The Vampire Club (24 page)

“
Maybe that’s the problem, Janice. I’m no longer a human being.”

Her face was bright red, rich with blood, and if I had loved her less, I would have taken her then, drained her. But I stayed strong, the only willpower left in my pathetic shell of a body.

She turned and stalked away only to suddenly stop. “You will never be welcomed again into the Vampire Club. Never. You are hated Andy Barthamoo. And it won’t just be by me. Your best friends, Andy, by your only friends. How does it feel to be completely friendless forever?”

If a stake could kill a vampire, her words might have done the job, because they sure nailed me in the heart.

But she wasn’t done. “I had hopes for you, Andy. But you were never the man I needed you to be. And now you can’t even be the vampire I
want
you to be.”

With that she left me, and I sat down and noticed I could not cry.

Chapter Fifty-nine

I sat alone in the forest.

I rubbed at my fingernails, over and over, noticing the dark gray underneath. I sat in the shade of an ancient oak, realizing Laumer had been lurking around when that oak was just a sapling and that I’d still be around when it was termite shit.

Janice didn’t understand. I had to be in this revolting body all the time, and the only natural part of it was a will to survive. I knew that I would do whatever it took to remain “alive,” or whatever mockery of that word I was existing under.

As I sat there alone, I was already calculating how to move with the crowd, to go unnoticed, to blend with my prey. I’d need daily rituals, like make-up, conditioner, clothing that wouldn’t expose too much skin. I’d probably have to wear sunglasses—

Someone touched my shoulder. Christ, I couldn’t even feel it at first. My skin just didn’t register kinesthetic touch as quickly and sharply as it used to—even Janice had left me deflated.

“
How are you, Andy?” the professor said.

My angry voice, one I wish I could’ve stopped, erupted: “You mean ‘
What
are you, Andy?’”

“
You, my young friend, are a vampire with fresh memories of mortality.” This was Laumer speaking, apparently having become a good friend of the professor’s over the space of a day and a few dozen deaths. “Mortality is the curse of the weak, the unwilling, the unquestioning.”

“
I did not ask for this.”

“
But you did not refuse it, either.”

“
It’s evil.”

“‘
Evil’ is a moral judgment, and you’ve moved beyond that now,” the professor said.

“
What are you going to do, young man?” Laumer asked.

Damn good question. “It’s obvious I’m no longer wanted in the club.”

The professor looked at me over his glasses. “You committed the ultimate betrayal to them, Andy. They will never forgive you for as long as you...well,
they
live.”

“
What do you think, Professor L? Should I have done what they asked?”

“
I cannot possibly answer that question. You made a decision that was agonizing and one for which no one can be prepared. You must live with your choice. You haven’t answered my question, however.”

“
I don’t know, professor. I could go to some other school, but mortal life seems seriously pointless to me now. Why do I care if I make a ‘C’ in Biology? And who’s going to honor a college diploma that’s a hundred and fifty years old?”

“
You’re on the right track, my friend,” said Laumer, putting an arm around my slumped shoulders. He was big on the paternal thing, apparently. It must have been ages since he’d turned an eager young buck into a bleak creature of the night. “It’s a difficult, confusing, often adventurous life. You told me you dreamed of the ultimate adventure; well, you’re going to get it.

“
Professor, you ask what he’s going to do. Well, I’ll make a proposition for him: I made him a vampire, so in a way, I’m partly responsible. I offer to show him how to live like a vampire. There are many tricks, many tricks that I learned the hard way. The world is obviously very different than what I am accustomed to, as I’ve noticed thus far; but human objectivity and acceptance rarely changes. Actually, it’s quite consistent.”

“
Yeah, you can count on us screwing up and making the wrong choice,” I said.

“
You can travel with me, Andy. We’ll learn together. You show me how to live in the modern world, and I’ll show you how to live in it as an immortal.”

I wasn’t so sure. All things considered, I’d rather have been traveling with Janice. Why should I go with this creepy old soul-stealer when I’d just rejected the love of my life, the other half of my soul—

No. I had no soul. Not even half.

“
In a way, I admire you, Andy,” said the professor. A horn blasted and the professor glanced towards the town. “Out of everyone in the club, I knew you were the one who would find the ultimate answer.”

“
This isn’t the final exam in Vampire Studies, Professor L,” I said. “This is reality.”

The vampire laughed, throwing his head back, his white teeth catching the sun. “He has just asked the question! He has achieved immortality but has yet to learn of the secrets that keep our world running.”

“
So, professor,” I said. “Aren’t you going to beg me to turn you into a vampire?”

“
I’m an old man; in my youth, I would have asked you for immortality like Janice. But I am old now and have long ago accepted my mortality. I have discovered what I sought, so I can die happily with the knowledge that vampires exist. Andy, you’re a great kid. I wish you luck always. Please see me again.”

“
I will. I promise.” I lied.

I stood on wobbly knees, looked at his creased, leathery face, and then buried my nose into his soft neck. I had no impulse at all to rip his veins from his withered flesh and drink deeply of his essence. Let the old man die in peace.

We separated, and he said in a low voice. “Live the life I and the others have always dreamed of. Live the good life.”

I could not answer.

“
And free the other vampires, dammit. The VVV has no right to do what they do.”

I was stunned. I hadn’t even considered all those others, dulled by silver bullets, and I wasn’t even sure how I felt about rescue missions anymore. “I’ll think about it.”

Laumer and I watched the professor carefully make his way through the weeds and shrubbery of the forest. Shortly after, an engine growled to life, and with a violent thrust of the accelerator, the truck screeched away, as if that was the only way the club could express its collective anger.

Laumer was squeezing my shoulder again. I wondered if he’d still be doing that a hundred years from now. I listened for the fading motor until I heard only the wind.

“
Goodbye, Vampire Club,” I said.

“
The young lady,” Laumer said. “You were fond of her?”

“
I thought love was in your heart,” I said. “And I still have a heart. I thought love was in your pants. And I’m not sure what even works down there anymore. I thought love was in your head, because you think so much about it.”

“
Poets have studied it since time immeasurable,” Laumer said. “I’ve met many of them, and none have figured out its mystery.”

“
Well, I have,” I said.

Laumer took his hand from my shoulder. He gave me a smirk, showing the tips of his canines. “Yes?”

“
You can’t love without a soul.”

Laumer paused as if considering it, but he’d been without a soul for so long that I doubted he even knew what I was talking about. “You know what I love?”

I didn’t care, but I saw no reason to be rude at that point. “What?”

“
Blood. I’m a little bit thirsty.”

“
I hear there’s a good little restaurant in town.”

“
Dinner’s on me.”

“
Her, you mean.”

“
Yes. Her.”

I followed Laumer as the sun sank in the west, as the sun sank on my last memories of being human.

The Vampire Club.

I hear they have an opening, if you’re interested.

THE END

Available now in ebookstores everywhere:

Speed Dating with the Dead

A paranormal thriller

by

Scott Nicholson

(read on for a sample)

Chapter 1

“
And here’s our most haunted room, Mr. Wilson.”

The brass name plate over the hostess’s breast read “Violet,” an old-fashioned name that didn’t match her JC Penney pants suit. Early twenties and attractive, the make-up failed to hide the hard years around her eyes. But Wayne Wilson had logged his own hard years, and he hid them in the coffin of his heart.

“
Call me ‘Digger,’“ he said.

“‘
Digger’?” Violet said.

“
I have this little undertaker thing going on,” he admitted, feeling a bit sheepish under her blue-eyed stare. “The top hat and Victorian coattails. Part of the gig.”

Wow. Beth, if you really are here, you’ll see what a cartoon I’ve become.

But the dead stayed dead, and the best thing about them was they weren’t in a position to second guess. But the worst thing about them was they weren’t around when you needed them.

“
So, have you ever had any experiences here?” Wayne asked, eyeing the décor and fighting the rush of memories.

“
I’ve never had a honeymoon, and I would choose somewhere a little more exotic than the North Carolina mountains. Like maybe Dollywood or Paris.”

“
I meant ‘supernatural experiences.’“

“
Just those brain-dead zombies who hit on me at the bar.”

Wayne was only half listening. The master bedroom of Room 318 had changed little since his stay 17 years earlier. The roses on the wallpaper had yellowed, and each wall held an autumnal mountain landscape. Imitation Queen Anne furniture, chipped and scarred by cigarette burns, a plush purple carpet in which rodents could reproduce, and the king-size, four-poster bed were the same as his honeymoon night.

Even the throw pillows appeared unchanged, skinned in greasy satin and leaning against the headboard the same way his and Beth’s heads had leaned on a cold autumn night. Before they opened the door.

“
The manager’s pleased you chose the White Horse for your conference,” Violet said.

I didn’t choose. I was chosen.

“
You have quite a reputation,” Wayne said.
“
Nobody keeps their ghosts secret for long.”

“
Ghosts are good for business. Especially in the off-season.”

“
It should be good for both of us.”

“
We booked about 50 for the weekend.”

“
Too bad you can’t charge your invisible guests. You’ve got at least three here in 318.”

“
Ah, you’ve been browsing the Ghost Register,” she said, referring to the journal at the front desk where guests and staff had faithfully recorded their encounters.

One of the victims had been a stock broker who had suffered a heart attack during his honeymoon, and though the urban legend maintained he’d died on top of his new wife, the Rescue Squad report said he’d been discovered on the floor with half a corn dog in his mouth and an empty bottle of champagne sitting in a tin bucket of water.

The second was a jumper, a documented death in which a distraught tool fabricator had launched into a frothing rant about a two-timing, backstabbing bitch before launching himself off the balcony in a fall that would likely have resulted in nothing more than a few fractures if he’d have missed the lamp post. You could call it coincidence, you could call it bad luck, but it made for a better campfire tale if you called it “the Wicked Hand of Evil.”

The third victim was the most interesting to Wayne, because it didn’t have the glib familiarity of the other deaths, which were not much different than those suffered at any of America’s century-old hotels. As the manager, a powder-dry walking mummy named Janey Mays, had put it, any building with a few generations behind it would end up with a slate of strange happenings.

Janey hadn’t recognized him from his long-ago visit. But why should she? He was young and happy then, a clean-shaven newlywed and 100-percent demon free.

“
What do you know about Margaret Percival?” Wayne asked Violet.

“
Just the stuff in the register.” Violet opened the television cabinet as if to make sure the maids hadn’t stolen the TV.

“
West Virginia woman, checked into this room in February, 1948.”

“
I don’t think the color scheme has changed since then.” She whacked the dark floral pattern on the velour curtain, and a lazy haze of dust spun in the sunlit window.

Margaret was a war widow, in town for a reunion of the Camp Creek Sisterhood, a collective of well-to-do white teenagers who spent the summers of the Great Depression in their one-piece, baggy swimsuits, canoeing, singing “Tomorrow” around the fire, and talking about boys, when they weren’t sneaking off in the dead of night to meet them at movie theaters and fumble in the dark.