to imagine how it sounds as you read.
He wasn’t putting up much of a fight, so I let him go, keeping cautious the whole time of where his hands were as he turned around. They were mostly rubbing the pain out of his wrists. “What the fuck are you doing in my house?” I blasted.
“It ain’t obvious?” He held his arms out so I could read his shirt:
The Pire Hunter
Kickin Tires ‘N Killin Pires
Catchy. “So you’re a vampire hunter – is that it?”
“Yessir. I’m on Twitter and Linked In, and I’ve got a Facebook page. Bumper stickers and magnets are on order.” An overweight, socially-networked, media-marketed vampire hunter from the south, who likes mud bogs and domestic beer?
There’s not enough mind reading vampiricity in the world to have picked up on something like that.
POST 34
Bo: Hunter
Vampire hunters are another element of the whole deal that I thought were only the “myth” part of the mythology – fantastic devices for storytelling as a counterpoint to the evil antics those literary Suckers of Blood were up to, but not an actual contingent prowling the night armed with stakes and crosses. By now, there aren’t many aspects of being a vampire that I haven’t considered from a real-world perspective. But the idea of people devoted to hunting them is just something that had never occurred to me.
Now I know better.
“So there’s a huge call in this area for vampire hunters? Are there vampires just running around all over the place, like sewer rats?” I know they abound, especially down by Pomme, but it hardly seemed like common knowledge. So I tried to play it cool and condescending, hoping it would throw a smoke screen over the truth. I really didn’t think it would be too hard to do with the anti-genius standing before me in my living room.
I was right. It wasn’t hard.
“I don’t know about that. I drove across town to get here. I’m mobile.” He turned so I could see that the map on the back of his shirt. Serving the greater metropolitan area. Like pizza delivery, or plumbing repair. “You’re my first kill… or you would’ve been if you hadn’t been so dang smart.”
Don’s first change, this bozo’s first kill. I’m everybody’s first. “Well, sorry you wasted your gas. No vampires here.”
Once I denied it, he became a little more attentive, like suddenly he had to prove himself right to justify having the t-shirt printed. “Really? ‘Cause I could’ve sworn vampires had fangy teeth, like yours there.”
“These? Genetic defect.”
“And your pointy ears? Are those generic too?”
“It’s genetic, not generic and… and… ” I stopped mid-lie. “You know what? Screw this.” Suddenly I didn’t feel like playing my own game anymore; it was too hard to keep the list of lies straight, even in my own head. Whether or not he would have bought the excuses, it was time for me to try a different tack. This take-down I’d gotten over on the chubby hunter told me I could pull myself out of trouble if something here went sour. I didn’t want to cause any real mayhem, but I would go totally Tasmanian Vampire on his ass if it came to that. So I told him the truth. “You’re right, dude; you caught me. I’m a vampire.”
He eyed me sideways. “Now you’re just shitting me, aren’t you? Messing with the dumb guy’s head?”
Oh my God. This was rough.
“Nope – not shitting you, not messing with your head. I am a vampire.” I hardly ever say it out loud to myself, let alone to anyone within earshot. It felt kind of liberating. “That’s why you came here, isn’t it? Hunting vampires?”
That made him even more suspicious. “Yeah, but a ‘pire’d have to be real stupid to admit it to a hunter. You don’t seem stupid.”
“Stupid or not, it’s totally true. No use denying it anymore – you found me. I am absolutely, without question, a vampire. See? Here are the teeth,” and I bared them, “and the ears,” and I showed them, “and this is where I was bitten.” I pulled down the collar of my hoodie and showed him the bite marks. “And my skin – see? It’s pale, kind of.” I almost wished I hadn’t kept up with the carrot juice. “And you can feel how cold it is. That’s how you can tell; all of those are signs that I am one of the undead. A vampire.” He just stood there, with a stunned redneck-in-the-headlights look on his face.
I