Lucy didn’t make it back to my loft last night. I didn’t get much work done on transcribing the interview because I was too busy drinking vodka and jumping at every little noise that presented itself. The cops are back. I’m starting to feel paranoid. All these years dealing with Jesus and friends and I haven’t felt like this. You’d think being around people who want to drain you of your blood would be enough to produce these feelings, but nope. I must have a thick head, that or what is said is true, it is what you don’t see that freaks you out the most. Fuck this. If she isn’t back tonight I’m leaving this loft.

Now it is Thursday. I spent Tuesday in Jail and Wednesday trying to clean the blood off my carpet. Spent some time updating this blog last night and this morning as you can see. Good week.

Jail was kind interesting. That cop outside my window saw the man run out with the knife in his neck believe it or not, and followed the blood up to my apartment. I told him it was breaking and entering but he took me down to the station where they proceeded to not question me until they released me Wednesday morning. They didn’t even apologize or give me a reason. I’m not a lawyer but I think my rights just got trampled. At least the station isn’t too far from my loft, so I could walk home.

Lucy said it was all politics. Her peoples politics and that I wouldn’t find a record of it if I did try to sue. Fucking vampires.

Anyways, Lucy and I are going to do her interview tonight. Hopefully over the next few days I can transcribe it and post it up here if nothing else gets in the way. I plan on asking her just about every detail I can dream up about her ‘people’. If I have any readers, you are more than welcome to post questions in the comments and I’ll ask them also!

Still not sign of Jesus.

Monday I drug my hung over and sleep deprived ass out of bed, got showered and went to find out if I still had a job. I completely forgot it was a holiday. I borrowed Lucy’s car, drove all the way there to find the place packed full of customers. Adam, the boss, had no time to officially fire me, but he made it known that I needed to get out. That’s alright, I hate retail work anyway. I’m a bit too honest about the products I’m selling.

When I got back to the car Isabelle was waiting for me. She looked really striking in the daylight. Her skin was pale but full of life, and if she happened to move, she looked almost like a real person. Freaky still with her lack of animation when not engaged in movement.

“It is good that we can start to not pretend.” she said, with a forced smile as she stood stiff as a board next to the car.

“sure thing boss.”

“the website, it does not have the… reach that we want. You need to promote it on your social networks.”

“you came out in the day to tell me to get a twitter account?”

“Yes, and the facebook. Also you need to be more of a journalist, and less of a daily web blogger. Lucy is there to talk to you and you spend time watching television about a vampire slayer. I expected better.”

“well I expected not to be locked in my house!” I said with a slightly raised voice as I turned to unlock the car. When I turned back she was gone. Typical vampire shit.

On the drive back I decided I’d do it. As soon as Lucy woke up I’d sit her down and interview her, real proper like. Finally answer some questions about her and her kind. Isabelle pretty much was calling me lazy and she was right.

That is when I noticed the cop car following me. Seriously. I made random turns to make sure. They were always back there. I started to worry a bit more, specially when I pulled up to my loft and realized it was not the one outside my house, but another one. The one outside was still there, and the man watched me pull into my parking garage.

Fucking creepy.

Instead of going back to bed like I should of I decided to get drunk. I’ve always been that way. When times get stressful, I drink. It never really impacts my life since I do it in my ‘free time’. Problem with getting drunk as a means of relaxation in times of stress is that in times of stress you can’t predict what the hell will happen.

Which is why I didn’t predict that Julian would come knocking on my door. Very quiet knocks for sure, so I have no clue how long he was rapping before I heard it and wobbled over. I flung open the door thinking I’d get a chance to yell out some brilliant church person who figured out how to get int he building, but instead I got a face full of Julian. He didn’t really look like Julian Sands but enough to make me think about it. Enough to make me think of that Tale of a Vampire movie. As my name is Alex I had to use the actors name, sue me.

I blink and say “Why do all you vamps remind me of vampire movies. Maybe I’m the crazy one.” It didn’t even occur to me how I knew he was a vampire. Still don’t know. It just seemed to make sense.

Then he locked me with those ‘do what I say’ eyes that all these assholes get when talking to me and said, “Unlock the window and jump out of it”. That is when it hit me. That look they get, they are all trying to mind rape me. To do the vampire magic on me. In my drunk state I stood there mulling this new revelation over not saying a word. The poor vampire seemed confused. So he tried again.

“I want you to go jump out the window.” Which of course made this whole situation more humorous. So I did what any sane person would do, I started to laugh. I think somewhere in my laughter I invited him in for some wine. I mean it was so bad I had to hold the wall to not fall over. Drunk, laughing, it was kind of a crazy moment. I should of been aware of the danger I was in, but I wasn’t.

I didn’t even see Julian move before he had me pinned to the floor, fangs all out about to bite me. I just kept laughing. It was like some bad replay of Jesus and I’s last encounter but this time I knew why he was always so pissed, and probably why Isabelle put me up for this job.

Lucky for me Julian didn’t notice Lucy with the chef’s knife until it was sticking out of his neck. For the second time in just a few short minutes he looked shocked. At first there was a spray a blood that landed all so nicely on my carpet and my face, but it stopped before he even got out the door.

I was still laughing. Lucy was standing over me like a guard dog and somehow I managed to say, “I hope he returns the knife!”

Then Lucy started laughing also.

If you have to spend time locked in your apartment with a vampire, Lucy is probably the right choice. She drinks like a fish, loves pop culture references, makes fun of herself, makes fun of others, and doesn’t do any of the typical vampire shit, like try to use me as a chaser for her rum. We spent Sunday day sleeping, and then Sunday night drinking some more. Probably not smart for someone who might be ‘under threat’, but what the hell ever, I’m sure Lucy was just pretending to get drunk. Vamps don’t get drunk right? I didn’t ask.

It wasn’t until probably three am on Monday morning that I realized there had been a cop car outside on the street all day. One of those unmarked dark blue crown victorias. I had noticed it earlier in the night, and thought it was odd that someone was sitting in it on the street, but I’ve seen weirder cop things. From my loft I could barely see the person, so I didn’t think anything of it. Then around three I had gotten up from the couch to get another drink and just happened to glance outside. The uniformed cop was outside the car smoking. Rain coming down slightly on him and he was looking up at my window. When he noticed me in it he turned his gaze.

From then on out I kept looking and the car was still there, right outside the door to my building, every time I peeped out the window. Creepy cops. Maybe I’m being paranoid but could whoever Isabelle thinks is mad about the blog be tied into the cops?

It doesn’t really matter. By the time shit got weird Tuesday morning the cop was gone.. Just when I fucking needed him. Figures.

I’m not sure if I haven’t had the time to write, or I’ve been pretending I haven’t had the time to write because I’m not sure how to processes my life the last few days. Not that they have been exceptionally exciting. They were actually pretty boring. Which was a shock to me after the grand talk of Lucy the morning during the sun rise.

Lucy has no walls up. Which is rare for a vampire. Jesus and his ilk, those who spend time with us mere mortals, are always throwing up masks and walls. They are always working the angle on how to use you to better position themselves to get what they want. Which is usually blood or another resource to make sure they can secure more blood. Lucy on the other hand isn’t interested in that. Well she is, but she has some other motive that I haven’t figured out yet. Yes I know she’ll read this, so bitch, you better cough it up!

Saturday we ended up going back to my loft downtown. The city where I live is full of these lofts. Old factories and office buildings converted for ‘urban living’ to try to attract people back into the city after years of white flight. It has shown some success, especially for single people in my age group. I enjoy it, except when you hear the neighbors humping all night through the paper thin walls. Walls designed to give the illusion of privacy more than have solid construction techniques applied to them.

Turns out I wasn’t evicted. Under the door was an eviction notice but on top of that was an apology letter stating rent was paid up for the next six months. Guess I do get some kinda of kick back for doing this blog instead of just doing it ‘for the access no one has ever had to our kinda’, or whatever bullshit Isabelle said.

By the time we got their Lucy was looking like she had just ran a marathon but without the sweat. Her face was slowly trying to match the color of her hair and she spoke less and less, with each movement of her body being very precise and intentional. As we moved into my apartment and I start talking about how I needed a shower in a place that wasn’t covered in blood, I noticed her standing and just staring.

“Bullshit” I said

She looked at me with her eyes half dead, like someone who is sleep walking, or unable to wake up from a deep dream.

“The day does really fuck with you. You need a dark place to rest?”

“I haven’t eaten and can’t keep myself alert. Your closet will be fine.”

So I dumped out the contents of the bottom of my closet and made her a little bed, which she quickly fell into. I shut the door and took my shower.

For a moment I worried about having a vampire sleeping in my closet but only a moment. Lucy could of totally fucked me anytime she wanted, and was being vulnerable in front of me. She wasn’t here to kill me.

Sleep is good. Once I hit my sheets I didn’t get up again until way past dark. Which is late for this time of year. I woke up to pounding ran on my windows. It’s been a wet spring with lots of storms passing through but so far no tornadoes in the city. Just lots and lots of rain with lightning and thunder.

I got up, got dressed, noticed it was almost midnight and that my closet was open. At least I was right about her not murdering me. Instead I came out into the kitchen area to find her cooking me dinner in a sun dress, floral patterned and everything. Her normal demeanor restored to it’s smiling excited self.

“good, your awake. You know how hard it is the make food for someone after you haven’t had to cook for twenty years! I hope you like sketti cause it was the easiest thing to remember. I couldn’t recall if you ate meat so I kept the beef separate, and I didn’t make garlic bread but I made a garlic butter dip that you can dip this fresh french bread in. Do you like wine? I brought two bottles, a red and white…” etc etc. etc.

I stood there kinda amused. Freak, my inner cynic said. If she was human I’d accuse her of being on meth. Instead I sat down and let her serve me. I joined in her ramble a bit but mostly just let her talk about how she loved storms and how she liked to dress ‘counter weather’ which I think means that she dressed bright on stormy days and dark on sunny days. What was most fascinating about us eating is that it was US eating. She ate and drank with me as if she was human, even after stating that she hadn’t cooked in twenty years.

Then it hit me. Lucy and I were the same age. She looked twenty years younger than me but we could of been friends in high school, we had to be that close in age. Pretty sly move on Isabelles part. Fucking vampires always thinking of every little detail to make us mortals relax.

Finally I decided to get to business.

“so what we up to tonight?”

“Oh I thought we were staying in now that you are in your apartment and not in that hotel?”

“Shouldn’t we go looking for Jesus?”

“Nope, we did our part.”

“We showed up and asked a couple of questions and left, I wouldn’t call that looking.”

“yeppa, now Isabelle wants us to stay here or somewhere safe for a few days. I hope you don’t mind me being with you, she says there might be danger to you now that the blog is out there”

fucking vampires.

“so we are just suppose to sit back and watch reruns of BtVS on netflix while the whole vampire world continues on out there” I even dramatically pointed out the rain soaked window.

“well it is pretty wet out there.”

If Lucy wanted us to stay here I’m pretty sure there isn’t much I could do to change that. Even young vampires are terrifyingly more physically able than me.

“fine, how about you tell me what happened to you this morning. You did that dramatic sunrise crap and then turned into the walking dead on me by the time we got back here. I’m sure my readers would love to know what that was all about?”

She paused for a minute thinking. “I think one reason the paired us together is because I don’t know the answers. I haven’t had lifetimes to understand.”

“I kinda figured”

“All I know is that to stay out during the day I need to be well fed. It kinda goes into shut down to preserve energy. Once I stayed out until noon and could barely crawl back inside. My skin looked like those pictures of the deserts in California, all cracked, and in the cracks it looked like my body was starting to… It was gross. Then when night came I was a wreck. I’m surprised I didn’t kill anyone that night. It was hard not to I was so hungry. ”

“So why did you tell me the sunlight was no big deal?”

“Because it isn’t for all of us. For years I didn’t have that reaction. I could go about just like normal. Isabelle once told me that the more we act like monsters the more like monsters we become, although she said it better than that. I know crazy old ones that can sit at noon in a cafe drinking coffee and no one would know what they are.”

“Can I meet them?”

“… not right now?”

I shrugged. Whatever. I get it. we have to hole up until some not real storm blows over that might involve me getting in trouble for having this blog, and the one vampire I can get information from seems to know very little, or seems to think she does.

We spent the night watching Buffy. Mostly I think because I joked about it and Lucy is really really bad at picking out what to watch. I almost smacked her when she wouldn’t stop flipping shows.

The power flickered a few times from the storm but nothing major. Storms and this city go hand in hand, we are used to them, and they won’t hold us back from watching our shows!

I think Lucy and I can be friends. We headed out last night after I got cleaned up. As cleaned up as I can get after being in that room. Henry had brought me a change of clothing during the week so at least I wasn’t overly stink. The guy thought I was going through heroine detox or something, he didn’t want me to ‘Go sell my good clothing for crack’ as he put it, so he only brought me my worst jeans with rips in them and a t-shirt. Better than just my underwear I imagine. Anyways, we headed out and I didn’t even return the key to the front desk. Never going back to that shit hole again.

Lucy’s car is just about as crappy as mine. Mine being impounded from being left too long in a parking lot, so I’m not complaining about Lucy’s 1990’s Saab Turbo. The thing looks and sounds like it is about to fall apart, but it doesn’t. We got in and as soon as she turned on the car, Lou Reed’s Sweet Jane starts playing. Now I might give hipsters and vampires equal shit for their music tastes but I can’t fault someone for loving Lou. Immediately Lucy hit stop.

“Sorry, Forgot to switch the music to the Vampire Mix before you got in the car.” These words being said at the same time as she pulls out a CD labeled Vampire Mix and looks like she can barely not laugh, and I about choke because my body can’t get its laugh out fast enough.

Lucy and I can be friends. We ended up keeping the Lou Reed on. Vampire mix can happen some other time.

Although she almost ruined the night by driving us straight to Jesus’ house in midtown. It’s a nice enough bungalow built somewhere in the 20’s or 30’s, and Jesus has someone take care of the yard, but I hate how there are always a bunch of people there acting like he is the best thing since slice bread. It is literally walking into a modern day commune.

“Fuck this Lucy, I don’t want to see that fuck.”

“It’s OK, he isn’t here, but we need to be just for a minute.”

“You go if you need to, but I’m staying here.”

Then she fixes those eyes on me the way that vampires do when they are really serious about getting their way, and she says, “You should come inside with me, it isn’t safe out here.”

I look around midtown, my home town in a way and spit back at her “Fuck you, midtown is safer than that hotel I just lived in for a week.” Her face goes blank.

“I don’t fucking believe it.” You can probably imagine the way she leaned back into her door, her mouth kinda open in shock and disbelief. I thought she was just shocked that I told her to fuck off, like I said, vampires hate that.

“You better get used to it. I really don’t like you vamps thinking you are built to command people”.

“We are.” She says but before I can pop her with another F bomb she says “… but not you. I thought they were lying. Fuck it. I’m going in. Jesus hasn’t been seen since you last saw him, so I need to go inside and see if his people know anything. Stay here if you want.” She got out of the car and of course, I followed. I don’t know what she means by ‘not me’ but Jesus going missing, as much as I hate the little bastard, is a mystery I kinda need to solve. For twenty years he has been attached to growing his little culty world. He wouldn’t of just disappeared.

The minute I show up on the porch I’m spotted by one of his trollops. They know me since Jesus has been one of the only points of contact with Vampires I’ve had. His mistreatment of me I guess is ‘brought on’ every so often by my own actions of trying to get more information out of him.

I can’t remember this girls name so we will just call her Trollop One. She’s out the door hugging me and welcoming me and dragging me inside the house, where Lucy and I are immediately confronted with an almost threatening mob of dirty hippies. “Where is he? Have you seen him? What have you done to him?” etc etc. Their frantic questions seem a bit on the aggressive side until Lucy tells them all to sit down and relax and they do. Vampires are sometimes good, I guess.

Turns out I probably am the last person to see Jesus. At least amongst his friends. No one here knew much but Lucy told them that if they heard anything to give me a call, and handed out business cards to them. When did I get business cards? Isabelle is going to need to tell me a bit more about this new ‘job’ of mine.

We search the house but nothing is out of the ordinary. Other than the house is filled with people who live together and grow food in the back yard. Vampires don’t broadcast being vampires, and generally that means they don’t tend to leave out things that hint that they exist. If they tell someone, that person can be forced to forget. If they write it down, people can make copies.

The most interesting thing about searching a house I had pretty much only seen the front room of is that I didn’t get a chance to see where Jesus sleeps during the night. I brought it up with Lucy, who laughed, and pointed at his bed, “His bed”.

“Bullshit, there are windows in here.” and I went over to make sure there weren’t any black out curtains, or shutters. There weren’t. “See, no way the sun could be reliably kept out.”.

“Twenty years you have been dealing with us? You know that is longer than I’ve been one, and you don’t know anything.”

“Yeah you people are not very good at storytelling.”

She takes my hand, and I felt like I was being lured into a trap. Vampires taking your hand.. never a good thing. She took me back to her car and we started to drive. Lou Reeds Coney Island Baby playing. I caught her mouthing the words “wanna play football for the coach” just as I was.

Terrible idea thinking a vampire could be your friend. This is going to bite me in the ass.

We went to a Quik Trip and purchased some beer, then headed across the bottoms and the Kansas river to Kaw Point. Parks of course are closed that late at night, early in the morning, but what do we care, she’s a vampire and I’m quickly becoming a drunk. Kaw Point is a park at the point where the Kansas river meets the Missouri River. If you sit at the edge of the water you are facing east, looking at the city in the distance. We sat on those rocks where those rivers meet not saying a word.

I figured once that sun started coming up over those buildings we’d high tail it to her hidy hole. Yet the sky kept getting brighter and we just sat there, me drinking my beer and her just smiling. It was very pleasant. Yet my nerves started to act up. She had to get inside. Any moment those rays would come over those buildings making my eyes see one of the best views of a sunrise you can see in this city, but making her eyes and body burn.

“Lucy, stop this, we can go now, I’m not sure what you are trying to do, but OK.”

“I won’t burn.”

“Fuck you won’t.”

“Trust me.”

“It’s your funeral.” After all seeing her burn would be the first time I’d ever seen a vampire do that.

The sunlight hit the downtown buildings, illuminating them in color. Then it shown through where the streets are and hit the water of the rivers, reflecting a deep purple that slowly changed to orange and red. It would have been more stunning if the clouds wouldn’t have been so low in the sky, but the impact was still there.

Lucy didn’t burn. She didn’t change at all. She just looked at the sunrise and smiled. When she caught me staring at her she just smiled at me.

“What the fuck?”

“I could sit here all day.”

“What the fuck?”

“We don’t burn, Alex. Sometimes it is good that people believe the stereotypes you know. Just let them, it might come in handy. Besides we don’t come out during the day for other reasons, mostly energy conservation reasons. I think you’ll find that if it takes more energy to do something, we don’t tend to do it.”

“I think I need another drink”.

If a vampire comes into your room in the dark you can expect to not wake up at all, wake up having your blood drained out of you, or wake up with them trying to freak you out so they can have a leg up on whatever it is they are going to try to do next. There really isn’t any other reason for it. I’d probably die of a heart attack if they just wanted to say hello and didn’t knock because they forgot how. A good rule of thumb is, if you wake up and you are not in pain, you don’t have to panic… yet.

Which is why when I opened my eyes earlier tonight to see the outline of Lucy’s fuzzy mop in front of the TV (crouched at the end of my bed like an animal watching me sleep) I wasn’t phased. Then again it is hard to be phased when you have very little strength left from a week of expelling your insides into a toilet. I was mildly annoyed that she interrupted my sleep. I just laid there and stared at her until she threw her hands up in the air and said “What the fuck!”

“The scare people by sneaking into their room trick is very 1995,” I said. “Get the lights.” As she was moving over to light switch I continued “Next time try something like licking my nipples, that would freak me out.” 

By the time the lights were on I was sitting up in bed and got a good look at my leather pant wearing peeping Tom. Sure enough she looked like she had last night. All retro goth and Dracula inspired. Yet I have to admit she did wear it well.

“I’m Alex, but I’m thinking you know that.”

“Yep a do, Alex.” she mumbled swinging her hands from back to front clapping them as she paced around the room. Not moving slow means a vampire is either new, or pretending to be new. I’m not sure why, I think it has something to do with energy to animation ratio. They never explain anything to me.

I just looked at her as she cased the joint, her nostrils flaring as see smelled the rankness of the place. “It really works.” she said, kicking a beer can out of the way.

“For me. I hear it only works for some people, and only if you start it within a few hours of being murdered.”

She laughed, “Murdered! I begged to be ‘murdered’.” She did the air quotes around murdered and I wasn’t annoyed, she was kinda cute doing it. At this point she started to remind me of Karen Gillan more than Lucy but I decided to keep calling her Lucy.

“So Lucy, I know you won’t tell me your real name so I’m just going to call you Lucy, what the fuck do you want. I was sleeping for once this week and you just messed that right up”.

“Isabelle says for you to write about last week, that night with Jesus. She says do it right now, and then when you are done, I’m to take you out and show you a good time. She said I’m to be your cicerone, which I think she means tour guide.”

“We going out for ice cream?”

“Although that sounds awesome, nope. No iced cream for you dear blogger. You need things to blog about and I’m going to point you in the right direction. Not just any old direction.” She sat at the side of my bed for this line, as if what she was about to say was so important that she had to look at me directly. “I’m going to show you everything you have been trying to learn ever since you met Jesus.” I could tell by the look in her eyes she expected me to be thrilled.

Which I am, don’t get me wrong, but now I’m starting to understand something else. Vampires don’t have good will like this. They don’t say.. hey you spent twenty years dealing with our rejects so we are going to reward you by letting you see all our inner workings. This was more than just some old vampires whim. This was some kinda game.

“Alright, give me my laptop.” I said to her. Which she did, and I’ve been typing this ever since.

Now as she sits here next to me, smelling me…

“Do you have to smell me like that? I mean your nose is all flared out.”

“I like to smell. When I was alive I didn’t realize how great it was.”

“That is kinda freaky.”

Anyways. Here is what you get to know about what happened, Isabelle.

Jesus is a jealous dickhead that can’t take that I do not want to be his bitch or any one of your bitches. This time around he was waiting in my apartment for me after I got back from work. He looked like he hadn’t eaten in a long time. His body was all bones. His tongue must of been so shriveled that he couldn’t speak because I told him to ‘get the fuck out’ and all he did was make this rasping noise as he attacked me.

No one is as strong as a vampire, even a starving one. Whatever evolutionary, magical, or god like thing made them really said, F you to the human race.

When I woke up this time I had to call Suzanne but she is pretty damn fast when I’m in need. The only other odd thing about that morning. All the windows and doors of my place were open. I remember lying there in pain thinking how grateful I was about the breeze.

There. Now off to see what Lucy has planned.