The Tome of Bill Series: Books 1-4 (Bill The Vampire, Scary Dead Things, The Mourning Woods, Holier Than Thou)

by Rick Gualtieri

  “Bill,” he replied in that tone he often used when he wished to make me feel as stupid as humanly possible, “she’s the bride of Frankenstein wrapped in a preteen body. Her first act upon meeting me was to try to turn me into a Slurpee. Believe me, I’m not too worried about making her nervous.”

  “Point taken,” I said. “But you have to...”

  “Oh, thank you, Freewill!” came Gan’s voice from elsewhere in the apartment.

  “Huh?” Before I could say more, though, her voice carried to us again.

  “Such marvelous toys. I shall enjoy them thoroughly.”

  Ed and I both stopped what we were doing. “What the hell is Strawberry Nutcake rambling about?” he asked.

  “No idea. I don’t have any toys...”

  Ed’s and my eyes suddenly locked. A look of mutual terror crossed between us. Tom’s room. Oh fuck! We both bolted in that direction.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  My other roommate, Tom, was a lifelong obsessive collector of old toys, baseball cards, and the like. He was convinced that one day he’d be able to retire on their collective worth. He had a ton of worthless crap, so my assumption had always been that he’d be more likely to wind up on some docudrama about insane hoarders. Then again, he also had some legitimate collector’s items.

  Back around when I was first turned into a vampire, he’d scored a first generation Optimus Prime figure for next to nothing at a flea market. He’d been so enamored of it that he’d inadvertently charged it with a small portion of his life energy, turning it into a deadly weapon against vampires.

  You see, people normally assumed that crosses worked on vampires because we lived in fear of God’s power. That’s mostly bullshit. In order for a cross to work, a person had to truly believe in it. But, as far as I’m aware, it had nothing to do with God. Faith, as it turns out, was actually a form a magic.

  Yeah, I know. I thought the same thing when I heard that magic was real. But it is, trust me on this. The same principle that applied to a cross could apply to anything a person truly believed in. Thus, Tom wound up in possession of a junky piece of plastic from Hasbro that, in his hands, also happened to be the equivalent of the Ark of the Covenant against my kind.

  Anyway, this magical vampire-killing toy had been broken in the final battle against my old coven master, Jeff. Tom had never let me forget it. Fortunately for me, but much to his own chagrin, he hadn’t been able to empower any of his other collectables in quite the same way. However, just because he didn’t love them all with the same fervor that he had loved Optimus didn’t mean he wouldn’t go completely apeshit when he so much as caught me or Ed looking at them.

  Tom normally kept his room locked when he wasn’t around. He tended to do that ever since our early days of living together, when he’d return home to find all of his action figures waiting for him in a variety of lewd poses. For a guy who’s almost never serious, he had a surprising lack of humor when it came to his collections.

  Within moments of hearing Gan’s voice, Ed and I arrived to find Tom’s door wide open. A flimsy key lock wasn’t much protection against even the weakest of vampires. We found Gan standing in the middle of a clutter of toys. She had a big smile on her face and was busy feeding Man-at-Arms to some six-legged plastic monster.

  Oh, we were so fucked.

  Slumber Party of the Damned

  It turns out that Tom was the one who was fucked. Or at least that was my assumption, since he didn’t return home that night. I was actually glad to see someone getting some action from a woman not associated with the supernatural world. Good for him.

  And also good for us once we finally managed to get Gan out of his room. Thank whatever dark gods watch over the toys of madmen that nothing was broken. We put everything back the best we could – knowing full well that a nutcase like Tom would be able to tell if things were even a millimeter out of place – then wedged his door shut.

  You really have no idea how stressful it was. Watching Tom have a hissy fit over his toys was one of the more off-putting things I had ever experienced ... and this from a guy whose range of non-normal experiences had gone up significantly in the past year. It just wasn’t natural. Experiencing Tom rant about his toys was uncomfortable in a way that was akin to staring at non-Euclidian angles. His tantrums also tended to last for a long time. Thus, for a variety of reasons, Ed and I wished to avoid one at all costs.

  Once we’d finally finished, Ed decided to turn in. Considering the ruckus that I heard coming from his room, I assumed that not only had he locked himself in, but that there was probably a pretty good makeshift barrier constructed on his side of the door. I also had little doubt he’d be sleeping with a twelve-gauge teddy-bear named Remington. I guess I couldn’t really blame him.

  Unfortunately, that left me alone with Gan. I had to think quickly lest I wind up with her wanting to get all jiggy with me. Trust me, that’s a thought I would gladly bleach out of my brain. Maybe I was just a product of my culture. After all, even a hundred years ago, a girl of Gan’s (physical) age would have probably already been married off. Regardless, the creep factor of it all made my skin crawl. This was the big joke of my existence ... I was a vampire with ethics.

  “Gan,” I finally said, “I want you to take my bed.”

  “Of course,” she answered.

  “No, I meant that I want you to take my bed and I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  She looked confused. “Is it not common in your culture to share the bed of your mate?”

  “Well, yeah ... normally it is. It’s just that...”

  “Just what?”

  I figured I’d better blurt it out and get it over with. “Gan, it’s the whole kid and adult thing. It’s ... just not right.”

  “In some ways, I agree.”

  “Really?” I asked, surprised. Maybe this wouldn’t end badly after all.

  “Yes. There is a part of me that wonders if it is not right as well. You are merely a child, after all.” Huh?! “I have lived over ten of your lifetimes. You are practically a newborn to me.” Not quite what I meant. “I will admit that I almost feel ... how do you say it ... that I am taking advantage of you.”

  “Okay,” was all I could say for a moment there. That was a concept I hadn’t even considered. But maybe it gave me a way out. “That’s good, Gan. I was ... embarrassed to tell you this, but ... I’m kind of ... inexperienced with women.” Never thought I’d be playing the nervous virgin card to get out of sex. Live and learn, I guess. What an odd fuckery of a world I found myself in.

  Gan got a strange look on her face at my confession. After a moment, she replied, “What about your whore? Does she not comfort you at your whim?”

  “Sally? No, trust me on that one. Not much comfort going on there.”

  “What about my father’s servants? Did you not enjoy their services?”

  “Oh, that Well...” Shit! She knew about that?

  “I thought so. They reported back that you were quite vigorous...”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “...if a bit lacking in stamina.”

  “What?!”

  “Nevertheless, I am confident we could work on that problem together. My life with father and my people has taught me great patience.”

  “One: I do not have a stamina problem,” I blurted out before really thinking about it. “They surprised me, is all. It had been a while since...” It was at that point that my subconscious kicked in and reminded me I was discussing my sex life with someone who would’ve looked more at home playing with a Barbie Dreamhouse. “Two: we are not having this conversation.”

  “I think it is important to discuss your lack of experience.”

  “I am not inexperienced! What I meant was... (think fast, stupid!) emotionally (yeah that’d work, I guess). Emotionally, I’m not sure I’m ready for this. It’s a big step for me. All of the MANY women I have been with, they’ve just been meaningless encounters for me. I’m not sure I’m ready to take such a big ste
p yet.” Jesus Christ, I hoped Ed wasn’t eavesdropping. No way would he ever let me live this down.

  “In time, you will come to love me.”

  Argh! Talk about not taking the hint! Apparently, I needed to rent the Jumbotron in Times Square to display in thirty-foot letters, “YOU’RE TWELVE. I’M NOT SLEEPING WITH YOU!”

  Okay, I had one last card to play. This chick I had briefly dated in college had used it successfully to keep me at bay. I found out later she was more or less screwing her way through one of the frat houses on campus, but at the time it sounded legit. Why not? Time for the Hail Mary pass.

  “It just wouldn’t be right,” I said, channeling my inner female and trying to put a little emotional distress into my voice.

  “Why? We are mates.”

  “Yes, but we’re not ... married.” Ugh. I think I felt my testosterone levels drop just by saying that.

  “I am not sure I understand.”

  This was it. Time to go for the Oscar. “With all of those other women, it was just a physical thing. Two (and sometimes four) ships passing in the night. But this is different. I want to save myself for the right woman. Someone I can truly give myself to physically, emotionally, and spiritually. If you are that woman, then you need to understand that I have to do this the right way. I need for us to wait until our bond has been sealed in the eyes of God for all of eternity.”

  I had thought I was maybe starting to spread it on a little thick there in the end, but when I looked down at Gan, I saw that she was actually misty-eyed. Oh yeah. I would like to thank the Academy...

  “You are a good man, Bill. I have chosen wisely.”

  “Thank you for understanding, Gan,” I said, continuing to shovel it on.

  “I will respect your wishes.”

  “That means a lot. Really, it does.” More importantly, it meant I got a reprieve until I could figure out how the fuck to stuff Prairie Dawn here into a box headed back toward China.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Sleep was a long time coming for me. Part of me wanted to keep an eye out for Gan trying to leave the apartment. However, there’s also the fact that I never realized quite how uncomfortable our couch was. Our old couch had been great – old, dusty, a little musty, but comfortable as all hell. But then Jeff had trashed it (and the rest of the apartment) looking for me. Since then, I’d never had a reason to crash on the new IKEA model we had replaced it with.

  Oh well, I imagine it was only a matter of time before I pissed off some other entity and the apartment got re-trashed. Who knows? Maybe Nergui and his fun bunch would do me a favor while they were trying to kill me and give me a reason to shop for a better one. That’s me ... a glass is half full kind of guy.

  In the morning, I was awakened by Ed. I heard the sound of furniture being moved from behind his door, followed by him cracking it open and taking a peek around before stepping out. He gave me an annoyed glare and then went to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. Oh well, no rest for the weary, I guess. I got up to join him.

  “You look like you slept about as well as I did,” I said, grabbing my mug.

  “I kept having nightmares of Dracula’s daughter there trying to put me through a food processor.”

  “At least she didn’t want to undress you like a Ken doll first,” I pointed out.

  “Fair enough,” he replied with a bit of a confused look. “Speaking of her...”

  “In my room. Wanted to make sure she didn’t try to leave in the middle of the night and kill everyone in the building.”

  “That would be hell on our rent.”

  “That it would,” I agreed. “By the way, I’m sorry about last night.”

  “Probably my own fault. I guess I should be more specific whenever I wish that I was jumped by girls more often.”

  We shared a chuckle. Both of my roommates had their oddities, but no matter what dark places I found myself in as of late, it was comforting to know they had my back. In the friend department, I’d take quality over quantity any day.

  “Speaking of being jumped,” he continued, “Tommy boy didn’t come back last night, did he?”

  “No, he did not,” I confirmed. “I’m thinking that when he gets home from work tonight, it’s going to be story time.”

  “Yep. Although there is something about living vicariously through Tom that just feels...”

  “So completely wrong that you’re forced to wonder whether or not you’re fucked in the head?”

  “Exactly.”

  It was at that point that my bedroom door opened. Ed didn’t move, but I could sense him tense up. Understandable. It’s one thing to be pummeled by some big bruiser that outweighs you by fifty pounds of muscle, but getting taken down by a little girl was something that would rattle any guy.

  Gan stepped out wearing one of my T-shirts.

  “Oh, this is cute,” Ed remarked under his breath, thus instantly erasing nearly all of that friendship bullshit I mentioned a second back.

  “Don’t start,” I hissed. “Good morning, Gan,” I said in a louder voice. “Sleep well?”

  “I have slept on oxen that were more comfortable than your bed. It also smelled funny.”

  Ed wasn’t quite able to conceal a laugh at that one.

  However, Gan stopped his chuckle dead in its tracks by adding, “Please have your servant open a vein so I may have breakfast. He may launder my robes when I am done.”

  “Gan, Ed is my friend, not my servant.”

  “You are friends with a human? Are they not cattle to you?”

  Ed got up in a bit of a huff and walked over to wash out his mug.

  “No, Gan. In fact, he pays a third of the rent. That makes this place as much his as it is mine.”

  “A very curious thing to treat humans as equals. We do not do this where I am from.”

  “Equals?” Ed scoffed. “I’ll put my dating history against Bill’s any day.”

  I chose to be the bigger person and ignored him. “Ed is my friend, Gan. So is my other roommate, Tom. We treat each other the same.” Who knows? She seemed curious enough. Maybe there was some hope of reaching through to her and not only getting myself out of this mess, but also avoiding too much bloodshed in the process.

  After a moment, she nodded. “I think I understand. You do not eat friends.”

  “Exactly.” This was good.

  “Then let us go find some humans who are not your friends so we may dine on them.”

  Or maybe not. I put my head in my hands as I tried to think of something else to say.

  “Here!” Ed said, interrupting us and placing a box in front of Gan.

  “What is this?” she demanded.

  “What all the cool vampire kids in America eat for breakfast ... Apple Jacks.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Okay, so maybe giving a spoiled vampire brat a sugar rush wasn’t the best of ideas. If so, then what we did next didn’t exactly help either. Following her nutritious breakfast of cereal drowned in milk and blood (and yes, it looked disgusting even to me), we did the only thing we could think of ... we sat Gan down and showed her how to use the TV. I think it’s safe to say that both Ed and I should consider sterilization. If that was the best we could do with a kid, neither of us should ever be allowed to breed.