Fuck! Chalk another one up in the ever-growing list of things that sounded cooler in my mind.
However, despite the lameness of my decree, once again the chant started up. This time it was, “All glory to Bill!”
Ah, yes. Lousy one-liner or not, this was much, much better.
* * *
The next few hours were actually pleasant for a change. Along with my promotion came an instant change in attitude toward me. The men were more respectful, and the women were flirtier. In case you missed that last part, the women were all suddenly flirting it up with me. I could get used to that shit.
Finally, in the wee hours, I excused myself to leave. One of the nice perks of my new position was that nobody questioned where or why I was going. I had walked a couple of blocks when Sally caught up to me.
“So, how's it going, master?” she said with a mock bow.
“I could definitely get used to this,” I answered.
“I thought you could.”
“Speaking of which...”
“Why did I hand credit over to you when I could have easily made myself the new leader?” she finished my question for me.
“In a nutshell,” I agreed.
“Did you see some of them in there? Remember what I told you about Jeff stocking the coven with guys who were mostly just clones of himself?”
“Yes.”
“Well, duh,” she continued. “Do you think that one of those macho assholes would have let me assume command for even a minute before challenging me?”
“You could have taken Dick Reaper,” I said.
“Maybe. But what about the next one, and the next? I wouldn't be able to turn around without being challenged. You, on the other hand...”
“Are, for the most part, weaker, and less experienced than you?” I mused.
“Yes, but the rest of them don't know that. To them, you're the fearsome Freewill. They'll all think twice before getting in your face. And if they do... well, luckily for you, some of that bullshit we've been spreading just so happens to be true.”
“I guess. Although you could have told me first rather than putting me out there with a potential target on my back.”
“Yeah, I could have,” she mused. “But I gotta get my fun somewhere,” she finished with a laugh.
“Fair enough,” I said evenly. “Speaking of fun, though, that reminds me... what about my decree back there?”
“What about it?”
“Well, I've abolished all of our dopey little superhero names. So, what should I call you now? I believe it was Lu... something,” I said with my own laugh.
“Sally will be just fine, thank you,” she replied. “I've gotten used to it. But not Sunset. That has to go. Maybe I'll just be Sally Smith, or something like that.”
“I could order you to tell me your real name. I am your lord and master, now, after all.”
She gave me the mother of all eye rolls in return, and said, “You can shove your orders up your ass sideways. And as for that lord and master crap, sorry, it doesn't fly with me.”
“No?”
“Nope,” she said sternly. “As a matter of fact, being that you're still new and all, I think I'll be calling a lot of the shots from behind the scenes.”
“You will?”
“Yes,” she responded with a tone of finality. “In fact, I think it might be best to think of me more as your partner than your servant.”
“And what makes you think I'll go along with that?” I asked.
“Oh, a little insurance,” she said as she stopped walking.
“What kind of insurance?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.
“This kind,” she said, pulling something out of her pocket and holding it up. “Look familiar?” It did. It was Jeff's camcorder. Contained within it was, no doubt, footage of my less than stellar fair duel with Jeff. “I figured I'd keep it as a souvenir. A little something to remind us of that day... just in case we forget,” she said, a grin spreading across her face.
I couldn't help but laugh. Throughout everything, I had been so enamored of James' power and so scared of Jeff's that I hadn't realized how much of a force Sally was to reckon with.
“You really are a bitch,” I said with a laugh.
“No,” she replied. “I'm the queen bitch... more precisely I'm your queen bitch. Don't worry, you'll get used to it. You have all of eternity.”
As we walked off into the night together, I had to wonder whether eternity would be long enough.
THE END
Bill Ryder will return in:
Scary Dead Things: The Tome of Bill, Part 2
Available in both ebook and paperback formats
Can’t wait for more Bill? Follow his ongoing misadventures on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/BilltheVampire
About the Author
Rick Gualtieri lives alone in central New Jersey with only his wife, three kids, and countless pets to both keep him company and constantly plot against him. He has won no literary awards and has received exactly zero accolades for his work in the past, present, and (most likely) future. When he’s not busy monkey-clicking out words, he can typically be found jealously guarding his collection of vintage Transformers from all who would seek to defile them.
Defilers beware!
Rick Gualtieri is also the author of:
Bigfoot Hunters
Scary Dead Things (The Tome of Bill, Part 2)
The Mourning Woods (The Tome of Bill, part 3)
The Poptart Manifesto
To contact Rick (with either undying praise or rude comments) please visit http://www.poptartmanifesto.com
Bonus Chapter
Scary Dead Things: The Tome of Bill, part 2
Note to self: don't listen to advice from Ed, I thought as I watched the miles slide by. Traffic was surprisingly light for a Sunday night. I was sitting in the passenger seat of Ed's two-seater piece-of-shit, and my roommate was behind the wheel driving. We were heading south on Route 287 towards the Outerbridge Crossing. Ed had been good enough to come down and give me a ride back home, which kind of made sense as it had been his advice that had given me cause to want to flee back to the relative safety of Brooklyn. Nevertheless, I was glad for the ride. It had turned out to be a long weekend, and I was in no mood to deal with the idiocies of mass transit to get back home.
Since it was early fall, there was no Jersey Shore traffic to contend with. Even so, considering it was only about six PM, traffic was pretty light heading towards Staten Island. Oh well, it was that lull that tends to happen around late September / early October. People were still burnt out from the summer, and the holiday rush was a good month or so off. This was one of those rare times when people just stayed put. In short, the asshole ratio on the roads was low. I liked times like this. Sadly, they were too few and far between as of late.
Ed and I had been listening to some rock music on the radio, or at least what the DJ was calling rock music. There were very few real rock stations left in New Jersey. Most played either classic rock, which was mostly tolerable, or a combination of lousy ballads and pop rock (which had just enough guitar riffs to be outside of the Justin Beiber demographic...barely). We had been discussing how real kick-ass rock music was such a rare commodity when my cell rang.
I had been expecting this. I picked it up and answered with a “Hello.”
“William, is there something you would like to tell me?” asked the voice of my dad.
Uh oh. That wasn't a good sign. If he was calling me William, it meant he had noticed the little mistake I had left behind from my weekend of house sitting.
I decided to do what I did best, play dumb. “Nope. It was a quiet weekend, dad.”
“I'm sure it was,” replied my father's voice in a tone that said he didn't even remotely believe me. “Your mother and I appreciate you coming down and keeping an eye on the place while we were at the beach.” The beach in this case being some of the many casinos down in Atlantic City.
“No
problem, dad! Anyway, well I gotta -” I tried to end the call on a chipper note.
“Hold it!” said the voice on the other end. “I guess I won't beat around the bush. What the hell did you do to Angel?” At the mention of the name of her favorite cat, I could hear my mother in the background. She started wailing and carrying on. It pretty much sounded like she was in the middle of a major freak-out. Not too surprising, all things considered.
“Mom sounds kind of upset.”
“I noticed,” said my father, sarcasm oozing out of his voice. “Do you want to know why?” he asked, despite the fact that I had a pretty good idea why and he most likely knew it.
“Why?” I asked innocently.
“Because right now she's vacuuming up a pile of Angel dust!” he growled.
“Angel dust? You know, she should hold on to that. I hear the street value's off the charts if it's the good stuff.”
“I'm not laughing, William.”
“Sorry, sir,” I automatically replied, despite being an adult, having a job, living on my own, and...oh yeah...being a freaking vampire. “What happened?” I asked, genuinely curious. After all, I wasn't entirely sure how things had played out...especially since I had made it a point to bug out before my parents got home, even going so far as donning a hoodie, sunglasses, and ski mask so as to brave the daylight without bursting into flames. Probably not the manliest way I could have handled the situation, but I like to think there's a fine line between bravery and idiocy. Sticking around would have definitely crossed that line.
“When we got home, your mother noticed the cat was acting a little strange,” my father explained. “It was hissing and carrying on.”
“They're cats,” I replied, again donning an innocent tone. “They go loopy every now and then.”
“Don't be stupid. You know Angel,” chided my dad. “You could step on the stupid cat's...sorry, dear...head, and she wouldn't bat a whisker. But not today. When we got home, she was going absolutely nuts. And there was something wrong with her eyes. They had gone all black like a shark's. That definitely was not normal.”
“Distemper?” I unhelpfully queried.
“Not unless it was the most extreme case of distemper there's ever been,” Dad continued. “Your mom was a mess. Made me go get the cat carrier so we could rush her to the vet.” Oh boy, I think I knew where this was going. “I had the damnedest time getting her in it, too. Little bitch kept going after me.”
“She didn't bite you, did she?” I asked worriedly. I hadn't considered that. I wasn't even sure she could pass it back to humans, but it was a risk I wasn't really willing to take...at least not with my parents.
“No, but she came damn close. I had to put on some work gloves to finally get her in. Then it got weird.” (Yeah, I bet it did)
“I'm listening.”
“Your mom got in the car, but I had left my wallet in the house. I sat the cat carrier out on the walk and went back inside to grab it, and then...”
“In the sun?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“What?”
“Did you leave the carrier in the sun?” I repeated.
“I don't know. I guess so. What does it matter?” dad asked irritably. “All I know is that one minute it's quiet, and the next I hear your mother carrying on like a mad woman. I ran back outside, and do you know what I found? The cat carrier was on fire. I'm not just talking a few sparks either. It was like someone doused it with rocket fuel.”
I was definitely starting to get a sinking feeling in my stomach.
“By the time I got the hose, though, the fire was already out.” Dad went on with his gruesome tale. “The damnedest thing was the cat. I was expecting her to be all burnt up, but there was nothing left. She was completely vaporized. All that was left was a pile of ashes with her collar sticking out of it.”
“Wow. That's...bizarre,” I said, understating the whole thing.
“Yes, bizarre is one word for it. So that's why I want to know whether or not anything odd happened this weekend while you were around.”
“No idea,” I lied. “Like I said, dad, it was a slow weekend. Barely saw the cat. She kept to herself. Other than that, not much going on...hello, dad? Dad? I'm losing you. We're heading into a tunnel. I'll call...” and then I disconnected the call as I had no idea what further to say.
Ed and I drove on for a mile or so, and then he said, “I know I only caught part of that conversation...”
“I don't want to talk about it,” I interrupted.
He ignored me anyway, “But was that about what I think it was?”
I sighed as I started to confess, “My mom's cat, Angel...”
“Yes?”
“I kinda, might have...”
“Yes?”
“Turned her into a vampire,” I finished.
“YOU WHAT!?” he yelled, just barely managing to keep the car from swerving off the road.
“Turned it into a vampire,” I repeated.
“Why?”
“It was an accident.”
“How was it an accident?”
“Well, as you had suggested, I got pretty wrecked this weekend,” I said with a guilty grin.
“And how does that lead to an immortal demon cat?”
“Well, like I said, I was pretty messed up. I guess when vampires get the munchies they don't automatically go for the nachos like everyone else.”
“That's fucked up, man.”
“I know.”
“It's your mom's cat!”
“Was my mom’s cat, anyway.”
“I mean, I don't even like cats,” he went on, “and I still think that's fucked.”
“Yes, I get it. I didn't mean to vampirize the damn cat. It just kind of happened.”
“Is that even a word?” he asked.
“It is now,” I snapped. “And then when she woke up from it...”
“I'm listening.”
“I guess I kind of fooled myself into thinking that maybe I had dreamt it all.”
“I take it from your dad's call that you were wrong on that front.”
“Definitely not a dream,” I confirmed.
“Fucked up,” he repeated.
We drove on again in silence for a few minutes until I heard Ed chortle. I turned to see him grinning and trying...and failing...to suppress laughter.
“What's so funny?” I asked.
“I was just thinking...”
“Yeah?”
“There is a bright side,” he said.
“Do tell.”
“When we get home, you at least get to tell Tom about how you got to eat some pussy this weekend,” he said, finally cracking up laughing.
“Not funny,” I said, but it was a lie. Put that way, it was actually pretty goddamned hilarious. I soon joined my roommate in the laughter.
We laughed for a good long while until my phone rang again.
“Oh shit,” I said, tears still pouring down my face.
“Time to get back on the clock, my man,” Ed said.
He was right. I couldn't put this off. I just hoped I could think of something to tell my parents that sounded more convincing than, “Sorry for vampirizing your cat, mom and dad.” I picked up the phone and answered it.
“Listen. Tell mom I'm sorry about her cat,” I said.
“Tell her your damn self,” replied Sally's voice from the other end. “I'm not your goddamned answering service.”
“What?” I blurted out. “What are you doing on the line, Sally?”
“Oh, I don't know. I was lonely, what with you on vacation and all, and thought maybe I'd give you a buzz so you could talk dirty to me. But I'm afraid I have to draw the line at letting you call me mommy...or daddy, for that matter,” she quipped.
“I can think of a few other words for you,” I growled.
“I'm sure you can, but think of them while you're packing. Vacation's over,” she replied.
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