I stood in the doorway for a moment while they continued to play tongue-hockey, oblivious of me. Finally, I cleared my throat. They both stopped what they were doing and looked in my direction. Christy’s face held a fairly shocked expression. Tom’s looked like a mouse that had gotten caught with the cheese.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt you,” I said in a frigid voice.
“It’s cool, dude,” replied Tom easily. “We talked things over.”
“Talked things over,” I repeated to myself. I closed the door and walked over to our kitchen nook. I had a feeling I was going to need to drink something a lot stronger than blood before the night was out. “And what exactly did you two love birds talk about?”
“Christy’s sorry about what happened. Right, hon?” he said. She nodded vigorously in reply. “We decided to try to work things out, but first rule going forward is the apartment is off limits.”
“Off limits?” I queried, waving my hands in their general direction.
“Well, not for this,” he explained.
“Oh. So what you’re saying is that she’ll only try to kill me again when I’m not here. Is that right, Christy?”
She gave me a sheepish smile in return and opened her mouth to speak, but I held my hand up. “Give me a second. I have a feeling I’m gonna need a drink for this.” I opened the fridge and grabbed a pint of chilled blood.
While I was contemplating adding a shot or three of Jack Daniels to it, Tom tried to change the subject. “Oh yeah, almost forgot. You got a call while you were out.”
“From who?”
“Caller ID said it was your job.”
“Great,” I replied. “What now?”
For a while there, I had been afraid that the whole battle at my workplace would be traced back and dumped squarely onto my lap. However, a few quick phone calls to some of my programming buddies the day before had confirmed that the damage was being blamed on nameless vandals, possibly corporate sabotage. Hell, they hadn’t even closed the place for any longer than it took to replace the broken windows. I never thought I would be so glad that the vampire nation kept the cops in their back pocket.
Still, what would they be calling for then? I put down my drink and pressed play on the machine. Whatever it was, I was almost hoping it would put me in an even worse mood for the reaming I was about to give Tom and his little succubus.
“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
The Mourning Woods
The Tome of Bill
Part 3
Tis better To Have Loved and Lost
“What do you mean she quit?!” The question came out ... well okay, it came out far less harshly than I had intended. I had really meant to scream a massive string of obscenities into the phone. Sadly, even I had to admit that yelling, “What the fuck are you talking about you balding little middle management douche of a shit?!” probably wouldn’t have been particularly diplomatic, especially considering that I was speaking to my boss.
“I know it’s abrupt,” replied Jim, my manager at HopskotchGames, “and believe me, I’m as upset as any of you, but we’ll just have to handle our own paperwork for a while. Don’t worry, I’ll start interviewing for a replacement next week.”
My roommate and coworker, Ed, hit the mute button. We were seated in his bedroom/office for the weekly conference call. He knew me well enough to know when a tirade was incoming, one that it was probably best to spare Jim from – particularly if we wanted to avoid the unemployment line.
Jim’s voice continued to drone, moving on to whatever topic of “importance” was next on the agenda. I didn’t hear a single word he said. For all I knew, he could have been telling us that he had just won the lottery and was currently getting a blowjob from a thousand-dollar hooker.
“Calm down,” Ed said preemptively.
“Paperwork?” I spat, ignoring him. “He thinks I’m worried about paperwork? The only woman I’ve ever loved has just walked out of my life, and he’s concerned that he has to print his own fucking spreadsheets.”
“Being just a tad melodramatic, aren’t we?”
“No. I mean, I know we’ve only been dating for a few months, but...”
“Dating?” he interrupted. “You’ve gone out for coffee maybe three...”
“Four!”
“Fine, four times. And didn’t you say it was Dutch each time?”
I glowered at my friend, letting my fangs extend menacingly. He stared right back, nonplussed. I’m a vampire – an immortal terror of the night – and I couldn’t even get the humans I shared an apartment with to tremble in fear. My God, life was just not fair.
“Are you done pouting?” Ed asked.
“This is not pouting. It’s supposed to be threatening.”
“You might want to practice that in the mirror some more.” He stood up and stretched. “Anyway, as I was saying, you’re overreacting just a bit.”
“Like you would know?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. Growing up, my older sister used to force me to watch Disney movies with her. Trust me. Four non-dates do not a fairytale romance make.”
“There was more to it than that and you know it. Sheila and I...”
“Had nonstop, mind-blowing sex?”
“Well, no...”
“Played multiple games of tongue-hockey?”
“Not exactly.”
“Spent every waking moment together?”
“Okay, I get the point!”
“Christ, did you ever even hold her fucking hand?”
“Well, once I brushed up against...”
“Exactly,” he stated. “You pined for her for years and that’s it. I had a more intimate relationship with my grandmother.”
The Tome of Bill Series: Books 1-4 (Bill The Vampire, Scary Dead Things, The Mourning Woods, Holier Than Thou) Page 57