The Tome of Bill Compendium Vol. 1 (Books 1-4) (148 page)

In the blink of an eye, Jeff was right in front of me. Vampires can move damn fast when they want to. Guess the same goes for ghost vamps. I’d have to make a note of that.

“Not a goddamn thing,” he said, a predatory smile on his face. “I just wanted to remind you how pathetic you are. That’s lesson enough for me.” Once again, his fist flashed out and caught me square on the chin. This time when I fell back, darkness enveloped me.

Oh well, at least I didn’t have to listen to him anymore.

* * *

Hangovers suck. They suck ten times as bad, though, when you haven’t even been drinking. At least I didn’t remember drinking. No, all I remembered was Jeff’s fist impacting with my face like a runaway train.

Wait...Jeff?! Wasn’t he dead, as in permanently? Then how come...okay, that must have been a dream; a really bad dream...a painful one to be honest, but a dream nevertheless. Vampires didn’t come back from being dusted.

Well, okay, I didn’t know that for sure. I mean I guess it’s possible. Still, it seemed a little petty to come back just long enough to kick the shit out of me before disappearing back into the ether for all of eternity. Of course, petty was a pretty good word to describe Jeff, although douchebag was a much better one. Hell, I could’ve spent the next several hours thinking up new and interesting...

“Are you just gonna lie there playing with yourself all night? Because if so, I’m gonna get the fuck out of here.”

I bolted straight up at the sound of the voice.

Fuck! My head didn’t like that one bit. I put my hands on my temples to keep my frontal lobe from trying to escape. While I did so, I processed what I had just heard. I knew that voice, in fact I knew it very well. It was a voice that had nagged, complained, and been a non-stop bitch to me ever since that fateful night when I woke up to find myself dead.

“Sally?” I asked, cracking my eyes open. They didn’t stay that way for long, though. One glimpse was enough for them to fly open wide enough that I thought they’d surely pop out of my head.

“Hey, Bill.”

“Holy shit!”

“Take a picture, asshole. It lasts longer. On second thought, don’t. Try it and I’ll tear your fucking arms off.”

I had no answer for that. Hell, I barely even heard her. One-hundred and ten percent of my attention was centered on how she was dressed...or undressed. Sally stood there in front of my bed, bathed in an eerie glow; however, that part barely even registered with me. What did, was that she was clad in nothing but festive ribbon, big red bows of it covering all of her good parts. If Jeff had been a nightmare, surely this was the wettest of wet dreams.

“I am the ghost of Christmas Present,” she said, sounding bored.

“Why are you dressed like that?”

“Don’t ask me. Apparently your subconscious is filling in some of the blanks here.” She glanced down at herself and rolled her eyes. “Offhand, I’d say this is one-half bad pun with the rest being some really sick fucking fantasy on your part.”

“So this is all a dream?” I asked, getting out of bed and approaching her.

“Not quite.”

Whoa. My eyes drank her in like this was the Sahara and she the only glass of water in a hundred miles. This was a
hell
of a lot better than that shitty old bicycle. “Mind if I unwrap my Christmas present?” I reached out a tentative hand, grinning...

...and was immediately met by another fist to the jaw. Sally couldn’t hit as hard as Jeff, but only a fool would discount her. She packed one hell of a mean right. If someone had told me when this day began that I’d be signing up for some makeshift rhinoplasty, I’d have stayed in bed.

“Try that again and the only Christmas gift you’ll be looking forward to is the doctors being able to reattach your dick.”

“Point taken,” I replied, checking to see if any teeth had been knocked loose.

“Good, then let’s go.” She turned and began walking, but I didn’t move to follow. My feet were rooted in place as my eyes traveled down, noticing the Christmas ribbon thong that was, so far as I could tell, the only thing covering her ass.

No doubt sensing my wandering gaze, she turned and gave me a glare. “Eyes up here, mister, before I rip them out of your skull. Let’s get this over with before you totally creep me the fuck out.”

“I’m in no rush.”

“I doubt that. Probably already shot a load in your pants.”

That wasn’t true...well okay, it
almost
was. Sometimes having a vivid imagination is an awesome thing. Still...

“So what’s the deal?” I asked, trying to focus. “Last time I checked, you weren’t dead.”

“That’s okay, the last time I checked, you weren’t a man. How the fuck should I know? All I know is that I’m here, I’m supposed to show you some bullshit that’s probably going to fail to teach you a lesson, and, oh yeah, I’m dressed like I’m about to star in a porno called Licking Santa’s Candy Cane.”

“Well at least that last part is pretty normal.”

She turned and shot daggers at me with her eyes. “You can either walk or be dragged.”

“Okay, I’m coming, I’m coming.”

* * *

For the second time that night, I followed a
spirit
into the unknown. As before, I was led up to and then through my own bedroom wall, finding myself floating in misty darkness. Oh well, at least this time my company was far more pleasant to look at.

“Behold,” she said, her tone that of someone reading off a cue card, “the misery that abounds this Christmas season because of your misdeeds.”

I tore my eyes off of Sally’s figure long enough to take a quick look and comment, “Um, I know Tom’s kind of special, but I’m pretty sure Tiny Tim never had it this good.”

She turned to survey the scene, apparently noticing it for the first time. We were in Christy’s apartment, or at least I assumed we were. At the very least it was far more tastefully decorated than Tom’s room at our place. Either way, she and my roommate were in the middle of a pretty heavy make-out session.

“I did not need to see this,” Sally commented with a sigh.

“Not doing wonders for me either.”

The couple started tearing at each other’s clothes as we watched. Finally, Christy started unzipping Tom’s pants. At that point Sally waved her hands in a panic, causing everything in our view to thankfully get all hazy. “We’re out of here,” she said. “If I have to see that fucktard’s bony ass, I’m gonna be one cranky camper.”

I didn’t bother to point out that she wasn’t too far from being one even when she was in what passed as a good mood. Nope, I just kept my mouth shut and continued to feast on the eye candy.

“Next stop...” She turned to fix me with another stony stare. I quickly brought my eyes up, not wanting to get decked again. “Let us visit your coven and see what horrors have befallen them as a result of your...oh Jesus Christ!”

I looked past her, my jaw dropping open yet again. “Whoa! Why the fuck wasn’t I invited to this?” The scene before me was like some kind of Roman orgy...only bloodier. We were at the SoHo loft, home of most of my coven’s social activities. A couple of dead bodies were splayed on the floor...a not too surprising occurrence when dealing with vampires. As for the members of the coven, well they were in various states of doing...
stuff
. Loud techno music blared as the surreal scene played out before us.

“This is what goes on when I’m not there?”

“Well...yeah,” Sally commented.

“Fuck me!”

“Quite the opposite, I’d say.”

As we watched, two of the women - Vanessa and Firebird - tore off each other’s bloody tops and began wildly making out.

“Now we move on to see what other...”

“Hold on,” I said. “I’d kinda like to stick around here a bit...you know, learn some more about my misdeeds.”

“You’d die alone in a women’s prison,” she quipped with an eye roll. Another wave of her hands and we were once again surrounded by mist and darkness. Dammit...just when the movie was getting good.

“Ah here we are.” she said at last. “Behold your friend Ed. Let us watch as he wallows in the suffering that has been brought upon him... Ooh! Victoria’s Secret is having a sale!”

We were in a mall, the Manhattan Mall from the look of things. Okay, I could dig this. If Ed was here during the holiday season then he sure as shit was suffering. I wouldn’t wish this fate on my worst enemy. I’d sooner sunbath naked on my roof than be here at this time of year.

We spied him as he came out of a jewelry store on the second floor. What the hell? If he was miserable, he sure didn’t show it. Hell, he almost looked happy. That might not sound like much, but it was about as close to jubilation as Ed got.

“What’s he doing?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to know?” Sally replied. “Watch and learn.”

Ed stepped over to the railing, away from the crowd of mall minions cascading in both directions. He pulled a small jewelry box out of his pocket and opened it to inspect the contents. Inside was a bracelet, a pricey one by the look of things. Why the hell was he buying jewelry, unless...

“Are those rubies?” Sally asked, suddenly interested. “They’re my favorite.”

I turned to face her, staring her in the eye - her body momentarily forgotten (but only momentarily). “Are we here, just so we can watch Ed buy
you
a Christmas present?”

She adopted her best innocent face. It came across about as sincere as an apology from Charles Manson. “Don’t look at me. I’m just the tour guide here.”

“Then we must be visiting a farm, because I smell a lot of bullshit? Either way, though, I’m failing to see the point here. I thought you said we were going to be viewing scenes of the misery I caused.”

“Well...”

“As far as I can tell, the only miserable person I’ve seen so far tonight is myself. Double that after all the fun shit I’ve seen everyone else doing.”

A thoughtful look crossed her face for a moment then she shrugged. “Oh well, good enough for the accounting I guess.”

“No it’s not...”

“Will you look at the time,” she said, glancing at a wristwatch that wasn’t there. “I gotta get out of here. Places to be, bracelets to unwrap.”

“You can’t just...”

“Sorry, I don’t make the rules. I just follow them.” She began to turn away, but then stopped. “By the way,” she said, stepping up to me. “If I suspect for even a second that you’ve been jerking off to...well,
this
...” she gestured down at her state of undress. “I will make a matching pair of earrings out of
these
.”

Before I could react, her hand - claws extended - came up and locked onto my crotch. It would have been marvelous, had it not been so excruciating.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I squeaked.

“Didn’t think so,” she blithely replied. To help drive home the point, she gave one final squeeze - hard enough so that the world greyed out around me and I fell to my knees, unaware of anything save the screaming jingle bells between my legs.

Part 3

*THUD*

My head connected with the wooden floor of my bedroom. I sat up, wrapped in the sheets and covered in a thin sheen of sweat. Holy shit, what a dream!

Or was it?

To make sure, I did the first thing that came to mind
:
I reached down and checked on the boys. Whew! Thank goodness, they were still intact...although they were oddly tender, almost as if they had been...

Nah! It couldn’t have been. I had obviously gotten a hold of some tainted blood. Maybe it had been unwillingly donated by a crackhead or something. That had to be it, and it definitely helped to explain the weirdness of the night.

I was almost ready to believe that, when a shadow fell over me. Vampires have excellent night vision - so it’s not like I was at a disadvantage in the dark - but even so, when I looked up all I could see was a black void standing over me. No, that wasn’t quite right. There was something in it. Whatever it was, it was draped in an unnatural shadow. As my eyes attempted to adjust to the supernatural darkness surrounding it, I saw that things weren’t helped by the black clothing it wore...a hooded robe, the color of obsidian.

“Let me guess,” I said, untangling myself from my bedclothes. “Ghost of Christmas Future, right?” Standing, I found myself looking down upon it. Hmm, awfully short for a ghost. I felt like I was standing there staring down a Jawa. Oh well, I guess the Grim Reaper didn’t need to be seven feet tall to be intimidating.

The figure raised one arm, covered entirely in the sleeves of the robe, and pointed. What a surprise - I was supposed to follow it through my wall
again
. Jeez, didn’t ghosts believe in doors or shit like that?

“Alright, let’s get going. Show me my staking, my funeral, or whatever the fuck dog and pony show you’ve got in store so I can get back to bed. I’m tired and I figure it’s only a matter of time before someone kills my ass anyway. Hell, barely a day goes by where I’m not surprised I lived to see the end of it.”

The figure began walking, and I found myself following it. “It’s Sally, isn’t it? She’s the one who kills me, right? That’s okay, you can tell me. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

The mists began to coalesce around us as we walked. Despite knowing what I’d be shown, I found myself rambling nevertheless. “The Draculas, it’s gotta be them. They’re all assholes anyway. I’m sure they’ll sacrifice my ass whenever it suits their needs.”

There was still no response from the figure.

“It’s not Colin, right? Please tell me it’s not him. That guy is an absolute weasel of a prick. I’d sooner be staked by...” I trailed off as the world began to take focus around us. Grey bleakness stretched toward the horizon. I found myself wondering when someone would hit the colorization button to fill things in, but then everything snapped into focus, sharp and crisp, but still drab in tone. This was how things looked? Kinda depressing if you ask me.

My attention was caught by something off in the distance. Squinting my eyes, I saw it was a great city...or at least the remains of one. Broken buildings littered the landscape and random fires burned throughout. Damn, I guess some serious shit went down there.