Flesheaters and Bloodsuckers Anonymous: A Dark Humor (19 page)

            “What gave you
the idea to blame me for taking blood from the hospital?”  He asked out of
frustration rather than to gain any good information.

            So, David’s reply
was quite shocking. 

            The Eyes. 

            He stilled,
turning to look more carefully at David’s blank stare.  Harold shook David’s
shoulder and found it stiff, the man’s muscles tight and contracted.  Harold
had put him into a trance.

            Harold got down
on one knee and snapped a finger in David’s face without getting so much as a
twitch. 

            “David?”

            Yes.

            “David, what
eyes?”

            No reply.  Harold
amped it up a notch, ordering David to respond.  For a second it looked like it
might work.  David started to answer, but nothing came out.  He continued to
stare into the distance beyond the room.  Harold repeated the question and
slowly, twistingly, David’s mouth curled open, but teeth remained locked
together.  A sudden urge to rip everything apart curled also inside Harold. 

            Damn it. 

            He repeated the
order over again, and again in David’s ear, until it became a mantra.  A mantra
demanding answers, filled with all of his powers of suggestion.  What Eyes? 
What eyes, answer me, tell me what eyes, what eyes, David!

            The man’s lips
pulled, twisted into a grimace.  David’s eyes widened in terror, but still his
teeth remained locked shut.  Sweat trickled from his brow, followed the creases
in his forehead down into the folded crinkles around his eyes and pooled there
like salty tears.  Harold could not stop himself and his damned mantra.  He
needed to know, needed to find out what was going on with a curiosity which
tore into his gut. 

            Eyes,whateyes,answermeanswermeeyesdavidwhateyeseyeseyeseyesyesyesyesanswermedavidwhateyse?

            Under the force
of Harold’s questioning, David’s face continued to contort.  Flesh moved,
muscles pulled, his eyes widened and welled in a kind of terror Harold had only
seen on the most desperate of victims and still those teeth remained locked,
the secrets behind remained stubbornly hidden.

            He pressed on,
pouring all of his skill into pulling the frustratingly resistant answer from
David’s mouth.  How anyone or thing had the power to lock their secrets from
the seduction of a vampiric voice, Harold didn’t know.  Yet, someone more
powerful, more skilled, more dangerous than he not only locked the secrets in
David’s mind from Harold the vampire, they also locked them from David’s own
mind. 

            Finally, a great
crack preceded David’s response as locked muscles popped, and he screamed, how
he screamed.  The sound pierced Harold’s ear drums with its instant
blood-curdling volume.  The sudden breaking of David’s mind so sudden, it left
Harold sprawled on the floor while the man continued to scream, eyes wide,
staring into the abyss of his mind, perhaps finally seeing the thing attached
to those eyes, which only David knew.        

            Harold had to
stop the screaming.  He scrambled up, shaking David by the shoulders, hissing
into his ears and trying desperately to pull the man from his own terror.  By
now, the nurses were no doubt running from their station down the hall to see
the problem.  He could imagine what they were thinking, someone was either
being killed in here or doing the killing.  Not so far from the reality. 

            He hauled back
and slapped David in the face with his open palm.  Stunned silence filled the
small room.  Harold waited for the nurses to come rushing in to see who was
dying, who had accidentally splattered blood ridden with some kind of terrible
virus all over himself.  No one came.  Harold giggled, rubbing his eyes with
his fingertips.  This was getting a little out of hand.

            “What the hell
man?”  David asked, his own hand pressed against the rapidly swelling skin of
his cheek. 

            “Sorry.  I had to
stop your screaming,” Harold said.  He bent before David could recover fully
and spoke softly, surely, to put him back into a trance.  This time staying the
hell away from any reference to eyes.  Harold quietly told David to forget
everything that occurred.  He was not a vampire.  He did not ask David any
questions.  For good measure, Harold had David forget the whole ramming him
into a locker thing earlier.  In all, they were still good work buddies.  Harold
came in a little while ago and they’ve been working peaceably alongside each
other since.  Plus, they played a game of poker and David now owes Harold fifty
bucks.  Harold pulled back drawing David with him into the world again. 

            “Hey man, what’s
going on?”  David asked.  He looked around lazily, coming to terms with his new
reality.  “I musta’ dozed off for minute.”

            “No problem, I
won’t tell if you don’t,” Harold said, as he turned to the work on the lab
counter.  He perused the work orders on the chart while waiting for David to
pull himself together, simple blood tests, blood drawn and a blood typing, not
too bad for the night.

            David sat up
straight in the chair, finally coming alert.  “Man,” he said, “I don’t know
what’s wrong with me.  I totally forgot to pay you, man.”  He pulled out his
wallet, coming to stand next to Harold without an ounce of fear.  David took a
few bills out of his wallet and handed them over to Harold. 

            “Thanks,” Harold
took the money and slid it into his pants pocket.  “I didn’t mean to clean you
out.”

            “I’ll get you
next time,” David said with a slap on the back.  They both went to work
processing blood samples and performing basic tests.  Once or twice the shift
supervisor, a Nurse Practitioner nicknamed Boss, came in to check-up on them
and get results.  Otherwise it was a quiet night.  No cops needing tests.  No
creepy chicks looking for answers.  No more screaming.  Harold knew it would
last, but it was nice.  Almost normal.  

            After work he had
an uneventful drive home.  Home being the halfway house he shared with a bunch
of bloodsucking idiots.  He hoped none of the guys had broken into his stash by
the radiator.  Old blood was better than no blood at all.  Something Donald
seemed bound and determined to wean from them, one way or another.  Harold
still had no idea how he was to graduate.  Or had much clue about the previous
graduates of FEBs.  Maybe he could just hypnotize Donald into giving him the
thumbs up to the court system.  Cured and cleared, ready to return to society
sir.  Maybe that’s how the others all coerced Donald into graduating them. 
Seemed to easy enough.  Only thing, if so many members used this method to get
out, why did no one know about it at the halfway house?           

            The sounds of
Baywatch welcomed Harold into the building.  Another Baywatch night with the
rest of the group.  Every week or so, one of the zombies, Eric, pulled out his
favorite episodes of the series for a marathon in the living area.  Since they
only had the one television and they all knew what happened to those who
challenged Eric on his control of the boob tube, everyone pretty much joined in
for a night of fun in the sun through the miracle of technology. 

            No one really
minded.  They all missed light, daytime, the sun, but no one talked about it. 
You just knew what the others were thinking because you’d been there yourself. 
Eternal darkness wasn’t all that fun after the thrill wore off.  Watching the
sun was almost as good as being in it.  Almost. 

            Harold tossed his
keys in the basket and followed the music.  A bowl of fresh oranges sat on the
coffee table, their fresh scent invigorating, cleansing.  The whole group
assembled in their usual places in front of the television.  Zombies on
couches, vampires in the corners, Zork right in front, eyestalks rigidly locked
on the screen and drooling from the mouth. 

            “What’d I miss?”
Harold asked from his vantage point only to be greeted with a bunch of mumbled
grunts. 

            Harold walked in
on the most important scene.  The Baywatch babes were running.  Harold spent a
moment of respectful silence admiring healthy, vibrant bodies, nearly nude,
necks bare, in the full sunlight.  He was almost drooling himself. 

            Zork groaned,
though for entirely different reasons than most of the members of the group. 
It slid up to the television, pressing the upper half of its body against the
screen and muttered, “Oh Jasmine,” and latching wholeheartedly onto the
screen.  Revolting sucking sounds ruined the rest of the scene for Harold. 

            The group cried
as Zork continued to make love to the television.  It happened every week, but
none of them had the heart to tell Zork, Jasmine was married and unlikely to
date a flesh-eating slug.

            Finally, one of
the zombies, Harold recognized him from their poker game got up and pulled the
slug from the television screen by the eyestalks.  Zork came away with a long
sucking pop and a sigh, before being deposited back on the floor. 

            Harold tossed a
towel to the zombie who used it to wipe off the slime covered screen.  Zork
remained where it was, sighing and staring dreamy-eyed at the screen.  Herein
lie the secret to a contented and quiet slug.  Harold should get a Jasmine
cutout and keep it on hand for emergencies. 

            Harold moved back
towards his room and found it empty.  Closing the door after himself, he
quickly found the stash of blood and sank his teeth in.  Not quite the good
stuff, but certainly passable.  Harold resisted the urge to go continue
watching Babewatch and spent the remainder of the night staring at the
ceiling.  Another day in a string of thousands gone by. 

            He looked forward
to a group meeting and work tomorrow.  Harold thought he might try talking with
Donald after group to see if he could get the whereabouts of FEBs graduates
from the therapist.  Maybe if he acted like he wanted advice on how they did it
themselves, or someone to talk to about his condition.  Or he could try
hypnotizing the therapist.

            Something would
come to him. 

            Night slipped
away on a warm coppery wind, pulling the morning sun after it and Harold fell
asleep, his mind spinning weird dreams with eyes and questions.  At one point,
the dratted Orlen slipped into his room bringing a whirl of odd little red
lights scattering around her body and her eyes, black, glaring eyes locked into
his.  Tiny insects crawled up and down his body, pinchers digging gleefully
into skin, itching him all over.  He couldn’t move to swat them.  He lay frozen
on top of the bed covers, eyes locked with Orlen’s and her hundreds of red
lights. 

            Three feet away
his roommate’s metronome snores steadily marked out the beats of Harold’s
dream.  Now, he was standing.  Insects pinching blood from his skin.  Orlen
wavered close, a short vision in tight bun and business suit.  Tut, TUT, tut,
TUT, tut.  She tutted him softly, her voice expanding and withdrawing from
Harold in the bedroom.  He’d been bad, screwing up her work with David.  Tut,
TUT, tut, TUT, tut.  She didn’t know what she would do with him. 

            But he wasn’t her
problem, yet.   Harold had someone to see.  Didn’t he?  Someone to visit at the
casino.  A man in charge.  Harold needed to go to the casino, but not now, the
bad boy.  Now, Harold needed sleep and must to the casino in the evening. 

            Harold’s
restrained limbs came free, loosed from their dream bonds.  Roaring, he grabbed
Orlen by the throat, scattering the itching ants, sending the hundreds of
lights into frenzied whirls and squeezed.  Her laughter drowned his rage and
the metronome sounds stopped.  She vanished in a puff of particles and Harold
was screaming, wide awake and screaming as he tried to strangle his sleeping
roommate.

            The man’s
desperate gurgling noises unlocked Harold’s mind.  He dropped Vlad back on the
bed.           

            The next few
minutes were not a shining example of Harold’s peacemaking skills.  He was
gurgled, threatened, and hissed at by his roommate.  Also promises of attempts
made on his life were made and finally Vlad would be telling Donald on Harold.

            He did try to
explain, he had merely been dreaming, but Vlad would have none of it.  As soon
as nightfall hit, he was going to report Harold.  Vlad gathered up his blanket
and pillow to go sleep on a couch in the Rec room, telling Harold to stay the
hell away if he knew what was good for him.       When the door slammed Harold
sat on his bed, looking around the semi-dark room with shades drawn.  He was
utterly alone. 

            He got up and
turned the lights on.  An urge to go out hit Harold.  It had been a dream and
yet, Harold felt a need to go to the casino tonight.  He could see it clearly,
through the midnight doors, across the vast gaming room and even past the
well-guarded door to… something, someone.  He could only assume it was the man
in charge.  On the nightstand, propped against the alarm sat a golden five
hundred dollar chip from the casino. 

            Harold picked it
up.  It couldn’t be the same one.  Harold didn’t carry that kind of cash
around.  He went to his coat and felt around in the pockets, pulling out a red
ten dollar chip from his first trip to the casino.  How did this second chip
get into his room?