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

5: Spot the Vampire

I have no idea where we got this idea that a vampire bite would turn the victim into a vampire. Of course I'm going to blame the movies again since they get so much of it wrong, but it's also where a little common sense could do us all some good. If you stopped to think about it, how much sense would it make if your food came back to compete with you for the rest of the food out there? Pretty soon every steak you bit into would be stealing that nice juicy pork chop off your plate, just because you happened to bite it. The steak I mean, not the pork chop. I know it's a ridiculous image, but go with me here, okay? That sentient steak is just as ridiculous as the idea that a vampire bite will turn you into a vampire. I mean, it's not rabies. It's you literally turning into an entirely new creature who just looks human. I don't even know what the hell a vampire really is, but I can tell you, it's going to take more than being bitten by one of us, to make you into one of us.

Anyway, the food chain doesn't work like that.

If vampires used people as a source of nourishment like the stories all say, it would work out differently. What would happen is we people would be meat. Just meat. It's as simple as that. We'd be cattle who happen to walk and talk and cuss and kill stuff, but cattle nonetheless. Our self-awareness doesn't count for shit when we are what's for dinner.

Somebody did a calculation recently that showed exactly what would happen if every person bitten by a vampire turned into a vampire. Apparently it would spread like a disease and in about a month, there would be no one left to feed on. Everybody would be a starving vampire just imagining how tasty everyone else would be. Pretty much we would be back to where we had been before, all alike, one race looking for ways to not eat each other because that's just gross. Imagine that.

***

My usual crew of friends were out front somewhere. We had decided some time ago that this was going to be our bar but that had been when I wasn't so broke all of the time. For a moment, I considered trying to get one of them to buy me a beer. After doing a quick calculation and realizing that there was nobody there who I didn't owe money to, I shot down that idea and tried not to be too depressed about it. Damn, it sucked being broke.

So there I was, standing in the middle of the bar, Gloria's formerly white panties pressed against my bloody neck. I still smelled of sex and was completely sober. I still hadn't washed my hands and the smell of Gloria's sex clung to them. The last thing I expected was for some chick to be whispering in my ear.

"Why's there blood on your neck?"

That voice perked my mood up immediately. It belonged to the one person among my bar friends who I did not owe money to. You could not imagine the grin on my face when I turned around with a big one-armed hug for--

"Louise! Where the heck have you been?"

"Dude, you're seriously bleeding all over the place here. You have got to get a bandage on that."

Louise, the tall, dark-haired Castilian girl with the striking pale blue eyes and the not-taking-shit-from-you attitude was not about to take any shit from me.

"It's nothing, really--"

"Is that from a person? Dude! Are those panties?"

"Well—"

I swear she was going to hit me. She rolled her eyes at me instead and shook her head. Damn, it was good to see her.

"Jesus Bob, you have to get a tetanus shot. You don't mess around with bites like that."

"Serious? You're not even going to ask about the panties?"

"Yes seriously! Come on man, we have to get you to a doctor or something. And I really don't want to know about the panties."

"Does this mean you won't buy me a drink?"

She dragged me out of there, me faintly protesting all the way, drowned out by Louise filling me in on facts about bites and blood loss that I didn't need to know at the time. She was taking me to a doctor friend of hers who happened to live just around the corner. He would patch me up and get me disinfected. Only then would Louise come back to the bar with me and buy me all the drinks my heart desired. I made her say it so it had to be true. We both agreed that going to the emergency room was just going to suck even with her admitting privileges as a doctor herself.

So we walked the four shorts blocks to this guy's house, Louise on the phone part of the way, those huge retro-stylish sunglasses of hers on her face.

"Did you know that even though a bite from a person may not seem dangerous, it's anything but not-dangerous? You've got a huge amount of bacteria in your mouth so if you happen to bite someone, the risk of infection is extremely high. Your joints could get infected from even the smallest bite, and that's not even the worst of it. Bloodborne diseases like Hepatitis B and syphilis can be spread through bite wounds."

It was amazing listening to Louise spout off medical facts.

"You serious?"

"Deadly serious. I see lots of bite wounds. I know a lot about them."

For all of you paying attention, you just scored a point in a little game I like to call: "Spot the Vampire".

Surprise!

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please VOTE and leave a COMMENT if you liked or even hated what you read.  I'd love to hear about what made you laugh, so by all means, comment away!  

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QUESTION OF THE DAY: Why do you think the bad guys are always British? (personally I think they make being bad look so damn suave and debonair)