So You Might Be a Vampire

by Rodney V. Smith

  I took a deep breath to steady myself and began to talk.

  You know how in the movies how telling a story seems to take forever, and then hours will pass because the story is so long and involved? You know the reality of it. You know that unless it is some epic tale, that people just don't have that many words in them. It's different when you're telling the facts or even a story, than when you're writing it. When you write, it tends to take on a life of its own and you're able to think back and make clever statements and proper assessments. There is absolutely no relation to real life. In real life you don't embellish and describe everything. You simply tell your story and five minutes later, you're done.

  “When that guy answered her phone, I was sure that it was Louise I heard screaming. Then I called you.”

  Claude paused at this and pulled out his phone. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so serious before.

  “You sure you heard screaming,” he said and I nodded miserably. Claude continued. “Do you have any idea where she could be? I can call some people I know and they can get over there and get her out right now.”

  “They took her from the motel so I don’t think they went back to her house. I’ve been beating myself up thinking about it and I have no idea how to find her.”

  “Fuck dude.” Claude hung up his phone, disturbed, and more than a little pissed.

  “I’ve been trying to convince myself that Louise is a big girl, and has been around the block so she can take care of herself, right?”

  There was an uncomfortable silence but then the waitress returned with the coffee. Claude waited while I gleefully poured sugar into my cup. I could smell the coffee, rich and dark and promising to be a real treat. I could practically taste it. Four packets of sugar went in one by one.

  “Lemme see your eyes again?”

  “Oh come on dude. It's embarrassing and still freaking me out.”

  He just gave me a look and I took off the sunglasses and threw them onto the table. The coffee would have to wait for a second or two.

  “Wow man. That is seriously fucked up.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And it's because of the puking and the eyes that you think Louise wasn't messing around? That you actually are a vampire.”

  “Well yeah... I mean, this doesn't happen. You don't ever hear of any disease or anything that causes people's eyes to completely change color and if there was some kind of pill for it, you'd be seeing ads for it all over the place instead of Cialis.”

  “Side effects might include nausea, diarrhea, death, bloodlust and an aversion to crosses.”

  “Get your Vampiralis today. Yeah, that would sell real fast.”

  I took my coffee and inhaled the flavor, ready to drink. Claude pulled out a small velvet bag from his jacket and dumped it onto the table. I stared at what appeared to be collection of religious symbols. Claude now grabbed a crucifix and held it up.

  “Aha!”

  I was nonplussed. Didn't quite know how to react.

  “Nice crucifix?” I ventured and Claude deflated. He put the crucifix down on the table and now held up a Star of David. I shrugged, unimpressed. It looked expensive. Maybe he was trying to sell it to me or something, I dunno.

  “It's very nice, but I'm not Jewish you know.”

  “Dammit dude, you're ruining this for me.”

  “What am I ruining?”

  “Vampires are traditionally afraid of religious symbols. Well known fact. If you're any kind of vampire, you should be outta here by now, not just sitting there drinking your coffee.”

  “I'm not actually drinking it yet. It's hot so I'm blowing on it.”

  “Well don't you feel anything? Anything at all?”

  “I feel hungry. Does that count?”

  Claude held up a Yin and Yang. I shook my head. A Star and Crescent was next. Nothing.

  “What's that one?”

  “Hands of God from Slavic Neopaganism. You feel something?”

  My stomach grumbled noisily and I belched. “Nope. Just thought it looked cool.”

  “How about the Torii?”

  “What's that?”

  “Shinto.”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh screw this: I give up.”

  “Nice collection though. Very expensive looking.”

  “Should be. I had to borrow them from the museum.” He rolled his eyes at the look on my face. “It's not like they were using them anyway. Don't worry. I'm taking them back.”

  “Maybe it doesn't work like that anyway. You're an atheist. Hell we both are, so maybe the person with the symbol has to believe for it to work.”

  The food arrived and I dug in, finally feeding my protesting stomach. Claude watched for a moment and shook his head. I didn't quite like the look in his eyes. It usually meant that I was about to become a guinea pig, whether for the betterment of myself or just for fun. Claude usually claimed it was to help me out, but ever since Sara Jeffers had slapped me in ninth grade because of something Claude told me to say, I didn't quite believe him.

  Claude almost poured a whole bottle of Tabasco sauce over his eggs and I paused eating, watching him. I could really smell the pepper from where I was sitting. It tickled my nose and for a few seconds, a sneeze threatened.

  “Do you feel the urge to bite anybody?”

  “Well is this like the blood sucking kind of biting, or is this the biting someone because they're irritating you and not letting you eat your pancakes?”

  “I choose door number A.”

  I determined to ignore Claude for the moment. My food was really, really good and I was getting overwhelmed by the flavors. Oh the sweet, sweet flavors...

  “These pancakes are fucking delicious. Have you had your pancakes yet? Best fucking pancakes I've ever had.”

  “You're kidding right?” Claude poked at his own pancakes. “They taste more like sawdust than anything else.”

  “This guy, this cook here is a chef. He's a fucking chef, that's how good he is. Way too good for this place.”

  “Are you on crack? It's just ordinary diner food.”

  “I'm ignoring you dude. In fact, I'm going to just drink my coffee.”

  And I did.

  Flavor exploded onto my taste buds.

  Everything went white as a synapse fired and then fired again and again and again somewhere deep in my brain.

  It was all a fog to me, and somewhere I could hear someone screaming faintly but I was too busy, wrapped up in the fog.

  ***

  This is what happens to a vampire who is exposed to an overabundance of flavor: the brain literally shuts down from the overload. The taste buds on a vampire are apparently extremely sensitive, and while the most fragrant and delicious of foods will be doubly delicious, it is also too much for a vampire to handle. The taste sensation is more like an atom bomb, and every single receptor in the mouth is screaming, singing HOSANA at the top of their fucking lungs. And all I'd had was a mouthful of really strong coffee.

  It was the “Starbucks Effect” in full force.

  Reality came back, much like a brick to slap me in the face. One minute I was in a happy place with clouds. The next minute, I'm waking up in Claude's car, barreling down the freeway at horrendous speeds.

  A minor spasm hit my body then and I turned my head to look at my friend, my eyes not wanting to focus, having a tendency to wander just a little bit. I tried to focus but my eyelids didn't seem to want to cooperate.

  “Wha's happ'ing?” I managed to slur. Apparently my mouth was also taking a vacation. Upon further inspection, it seemed that the rest of my body was as equally unresponsive.

  “I'm taking you to the hospital man. You just had a fucking seizure back there. Some dude was saying that you might have had a stroke or something.” He looked worried now. “Your eyes and ears were bleeding dude. “

  Something popped in my ear then, and I was finally able to focus on Claude. There was a tingly feeling in my body as nerve receptors started to fir
e again. I somehow managed to reach up to massage my neck.

  “I feel like shit. Like I overdosed or something.”

  “How would you know?”

  Shit. That's right. That's the one thing that I'd never shared with Claude. It was probably more embarrassment than anything, and he probably suspected that I smoked a little weed from time to time, but he might have never guessed about the heroin. Hell, I would never have guessed about the heroin myself. It was one of the drugs that I had sworn never to take, along with any chemical drugs like LSD or Meth or even Acid. When it came to cocaine, I didn't even want to go there because they all felt so manufactured. With marijuana, I at least knew where I stood, and until my first taste of heroin, that had been my drug of choice.

  So, needless to say, I remained mute on that one and massaged my neck, letting the feeling return to my body. Claude drove on, shooting me a look of suspicion.

  “Maybe you should lie down dude. At least until we can get a doctor to look at you.”

  “I'm feeling better already. Really.” That was in response to the look he was giving me. “Maybe you should stop speeding.”

  “I'm still taking you to the hospital.”

  “Do we have to? Last doctor I saw sucked all of my blood out. I'd rather not go through that again.”

  Claude gave me another look, and I leaned back, giving in. He can get really fractious when he's pissed. “Fine, let's just avoid the ones with the intensely blue eyes, okay?”

  By the time we got to the hospital, I could move my entire left side again, and my right side was fully recovered. Claude nevertheless managed to commandeer a wheelchair, and having dumped me into it with more force than necessary, pushed me into the Emergency Room, while humming the tune to the “Facts of Life” under his breath.

  We spent the next three hours roaming the limits of the Emergency room, with me making the occasional bid for escape, but Claude wasn't letting me get away. He'd just chase after me and wheel me back into the ER.

  I have a theory that boredom was invented in Emergency Room waiting areas. I'm serious. It's got to be the most boring place on earth. Within the first ten minutes, I'd already gone through the magazines twice and had rescued a snoring man from falling over and crushing his cigarettes. This was in the hopes that I could point out that I’d saved his cigarettes and then he'd offer me one, but no, it was not to be. He just crossed his arms, snorted and kept on snoring away, this time leaning severely over to the other side of the chair. When he fell over rather loudly, ten minutes later, I was already in the middle of "Better Living Through Gardening" and was rather enjoying the engrossing article on potting soils. It even had pictures.

  Boredom I tell you. Boredom.

  “Claude?”

  “What is it Bob?”

  “I hate hospitals.”

  “Me too. They always feel like places to die to me.”

  “Yeah. I know what you mean... I'm not dying am I?”

  “Only if you have more coffee.”

  “This is seriously going to fuck with my diet.”

  “Maybe you'd feel better if you bit someone. Like her over there.”

  “Which one? The blonde?”

  “She's cute. At least I think she's cute.”

  “Well, her back is cute. Shapely... What are you doing?”

  “Well, Bob ol’ buddy, I’m using my mental powers and I'm willing her to turn around.”

  “I don't think it's working.”

  “Wait, she's turning...”

  “Fuck.”

  “What?”

  “She's a vampire.”

  ***

  Her name was Iva Mendelssohn and she happened to be my doctor. She gave me the once over as she entered the room, looking at my chart.

  “What seems to be the problem? Mr.--” She glanced at my chart. “Mr. Diego.”

  “I had a bad reaction from some coffee.”

  “You're obviously new.”

  “What gave it away?”

  “The fact that you're here in the hospital. Do yourself a favor Mr. Diego. Go home, stay indoors during the day and try to stay out of trouble while you figure out exactly what it is you've gotten yourself into.”

  I was a little taken aback by this. Somehow I'd expected my fellow vampires to be more welcoming. Dr. Mendelssohn just looked tired and overworked, pretty much like all of the other doctors out on the floor tonight. Sure she was the least tired looking one, but she was tired anyway.

  “What? No words of advice?”

  “I just gave you all the words you need.”

  “Oh.”

  She turned to leave and stopped at the door. “Oh and Mr. Diego?”

  “Yes?”

  “One teaspoon of coffee to three cups of water. It won’t kill you, and you can still get to enjoy it. My gift to you.”

  ***

  Claude drove me home in relative silence. I was thinking about Louise again so didn’t really feel like talking much. Claude and I had spent several hours just waiting in the emergency room. It was one of the longest times I'd seen my friend in years. Pity it was because I was freaking out about being a vampire.

  “So what now?”

  “I dunno. I was thinking about everything and I suddenly realized that I had never seen the sunrise. I'd always just fallen asleep waiting for it.”

  “It's overrated.”

  “But it is one way to find out for sure what I am. What I've become...”

  Claude nodded and shrugged.

  “We're going to need a fire extinguisher.”

  ***

  3. THE SUN IS BAD FOR VAMPIRES

  I had never once seen a sunrise in all of my twenty-seven years on the planet. I had talked about it from time to time, about going to see it, but that was usually to either get into some girl's pants or simply because I was drunk. Either way I would either be passed out or too busy by the time the sun was actually in the act of rising. From what I've heard it's supposed to be something pretty spectacular, a life-affirming experience that makes you glad to be alive, but I usually passed on it, mainly because I wasn't that into life-affirming things anyway.

  So it was ironic that it would be the experience of becoming what might be a vampire (and my encounter with the lovely Dr. Mendelssohn was a kick in the nuts type of affirmation) that spurred my first sunrise experience. I was hoping that it wouldn't be my last sunrise either, but I just had to know for sure. I had long passed the point where someone telling me would be enough. What I was going through was a life changing experience, as fucked up as it was, and I had to know the absolute truth of it.

  So I sat on the back porch of my apartment with Claude at the ready with his fire-extinguisher and a blanket, and watched as dawn slowly lit up the darkness. And I do mean slowly.

  Claude had gotten a six-pack of beer from the trunk of his car, where he apparently kept a few in a cooler for emergencies. I didn't ask him what else he kept back there, since he had also gotten the fire-extinguisher and the fire blanket from there as well. I was just glad for the beer, and for the first time in my life I actually enjoyed the weak taste of American beer. Now that's what you can call irony.

  “So irony is bad beer. That makes sense.”

  “Right now, I'm just glad that I can drink beer. I've been trying to make a list of any spicy foods that I'll have to avoid, and so far my options are diminishing really quickly.”

  “But that's only if you really are a vampire.”

  “I don't think there's any doubt about it. Not after the night I've had. The coffee thing is kinda freaking me out a little, even more than the eyes.”

  “Yeah, I was gonna mention something earlier but I kinda forgot.”

  “What is it? Did I grow horns or something?”

  “It's about your eyes.”

  “What about them?”

  “They kinda glow in the dark now.”

  “You're fucking with me, right? Tell me you're fucking with me.”

  “It's not that bad re
ally. It's actually kind of cool if you're into that sort of thing.”

  I was looking at myself in the glass of the porch door by this time, and I could kind of of see what he was talking about. If I tilted my head just so, my eyes caught the light and reflected it back, just like a cat's eyes.

  Whoa. Freaky.

  “I don't think I'll ever get used to that. Man.”

  “Have another beer.”

  I dug one out and opened it, inhaling the flavor of the beer I had previously hated, actually enjoying the smell of it now. I was getting a kick out of the smells. I noticed smells so much more now, everything an explosion of sensation that was practically colors in the air, waiting to be inhaled. The beer in my hand right then was incredible, a virtual powerhouse of waiting flavor, and I wondered what a good German beer would taste like. It would most likely give me another aneurysm or whatever the hell it was that happened to me earlier.

  “You gonna tell your mom?”

  That one came out of left field. I just gaped at Claude, and he took a deep swig of his beer.

  “What am I going to tell her exactly? This isn't like some bad career choice or dating some girl she hates you know. I can't go home and say 'Hey guess what mom? I'm a vampire now.'”

  “Why not? Your mom's more understanding than you think.”

  “Dude, I'm a fucking vampire.”

  And then it hit me completely and totally for the first time. There would be other moments over the next year where reality would come back and hit me in the nuts, but it would never be the same. This first one was a doozy, and it hit right where it hurt.

  Here I was watching the sun rise slowly from my back patio, and it was very likely it would be the first and last sunrise I would ever see. Three days ago, when I walked outside complaining about the sun, I had never taken the time to enjoy the sunlight and enjoy the day, never knowing that it would be the last time I would see the sun. The last time I would ever look at the sky. It was a tragedy because I couldn't remember the last time I'd even looked at the sky apart from a quick glance to see if it was going to rain. Nobody looks at the sky anymore; nobody ever looks up, and I was one of the nobodies.

  “I'm scared Claude.”

  “We can call this off you know. You can go inside and wait it out.”