“No. I need this.”
“I'm scared for you too dude.”
It was completely light out now, and there was still no sun, just a lightening of the sky, a sky that I now looked to, sunglasses in my hand. I looked about, seeing the light and felt a little foolish at my fear and nervousness.
“Nothing going on here.”
Claude relaxed his hold on the fire extinguisher. He grinned, possibly as relieved as I was.
I turned back, sunglasses going onto my face, and the sun peaked over the tree line. I had started to laugh, laugh at the foolishness, and laugh out of relief, sheer unadulterated relief.
My laughter turned into screams as my exposed skin began to blister and boil. I staggered back, pain shooting through me, trying desperately to find cover, and I could smell something sweet like barbequed pork. Something was burning, and that something was me.
A blast of foam from the fire-extinguisher hit me, covering my skin and granting temporary relief. Claude somehow managed to throw the fire blanket over me and wrestled me back towards the door trying to get me inside where it was safe, and I could hide from the sun. He was yelling something at me, but I wasn't listening, just concentrating on the intense pain that was my skin.
Even as he slammed the door behind me, and I collapsed on the floor, still dripping fire extinguisher foam, I knew it was over. My tears couldn't take back the awful truth and the look on Claude's face echoed the truth.
Dismay.
Shock.
Horror.
Fuck.
Fuck me.
I was a vampire.
I was a fucking vampire.
***
Depression was quick in rearing its ugly head, and I didn't fight it. To tell you the truth, I was a little too busy just dealing with the burns on my face and hands to notice. The pain was immense, especially from my head, which Claude later told me had actually caught on fire. My eternal thanks to the inventor of the fire-extinguisher and Claude's ability to not completely panic even in the most fucked up of situations and use said fire-extinguisher with skill and a good aim. It's not every day that you watch your best friend spontaneously combust from being in the sunlight. Okay, so maybe ‘spontaneously combust’ is a little too strong a description and a little more than inaccurate, but I must point out that my hair did catch on fire, and when a man's hair is on fire, are you actually going to argue the finer points of actual spontaneous combustion? Didn't think so.
I had managed to fumble my way to the kitchen sink, and with Claude's assistance, had soaked whatever towels I had, and after carefully cleaning the remains of the fire extinguisher foam off (ow ow, pain, motherfucker that hurt), I had pressed the towels to my seared and swelling flesh. My hands weren't so bad, just red and cracked and raw and only just beginning to swell. It was my face that felt like it was on fire, and the last thing I wanted to see was what damage had been done.
Claude left me lying on the couch while he went to get some burn ointment, which he happened to have in his fantastically well stocked car, and I just lay there, wet towels on my poor skin.
I had been lucky to have been wearing my jacket at the time, and quickly ruled out any sunbathing in the future. At least that was one of the myths about vampires that stood up to the testing, and now I hoped that the myth about the quick healing was true.
“Remind me never to do that again.” I managed to say when Claude returned.
“Never do that again.” He handed me a handful of pills. “Vicodin. Take them all.”
I popped the pills into my mouth without arguing.
“How bad does it look?”
“You don't wanna know.”
“I'm asking aren't I?”
“Yeah, but I figure if you really wanted to know, you'd be asking me for a mirror instead of for my expert opinion.”
“This fucking hurts man.”
“That doctor did warn you.”
Claude put the rest of the ointment onto my face in relative silence and did my hands. I just lay back and waited for my depression to come creeping over me. My skin was itching like crazy, like there were ants under the surface, and they had all decided to not like me anymore, but the Vicodin was already kicking in. Claude was saying something to me, and I could barely see his lips moving.
Sleep claimed me and for a while I was able to rest and not think about anything at all.
I had the most fucked up dreams that day. I don't even remember what they were, but I remember waking up thinking about how fucked up they had been. What also got me was the fact that I didn't hurt anymore.
I, of course, told myself that it was the Vicodin doing its job, but it wasn't until I stood over the toilet pissing my heart out, that I realized I could use my hands. The swelling had gone down, and as I flexed my hand, the skin was no longer cracked. It itched a little, like from a well formed scab, but that was all.
I had to look. So I spent the next five minutes taking off the bandages that Claude had wrapped my hands and head in, feeling way too much like a plastic surgery patient. I took them off carefully, just in case they needed to go back on, but after seeing my first hand exposed, I no longer had any doubt. I still looked like a lobster, but now the burned skin was peeling off in huge flakes where it had cracked, revealing completely new healed skin underneath. I wasted no time in ripping the rest of the bandages off, especially those on my face. I was relieved that my face was intact, just bearing the appearance of a bad sunburn, and I had to resist the urge to pick at the loose skin. My hair was quite another story. It was still burned, of course, and stunk the way that only burned hair could. I was going to have to shave it or cut it in order to get rid of the damaged bits. Apart from that, I looked like I could have just spent way too long in the sun.
I still itched, so I guess the healing process wasn't completed yet, but holy fucking shit! From burn victim to sunburn victim in 8 hours. Wow.
There was a little relief then that at least I hadn't turned into a pile of dust, like in the movies, but once again there was that point well driven home to me, especially by my near-“Wolverine” healing abilities:
I was a vampire.
“I am a vampire.”
I had to say it. I had to hear me say it. That was a point that I would later bring to bear in the Vampires Anonymous meetings, because it was quite possibly the most relevant, and the only way I could come to terms with what I had become. I was a vampire simple as that, and there was no turning back.
I spent the next hour feeling pretty good about this whole thing, thinking that maybe some good could come of it, after all I was a vampire now, and they always had such style in the movies.
When my landlord called and busted my fantasy by reminding me that I was late on rent, well, that was just not very nice.
I spent the rest of the day in bed, wishing that I was dead and wondering if I still had my job at the porn shop.
***
Daytime television has convinced me of one simple fact, and it's this: there needs to be a “Pimp My House” for vampires. Seriously. Do you know how expensive it would be, just in curtains alone, to convert the ordinary apartment or even a house, into a vampire safe home environment?
You've got all of these shows about people flipping houses, changing lifestyles and clothes, and they're all so cheery and bitchy and smiley and grumpy and not broke at all. I hated them all after an afternoon of TLC and MTV. Sure I had hated them before, but now this was a different kind of hate, the kind of hate that is spawned from not being able to go out into the sun. Instead, I was stuck inside with a feeling of doom because I once again didn't have enough money for rent yet and was going to have to call my parents again to negotiate a “loan."
So I peeled my scabs, finally caving into the urges, and ended up watching back-to-back shows of the Colbert Report on Hulu for a couple of hours just so I could at least feel a little bit smarter about the world. While I did that, I wondered idly about how much a nice heavy curtain would cost to
replace the sheets Claude had thoughtfully stapled over the windows. If any home needed to be flipped, pimped or made-over, it was my place.
Around 4PM, still waiting for the sun to go down and cursing at it to move faster dammit, I poked around my nearly empty fridge and finally settled on making a fried egg sandwich with ketchup on the egg. Those were always good and cheap as long as you had bread.
I tried to call Louise, but the phone just went to voice mail. Then on a whim I called Jaime, glad to have an excuse to hear her voice again. I had rocks in my stomach even just dialing and I was afraid I'd turn into a stuttering fool, but her phone also went to voice mail.
Feeling more relief than I should have, I hung up without leaving a message and stared at the phone for a while. I called Claude, but he was no help.
“You feeling better?”
“Yeah. I'm all healed now. Just mostly scabs to peel. Shaved my head.”
“Sounds gross.”
I could hear something in the background.
“What's that noise?”
“Oh that's probably the cops. I'm in the middle of a high-speed chase. It's probably on the news right now.”
“What happened to careful planning?”
“Remember that girl I was dating? Donna? She got all moral on me and called cops while I was doing a job.”
“You can't plan for that. Damn, Dude. What are you gonna do?”
“Still trying to figure that part out. I was thinking of driving the car into the river.”
“You can't swim.”
“That's the reason I'm still driving.”
He hung up, and I watched the high-speed chase on the news. Claude led them on for another hour before he finally ran out of gas. I think he waved to me when he got out of the car, but it was hard to tell if he was just giving the camera the finger. Possibly both.
I shaved my head and stared at myself in the mirror, my freakish new eyes staring back at me.
When the sun went down, I went out into the world, a vampire on the hunt for his old job.
***
4. VAMPIRES NEED JOBS TOO
Beatrice was a “Daytripper”.
At least that's what she told me when she wasn't talking abut her hair, of which she was really proud of since it was now down to her waist. She had been growing it since she was eleven, and it was her one defining feature. It was certainly very attractive, long and golden and shimmering, and a nice compliment to her pale blue vampire eyes. Then again, it was her only defining feature since she lacked any brain between her ears. Anyone who can go on for a whole freaking hour about their hair has got to be brainless. Simple fact there.
Of course, anyone who can listen to Beatrice go on for an hour about her hair, deserves a freaking medal, so I'll be waiting right here, brain dribbling out my ears, while someone arranges that.
“You know I had this famous hairdresser from Hollywood tell me how nice my hair was once, and that I could be a shampoo model or something.”
If I had a gun, I'd paint the walls with my brains. I had already moved to the other side of the waiting room, but Beatrice had, of course, followed. I think if I had gone to the bathroom, she would have followed me in, and that pretty much killed any fantasies I'd entertained about me fucking her brains out. She'd probably never shut up long enough.
Normally I would kill for the chance of having a gorgeous blonde like Beatrice follow me about the place like a little puppy, but this was actually verging on torture and was not as much fun as I'd previously imagined. I was managing to actively tune her out when she mentioned the whole “Daytripper” thing.
“What was that?”
She smiled that sunny smile at her, showing off her freaking nice incisors to best effect (some people are so lucky).
“I'm a Daytripper. I've got some special goggles and a mask and everything and when I have to do stuff during the day, cuz I'm so busy, I put them on.”
“Don't people stare at you? Like hey look at that freakish looking girl?”
“They don't know it's me, so I don't have to care. If they saw me without the gear on, they wouldn't be saying 'freak'.”
She went on again about her hair, and I tuned her out again before my brain shut itself down in self-defense.
It was the night after the Gentlemen had paid me a visit and it was 8:30 PM. I'd made sure to get to the address especially early since I did not want to be the playmate of Mr. Flynn's Left Hand Gorilla. My propensity for tardiness would not get me tortured, killed or maimed. No, not today. They'd done a very good job of scaring the shit out of me and as far as I was concerned, that was quite enough.
It was day four of being a vampire, and it was nothing like I had expected.
***
Day One: I had gotten my job back after pleading with the boss at great length. He was a dick and enjoyed seeing me squirm, so he only made me squirm for an hour before giving in and allowing me back on with the provision that I work only nights. Since it was the hardest part of the shift to schedule, it was a plum deal that I volunteered for graveyard shift. He made me work the rest of the night as penance, especially since I asked for an advance on the week's paycheck, and took off grumbling. But at least I had rent covered and a way to buy groceries.
Sammy had tortured me when she had come in an hour early, and found out that I was back. She had assumed I'd finally gotten fed up of the whole mess and either offed myself or run off to Mexico.
When she saw my eyes, she literally squealed and spent the next ten minutes examining my eyes trying to figure out what I'd done to change the color. Sammy is resilient on her best days, and it wasn't until she had finally peeled my eyelids back, her nails almost digging into my eyeballs, that she was convinced I wasn't wearing contacts. I told her it was some kind of genetic thing that ran in my family.
“That's a kind of fucked up genetic defect. Did it hurt? Is that why you were gone for three days?”
It had never occurred to me to try to play it off like that. I seized on it immediately. Thank you Sammy.
“That's exactly it. I thought my brain was going to explode it hurt so much.”
“It's a good look for you. Can’t say the same for your head though. That was dumb.”
I winced, still a little self-conscious about having a shaved head for the first time in my life. Some people are made to have bald heads with the perfect shape to just look cool. My head wasn’t one of those and I couldn’t wait for my hair to grow back in. Stupid sun.
And that was it. Things went back to normal from there, and I got on with my new life as a vampire. To my great disappointment it was almost exactly like my life before I was a vampire.
Oh, the bitter taste of irony.
***
Day Two: Nothing much happened.
***
Day Three: After work and a relentless half an hour of staring at Sammy's ass in her too short leather mini-skirt, I came out of the store to find that some moron had broken the back window of my Honda POS. The fact that the doors weren't locked hadn't deterred them, although I wonder what they thought they would find inside. It was probably just kids.
I went home and woke up to find the Gentlemen had come to pay me a visit.
***
Day Four: I was convinced that Beatrice was a space alien and was trying to suck my brains out through my ears after they leaked out from listening to her for half an hour. Probably some diabolical plan to first annoy and then to kill me. At this point, I would have preferred death first.
We were both sitting in the waiting room of Harry’s office, the mean secretary at the desk deliberately ignoring us. For me that said that I was in trouble of some kind since, in my limited experience, secretaries tried to make guests as comfortable as possible. Since I hadn’t even been offered a nice tall bottle of cool clear Evian water or anything similar, I figured that I was in trouble.
After a while, I had decided that Beatrice was my punishment.
Finally, a door opened and for the fir
st time since I'd met her, Beatrice shut up. We both looked to the door ready for anything. For a moment, I thought I saw a glimmer of intelligence and watchfulness in Beatrice's eye, but by the time I thought of it, I was already wrapped up in the wide wonderful world of Harry de Biers the third, Vampire extraordinaire.
I hated him on first sight, but he already had me beat. He hated me way before ever meeting me, but that was just Harry. He hated everyone equally and didn't care who knew it, especially if he was talking to you. He went straight for Beatrice, who had by this time risen to her feet.
“Harry I can explain everything-“
Harry wasted no time. He grabbed Beatrice by her ever so lovely hair and punched her in the face, one, two, three times. Beatrice went down, coughing blood and spitting teeth, but Harry held onto her hair, so she couldn't fall all the way down.
This had all happened in the space of three seconds. I was still frozen in shock, staring stupidly at Harry and Beatrice as if trying to tell myself that I wasn't seeing this. Harry now fixed his pale blue eyes on mine and smiled. His fangs were huge.
Oh, what big teeth you have Mr. Wolf...
“You. Come with me.”
And with that command, Harry turned and walked back the way he had come, dragging a feebly struggling Beatrice behind him by the hair, leaving me to follow. Panic, my old friend, flooded back, bringing a whole chorus of 'oh shits' and 'oh fucks' with it, all yelling for attention in my head, all trying to be first.
“Oh, fuck me,” I finally decided on and raced after Harry, definitely not wanting to see what would happen if I didn't follow. I considered standing up for Beatrice for one millisecond, before deciding that a) it would get me in a world of pain and b) I had wanted to do exactly what Harry had done. I had only thought of it, of course, the way you'd think about pushing someone down a flight of stairs, but it was just a passing fancy, and even now following behind Harry, I got a little perverse pleasure from the look of pain on Beatrice's bloody face. Harry didn't give her a chance to get any leverage, just kept on pulling on her hair, keeping her off balance, while she was screaming bloody murder at him to “let her the fuck go now, he was going to regret this” and so on and so forth. It seemed that even a mouthful of broken teeth couldn't shut her up.
So You Might Be a Vampire Page 9