I am sitting in a vampire’s plush Vero Beach office on Halloween afternoon trying to save the world. The blinds of her third story suite on A1A are drawn of course, thick velvet robes masking the bright fall sunshine outside. Teak bookshelves line one wall, the carpet is plush, and a pair of end tables flanks a display of wrought iron serpents. The Tiffany lamp on her desk is lit for my benefit.
“So, Mr. Dondo – we have something to discuss?” She wasn’t asking.
The epicenter of undead activity was now focused on this seaside office building. A major push by the Vampire Collective solidifying their hegemony over the world was underway. And I had no idea how to stop it.
“I am not going to insult your intelligence, Mr. Dondo,” said the vampire. “Your special… abilities… have been known to us for some time. I am empowered to deal with whatever obstacles or benefits you may present to our operations.” She was dressed like a bank executive, in a dark power suit with no watch on her wrist. Looking about 55, maturely attractive in a Rene Russo sort of way. She was probably pretty hot, back in the 14th century.
“I do not consider you a threat,” she continued. “Despite being one of the pre-dead, your… abilities differentiate you from the Warmist masses. I would like to make you an offer.”
“One that I can’t refuse?”
She smiled, showing a slight trace of very strong teeth.
“Our population is growing,” she said. “With the recent explosion in pre-dead population, we have ample supplies of both new ‘converts’, and nourishment. Our problem is…”
“You like to work in the dark.”
“Obviously.”
“And the more your population grows, the greater the chances of being noticed as… well, real.” I said. “So there’s the chance that we ‘pre-dead’ might do something about you. Before it’s too late.”
“Correct.” She shifted in her chair. I could tell she’d uncrossed her legs.
I’d been given a silver locket supposedly containing a sliver of the Original Cross kept moist in Holy Water. The “silver” was probably 304 stainless steel, and the splinter from a bleacher rotting on the edge of the Gemini Elementary School soccer field. This was to subdue my host, if possible.
“You’ve got friends in high places?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. I could name-drop some of the most famous celebrities, business leaders and politicians from around the globe who want to be on the winning side.” She drew her lips tight, and fixed me with a cool, green-eyed stare. “We are the winning side.”
“I’ll bet,” I said. “Tell me… is Taylor Swift a vampire? How about Rupert Murdoch?”
“Mr. Dondo…”
“I’m just curious.”
“As I said, many of the rich and powerful are of our kind. And many others are sympathetic to our cause.” She tilted her head coyly.
“And that is…?”
“Eternity,” she said, folding her immaculately manicured hands before her. “Freedom from pain and suffering. Power.” Her nails looked strong enough to chisel stone. “Our ideology has much to offer.”
“Ideology?”
“We are environmentalists, Mr. Dondo, needing only one source of food, and no fossil fuels to light our way.”
“Really?”
“We are pro-life…”
“Huh?”
“Since we never die.”
“Well, you’re stretching that one a bit,” I said, scrunching my sneakers into the thick loam of the carpet. The atmosphere in the room was heavy and humid. Vampires don’t need air conditioning.
“And, we are champions of equality,” she said, dark hair reflected a reddish tinge in the soft lamplight.
“Meaning we’re all the same item on the menu to you.” The ersatz holy locket lumped in my front pants pocket.
“Mr. Dondo,” she said, with the air of an HR Manager presenting a fired worker with a termination package. “The future is now, and you are looking at it. My kind has survived depressions, plagues and wars since before recorded history began. We have been very patient. Now our shadow falls across the land of the Warm and change is coming. We have been and will be here for a very long time. The question I might ask is, will you?”
“Well, I haven’t had a check-up in a while,” I said.
“Despite being immortal Mr. Dondo, I have little time for jokes.”
I faintly heard the traffic outside the velvet walls of the office, cars coursing over sun baked pavement. The sound was comfortingly human.
I’ve had many encounters with the “paranormal.” Unearthly troubles find me. I deal with them the best I can, a mystic sponge sopping up ethereal intruders before they can do too much damage here on earth. The pay’s poor. But it’s my duty, one I never wanted.
“So, it’s just a matter of time before us ‘Warmists’ succumb to your inevitable charms?” I asked.
“Yes, a matter of time,” she replied. “Of which we have the world of.”
“How long?”
“Excuse me, Mr. Dondo?”
“How long before all of us ‘Warmists’ are “converted”?”
She paused a moment, then produced a calculator from a desk drawer and rapidly tapped a few equations.
“I am quite old school, Mr. Dondo. I hate using computers.” An almost wistful look crossed her handsome face. “Keeping pre-dead population growth at the current level, minus the unpredictable but inevitable wars, pandemics and natural disasters, I would say that the human race would be 99.87% converted within… 86 years.”
“That’s a long time.” If she was right, in less than a century mankind would be sucked dry. Extinct, save for a few sad survivors they might keep around, like monkeys in a zoo.
“Depending on one’s perspective,” she said.
Is that the way humanity was supposed to end? Not with the bang of a nuclear bomb, but the silent kiss of Nosferatu in the dead of night? Or was this the natural progression of things, Darwin meeting Dracula in the next step of evolution?
Who was I to get in the way of progress?
Then again, I do like my species the way it is.
“What then?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“After all of us poor pre-dead people are ‘converted’. What then?”
“We will dwell in peace and stability,” she said.
“What are you going to eat?”
“Excuse me?”
“What are you going to eat?” I said, rising from my dark red leather chair. “So… everybody’s a vampire and there’s no pesky ‘Warmists’ around trying to shove stakes through your hearts. What are you going to do for food?”
She regarded me silently, thick eyebrows furrowed. What ancient thoughts, tempered by centuries of watching aging and death pass by went through her mind? How many springs passing have reminded her that she’d never feel an April shower in the daylight again? What does a vampire think about? Her lacquered talons were starting to dig into the surface of her desk.
“What happens when the bar’s closed?” I asked. “There’ll be billions of you, elbowing each other over the last few draughts of fresh blood.”
“Mister Dondo…”
“What happens the morning after you’ve won?”
“Mister Dondo…” she drew out her words.
“Centuries of plotting and planning and waiting, just under the radar screen, all geared towards this goal… and then you wake up and realize that there’s not enough drinks to go around. I imagine the DTs will be a bitch.”
She sighed, almost human.
“Can you guys make it on mouse blood, or whatever else you’ll jones for once the good stuff is tapped out?” I asked.
“A nice speech, Mr. Dondo,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “You have heard of Louis Pasteur?”
“Yeah.”
“And Jonas Salk. And Dr. Anthony Fauci?” “…yeah…”
She looked up at me with almost pity. “You asked about having friends in high places. Well. Some of the finest medical minds in history are ours, and they have been working on this issue for quite some time. We are not there, yet.” She shook her head demurely. “But rest assured we will solve this problem.”
Ah, crap.
“We are not the enemy, Mr. Dondo.”
“Oh, really?”
“We are not alien to this world. But you have had some exposure to forces that are, have you not?”
“Ah….”
She stood up, dark fingertips still resting on the desktop. “You are one of the few who sees the true threats to our world, Mr. Dondo. And one of the fewer that have been successful in defending against them.”
“Look, I’m not some kind of …”
“I said we are not alien. We are much like you, Mr. Dondo. In fact, we were like you, before evolving into what we are today. We cannot turn into bats or wolves or puffs of smoke. We generally do not wear black capes or look like starving ambisexual fashion models. We are stronger, faster and yes, better than Homo sapiens,” she said. “But Planet Earth is ourhome. And even if you find the coming transformation of the human race threatening - have you not seen worse menaces?”
I have.
The forces pressing against our thin line of reality are all-powerful. I’ve grappled with immense powers I can’t possibly describe. Thank God I never remember my dreams. The horrors I’ve witnessed while awake…
My shadow flickered along the dark paneled wall in the lamp’s dim light.
I’ve been plugging holes in dikes like the Little Dutch Boy, keeping the ethereal flood from engulfing the village below. A guy who can see the bizarre and inhuman, and sometimes walk away from the encounter. I wish it were all in my head and I was just another lunatic gibbering about the Illuminati and Area 51 on the internet.
But I’m not. Oh God, It’s real. Terrifying, chilling, real. As real as the nerve jolted by the dentist’s drill, or the rotting maggot-filled corpse of a dead possum by the side of a country road.
A world of vampires sounds positively benign compared to the cold, grim powers I’ve seen tear through the fantasies of love and warmth in which we so fervently wish to believe.
“You want me to become… one of you?” I asked.
“No, Mr. Dondo. We cannot convert you. Your extraordinary ability to deal with extra-terrestrial threats cannot be risked. At least, not for now.” She looked at her hands, then back at me. “I do not know how you came to possess your occult abilities. Or how you have managed to endure your struggles for so long. There have been others like you, before...”
“So I’ve been told.”
“You must feel very lonely at times.”
“My job sucks. Whataya going to do?”
“I mentioned an offer,” she said.
“I’ve never had much luck with older women.”
She smiled, faintly.
“We can support you,” she said. “Relieve you from financial debts and assure that you will reach a ripe old age without debilitating illness. Providing that you survive the endeavors for which you seem fated.”
I thought about cancelled credit cards and repossessed cars, and Ramen Pride in my apartment’s kitchen cabinet. How long has it been since I had health insurance?
“You will not be famous, although my suspicions are that you might secretly crave some notoriety for your actions. But we can make your life more… comfortable.”
She folded her strong, lean hands before her. “You might want to start working out,” she said. “And getting a tan would not hurt you.”
“That’s funny. And in return…?”
“You continue being the bulwark against that which would snuff out pre-dead and dead alike. Stand your solitary vigil against the malignant forces thirsting to envelop us all. Be the guardian of this world that knows not your name, but which sleeps safe from the eternal elements yearning to devour it because of your efforts.”
“Now who’s making speeches?”
“I have been making speeches since before the invention of gunpowder,” she replied. “We have to protect you, as you in your halting, staccato way have been protecting us all. If you turn your back on us today, we will still be watching you. I am just offering a modest reward for your service.”
“’We’ meaning you, personally?”
“I am good at what I do, Mr. Dondo,” she said. “And covering all the bases, as they say these days, is what I do. What do you make of my offer?”
I’ve had sales jobs. Pest-control, mall kiosk jewelry, used motor homes... In any transaction, one side or the other needs a commitment to move forward. But who was closing whom here?
“I’d think you were offering to be my sugar mama,” I said. “For purely professional reasons, of course.”
She guarded her desk, strong and alert.
“You know I do this do because… it’s what I have to do.”
“Is that your answer, Mr. Dondo?”
I’ve seen things that few can imagine, and fewer understand.
But deep down inside, don’t I take pride in resisting the cold, enveloping darkness? Earth is my home. I’ve got a stake in protecting it.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe I do wish for a bit of attention.
And wouldn’t it be nice to have someone at my back for a change?
I fingered the locket in my pocket. I won’t be testing it. Not today.
“So,” I said. “Do you have a contract ready for me to sign in blood, or what?”