certain circles.
Note to self, Velma thought, mist in the outdoors only. She still had a lot of stairs to climb and she’d have to do it on foot. Just pretend to be normal, she told herself. The problem now would be the security guards on the seventh floor. She’d need to distract them away from the Presidential Suite, but there were two of them, so even if she became the wolf and got one of them to chase her, the other one would likely remain at his post. And he’d probably call for back up.
No, she’d just have to put the guards into a trance. That’s better than causing a big ruckus. Her other concern was the CCTV cameras. That’s why she’d wanted to mist her way in. She hesitated before stepping onto the seventh floor. What was the best approach? If she hynotised the guards she could get into Viyal’s room, but she’d be caught on camera. If she became the mist she could get under his door without being stopped, and wouldn’t be caught on camera, but she wouldn’t be able to hypnotise the guards into not hitting the fire alarm.
Finally she decided to go in as Brenda and hope for the best. She’d already been caught on camera on the stairs anyway. I must look pretty suspicious right now, she told herself, waiting behind this door for so long. So she pushed it open and stepped onto the exclusive seventh floor. In long, confident strides she approached the Presidential Suite but she could only see one guard. And he was facing away from her. Before she got too close he sneezed loudly, three times in quick succession.
“Blast!” He frowned at his snotty hand, apparently he didn’t have a tissue on him. He’d have to get some from the toilets or a cleaning cupboard, but there were none of those on the executive floor. “I need to be relieved!” he quietly informed his walkie talkie, “Taking my break now,” he added as he stepped onto the elevator.
Velma smiled. That was lucky. Now all she needed to do was look normal for the camera. Resisting the temptation to hurry, she walked towards Viyal’s room and knocked.
“Room service!” she called and then, making it look easy, forced the door open and stepped insided.
Her entry provoked no response because there was no sign of anyone in the lounge. She opened the door of the first bedroom which was also empty. So she tried the second one and no-one was in there either. She was about to close the door when she heard a voice coming from the en-suite. He was on the phone. He was clearly trying to keep his voice down but she had bat hearing.
“We want it,” she heard him say, “we can handle it.”
She was even able to hear the voice on the other end of his phone, though not quite so well. It was a female voice. “It’s not even definite yet,” it said, “but we have put some feelers out and two other parties have expressed an interest. How do you know about it?”
“I know people,” Viyal told her smugly. “We’re better than anyone else for this. They wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“Why d’you say that? It would be like any other medical research and they both have plenty of experience with that. My understanding is that your niche is mostly chemical.”
“We’re experts in all areas. I got my CBE for my contribution to medical research!”
There was a pause before the female voice conceded the point. “Alright,” she said, “we will consider working with Invigo if you can send me a strategy for isolating the new pathogen, discovering how it is transmitted and whether it can be stopped once contracted.”
“Done!” said Viyal with satisfaction.
“I want your strategy by the end of next week before we can confirm your involvement.”
“Will do. No problem.”
“And Bernard,” the female voice added, “this better not get out. If it does, I’ll know it was you. This disease has been around for a lot longer than people realise. We’ve been seeing deaths like this for over thirty years. But never before did we have so much to go on. With four bodies at once we’ve got access to much more material for analysis, and if this disease can be reproduced in animal models, the sky’s the limit in terms of profit. Demand for drugs and vaccines for this disease will be -“
“Unprecedented.”
Velma was horrified. This was her fault. Any true scientist would be able to see that there was no contagion. But these weren’t true scientists. They were capitalists first and foremost, and they were going to exploit this situation any way they could, for as long as they could.
Better that people fear a vampire than an infectious disease, she reasoned.
The toilet flushed and a moment later (he had obviously not washed his hands) Bernard emerged from the bathroom. Velma was sitting on the bed with her arms folded. His self-satisfied smile vanished in an instant.
“What are you doing in here?! I didn’t request a turndown.”
“Nice to meet you Bernie, I’m your disease,” she told him with a toothy grin, “now wash your hands.”
*
Click here for more Velma chapters.
Velma the Vegan Vampire belongs to Violet Plum © 2026
Violet’s Vegan Comics – creating funny, exciting and sometimes slightly creepy vegan fiction since 2012
Violet's Vegan Comics 