Joe Vampire (16 page)

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Watch screen/surf web

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Push the Button

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Watch screen/surf web

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Push the Button

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Go home

I feel like the guy from
Lost
, stuck down the hatch all alone with nothing but a stack of classic LPs for company. The big difference for me? I sort of like being stranded on this island. Much like the guy from
Lost
, however, I’m not alone. There are others here, too. 

Not many. But some.

Because there are so few of us, we’re scattered throughout the work space – much different from the day shift, where we practically lap-danced on each other to make room for everyone. Smaller headcount makes smelling people as food much less of an issue. It also eliminates the need for friendly small talk about weather and traffic and the rotten economy. So I can plug into my tunes, scan the Twittersphere for hilarious one-liners or watch reruns online to keep me entertained and Push the Button in peace. A perfect set-up for the solitary hermit-monk lifestyle I’m trying to develop. The whole place is very much a colorless corporate replica of my home, really. 

Only without the coffee table. 

This reduction of responsibilities has given me a lot of time to think about everything that’s happened as well. I’d like to believe that it all must be some kind of blessing in disguise – a pretty kick-ass disguise, too, since I’ve yet to see any of the blessing showing. But still. Shit like this doesn’t just drop on you without bringing along a lesson about everything turning out for the better. 

Not for
my
better, maybe. But for everyone else’s.

Especially where feeding is concerned.

In accepting that my fate is to be a vampire – and, as much as I try to minimize it, it is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me aside from losing my virginity and discovering Hulu – I realize that I can’t make it small. And it doesn’t
want
to be small, so my efforts to shrink it will probably just backfire eventually. Still, I think it’s worth the fight. I may not be willing to embrace my vampirosity, but it sure as hell wants a hug. I think the best thing I can do at this point is not inflict it on anyone else. 

Especially after what happened the last time I saw Hube.

The more I thought about having smelled fear in him, the more I realized how good it felt at that moment knowing that I had such power over someone. I felt it in my fangs; they kind of ached in a way, the same way a hard-on would ache once you know the prospect of getting laid has become reality. I certainly didn’t mean to feel it, and I am in no way whatsoever condoning what I felt; I’m a total rat bastard for even considering it no matter how angry I am at the guy, and I knew that right away. But the darker elements in my modified brain seemed to recognize this feeling as the whole point of being a vampire, like an instinct had finally justified itself. It seems to me that one little slip of the tooth would put the vampire in control instead of Joe. I’m well aware of my shortcomings in the dietary department; I may not eat like a sumo wrestler, but if I’m in for a single snack cake, I’m in for the whole box. Sugar just does that to me. Knowing now that my nose tends to pick up on the sweetness in everyone’s blood, I get the sinking feeling it would be the same if I were to bite someone. Necks would just become Zingers or Ho-Hos, nothing more than snack food for the ravenous, blood-starved fiend that I would certainly become. Not a chance I’m tempting a fate as potentially disastrous as that. I have little doubt that if I were to try it even once, it wouldn’t be long before I’d be jumping on everyone who passed by, clinging to their necks like a deer tick and sucking them dry. If it turned out they were afraid of me while it happened – which, of course, is the whole point – then I’m betting the whole tingling fang thing would become orgasmic. And if I let it go that far, I would never get it under control again. So no matter how strong the pull to fang-fuck the general populace, I’m sticking with abstinence. It’s much safer for everyone that way – me included. Alice can keep Vampire Wonderland for herself.

There’s no way I’m going down that lousy rabbit hole.  

This is why night shift is so totally workable for me: If I want to avoid the possibility of biting people, I’ll make it easier on myself by avoiding people altogether. And it went off without a hitch for the first week or so. Then a complication arose, in the shape of a woman. 

It’s not what you’re thinking. 

And it’s not what I just made it sound like, either. 

A few nights back, one of the night shift long-timers stopped by to introduce herself. She’s what I would call librarian-esque, and had been head-down in some pulpy romance novel or another every night since I started. To keep from bothering her, I’d just wave a little if she looked up rather than busting in and saying hello. I’m the newbie; I should bow my head and respect the natives, and earn their respect in return. No intrusions. No assumptions. And since I didn’t really want any intrusions or assumptions laid on me, either, I totally understood. But that night, when I looked up from my streaming S
aved by the Bell
reruns to Push the Button, there she was, staring me down like I had spit in her chai. It was focused staring, too, like she recognized me from somewhere. But I had never seen her before in my life. “You’re Joe, right?” 

“Yup. New guy.” I reached out a hand. “And you’re… ?”

“Louise.” She said it flatly, shaking my hand a little too long for comfort. “Cold,” she commented. And she kept on staring. People almost always stop that shit when they get caught, but this one had some major lady balls and just kept going for it. She was squinting, too, like she was trying to diagnose me or read something written beneath my skin. No one on day shift had ever looked this closely at me. I know I’m pretty cool-blooded these days, but the vibe I was getting from this creepy bitch made me shiver in my hoodie. So I rolled out my list of excuses for my appearance. “I’m going through a little battle with anemia right now. That’s why I’m so pale.”

She shook her head. “No… that’s not it.” She didn’t just have balls; she had a dick to go with them, especially considering that she wasn’t exactly flashing a Coppertone tan herself.

I protested. “Um, yes it is.”

She examined the sides of my head. “And what about the tips of your ears? They kind of slant upward… they’re almost pointed. Is that anemia, too?” 

Damn. I knew I should have worn a cap to put those things under. “I am as God made me – pointy ears and all.” I smiled, then stopped quickly when I felt my fangs poke out. 

“That isn’t true,” she said, and it wasn’t out of kindness. “Someone made you this way, but God had nothing to do with it.” She sat her wool-skirted, Irish sweater-wearing, school teacher-looking ass down in the chair next to me as if she had a personal invitation. I was seconds away from carpeting her with f-bombs. “And what’s with the sunglasses? Are you stoned?” 

“No. I have… my eyes are – ” Before I could stop her, she reached up and removed my Ray Bans. There they were, naked to the world: my totally open pupils, drowning out the colored rings that used to surround them. Huge and dilated, two empty holes leading into the middle of my head. I felt like she was staring into me, like I was totally exposed without my shades.  

“Ah – I thought that’s what it was. You’re a vampire.” 

Shit. I’ve been made.

I went into full denial mode. “A
what?
A vampire? No that’s just… that’s just crazy. Crazy.” I sounded like my brother’s skank. 

She shook her head. “No, it’s not. I can tell completely; you’re a vampire.” She smiled a little, just enough for her own fangs to show. “Just like me.”   

So I guess the night shift won’t be quite the opportunity for laying low that I thought it would.

Dammit.

POST 24

Another One Bites

I’m a little ooked about being pointed out as a vampire, even by another vampire, bookish and harmless though she may be. I don’t think of
This
as some sort of secret society with special hats and a complicated handshake, something mysterious and prestigious to belong to like the Masons or the Kardashians. But it does seem logical that there are others around here besides me. If there’s a chance that Don picked up the pace of his changings after he found out it worked on me, then there must be an abandoned boxcar’s worth of drug-addicted vampire hobos running around town just shitting themselves silly. And I hope to meet exactly none of them in my lifetime. If, for some unforeseen reason I ever do, I’d be more than willing to throw them whatever I have in my wallet – as long as it’s smaller than a ten. But I sure as hell don’t want to chat with them about being a vampire over a breakfast of Marlboros and Wild Turkey.

I’m a hard-ass by no means, but my compassion has its limits.  

Having gotten used to everyone’s failure to notice my altered features, it was pretty freaky to have someone notice all of it so easily – even if she happens to have the same features. I mean, I know
all
the tell-tale signs myself, now that they’ve made themselves at home all over me, and I’ve never noticed anyone else who struck me as particularly vampirish. Maybe if I looked a little closer or paid more attention to people I might find vampires milling about all over the damn place – and more than just the hobo junkies. But the phenomenal ignorance of others coming from both directions has kept me protected from it. I don’t look for them; they don’t seem to see me. I’ve been in my own happy avoidance bubble that no one has had enough interest in to burst. Despite my bitching, I really liked it that way. 

Then Louise plopped down beside me and popped the damn thing, in the course of one lousy exchange.

“You’re still pretty new to it, aren’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Of course you are, poor thing… you don’t look like you’ve even fed on a human yet.” She was talking to me like we were old friends. We hadn’t even become
new
friends.  

“And you have?” 

“Mmm-hmm. Only a few times, though. It’s not really for me.”

She wasn’t bragging about it, but I got the feeling she wasn’t bullshitting me, either. “Maybe I have, too. How can you tell that I haven’t?”

She squinted and slid her glasses down. “You’re too thin. And pale. Feeding from a human puts a little color back in your cheeks, and a little soul back in your bones. It also causes deep emotional scars for both you and your host. It’s best to find a volunteer, if possible, someone with a strong sense of self who’s willing to bond with you in such a permanent manner in spite of the risks.” I thought of Hube’s offer. I guess he had the right idea. “Still and all, it’s a huge commitment and one I’m not open to sharing with anyone on a permanent basis. So I feed on chickens now.” 

“Chickens? Like, live ones?” 

“Live ones, yes.” A step beyond my nauseating raw beef fetish, I’d say.  “I raise them myself, in a little coop in my back yard. It’s a perfect middle ground. I can use the whole animal – the blood, the flesh and the eggs.” And then she told me she makes soup from the bones and gives the feet to a Chinese folk healer in her neighborhood in exchange for vitamin treatments. Nothing goes to waste except the beaks. She even uses the feathers to stuff hand-made pillows. “How’s that for green living?” 

Repulsive – thanks for asking. “Quite a system you’ve got there.”

“It really is. I only do this with the hens, though – the thought of putting something called a
cock
in my mouth just doesn’t sit well.”  She made me laugh; that was unexpected. It had been a while. “And you? What do you use?” 

Tit for tat, I guess. I’d already been called out. It would be difficult to skirt the truth now. “Steaks. I like steaks. The bloodier the better.”

“Ahh… a beef eater. Very nice. Masculine.” That’s not something I hear often. “Any cut in particular?”

“Whatever’s on sale, mostly.” I think she was trying to win me over, and from what I could tell she was being sincere about wanting to know more. But I’m sort of determined to not have
This
become the topic of idle chatter, even with another vampire, so I resisted giving too much information. I did check into her head, though, just to see if she had some hidden motive behind the interest. But I couldn’t read her thoughts. Her grimace told me she knew that I was trying, and that she wasn’t too pleased about it. 

That must be against the Vampire Code of Ethics or something. 

“Well, I’ll tell you this much about feeding from people: be careful who you choose, even if it is someone you trust. There are so many diseases out there these days.” Diseases? She sucks the blood out of chickens. Hasn’t she heard about H1N5? “And there are people who seek us out and take advantage of us, people who like the excitement of being bitten. It gives them a sick sexual thrill. They’re called… ” and she leaned in and whispered, “…
sucker fuckers.
Sorry for the swearing.” Not a problem, Louise. “Not that I call them that, but that’s what I’ve heard others call them. They’re sort of like vampire groupies. Watch out for them; they don’t have our best interests at heart.”

Just Say No To Sucker Fuckers. Got it. “I’m not a very social guy these days. I think I’ll be okay.”