I’m tired. I’m dehydrated. I’m ready to get out of this hotel room. It stinks like a waste treatment plant. There is blood and shit in places I didn’t expect it to be. I won’t feel clean until I shower at my apartment. That is if my landlord hasn’t kicked me out yet. I’m late on rent, and Henry says I might lose my job. My actual job.

I’m pretty sure the worst of my week is coming to an end.

Last night was pretty uneventful. I saw Lucy Westenra outside the window of the hotel room. Normally seeing anyone outside a hotel room for me is rare since I shut the black out curtains, but in cheap places like this, they never shut all the way. The gap in this room is grand canyon sized. I was sitting on the bed eating some pizza and drinking vamp-be-gone when I glanced over and there she was peeking in the curtains.

I’m talking Lucy Westenra from the 1992 film Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola. Average looking girl made gorgeous by her wavy red hair and twinkling smile. She didn’t look exactly like her, I’m sure it just popped into my head because of that mop of crimson sitting above her face. Either way she was there staring at me, a cute button smile, tight The Cure t-shirt ripped down the front revealing her cleavage. Who the hell listens to The Cure now a days anyway?

I couldn’t ask her that because I blinked and she was gone. Good ol’ Lucy. I hope she comes back, new vampires are always fun to meet, all posing and dominance themed. The real question is what has Isabelle been doing to let others know about me? Surely this blog is a threat to them somehow.

Fuck it I’m going back to sleep.

I received an email tonight from editor@thevampirejournal.com Kinda creeped me out. I didn’t even know that anyone else was monitoring this site. I’m not overly shocked by that in and of itself. I’m more freaked about the content of the email. I quote:

“There is something you do that is, I’m sorry to say, a bit of nails on chalkboard for my inner grammar Nazi. It’s “of” – should of, would of, might of, all should be have“

Then they continued on by giving me suggestions on how to rewrite!

“I quickly decided that he wasn’t on PCP, but I was when he stood over me smiling that shit eating vampire grin that he has. Fangs out, Laughing. Then he said “I’m not going to give you the choice that I had”. All I could think about as he bit the hell out of me was that this monster, this vampire was misquoting vampire movies. Seriously. I’m fucking doomed to idiot monsters that are so high on being what they are that they regurgitated Hollywood.”…but that I was…
…that shit-eating vampire grin that he has; all fangs-out, laughing silently….this monster, this vampire, was misquoting vampires movies. (paragraph break)And whatever descriptors you like.

Great, now I not only get to be around vampires all the time, I probably have to deal with a vampire editor! Maybe I’ll learn something, or maybe I’ll tell them to just deal with my white trash upbringing.

I met Jesus years ago. My first year in college. I was looking for off the wall people for an art project I was doing and my roommate knew this group called the Nocturnia’s or Noctornians or something cheesy like that. They were a group of people who considered themselves vampires and were part of a subculture of goth subcultures. Since I couldn’t find any other people to work with I decided to go check them out.

Essentially it was this coffee drinking club that met at the Broadway Coffee House every week. They liked the walled off court yard where they could sit out in the darkness and say things like “The night speaks to me…. shhhh.. can you hear it?” (or maybe that is just a line from Near Dark). I’m not shitting you on that by the way. They really did speak like that. Especially if there was a new girl in the mix. Which makes sense since, most of them thought they were vampires.

When I pointed out that they were just rehashing old genre troupes about vampires that they gleamed from films and fiction they about threw me out on my ass. It was Jesus who told them to cool their jets and that I just didn’t understand. He invited me to hang out more with them and encouraged me to take the photos I needed for my project.

Back then he wasn’t a leader, he was just another guy hanging out in the ‘wear all black and eyeliner club’. He still had his shoulder length brown wavy hair and wore his Thors hammer pendant over the top of the chest hair that liked to peak up from his shirt. Total early 90s guru look, if the guru was wearing clothing that Hot Topic would be selling now.

Over the course of making the images I needed for my college project, I got to know the group pretty well. I’m not going to spend the time today writing up a theoretical talk about if “living vampires” are real. I’m going to leave you with this wiki link about the Vampire Lifestyle and then you can rabbit hole yourself to death researching it if you want (like this site here that is more directly related to the culture, Sanguinarius.org). 

*The above website link no longer works. It appears the founder of the site passed away in 2015 and soon after the site went down.

I find it interesting that not more websites are devoted to this niche culture, after all it was college bbs’s that really got people together. The N’s met because of that. Jesus did also, although he wasn’t looking for a community more than a vampire friendly food source. Which is why he wasn’t the leader of the group. It suited his purpose to just push them into more and more blood sharing. Making it look like it wasn’t him doing it. If I had been a member of that group I might of been so wrapped up in the culture of it that I could of missed it. Instead I was an outside observer and I watched as his control from the sidelines became absolute and then I called him out on it. In front of everyone.

Probably not the right thing to do in. Directly asking why he was taking in so much blood but never sharing his. I had pictures and pictures in my archive for the project of this trend. They turned on me, banning me from the group.

Bitches.

It turns out that by outing him I actually did him a favor. I ran into him a few years later, still in the black, still with the group but they didn’t have some shitty name anymore. They presented as any social group of friends would, just friends. He invited me back with his sexy smile and that direct eye contact that vampires have. I told him to fuck off and then something changed in him. He became obsessed with me.

“No one tells me to Fuck off.” he would say. So I’d tell him to fuck off again. Vampires can’t take no for an answer because they think they can bend everyone to their all mighty willpower. I didn’t know that then, I just thought he was being a dick, since I hadn’t realized he was not just a crazy person.

Let me be straight, those people who he was friends with, they were not really crazy even if they believed, or felt that they were a certain type of vampire. Eccentric is a good word, but not crazy. Jesus on the other hand was manipulative and socially controlling until he didn’t get his way, then he became obsessive. I had no clue at the time that actual vampires existed and I don’t think his group did either.

He started showing up at my work, at my house. Sometimes he’d be friendly, sometimes he’d be his true dickhead self. Then one night the he broke into my home and took me. Literally took me by force. Shoved me in the trunk of his car and drove me to Cliff Drive.

If you have never been to Cliff Drive before it’s this long rundown area of the city that used to be a glamorous park. Now it is an overgrown area where you can dump anything you would rather not see around. Every attempt to clean it tends to fail. When I was pulled from the trunk of the car by my fucking hair, the only thing I knew was that I saw trees above me. When he threw me on the ground I landed on broken glass, leaves, and a tire. That tire probably saved my life because he threw me so hard. I was like a child to him.

I quickly decided that he wasn’t on PCP, when he stood over me smiling that shit eating vampire grin that he has. Fangs out, Laughing. Then he said “I’m not going to give you the choice that I had”. All I could think about as he bit the hell out of me was that this monster, this vampire was misquoting vampire movies.

I’m fucking doomed to idiot monsters that are so high on being what they are that they regurgitated Hollywood.

I don’t remember much after that until the morning. He was gone, I was puking up the contents of my stomach as someone drug me up the hill. She stopped when she noticed I was awake and tried to give me some water. Instead she got a full face of bloody vomit.

That’s how I met Suzanne. She saved me from being turned into what Jesus wanted.

I’m fucking tired from being up all night, so I’m going to hit the sack. Maybe I’ll find time in the future to tell you how that all worked out. Obviously, I wasn’t turned into a vampire but at that point I knew they were real.

It set the course for my life for the next twenty years (give or take a few).

Vampires. Pieces of shit. all of them.

This motel has Cable TV. It doesn’t even have clean sheets and it has cable. Seriously, the priorities of life are sometimes confusing to me. Then again, everything is confusing when you are having the week I’m having. I bet it is easier to keep the cable bill paid in this neighborhood than it is to find good cleaning crews. I’ve been watching a metric ton of AMC. That channel knows where it is at.

Isabelle showed up again and wanted to know about the circumstances leading up to my current involvement with the porcelain god. “Not much to say,” I tell her and she doesn’t move. Just stares at me like she is trying to read my mind, her eyes not really blank, and not really power drills, but somewhere in the middle. Trance like. Instead of thinking inwardly it is like she is thinking in my head, or trying to. Which is when I noticed the TV directly behind he. There is Betty Draper.. Francis.. Sitting on her bed talking on the phone to Don. She is dying, lung cancer. Don is all busted up and Betty is all being Betty. Isabelle is just being Isabelle but I can’t help but notice that my reference last time about the 60s house wife is very much true. Isabelle and Betty could be the same person if Isabelle had any idea what it was like to be human. So far she hasn’t showed any sign of it. I wonder if vampires can get sick. Vamp cancer would probably be something bloody and terrible.

She blinks. Which draws me back to her. She hardly ever blinks. “Will you write about it?” She asks.

“Maybe,” I shrug just as I double over in pain from the flow of my insides into the outside world. She doesn’t flinch even with the stink, which must be overpowering for her senses. When it passes I continue.

“Not much to tell, just like last time, Jesus tried to turn me or whatever you call it.” His real name isn’t Jesus, I just call him that because the dude loves to pretend he is gods gift to humans. I’m not using anyone’s real name on this blog. It’s one of the ‘rules’. Besides I bet none of them are using their real names either. I met one the other day who was calling herself… shit. Can’t joke about their names if I can’t use them. Fucking vampires. “What do you call it any way? The embrace, turning, becoming, fucking, rising again?” I make this spooky horror movie noise and raise my hands above my head, which sends me into another spasm. I should not of had Henry bring me Taco Bell, tonight is going to be hard.

“We don’t.” She says. “Does he find it funny to try to wrap you in our power?” I’m too doubled over in pain to reply for a minute. Not even to point out that she is stretching to not use a word in the list I just used. She tilts her head to the other side like she is examining me.

“He must, he laughs the whole time he is doing it. You think he’ll stop now that I’m your… whatever I am?”

“Journalist.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. I’m a photojournalist, or wanted to be once, but failed at that. Besides this blog can’t have pictures, it’s a rule.

Then she turns and leaves. I yell after her, “Who picked the fucking name of the site.. it’s shit you know that. Should of named it Shitting Blood!”

She probably heard me. Super vamp powers are cool like that from what I hear.

At least the end of Mad Men was kinda happy. I hope I have my ‘om’ moment sometime. Probably not.

I guess this blog is official now. Isabelle brought me a laptop. She said I needed it since, “You are regulated by necessity to the commode at the current moment.” Everything was all set up and booked marked in the browser. If she set this up I completely underestimated the skeksis. I doubt it. Her clothing is way out of fashion. Sometimes when she is standing there looking at me, her bird like head half tilted, her body not moving, skin tight on her bones, pale, waxy, I think she is the corpse of a 1960s house wife. I say “sometimes” because on some nights she is flush and hot, her polyester knee length skirt tight against hips. Hips built to be the dream makers of late night films everywhere. Fucking vampires.

I guess you’ll have to get used to me saying fucking vampires also. Yeah, and writing like a someone who failed English class four times. Cause that’s what you got here. Maybe I’ll hire an editor if my boss allows me. Ha!

They even bought the domain name. Weird ass creatures. They have to be fucking with me. This is what I have been wanting to do for years and they finally let me do it. I’m fine with their shitty rules about their privacy but a domain like that? What is this a CW show? Some shitty movie from the 90s? Whatever at least they told me they’d not censor me as long as I stuck to ‘the rules’. Fuckers.

Anyways the refrigerator in this dump is on the fritz and I just convinced myself the ‘vamp be gone’ was cold enough to drink. I better get my ass to the bathroom.