Bourbonville Bloodsuckers

Buying my first gun in America is surprisingly hard. I still had to show my stupid ass ID and everything. Now some guy who listens to 93.7 “The River” FM knows that just a few short years ago I used to be ugly. At least he believed it was me. Fuck, maybe I’m still ugly. I got the cheapest one, looks like a stubbier version of that 5-polygon gray thing you can find in every level of GoldenEye. They told me not to worry about putting it in my name or anything, just so long as I gave them the paperwork afterwards. Guess the Count’s influence extended to this place too. Figured anyone already staring at my ass could stand to learn something, so I just kinda shoved it in my waistband and strutted out without a problem. The first looks were from some lady and her kid on the way to the door. God, to have my childhood memories filled with nothing but visits to pawn shops full of dead dad remnants.

I get like one second of taking in the salt and sweat of the sunburnt air before she’s on my phone. I calm her down just fine, but she’s not here to check in, she wants work done. I learned quick Luci was a hassle because she expected me to already know what the difference between arterial and venous blood was, like she was asking for the year or the number of surgeries I’ve had. Shit, she asked for both those too, maybe she’s just been fucking with me.

So serious though. Like she wears all this goofy scene stuff yet this picture of some mundane-ass construction site on my phone is followed up with “16 PRESENT, 7,300 mL NEEDED.” Fuck girl, they told me this would be fun. She must wanna suck the boss off more than the boss wants to suck all the stuff I’m out shopping for. But oh well. I’m twenty-five now. My life is going nowhere. Raising Cane’s will never love me back and there’s a handgun in my pants. Let’s see if this can’t ruin my life any further.

🩸

An hour later and I’m not really even running anymore, the pole that was once going to be some rest stop’s source of dirty tap water hanging from my shoulder as it hoists up the brunt of the twenty or so blood bags I’ve tied to it.

I hate work. Why am I roleplaying a homeless vampire? Now I’ve met vampires. Is that why? Was my life before just so boring that something novel looked better to me than something actually nice? Figures, that’s why I came to the states all those years ago. This place is the thrift shop of the Earth, but they make all the movies there. I just wanna be the star for once.

Still, every step down the city’s pretentious engraved sidewalks reminds me of why I hate this place in particular. It makes sense a bunch of vampires would live here, you get like two Taco Bells and a flea market then come across some old church or other such gothic middle finger to city planning and the French who found their way into this place a few hundred years ago rear their heads. Damn place can’t decide if it wants to be a strip mall or a Castlevania level. All the real vampires live underground anyway past an elevator about the same height as one of those gaudy mausoleums anyway. Just when I was getting used to California I stumble across all this shit…

“Did it yet?”

That’s what her text says. I only have one free hand and it’s still shaking from all the recoil so I don’t have the strength to give a sarcastic remark. Autofill mercifully hands me a “Yes” and I turn it in.

“Good girl.”

Ew. God, you turn one hundred and six and you think you can say anything. It’s cuter in real life though. 

🩸

“Oh! Rena, hi. Did it go well? Are you okay? Here, I got your money…”

“…Thanks Cybil.”

Ohhhh. Right, that’s why I did this. Definitely not any other, stupider reason. The horned girl slides me so much of the green stuff that I’m kinda left staring at it for a while before I realize I can’t possibly pick it up with all the blood bags I’m carrying.

“Shit! So sorry, forgive me.” The sheep bows. I’m too tired to chuckle at her suppressed cursing. She comes over and takes the weight off of me like it’s nothing.

“How do you do that?” I stare down at the lady half my size.

“Hm? Oh, my strength. Yes, that’s a part of the vampiric infection too.” She had that answer ready, as evidenced by her proud smile. “It earned me my spot here, being the Count’s little receptionist.” Yet she almost seems to mock herself at the end, all while never faltering. Maybe she’s proud of that too.

“You’re a vampire? So the horns aren’t real?”

“No silly, they are. Did you think I was a different mythical creature…?”

“I mean yeah, if vampires exist why not weresheep?”

“Well… you know how all those old vampire books and movies show them turning into bats?”

“Yeah?” It didn’t occur to me that vampires had watched those themselves. Wonder what they think of the representation.

“Well, one of the earlier vampires to get caught was bat-blooded, but you can find us in all sorts of varieties based on who infected us or who our parents were. ‘Cause back in the day, most of us didn’t know we were vampires, so we’d just go after our favorite human food sources, suck their blood instead. Some great old ancestor of mine really liked lambchops, that’s probably how they started figuring it out.”

“You’re a natural then?”

“Yeah, though, that language is kinda frowned upon. Ones like you are cool too…! You know!” She stresses a half-encouraging smile. She’s trying to be accepting, but I don’t know what of.

“Ones like me?” I yawn. “What’s that mean?”

“Aren’t… you going to become a vampire? Lucia said she would turn you.”

“She did? Princess of the blood herself?”

“Yeah, so long as you filled half your quota. Nobody… expected you to get the whole thing. Damn. Didn’t… didn’t you like, feel bad?”

“What?”

“Didn’t you feel bad, when you were killing people? It’s not you who needs to drink the blood. Yet.” She fondles the bags. “And this is way too much to have done it non-lethally.”

“I…” Shit, did I? I don’t feel bad now. “Maybe it’ll hit me later.”

She smiles hopefully, a downward face betraying upturned round hazel eyes. “Well… if you ever need anything, we have health resources… your prescriptions got filled, by the way.”

“Already?”

“Yeah, most of the recruits are on the same stuff, so we just hoard it.”

“Damn.”

I dunno what that says about the country, but I sure am happy to have what I need at hand.

🩸

When I knock on the deluded girl’s door, it opens. Figures she was waiting for me. Her cathode hair and acidic clothes make me want to gag and her room is illuminated pretty much entirely by RGB gamer lights but she looks good anyway. I think there might be something loose in my head.

“Rena.” She addresses me coldly at first but I outplay her with an even more uncaring expression. According to my experiences thus far in the American vampiric underworld this constitutes flirting.

“I did the job. Every last drop.”

“You… oh. Wow.” She concedes a slight look of surprise. That’s right, I win. “Didn’t think it’d work that well.”

“Sending me out to buy my own murder weapon and getting a feel for killing- oh sorry, harvesting the hard way? Yeah look, I’m made of sterner stuff than that. Where I come from, vampire or not, you don’t get anywhere by sitting on your ass all-“

“Drugging you I mean.”

…I could probably hear my own blood drop if a little bit came out of the lip I was biting. We went so quiet I couldn’t hear myself process the reveal.

“To what end exactly? What’d you do?”

“Oh, I do it to every newbie. Most of them die fast so I want them to get their work in while they can. You know, for the Count’s sake.“ The suckup nods like it’s no big deal. “It’s a vampiric remedy, more of a potion than a drug really. Just pushes your empathy outta the way. It’ll come back. I think.”

“Lucia… I…”

“So you wanna be a vampire now?”

“What the fuck is wrong with-“

“Didn’t think you’d take to it so well. I’ll infect you for free, you’ll get a big boost to every aspect of yourself mentally and physically. It’s about the best thing that can happen to you. And the process is fun. That sound good?”

Hard to admit, but it kinda did.

I knew I was looking at a sociopath, and I knew I didn’t like her, hell, even knew whatever stuff she’d put in me wasn’t influencing me- I just genuinely still kinda wanted to give in.

There are about three things you can normally wind up as in this world and one is dead. The other two are alive and unhappy or alive and rich. So being provided with a fourth option at all- (let’s be real here, a third, I was never gonna be a billionaire) was kinda alluring. What did I have to lose?

Only made sense to ask at least.

“What’s the catch?”

“Well… I mean you either fight through it and prove you’re worthy of becoming one of us, or you give in and we can at least get a little more nourishment off you before you go. Sound fun?”

“And it’s a good time either way.”

“Pretty good, if my past victims are anything to go off of.”

“Uh… which one feels better?”

“Oh, giving in. The last girl I did kept twitching after she was dead. When we buried her she was still smiling. Anyway.”

I shiver. Taking the hint, she leans in. Then her teeth sink into my neck like the holes they made were already there. And just as suddenly she pulls out. Warmth trickles down to my collarbone.

“Why’d you freeze? Are you scared? You didn’t even try to fight back.”

“Uhhhhh…” As what must be the drugs are wearing off, the guilt is finally poking its head into the neon-lit room. Her proximity pushes the feelings away, but their stench remains, and I’m trapped between some lips and a hard place. “Luci? How do I know if I’m cut out for this work?”

“In… my experience? You just have to really love the Count.”

“I don’t… feel that way.” I admit. “Like at all.”

“What?” She staggers, like that’s the first time anyone’s ever said that. “Why… why are you here then? Why are you ruining your life?”

“…You maybe?”

“…Oh.” She looks almost as if she would have preferred it if I said I liked the Count over her. Actually, she looks exactly like that. “That’s a little dumb.”

“Yeah, well… I think one moment in the spotlight’s enough for me.”

“So you still wanna do that? …Ruin your life?”

“Uh… I dunno, give me another bite and we’ll see.”

“Um… okay. Remember, say something if you wanna back out. But I can’t stop you if this is what you want.”

With that, her fangs siphon me once more in a dispassionate kiss. Shit that feels good. She retracts again, maybe just to let it last.

“All good?”

“All good.”

“Cool. Good taste by the way. Kind of sour, not bad. You know, being a vampire? It’s really hard. Take my advice- might just wanna call it here.”

She goes in again, tasting the hot liquid on my skin.

…Hahaha, fuck it, dying’s alright.

🩸