Scary Dead Things - 02 (42 page)

I was interrupted from the tirade I felt building up by Ed walking out of his bedroom. “I heard you come in,” he mentioned. If he heard that, he no doubt heard what else had gone on. He wisely mentioned none of it. “Here,” he said, handing me a piece of paper.

“What's this?” I asked without looking down at it.

“I looked up alma for you.”

I looked down at the paper. It was a printout of a webpage. “Is this Wikipedia?”

“Yep, came right up in Google. Not exactly the heavy research I was expecting.”

I scanned the entry. “You've got to be kidding me!”

“Nope.”

“What is it?” Tom asked.

“Alma,” said Ed. “is the Mongolian name for
Bigfoot
.”

“No fucking way!”

Ed shrugged. “That's pretty much what I thought.”

“You're telling me that the vampires are in a war against Sasquatch?” I replied in a stunned voice. I then took a few minutes to fill them in on what Sally had just told me.

“Sounds like the vampires are in a
losing
war against Sasquatch,” Ed commented when I was done.

I nodded. “Yeah, and apparently they’re expecting me to be their General Custer.”

“That is fucking cool!” Tom exclaimed, but then quickly added, “I don’t mean the thing with you, Bill. But seriously, vampires versus bigfoot? I'd pay to see that shit.”

“Don't forget the wizards,” I pointed out with a sigh. Jesus Christ, how did I find myself here? I put my head down on the counter.

“Maybe we should give you a few moments,” said Ed, leading Tom towards the living room.

“Why bother?” I said, sitting up. I picked up the phone and started dialing.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling work. It's still early. Jim might still be around. Who knows, maybe he'll have something else to say to
brighten
my day.” That last part came out as a growl as my temper began to fray. I had gone through far too much in the past couple days for life to suddenly decide that it needed to take a mega-dump on me. I barely even noticed when a familiar female voice answered the phone.

“Hopscotchgames. Jim Floskie's office.”

“Is Jim in?” I asked, rubbing my temple with my free hand.

“Bill?” replied Sheila's voice. “Sorry, he already left for the night.”

“Figures,” I commented without much gusto. “I'll call back tomorrow.”

“He's out. Taking a personal day.”

“That's just great,” I sighed.

“Sorry,” she said in an understanding voice. “Hey, I heard what happened.”

“You did? Let me guess, the whole office knows,” I replied, starting to feel a dull throb of anger in the back of my head.

“Don’t worry about it. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

“Really?”

“I doubt it,” she replied and then lightened her tone a bit. “So what did you do, hit on him in the men's room?”

“Of course not!”

“I'm just kidding. I know that,” she said with a laugh. “Besides, I’m sure most people here will stick up for you. Harry doesn’t exactly have too many fans.”

“No?”

“You haven't been around here much lately; I have,” she said. “Trust me on this. He's not exactly Mr. Popularity.”

“You seemed to be getting along with him,” I ventured.

“Oh, please,” she said dismissively. “I was just letting him buy me a drink after work. Truth be told,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “I kind of think he's a bit of an asshole, actually. In fact, I might even tell HR that he's probably just doing this because he's pissed off at you about the other night. You should have heard the stuff he was ranting about after you left. It was weird.”

“I bet,” I muttered. “I meant...what about you? Were you mad at me, too?”

“For what?”

“For...ruining...I mean, for the other night?”

“Not at all. I’ll admit that it was a little odd (
a little?
), but I know how it is. I have a nephew. We’ve done some weird things together. I thought it was kind of sweet that you were spending time with your family. As for the rest of it, I might even owe you a bit of thanks.”

“Thanks?”

“If you hadn’t shown up, I’m pretty sure Harry would have tried weaseling his way up to my apartment.” She gave another chuckle. “So in a way, I guess you were my knight in shining armor.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Thank you,” I replied, a bit dumbfounded, but nevertheless feeling the first traces of brightness shining into my otherwise not-so-hot day. “I really appreciate that.”

“No problem, Bill. Anytime,” she said, the warmth never leaving her voice.

“Sheila,” I had meant to say ‘goodbye’. Maybe it was her tone, or maybe the past few days had just left me too tired to psyche myself out. Whatever the reason, my mouth decided it had a mind of its own, and what came out instead was, “what do you think about maybe grabbing a cup of coffee with me sometime?”

There was a pause on the other end, which was just as well because time suddenly stopped for me. Holy shit, did I actually just say that? I rewound my mental tape...yes, I did. I wasn't even thinking about it. It just kind of slipped out. Great! Now, not only did I have the Draculas, Sasquatch, an asshole wizard, and an HR department to deal with. I could also add being shot down to my ever growing list of mental baggage. What the fuck was I thinking!?

“Sure. It'll be fun,” came back the reply.

My mind went completely blank. Who was I talking to? What were they agreeing with? I had no idea. It was like my brain decided to do a core dump and was still rebooting itself. I looked up, unable to say a word. I saw Tom and Ed staring back at me. They both had their mouths agape. Finally, Ed started miming the words “
thank you
” and “
hang up
” to me. Oh...oh yeah.

“That's great, Sheila. Thanks. We'll...set something up.” OK, I needed to end this before I ventured back into social retard territory.

“Sounds good.”

“I'll talk to you...soon!” I said and then quickly hung up the phone before my tongue could spit out anything stupid sounding.

There was a stillness in the room for a moment, then I numbly walked over to the living room and plopped myself down on the couch.

Finally, Ed broke the silence. He had a big grin on his face. “Congratulations, man. You
actually
did it.”

“I did, didn't I?” I said, it starting to sink in. “I can't believe it.”

“
You
can't?” chimed Tom. “I thought I was going to have to listen to you pine for her until I died of old age.”

“Oh yeah, speaking of which, it looks like you owe me twenty bucks,” Ed replied to him.

“For once, I’m happy to pay up,” Tom said, walking over to the kitchen to grab a beer. “Who would have thought it? Today, Bill, you are finally a man.”

We all chucked at that, me more so at the irony of the statement. Then Ed said, “Seriously, I'm proud of you.” He clapped me on the shoulder and then got up. He started to walk towards his room before turning back toward me. “Bit of advice, though?”

“What?” I asked, the grin still on my face.

“Maybe next time, wait until after your
sexual
harassment case is finished before asking out a co-worker.”

“Asshole,” I replied with a smile.

I couldn't believe it. Here I was, a mountain of supernatural evil about to come down on my head like an avalanche, and the only thing I could think about was that I had finally taken a step forward with the girl of my dreams. It wasn't much. Heck, I wasn't even sure it would be considered a date. Still, it was more progress than I had made in all the time I had known her. It was a victory, no matter how small.

I decided to put my feet up and enjoy it. In a short while, Bigfoot could crash through the wall followed by the
Loch Ness Monster
and
Zontar the Thing from Venus
, for all I cared. Not for right now, though. For at least the next five minutes, all was right with my world. I could live with that.

THE END

Bill Ryder will return in:

The Mourning Woods
: The Tome of Bill, Part 3

Available in both ebook and paperback formats

Can’t wait for more Bill? Follow his ongoing misadventures on Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/BilltheVampire

Rick Gualtieri lives alone in central New Jersey with only his wife, three kids, and countless pets to both keep him company and constantly plot against him. He has won no literary awards and has received exactly zero accolades for his work in the past, present, and (most likely) future. When he’s not busy monkey-clicking out words, he can typically be found jealously guarding his collection of vintage Transformers from all who would seek to defile them.

Defilers beware!

Rick Gualtieri is also the author of:

Bigfoot Hunters

Bill the Vampire
(The Tome of Bill, Part 1)

The Mourning Woods
(The Tome of Bill, part 3)

The Poptart Manifesto

To contact Rick (with either undying praise or rude comments) please visit
http://www.poptartmanifesto.com