“How old is it? Looks like it really did come from Dracula’s crypt.”
“Don’t know and don’t care. Look, do you want it? If not, I’m just gonna toss the thing into the nearest dumpster I can find and...”
He immediately put his hands on the bag. “Are you kidding? Of course I want it. Even desiccated as it is, I can learn a shitload - unless you’ve changed your mind and are now willing to let me perform that brain biopsy...”
“Have fun.” I handed it over and turned toward the door.
Walking away, I felt pretty good at having rid myself of two potential burdens: being in Dave’s debt and carrying with me an item that would surely set off the alarm bells of even the most slow-witted cop on the force.
The rain had let up, but the sky was still overcast - a near perfect daytime scenario for me. Best of all, though, I was finally heading home.
I had no idea what was waiting for me there, but honestly felt that I could handle it, no matter what. Just being back where I belonged was empowering.
It was like a metaphorical beam of sunlight shined down from above. The worst was undoubtedly behind me.
Homecoming
The sky was clearing up by the time I arrived back in Brooklyn, but thankfully, it was starting to get dark. Even if the clouds parted, I was no longer in any real danger of combusting.
Unfortunately, the closer I came to home, the more my hopeful mood evaporated. I knew Tom had survived, but that was it. I didn’t know what shape he was in or what his demeanor toward me might be. For all I knew, I’d walk in and he’d immediately spit upon me and send me on my way. He wouldn’t entirely be in the wrong to do so, either.
I stepped out of the subway platform and had to suppress a grim chuckle. The last time I’d felt this way was when I’d returned home upon being turned into a vampire. Although I had only been gone a day, it had felt like a lifetime. Back then, I’d had similar thoughts of walking in to find my friends taking up the mantel of slayers.
It had all been a bunch of bullshit then, but now I wondered if those feelings had been a foreshadowing of this day. I was returning home following months of unexplained absence and my friends, assuming they were okay, might now have actual cause to take up arms against me.
I swear, if I knew then what I knew now, I might have just slunk off into the night, never to be seen again. I could have become a mysterious stranger, drifting aimlessly from town to town, never staying in one place for long. Sadly, it was too late for that. Too many vamps knew my name, face, or scent. It would be impossible to hide from the bloodhounds forever.
Even if I tried, the world didn’t have forever to wait. It might have just been me, but as I walked the few blocks to my apartment building, I could have sworn things felt different - stranger - almost as if something were leaking into our world that didn’t belong. It was hard to quantify, but the air felt thicker and the shadows seemed longer.
Of course, I could have just been imagining it all - my subconscious doing its best, as usual, to psyche me out from an encounter that it assured me would be unpleasant.
I stopped at the foot of the stairs leading to my building. When no howling wraiths leapt from the gloom to rend my flesh, I decided that maybe I was just looking for excuses to not head in.
The hilarious part was that I actually had one really valid excuse - my keys were missing. They were no doubt long gone, lying wherever my brutish alter-ego had left them - assuming he didn’t just eat them. Ugh, there was a thought. I can only imagine the joy of trying to shit those out.
There I was again, indulging in daydreams rather than facing reality.
Enough of this crap. I was Bill Ryder - Dr. Death to some, the legendary Freewill to others. If I couldn’t even knock on my own fucking door, how the hell was I going to fool myself into believing that I could save the world?
I walked up, put on a brave front, and pushed the doorbell for my apartment.
* * *
Okay, so maybe pressing a doorbell wasn’t quite the same as an epic showdown with the forces of evil. Give me a break; I had to start somewhere.
What happened next was certainly equally anticlimactic. The door unlocked with a quick buzz. Oh well, at least someone was home.
I walked up to the top floor, my knees shaking with each step. So much for all of my bullshit bravado down at the door. I felt more like the legendary pussy of the vampire race.
I reached my floor, stepped over to the door, and raised my hand. I needn’t have bothered, though. It swung open as I approached.
My roommate and oldest friend, Tom, stood there.
“Bill?” he asked cautiously, his eyes opening wide with surprise. I was filled with hope for a fleeting moment, but then I saw his face droop with disappointment.
I was right to worry - my fears were about to become a reality.
* * *
“You didn’t happen to run into a guy with Chinese food on the way up, did you?”
“Huh?”
“He’s late and I’m hungry. I thought you were him.”
“Uh, no.”
“Oh. Well, then...” He eyed me skeptically for a second. “You’re not, like, some kind of doppelganger, are you?”
“No, it’s definitely me. I’m...”
Tom stepped forward and threw his arms around me in an embrace. “Good, just checking. Everyone keeps telling me we can’t be too careful these days.”
I didn’t return the hug immediately. The whole delivery question had left me a bit gobsmacked. I stood there and blinked uncomprehendingly for a few seconds, letting things sink in. “So...” I stammered, “we’re cool?”
He pulled back from the hug and looked at me like I had two heads. “Of course. I mean, you’re still an asshole for punching me in the face like you did, but Christy told me that wasn’t really your fault, so I guess it’s okay.” He turned around and walked back into the apartment. “Still sucks that I couldn’t find that Megatron figure again when I woke up,” he muttered.
I remained where I was a second longer. “Can I come in?”
He glanced over his shoulder, giving me a look that said he thought I’d gone soft in the head. “Why not? Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?”
I breathed a sigh of relief and took a step forward, tentative at first - afraid that I might be dreaming. My foot hit the floor and I was inside. I was home.
My eyes grew misty and I had to blink back tears. Who would have thought our crummy apartment in this shitty old building would have such an emotional hold over me?
“You okay, Bill?”
“Uh, yeah...just forgot how dusty this place is.” I turned and wiped my eyes, but then realized that maybe I should hold off on that for a moment. I’d still only seen one of my roommates, and I’d already known from Dave that he was okay.
I steeled myself and got right to the point. “Ed, is he...”
“Gone,” Tom said solemnly.
“Oh.” I sank onto our couch and put my head in my hands. I’d been afraid of that. Sheila, for all her holy power, hadn’t been strong enough to...
“Yeah, dude’s been putting in some crazy hours at his new gig. It’s fucking weird, if you ask me. Now where the hell is that food?”
“What?” I asked, sitting up.
“I ordered like an hour ago.”
“Not that! What about Ed?”
“Well, it’s just that I don’t think I ever saw him even put in his basic forty hours a week when he was working for Jim...”
“No, stupid. You mean he’s alive?” I stood and grabbed him by the shoulders. “He’s okay?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, where have you been?”
I wasn’t sure whether to kiss him on the lips or punch his fucking lights out. So I opted for somewhere in between - smacking him upside the head. “Obviously not here.”
“Oh yeah. So what’s up with that? Christy said you hulked out and ran off. What have you been doing all this time?”
“The us
ual. Been locked up in a castle dungeon in Switzerland.”
“Meet any hot Swiss chicks?”
“No idea. I might’ve eaten a few, though.”
* * *
Tom’s food finally arrived, sparing me the horror of listening to him whine about how he was starving to death. It gave me a moment to reflect on things. A few short days ago, I would have sold my organs for a chance to be back home. Now I was only back for a few minutes and was already ready to scream at him to shut the fuck up already. It’s all relative, I guess. Go figure.
While he ate - and after I snagged an eggroll just on principle’s sake - I brought him up to speed on what I knew, which wasn’t much. At least it was a good story. He especially got a kick out of the part about me locking Alex in a room with an ancient, and probably pissed off, demigod.
“You should call Sally and tell her that shit.”
“Village Coven has survived without me for more than three months. I’m sure it can handle one more night. Maybe I’ll head in tomorrow and see what damage she’s done in my absence.”
“You might need to travel a bit farther than that,” he said in between mouthfuls of fried rice.
That caught my attention. “Why?”
“Well, I don’t think she’s there.”
That same sinking feeling hit my gut again. “What happened to Sally? Is she all right?”
“Last I heard. I mean, I haven’t really seen her. She popped by once, right after you disappeared, to threaten to beat the shit out of me for some reason, but that was it.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Then how do you know she’s not there?”
“Christy. She ran into her a few weeks back. Said something about her maybe leaving town for a while.”
“Leaving? Where?”
“No idea. She was kinda vague about the whole thing, but I think she might have mentioned something about a stopover in Vegas.”
All worry evaporated in an instant. That bitch! There I was, being Alex’s personal gimp in the deepest, darkest dungeon in all of Europe, and she was off on a fucking vacation - probably spending the coven’s money like it was going out of style. “Did she say when she’d be back?”
Tom just eyed me over his meal. “Do I look like her secretary?”
He might not have been, but Starlight was - despite any misgivings I had about it. She’d undoubtedly know what was up on the off chance Tom was right and Sally was off gallivanting somewhere. Jeez, turn your back for a few months and people just take the fuck off.
Oh well, maybe that was a good thing. If she was on an undead party cruise, that probably meant nothing too important was going on. Perhaps the world wasn’t quite as close to the brink of madness as I’d assumed. Sally had her annoying quirks, but I couldn’t believe she’d take a powder if things were truly getting that bad.
Yeah, that cemented it. I could wait one more day to announce my glorious return. Tonight was for spending with my bros and enjoying a few hours at home. Speaking of which...
“Um, so...”
“Yeah, Bill?”
“My room?”
“Have a little faith, man. We left it just like it was.”
“Really?”
“Yep, although I hope you don’t mind, I kind of forged your name on your checkbook. Your share of the rent wasn’t exactly paying for itself.”
I was tempted to comment on that, but let it drop. Hell, they could have thrown out, sold, or just outright burned my shit. They would have been within their rights to have done so, too, after the first month of my absence. That they hadn’t said a lot about their faith that I would return...
Or that nobody else really wanted to live with either of them, but I chose to believe the former.
I will admit to perhaps a tear in my eye as I got up and walked to my room, my room. A big smile upon my face, I opened the door and felt it slam into something that kept it from swinging in all of the way.
What the?
“Almost forgot,” Tom said, “we didn’t change anything, but I figured you wouldn’t mind if I stored some shit in there. Been buying a lot of stuff for the baby and didn’t have any place else to put it.”
Oh yeah - I was definitely home again.
No Rest for the Wicked
I took some time to move Tom’s boxes out of the way, noting that a good chunk of his “baby” supplies consisted of old, semi-broken action figures that he’d probably gotten off eBay.
After that, I finally changed into some of my own clothes. They smelled a bit musty - apparently, nobody had bothered to wash them in my absence - but I didn’t really care. They were a shitload better than the damp mishmash of clothes I’d been wearing, but best of all, they were mine.
Or at least I thought they were. I cinched up my pants and they almost fell off me. I tried another pair and noticed the same thing. A quick trip in front of the bathroom mirror and my eyebrows rose up in surprise. I’d somehow lost almost a pants size. It wasn’t much, nothing quite as dramatic as Tobey Maguire going to bed as skinny old Peter Parker and waking up a buff Spider-Man.
Even so, it was definitely not expected. I’d thought that physical change wasn’t possible for a vamp. Guess I was wrong. If it didn’t involve killing so many people, I might’ve almost been tempted to see what else the Dr. Death diet could do.
That could wait, though. For now, clad in my favorite Doctor Who shirt, I felt like me again, even if my belt was cinched extra tight.
I stepped out of my room and sat down to let Tom fill me in some more while we waited for Ed to get home. Christy’s pregnancy had kept him pretty busy, although luckily, it sounded like she’d taken some precautions to ensure she didn’t turn his brain into sludge again.
“That’s good to hear.”
“Tell me about it. You hit really hard for such a big pussy.” He rubbed his jaw for effect.
“Sorry.”
“It’s all good. I’d have done the same. The whole thing was fucked up. I figured it would be at least a couple of years before I went all Darth Vader over a kid. Oh, speaking of which, you might want to check in with your parents at some point.”
My parents? Oh, fuck. I hadn’t even considered them, with everything that was going on. I knew how my mom was with these things. When I was a kid, she was the type to call the cops if I was even five minutes late for dinner. I could only imagine what...
“Relax,” he said, obviously seeing my panic. “They’re cool. Fortunately for you, I am the master of making excuses. You’ve just been busy every time they’ve called. They do probably think you’re a dick for not calling back, though.”
I sighed in relief. “I can live with that. Thanks. That’s another one I owe you.”
“Who’s counting?” he replied with a sly grin that told me he was - the ass.
I was about to respond when I heard footsteps approaching the front door. If you live with a person long enough, you learn to identify them in any number of ways - including how they walked. One didn’t need vampire senses for that. My super-sensitive ears were useful for hearing it from further away than a regular person, though.
Had my heart still been beating, it would have probably sped up in joy at the anticipated reunion. Even so, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have a little fun with things.
“Play it cool,” I said to Tom before getting up and walking into our kitchen nook. I opened the fridge, noting with a bit of regret the lack of blood. Oh well, I couldn’t really blame them. Keeping the refrigerator full of O-negative when nobody was around to drink it would just be fucking weird. For the moment, I grabbed a cup out of our dish drain and poured myself a glass of Pepsi.
The front door opened and the familiar voice of my other roommate followed. “Goddamn, what a fucking day. I so hate vendors who...”
“That’s great, because whining like a bitch will definitely solve that problem,” I interrupted, stepping from the kitchen with a big grin on my face.
Silence fell upon the room. Ed’s jaw nearly
dropped to the floor in surprise. Mine did likewise at how he was dressed. It wasn’t exactly an Armani suit, but since when did he even wear business casual? He stood there in khakis and a button down shirt, a sports blazer slung across one arm, and an actual briefcase in the other. Jesus Christ, I really had been gone a long time.
Tom was the one to break the silence. “It’s amazing what wanders in if you leave the door open long enough, isn’t it?”
Ed dropped the briefcase. Thank goodness, too. Of all the things going on, I think that was potentially the freakiest. “Holy shit, you’re back.”
“That’s what I hear.”
“When...”
“A few hours ago.”
“You couldn’t have called?”
“I didn’t get good reception in the dungeon they kept me locked in.”
That broke the deadlock. Simultaneously, we both stepped forward and embraced. Holy shit, it was awesome. I mean, Tom had said Ed was fine, but to actually see him in the flesh was...well, I might have gotten choked up a wee bit.
Thankfully, Tom existed to ruin such moments, lest we get used to expressing silly things like our feelings. “Aw, this is just like one of those tampon commercials.”
“Fuck you, asshole.” I backed up a step. “You have no idea how worried I was, Ed.”
“It’ll take a lot more than some pussy vampire to keep me down.”
“I’m sorry, I...”
“Don’t.” He held up a hand. “It was a fucked up situation, no matter how you look at it. I got unlucky, is all.”
“Yeah, but it was my fault.”
“Fuck that shit. I knew what I was getting into.”
He’d said that to me before. I guess I didn’t want to believe he actually meant it. Regardless, I let it drop so as to avoid getting all weepy again. The bottom line was that he was standing there in front of me, alive. Now wasn’t the time to mourn.
“So, when did you sell out and go all corporate?” I asked, eyeing his attire again.
He sighed, as if knowing that had been coming. “Right about the same time that Jim fired your ass.”
The Tome of Bill (Book 5): Goddamned Freaky Monsters Page 11