“Okay, I’m going,” I said.
“Then go,” Craig said.
“Shut up,” I said.
Around the fourth beer of the night we would start acting like thirteen year-old boys.
“$20 you can’t get her number,” Brandon said.
“You’re on,” I said.
I got up and walked over to the bar. My stomach felt light and I started to blush a little. I wanted to bail out because trying to pick up girls at the bar is the worst. I never knew what to say and I always think that I’m going to go down in flames in front of the whole bar. On the way over I wanted to check to make sure that my fly was up because I was getting self-conscious but grabbing my crotch on my way over to introduce myself didn’t seem like a good idea.
I walked up to her and said, “Hi.”
“Hi,” she responded with a smile.
“Do you think I’m cute yet or should I buy you a shot?” I said.
“A shot?” She slowly looked me up and down. “Maybe two. No wait. Three.”
“Yes!” I said, “I’m in.”
I figured if I was going to go down, then I might as well go down in flames.
“It’s a little early for that kind of talk, don’t you think?” She said.
“No, um, no, I didn’t mean in, in. Like this.” Then I made the forefinger through the other hand giving the okay sign, how an eighth grader would indicate sex.
She started to laugh. “Please stop.” Then she put her hand over both of my hands so that I would quit gesturing.
I remember thinking that her hands were cold but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Ladies always have cold hands.
“So can I get you that drink?”
“No no. I think I have had quite enough for tonight.”
“Oh, okay. Oh yeah, my name is Stephen. It is pronounced Steven, but spelled Ste-fen, but with a P-H.”
“I’m not sure if what you said makes sense but I’m going to let it slide. I’m Charlie. You pronounce it the same way you would think to spell it.”
“Yeah, you know, from across the room, I thought to myself, Stephen, I bet that girl’s name is Charles or maybe Chuck.”
“When you talk to yourself you use your name? Is that to get your own attention?”
“I guess so.”
I was confused and by the time I figured out what she meant the conversation had moved on. Remember, I had been drinking.
“Instead of drinking more, do you want to go for a walk? The music in here is giving me a headache.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Do you need to go by your table to get the $20 or will your friend give it to you later?”
“Wow,” I said, “you heard that? Awkward.”
“Yep.”
“No, I can get it from him later.”
I waited for her to call me an asshole and walk off but she didn’t. Instead, she got off of her barstool, grabbed my hand and headed towards the stairs to leave, dragging me behind her. I remember giving Brandon the finger before I left while Andrew smiled at me and Craig shook his head.
After I left the bar, all of the drinks and shots caught up to me and my memory goes fuzzy.
CHapter 3
The next night I woke up and it was dark out. My first thought was that it was the morning, but when I turned on the TV, the evening news was on. Somehow I had slept through the whole day even though I was an early riser. As a bureaucrat I was used to getting up at seven in the morning.
I shifted in my bed and my whole body felt like it was on fire. I had a migraine from hell. The thump from my heartbeat inside my skull was loud and overwhelming. It was difficult to separate out the cacophony of sounds and smells of basic existence but once I was able to do so, I could hear the sound of blood being pumped through my dog’s heart. My first instinct was to leap across the room and attack her but I was stopped by my overwhelming need to puke.
I sprinted across the hall to the bathroom and vomited into the toilet until there was nothing left but dry heaves. I realized that due to the force of my vomiting I had shit and pissed myself as well. Dinner the night before consisted of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and chips before I went out drinking so it couldn’t have been food poisoning. I peeled off my clothes and jumped in the shower to wash off the filth.
While coming out of the shower and I watched the steam from the shower roll out into the rest of the bathroom. It wasn’t a translucent mass of fog anymore. It was individual particles of floating water and I could see tiny little rainbows reflecting through them. I expected to be cold due to the winter chill in the house but I wasn’t cold at all.
The phone rang.
“Hey man,” I said. My phone had seven voicemails on it.
“Hey, hey, hey,” said Brandon. “I called earlier to see if you wanted to hit up lunch with a bunch of us but you didn’t answer.”
“Yeah, I’m just waking up,” I said.
“What? Seriously?” he said. “It is like 6 pm.”
“I know. I’m dying over here. I think I was tired from this week at work or something. Are you as hungover as I am?”
“I’m good,” he said. “We ate at Fatty’s for lunch and it got me through rest of the work day.”
“Nice. I’m starving.”
“So what happened with that blonde?”
“I honestly don’t remember. I woke up at home. Help me out here.”
“I don’t know. You didn’t introduce us. She was pretty hot. I thought you took her home.”
“She might have came home with me, I don’t know,” I said, “Were we drinking tequila or something? My memory’s completely blank.”
“Yeah, tequila made a showing. So did some Jameson’s and a little Southern Comfort and lime.”
“Jesus. I’m getting too old for this.” I said. “Let me pull myself together and I’ll call you later.”
“All right, later.”
I put my phone down on the desk and looked at it curiously. There were two voicemails from Megan, four from my work and one from Andrew. I didn’t listen to them because the dog hadn’t been out since the night before and she was whining at the door. I put on a hooded-sweatshirt, a coat and some jeans and took Diablo (my dog, not Satan) outside for a walk.
While adjusting my coat I saw a hair tie on the floor. I picked it up and set it on the kitchen counter. I didn’t bother trying to think about the events that transpired the night before because of my headache.
I was putting the leash on the dog while I opened the door to my house. Diablo saw her chance and made a run for it. For the first time I was able to catch up to her and grab her collar before she got to the end of the yard. I was quickly distracted by the fact that the door to my house was open and I still needed to leash her up. I couldn’t keep my thoughts straight. Sensory overload made me feel like I was going out of my mind, but I chalked it up to a super-charged hangover.
I didn’t think about it at the time, but I wouldn’t ever see the sun again.
We got to the park and I let Diablo off her leash. She liked for me to chase her but for the first time, I caught her. I got right behind her and pulled on her tail a bit, which made her run even faster. We were in full out sprint mode and I knew I could overtake her, but we were running out of park to run through. I didn’t even get winded.
I slowed down because I noticed a lady on the far side of the park watching us. I looked behind us and there were fallen leaves floating in the air like in a cartoon. I put my hands on my knees and acted like I was sucking wind for a little bit. There was no reason to show the world that I was a freak on my first day.
Even though I wasn’t sure how it happened, I now knew how Peter Parker felt the first time he realized that he was Spiderman.
As we walked away from the lady who saw us running, a young brunette had cut across the park and was heading towards us. Instead of feeling lust, I wanted to drink her blood. We passed within a few feet of each other and I smelled her perfume. I hea
rd her strained breath from walking fast. I learned later that when people breathe like that it’s because of asthma. My fangs came out for the first time. They didn’t pop out like they would later; I felt them growing as she got closer. I didn’t notice until they were crowding my mouth. Without thinking, I turned and started to reach for her. I wasn’t thinking about the consequences. It was pure instinct. I was hungry. My hand was a few inches from her neck when I pulled it back. Her crimson scarf blew in the breeze and she reached up and patted her hair down. When she turned and looked at us, we were walking away, minding our own business. She had no idea that she passed within inches of becoming my first meal.
At that moment I realized was a vampire.
I didn’t snatch up the young lady in the scarf but I was still hungry. After I took Diablo home, I went back into the night. I tried not to think about it at the time, but I was going out to find blood.
It wasn’t the usual hunger pangs. I could feel it in my whole body, all the way down to my fingertips. My skin felt tight and dry. The old me thought my new craving for blood was disgusting but it was all I could think about. I was a junkie looking for a blood fix.
Walking east towards the Congressional Cemetery, I didn’t have a specific destination in mind but I wanted to head away from the Capitol and all of the extra police and cameras. The cemetery is next to the DC jail and a couple of housing projects, so there were plenty of people to choose from and almost all of them avoided contact with the authorities. I didn’t have a plan but I knew that whatever happened, I didn’t want anyone watching.
I was walking on E Street between 13th and 14th when I saw a girl walking the same direction as me.
She had a long ponytail and was wearing a fluffy pink coat and jeans. She was in that ambiguous age where I couldn’t tell if she was 12 or 16. I followed her across Kentucky Avenue. On some level I was aware of how creepy and strange I was acting, stalking this girl, but that didn’t matter because my hunger was stronger than all of my other emotions combined.
Now I recognize the feeling as needing to feed but at the time I hadn’t felt like a starving animal before. When I’m that hungry I’m on the verge spiraling out of control.
I closed the distance between us. My patience was wearing thin and my hunger had taken over. There was a gap between row houses where dump trucks could fit between the houses to unload the trash bins in the back. Most people in DC don’t want to put their trash on the curb like some commoner. The general sentiment was out of sight, out of mind.
My timing was horrible. I wanted to take her into the alley smoothly but my hunger had taken away my ability to think clearly. As I was crossing the street I didn’t see the curb and I stumbled at the unexpected drop off. I staggered a few steps as my forward momentum gained speed, and took over causing me to fall on my face.
The girl hadn’t been aware of me until I said, “Oh shit.” Then she looked at me. Instead of dusting myself off and trying to play it cool, I got up and made eye contact.
The look in her eyes told me that she knew I had bad intentions. She didn’t know that I was going to drink her blood, but her natural flight instinct kicked in.
The stalking part of my hunt was over, I ran straight for her. She didn’t stand a chance. I leaped over a parked car and landed a few feet behind her. She started to scream but I grabbed her throat and all that came out was an “awwkkkk” sound. She tried to fight me off but she was too weak.
I grabbed the hood of her jacket. With my other hand still around her neck I dragged her into the alley. I felt her panicky heartbeat radiating off of her whole body. I was so hungry that I didn’t bother taking her deep into the shadows. Anyone who was walking or driving by would have seen me. I tilted her head to the side and sunk my fangs into her carotid artery. Her blood gushed into my mouth.
At that moment I thought about when my father taught me how to ride a bike. We were standing at the top of this huge, grassy hill when he put a motorcycle helmet on my head. I remember being scared until my dad looked at me and said, “Just hang on tight son and everything should work out fine.” He must have saw fear in my eyes because he let out his laugh that was like a sonic boom from the bottom of his belly. Then he gave me a little shove without warning me. Somehow after barreling down the hill I was able to ride without training wheels. It was the biggest thrill of my life at the time and changed my life permanently.
The first taste of her warm blood was fantastic. It had a hint of cinnamon.
She went limp. I kept drinking until she was dead. When I was done I let her fall to the ground with a thump. All of a sudden it hit me what had happened and I felt sick. I retched once and threw up most of the into a storm drain.
I couldn’t believe what I had done. I had killed an innocent person for my own needs. I knew that I would have felt differently about killing her if she was dying or if she had been a criminal, but this was out of hunger and nothing else.
In the future I would have to be a more discriminating and not so careless. I didn’t want to end up in jail or dead or both.
Distraught, I wandered aimlessly. I had a hard time coming to terms with being a monster. Cheating on girlfriends (twice) or stealing things (more than twice) didn’t even come close to the amount immorality that I had committed. I wasn’t violent by nature. I hadn’t even been in a fight before. I couldn’t help but wonder what my friends and family would think.
Time flew by while I was lost in my thoughts. I looked at my watch and realized that I had no idea when the sun was supposed to come up. The sky was getting lighter so I knew that I didn’t have time to make it home. I was down by the baseball stadium that was at least a couple miles away. I started jogging, looking around frantically. I felt the temperature start to rise. I crossed under I-395 and looked at the spaces under the overpass but there wasn’t anywhere to hide. The last thing I wanted (other than cooking in the sun) was to be found and considered dead. I might wake up while some coroner was removing my guts to weigh them or whatever it is that they do. I found a full dumpster next to a school and jumped in.
My super sense of smell really worked against me but I didn’t have another choice. I pulled a bunch of bags on top of me and wiggled my way to the bottom, so in case someone looked into the dumpster they wouldn’t see me.
I woke up some time after the sun had set and had the distinct feeling that the dumpster was moving. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw streetlights passing overhead.
While I was able to recognize what was going on, I wasn’t used to how vampires sleep. It’s like a light switch was flipped and I was asleep. The same applied to waking up. At one moment I was asleep and then boom, I was awake. Vamps don’t get drowsy. I think I had dreams but I couldn’t recall them the next day like I could before I had turned. The only common thread in all of my dreams was that everything moved fast while my feet were stuck in concrete. People moved around me, taunting me in a language that I couldn’t understand, but from their posture I knew that they intended to hurt me.
Then I had an epiphany; I realized that I was in the back of a nasty smelling dump truck. I looked down and my left hand was black and shriveled like a raisin due to exposure to the sun. Even though I had no proof, I knew that was the case. I had survived the day and needed to get out of this truck so I could figure out where I was.
I stood on top of the bags but they kept shifting with the bounces and turns of the truck so I couldn’t see over the sidewall. Some time passed and finally the garbage truck came to a stop. I had no idea where I was, but I wasn’t going to find out by hanging out in the back of a dump truck. I leapt out of the back and landed on the hood of a big, mint green Mercedes.
Once I was out of the dump truck I still didn’t know where I was. The driver slammed on his brakes and started to get out. The lady he was with stared at me in shock. I couldn’t blame her. Before he could get all the way out of the car I yelled, “Sorry,” and ran the opposite direction. A street sign told me that I was on
Shadyside Lane. I didn’t know if I was in Maryland or Virginia, but it didn’t matter because there isn’t a difference in the Metro DC area. Besides, lost is lost.
The guy turned his car around and came after me, so I cut between some houses and came out the next block over, on a street called Lazy Lane. I jumped a few fences and ran a few blocks. I wasn’t doing much about finding my way back home but at least I had lost the Mercedes with my two size 12 footprints on the hood.
I started walking up the street. The lower-class residential neighborhood was full of two-story row houses and only every other house decided to take care of their lawn. Fortunately the area is full of commuters, which meant that there were lots of signs to lead them to the nearest interstate.
Eventually I ran into Maryland Route 4 which turns into Pennsylvania Avenue. The same Pennsylvania Avenue that the President of the United States lives on. I finally knew where I was and had a road that I could follow into the city.
During the ruckus of getting chased, my formerly charred hand had healed a little. It was red and there was some blood flowing in it. It looked more like a craisin instead of a raisin and I considered it an improvement.
It took me over an hour to jog home. I didn’t sweat but I was mentally exhausted. Getting chased stressed me out more than I had thought it would.
Afterwards, I set my phone alarm to play “Hear Comes the Sun” by the Beatles. I found a phone application that would have my alarm go off one hour before the sunrise so that I wouldn’t have to climb into another dumpster.
Chapter 4
My first week as a vampire was a blur, only punctuated by a voicemail from my boss.
“Hey, we haven’t heard from you in a week, so per our HR policy we are going to have to let you go. A few employees have seen you wandering about so I guess you aren’t sick. You know I don’t want to do this, but we have to. We can’t have employees not showing up. We will mail you your last paycheck stub.”
After Sunset Page 2