So You Might Be a Vampire

by Rodney V. Smith

  “Yeah the 'Friends of Vlad' meeting? I assume its code for Vampires Anonymous or something like that?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “So here I am. When is everybody else getting here?”

  “You know, I'm still trying to figure that out. I don't think they've heard of it yet, but they'll come around eventually.”

  There was a bit of an uncomfortable silence.

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Oh, I'm Frankie.”

  “Want a name tag?”

  “I don't think I'll need it. There's only the two of us.”

  “I'm really bad with names.”

  “Whatever dude.” Something caught his eye and he headed off to my book pile. “Is that ‘The Survivors’? I've heard it's a bitching good read.”

  “It's pretty cool. Give it the paragraph test and you'll see for yourself.”

  “What exactly is the paragraph test?”

  The paragraph test is basically this: take a book you've never read before and open it completely randomly. Pick out the first paragraph you see and begin to read. In the middle of the book is usually the best place, because by that time the author already has a firm grasp on the story and is really into the flow of things, so you can tell a lot just based on that paragraph. You can tell if you enjoy the use of language and a little of the plot, and more importantly, if you're still reading three pages later then you've got one hell of a book on your hands.

  Judging by Frankie's reaction to ‘The Survivors’, he had one hell of a book on his hands. I left him to it and got lost in the book I was currently reading.

  So there we were, our first little Vampires Anonymous meeting, and it looked more like a book club than anything else.

  “I gotta ask you a question,” Frankie said at one point and I paused, knowing what was coming.

  “Sure. Hit me with it.”

  “Does she know about your addiction? Your friend downstairs.”

  “I haven't told her, so no, I don't think so.”

  “Cool. Just checking.”

  ***

  When Frankie came back the next week, we nodded to each other and settled into our respective books. Every now and again we'd laugh out loud at something we read and then perhaps share the joke, but by the end of the night, we were friends. Cautious friends, but friends just the same.

  We even went out to one of my old haunts afterward.

  There were a bunch of my friends there, and they were a little surprised to see me since I had all but fallen off the planet in the past few months. It wasn't like I had been trying to lose touch, but between working at the porn store and trying to first understand, then be rejected by vampire society, it wasn't that hard to do. Besides, I had my habit to feed, and I didn't like doing it where I knew people, so I had mostly been hitting the dive bars on the other side of town. Much easier to be bad where your friends weren't watching and posting stupid pictures on their Facebook walls.

  Craig and Danny even bought me a drink.

  “Dude, what's with the sunglasses?”

  “My future's bright man. You like 'em?”

  “They'd look cooler on Bono. You ain't no Bono.” This was Craig. He really wasn't a friend of mine anyway, more a friend of Danny's, and they seemed to come as a package deal.

  “Fuck you too buddy-boy.”

  “I thought he was already fucking you.” Craig jerked a finger at Frankie. Danny sprayed laughter and whisky.

  Things went downhill quickly after that.

  There's a thing about friends of friends. They always seem to think that their friendship is more valuable to your friend, and as a result, they always seem to be competing to be the better friend, even if it comes down to fighting you. Especially if they don't like you too much, and the only reason you tolerate each other is because of said mutual friend. If you two are ever left alone, it's only a matter of time before a fight breaks out. Since I had been missing for months now, Craig assumed that my friendship with Danny was no longer an issue, and all alliances were off. I was now fair game and Danny of course would automatically be on Craig's side in any altercation.

  A bit of perverse logic, I know, but true nonetheless.

  Now of course things might have been just a little different if I hadn’t all a sudden, because of my “condition”, developed actual reflexes.

  In my defense though, Craig threw the first punch.

  It was one of those careless sucker punches that kids throw in Junior High, the kind of punch that the geeks since the dawn of time never seem to be able to duck, even though anyone can see it coming from miles away. Since I myself have thrown those kinds of punches, I knew it was coming, so I knew I could duck it, and I knew that I could get my own blow in.

  I just didn't anticipate how fast I moved and how hard I kicked.

  I should have remembered my earlier altercation with Julio.

  I should have remembered that the last person I had fought had also been a vampire.

  But what I really should have done was kick a hell of a lot softer.

  Craig was curled up on the floor, hands cradling his testicles and I could smell blood on the air. That was when I knew I had done some serious damage and my stomach dropped. The humor quickly left the situation and I could only stare, aware only that Frankie was pulling me away, and trying to tell me something.

  It was the look of betrayal on Danny's face that sold it to me though. The betrayal and the horror in his face that clearly said I had gone way over the line. And all I could think was “What? I didn't even kick him that hard. Did I?”

  Frankie hailed a cab and we got out of there.

  “I don't think you should go back there dude.”

  I didn't know what to say, so I didn't. Say anything, that is.

  I dropped Frankie off at his place and went to get a fix.

  ***

  It wasn't until the fifth Thursday that we started talking about our experiences. By that time we'd had a third guy join us. He was a bit of a mousy looking dude and had found us on Craigslist, and we weren't quite sure if he even was really a vampire but he had the eyes and enjoyed the books as much as we did, so we let him stay.

  “The thing I really don't understand is the whole stake through the heart thing,” Frankie was looking for a new book and seemed more restless than usual.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well doesn't that work on ordinary people too? They say that it's the sure fire way to kill a vampire: just drive a wooden stake through his heart, but dude, you do that to anybody and they're definitely going to stop living.”

  “I personally blame the movies myself. They just start making all of this shit up that doesn't make sense at all. Like the whole mirror thing.”

  “Actually, I was kinda looking forward to the mirror thing. That was a bit of a disappointment.”

  “Did you try to fly? I know you did, cuz I sure as hell tried.”

  “Yeah.” Frankie blushed. “I broke both my legs.”

  We cracked up for a bit both of us, then Benjamin, the new guy chimed in.

  “I tried to turn into bats first, then when that failed, I jumped off of a building downtown. I fell into a dumpster and impaled my leg on a bed frame that some inconsiderate jerk had thrown in there. I mean a bed frame! You're not supposed to throw that kind of trash into dumpsters and there I was, impaled on it. It took me hours to get off of it and then I had to sleep for two days before I was able to walk again.” He looked at us with pain in his eyes. “That's the one thing that nobody tells us. They don't tell you how much it hurts. Sure you heal eventually, but while it's doing that, it hurts... so... bad.

  “Why doesn't anybody warn us?”

  “Did you mean turn into bats, like multiple little bats, or just one big bat? Cuz I wasn’t clear on that.” Frankie shrugged at my expression.

  Benjamin looked a little embarrassed. “I meant bats. You see it in the movies all the time. Vampire turns into a big cloud of
little bats. Bats.”

  “Pretty fucking stupid now you think of it, yeah?” Frankie said, and Benjamin gave him the finger.

  We were silent for a long moment then, each of us wrapped up in our own memories. Benjamin was staring solemnly at the floor. It was a long time before anyone spoke again.

  “She never got a chance to tell me anything you know. I barely knew what was going on at the time, I was so fucked up, and by the time I had a clue, she was already gone. No clues, no warning… nothing really except a whole lot of confusion. Sometimes I wonder if I'd had some kind of warning, maybe, just maybe I would have stood a chance...”

  I hadn't even meant to say that much, but there I was in the middle of the room that was our refuge from our own reality, and the words came tumbling out, surprising me as much as anyone else.

  And in that moment we all knew that everything had changed.

  Vampires Anonymous had finally gotten off to start.

  ***

  I still made an effort to see my other friends from time to time, but word about Craig was spreading through some arcane method known only as “blogging” and of course really long and insulting Facebook posts. I fucking hate reading the comments section, especially when they were talking about me. Of course it was a completely fabricated version of what had actually happened, but it was out there on the internet, so it had to be true, right?

  While turning into a vampire didn't turn me into a leper or a complete asshole, the altercation with Craig had pretty much the same effect. All turning into a vampire had done was change my diet in huge ways, got me addicted to the smell and taste of blood, much like a junkie with heroin, and I could no longer see the sun.

  For a while, I kept expecting the cops to show up at my job or to wake my up during the day at my apartment. Sammy could see I was getting jumpy, especially since I was hyper-vigilant for a few days, reacting to every customer that entered, and then in one case, actually hiding under the counter from a cop who just wanted to buy some specialty condoms.

  “You're freaking me out dude. Quit it.”

  After a while, when I wasn't arrested, I began to relax.

  Funny enough, I never thought I'd miss seeing the sun. I'd always been a bit of a night owl, so the whole vampire thing didn't change that. It did limit my career options but the whole job situation had kind of gone to shit in the past three years since I'd gotten laid off from my programming job, so I don't think it had that much of an effect. You can only kid yourself for so long when you work the midnight shift at the corner porn shop.

  I only had three real friends anyway so it didn't matter so much. Danny was now a complete bust. Marc had moved to the opposite ends of the country a few years ago, so it wasn't like they were there to hang around with anymore anyway. Most of everyone else I knew was just an acquaintance. Except for Jaime, but she's in a class all of her own.

  And then of course, there was Claude.

  ***

  Claude was waiting for me at the diner when I got out of the meeting. He'd called me earlier in the day when I was pottering around the apartment, trying to make myself sleepy. I'd considered turning on the television, but daytime television sucks. It's gotta be one of the biggest drawbacks of being a vampire, and it's being cursed with daytime television. What? You think we go to sleep at sunrise and then sleep all day. Do you know how much sleep that is? As it is, ordinary people don't even go to sleep until it's well after dark and the same thing applies for us... just in reverse.

  And don't even talk to me about insomnia.

  So I was on the couch trolling through the channels, doing my damnedest to not get sucked into watching any of the stupid courtroom shows. And then the phone rings. I like caller ID. I can avoid anyone I really don't need to talk to.

  “When are you going to get me a Tivo.”

  “I'll steal you one for your birthday, how's that?”

  “Just make sure it's a good one. Can I like put in an order or something?”

  “Only if you're really patient. Takes time to find the right merchandise.”

  I'd known Claude for over 15 years and he was a crook. Okay that's not the right description of him and not fair at all. He himself could tell you the exact details, but he took it very personally when you called him a crook. He may have been habitually stealing all manner of items that had no immediate owners, but he was one of the most honest people I knew. He never stole from, or cheated anyone he knew and seriously considered himself to be doing society a favor by removing and recycling unclaimed merchandise. If said merchandise happened to be locked away in your house while you were gone for vacation, then maybe you should have invested in a better security system. By the time the next burglar came around, someone who didn't mind hurting people, then you would have learned your lesson about how not to be a victim, and actually installed a much improved security system, which in turn would avoid you being murdered in your bed by said unscrupulous character who was intent on stealing your television. All thanks to Claude.

  It was a public service. Really.

  “Glad to see the police haven't caught up with you yet.”

  “It's called planning. Listen, you wanna meet up for coffee later on? Gotta make sure you’re not turning into a hermit or some weird shit.”

  “I'm off work around three in the morning dude.”

  “Perfect. I'll see you at the diner at three.”

  “Okay. Cool.”

  “You tell your mom you're a vampire yet?”

  “Nah, she'd kill me if she ever found out.”

  ***

  Here's another thing nobody ever tells you: you can't cut off connections to your old life, and most of all, you really want to tell someone what’s happened to you. It's this huge fucking secret you're carrying around with you all the time and it's such a lonely existence that you actually begin to need to tell someone. Especially if it helps you to reconcile with yourself that you are in fact actually a vampire.

  ***

  “Hi my name is Bob, and I'm a vampire.”

  There was silence in the room and then coughed and grinned. He had joined us last week, dropping in late to the group with a "this is the thing right? Friends of Vlad?” Until three weeks ago, he had been a recovering alcoholic. He took to our group like a fly to shit. He had been way into Alcoholics Anonymous and was anxious to introduce us to their methods. If it worked for drunks, then we might as well give it a shot, right? His words.

  “Do we really need to begin with that? It seems so... wrong to begin like that.” I wasn’t comfortable with it to be honest. The whole Alcoholic Anonymous association gives me the creeps, especially considering how solidly based in the Christian religion it is. All of the tenets tended to push you towards accepting a higher power and not taking responsibility for your own actions, and if there was one thing we vampires needed, it was to damn well know what we were doing and why. I could see a horrible slippery slope ahead of us if we kept on going this route.

  “What's so wrong with it?” Murray asked, and he seemed genuinely perturbed. Something was bothering me about him, and I wished I could see behind his sunglasses.

  I spoke carefully, trying to get to the root of my discomfort.

  “Well, first of all, we're not trying to stop being vampires. We're just trying to come to terms with it and the difficulties implicit in being a vampire. Help each other out, right?”

  “That's why stating it is so important. We have to say it so that we know what we are, and we accept what we are so that we can at least live with ourselves.”

  “Seriously? We all know exactly what we are.” Frankie interjected now, and he looked perturbed. He didn’t seem to like Murray at all.

  “You know what, do what you want. This is a stupid conversation.” Murray pushed back out of his seat, genuinely offended. “What the hell am I even doing here anyway?”

  “Because you're a vampire.”

  We'd been through this before, and I don't think Murray was quite getting it.
Denial, you know. Takes us in many different ways.

  Frankie chimed in for me.

  “And you're not a very good one either Murray, but then again, none of us really are. We're all here to unlearn what the movies and books and all of the stories have taught us.”

  “Can we just get on with the meeting?”

  They settled down then, our little group of vampires.

  There were four of us now, our chairs in a circle in the middle of the little room. Someone (Benjamin) had bumped into one of the hanging lights and broken it, so we now sat in the warm glow of the light from the corridor outside. We would occasionally hear Sammy yelling at one of the perverts downstairs, but other than that it was okay.

  It was our fourth official meeting, and I think we were glad to have someplace to go to where we all understood each other, and what we'd all been through, no matter how strange that had been. What a group we were, the four Vampires of the Apocalypse.

  “Right then: my name is Bob, and I'm a vampire. I've been a vampire for three months, six days and two hours.”

  Before Murray’s grand plan, meetings had usually begun with us bitching about the difficulties of being a vampire that nobody took into consideration. Eventually, we'd get to bitching about the other vampires. The older and much richer ones were locked into an old mindset of what it meant to be a vampire, and they were our main targets, especially since they had treated us like second-hand citizens. I don’t even want to get into the bitching about Harry since that got particularly vile as he was the most visible of the vampire elite. He was our personal interpretation of "the man," ready to knock us back into our place should we get any fancy ideas and break some of his stupid goddamn rules.

  The rules, those damned rules that they all had, that was our absolute favorite.

  “My name is Murray and I'm vampire. I've been a vampire for three weeks and two days.” He made as if to sit down and hesitated. “You guys are really supposed to say 'Hi Murray' after I'm done talking, you know.”

  Frankie rolled his eyes, but we all chorused: “Hi Murray.”

  Murray was already proving to be a bit of a pain on his first real night with us. He'd not come to vampirism easily and still clung to the old rituals of his former life because it was the only thing he still had. He had been seduced and turned while in the middle of a contested divorce. It was a stupid one-night stand, and he should have known better, but what can you do when a vampire decides you're going to be dinner?