Fat Vampire Value Meal (Books 1-4 in the series) (8 page)

Reginald had a disturbing moment wherein he realized that Maurice had certainly killed people, and probably a lot of them. In fact, he probably still did it today. But, Reginald told himself, saying his vampire friend killed was like saying that tigers killed. They did, but that’s what tigers do.
 

“What if I terrify them? What if they scream?”

“Do it somewhere secluded. Use a gag if you have to. And when it’s all over, don’t feel guilty. You’re going to make the bad memory go away, and they’ll heal.”
 

“Can’t I just rob a blood bank?”
 

Maurice laughed. “If only. Everyone thinks of it, but it’s too high-profile a crime. But you may get lucky someday and find someone who is willing to share their neck with you. Someone who wants you to feed on them.”
 

“Sounds sick.”
 

“Messed up humans are my bread and butter,” said Maurice. “Look at me. You think I dressed like this in 17
th
century France? I’m a goth kid today because goths jump at the chance to be fed on.”
 

“Really?” Reginald was trying to imagine himself as a goth. The visual was frightening. He’d look like a looming thundercloud.
 

Maurice nodded. “I’ve got to go. But try it. Go out and feed. Good luck.”
 

After Maurice left, Reginald got in his car and procrastinated for an hour and a half, trying to submerge what he was beginning to suspect was blood hunger in a series of fast food errands. Everywhere he went, he sat in the car, snacking, watching people, trying to get a feel for how often they actually did walk solo, where, and
how
solo they’d need to be in order for him to feel comfortable chancing an attack.
 

Eventually he ended up at the waterfront. There was a path that ran along the river, and people walked the path at all hours. There were bars at one end and a residential area at the other end, so the path got crowded in the early evenings and again when the bars closed at 2am. Between those times, though, he hoped to find his virginal prey.

He sat on a park bench away from the path, in the shadows, and waited.

Some time later, he saw a woman coming toward him, jogging alone. Reginald thought that jogging alone at nearly midnight was a dumb thing for her to be doing, despite the widespread perception that the waterfront and the path — and, hell, downtown in general — was reasonably safe. A girl could get robbed doing something like that, or raped, or murdered. Or attacked by a vampire.
 

Reginald decided that what he was going to do to her would be far better than being raped or killed, considering he would make her forget all about it after it was over, and then send her on her way. It was the lesser of evils. He’d be doing her a favor, really.

She passed by without seeing him. Reginald took up pursuit from the rear.
 

With Reginald behind her in a jog, the woman approached a section of the path where two lights in a row had burned out, and the path was in shadows. This was his chance. Reginald moved faster. He wasn’t going for a sustainable pace; this was a predator-and-prey situation. He sprinted. The distance closed. She’d never know what hit her. He could see a pair of white iPod earbuds in her ears, so she couldn’t hear him. Perfect.
 

His lungs were beginning to burn and his heart was beginning to beat harder, but he fought down his fatigue. He told himself, rallying his new nature,
I am vampire!

She was so close.

He reached a hand out, but the distance had stopped closing and had begun opening again. He watched as the space between his outstretched fingers and the jogger’s back increased.
 

If he could just grab her jog top, he could pull her back and wrestle her to the ground. Then, once she was down, he could sit on her. It might not be dignified, but there were things he could do and things he couldn’t, and he might as well play to his strengths.

But she was pulling away.
 

He summoned everything he had for one final push, his hand still out, his fangs descending, his blood crying out with lust…

… and then his lungs seized and his feet became heavy and he felt his bulk rolling forward, the pavement jumping up at him. He hit the ground hard with his face. His head rang. Then, finally still, his face to the blacktop, he breathed in.

Out.

In.
 

Out.
 

The world felt light and swimmy. An ant crossed an inch from his left eye carrying the shell of a sunflower seed. It seemed to stop and look at him with disgust, then move on.
 

He looked up without lifting his chin from the blacktop. He could see the woman further down on the path. She started to sing the refrain of whatever it was she was listening to, and a minute later she was gone.
 

“You okay, buddy?” said a voice.
 

Reginald rolled onto his back, his chest rapidly rising and falling. He felt like he was having a heart attack, except that was now impossible.
 

The speaker was an old man with a cane. Reginald wondered why he was out so late, then remembered that there was a senior apartment complex just behind them. The more capable among the residents could stroll to the waterfront, look around, and stroll back at any hour, especially given the safe neighborhood. Perfect for elderly insomnia.
 

“I’m very hungry,” said Reginald.
 

“Can you get up? Come with me. I’ll get you some food.”
 

Reginald took several deep, shambling breaths. It was still hard to talk.
 

“Can I drink your blood?” he said.
 

“What?”
 

“Come down here. Look in my eyes.”
 

“What’s wrong with you, you sicko?”

“I need it. I need your blood.” Two deep breaths. “Help me out here.”
 

The man hit him hard in the ribcage with his cane and walked on, mumbling.
 

T
RYING
A
GAIN

ON FRIDAY NIGHT, FEELING MORE like a failure than ever, Reginald called Maurice and informed him that he was ready to begin learning to hunt. Maurice asked if he’d tried on Thursday as he’d suggested, and Reginald, unable to repeat his humiliating defeat at the hands of a jogger and a senior citizen to his vampire mentor, said he hadn’t. Maurice sounded disappointed that Reginald hadn’t even tried, but told him that the good news was that he could try tonight.
 

“With you. Of course.”
 

“No,” said Maurice. “Not with me.”
 

Reginald thought he must have heard incorrectly.
 

“What do you mean, ‘Not with me?’”
 

“I have to go out of town,” Maurice told him.
 

“Wait. You’re not coming over here at all?”

“I’m already on my way out of town. I’ll be back Sunday.”
 

Reginald couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How could Maurice abandon him?
 

“Sunday? Are you kidding?”
 

“You’ll be fine. Any vampire can feed. It’s in your blood… no pun intended.”
 

Reginald considered telling Maurice about last night’s failure after all, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was too humiliating. Besides, if Maurice was really already on his way out of town, then there was nothing he could do anyway. Reginald’s best bet was to act indignant. It wouldn’t change anything, but at least it’d make him feel better.
 

“How can you abandon your prodigy on the eve of his inaugural feeding? I might die of starvation while you’re off galavanting!”
 

When he replied, Maurice’s tone was amused and not at all perturbed, but there was a seriousness in his voice that indicated that what he said was final… possibly even grave.
 

“This is an errand I can’t refuse,” he said. “Vampire Nation stuff. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. But in the meantime, you’ll be fine. Even if you can’t feed, you’ll live. You may not
want
to live at that point, but you will.” And he laughed, because he clearly thought this was a situation that would never come to pass. But after last night, Reginald thought it was a distinct possibility.
 

He begged for another minute or two and then hung up, thoroughly dispirited.
 

So it was off to the park again, then. How fun.

Before leaving, Reginald ran through his attack options in his head to find the scenario with the greatest likelihood of success. He’d need to wait for someone who was walking, not running. He’d need to approach with stealth, closing as much of the distance as he could before commencing the attack. It was a simple plan.

He planned in this way for six hours. Forming the plan took two minutes of that six hours, and the rest of the time was spent playing sudoku, which had gotten much easier in the past week. He completed three books, then spent some time imagining his inevitable failure. Then he got in the car and drove.

By the time he reached the waterfront, it was four-thirty — the time when the people who are up late give way to the people who are up early. Traffic on the path was very light.
 

It was a half hour before he saw his first group of people, and a while after that before he saw any singles. While he was waiting, sitting on his dark and lonely bench and wishing stupid Maurice hadn’t taken his stupid self off on some stupid errand, he checked his cell phone. Sunrise was at 6:46. By the time he saw his victim, it was nearly five-fifteen.
 

The victim in question was a young man walking alone. He was texting. Like the woman last night, he had a pair of headphones in his ears. He wasn’t paying any attention to the world around him.
 

Trotting up slowly, quietly, afraid to so much as breathe, Reginald came up behind the kid. With another night of hunger under his belt, he found that he could actually
smell
the young man’s blood. It made his head spin. Maurice had been right. He
would
know what to do. He felt his fangs descend. The fangs seemed to have a mind of their own, and he could feel them pulling him toward living flesh. He knew, on some level, how the blood would taste. The thought didn’t repulse him. It made him hungry. Only, it was more than hunger. It was a base, physiological
need
. The thought of feeding on the kid made his face burn. It was almost arousing.
 

His victim was wearing a brown hoodie, slung casually back. He was wearing a strappy undershirt underneath. His neck was tantalizingly exposed. Reginald got close enough to see the veins and arteries under his tan skin, throbbing and pulsing. Reginald’s tongue licked his fangs, which didn’t feel at all odd in his mouth. His breath became shallow, excited. He opened his mouth. Then he grabbed the kid with one hand on a shoulder and the other on the side of his head. Quickly, he leaned forward as if he were about to eat a watermelon.
 

The kid snapped away just as Reginald was about to pierce his skin, snatching the enticing neck away. He turned and stared hard into Reginald’s eyes. Reginald was too shocked (and feeling the vampire equivalent of blue balls) to think of glamouring him. He just stood with his hands still in watermelon-holding position, his mouth open and his fangs out.
 

“What the
fuck,
homes?” said the kid. Then something changed in his face and he stared more closely at Reginald, who didn’t know what to do and had frozen in place like a waxwork. His eyes were darting from side to side, waiting for someone to rescue him.

The kid said, “Are you a fucking
vampire
?”

Reginald nodded, slowly.
 

“I know you weren’t about to drink
my
blood, motherfucker,” he said, his face becoming angry.
 

Reginald decided to go for broke. He peeled his lips back and hissed. “I could break your neck before you knew what hit you. Make it easy on yourself and come back over here, and I’ll let you live.”
 

The kid shook his head. “I don’t think so. The only thing you could break the neck of would be a bucket of fried chicken. Aren’t you pretty fat for a vampire?”

“You don’t know who you’re messing with,” said Reginald. “I own the night!”
 

“Dude, you don’t own shit. You
should
own a treadmill.” Then he laughed.
 

Reginald couldn’t believe this. Even as a vampire, he was being mocked. He decided that if he concentrated all of his speed into one small motion, he could impress and scare the kid, to show him who was boss.

He pistoned his hand toward the kid’s arm. The kid stepped back and slapped it away.
 

“Motherfucker! Get your hands off me! Fat faggot motherfucker trying to suck my blood. Knew I shouldn’t have come out here tonight. Nothing but fat faggot vampires in the parks these days.”

Reginald reached again, desperately hungry. He didn’t have the energy or the time to try and find someone else, and he couldn’t make it through another night. “Get over here,” he said.
 

“Fuck off!”
 

“Come on. I’ll be quick.”
 

“Motherfucker, you
will
keep your hands the fuck off me!”

Reginald reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Tell you what. I’ll pay you. I’ve got fifty bucks in here. Like, two minutes tops.”
 

“The fuck is wrong with you, you fat fucking faggot?” said the kid, knocking Reginald’s wallet out of his hand. “What kind of a vampire are you, paying people to let you bite them?”

“A hundred, then,” said Reginald, stooping to pick up his wallet. “I only have the fifty, though, so you’ll need to come with me to an ATM.”