Flesheaters and Bloodsuckers Anonymous: A Dark Humor (9 page)

            “What do these
doodles remind you of, Harold?”  Donald asked.

            “Nothing much,
sun, house, basic stuff.”

            Zork grinned at
Harold and turned to Donald.  “It reminds me of the ravings of a truly evil and
psychotic mind,” Zork said.

            Harold growled at
Zork, surprising himself.  “If anything is psychotic, it’s your painting.” 

            Donald glanced at
Zork’s work as if seeing it for the first time.  Maybe he was.  Harold had
noticed Donald purposely cultivated an ignorance of Zork and the slug’s
behavior in group.

            “Zork, I’ll be
discussing that painting with your handlers,”  Donald muttered.  He turned his
attention back to Harold and Harold tried very hard not to look away.

            “Stuff you don’t
have perhaps?”

            For some
goddamned reason Harold’s face burned, threatening to turn bright red in front
of this man.  He very carefully shook his head. 

            “Are you sure
Harold?  Many of my FEBs members express a longing for those days when they
were kids.  A time when they could safely make believe about monsters and
vampires, yet, at the end of playtime go running back to their normal, happy
lives.” 

            Donald sighed,
handing the painting back.  Worry lines appeared on the man’s face.  It didn’t
pique the vampire’s sympathy, but it did make him curious.  This look belied
Donald’s overly cheerful manner.

            “You can’t run
home Harold.  You can’t go back while you are still a vampire.”

            On that note
Donald left, excusing himself to get a breath of fresh air or maybe have a good
cry.  Harold ignored the slug until he had a sure grip on his emotions.  He
hadn’t expected Donald’s interpretation to cut so close to the bone.  Group
continued for a few minutes, but work petered off as people realized Donald had
left the building.  They stared at each other uncertain what to do without
Donald’s supervision.  Eventually, protocol broke and clusters of conversation
started up, a few pulled out cigarettes for a smoke and even the ogre lumbered
over to bum a cig off a very nervous vampire.

            Things continued
in this manner until nearly the end of group when Donald returned, his smile
set in place.  Donald asked for volunteers and a few members stood to explain
their work, most took the assignment quite literally and Harold had to endure
several crudely drawn naked ogres before Donald mercifully ended group.

            “Thanks be the
light that’s over,” Zork muttered, “I don’t feel like heading back yet.”

            Harold led Zork
to his Phantom parked by the warehouse.  Since learning about the car, Zork
didn’t let Harold go anywhere group-related without a ride along.  Harold hated
what its slime did to his upholstery and tried to refuse, but after figuring
out Zork had no intention of taking no for an answer, he finally broke down and
got the creature a fluffy bath towel to sit on. 

            Feeling
disinclined to head back to the halfway house himself, Harold drove to his
apartment, besides he was started to feel hungry and had a stash hidden in the
freezer.

            “I’m finally
meeting the missus huh?”  Zork asked as they pulled into a parking space.

            “You are,” Harold
turned to the slug, “A few rules though.  No touching, stay off the carpet and
none of those comments about my girlfriend’s breasts…or me.”

           
“So no fun at all?”  Zork slammed the car door with an
eyestalk.  “You’re almost as bad as the government.”

            “How was group?” 
Maria asked as Harold and Zork walked in the front door.  He couldn’t tell if
she was still up from the night before or had gotten up extra early this
morning.  Harold didn’t want to risk asking her, he couldn’t remember whether
she’d worn same white track suit when he visited yesterday or not.  It looked a
little rumpled, but she had a tendency to let her day off sweats fall to the
bottom of the closet.  Besides, Harold was still trying to wrap his mind around
what Donald said to him. 

            “It went okay,”
Harold said.  He pulled off his jacket and tossed it on the sofa, eased off his
steel toed boots, highly useful for kicking unsuspecting prey in the chest and
wandered into the kitchen to pull a pint of AB positive out of the freezer.  A
rare blood type, but Harold felt he deserved a treat after the debacle known as
art therapy. 

            He sliced the bag
and emptied the bloodsicle into a cup, using a spoon out of the drawer to chop
the frozen blood into pieces.  He savored the flavor of his first bite and the
resultant twinge of cold in his fangs. 

            Maria gave him a
peck on the cheek, frowning as she noticed his dinner.  “Really Harold?”  He
didn’t reply, but she pressed on with a different tactic than he expected. 
“You aren’t just here to eat and run are you?”  She slid past him to the
refrigerator and opened it.  

            Harold swallowed
another bite and shook his head, eyeing her round rump.  “I thought I’d stay up
a little longer.”

            Maria glanced at
him.  “Really?”  She pulled an orange out of the crisper.  “Do you think you
might try staying up past sunrise?”  Maria jabbed one of her manicured nails
into the orange’s skin.  She peeled it up one chunk at a time, licking the
juices from her fingers as she went.

            The sun, a
brightly glowing ball of death, a mythical god craving blood in exchange for
light.  That big ball of gas which competed with all denizens of the dark for
the realm and domain of the normal people.  Good old Mr. Sunshine.

            “Ah, not sure,”
Harold said.  Wondering what prompted that question.  Had Maria been reading up
on the program?  Was he, God forbid, at some point required to go out during
the daytime?  A definite deal breaker. 

            He took the
orange from Maria and used a long, sharp thumbnail to expertly peel the rest of
the orange for her.  He dumped the offensive peels into the garbage and handed
her the naked fruit.  She took it with a smile, caught his hand and licked it
clean, all while looking totally naughty.

            “You’re always
too good to me,” Maria said, letting go of his hand.  Harold felt a certain
urgency in his pants.  He stepped towards her. 

            She slipped
around him.  “No you don’t,” Maria said.  She was around the corner and screamed
before Harold thought to warn her.

            Harold hurried
around to stop Maria before she did something disastrous to the squishy
creature he’d left by the front door.

           
“Get it.  Get it.  Get it.”  She squeaked at Harold
from where she stood on the worn out sofa.  Zork, annoyance that it was, glared
down at Harold from the ceiling.

            “You said not to
touch the carpet,” the slug stated, then dodged a shoe thrown by Maria. 

            “Wait.”  Harold
moved between the two with hands raised.  “It’s not going to hurt you.”  He
turned to talk to the slug.  “Are you?”

            Both the slug’s
eyestalks had disappeared down into its head.  “Not me, nope.”

            “What is it?” 
Maria had her other tennis shoe ready to fly, but looked to Harold for
answers.  He didn’t really know what to say.  He couldn’t exactly reveal
government secrets to Maria.

            Zork emitted an
oddly haunting multi-toned whistle, then slid down the wall closer to her. 
“That’s what we call ourselves,” it said, one eyestalk out and eyeing the
threatening shoe.

            “It sounds rather…pretty.”

            “We like to think
so.”

            It occurred to
Harold as he watched the two getting acquainted that Zork must have these sorts
of encounters on a regular basis.  He felt glad for at least being able to pass
and guilty for it too.  The thought of having to win people over every time he
encountered someone new seemed daunting.  It didn’t seem right for the little
guy to keep running into these problems.  Fortunately, Maria also seemed to be
taking to it, if the way she touched its eyestalk meant anything.

            “You’re slimy,”
Maria said with a grimace.

            “It’s
protective.  To me, humans are awfully salty.”

            “Um, sorry about
the shoe.”

            “It’s happened
before.  I’m used to it.”

            That got Maria
upset.  “How unfair.  You can’t help being who you are,  I’m really, really
sorry about this.”

            Zork whistled
again, “Thank you.  Besides, you’re the nicest human to throw something at me
yet.”

            Maria cooed at
the slug.  If Harold didn’t know any better he’d think she were flirting with
it. The slug held her hand with an eyestalk and for one tense moment brought it
to its mouth in a lipless kiss.  Harold sighed, not ten minutes with his
girlfriend and already Zork was trying to steal her.  At least things were
going well.

            “Nice to meet
you,” Maria said.

            “Enchanted.”

            Harold picked up
Maria’s lost shoe and handed it to her, effectively regaining her attention. 
“Harold,” She laughed, “I almost forgot about you.”  She slipped her shoes back
on and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.  He made a grab for her but she
slipped out of reach. 

            “You’re such a
cocktease,” Harold said after her.

            “I didn’t go
anywhere near your Rooster sweetie,” Maria said, “Um, you two stay out of
trouble.  I’m heading down to the gym.”  She picked up her purse and slipped
out into the grey dawn.

            “Lovely, just
lovely,” Zork said, staring at the door.

            “Yes,” Harold
replied, “That turned out surprisingly well.”

            The slug cleared
its air holes loudly.  “I’m glad she has bad aim is all.”

            Harold sighed and
went to the window.  He had a good view of the approaching sunrise.  Experience
had taught him that stories about vampires burning to a crisp and crumbling
into a little pile of ashes to be swept out with the trash were very, very
true.  A lot about vampirism had been exaggerated, but not that, no, not that. 
This had been one of the first lessons he learned about being a vampire when
he’d ventured out into the daytime after the change.  Still living with his
family, he just wanted to take out the garbage and hadn’t fully realized yet
what this meant to his way of life. 

            He didn’t even
think.  Saw the collection truck coming up the street, grabbed the garbage out
of the garage and ran for the curb.  Harold got about ten feet from the open
garage door before he collapsed.  He burned, not just on his skin, but deep
inside.  His muscles spasmed electrified, tightened and hardened like bone. 
Once before he’d broken an arm and felt the pain of broken bones, but this was
unbelievable.  Harold, unable to move his baking arms and legs other than to
flop around on concrete, managed to roll himself, flip, flop, flip, into the
garage’s liquid dark. 

            Once there he
continued to bake in the heat of his own flesh.  Harold would always remember
the smell, the smell of “Oh god, I’ve really screwed myself now,” running
through his mind and his infected vampire heart beating a million miles a
minute.  The sound of his mother’s voice calling to him from the house, calling
him to the breakfast which he mostly picked at and pushed around on his plate
in an effort to make it look as if he was still eating since having gone vamp
and rather preferred the coppery tang of his own blood.  The sound of his
father’s thumping feet walking towards the garage to him.  The halting moments
when he reached the door to the garage.  The sound of his father’s own
heartbeat increasing wildly as he must have smelled the sweet BBQ singe of
Harold’s flesh.  Harold remembered the intense dread of discovery as that door
creaked open slowly, oh so slowly.  His father afraid to open it, afraid to see
what he must have guessed in horror was on the other side.   His parents must
have already pieced it together, but hadn’t let the truth float to the surface
of their conscious minds.  

            With a shake of
his head, Harold banished the memory.  He pressed a finger to one of his
canines, out in full force and cold from frozen blood.  Feeling shaky, Harold
hoped he hadn’t just ingested diabetic blood in his slushy.  Diabetics left him
feeling crappy for hours. 

            “It’s getting to
be daylight.  I’m not going to be able to drive you back to the halfway house,”
he said to Zork, whom had slimed its way into the kitchen to inspect the
cupboards.

            “My government
pals should be round to pick me up soon anyway.”  Zork’s voice echoed from
inside the dish cupboard, “They always tail me.”

            Feds in his
house, great.  Harold went to turn up the heat in the apartment and pulled one
of the two lone armchairs from the living room over in front of the sliding
glass door.  He grabbed the cord for the curtains and sat down in the chair
with it in his hand.  Harold tested the cord to make sure he’d be able to close
the curtains quickly and leaned back in the chair to wait for the sunrise.  The
slug closed the door on itself, making noises and shuffling dishes around
inside the cupboard.