So You Might Be a Vampire

by Rodney V. Smith

  Come to think of it, none of us really did have much of a choice.

  Murray tended to take that personally.

  “Tell us your story Murray.”

  “Well you guys know how it is. I got bit by this chick one night and she damn near drank all my blood. See?” He pointed to the band-aid on his neck. The rest of us exchanged glances, confused. Murray didn't notice.

  “So next thing I know I'm sleeping all day and not waking up till sundown and--” He had finally noticed the looks we were all giving each other. “What? What is it?”

  “Are you a fucking idiot? Or are you serious?” This from a very pissed off Benjamin.

  Frankie shot me a bewildered look and shrugged. He hadn't expected this either.

  Neither had Murray. He looked at Ben, completely bewildered.

  “What?”

  “Your bite never healed you FUCKING MORON!”

  That stunned us all into silence for a moment, Benjamin, who was normally so calm and composed, now sitting there trembling with anger, barely holding himself back.

  “KEEP IT DOWN UP THERE YOU GUYS!” Sammy yelled up the stairs, and she was pissed. “I HAVE FUCKING CUSTOMERS IN THE FUCKING STORE!”

  Benjamin got to his feet, looming over the flabbergasted Murray. Frankie got up as well, a little unsure of himself.

  “What else have you been doing?” Benjamin demanded from Murray a little more quietly.

  Sweat had broken out on Murray’s forehead now. I could smell the fear coming off him in waves.

  “Wh-what do you mean?”

  “You've been killing people haven't you?”

  He looked totally at a loss now. Trapped.

  “Aren't we supposed to?”

  And that was all I needed to know.

  Shit.

  We already knew what this moron had been doing, and it was one of those things that we were all so careful about, especially after having it very forcefully explained to you by Harry and the gentlemen. The instant you became a vampire, they made sure to find you and explain a few things to you, especially the thing about not killing people. Every vampire in this town gets a visit, even if no one knows who they are. Harry has his ways of finding them, and he’s very efficient about it.

  When you take blood, you do not have to kill. Simple fact. You just need enough for your fix and then you're good for a little while. Dumbass Murray had not been getting a fix. He had been feeding, actually feeding on blood like some bad movie vampire, and he had been killing people to do it.

  I was surprised the cops hadn't caught up to him yet. With forensics the way it is these days, you can't afford to go around killing arbitrarily. And if the cops don't catch up with you (and they will if you're in the system), then you'd soon be getting a visit from some very, very bad men.

  Plus just killing people was something that I didn’t even want to think about. It was just so inhuman, so wrong to want to do that so casually.

  “We should kill him.” Benjamin said, and he looked very serious about it. That one caught me off-guard and made me wonder what Benjamin did in his spare time when he wasn’t with us. It was not something I would have expected from him.

  Murray hadn’t expected it either; he just about wet his pants.

  “Kill me? But why? I'm just like you! I'm just like you!”

  “You're nothing like us,” I spat, and maybe I was feeling a little melodramatic, or maybe it was a holdover from the little drink I had had earlier. Whatever it was, it had the same effect.

  I took off my sunglasses and grinned.

  The other two guys did the same thing, something I hadn't counted on, their sunglasses all coming off, and it was clear that all of us were the same except for Murray. We all had the same freaky, pale blue vampire eyes.

  Benjamin took off Murray's sunglasses as he sat there, scared shitless, and as soon as we could see his light green eyes, we could really see Murray for what he was: a monster in a wolf-suit.

  “We should kill him.” Benjamin again. So much for casual killing I guess.

  “Nobody is killing anybody. Not here. That's not what this group is about.” Once again, my mouth spouting off before I realize what I'm saying. I must admit, I was right though. You just can't go around killing people, morons or not. Well, at least I can't…

  Frankie was busy dialing on his phone as Ben and I argued it out.

  “He's killing people Bob. We can't just let him keep on doing that?”

  “Maybe we just call the cops on him then, but I'm not killing him. I've never killed anyone, and I don't intend to start now.”

  This last was a lie, but that was my own secret and my own guilt to carry. I wasn't about to add to it.

  “I'll kill him,” Benjamin said. “We can't just let him go.”

  “Nobody is killing me!”

  “Shut up meat-bag.” Benjamin yelled, and he scared even me. Damn dude.

  “He's right,” Frankie said. “Nobody is killing anybody. I called Harry just now.” He looked directly at Murray, knowing that he wouldn’t get the import of the next statement, knowing that he wouldn’t know how fucked he was. “The Gentlemen are on their way.”

  We left soon after that, leaving a very scared looking Murray looking forlornly at the front of the store. It was one of those occasions where it should have been raining, it was so sad, but it wasn't.

  “Poor bastard. Doesn't know what's coming.” Benjamin flicked his cigarette and began to cross the street, leaving me and Frankie alone.

  “Be careful out there Ben. Lots of psychos lurking in the shadows.”

  “I know. They won't even know what hit them.”

  I looked at Frankie thoughtfully. “Why do you have Harry’s number? His direct number?”

  Frankie blushed, and I wondered if he was going to lie to me. I could smell it coming since I’m an expert liar myself.

  “It’s complicated Bob.”

  “It’s always complicated. That’s just how it is.”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Are you spying on us for Harry?”

  “Is that what you really think?”

  “You’re evading. Answer the fucking question.”

  “No! No, I’m not a fucking spy! But he did have me up to his office last week, and he had a hell of a lot to say about you. None of it good.”

  I felt strangely proud about that. “Damn straight none of it good. So is he asking you to rat on me? Tell me he’s at least paying you well.”

  “You’d want me to get paid to rat on you.” Frankie looked at me like I was an idiot and I grinned.

  “Why not? You’d just be the one buying the drinks from now on is all. So how much is he paying you? What does he want to know?”

  “Like I said Bob: it’s complicated. And sorry, but he wanted to know about the vampire who made me. He just thought it was hilarious that you were out forming this group. Sorry man.”

  That left me feeling all deflated, ego popped. Fucker.

  “You’re still buying the drinks though, right?”

  ***

  I made my way to the diner, thinking back on my first encounter with the people I shall now refer to as “the Gentlemen”. It's just a name of course, since they are in no way gentle, or even men anymore. The Gentlemen aren't known for their tact, just for the fact that they are implacable and completely without emotion, and may have, in fact, been from the pits of Hell itself.

  They were the ones that you saw once in your lifetime, and that was it. If they ever visited you again, you wouldn't ever see them. And no one would ever see you again.

  Just like Murray.

  What an idiot.

  ***

  When they come for you, you are almost always asleep.

  Wakefulness comes slowly, the pain in my joints a reminder of the awkward position in which I had somehow managed to fall asleep. I am still on the couch, and I can feel the tingling sensation of my nerves waking up and screaming at me, from the formerly numb side of my bod
y. I had fallen asleep in front of the television again, some long ago battle being fought and discussed on the History Channel fueling my hazy and horribly detailed dreams. So I guess the first thing that I notice is that the television has been turned off.

  It is entirely the wrong order of priority for me, because the very first thing that I should be in fact noticing is that there are three extremely scary looking men in the apartment with me.

  One of them is currently making tea.

  The small one, the one I will later come to know as Mr Flynn, he is simply scaring the shit out of me.

  I know that if I attempt to move without his permission, I'm probably a dead man. In fact, I'm already dead but for the grace of Mr Flynn. I don't know how I know, but the fact is that I do, and that is enough for me.

  “This is most unfortunate that our presence be required here.” Mr Flynn's voice is refined and extremely British. It speaks volumes of his years of experience and wealth, more so than his very expensive suit.

  “You Mister Diego are an accident. Not meant to be.”

  He paused now as his second henchman returned with a cup of tea. It is a delicate china cup, with an equally delicate saucer, and the only reason I notice this is because I do not, or have not ever owned a delicate china anything.

  “My employer does not like, or tolerate accidents.”

  He sips, his little finger held out ever so delicately.

  “It is in your best interests that from this point forward, you will act deliberately, and you will be extremely careful in your actions. Every single action. You are a vampire now, accident or not, and you will not bring dishonor onto our old and esteemed house.”

  He smiles at me now, and I can see his fangs, long and sharp.

  “Do we have a compact Mr Diego?”

  He nods.

  “You may speak now.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Now that wasn't so unpleasant as it could have been, now was it?”

  He smiles and sips at his tea. I watch numbly as he takes his time to finish the cup, smiling as if we were at a dinner party instead of my crummy old apartment. And every moment he is there, I pray for my life.

  When he stands, it is crisp and deliberate. He hands his teacup to one of his associates and in one fluid motion, produces a business card from his coat. He holds it out to me and barely concealing my fear, I reach for it.

  “Your presence will be required at nine tomorrow night. Do try not to be late. My employer dislikes tardiness in any form, and if you are late, one of the gentlemen here will have to have a word with you about it.

  “Should you let fear take hold of you, and decide to absent yourself, you can be rest assured that I will be the one who will be having a few words with you.”

  One of the gorillas grins now, exposing a mouthful of sharpened gold teeth. He watches me as Mr Flynn exits; he leans over me, his breath foul.

  “Be late. We'll have fun, I promise.”

  And then he too is gone.

  ***

  I made a point that I should probably tell Claude about the Gentlemen at some point, but here's the thing about Claude and me: we never actually manage to talk about anything serious. We may have had a total of five serious conversations, but that wasn't what the friendship was about. It was that we could talk about absolutely nothing, and it was cool, because it didn't matter how bad things were. For a while, we could forget about the rest of the world. I could forget about my particular problems and just pretend for a while that I was normal.

  “Pancakes,” he said as I slid into the booth opposite him.

  “Why pancakes?”

  “Pancakes. They've got to be the perfect food. Well, not completely perfect since they don't provide any actual nutritional value, but if you take it in combination with something else, scrambled eggs with ketchup, or bacon-“

  “Gotta have the bacon.”

  “Exactly. You take it in combination with all of that, and you've got your salty and your sweet all right there on your plate, and it doesn't even trigger your taste buds too much.”

  “Have you ordered yet?”

  “No I was waiting for you.”

  “Really?”

  “Nah. I got hungry, so I ordered some bacon. Love the bacon.”

  “Then I'm glad I'm not Jewish or anything.” That made me think of something. “If I was Jewish, would that mean I couldn't take blood from people who eat bacon? And how would I tell? Do I go up to some chick I'm about to bite and ask her if she's Kosher?”

  “Does biting hurt?”

  “What? Yeah, of course, it does. You got some fangs in your neck, it's gonna hurt some.”

  “You know Kosher doesn't just mean no pork.... For example, for beef to be kosher it means the cow was killed without feeling any pain, and then the body is checked thoroughly to make sure it had no diseases. So if the bite hurts or the person is sick, then biting anyone at all is not Kosher.”

  “Then I'm glad I'm not Jewish. How do you know all this anyway? You dating some Jewish chick something?”

  “Nah. 'Hogan Knows Best' was on this weekend, and he was throwing a party where some Jewish people were going to be at, so he had to learn about Kosher, so by extension I had to learn about Kosher.”

  “You're a fucking sponge for the oddest little factoids. You hear me over there? You're a sponge.”

  “And you suck. Literally.” He grinned. “Pun definitely intended.”

  “Har-de-fricking-har.”

  It was one of our more intellectual conversations. There were times when we could go on for hours at end, but that was when some form of alcohol was involved. Time between getting turned into a vampire, and me telling Claude? About three days, but that was only because I was so sick during the first two days.

  “Have your teeth grown in yet?”

  “No. See?”

  My family was cursed with extremely short incisors. Seriously. They're about as short as the rest of the teeth in my mouth, not long like you see on some people, and I'd thought that one of the benefits of being a vampire, was that I would finally get some decently sized incisors. Nope. That was one battle where genetics won out over vampirism. My teeth had remained obstinately short, and I was forced to carry a little knife with me. I consoled myself in the fact that it was probably more efficient and definitely more hygienic.

  “I thought you said all of the other vampires have like these massive fangs?”

  “Not all of them. Just a lot of them. At least their teeth come to points, and they look the part, if you know what you're looking for. Personally I blame my dad.”

  “What does your dad have to do with this? He's not a vampire too is he?”

  “Damn genetics. Is there a waitress around? I'm starving. And whatever smartass comment you're going to make, you can save it.”

  “It was a good one though.”

  “Uh huh.”

  I can't say this enough: breakfast food has been my salvation. It was probably the one thing that had shattered my perceptions of what it meant to be a vampire. Someday I'm going to make a list of every single thing that the movies and stories have lied to us about. Okay, maybe not lied, maybe they just got it wrong, but somehow I think that the guy who was making up all of these stories had himself been a vampire. It seemed very much like something a vampire would do.

  We tend to be cocky like that.

  You know what? I'm going to make that list up right now, and then maybe you'll understand where I'm coming from.

  Number one on the list?

  ***

  1. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE BITTEN TO BECOME A VAMPIRE

  Remember I had been trying to tell you about Gloria and the fabulous one-night stand in the back of my car. I know, I know, it's been a while, but it occurs to me that I never finished that point. The point is simple: She bit me. Hard. Left a mark, right there on my neck. If you squint just right in a certain light, you can almost see it, but that wasn't the important part you see.

  No, t
he most important part was that she wasn't a vampire. Just a freaky girl and one hell of a fuck. When her friend started to bang on the car window, that little adventure was over. So I gave her my cell phone number, told her I'd call her, and got the hell out of there, the friend giving me nasty looks all the way.

  My neck stung a little, but that didn't bother me as much as suddenly realizing that Gloria had never bought me that replacement drink, and I was still broke and definitely a long way from being drunk.

  My friends were out on the front deck of the bar, and for a moment I considered trying to get one of them to buy me at least a beer, but that would just get me depressed since I probably already owed each of them varying amounts of money. Damn, it sucked being broke.

  So there I was, standing in the middle of the bar, one hand on my bloody neck, and probably still smelled of sex. The last thing I expected was for some chick to be whispering in my ear.

  “Why's there blood on your neck?”

  That voice perked my mood up immediately. You may wonder why, and I'm going to tell you. It belonged to the one person among my bar friends, who I did not owe money to. You could not imagine the grin on my face when I turned around with a big hug for-

  “Louise! Where the heck have you been?”

  “Dude, you're seriously bleeding all over the place here. You have got to get a bandage on that.”

  “It's nothing, really-“

  “Is that from a person?”

  “Well-“

  “Jesus Bob, you have to get a tetanus shot or something. You don't mess around with bites like that.”

  “Serious?”

  “Yes seriously! Come on man, we have to get you to a doctor or something.”

  “Does this mean you won't buy me a drink?”

  She dragged me out of there, me faintly protesting all of the way, drowned out by Louise filling me in on facts that I didn't need to know at the time. She was taking me to a doctor friend of hers who happened to live just around the corner, and who'd patch me up and get me disinfected. No point waiting around the emergency room all night, right?