So I Might Be a Vampire - Book 1 (Original Version)

37: Two Days in the Life

Day One:

Claude was long gone by the time I woke up. His flight had taken off at 7:15AM and he had sent a couple of text messages, which I had pretended to ignore, but he saw right through.

Claude: While you're ignoring me: Call your mom and let her know you're alive.

I'm an asshole. I didn't call my mom. Instead, I spent the day watching daytime television which only convinced me of one simple fact, and it's this: there needs to be a "Pimp My House" for vampires. Seriously. Do you know how expensive it would be just in curtains alone, to convert the ordinary apartment or even a house, into a vampire-safe home environment?

You've got all of these shows about people flipping houses, changing lifestyles and clothes, and they're all so cheery and bitchy and smiley and grumpy and not broke at all. I hated them all after an afternoon of TLC and MTV. Sure I had hated them before, but now this was a different kind of hate, the kind of hate that is spawned from not being able to go out into the sun and not having Claude around to bitch at and remind me not to go outside.

So I peeled my scabs, finally caving into the urges, and ended up watching back-to-back episodes of House of Cards for a couple of hours just so I could at least feel a little bit smarter about the world. While I did that, I wondered idly about how much a nice heavy curtain would cost to replace the garbage bags Claude had thoughtfully stapled over the windows. If any home needed to be flipped, pimped or made-over, it was my place.

Around 4PM, still waiting for the sun to go down and cursing at it to move faster dammit, I poked around my nearly empty fridge and finally settled on making a fried egg sandwich with ketchup on the egg. Those were always good and cheap as long as you had bread.

I tried to call Louise, but the phone just went to voicemail. Then on a whim I called Jaime, glad to have an excuse to hear her voice again. I had rocks in my stomach even as I dialed her number. I was afraid I'd turn into a stuttering fool, but her phone also went to voice mail.

Feeling more relief than I should have, I hung up without leaving a message and stared at the phone for a while. I texted Claude.

Me: I think I'm dying.

Claude: You're a liar. How are you feeling?

Me: I'm all healed up. Just peeling scabs.

Claude: Sounds gross. You call your mom yet?

Me: Scared to. Plus she always asks about Jaime.

Claude: I left a cheque for rent on your fridge. Make sure you give it to your landlord.

I looked over to the fridge and sure enough there it was, pinned to the freezer door by a magnet. Damn Claude couldn't give me enough ammunition to hate him. Instead, I felt horrible for being so selfish.

Me: Dude, you didn't have to do that.

Claude: Yes I did. You've been missing for four days. You might not even have a job anymore.

Oh shit. That hadn't occurred to me at all.

When the sun went down three hours later, I headed straight for the store, the reality of still having to pay rent and buy food staring me straight in the very empty wallet.

Needless to say, the Boss made me beg for thirty minutes before he relented. The fact that he hadn't immediately kicked me out should have clued me in that he was going to give me a second chance, but I didn't care. All of those late graveyard shifts were looking very attractive around that time.

"I'll work graveyard shift from now on," I pleaded.

"You already work graveyard," he pointed out.

"But I mean only ever graveyard. You know how everybody always tries to get out of graveyard? I'm volunteering to be the graveyard guy."

"Deal."

He made me work the rest of the night as penance, especially since I asked for an advance on the week's paycheque, and he exited the store grumbling loudly. I didn't mind it.

Sammy tortured me when she had come in an hour early and found out that I was back. She had assumed I'd finally gotten fed up of the whole mess and either offed myself or run off to Mexico.

When she saw my eyes, she literally squealed and spent the next ten minutes examining my eyes trying to figure out what I'd done to change the colour. Sammy is resilient on her best days, and it wasn't until she had finally peeled my eyelids back, her nails almost digging into my eyeballs, that she was convinced I wasn't wearing contacts. I told her it was some kind of genetic thing that ran in my family.

"That's a kind of fucked up genetic defect. Did it hurt? Is that why you were gone for three days?"

It had never occurred to me to try to play it off like that. I seized on it immediately. Thank you Sammy.

"That's exactly it. I thought my brain was going to explode it hurt so much."

"It's a good look for you. Can't say the same for your head though. That was dumb."

I winced, still a little self-conscious about having a shaved head for the first time in four years. Some people are made to have bald heads with the perfect shape to just look cool. My head wasn't one of those and I couldn't wait for my hair to grow back in. Stupid sun.

And that was it. Things went back to normal from there, and I got on with my new life as a vampire. To my great disappointment, it was almost exactly like my life before I was a vampire.

***

Day Two:

Nothing much happened.

Okay, that was a goddamn lie and I'm sorry, but in the big picture way of looking at things, nothing much really happened.

I mean I kinda freaked a little bit and went by to see Sweater Bob, since that fucker is the only other vampire I know about, but that was a complete bust.

When I got to the house, he was rushing out to his car with a couple of bags and man he was in a hurry. It was as if he was being chased by the devil himself or something. When he saw me, he didn't even pause, just threw the bags into the car and then jumped into the driver's seat.

"What the fuck do you want?"

"Have you seen Louise? She's kinda gone missing—"

"Get the fuck out of my way or I'll run you the fuck over!"

I jumped back as he gunned the engine.

"Do you know what happened to her?"

"The same damn thing that's going to happen to me, which is why I'm leaving."

"Is it the Gentlemen? Louise mentioned something about them before she vanished. Is it them?"

From the way Sweater Bob reacted, I was dead on.

"Sorry about the whole killing you thing pal," he said, and then Sweater Bob peeled off into the night, leaving me in front of his empty house wondering just who the fuck the Gentlemen were.

******** AUTHOR'S NOTE **********

The book is now AVAILABLE in Hardcover, Paperback and Ebooks. It's going to live here free on Wattpad, but if you love the story and want to support your awesome author (me), grab a copy from one of the lovely retailers below. Who knows: maybe it can become a bestseller with the help of you lovely WattPadders

Amazon - http://bit.ly/Amazon-SIMBAV

iBooks - http://bit.ly/iBooks-SIMBAV

Barnes & Noble - http://bit.ly/BarnesNoble-SIMBAV

Indigo - http://bit.ly/Indigo-SIMBAV

Check out the website: http://www.bobthevampire.com