Cataclysm
The fanciest of moustaches
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Chapter One
My Life Was Average
I was nobody, I had nothing. My job was ultimately going nowhere fast and the pay was a pittance. It was everything I could do to keep food on the table and a roof over my head, and even then, I ate out with friends as much as I could, somehow always dodging the bill when it came around.
My circle of friends was fairly limited, too. I was never really liked anywhere I went. Always a side character. That’s why it’s so odd for me to be writing this now, where I’m the main character. These “friends” included my neighbor, a couple coworkers, and the scraggly old man who always talked about the end of the world I met at one of my AA meetings. Not sure why the others always put up with him, but he was the only one I would really call a friend. The others were more like meal tickets to me. If I disappeared, they wouldn’t care - and they didn’t.
It struck me as a bit odd that they decided to invite me to some party that their buddy was having, but figuring there would be a lot of food there and not having much in my pantry, I accepted their invitation. I followed their instructions on what to wear and when to arrive, and headed on into the building.
Though it looked like a warehouse on the outside, it was quite the party on the inside. I looked for awhile, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find the group I was supposed to be with. Not exactly being a people person, I headed right for what was apparently the bar.
“H-h-how much for a drink?” I stammered out.
“Everythin’s on the houze toni’t,” the bartender responded, his accent thick, but unplaceable. “Sumbodah relly rich went an’ rezerv’d de ‘ole place.”
I nodded, but didn‘t order anything. I mostly asked for show, anyway. Ever since I got out of AA, I hadn’t touched the stuff. Wasn’t planning to, either.
“I’ll take one, and get one for this guy, too,” a female voice called from behind me. I grimaced and turned to see where the unfamiliar voice came from.
She was, in a word, beautiful. The lights played on her hair and made it appear as if her head had flowing, curling flames that draped to her shoulders. She walked with such a sway that I was immediately entranced, and somehow felt fortunate for her to acknowledge me. The closest thing to a flaw was her unusually pale skin, accentuated by the lighting, making her appear almost as if she were devoid of blood.
But that would be foolish, or so I thought. How wrong I was…
“Hi,” she said, flashing me a smile as she took the stool next to me. “I’m Miranda. And you are…?”
“Surprised,” I said, without thinking.
“Oh?” she laughed. “What an odd name!”
“O-oh, jeeze, no. My n-n-name isn’t Surprised, it’s T-t-tom.”
“Pleased to meet you, T-t-tom.” Despite her clearly mocking me, for some reason, I was all the more charmed by her.
Our drinks arrived, but I pushed mine aside.
“Not to your liking, T-t-tom?”
“I d-d-don’t drink. Former alcoholic.”
“I don’t either, nor does anyone here. It’s a cleverly orchestrated experiment by some lab coats curious about how many people will become intoxicated by merely thinking it’s alcohol.”
“Why do I n-n-not believe you?”
“Because I’m lying.” Again that smile. I could go on forever like this if I got to keep seeing that smile.
We chatted for the next several hours, talking about ourselves, guessing about each other, about life, about everything. It was the closest I’d been to a woman in a long, long time. Too long. Man, I really was pathetic.
She glanced down at her watch. “Oh, it’s getting late… I best be getting home.”
“O-o-oh. I’ll be seeing y-y-you then.”
“I think you will be. Care to come back to my place?” That smile. I just couldn’t say no.
“O-o-okay…”
Twenty minutes later, I was at her house, outside her bedroom door. I was more nervous than I’d been in the last decade, at least.
Oh god, I thought. Am I about to do this? Is this…? Oh god, oh god, oh god.
She opened the door and gestured for me to come in. She was laying on the bed in her dress, but I had an idea where this was going.
I stepped in through the doorway and began walking to the bed. I heard something swish through the air behind my head, felt something collide, hard, and then I fell to the ground. Miranda smiled, but this time, the smile seemed so cruel.
Everything went black.
*************
When I came to, everything sounded strange. Voices were garbled and my vision was blurry and distorted.
“Oh damn, oh damn, oh damn,” I heard a vaguely familiar voice say. Miranda? “I thought I… I mean… Oh god.”
“After we went through all that trouble, you had to let him live, huh?”
“It’s not - I mean - I just - Oh god.”
“Hey, hey. He’s coming to,” a third voice said.
I blinked a few times, and things cleared up a bit more. Sure enough, the first voice was definitely Miranda’s. I should’ve known I couldn’t have gotten that lucky. Women and I don’t get along. Heck, people and I don’t get along.
“Hello there,” the third voice said. It was a man, apparently in his late forties, his hair thinning but clearly chestnut brown. “I’m Theodore, known as Theo around here. You’ve already met Miranda, and this big man next to me, the one who hit you with the bat, is Richard.”
“Okay…” I said. I was still groggy, but one question ran into my mind. I turned to face the Miranda-shaped blob and asked “What the hell?”
“I didn’t mean for - This is - Oh god.”
Richard grunted. “What she’s trying to say is that this shouldn’t have happened like this.”
“Yes, see… Miranda likes her food fresh. She’s one of a few of us who still do so,” Theo said, nodding. “Normally, she cleans them out, but evidently, you got a bit lucky.”
“What are you talking abou-” I scratched my neck and noticed two distinct holes in my jugular. “WHAT THE -”
“Yeah, sorry about that…” Miranda said. It was the first complete thought she’d gotten out since I’d heard her speaking. She seemed to have collected herself. “You seemed alone and looked tasty, so I just thought…”
“What did you think? WHAT DID YOU DO?” I shouted.
“I’m going to make this short,” Richard said. “We’re vampires. We drink blood. Now, you’re a vampire too because somebody couldn’t manage to completely finish their meal.”
Miranda interrupted again. “Sorry!”
Now, I wasn’t just upset. I was downright furious.
“So, you flirted with me, made me actually think I might have some semblance of self-worth, and took me back to your place… All so you could eat me?”
“Eat you? Oh, no,” Theo said. “We don’t eat people - what do we look like, savages? She was merely going to drain all the blood from your body.”
“Right, like that’s really different.”
“It certainly is. Do not lower us to the point of cannibals.”
“You’re not even HUMAN. You can’t be cannibal if you’re not human!”
“We most certainly are. Do we seem as beasts to you?”
“Let’s see… Attempted homicide, kidnapping, and assault… Yeah, seems like it to me.”
“Look,” Richard cut in. “You’re a vampire now, live with it. Unless you want to go kill yourself, you’re stuck as a vampire.”
“This is a load of crap,” I said. “I’m going home.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Richard said.
“And why is that? Will you kill me if I do?”
“I won’t. But that will.” He pointed through the windows at the sun.
“Tch, as if it will.” I put on my coat and made for the door.
“When you start writhing in pain, do you want us to haul you back or leave you to die?” Richard shouted across the vast emptiness of the warehouse.
I just chuckled as I threw open the door. My first step outside and into the sunlight caught me off guard. A sharp burning sensation itched its way along all my visible skin and started creeping under my clothes as well. It steadily grew more and more painful with each passing microsecond, and I fell to the ground in agony. It was all I could do to not scream.
I saw the backs of my hands begin to wither and turn parchment-like, cracking as they began to decay rapidly, turning into a dust before my eyes.
Mercifully, I felt a pair of hands on each leg grab me and haul me back into the safety of the warehouse.
“Stupid,” Richard said. “Believe us now?”
“Miranda, be a dear and get us some of the blood in the back. He’ll need it to recover,” Theo requested.
Surprisingly, she didn’t argue. Maybe she still felt bad about what she’d done, though I suspect there would have been no remorse had I not made it.
I couldn’t move. I had no energy at all. I tried, but nothing would happen. My limbs were stiff and I felt like a desiccated corpse, dried out and dead. Though I hurt no longer, the inability to do anything was almost as excruciating as the pain itself was.
A few minutes later, Miranda came back with a full blood bag, like what the hospitals use.
“Thank you,” Theo said. He took the IV from the blood bag and forced it down my throat, surprisingly rough given his calm and peaceful demeanor. “Now we just let it drain…”
As the blood flowed straight into my stomach, I started to feel better. By the time the bag was empty, I was able to move around, though I still ached a bit.
“Blood’s a bit of a cure-all for us. Doesn’t matter how grave the wound, if you can get enough blood quick enough, you can heal up just fine,” Theo said when he’d finished the “infusion.”
“Guess I really am a vampire…” I muttered, bewildered.
“No duh,” Richard grunted. “Shoulda been obvious from the start.”
“So, I guess the big question I have now that I’m a vamp… What now?”
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