“Bill, it’s Jim. Call me when you get this. Just got word from HR. The VP of Marketing filed a harassment complaint against you. What the hell is that about? Call me.”
I couldn’t even begin to process that for a second. I just stood there, stunned. The motherfucker complained about me to HR?!
I heard Christy say, “I should probably go.”
For once, even Tom had a clue. “Yeah, that might be best,” he said, getting up to walk her to the door. She beat a hasty retreat. Probably for the best, but apparently not for the last, considering the state I had caught her and my roommate in.
Once he had shown her out, he walked up to me, but I again held up my hand. “If you even imply the words sexual harassment...” I let the threat hang in the air.
I was interrupted from the tirade I felt building in me by Ed walking out of his bedroom. “I heard you come in,” he mentioned. If he heard that, he no doubt heard what else had gone on. He wisely mentioned none of it. “Here,” he said, handing me a piece of paper.
“What’s this?” I asked without looking at it.
“I looked up Alma for you.”
I glanced down at the paper. It was a printout of a webpage. “Is this Wikipedia?”
“Yep, came right up in Google. Not exactly the heavy research I was expecting.”
I scanned the entry. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“Nope.”
“What is it?” Tom asked.
“Alma,” Ed explained, “is the Mongolian name for Bigfoot.”
“No fucking way!”
Ed shrugged. “That’s pretty much what I thought.”
“You’re telling me that the vampires are in a war against Sasquatch?” I replied in a stunned voice. I then took a few minutes to fill them in on what Sally had just told me.
“Sounds more like the vampires are in a losing war against them,” Ed added when I was done.
I nodded. “Yeah, and apparently they’re expecting me to be their General Custer.”
“That is fucking cool!” Tom exclaimed, but then quickly added, “I don’t mean the thing with you, Bill. But seriously, vampires versus bigfoot? I’d pay to see that shit.”
“Don’t forget the wizards,” I pointed out with a sigh. Jesus Christ, how did I find myself in this position? I put my head down on the counter.
“Maybe we should give you a few moments,” said Ed, leading Tom toward the living room.
“Why bother?” I said, standing up straight. I picked up the phone and started dialing.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling work. It’s still early. Jim might still be around. Who knows? Maybe he’ll have something else to say to brighten my day.” That last part came out as a growl as my temper began to fray. I had gone through far too much in the past couple days for life to suddenly decide that it needed to take a mega-dump on me. I barely even noticed when a familiar female voice answered the phone.
“Hopskotchgames. Jim Floskie’s office.”
“Is Jim in?” I asked, rubbing my temple with my free hand.
“Bill?” replied Sheila’s voice. “Sorry, he already left for the night.”
“Figures,” I commented without much gusto. “I’ll call back tomorrow.”
“He’s out. Taking a personal day.”
“That’s just great,” I commented with a sigh.
“Sorry,” she said in an understanding voice. “Hey, I heard what happened.”
“You did? Let me guess, the whole office knows,” I replied, starting to feel a dull throb of anger in the back of my head.
“Don’t worry about it. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“Really?”
“I doubt it,” she replied and then lightened her tone a bit. “So what did you do, hit on him in the men’s room?”
“Of course not!”
“I’m just kidding. I know that,” she said with a laugh. “Besides, I’m sure most people here will stick up for you. Harry doesn’t exactly have too many fans.”
“No?”
“You haven’t been around here much lately. I have. Trust me on this. He’s not exactly Mr. Popular.”
“You seemed to be getting along with him.”
“Oh, please,” she said dismissively. “I was just letting him buy me a drink after work. Truth be told…” she lowered her voice to a whisper. “I kind of think he’s a bit of an asshole, actually. In fact, I might even tell HR that he’s probably just doing this because he’s pissed off at you about the other night. You should have heard the stuff he was ranting about after you left. It was weird.”
“I bet,” I muttered. “I meant ... what about you? Were you mad at me, too?”
“For what?”
“For ... ruining ... I mean, for the other night?”
“Not at all. I’ll admit that it was a little odd (a little?), but I know how it is. I have a nephew. We’ve done some weird things together. I thought it was kind of sweet that you were spending time with your family. As for the rest of it, I might even owe you a bit of thanks.”
“Thanks?”
“If you hadn’t shown up, I’m pretty sure Harry would have tried weaseling his way up to my apartment.” She gave another chuckle. “So in a way, I guess you were my knight in shining armor.”
“Really?”
“You keep asking that. Yes, really.”
“Thank you,” I replied, a bit dumbfounded but nevertheless feeling the first traces of brightness shining into my otherwise not-so-hot day. “I really appreciate that.”
“No problem, Bill. Anytime,” she said, the warmth never leaving her voice.
“Sheila...” I had meant to say “goodbye.” Maybe it was her tone, or maybe the past few days had left me too tired to psych myself out. Whatever the reason, my mouth decided it had a mind of its own, and what came out instead was, “What do you think about maybe grabbing a cup of coffee with me sometime?”
There was a pause on the other end, which was just as well, because time suddenly stopped for me. Holy shit, did I actually just say that? I rewound my mental tape ... yes, I did. I wasn’t even thinking about it. It just kind of slipped out. Great! Now, not only did I have the Draculas, Sasquatch, an asshole wizard, and an HR department to deal with. I could also add being shot down to my ever growing list of mental baggage. What the fuck was I thinking?
“Sure. It’ll be fun.”
My mind went completely blank. Who was I talking to? What were they agreeing with? I had no idea. It was like my brain decided to do a core dump and was still rebooting itself.
I looked up, unable to say a word. I saw Tom and Ed staring back at me. They both had their mouths agape. Finally, Ed started miming the words “thank you” and “hang up” to me. Oh ... oh yeah.
“That’s great, Sheila. Thanks. We’ll ... set something up.” Okay, I needed to end this before I ventured back into social retard territory.
“Sounds good.”
“I’ll talk to you ... soon!” I said and then quickly hung up the phone before my tongue could spit out anything stupid sounding.
There was a stillness in the room for a moment, then I numbly walked over to the living room and plopped myself down on the couch.
Finally, Ed broke the silence. He had a big grin on his face. “Congratulations, man. You actually did it.”
“I did, didn’t I?” I said, it starting to sink in. “I can’t believe it.”
“You can’t?” asked Tom. “I thought I was going to have to listen to you pine for her until I died of old age.”
“Oh yeah, speaking of which, it looks like you owe me twenty bucks,” Ed replied to him.
“For once, I’m happy to pay up,” Tom said, walking over to the kitchen to grab a beer. “Who would have thought it? Today, Bill, you are finally a man.”
We all chuckled, me more so at the irony of the statement. Then Ed said, “Seriously, I’m proud of you.” He clapped me on the shoulder and then got up. He started to walk toward
his room before turning back toward me. “Bit of advice, though?”
“What?” I asked, the grin still on my face.
“Maybe next time, wait until after your sexual harassment case is finished before asking out a co-worker.”
“Asshole,” I replied with a smile.
I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, a mountain of supernatural evil about to come down on my head like an avalanche, and the only thing I could think about was that I had finally taken a step forward with the girl of my dreams. It wasn’t much. Heck, I wasn’t even sure it would be considered a date. Still, it was more progress than I had made in all the time I had known her. It was a victory, no matter how small.
I decided to put my feet up and enjoy it. In a short while, Bigfoot could crash through the wall, followed by the Loch Ness Monster and Zontar the Thing from Venus, for all I cared. Not for right now, though. For at least the next five minutes, all was right with my world. I could live with that.
THE END
Bill Ryder will return in:
The Mourning Woods (The Tome of Bill, Part 3)
Can’t wait for more Bill? Follow his ongoing misadventures on Facebook at:
www.facebook.com/BilltheVampire
♦ ♦ ♦
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Bonus Chapter
THE MOURNING WOODS
The Tome of Bill, Part 3
That’s pretty much how it was for the next two days as we made our way further north. Eventually, the towns became fewer and much farther in between. When not driving, Ed joined me in trying to stay as busy as possible. Unfortunately, cell service was starting to become spotty in the long stretches of ... well ... Canadian nothingness.
Tom, for his part, continued to push himself further up Sally’s list of people to kill. Despite looking absolutely fine, he continued to whine about becoming one of the undead. When I pointed out that both Sally and I were amongst that number and neither of us (especially her) looked worse for wear, it only increased the whining. “Yeah, but you guys are vampires, the undead elite. I’m going to be a disgusting corpse, forever in search of brains.”
“When you finally find some, I hope they stick,” Sally replied.
“Personally,” I said, “I think you should be more worried about your dick rotting off.”
“Seriously, Bill,” Ed asked. “Do you think Christy would even notice?”
“Nah, probably not,” I replied, eliciting laughter.
“That’s right, joke about it now,” Tom said morosely. “Just don’t go looking for any mercy once the zombie apocalypse starts.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Eventually, we were forced to start using our fuel surplus. We stopped along the side of the road at the northern tip of Saskatchewan – or whatever the fuck they called it – to refuel. It was about midnight, cold as fuck, and utterly desolate. While Tom and Ed went to grab some gas from the trailer, I got out to stretch.
“Don’t wander off,” Sally said from still inside the car. She was bundled up in a parka and looked like the world’s most expensive Eskimo hooker.
“Yes, Mom,” I replied. Her warning aside, I started to walk toward the tree line. It had been a couple of hours since our last stop and “little Dr. Death” was feeling the need for a piss break.
As I walked, I glanced up. It was truly marvelous how the night sky looked when there wasn’t any city around to muck it up. Even had my vampire night vision not been up to snuff, the stars were bright enough to make things passable. At least out in the open they were.
I entered the tree line and the gloom settled around me. Even though my vampire eyes cut through the darkness, the density of the brush made it difficult to see more than a few feet in any direction.
Once I was out of sight of the car, I found a suitable looking tree and unzipped to do my business. Ah! Few things were as reinvigorating as a good piss after a long drive.
I was almost finished, when a sound caught my attention. Thinking it was one of my roommates, I called out, “Go find your own garden, guys. This one is already watered.”
There was no response, save the crunch of more foliage. My thoughts immediately turned to Sally. She had been in the car as long as the rest of us. Maybe she needed a “rest break” too. While the thought of her squatting amongst the trees was definitely humorous, I had no intention of getting caught with my dick hanging out. I’m not sure what comment she would have, but I’m certain it wouldn’t be kind.
I quickly zipped up, and that’s when I heard another crunch. Whereas before the sound was hard to pinpoint, this one was close enough for me to tell it was coming from the opposite direction of the car. Another crack. Closer and it sounded big.
I reminded myself that was probably bullshit. It was absolutely quiet out there. In such solitude, a fox could step on a twig and it would sound like cannon fire. I was probably psyching myself out for nothing.
There came a snort from directly in front of where I stood. Brush obscured my vision, but I could make out a shape beyond it and it was bigger than me ... a lot bigger. Oh, crap. I hadn’t even considered that I might run into the Alma, Sasquatch, Grendel, or whatever the fuck they were called. What if they were making a preemptive strike to take me out? I wouldn’t put it past the filthy, shit-flinging fuckers.
I began to back up. I had gotten a taste of what these guys could do when I was over in China. I wasn’t about to underestimate them. The shape in the woods matched me step for step. I began to crouch down in a defensive stance – learned from countless hours of kung-fu movies – when it stepped from the brush and I found myself staring into two large, brown, and not overly intelligent eyes. A set of antlers nearly four feet wide sat atop a large head. A fucking moose.
I breathed a sigh of relief and chuckled as it just stood there, dumbly chewing its cud or whatever the fuck moose chew on. Damn. There I was, almost shitting myself and for what, an oversized deer? On the upside, it was the first one I had ever seen outside of a zoo. Now that the scare was over, it was actually kind of cool.
Figuring a photo would make for a neat souvenir, I pulled my phone from my pocket, aimed the camera, and pushed the button. The flash went off causing the moose to jump in surprise. It made an angry snort and then, without further warning, charged straight at me. Oh, fuck! Forget what I said about Bigfoot. Being trampled by the equivalent of a freight train on legs wasn’t particularly high on my list. I turned and ran. Judging by the crashing sounds behind me, the moose was following.
Thank God, vampires were fast. Used to be, I was the fat kid in high school who came in dead last in every single track event. Nowadays, though, there wasn’t an Olympic sprinter alive who could keep up with me once I got going. There were just two problems. For starters, this wasn’t ideal terrain for me to go all out in. Secondly, my pursuer had both the home field advantage as well as an extra set of legs. I had just burst from the tree line, I could see the car ahead, when this deficiency became painfully clear.
Scary Dead Things (The Tome of Bill Book 2) Page 29