So You Might Be a Vampire

by Rodney V. Smith

  The radio was squawking, and the Officers were looking at it with annoyance, and I finally got a clue that something was going on, so I opened my ears and listened.

  Officer Smartass banged his nightstick against the grating between the front and back of the car.

  “Looks like today is your lucky day sunshine.”

  “I don't like this Ed. We should still take this fucker in.”

  “You wanna do the paperwork on this piece of shit?”

  “What the hell was that? Has there been another murder?”

  “Lucky for you yes.” He looked at his partner. “Can't we take him in and book him anyway, just for the hell of it? Feels like a waste of our fucking time here.”

  “Cut him loose Ed. He isn't good for it.”

  And just like that I was free again. Sure I was bleeding and bruised on the side of the street in front of the porn shop, but I was free and not in the process of being beaten or sodomized with Officer Smartass' nightstick.

  “I don't think he liked you very much.”

  Sammy was waiting for me by the door. She shrugged. “What the hell is going on Bob?”

  “I really wish that I knew.”

  ***

  Don't you wish you could sometimes reach out and pullback in the words you've just uttered? Hit the rewind button, or better yet. Ctrl+Z and undo it all? Life doesn't come with any undo options, but it would be a nice thing to have, with maybe a few limited uses. Like each person gets ten chances to undo things that they really regret doing. It would make life so much more bearable if you could go back five seconds and not accidentally pull the trigger that killed that kid. Or go back and take the exit ramp instead of continuing on the freeway to the crash that left you legless and bleeding in the middle of the road. Or for those who abuse it: go back and not eat those cookies, or drink that last beer, or get your girlfriend out of the house before your wife gets home. The thing is that by the time you realize what you've said and you're facing the consequences of saying it, the psychic repercussions beating down on you like a butterfly in China, it's already way too late. Sometimes though, sometimes you know it as soon as you've said it.

  In a movie, maybe a cold wind would blow at that very moment, whipping its way across the street, foreboding of things to come. Lighting would flicker in the distance and thunder would rumble ominously. Yeah, and it would be a dark and stormy night. Of course, nothing like that happened to me, but I still knew it immediately. It's the sinking feeling in your gut that the universe had just realized it hadn't fucked you over in a long time and it was turning its gaze and magnifying glass right on you.

  If I had had any sense, I would have picked up and gotten the hell out of town, right there and then, but, unfortunately, sense is something I'm seriously lacking.

  I had no idea just how interesting my life was about to become.

  ***

  Here is the advantage of being a trust fund kiddie vampire: when disaster strikes in the form of a vampire hunter, action plan number one is pack your bags, family and closest vampire friends and get the hell out of town. Leave everyone else to deal with it. So if you looked carefully, all of a sudden a lot of rich people suddenly went on vacation. Apparently they were supposed to do it in phases so it wasn't too obvious, but vampires were human first and that human sense of self-preservation only got stronger to the point of utter stupidity.

  So if you were a vampire hunter looking for targets, all of a sudden you could have a very detailed list of people who were very likely to be vampires... if you had the ability to get your hands on flight records from one particular city.

  "Idiots. Every single one of them." Harry didn't even turn around when the secretary and two huge guards 'escorted' me in. I picked myself up from the floor and stared at his back wondering for a second how far I would make it if I did decide to make a run for it.

  "This is not the first time and it won't be the last you know. Protocols. A plan of fucking attack. All of that planning and it’s undone by my vampires being a pack of useless fucking idiots."

  What? You're actually surprised that in a world where vampires exist, that there are people who wake up one day and decide to make vampire hunting their hobby? You obviously have not been paying attention. That whole human nature thing is very strong, and one of the driving forces that may be as strong as self-preservation, if not stronger, is and always has been, hatred and intolerance. Whether it’s hiding behind religion or faith or masquerading as reason and logic, the hatred of the other and wanting to destroy it, well it’s a strong primal force. So when the first vampire was discovered sucking the blood of some poor victim, you can be sure that within the hour, the first vampire-hunter had been born and that guy always proved to be really, really good at killing vampires. It's funny how good someone can get at something when they put their mind to it.

  So yeah, vampire-hunters are apparently a thing: they've come and gone over the years, lived and died (usually in the middle of lots of blood and a fiery inferno or cool explosion that they somehow failed to walk away from this time with a carefully chosen air of nonchalance.) And they have killed a lot of vampires. I mean a lot of vampires. Most of the time the other vampires didn't have a clue about what was going on (unless they were in the middle of being killed by said vampire-hunter) until it was months or years later, but that was before modern communication. They would usually find their dear vampire buddy, long dead and rotted either in a very awkward (and dead) position in their house or at the scene of mutual murder with two bodies, lots of weapons and lots of destruction. Vampires tended to go through very drawn out and dramatically long deaths. Some houses, of course, were just burned to the ground, so sometimes there was just no clue about what the hell had happened. These days, if a vampire dies, especially through murder, you can be damn sure everybody knows about it within hours.

  So systems have been set-up. Survivors of the vampire massacres of 1942 still go on tour to talk about the methods used by vampire hunters. Early warning systems via email, text messages, and direct phone calls are in place, just in case some human wakes up to the fact that vampires are real and that they all need to die. So the vampires know when they're being hunted and they know how to fight back before the situation gets out of hand. A careful evacuation is planned with every vampire scheduled to leave town over the course of the week, and then traps are set and the Gentlemen are set to work eradicating the current menace. It's a carefully designed system but when you get a panic in the air, well, not much you can do.

  “You were there last night, you saw what happened,” Harry said. “They didn't stand a chance.”

  “I was only there because you sent me!” I yelled back. “If they hadn't started screaming and panicking, things might have been a little different!” Harry gave me a dirty look and I shrugged. “What? It's true. They kinda freaked out. If they'd kept their heads--”

  “Not funny Bobby. Not funny at all.”

  “Fuck you Harry! They were coming after me!”

  ***

  Here's something vampires never expect. While they expect the occasional vampire hunter to show up, they never ever think that it would be from among their own kind. So when three people in the crowd pulled masks over their faces and pulled the huge medieval weapons from the walls, people went along with it. They even cheered them on, vampires loving a good show. Rich kids who thought they would live forever after all daddy had made sure it was their goddamn right. So they cheered them on, wondering what the show was going to be, because after all they owned the world and the show was for them so it was going to be awesome!

  “JUMP!” Someone in the crowd yelled and some of them laughed, but the other picked it up as a chant.

  “DO IT!” Someone else yelled and that started the crowd. It was already becoming a hive mind, the crowd making the decision for the individual even when they should know better and it was freaky as shit.. but it was kind of cool at the same time.

  So it merged in seconds, becom
ing a chant of one side of the room chanting “JUMP!” and the other side joining in with perfect timing of “DO IT!”

  The crowd chanted on as the first vampire yanked the first ancient broadsword from the hall, the crowd erupting into cheers and whoops as the supports gave way like paper, ripping out from the wall in a hail of iron and bits of concrete chunks and dust. The vampire held the sword aloft like some conquering hero of the bar, and the crowd roared their approval.

  “JUMP! DO IT!”

  At the back of the crowd, the ugly twins Ryan and Ryan moved their way through the crowd, determined to stop the shenanigans. More vampires were pouring in from the other areas trying to see what all the fuss was about. I could almost imagine all over the club other vampires looking around in curiosity and bemusement, maybe even pausing from snacking on the neck of some languid half naked girl or boy.

  “JUMP!”

  Movement over to the left of the room caught my eye and I watched another masked man jump 10 feet up the wall to the next mounted sword, and while I would like to say that there was a sense of unease deep in my gut and that I knew deep down that something was very wrong, we all know I'm not nearly that smart and any claims to the contrary would just be a goddamn lie. You know exactly what I was doing. I was on my feet, beer in hand, cheering along with the rest of those poor doomed idiots.

  “DO IT!”

  Someone better looking than me was leading the chant and the crowd was eating it up. He looked kind of like one of the rented friends at my funeral, but there was no way to be sure. He was young and pretty, but then again they all were. I roared with the crowd as they noticed the second guy ripping the sword off the wall. He held on to some high perch up on the wall, almost floating above the crowd… and saluted his buddy across the room. The Ugly twins had spotted him by that time and shaking their heads, they agreed silently to split up and handle the masked idiots, but somebody was going to be paying for this later, preferably with pain.

  “JUMP!”

  When the third guy shoved past me, knocking me aside as he scrambled effortlessly up the wall and causing me to commit the most grievous beer foul by sending my still full glass (okay it was three-quarters empty, but if somebody asks you how much beer you spilled, you'd better damn well say it was full) flying from my hand, managing to soak the couple in the booth behind me, that snapped me out of it.

  “Dude!” I yelled, but I was drowned out by the chant of “DO IT!” and just had to laugh it off. I turned my bemusement still on its way to turning to anger over the loss of my formerly overflowing and really expensive glass of double malt scotch (What? Don't look at me like that: spill my beer and you will pay!) and something occurred to me even as I watched the third masked vampire reach for the huge axe on the wall.

  This was planned.

  A mighty roar erupted from the crowd as all three of the masked men raised their oversized people slicing instruments of death, but this time I wasn’t involved. This time I was already backing away, eyes on the man with the axe as it clicked in my brain that none of this was right and oh, by the way dummy, it's already too late, but you should really be running.

  Three hundred vampires and associates were packed into the club that night for the Siete De Mayo celebration, the annual party to celebrate something that happened a long time ago with some Mexican vampires – really I don't have a clue since I'd just assumed it was the vampire version of Cinco de Mayo -- where the vampires got together to get drunk on blood instead of alcohol like regular humans, and, as a result, I really wasn't paying attention. But here they were, packed tight into this room that I really had no place being in, but for the fact that I had been invited to be there that night for the celebration. I was going to just go straight home, but I was feeling especially broke, and the invitation mentioned that there would be free food (good) and an open bar (better than good). Drunken shenanigans ensued. If I really have to say more than that, then you really need to get out of the house and have some wild drunken shenanigans of your own.

  So my point was this: we were all having a good time, feeling the brotherly love and were just up to no good. Everyone was having a good time and for once nobody was talking about the killings of the past week. Someone had mentioned it early on, but that was early and it didn't count. One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, ahh shut up and pour, as they say in my house.

  And now here I was backing away from the masked idiot on the wall, trying to cut through the crowd before it was too late, too late for what, I had no idea, but I just knew I didn't want to be there when it happened because to was going to be bad.

  “BOB!” Someone roared my name.

  This yell came from behind me, and I knew it deep in my bones that as soon as my traitorous body had finished turning, Idiot #1 up on the wall was going to be pointing his sword right at me.

  Yep.

  There was the sword.

  In his hand.

  Pointed. Right. At. Me.

  Fuck.

  ***

  I have no idea what the official word is on growing back severed limbs for vampires. It's not something that I've had to deal with personally. In fact, I don't recall ever having met any deformed or appendage-challenged vampires in my short time of being a vampire. In fact, the thought that vampires could be any less than pretty-and-perfect had never occurred to me, especially after the wonders of Madame Vera's wonderful not-mausoleum. If anyone had asked me then, I would have shrugged it off and assumed that Madame Vera, or some other more experienced vampire, would act as a really messed up version of the Apple Store and literally have a fix for that. Missing a leg? There's a fix for that! Someone poke out your eye? There's a fix for that... Plus it will cost you $5000 per eye/missing body part, easy bargain. Missing a head? Well, there are limits to what is possible even with vampires.

  So it had never occurred to me to even look for anything less than perfection. It was part of the whole vampire image, their mystique and flawless grace, a carefully molded image. It's what humans desired to be, forever young and forever perfect. Living forever brutally scarred or missing an arm or a leg just wasn't part of the equation, and definitely not part of the image, because if any damage was permanent then what was the point? And what other horrors were they not talking about? What else was shielded behind that carefully molded image that if you think about it, was nothing but a goddamn lie.

  All of these thoughts went through my head as the sword sliced through the air in a perfect arc, the air singing with a perfect swish that you only hear in movies and apparently in a room suddenly empty of music. It was a perfect moment, drawn out in intensity, the kind usually played for laughs, but here it was just a perfect synchronization of events. It all happened in the blink of an eye, of course, but so much happened in that one moment that it is impossible to imagine that it all fit.

  The vampire yelled "BOB!" A thunderous roar even above the music and that yell said so many things. It accused, blamed and said in no uncertain terms that whoever owned that name was about to get seriously fucked up. It also said that no, this was not going to be a case of mistaken identity - I know exactly who I'm talking to, so no, we won't laugh about this later over a beer, or a sullen tattooed slut or three. It said that everything about the owner of the name was known; so please don't run since it will only delay the inevitable fucking up that was going to occur, and please do us all a favor and turn the fuck around, now.

  The entire crowd fell silent and goddammit they were all looking at me and they all knew what I was, the accident, the fuck-up, the of-course-it's-him-again guy. They all knew it was me, and they were judging me, noting my not very expensive taste in clothing, my not perfect hair that I cut myself whenever the need arose or I met some new chick I wanted to impress. They saw my scruffy, average looking face that hadn't graced the halls of any of their prep schools. So nobody knew me, and, of course, since nobody knew me, then they all knew me; some of them so they knew who to avoid, the others just making a note to themsel
ves to please make my day just a little more difficult. Someone might have sneered if they'd had more time, but this was the perfect moment, and it was all of the time in the world, and none at the same time.

  None of them had heard about the Hotel Astoria yet, but they would and those looks would change, but for now I was still painfully obscure.

  The music reached the end of whatever loud track that had been playing and it must have been one time when the DJ wasn't paying attention or had programmed it wrong so that there was no overlap into the next song. This error caused the entire room to fall horribly silent. The gap may have only been one or two seconds, but the timing of it was too perfect, too dramatic, and just too damned wrong. But there it was, absolute silence on the downbeat.

  I turned around and there was the sword pointing at me like some huge, accusing exclamation of guilt.

  It was also the exact moment that the first of the Ugly Twins, Ryan, reached the masked (and heavily armed) idiot on the wall, the same one pointing the sword directly at me. Ryan clamped his big oversized hand around said masked idiot's ankle.

  I don't know what he was thinking in that moment. Maybe he still thought that it was just a bunch of vampire kids fooling around, nothing he couldn't deal with. After all, at that point there was still nothing connecting this entire situation with the vampire serial killings of the past week. He might have even been able to fully make the connection that this whole thing was planned, and these guys were a little more dangerous than he had thought, but come on! They were in the Hall of the Drunken King, the safest place on earth, so much so that it was almost like being home. Nothing went wrong in here where there were so many vampires. No one would dare!

  So when the sword swung down and didn't even pause, no jitter, no judder, no pause at all in its trajectory as it sliced his hand off at the wrist, it was a huge surprise to everyone. Ryan still had a bemused look on his face the whole time like this was a big fucking joke, the pain not yet even thinking to begin to occur. His arm was still in the same position, no blood yet as the limb went into shock. The pain would come in a few seconds as would the blood, but for a second none of this was happening, couldn't be happening, it's all cool man, all good.