So You Used to Be Human - Book 3 (Original Version)

Chapter 36: Nineteen Minutes

Nineteen minutes.

Paul had started filming as soon as he, Chris and an odd selection of human customers had exited the diner. Everyone left fairly casually, not in any hurry to go but this probably had something to do with the fact that for the past thirty minutes they had all been under the spell of the ugliest motherfucker of a vampire. This apparently extended to them escaping with their lives as if nothing of the sort had happened. It was almost anti-climatic in a sad sort of way, but interestingly enough it was that lack of gravitas that really brought it home for Paul.

So of course he just had to catch it on camera. Nobody was going to believe it otherwise.

"I'm standing here in front of the 14th Street Diner and I'm literally tripping balls at everything that just happened—"

Chris caught Paul's eye as the camera came up and just shook his head.

"Are you fucking kidding me? You're going to do a bit for your channel?"

"And believe it or not, I've got Chris Mannigan himself with me—"

Chris had had enough. "Turn that camera off right fucking now or I swear I'll shove it up your ass!"

"Direct from the mouth of the Mannigan himself—"

Chris grabbed at the camera and a brief tussle ensued which ended with Paul in a headlock and still successfully holding his phone at arms length just out of Chris' reach.

"Ok! I'll stop! I'll stop!" Paul pleaded and Chris released him. Paul turned off the camera and put the phone away in his jacket pocket.

"I don't know what you're thinking but we gotta get the hell outta here."

Paul was incredulous. "We just sat in the middle of the event of the fucking century and you want to run away home? I thought you were better than this!"

"I'm a YouTuber, not a fucking embedded reporter! I do videos from my living room and the only thing there that might possibly kill me is my cat!" Chris was seriously considering just bugging out at that point, screw this guy, screw this diner, screw reality. He just wanted to go the fuck home and forget about all of this. Let someone else deal with it.

"What about Dude's plan? He asked us to help him—"

Chris turned on Paul, livid now.

"We don't even know his name! You have to call him Dude!"

"Look around us Chris! Look at everyone else who was in there with us. They're out here but that ugly fuck is still in their heads. You and I can at least still think straight and it's because of him! Now we agreed to this--"

"This diner is filled with vampires! Doesn't that freak you out just a little bit?"

"Maybe not as much as it should. At least not as much as Hester freaks me out. They were just as affected by him as we were, maybe more."

"He— they— they shouldn't exist!"

"Well they do, whether we like it or not. Now either help me with the plan or fuck off. Either way I'm doing this!"

Chris glared at the scrawny Asian across from him, surprised that he was even considering not running.

"You sure you're not doing this for subscribers?"

Paul grinned, not even a little bit embarrassed.

"Of course I'm doing it for views. This shit could go fucking viral man. But it's also the right thing to do so this works out great." Paul noticed the look on Chris' face and rolled his eyes. "Oh come on! You have millions of subscribers! You've gotten rich off your channel and now it's my turn and we get to be heroes doing it!"