So You Might Be a Vampire

by Rodney V. Smith

  Other than Harry hauling a screaming Beatrice by her hair through the hallway, it was a pretty nice office, rich carpeting on the floor, expensive looking paintings on the walls and equally expensive looking women working at a few desks. These expensive looking women paid absolutely no attention to Beatrice, and I think that was the one thing that gave me the shivers more than anything else at all. The fact that it was so commonplace that they would be jaded to it, said everything that I needed to know and wished that I didn't. I had exited the real world where stuff like this doesn't happen, and when it does happen, somebody tries to stop it or at least says something about it... right?

  Right?

  I followed Harry into a huge leather themed office, the doorway being held open by a skinny man in dark sunglasses, who I had no doubt was another vampire. It was a wonder that no normal people had noticed the high number of blue eyed people working here in this office, and for once I wondered exactly how many people I had known who were vampires. To be surrounded by this many of them, especially literally days after I had been forced into this existence, was a heady, what-the-fuck experience.

  Harry finally let go of Beatrice's hair, dumping her onto the carpet and walking off towards his desk without a care in the world. Beatrice spat blood out on the carpet and caught me looking at her. She sneered and wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “What you think I should do with her Bob?” I was startled to hear Harry even bothering to talk to me. He was sitting at his desk idly playing with a Japanese sword, and I wondered if this whole thing was just a show put on for my benefit to show me how much of a bad-ass he was. Should I play along or just admit that he was a badass and be happy to get out with my life still intact? Choices, choices.

  Harry continued. “That is your name, right? Bob?”

  “Yeah, that's me.”

  “So what you think I should do with her?”

  “With all due respect sir, I only just met her and I don't have a clue about any quarrel between you-“

  “That's not what I asked you. You think I should kill her or let her live?”

  Beatrice looked panicked at that. She looked at me with pleading eyes, and I got the idea that someone was playing for keeps, and it wasn't her. Saliva rushed my mouth then, as my adrenaline surged, and my heart pounded in my ears. I could feel my sphincter tighten as I stood there, not knowing what to say.

  I chose my words carefully.

  “As annoying as she is to listen to, maybe you should let her live.”

  There was relief in Beatrice's eyes now, and she tried a crooked smile, ruined by her swollen lips and a broken, bloody mouth. Harry never took his eyes off of me.

  “You're absolutely correct. Of course, the choice isn't up to you, and I could decide that mercy isn't such a wise choice especially when it comes to little miss Beatrice here.”

  He looked at Beatrice now, and she looked to him with pleading eyes. “You go and wait outside with Bill. We're going to have a talk when I'm done with Bobby here.”

  I, of course, could have corrected him and told him that nobody but my mom ever called me 'Bobby' but I don't think he would have cared. So I just watched Beatrice exit and wondered how much damage and shame and humiliation I was going to suffer before I got out of Harry's clutches.

  Harry was a very large man. He reminded me of Tony Soprano, but it was mainly because of his stature and those beady little eyes that watched you ever so carefully, as if telling you that they knew every little secret you tried to keep, and they knew that you weren't worth shit. His suit was probably more expensive than my mom's house, and he wore it casually, no tie for this man. His shirt was blood red, and it suited him just fine. This was just a predator in an expensive suit, and he knew that you knew, and he was glad.

  The predator watched me from his desk for a long moment until I got more uncomfortable than I already was, even though I hadn't thought that was possible. I met his calculating gaze, afraid to take my eyes off of him.

  When he put the sword down on his desk I barely stopped myself from flinching, but I think he saw me despite my best effort.

  “I hope that Mr. Flynn and the other Gentlemen I sent to invite you here treated you well.”

  It was bullshit, and we both knew it. Anyone who met Mr. Flynn knew exactly what to expect from him.

  “Very... um... courteous. I would love to have the opportunity to avoid spending any more time than is strictly necessary with them.”

  Harry grinned then, humorlessly. “They took a real liking to you. Mr. Bryce commented on his excitement about seeing you again. I could call him up if you wanted, reunite your friendship.”

  “That won't be necessary. I might just pop in to see him on the way out.”

  “Are you always this full of shit Bobby?”

  “Yes sir, I'm afraid so.”

  “I don't like you Bobby. You're an accident, and I don't like accidents. Too many of them happening these days. “ He sighed. “Louise filled me in on what happened.”

  “You've seen Louise? I've been trying to reach her all week.”

  “She's been sent away for a while.”

  “Look, I heard her screaming on the phone! I just need to know that she’s okay! You have to tell me—“

  The look he gave me was less friendly than before.

  “You're not here to ask questions or make demands Bobby, so I'd advise you to remember that. In fact, if you don't get a clue very soon, I'm going to take to advising you very strongly, and you won't like that at all. Me, on the other hand, I'll get a real kick out of it.”

  “Can I at least sit?”

  “No. “

  Okay then, so that was how it was going to be.

  “So you're a vampire now Bobby. Big fucking deal. It's not like it used to be in the old days. Back then we were a little more selective about who got the opportunity to become a vampire. It was something you had to earn back then. Now times are changing, and we're trying to change with them, so we have a few people like you who don't know the first thing about us or even how to be one of us. Up until a week ago, you didn't know that we existed outside of stories, and now here you are... you're one of us now Bobby and you're going to have to learn to do things our way.”

  “Can I say something?”

  “You just did. Speak again without permission. Go ahead. Please.”

  The charming part about Harry is that he never offered alternatives. There was never an “or else," ever an option to chicken out, never a chance to run. So I did what I was told to do, and you would have done the same. Anyone would have. I shut the fuck up and listened.

  “Here's a few basic rules for you Bobby boy: do not ever draw attention to yourself and by extension, to us. We vampires do not exist, and we do not advertise our existence. It is how we work and so far it's been working for thousands of years. Do NOT fuck it up.

  “Don't go around killing people. That's not what we're about and besides it breaks rule number one. You start acting like a psycho killer, then Mr. Flynn and Mr. Bryce will find you. They're very good at finding people. They will find you and then Mr. Sinnel will make you disappear. He’s very, very good at disappearing people.

  “Do not under any circumstances, ever, EVER make another vampire. There is careful consideration that goes into who becomes a vampire and ultimately the decision isn't up to you. You break that rule, then all three of the gentlemen will be coming for you. I guarantee that. Nothing short of death will stop them, and even then I don't think they'll be satisfied.

  “You're a vampire now Bobby. Welcome. Now get the fuck out before I fucking kill you myself.”

  I started to leave, but I had to stop. Something was hurting me inside, and it was named Louise.

  “What happened to Louise?”

  “I already told you what happened to her.”

  “And you were lying then. I just want to know what happened to my friend.”

  Harry watched me for a long moment and finally nodded.r />
  “She was a good friend of yours then?”

  I nodded.

  “Then she was a better friend to you than you deserved.”

  It was the past tense that drove it home for me. The finality of those words marking the transition of a person from a someone to a thing, that's something you never really want to hear. Louise had gone from an “is” to a “was” and it was because she had tried to help me. It was because of me.

  I took that knowledge with me as I left, and I may have well been shrouded in a cloak of misery. I just nodded as the skinny dude outside of Harry's door shoved a few bits of paper into my hands and saw the look on Beatrice's face. Was she also soon to go from being an “is” to a “was”? Maybe the fact that Harry was still involved was a good sign. She hadn't yet been fed to the dogs, lucky girl.

  A skinny intern in a suit led me out of the building, talking all the way to the elevator as if this was such a great day. I considered taking a bite out of his jugular just to shut him up. He didn't know about Louise, and if he did, she'd meant nothing to him and he didn't care and I hated him for it.

  “What happens when we die?”

  That caught him off guard and stopped him in his tracks.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “If I killed you, would you come back?”

  “Maybe you should talk to your mentor about that. She should have given you some pamphlets, some reading material about it.”

  “What? Like the 'Benefits of Becoming a Vampire' and 'Welcome to YOUR After Life,' pamphlets like that?”

  The prat thought I was serious. He looked mildly amused as he led me over get into the elevator.

  “Well, you got the titles wrong, but yes, pamphlets like that. You did get a chance to go through the materials right?”

  Okay, I was definitely not in Kansas, or even OZ anymore. What in the sweet name of Aunt Bessie was this idiot on about? They actually had pamphlets on how to become a vampire, like it was a fucking country club or something equally stupid and elitist. And this stupid gentleman's club mentality, and its stupid rules was why my friend had to die?

  The intern must have seen the look on my face. Or maybe he saw the vein that was violently throbbing in the side of my forehead. He started to back away slowly.

  “Maybe we can mail them out to you again-“

  “Fuck off you prat. My friend is dead, and you're talking to me about pamphlets?”

  “I'm sorry for your loss-“

  “NO YOU'RE NOT! YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW HER, SO DON'T STAND THERE AND TELL ME HOW FUCKING SORRY YOU ARE!”

  It seemed to get through to him. He nodded and tried on a smile that didn't quite fit. I felt sorry for him. Dude was just trying to do his job and here I was yelling at him.

  “I lost some of my friends too. I know how it is,” he said and now I felt like shit. He might be a vampire, but he was still human first, and last I checked I still felt like a human myself. Just an extremely fucked up one right now.

  “Sorry, I yelled at you. I just… I really don't feel like talking.”

  In the lobby, he gave me a couple of printed glossy passes.

  “I am sorry that you lost your friend.”

  “I'm sorry too.”

  “When you get a chance, come on down to the club. It will give you a chance to meet a bunch of us at least.”

  And with that, the elevator doors slid shut, and I was left in the lobby. When I walked past security, I noticed that not one of them was a vampire. They were all ordinary people watching out for the bloodsuckers upstairs. Just like an ordinary corporation.

  ***

  Sammy was on the warpath when she came in that night.

  I was still in a state of depression, especially after I realized that I didn't have any pictures of me and Louise. Sure she's had a bunch of her pictures up on her MySpace account, so I had those to remember her by, but I didn't have any of the two of us together. In fact, I couldn't remember taking any pictures of the two of us. I was always the one behind the camera, and now nothing was all I had to show for it.

  By the time, Sammy showed up I had gotten to thinking about how I was going to tell my friends that Louise was dead, in fact, what I was going to tell them about her death. This had quickly led to the fact that I couldn't actually tell anyone that Louise was, in fact, dead, without telling them how I knew for sure, oh and by the way, she was a vampire and now I am one too. That would go down very well. Maybe they would figure it out after a while when she failed to update her Facebook page. The last time had been the night she had met me in the bar and then nothing after that. Just the picture of her and her eternally sunny smile her timeline banner. The picture had been taken at night in a bar somewhere.

  In fact, all of her pictures had been taken at night.

  There are some points when you ask yourself exactly how well you know your friends. How much do you really, really know about them, and how much of it is truth? How much do they actually want you to know, and how much can you know before you begin to judge someone? In all of my memories of Louise, I now realized that I had never once met her during the day. All of our encounters had been after dark, but that was just the nature of the friendship, and I hadn't thought twice about it. She was just one of those friends that always seemed to show up in dark places.

  Now I wondered exactly how long she had been a vampire.

  So that was what was on my mind when Sammy showed up, steam practically coming off of her.

  “I hate men!”

  “I'm a man.”

  “Well, I hate you too, but that's different. That's a personal hatred. This is more general and a lot more vindictive.”

  “Lucky me.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you? Somebody died or something?”

  “Actually yes.”

  “So remind me to care in about twenty minutes.”

  Anger. Genuine anger and hurt. How well do you know your friends, and if you knew them well enough, would you actually care?

  “You're a fucking bitch. I want you to know that.”

  I didn't speak to her for the rest of the night. She tried to apologize, a real heartfelt apology, but I wasn't listening at the time. I just wanted to get away from her and be depressed and think deep and depressing philosophical thoughts.

  Most of all I just wanted to mourn for my friend in peace.

  ***

  When I got out of work, someone had stolen my car.

  I stood there looking at the space in which I knew I had parked my Honda eight hours before, and I felt so lost, so alone. I didn't even think to look anywhere else since this was the spot that I had parked it in. This was my spot, the only place I ever parked. It even had a minor oil stain about the size of Texas from the everlasting leak in the bottom of it, so there was nowhere else to look at all.

  I should have laughed and been cheered up. After all, someone was obviously broker and more fucked up than I was. So fucked up that they had to take my car...

  When I turned around, I spotted my car parked in front of the store, lights on, engine running. I knew it was my car. I had been driving it for years now, and it was one of twenty in the entire city and besides my POS had a particular lean to it, just like the one in front of the store.

  I got pissed then. I mean it's one thing to steal my car, but it's another thing entirely to steal it and then flaunt it in front of me. I had enough of my own problems right now, with my best friend in jail, me being an extremely broke vampire and my friend dead because of me, and I couldn't even mourn her in peace. So yeah I got pissed, and before I knew it, I was walking towards my car, fists clenched, ready to fight tooth and nail over what was mine.

  I was ready, adrenaline pumping something fierce and about halfway there I started to run. I had a passing thought about if vampires had any additional strength like in the movies, since something like that would come in useful right about now.

  My bubble got busted when the car door opened, and Claude stepped out into the
light and waved at me.

  Have you ever had one of those moments where your emotions are suddenly switched, and you're left holding the bag and you're caught up in the momentum of whatever it was you were doing? That was me all around. I couldn't stop running, I tried to, but I literally couldn't stop myself, and I couldn't stop running either. Claude had this moment where he was smiling and then saw me still coming at him, and the look on his face went into “oh shit” mode. And then he took off, running from me, not knowing what the hell was going on. I ended up chasing him around the car, but by that time I was laughing more out of relief than anything else.

  “Dude stop chasing me!” he managed to yell, and that broke the spell. We both stopped then, looking over the car at each other, me completely out of breath. Claude grinned. “Good to see you too man.”

  “I thought you were in jail.”

  “They didn't want me anymore. My lawyer is very good. I'll probably get off with a misdemeanor or something like that.”

  “You were on national TV. On freaking CNN! How the hell do you get out of something like that?”

  Claude shrugged. “Good lawyers. How's the vampiring going? Bitten anybody yet?”

  That was the funny thing. “Actually no. I haven't. I've been wondering about that, and I really gotta talk to someone about it.”

  “Yeah, I thought it was one of the basic tenets of vampirism. Goes with the teeth, the sleeping the coffins, the lusty young maidens...”

  “Well, I still don't have a coffin and last time I checked, still no lusty young maidens.”

  We hit the diner and got some pie, and I told him about Louise. He told me about how he got out of jail, and we ogled the cute waitress. It was the most normal I had felt in days. Well, except for the part about being home before sunrise, it was pretty damn normal.

  ***

  Day Five: I watched the sunset.

  Dusk is prettier than I remember it ever being. Some of it comes from looking at it through my polarized sunglasses I suppose, but I think the one thing that makes it so pretty is that I never used to look at it before. Before, it just happened and it was on its schedule, and all was right with the world. Now it meant something, even if it was just that I could finally leave my apartment and walk in the nearest thing to sunlight that was available to me.