They just stared at me, wondering where this had come from. Were they sitting with a complete bloody psychopath all this time? I'd seen the look before, but usually it was in the mirror.
I grinned humorlessly now, not caring what they were thinking. If they wanted me to share, well now...
“But I don't. I shove it back into its cage and I let it scratch at the bars for a while. I keep it in and I watch it and sometimes just to forget that it's there, well, a little oblivion never hurt anyone.”
I shrugged and sagged back into my chair, wishing for a moment that I was an alcoholic instead. Things were a lot simpler when you were human. You don't have to sit in a room with a bunch of guys whining about not being able to see the sun.
***
I stopped by the store and just watched her again.
I was pretending to be a homeless wino, so I could watch her a little more discreetly. I even had the bottle in the paper bag.
She was laughing and flirting with some tattooed guy that worked in the store with her, and it broke my heart to not be able to laugh with her.
I'm so fucked up it's not funny.
***
It really fucks you up when you go to your own funeral.
Vera insisted that I go, and when Vera insists, Vera simply means that you do exactly what she says. It hurts less if you just go along with her plan.
Want to know what happens to vampires when they get so fucked up that everyone (including you) thinks they're dead? The one-word explanation for that is simply summed up by introducing Vera.
If you've met Vera, then we'll assume you've gotten past Vern already. Vern is the tow truck driver of the dead. He makes vultures look like the better alternative.
***
“Hey buddy. You owe me ten large for saving your ass.”
That was the last thing I had ever expected when my drawer was finally pulled open and I blinked into the bright fluorescent light, wishing desperately for my sunglasses, and just shielding my eyes as best I could with my hands. As it was, it saved me from having to look directly up Vern's hairy nostrils as he leaned over and breathed into my face.
“You wanna know what they do to you down at the morgue? They cut you open and pull all yer organs out before bagging ‘em and putting ‘em back inside, along with a ton of other nasty brutal-type stuff. Luckily you’re here, where make sure all yer bits are accounted fer, and then we lovingly put you back together so yer all nice and shiny and alive. All o’ this for the low, low price of ten thousand dollars. So whaddaya say?”
Now the normal reaction in a case like this would be simply to stutter “What?” and look completely confused, which is what I almost did. But since this was hardly a normal circumstance, being that I didn't come back from the dead everyday and since I wasn't enjoying the experience all that much and he had just interrupted the last few minutes of my show by pulling open the drawer, my response was more in the lines of:
“Fuck you buddy!”
Luckily, that was more Vern's kind of language, and he just shrugged.
“All right then. Fair enough, fair enough. I expect you'll be wanting some clothes then. It's fucking cold in here, what?”
The 'here' that Vern was referring to was a brightly lit morgue, and it gave me the creeps, especially since I had until a few minutes ago, been one of the more silent residents.
I had thought that being a vampire was bad enough. I believe I even said that it sucks utterly and completely. Well, being dead sucks more.
The whole being dead thing, that didn't return to my memory yet. I think I was a little too traumatized at that point for my mind to want to start poring over that particular highlight of my otherwise dull and pointless life. I hadn't been planning to die for a good while, and even being a vampire, it was an experience that I had been hoping to put off for a very long time. I was even avoiding mobs with pitchforks and torches, specifically because of their vampire killing tendencies.
So my initial reaction when I had woken up in the semi-darkness had been anger.
There was a low-wattage light in my box, and an iPad installed in the roof of the box. The note taped on top of the iPad said the most helpful thing that anyone could have said, given the circumstances.
DO NOT PANIC.
Now here's the thing about coming back from the dead, at least for me. It was just like waking up. Now, of course, some people will wake more violently, depending on their modes of death, or perhaps the very last thing they remember. People who died violently like I had, you know with the whole bullet to the brain type of thing, would be a little more traumatized by the suddenness of the entire affair. Others who died more slowly would have longer memories and more pain to remember. They, in fact, may not have wanted to come back. See, the absence of pain is a wonderful thing. In fact, it is the natural state of being for all of us, and we would like to remember those times when there was a lot of the whole lack of pain thing going around.
I would have hated to die slowly.
So I woke up, not yet completely traumatized, and the first thing I was aware of was the note above my head. It said not to panic, so I took its advice, after all, there was probably a very good reason why someone thought I might panic and didn't want me to, right? Or was that the exact reason to panic?
I started to freak myself out a little bit there. Comes from thinking too much.
I felt the familiar strains of panic reaching at me, and then read the note again, thinking that maybe a little positive affirmation would help, but there's something about being enclosed in a metal box that just drives the panic right home. I had finally gotten a bearing on my current location and despite the iPad above my head, it was definitely very box-like and not very reassuring, despite the note--
Hey, there was more to the note. It had been simply folded over, and there was more writing on the inside.
Curiosity being such a huge part of human nature, I stopped freaking myself out and opened the note.
Greetings. If you have taken my advice and have not panicked, then I would like to apprise you of your current circumstances. You have been placed in storage while your body regenerates from the extensive damage caused by the manner of your violent death. There is a communication system next to the iPad-
I checked, and there it was. Funny that I hadn't seen it before.
--so please feel free to alert us when you are awake. Someone will be by shortly to let you out. In the meantime, feel free to watch television on the provided applications. We have full subscriptions available to premium services in all of our boxes, including HBO and Showtime, so please, enjoy while you wait.
I hesitantly tapped the screen and after a moment of confusion, figured out which app to select for Showtime.
It wasn't for another twenty minutes that I realized I hadn't actually used the intercom to tell anyone that I was back from the dead yet. Then again, I don't have Showtime and HBO at home, either.
“Um... hello?”
There was no answer.
“Hello? I'm done being dead now. Can I be let out, please?”
Still no answer.
Dammit. I went back to watching the SyFy Channel app. Rather appropriately, they were offering full seasons of 'Dead Like Me.' I spent the next hour being amazed at how they'd managed to take all the cuss words out and apparently half of the humor as well. It was a lot funnier with swearing from what I remembered, but then again I come from the school of thought that everything is funnier with swearing.
It's amazing how watching television can take you away from things. I was getting comfortable and wishing I had some snacks when someone came knocking at my box. I paused the screen and listened.
“Hello?” I said into the intercom.
“You ready to come out yet?”
“Can I just finish this show first? It's got like ten minutes left in it.”
“I suppose so. Tell you what, I'm going to get some tea and muffins from the commissary, and I'll check on you then, how's
that?”
“Can you get me a donut while you're at it?”
“Fine, but I'll have to charge you.”
So I watched the last ten minutes of the show, devoid of thought for a while. What a charmed existence I must live, you must think, that I was able to get comfortable in a drawer at the morgue. Given the circumstances, I think I was just glad to be able to get comfortable at all, especially considering the alternative of freaking out and trying to claw my way out of a metal drawer. Like that would have been productive. I was just glad I wasn't claustrophobic.
What happens if you get a claustrophobic vampire?
I shudder even to think about it.
So, there was Vern finally retrieving me from the box and trying to extort me. It had been bad enough looking up into his nostrils, but now this?
Vern disappeared from sight as I tried to position myself to get off the side of the drawer, wiggling my legs over the side and trying to get a bearing on my situation. I finally got a good look at the rest of the place, and it completely blew my mind.
For a morgue, it was very nice. It looked like it had been designed by whoever designed Harry's office, all leather and wood and marble wherever they could make it work. It was rich and gaudy and beautiful all at the same time. Even the Latin etched into the floor above the Crest told me everything I needed to know. Of course, I didn't understand it, since Latin is one of those languages that they just don't teach in school anymore, but just the fact that they would put it in Latin said a basic fact: “we're richer than you." That was all I needed to know.
EN CRUOREM NOS PARTIR
And they had a Coat of Arms. It was identical to the one in Harry's office and had the smell of very old money, maybe older than most other old money. It had a bat and a wolf on it. Do I really need to say more?
“Yer clothes are over 'ere.”
I looked over to Vern, past the rows of identical wood paneled boxes similar to the one I had just gotten out of. Vern was standing behind a desk in the middle of the room, a slender looking computer in front of him. Everything in the room matched except for Vern. He was the only non-elegant or inexpensive thing in the room in his cheap black suit with the starched white shirt and matching clip-on tie and polished but beaten up shoes that looked like he had gotten them from PayLess. He seemed to permanently have an unlit and battered end of a cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth, and his fingers were stained yellow from nicotine, so I assume he smoked at some point. The suit pulled tight on Vern's stocky frame, being too small for him, and the thought occurred to me that maybe Vern's little extortion deal wasn't going exactly to plan.
“Has anyone ever actually paid you to get out of this box?”
Vern considered it for a moment.
“There was this one gent, he was ready to pay, him being afraid o' the dark and all, 'specially since I'd turned out his light. But Miss Vera wasn't having none o' that. I only tries it on the young 'uns like yerself. Bit more willing you lot are. The older 'uns'd just rip me throat out and call it a day they would.”
Something occurred to me then, and I blinked with surprise.
“You're not a vampire are you?”
“Wouldn't want to be, the condition some of you comes in looking. When I goes, ain't no coming back that I'll be wanting. Couldn't afford it if some bloke was asking me to pay up y'see.”
“Can I have my clothes now?”
I got dressed, and Vern went to the computer to do whatever the hell it is he did here. The clothes weren't mine. It was a brand new suit, Italian, according to the label, and it looked like a year's salary to me.
“These aren't my clothes you know.”
“Oh, I knows it. Miss Vera bought them for ya seeing as how yer old clothes were full o' blood an' the like. I wouldn't worry about it if I was you.”
Well okay then. If Miss Vera didn't want me to worry about it, who was I to turn down a $600 pair of pants?
I got dressed and turned to find Vern waiting for me.
“So who is this 'Miss Vera' anyway?”
“She owns this place. I just runs it, make sure yer kind are comfortable and the like.”
“And ten grand poorer if you had your way.”
“You know what I could do with ten large? One day lad, one day...”
Vern led the way out of the morgue, and I followed, pausing only one minute to wonder if there were any other dead vampires in the process of healing inside the drawers. It made me uneasy to think of it and
(gunflash)
there was a moment where I felt like throwing up when my ears
(bang!)
rang like I had been standing I front of a concert PA system all night, but then it passed, and I followed after Vern wondering what the hell was going on.
There was definitely way too much marble in the place for my liking and by the time Vern led me into the office where Vera was waiting for us, I had stopped trying to count the number of hideously expensive paintings on the wall. By that time, none of the surroundings mattered anymore. Nothing mattered anymore, just Miss Vera.
“Hello Robert,” she said and I couldn't help but smile weakly.
Miss Vera was utterly exquisite. She was perfect in every single way, and she knew it, but then she'd had an extremely long time to practice. She looked to be in her early forties, and had the kind of exquisite beauty that all women hope to have at some point and that all men got an instant woody over. There was no denying the effect she had on me, possibly had on all men. In fact, with Vera, there was no denying anything at all.
“Hello,” I said back, and found myself wanting to bow or something absurdly gentlemanly that I had no idea of how to be. I just wanted to scream out 'Holy shit you're fucking gorgeous!' but that was behavior that would get you in the doghouse, and that was the last place you wanted to be. Oh no, you wanted to be in Vera's good graces all the time.
“Welcome back to the living Robert. I trust you won't make dying a regular habit.”
“If it means getting to see you again, it's a habit I'll have to take up.”
That one failed to make any points. I'm sure she'd heard it before, and there I was making an ass of myself.
“Come along now Robert, I have an eight thirty appointment and we're already running late.”
And with barely a pause, I was caught up in the whirlwind that is Vera, hustling along behind her, barely keeping up as she walked me through the corridors of the house.
“You're about twenty minutes overdue, but we'll excuse your tardiness this time, after all it is your first time here but we must make sure to do better next time and not keep everyone waiting.”
“Who's everyone?” I managed to stammer, and Vera beckoned for me to open the door for her. I did, and she bustled her way through, mesmerizing and intoxicating in every fiber of her being. I was sure I was in lust, if not in love.
“Oh, silly boy, your guests of course. They've come to pay their respects to you.”
Guests? Respects? There was the overwhelming feeling of being completely out of my depth, and I didn't quite know if Vera was a circling shark or a friendly dolphin. With those teeth of hers, she was looking more like a shark every minute, albeit a very sexy shark.
“Where are we going again?”
“To your funeral my dear boy. Come along now.”
This last was because I had stopped dead in my tracks and was fairly boggling at her. I had to run to catch up because Vera didn't stop for anybody.
“How can I have a funeral? I'm not dead anymore.” I had to think for a moment. “Am I dead?”
“Not at all. This is your first death however, and you must celebrate your rebirth in style and class. Don't worry about a thing: I've already made all of the arrangements and even rented you some friends for a half an hour or so. “
“You rented me friends?”
“Yes of course I did. I wasn't about to go find your real ones. These ones will do very nicely and for a half an hour they'll be your very best frie
nds in the whole world. Only the best for you darling.”
“Suppose I don't want a funeral?”
She just raised her eyebrow at me.
“Of course you want a funeral. I've already made all of the arrangements, so you just listen to me and everything will be over before you know it. It will be mostly painless, I promise.”
She hustled me into a darkened room now and there at the end of the room in a mound of flowers, was a casket. My rented friends, a couple of girls and three guys who looked like they came right out of an Abercrombie commercial, started to sniffle on cue. I had to admit, at least my friends were pretty. The organist struck up a tune, and Vera hustled me to the casket.
“Now into the nice coffin you go.”
I hesitated, and Vera smiled reassuringly.
“Trust me, it's remarkably cathartic. Healing and all that. Hurry now darling, we must not let your nice friends wait.”
And that's how I ended up at my own funeral, lying in a casket and wondering what the hell I was doing. Vera bustled around me, fixing flowers and making sure everything was perfect. I just grinned and bore it, wondering how the hell anyone had managed to talk me into the macabre ceremony.
“Oh, I forgot to ask. Did you want a Priest or a Rabbi? I've gotten Father Macklin to pop by, and if it isn't any bother, I'd prefer if we just went ahead and used him if it was all the same to you. Great, so we're all set now, so we'll just start with the viewing...”
I had a few minutes to look at the beautifully carved wooden ceiling, wondering if I dared to get up and make an exit, but Vera would probably just wrestle me to the floor before I ruined her perfectly prepared funeral. Come to think of it, that wouldn't be so bad...
I actually started to relax and wondered at what Vera had said about how healing this experience was. She may have had some very good logic and insight behind this whole thing. I started to come to terms with my entire existence and how much it had changed now...
So You Might Be a Vampire Page 13