Flesheaters and Bloodsuckers Anonymous: A Dark Humor (2 page)

            “Was it the giant
slug or the zombies?”  Harold muttered.  He used the side of his hand to push
away a surprisingly up close photograph of a zombie in make-up, lots and lots
of pancake on very little flesh, unappetizing.  How on earth did they manage to
get this close up for surveillance like that?  Surely, members of this group
would have noticed the smell of normies in the area.  Course, these guys
weren’t exactly like other people.

            “Neither.  We’re
talking about disappearances,” The agent said.  He rearranged some of the
photos before Harold.  They were all close ups of infecteds he didn’t
recognize, hadn’t met before.  “These are all recent graduates of the FEBS
program.  Naturally, we’d like to check up on everyone involved with or who
spent time around the group to ensure they aren't returning to a life of
bloodshed after graduation.”

            “Naturally,”
Harold echoed, his eyes still trying to discern discrepancies in the photos
which might mark them faked.

            “Since these
members graduated, we’ve been unable to find them.  They no longer inhabit old
haunts, left no forwarding address, haven’t been using their old social
security numbers or tried to contact family members.  They’ve just
disappeared.”

            Harold looked
over the faces, some attractive, some passing for live, others obviously
undead.  He tried to remember whether he’d seen any of them skirting the
darkness where he usually ate.  Or God forbid, seen them rolled into the morgue
down the hall where he worked.  None rang a bell. 

            It’s possible
these people didn’t want to be found again.  He tried to think how he would
feel about his past if he woke up one morning and suddenly wasn’t a vampire
anymore.  He might keep that part of himself a secret, especially after all
he’d done, the people he’d killed.  For a regular guy it’s just murder, what he
did, not trying to survive.  That was a sobering thought.

            He would work his
hardest to erase his past, his deeds and anything else he could think of
connected to the vampirism.  He wouldn’t want to be found by anyone from his
past. 

            Could these
people have cloaked themselves so well in new identities that the efforts of
government agents didn’t oust them?  He didn’t know how far these guys had gone
to find these graduates, but he didn’t think they’d be particularly concerned
about things like privacy laws. 

            “Believe me,”
Bergstrom said, “I’d do this any other way I could, but we can’t.  You’re
working for us, whether you want to or not.” 

            Harold sneered. 
“I’m not some government flunkie.  Who the hell do you think was chasing me
down all these years? Now even.” Harold stood up, cuffed hands before him. 
“Arrest me, charge me, kill me if you like, but I’m not going to spy on
anyone.”  He swallowed, surprised by his own stupid bravado.

            The agents
remained sitting, hands slightly folded in front of them, faces expressionless
as the Blues Brothers. 

            “You done?” The
shorter one asked him.

            “Fuck you.”

            The two men
grinned from ear-to-ear.  They knew as well as he did that he had nothing to
back up his attitude.  Harold let out a frustrated sigh, plopping back into his
chair. 

Why on earth didn’t he just
steal some blood from the bank tonight instead of going for fresh?  It’s a
vampire dies young, who tries to sit in the sun, he thought bleakly.

            “We know you’re
fucked,” Potts paused, “so we’ll make this short.”

            “Watch the
members, especially those who look to graduate soon.  Get close to Donald. 
Maybe we won’t drag your sorry carcass to some eternally sunny place on charges
of attempted murder by bloodletting,” the agent held up a hand to stop Harold’s
spitting tirade. 

            “Damn you,”
Harold muttered. 

            “We get that a
lot,” Agent Bergstrom said, “You’ll work with us then?”

            “What else can I
do?”  

            “Nothing.”  The
man smiled at Harold.

            Harold shifted in
his chair and listened while the agents explained it all to him.  He’d go into FEBS
as part of a diversion program for those like himself entering the court
system.  Go before the judge, say you’re sorry and feel so, so guilty.  Beg for
mercy and take the program when offered.  Harold nodded when they looked at
him.  He’d go along if he had too and say what they wanted, but only to get
back on the streets. 

            Except, should he
find out he’d never tell them where those people went to after graduation. 
They had a right to keep their privacy if it worked and more so if it didn’t. 
Harold’s own precious fantasy house of cards nearly fell tonight.  He could be
caught drinking blood at any moment and lose his life, metaphorically and
literally.  He saw no reason to voluntarily offer up information about other
people so they could be slaughtered too.  Harold still had the privacy of his
own mind and he knew how to keep a secret.

Chapter Two

            When he walked
into the warehouse for the first meeting, Harold laughed at life’s sense of
humor.  FEBS met within a dry goods warehouse, surrounded by tons and tons of
food for which he had no appetite.  Held at night, of course, in a large,
creepy warehouse made even spookier with the only lights being twenty feet
above and other creatures wandering freely through the high-loaded pallets.
This did not bode well for the diversion program’s success. 

            There
were
werewolves
here too, snuffling around the pallets, searching for some doggie biscuits and
dried pig’s ears to gnaw on.  He’d never seen a person infected with
Abeos
Lupictus
before, unless you counted B-rated horror movies.  Curious, Harold
wandered over to one. 

            Patches of fur
poked out of his skin and slightly snoutish face.  He seemed, trapped almost
between a half-man, half-wolfish transformation.  The ears twisted and turned
of their own volition.  He stunk of sweat and something else, shit.  It
occurred to Harold the wolf man may roll in it on a regular basis.  Perhaps to
smell of his prey? 

            He could not
imagine where the wolf man found large enough quantities of it to roll in,
unless he collected it himself during those other days of the month when he was
most fully human.  An unpleasant image burst into Harold’s mind of the wolf man
taking craps into his bathtub, saving up the foul mixture for times when he
believed he needed it the most, those times when he was fully a werewolf.  A
bad enough practice by itself, Harold didn’t want to think about what the wolf
man might do to obtain other people’s crap.

            The strong
smelling man turned from ripping into the plastic sheeting around a pallet to
jump, snapping at Harold.  He backed up in a hurry, not wanting to become
vampire tartar.  Something slithered across his flyers in the darkened alley. 
Harold clamped down on the small hysterical cry forcing its way up his throat. 
A sign of fear was a very stupid thing, especially amongst other infecteds,
especially when they were hungry.  The irony of having these meetings in a
large warehouse of food struck him again.  Food they could never eat, never
digest, never again partake of, even if some of these people had been normal at
one point in their lives, they certainly weren’t now. 

            This is all some
terrible joke.  Fighting the infection through willpower.  The desperation
involved. 

            He wandered
further into the warehouse, past moaning things and others which looked mostly
normal, except weak and wasting.  Many here exhibited those traits.  Harold
cringed from them, sought out the comfort of the dark and kept moving forward. 

            He found the
meeting area in a cleared space amongst the pallets and assembly lines and
silent forklifts.  A banner hung against a wall of pallets announcing with
words in blood red, someone’s funny sense of humor, the name of the group. 
Thirty or so metal folding chairs filled up rapidly as flesheating and
bloodsucking creatures poured in from the darkened spaces.  They pulled the
chairs into a lazy circle, not quite round and not quite closed.  If Harold
weren’t standing there, biting the tip of his thumb with a fang, he might have
gone right into group and started pulling the chairs into a more equal and
uniform semi-circle.  He stifled the urge by biting down harder. 

            Those jokesters
down at the courthouse just wanted to yank his chain.  No way, creepy crawlies
like him hated themselves enough to waste away for humanity.  He knew
self-disgust, it gnawed at him the way hunger drew at his belly after a long
night.  This, this was emotion blown up, transfigured, a stark and pitiful,
pointless action.

            Give it a chance,
Maria cajoled right after picking him up at the courthouse in his 1965
Phantom.  The cops impounded it after picking him up and Maria caught the bus
downtown to bail it and him out.  She was his one phone call and boy did he
need someone friendly to talk to after meeting with Agent Bergstrom and Potts. 
She got to the courtroom in time to hear him pleading with the judge as per
orders.  Surprising how swift the justice system is when you’re the one in
trouble. 

            Harold should
have bitten her in the car.  Put an end to both their miseries, killed her,
gone to jail and burnt to a crisp during yard time.  Oh, but he hadn’t.  He sat
in good natured astonishment while she brought up all the faults he had and
suggested maybe this cloud had a silver lining.  He should have told Maria
about the feds, but was really surprised how easily she agreed with the court’s
ruling.  He didn’t know Maria as well as he thought.

            He listened to
the speech and even, even managed to feel remorse.  He apologized for staying
out all night and being reckless and not being home much and yes, even eating
people.  After all, there is something to being discreet.  Certainly, Harold
had not been discreet.  Sure, his victims had shown up on the news a couple of
times and okay, the sleep biting.  He defended himself there, Maria used to enjoy
that sort of thing.  Said it tickled.

            Suddenly, it was
inappropriate.  Suddenly, she wanted him to change his ways. 

Harold glanced at his phone. 
What was he doing here?  He could skip out of here and go grab a bite to eat in
less than fifteen minutes.  Fifteen minutes and he’d be fang deep and the blood
lust would take over and he’d not give a damn about the outcome.   Maybe ten
minutes, if he hurried.  Harold’s stomach growled.  Well, it didn’t quite
growl.  A few years of a liquid diet made some changes.  It more whimpered and
turned in on itself. 

            He’d snuck some
blood at the hospital for breakfast earlier.  How long ago was that?  Several
hours at least. 

            The feds said
these meetings ran into the early morning.  Probably to ensure the greatest possible
discretion for those unassuming and misunderstood beings led astray by the
popular societal belief they had to live on the flesh and blood of other
people, Harold chimed mentally.  He sneered at the mission statement for this
little club.  Come to group.  Wean yourself off a blood and flesh diet with the
support of others going through the exact same thing.  Be normal. 

            Nearly all the
chairs were taken now.  A veritable zoo of beings sat in the lazy circle,
chatting, staring into space, trying to assume relaxed poses.  A man walked
into the group carrying a tray of coffee from the deserted snack table.  It was
the poindexter from the fed’s photos, Donald.  Harold’s nostrils told him this
guy was a normie, but he had almost no scent.  No smell of soap or fabric
softener or sweat.  Only a very little salt and blood drowning in the
surrounding smells of the others at group.  His stomach simpered again and
Harold leaned closer.  Donald wandered around to each of the group members,
trying to get them to take of a cup of coffee.  Most of the group members
actually took him up on the offer, but they didn’t drink, just held the warm
cups in their hands.  A few even blew on their coffee as if trying to cool it. 
Some who were clearly zombies boldly took sips from their cups.  They smiled
with partially rotted jaws at their nearest compatriots.  The nearby
compatriots pulled away with some disgust. 

            Harold only had
eyes for the lone man, completely at ease in the midst of all these hungry
creatures.  Extremely normal in a yellow plaid button shirt with pullover knit
vest and Dockers, the man even wore horn-rimmed glasses.  He took the empty
tray to the snack table and went to stand in one of the gaps between chairs. 
Harold could easily make out what he said.

            “I’m glad to
welcome you all back for this session of FEBS.  We’ve had a few successes.  Two
of our previous members, Liza and Ricardo have successfully completed their
thirteen step program and are now beginning their lives as day dwellers.”  A
round of clapping sprang up at the man’s words.  He smiled and took part in it
too, then held up his hands until silence fell on the group, but a loud, wet
snort erupted from one of the members. 

            “Those two better
get an SPF 3,000.  Can anyone say crispy?”  A couple of members laughed, and
then quickly muffled it behind their hands. 

            Donald’s smile
dropped as he turned to the speaker, who was to Harold’s amazement a slug, the
slug from the fed’s photographs, a giant slug.  Holy Toledo. 

            “Now, now we’re
all going to have to be supportive of each other.  We want to succeed.  Short
quips aren’t going to help.”

            The slug
straightened to its full three feet height and eyed the man with one lone
eyestalk.  The other had disappeared into its head.  “Is that a remark about my
height?”

            The man gave his
little smile again.  “Not at all, simply a reminder.  It takes an open mind and
supportive nature to make the complete transition.”     

            The slug made a
sound deep in its gullet.  “Speaking of open,” it swiveled its eye stalks
around until they stared directly at Harold.  He felt slow crimson
embarrassment rise up.  “Why doesn’t the new guy come out in the open with the
rest of us?”

            Most of the rest
of the group turned to look in Harold’s direction too. 

            He dumbly realized
the others must have surely known he was watching them.  Hell, a few of them
were vamps.  They could probably smell and see him standing there, like a
pervert, in the dark.  He wasn’t used to dealing with other infecteds, at least
not outside of a hospital. 

            “Who is it?”
Asked Donald with widened eyes.  He looked in the same direction as the rest of
the group, but stared blindly into the darkness. 

            He groaned. 
Well, it was one way to make an entrance. 

            Harold skulked
towards the group from the dark pallet alley.  Brighter lights above the
clearing burned his eyes and he held a hand up to shield them.  It was almost
as bright as daylight in the clearing.

            “Oh ho!” Donald
exclaimed and rushed forward much faster than expected to grab Harold’s cold
hand.  Reacting purely on instinct, Harold snarled at the idiot and bared his
teeth.  In a flash, two others from the group were up and between them.  The
stinking wereman from earlier had Harold by the front shirt.  His open jaws
inches from Harold’s throat. 

            “Now, now
Rufus.”  Donald came up and smacked at the wolf’s fist curled up in Harold’s
shirt. “Remember, how you were when you first came to the group.  This is our
newest member, Harold.”  He smacked lightly at the wereman’s fist again and the
wereman gave away with a little snarl of his own. 

            “Down boy, down,”
Donald said lightly.  For the first time, he had a real smile to show one of
the members of group.  He chortled a bit and urged the others to back off from
a petrified Harold, who may have momentarily lost bladder control, but wasn’t
about to open his trench coat to check. 

            “My name is
Donald.  You could call me the group leader around here, but we all really help
each other, you know.”  Donald slipped an arm around Harold’s back and urged
him towards group.  “We don’t bite you know, well, most of us.  A few members
of our group are as yourself, just beginning their paths.”

            Harold’s teeth
ached a little and his stomach turned in on itself, reminding him yet again he
was hungry; he was standing right next to a flesh and blood human being,
standing right next to a late lunch.  Only the thirty pairs of eyes centered on
them kept Harold from making any sudden moves.  He didn’t want to face the
werewolf over the ripped throat of his skinny pullover wearing master. 

            Donald sat Harold
down in one of the metal chairs.  A coterie of those group members who’d come
to the man’s aid swooped in and sat down real close to Harold.  One man sat
close enough for their knees to brush.  His face and skin so pale as to be
almost translucent.  He kept sucking on his cracked and oozing lips like a baby
on the bottle to get at the blood.  He stared at Harold.  Harold might have mistaken
the attention for personal interest if it weren’t for the man’s evil eye.  It
was a stare matched by a good three-fourths of the group.  Most of them very
gaunt folk.  He’d broken an important protocol by flashing his teeth at good
old Donald.  It was a defensive mechanism, really.

            Donald wandered
back to his original position and introduced Harold from afar to the rest of
the group.  Of course, he’d known Harold was coming.  The courts contacted him
and somebody paid a pretty penny for “membership” in the program.  Harold had
to fill out all the paperwork and pay a pretty hefty ’bonds’ fee in advance. 
Harold found this out after the fact and after the federal sponsored
’intervention’.  He rubbed his face and scooted forward a bit to put precious
inches between himself and the others in the group who were trying to become
one with him.  He should have just left.

            It didn’t take
long for Donald to launch into some clap trap about becoming normal.  Everyone
sang a mantra and Harold only got part of it, something about swearing off the
sins of the flesh and staying strong.   Then, it became a talk show with
members volunteering their feelings and trouble from the past week.  A group of
zombies mimed their attempt to go grocery shopping.  It didn’t end well.