The Tome of Bill Compendium Vol. 1 (Books 1-4) (66 page)

There was a pause on the other end, which was just as well because time suddenly stopped for me. Holy shit, did I actually just say that? I rewound my mental tape...yes, I did. I wasn’t even thinking about it. It just kind of slipped out. Great! Now, not only did I have the Draculas, Sasquatch, an asshole wizard, and an HR department to deal with. I could also add being shot down to my ever growing list of mental baggage. What the fuck was I thinking?

“Sure. It’ll be fun,” came back the reply.

My mind went completely blank. Who was I talking to? What were they agreeing with? I had no idea. It was like my brain decided to do a core dump and was still rebooting itself. I looked up, unable to say a word. I saw Tom and Ed staring back at me. They both had their mouths agape. Finally, Ed started miming the words “
thank you
” and “
hang up
” to me. Oh...oh yeah.

“That’s great, Sheila. Thanks. We’ll...set something up.” Okay, I needed to end this before I ventured back into social retard territory.

“Sounds good.”

“I’ll talk to you...soon!” I said and then quickly hung up the phone before my tongue could spit out anything stupid sounding.

There was a stillness in the room for a moment, then I numbly walked over to the living room and plopped myself down on the couch.

Finally, Ed broke the silence. He had a big grin on his face. “Congratulations, man. You
actually
did it.”

“I did, didn’t I?” I said, it starting to sink in. “I can’t believe it.”

“
You
can’t?” asked Tom. “I thought I was going to have to listen to you pine for her until I died of old age.”

“Oh yeah, speaking of which, it looks like you owe me twenty bucks,” Ed replied to him.

“For once, I’m happy to pay up,” Tom said, walking over to the kitchen to grab a beer. “Who would have thought it? Today, Bill, you are finally a man.”

We all chucked at that, me more so at the irony of the statement. Then Ed said, “Seriously, I’m proud of you.” He clapped me on the shoulder and then got up. He started to walk toward his room before turning back toward me. “Bit of advice, though?”

“What?” I asked, the grin still on my face.

“Maybe next time, wait until after your
sexual
harassment case is finished before asking out a co-worker.”

“Asshole,” I replied with a smile.

I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, a mountain of supernatural evil about to come down on my head like an avalanche, and the only thing I could think about was that I had finally taken a step forward with the girl of my dreams. It wasn’t much. Heck, I wasn’t even sure it would be considered a date. Still, it was more progress than I had made in all the time I had known her. It was a victory, no matter how small.

I decided to put my feet up and enjoy it. In a short while, Bigfoot could crash through the wall followed by the
Loch Ness Monster
and
Zontar the Thing from Venus
, for all I cared. Not for right now, though. For at least the next five minutes, all was right with my world. I could live with that.

THE END

The Tome of Bill

Part 3

“What do you mean she quit!?” The question came out...well okay, it came out far
less
harshly than I had intended. I really meant to scream a massive string of obscenities into the phone. Sadly, even I had to admit that yelling, “What the fuck are you talking about you balding, little middle management douche of a shit!?” probably wouldn’t have been particularly diplomatic, especially considering that I was speaking to my boss.

“I know it’s abrupt,” replied the voice of Jim, my manager at HopskotchGames, “and believe me, I’m as upset as any of you, but we’ll just have to handle our own paperwork for a while. Don’t worry; I’ll start interviewing for a replacement next week.”

My roommate and coworker, Ed, hit the mute button. We were seated in his bedroom/office, as we usually were for the weekly conference call. He knew me well enough to know when a tirade was incoming, one that it was probably best to spare Jim from - particularly if we wanted to avoid the unemployment line.

Jim’s voice continued to drone, moving on to whatever topic of “importance” was next on the agenda. I didn’t hear a single word he said. For all I knew, he could have been telling us that he had just won the lottery and was currently getting a blowjob from a thousand-dollar hooker.

“Calm down,” Ed said preemptively.

“Paperwork?” I spat, ignoring him. “He thinks I’m worried about
paperwork
? The only woman I’ve ever loved has just walked out of my life and he’s concerned that he has to print his own fucking PowerPoints.”

“Being just a tad melodramatic, aren’t we?”

“No. I mean, I know we’ve only been dating for a few months, but...”

“Dating?” he interrupted. “You’ve gone out for coffee maybe three...”

“Four!”

“Fine,
four
times. And didn’t you say it was Dutch each time?”

I glowered at my friend, letting my fangs extend menacingly. He just stared right back, nonplussed. I’m a vampire - an immortal terror of the night - and I couldn’t even get the humans I share an apartment with to tremble in fear. My god, life is just not fair.

“Are you done pouting?” Ed asked.

“This is not pouting. It’s supposed to be threatening.”

“You might want to practice that in the mirror some more,” he stood up and stretched. “Anyway, as I was saying, you’re overreacting just a bit.”

“Like you would know?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Growing up, my older sister used to force me to watch Disney movies with her. Trust me; four non-dates do not a fairytale romance make.”

“There was more to it than that and you know it. Sheila and I...”

“Had nonstop mind-blowing sex?”

“Well no...”

“Played multiple games of tongue-hockey?”

“Not exactly.”

“Spent every waking moment together?”

“Okay, I get the point!”

“Christ, did you ever even hold her fucking hand?”

“Well, once I brushed up against...”

“Exactly,” he stated. “You pined for her for years and that’s it. I had a more intimate relationship with my grandmother.”

“Thanks for the visual, dude.”

“Do you guys have any questions?” the voice from the speakerphone asked.

“Huh?” Ed and I both replied in unison. Oh, yeah, we had forgotten all about Jim. Hopefully, he hadn’t been saying anything important.

Ed quickly un-muted the phone and said, “Nope. I think we’re good.”

“Awesome,” Jim replied. “Then I’ll let you guys get back to work. Keep me updated on your projects.”

“We will,” I answered, having no idea what he was talking about. A moment later, the call was cut off from his end. Oh, well, I could always tease the info out of him later with a carefully worded email. Besides, Jim was so far from the top of my priority list right then that he barely even existed.

“Goddammit!” I cried and brought my fist down. The cheap folding table that served as our “conference room” immediately buckled, sending the phone clattering to the floor. Crap. Sometimes I forgot that our furnishings weren’t built to withstand vampire-level abuse.

“I can see that you’re having a moment, Bill,” Ed replied nonchalantly, stepping over the debris. “Coffee?”

“Sure. Blood and cream, if you don’t mind.”

“No prob. Regular or Baileys?”

“The latter. It’s gonna be one of those days.”

He nodded and walked from the room, leaving me alone with my rapidly darkening thoughts.

I tell you, when life decides to kick you in the balls, it sometimes wears metal cleats. It seemed like that had been my existence for the past year, one big haymaker to the nuts after another. Oddly enough, that timeframe coincided just about perfectly with when I was turned into a vampire.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to get all weepy and angst filled. I’ll leave that shit to Anne Rice. No, the reality of being a vampire isn't about sitting around for millennia, writing shitty poetry while you pine for your lost mortal existence. It’s actually far more like being stuck in high school again, except this time it's for all eternity. This is fine if you happen to be one of the jocks. It’s not nearly as much fun if you’re in the vamp equivalent of the nerd herd. In short, the world of the undead is mostly run by assholes. The main problem was that, instead of growing up, they never matured past that stage and just ended up becoming bigger assholes as the centuries flew by.

They’re not the only ones, either. In the past year, I’ve learned that there's an entire supernatural underworld that exists just outside of plain sight. Magic, monsters, and whatnot were all real...and almost all of them were dicks too. I know people say that absolute power corrupts, but they don’t know the half of it.

It hasn’t been all bad, though. I have good friends and powerful allies. I’m the leader of my own coven of vampires. Heck, I’m even told that amongst the undead I’m special - and not in a short bus kind of way either. Still, it’s been a rough road. Most days, the plusses have been just barely enough to keep me from opening up the curtains and embracing the sunshine. That’s where
she
came in.

Sheila is...err, was...an administrative assistant at my job. I first met her about four years prior, on the very day I first interviewed there. How I actually managed to get hired, I have no idea. I spotted her when I entered the office and it was as if everything else blanked out for me. To this day, I’m surprised that my paychecks are actually made out to William Ryder, as I’m fairly sure whatever I wrote on the job application was an incomprehensible scribble.

Unfortunately, whatever powers dictate the concept of “love at first sight” were likewise also assholes (big surprise, huh?). It hadn’t been mutual. Therefore, I spent the next few years of my mortal life barely being able to say “hi” to her. All the while, she hardly acknowledged my existence.

Amazingly enough, my rebirth as one of the undead was actually the catalyst that helped propel our “relationship” out of the rut it was in (
and probably would have stayed
). No, I didn’t tell her that I’m a vampire. No bullshit
Twilight
love story for me. Generally speaking, announcing the existence of vampires to humans is considered a no-no, at least if one didn’t want to find themself on the business end of a wooden stake. Sure, my roomies, Tom and Ed, knew about it. A few of my other friends did too. I mean hey, even Bruce Wayne has a few people who know that he’s
Batman
.

Anyway, through a series of events that ended with me getting my ass thoroughly kicked (
by vampire assassins and a douchebag wizard/marketing VP
), I momentarily forgot about my many insecurities and wound up asking Sheila out for coffee. Sure, it wasn’t much, but it was practically earth-shattering progress compared to what I had managed before then. Imagine my surprise when she actually said “yes.” It was amazing. At my darkest hour, she was there like a beacon of hope.

But now, she was gone, and I couldn’t help but feel that it was my fault.

* * *

Our fourth (
and apparently last
) non-date had been just a few weeks prior. On a Friday night, we had met at a café in the Village section of New York City. Normally this would be a little out of the way for me. For starters, I live in Brooklyn. Since I’m a vampire, things like working in an office during the day tend to be difficult. It’s generally pretty hard to get any work done when a stray beam of sunlight could turn you into a smoldering pile of ash. Fortunately, thanks to my doctor friend, Dave, I was able to work from home. He wrote a bullshit medical excuse that allowed me to telecommute permanently from my apartment. That being said, my coven was headquartered in SoHo and I’d usually wind up there on the weekends anyway...

Oh, who am I kidding? Fuck the coven! I would walk barefoot across the Sahara to spend five minutes with Sheila. If she had told me to meet her at the top of the Empire State Building at sunrise, I’d have been there in a heartbeat (
metaphorically speaking
).

I had let her lead the conversation, as I usually did. Even though I’d gotten past that first hurdle of actually asking her out, I didn’t trust myself to say too many sentences in a row without stammering like a retard. Still, as our coffee encounters continued, I was pleased to find myself becoming more comfortable in her presence.

That night the conversation had turned, as they often do with twenty-something-year-olds, to our hopes and dreams for the future. I sputtered something to the effect of enjoying what I did and hoping that the world didn’t stop needing programmers anytime soon. It was a lie, but it was better than going off on some rant about being surrounded for all eternity by a bunch of immortals that looked and acted like spoiled underwear models.