A Vampire Story

Beep. Beep. Beep.

A groan followed by a loud smack, as a white hand pounds the snooze button.

5 more minutes.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I hate winter. There aren’t enough hours in the day. What time is it, even? 4:30? What kind of decent undead is awake at 4:30pm? It’s obscene.

Oh well. At least I can get plenty of things done. Run some errands and whatnot. I need a new black suit. Maybe I’ll try to get one of those.

What else, what else…

I think Pelican’s having a party. Maybe I’ll go to that. I don’t know if I feel like socializing, though. Sometimes parties can be kind of draining—especially skeleton parties. All those bones. It’s like going to an anatomy museum. I’ll call the Deathsails and see if they’re going.

Very slowly, two white hands reach out of the coffin and grasp the sides. The vampire pulls himself to a sitting position and rubs his eyes. He looks around his cellar, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. He leans over and carefully raises one skinny leg over the coffin wall and places it firmly on the ground. The other leg soon follows; the vampire is up.

He places one hand behind his head and rubs his black hair. It’s getting a little long. He’ll need to cut it, soon. Who knew that hair continues to grow, even after death? It’s one of the last remnants of personal hygiene he still has to attend to.

He walks over to the sink and picks up his toothbrush. As he brushes his teeth, he gazes into the mirror mounted behind the sink and watches the toothbrush flit through the air, seemingly unassisted. Although brushing his teeth isn’t strictly necessary—his teeth won’t rot or decay—he enjoys the ritual. He enjoys polishing is his sharp white incisors as he rids his mouth of the irony taste of last night’s meal.

He spits, and rinses his mouth.

He walks over to his closet and looks inside, staring, without seeing, at his collection of black suits. What to wear?

The phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Leroy?” A thin, high voice comes through the line.

“Hello Bea.”

“What’s up? What are you doing?”

“What do you mean ‘What I am doing? It’s like 4:30. I just woke up.”

“I meant later. What are you doing later?”

“Later? I don’t know. I was thinking about trying to go find another suit; all of mine are getting old. Maybe I’ll go to Pelican’s. I don’t really know. Why? What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” She pauses. “Hey listen, so last night I was out stalking and I saw this guy enter an alley alone, and I was like, ‘awesome, this’ll be easy, right?’ So I follow him down the alley, I’m sneaking up behind him, doing the whole, ghostly moan thing, you know, like really trying to scare him. He kept looking around, doing that whole, I’mscared-butishouldn’tbe-because-there-isnosuchthing-as-monsters, right? So I’m creeping up behind him and, all of sudden, I trip over a cat. No joke. This cat just jumps below my feet and I totally fall over and land in this puddle of godknowswhat and now my wig is pretty much ruined. I was so pissed. Like, what the fuck, right? You spend so long trying to find the perfect wig and then you find one you love and you have it for like a day and it gets ruined. It’s such shit.”

“Yeah, that sucks. Cats. You can never tell with them.”

“Well, anyway, the point is, I need a new wig, and I was hoping that you could help me with that. It’s not like I can just go walk into a store and buy one…”

“Well…”

“Look. It’s easy for you. You appear to be somewhat human. I look like…well, you know how it with us.”

He did know. It was different for ghilan. Even after they’re raised, their skin continues to rot, their hair falls out. They look, for the most part, positively frightening. The vampire wasn’t even sure why they bothered with the wigs, it wasn’t like they improve their appearance at all and they are always falling off and getting ruined. I guess vanity is just one of those things that stick around, even after death.

“What about Astrixa? Why don’t you ask her?” Astrixa is Bea’s raiser, and hence, her master and caregiver.

“She won’t do it. She thinks wigs are a useless vanity. It was hard enough getting her to get me this one. And then I went and ruined it. She’ll be pissed. Please? It’s not even a big deal for you. It’ll take like 5 minutes, just walk into a store and buy one, or steal one. Easy. Please?”

“Yeah, ok. Fine. I guess. Whatever. You want blond again?”

“Yeah, blond’s good. Awesome. Thank you.”

“Ok. I’ll call you when I’ve got it.”

“Awesome. Thanks, again. I definitely owe you. You’re awesome.”

“It’s fine. I’ll call you later.”

The vampire hangs up the phone.

840.