Night Shift
David Anderson walked in through the door of the Techrene corporate office building precisely fourteen minutes after sunset, as he did every night. And, as he did every night, he took the elevator down one floor to the basement where the computer room was located. Techrene was a gasoline company. They shipped millions of gallons of fuel all over the United States. Here at the corporate offices there were no gas pumps, no refineries, no big tanker trucks, but it was here that all the shipments were tracked, payments coordinated, truck drivers paid, and all the other paper-pushing, administrative details of running a multi-million dollar corporation were managed. And all of that information, every shipment’s bill of lading, every trucker’s time card, every repairman’s bill, every corporate e-mail and memo, all of it was stored and organized in the basement rooms where the computer techs reigned supreme. Though the CEO might dictate corporate policy, and hundreds of office workers moved, sorted, and dealt with the countless details it was the computers that really ran things these days. Without them the whole system would come apart.
David was one of the men who ran the servers that kept the whole bloated network in motion. He and two other technicians made up the night shift. Their day began well after the office workers who populated the floors above went home, which was exactly how David liked it.
When David got off the elevator and opened the door to the computer room he found his two co-workers already there. Derrick Sandberg, a balding man in his mid-forties, greeted his arrival the same way every night. “You’re late,” he said.
David gave his ritual response. “Hey, no self-respecting night shift worker should have to start his job before sundown. Otherwise it wouldn’t be the night shift, would it?”
“You keep being late and one of these days they’ll decided to fire you,” chimed in Robert Brinkley with his part of the nightly ritual. Robert was an athletic man with rock-star good looks who seemed out of place in the computer room, though he was brilliant with electronics of all kinds.
“I’ve got a special dispensation from the powers that be,” said David. “Besides, if they fire me they’d have to train somebody new.”
“Yeah, we’d probably get some know-it-all college kid who’d try to tell us how to do our job,” said Derrick with a grin. They all knew that David did in fact have special permission to turn up for work late. He suffered from a rare skin condition that made his risk of skin cancer astronomically high should he ever be exposed to direct sunlight for any extended period of time. Robert, who read a lot of Dean R. Koontz books, had once asked if he had xeroderma pigmentosum, or XP, like the character in one of Koontz’s novels. David had replied with a laugh, “No, thank heavens, or I couldn’t work here. Even computer screens are dangerous for somebody with XP. No, what I’ve got is about as rare, but a lot easier to live with. Actual sunlight is all I’ve got to worry about, and UV-heavy stuff like sun lamps. But I’ve never been near a tanning salon, so no worries there.”
So he left his home just after sunset and arrived at work fourteen minutes later. During some parts of the year he was later than others as the days lengthened or shortened, but he more than made up for the missing time when he did show up. Robert was good with computers, but David was an absolute genius. Robert had once said that Dave could make a computer play dead, fetch, roll over, and do a soft-shoe number across the room if he wanted to.
“So what’s up tonight?” asked David, eager to get caught up on the day’s problems and get to work.
“Romeo is down again, though for once Juliet decided to keep running, but I’ll make you a bet that she’ll crash sometime tonight. I’ve got that covered anyhow,” said Robert. “Derrick’s been working on some missing documents. They were entered into the system, but somehow they didn’t go through the queue and we can’t figure out where they’ve gone.”
David sat down at his workstation and booted up his computer. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. He loved his work. “How about you keep looking for them then, Derrick, and I’ll take a look at the routing, see what’s causing this. It’s not the first time we’ve lost a batch.”
Soon all three of them were hard at work. The computer room was actually just as busy at night as during the day. Sometimes it was more so, for only after most of the other employees had left could the servers be shut down for maintenance and updates. During the day they were in constant use.
David hummed under his breath as he worked. He really liked working here, it was, to his mind, one of the best jobs he’s ever had, and he’d had more than a few. He knew that neither of his co-workers shared his enthusiasm quite as fully. Robert liked computers, and was very good at them, but for him this was just something to earn a little money so he could use the rest of his time doing what he really loved, which was writing. He wanted to be an author and write thrillers. During down times when there wasn’t much to do and everything was running smoothly he would pull up one of his stories on the computer and start typing away. Derrick, on the other hand, really liked the work, but hated the night shift. He kept an eye on all of the day positions and at the first chance he planned to shift over to a day job. He had a wife and two kids and he said he didn’t like sleeping through the day and never seeing them.
Tonight things were going fairly smoothly. The recalcitrant Romeo was rebooted successfully, though a few minutes later the second server of the pair, Juliet, crashed. “I knew that was going to happen!” said Derrick. They all laughed. Some previous tech with a sense of humor had named the two systems because when one of them went, the other always followed soon after.
“Here,” said David, “I think I’ve got this thing licked. I’ll give you a hand.” He got to his feet and crossed the room to Derrick’s workstation. As he did so his eyes crossed the bank of windows that ran along one wall near the ceiling. Outside they looked out at ground level. There wasn’t much of a view, just the dark parking lot dotted here and there with the orangeish glow of streetlights, but as David’s gaze swept over the windows, he thought he saw something move in the dark.
He considered for a moment asking the others if they’d seen anything, but decided it wasn’t worth mentioning. He had just reached Derrick’s workstation and was bending over to take a look at the computer monitor when all of the lights went out. The room was dropped into darkness, lit by a single dim emergency light and the green glow of an exit sign. The computers had all gone dead as well. Before any of the men could respond to the sudden darkness the windows shattered inward with a crash. A small dark object, most likely a stone, hurled through them and bounced along the floor amid a rain of razor-sharp shards of glass. David expected the alarm to sound, even with the power off it should be working, but nothing happened. The stone was quickly followed by something larger. A man completely dressed in black and wearing a black trench coat, leaped in through the now glassless window and landed gracefully on the floor. His black combat boots crunched on broken glass. His face was lean, with long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. But nobody was looking at his face or his feet. All three of them were staring at his hand, which held a revolver. He swung it across to point at each of them in turn.
“You three just do what I say and nobody has to get hurt,” he said. “Well, not much anyway,” he added with a gleam in his eyes. The three technicians just stared, wide eyed.
“Out the door,” ordered the intruder, and gestured to the computer room’s entrance with his gun. “Come on,” he barked when they hesitated. “I’m not afraid to use this thing, so get!”
They got. He herded them down the corridor and into a little conference room. It was windowless and very dim. An emergency light in the ceiling shed just enough radiance for the trio to see each other’s shocked expressions. The intruder shut the door behind them and said, with a malicious grin, “You’re probably wondering why I’ve called you here today,” then broke out in hysterical laughter at his own joke. David, Derrick and Robert exchanged glances that said clear as words, great, this guy’s a loony.
When the intruder had calmed down he grinned again. David noticed something funny about the madman’s teeth. Before he could analyze what he’d seen the man said, “I’m going to let you three in on a little secret. Most of you mortals don’t know it, but there’s a secret society of immortals in the world. They’ve been around for centuries, and people used to cower at night in fear of them, and they liked it that way, but now people have stopped believing in them, and that’s even better. They live off of the blood of the mortal population and they can never die. You mortals call them nosferatu, or vampires. And I’m one of them.”
He grinned again, and this time all three men noticed his teeth. His canines were indeed longer than normal and more sharply pointed. He winked one eye and they also realized that his eyes were blood red. “I felt like having a snack tonight, and I’ve chosen you three. You stay put while I make sure we don’t have any uninvited dinner guests, and when I get back I’ll choose one of you to be the lucky guest of honor.” He laughed again at his joke and then turned and went out the door. As he left he said over his shoulder, “And much as I hate wasting blood, if I see any of you escaping I’ll shoot, so don’t try anything.”
When the door closed behind him the three again exchanged glances. Derrick was the first to speak. “He can’t really be a vampire, can he?”
David laughed, somewhat nervously. “No, there’s no way on earth he’s a vampire. Your dentist could give you fangs as good as his, Derrick, and contacts are no doubt responsible for the red eyes.”
“What should we do?” asked Robert.
David sighed. “We’re going to have to think of a plan. We can’t just run for it, getting to the elevator or the stairs would leave us too exposed. There’s no cover in that corridor. But I have an idea, or at least the beginning of one.” He steepled his fingers as he thought, his mind racing. He couldn’t let either of the others go off with this nutcase. Of all of them he stood the best chance of overpowering the faux vampire. He looked up at the other two, voicing some of his thoughts. “He’s going to come back and pick one of us to be his lucky blood donor. Even if he’s not a real vampire, I don’t doubt that he really drinks blood. He seems crazy enough. I’m going to try and provoke him into choosing me. He’ll probably take me to another room. Once we’re out of sight run for it. Get out and call the police. Remember the elevator won’t work with the power off, so you’ll have to take the stairs.”
“What about you?” asked Robert.
“I might be able to overpower him if it’s just the two of us. With all three of us in the room if that gun goes off it’s going to hit somebody. I’m in pretty good shape physically, so if I see a chance I’ll take it. If not, well, people donate blood all the time, right? I’m sure I’ll survive the experience.”
Robert shook his head. “You’ve sure got some guts Dave. But I don’t like this.”
“You think of a better idea, feel free to tell me. We need to get to the police, and I’m sure when he cut the power and the alarm he didn’t neglect the phone lines.”
“Yeah… but if you get killed I’m never forgiving you,” said Robert.
“Shh…” said David suddenly. “Here he comes.”
Booted footsteps approached the door and the intruder opened the door. The gun was still in his hand. “Looks like we’re all alone,” he said. “Now, decisions, decisions…” his eyes scanned across the three men, a predatory gleam shining in them.
David spoke up quickly saying, “I don’t think you’re a real vampire. A real vampire wouldn’t need a gun.”
“You disbelieve?” said the madman. “You refuse, perhaps, to accept the reality of something so strange, so beyond your everyday experience as vampires.”
David suddenly matched the madman’s grin and gave an odd little laugh. “Oh no, I believe in vampires, I’m quite convinced of their reality. What I doubt is your claim to be one of them. Tell me, how much did you pay your dentist for the fang job?”
A snarl of pure rage crossed the faux vampire’s face. “You doubt me? Well then, let me prove it to you first hand!” He waved the gun at David threateningly and said, “Follow me and I’ll show you the truth.”
David nodded and calmly went to the door. He gave Robert and Derrick a meaningful glance as he left.
The “vampire” again warned them against escape and shut the door. He directed David down the corridor again and into a little office. He closed the door firmly behind them and David inwardly relaxed. That had been his biggest fear, that the madman would leave the door open and shoot his co-workers before they could escape. He wasn’t too worried about his own safety. Sure, he didn’t want to be shot either, but he was stronger than his fairly average build suggested, and was confident that given the least opportunity he could overpower his captor.
In the little office there was no emergency light. The only illumination came in through the window that looked out at ground level into the deserted parking lot. The moon was high in the sky outside and nearly full, so there was plenty of light to see by. David had a clear view as the “vampire” closed in on him. He kept the gun pointed at David’s head as he slowly stepped forward. “You disbelieve, but soon you’ll see the truth. I…” he stopped and cocked his head to one side. David could hear the sound that had no doubt attracted his attention. It was the sound of running feet, not quite muffled by the carpet. David mentally cursed the other two for not being quiet. The madman turned to open the door. David realized he needed to buy the others more time. They would still be out in the hallway, terribly vulnerable. So he took advantage of the “vampire’s” turned back and tackled him from behind. They both went down in a tangle with David on top. But the other man twisted and fought and David couldn’t keep him pinned. He was inhumanly strong, and for a moment David wondered if he might indeed be one of the undead, but he was panting and gasping for breath as he struggled, and David was pretty sure that vampires shouldn’t need to breathe.
The madman fought with a strength imparted by his insanity and he managed to squirm out of David’s hold before David could get a good grip on him. He swung his fists wildly and connected with a few lucky blows. They didn’t faze David much, but then he got in one punch that nearly knocked him out. The grip of his gun, which David could see at such close quarters, was polished wood, carved with some kind of design, bats and wolves maybe? But he didn’t have the chance to admire the artistry even if he’d wanted to, for one of the madman’s flailing blows slammed the gun’s grip into David’s head. Lights flashed behind his eyes and he went limp. The madman got to his feet and raced out into the hall. David struggled to pull himself together. That had hurt!
He finally staggered to his feet and ran stumblingly out into the hall. The imitation vampire was already at the end of the hall. David tried to run after him, but his head was spinning and he couldn’t get his balance. Ahead of him the “vampire” opened the door to the stairwell. Because of the fire code the stairwell door couldn’t be locked from this side. From the other side it couldn’t be opened without a keycard, though David doubted if the keycard system was even working with the power off, but in any case egress to the ground floor had to be provided in case somebody forgot their keycard in an emergency, so the fake vampire went through without any difficulty.
David reached the stairs in time to see the tail of the other man’s trench coat vanish through the door on the next floor. His head was starting to clear and he took the stairs three at a time, hoping that his co-workers had gotten enough of a lead to escape.
When he reached the top and opened the door he had a good view of the big glass doors that fronted the building. Like the stairwell doors they could be opened from the inside without a keycard. He was just in time to see the fake vampire throw them open and stride out into the night. And before David could even begin to follow he saw a blur of motion from the landscaped bushes that flanked the doors. It was Robert, leaping at the madman in an attempt to ambush him. An instant later Derrick attacked from the other side.
The tactic almost worked, but the madman managed to turn partially around and squeeze off a shot at Robert. Robert was thrown back from the impact. Even before the sound of the shot had faded, Derrick tackled the madman. He flew backward, tripping over the shrubbery and landing with a splash in one of the ornamental pools that flanked the doors. His gun went flying, hitting the ground on the far side of the pool. By that time David had reached the door. He dashed to where Robert lay sprawled on the ground. The scent of cordite and blood hung in the air. There was blood on Robert’s shirt, but not as much as David had feared. The bullet had only grazed his shoulder. The wound was bleeding, but not heavily. David breathed a sigh of relief. When he’d seen the gun go off he’d been sure his friend and co-worker had been killed.
He looked up to the Derrick picking himself up off of the ground. The “vampire” was crawling out of the pool on the far edge, making his way to where the gun lay in the grass.
“Come on,” said David, helping Robert to his feet. “We need to get out of here fast, before he gets to that gun.”
With Robert’s unwounded arm over his shoulder and Derrick at his side, David hurried around the building, wanting to turn a corner as quickly as possible and get out of the “vampire’s” line of sight. They made it around the corner unscathed, though Derrick, who was a bit overweight, was panting from the exertion. Robert was pale looking, and David worried about blood loss and shock, but there was no time to stop, they needed to keep on the move.
“I told you guys to get the police!” said David. “If you’d gotten away he wouldn’t have shot Robert.”
“Yeah, he would have killed you instead,” replied Robert.
“I can take care of myself.”
“We can go to somebody’s house,” said Derrick, between gasps. He pointed to a row of darkened houses whose back yards bordered on the far side of the parking lot from them. “We can call the police from there.”
“Not with that crazy right behind us we can’t. We’d be killed standing on somebody’s doorstep while they got out of bed. Or worse, someone would answer the door just in time to get killed along with us. We’ve got to lose him first. Come on.”
“Where are we going?” asked Robert.
“To the construction site,” answered David. Just a block from the Techrene office building a new hospital was being built. It was still months from completion, just an empty concrete shell really. “It’s a regular maze, we’ll be able to lose him there and go for help.”
“Are you crazy?” said Robert. “He couldn’t ask for a better spot to kill us in, with nobody around.”
“Yeah well, do you really think we could walk all the way to the police station with him on our tails? With you bleeding all over the place and Derrick as out of breath as he is? Honestly? I don’t think so. We have to lose him and I can’t think of anywhere else around here to do it. Maybe he doesn’t want witnesses, but I don’t want innocent bystanders.”
“All right, all right. But if I get killed I’m blaming it all on you,” said Robert with a shaky little laugh.
The trio made their way along the side of the building into the parking terrace. David spared a moment to wish that one of them had parked there instead of the more convenient parking spaces directly in front of the building. With a car they could have gotten away easily. But to get to their vehicles from where they were now would take them right past the front of the building where the faux vampire was presumably again in possession of his gun. It was dark in lower level of the terrace and their footsteps echoed strangely back to them, making it impossible to hear if the fake vampire was pursuing them. Robert and Derrick both kept jumping at shadows, half expecting the madman to have somehow gotten ahead of them and be lying in wait.
At last they got out of the parking terrace and crossed the deserted street to the lot where the hospital stood. Derrick kept glancing back and it wasn’t long before he said, “He’s coming.”
David didn’t turn around. All of his energy was going toward moving the somewhat unsteady Robert along as fast as he could. If the crazy would-be vampire was going to shoot them looking back wouldn’t help. They reached the hospital building with no shots fired, however. David relaxed just the tiniest bit. They still had a chance of coming out of this alive.
The huge building was eerily quiet. Several big earthmovers were parked outside, looming out of the dark like prehistoric monsters, waiting patiently for the morning when the workers would arrive and bring them to life. When they reached the building itself their footsteps echoed on the bare concrete. The shell of the building was finished, but none of the interior walls or furnishings had been added yet, so it was full of empty, cavernous spaces, dimly lit by the moonlight that poured in through glassless windows and littered with discarded junk that the workers hadn’t yet cleaned up. David quickly crossed the first few rooms they came to, heading deeper into the darkness. He was looking for something small and out of the way where the other two would be safe. He planned to lead the fake vampire off by himself again. If he could just get the madman away from his vulnerable co-workers he was sure he could deal with him. By this point he was prepared to do anything it took to ensure the safety of the others.
Down a set of concrete steps he found what he was looking for. It would probably be some sort of storage closet when the hospital was finished, but now it was just a tiny concrete-walled cell. The doorway gaped blackly, no door as yet filling the empty space.
David entered the room, hearing Derrick stumble down the stairs behind him. It was very dark this deep inside the building. Bare bulbs marched across the ceiling, but no light switch was immediately visible, and even if there had been one, David wouldn’t have wanted to give away their position with a telltale light. He lowered Robert to the hard floor.
“What are we going to do, just wait here?” said Derrick, still gasping and out of breath.
“Shh,” whispered David, “don’t let him hear you. You two are going to wait here while I lead our nutty friend out there off the track. When’s he’s gone I’ll come back for you.”
“You can’t just go off on your own,” protested Robert in a whisper.
“You’re in no shape to go,” said David, “and neither is Derrick. I keep telling you, I can take care of myself. I’ll just lead him on a merry chase for a bit, then lose him and come back for you two.”
“All right,” said Robert. “But I still don’t like this. Be careful.”
“Oh don’t worry, I plan on being very careful.”
He slipped out the door, leaving his co-workers alone in the dark. Quietly he retraced his path, keeping his ears open for any hint of sound. The building was almost perfectly still and quiet, as dark and peaceful as the set of a horror movie when the actors had all gone home for the night. In the silence he could easily imagine himself the only man on the face of the planet. In the weird, barren spaces it was easy to picture that he was part of some post-apocalyptic hunt, the last two people left alive after the holocaust pursuing each other in the dark.
It wasn’t long before he saw a faint glimmer of light and heard footsteps. He carefully crept closer, coming to a doorway that led into another dim room. Inside the phony vampire, still damp from his dip in the pond and looking like he was mad enough to bite nails, or maybe even some of the thick rebar scraps that lay on the floor here and there, was searching the room with a little flashlight. His gun was still clutched in his other hand. David smiled. He had learned a bit about human nature, and he wasn’t too worried about being shot. The “vampire” wanted to prove he truly was inhuman, and shooting somebody was a human thing to do. A real vampire would, of course, kill his victims by draining them of their life‘s blood. So he stepped into the room confidently, figuring his chances of being shot were fairly low.
“Afraid of the dark, vampire?” He made his tone sneering, sarcastic, disbelieving. “Would you like me to turn on a light for you?” The other man swung the flashlight around at the sound of David’s voice until he pinpointed David in the beam. David squinted his eyes and avoided looking directly at it, not wanting to totally ruin his night vision.
“I’m going to drink your blood and leave your drained corpse to rot, you stinking human,” snarled the madman. David just laughed and stepped back into the other room.
“Maybe, if you can catch me, vampire.” Again David made that last word a sneer of disbelief. Then he hurried across the next room. Ducking through another door with the would-be vampire close behind he twisted his way through the building. He wanted to get the fake vampire outside, but not yet. He would need a little bit more lead-time than he had right now, as the fake vampire was practically on his heels. David gradually increased his pace; trying to get some distance without getting so far ahead he lost the other man.
He found a set of stairs going up and he followed them. The upper rooms might have more possibilities to gain some time. His own feet were loud enough on the steps to drown out the faint footsteps of the other man behind him. When he reached to top he hurried down the straight corridor he found himself in. He didn’t want to be too close to the stairs when the madman came up. At the end of the hall paused for a moment to listen… and heard nothing. He turned back and saw the hallway was empty. Cautiously, aware that this might be some kind of trap, he retraced his steps. He peered down the steps, ready to jerk back and run at any moment, but there was no one there. Great, he thought to himself, I’ve lost him. He went quickly down the stairs and looked around the room below. There was no sign of the “vampire,” and he could hear nothing, not a footstep, not a breath, not a heartbeat. Nothing. He checked the two other doors leading out of that room, but the rooms and hallways beyond were likewise still and empty.
He returned to the room he’d last heard the madman in and looked at the stairs. Maybe he’d climbed them after all, and had ducked into one of the rooms at the top? He went over to the stairwell, and that’s when he finally noticed the second set of stairs, heading down. He froze. For one moment he felt like his heart had turned to ice. Then he dashed down the stairs, heedless of how much noise he made. If the madman was down there with his co-workers speed was more important than silence. This set of stairs didn’t come out in the same hallway as the flight he’d descended earlier, so he had to waste precious minutes searching for the right place. When he finally found the right hallway he slowed his pace to listen. He could hear voices, and the acoustics in the empty hall were such that he could make out every word.
Robert’s voice was the first he heard. “Come on, man, leave him alone. You’re crazy.”
The madman’s harsh tones answered, “If you interfere I’ll blow his brains out.”
Derrick, with utter terror in his voice said, “Please, please don’t do this. Please…”
“You’ll live, if you cooperate. Now shut up and hold still or I really will blow your brains out.”
There followed a brief silence, and then a low, shuddering moan of pain. David quickened his pace again. When he reached the open doorway he wasn’t really surprised by the scene he found. Robert was still sitting on the ground, his face turned away from the scene next to him and an expression of horrified revulsion on his face. Derrick was kneeling near the middle of the room, and the fake vampire was on one knee in front of him with his gun held to Derrick’s head and his teeth buried in his neck. Derrick had his eyes tightly closed and was still moaning in terror and pain.
“Stop it right there,” said David, stepping into the room.
The “vampire” pulled back from Derrick and twisted around. “You!” he said in a snarl of pure hatred. His face was a mask of rage, and his lips were stained with fresh blood. Then he grinned and said, “I bet you believe me now, don’t you?” And without another word he lifted his gun and shot David.
The bullet hit him in the chest, a little bit to the right, missing his heart but tearing through bone and muscle before exiting on the other side. David was flung backward from the force of the bullet’s impact. He hit the side of the doorway and spun partway around before sliding to the ground, leaving a smear of dark blood down the pale concrete. There was blood everywhere, and the smell of it mingled with the hot smell of cordite from the gun in the air. Derrick and Robert gaped at the scene, too stunned to do anything. The madman laughed hysterically. His voice echoed and bounced eerily off of the bare concrete walls. He stopped laughing with a little choke of shock when David began to pick himself up off of the floor.
“You… you’re dead!” he said. His eyes bulged in terror and he raised his gun to fire off another shot. David moved with incredible speed to catch his arm before he could fire his gun again. He moved with inhuman speed, in fact. By getting up he had permanently blown his cover, so there was no point in pretending anymore. He took the gun from the other man’s hand easily and dropped it to the floor. He was weakened by blood loss, which he was especially vulnerable to, but even so he was still far stronger than the madman, who was, after all, merely human.
The gunshot hadn’t done any permanent damage, but before it could heal he would need to replace some of the blood he’d lost. After what had happened there was no way he could go back to this job, this life, and on top of that he was angry, more angry than he’d been in a long time, so he didn’t hesitate much before he pulled the madman closer and, making sure he had a good grip, lowered his head to the man’s neck. His canine teeth lengthened in response to his rising hunger. When his lips touched the man’s skin they were more than long enough, more than sharp enough, to cut through and reach the blood beneath. It didn’t take long before he stepped back, releasing the madman’s now lifeless body, which dropped limply to the floor. He looked at his co-workers, both of whom were staring at him in complete shock.
It was Robert who found speech first. “You’re, you’re a…” he stopped, not quite wanting to voice the inevitable conclusion.
David laughed bitterly. “A vampire, yes. Why do you think I was so certain he wasn’t one? I’d know another person cursed with real vampirism if I saw them. He was just a nutcase with an obsession. Though why anybody would want to be like me, I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?” asked Robert hesitantly, feeling both horror and curiosity.
“People have this romantic image of vampirism these days. I suppose it’s better than when they though we were the children of Satan, but there isn’t much that’s romantic about it. Take immortality, for one. That’s the thing people really like, the idea of living forever, but all it means is heartache. Everyone you know grows old around you. I’ve buried so many friends, so many of my family I can hardly bear it any more. When your own children grow old and die before your eyes, how can you live with it? And people start to notice it, that’s the other thing. So you have to move on, start over, become someone else. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve started a new life. It’s getting harder and harder to do. I learned computer programming so I’d be able to hack the systems to create new identities for myself, but they get smarter every day. Someday I may not be able to keep up with it, and then what do I do? I’ll become a non-entity, I won’t be able to hold a job, and I’ll be reduced to living like a homeless bum. People think all vampires are old and rich, but they’re not. A lot of us are dirt poor. Do you know how hard it is to find a job that will let you work after dark, and how much harder it is to find one that I actually enjoy? I loved this job, and now I’ll have to start all over again somewhere else.
“And the whole business of drinking blood… everyone is either fascinated by it or horrified. I drink the cow’s blood; you kill the cow and eat it. It’s the same thing; only my way of doing it is less pleasant. Some days I can remember what it was like to eat real food and it drives me crazy, I miss it so much. And then other days I can’t even remember what it was like before and I’m afraid I’m not human any more. Sure there’s a few advantages. I’m hard to kill,” he gestured at the wound in his chest, which was already almost completely healed, “but there are days when I wish somebody would come after me with a stake and just put me out of my misery.
“But what does that matter?” he said, weariness and bitterness in his voice. “It’s time for me to move on again. Another name, another place, another job…” he sighed. “Why did this have to happen? I liked this job. I was counting on at least a decade here.” He sighed again and tried to let go of the bitterness and frustration that filled him. There was nothing else he could do. He would have to go home, pack up the few possessions that mattered, and abandon yet another life.
“I’ll get rid of that,” he said, indicating the madman’s lifeless body. “It would give the police too many questions. I don’t know what story you’ll tell them.”
Robert and Derrick had listened to David’s whole monologue in silence, each working his way through his own thoughts as they adjusted to the strange revelation they’d just received about their friend. They exchanged glances and both of them could see they were thinking the same thing.
“I know what I’ll tell them,” said Robert. “I’ll tell them the truth. I’ll tell them that this madman was after us, claiming to be a vampire, if you can believe that, and you saved us from him”
“That’s right,” chimed in Derrick. “You ambushed him from behind and got the gun away from him. I guess you must have shot him with it, because any idiot can see that all this blood couldn’t possible be yours, you’re not even hurt. And then he staggered off somewhere, and by the time the police get here he’ll have made good his escape. They’ll probably never find him.”
“What…?” David gaped at them, stunned and unable to think of anything to say. Finally he simply asked, “Why?”
“Well, you did save our lives, for starters,” said Robert, with a somewhat shaky smile. “And besides, without you they’d have to hire somebody new.”
“Yeah, we’d probably get some know-it-all college kid who’d try to tell us how to do our job,” said Derrick, and though his voice had a touch of hysteria in it, he actually managed a grin as he said it.
They had to do a little bit of rearranging to get the scene to match their story, including the unpleasant job of getting the dead man’s shirt off so that David would have something to wear besides the bloodstained ruin of his own shirt. Fortunately, the plain black t-shirt wasn’t too incongruous with David’s khaki slacks. Then David picked up the body, carrying it easily despite the fact that the man had to weigh nearly two hundred pounds. He vanished into the night with it, and when he returned he simply told the other two that he’d put it somewhere where it wouldn’t be found for a long time, if ever. Neither of them asked if he’d had previous experience with disposing of bodies. They both decided they didn’t want to know.
After that it was simply a matter of waking up some nearby householder and calling the police. Several hours and a lot of questions later all three were released. The police had accepted their story; it fit the facts they found well enough. An APB was put out on the would-be vampire, but he was never found.
It was a couple of days before they could go back to work. Both Robert and Derrick recovered quickly from their injuries. Neither had been seriously hurt, though Derrick still shuddered whenever her remembered the crazy want-to-be vampire’s teeth sinking into him.
The damaged window was replaced, the ruined alarm system fixed, the phone lines restored. And while all this was going on the corporate executives fumed over all the money the delay in normal business was costing them.
On their first day back David Anderson arrived precisely fourteen minutes after sunset, as always. And, as always, he took the elevator down to the basement computer room. He found Derrick and Robert already there. The bandage was already off Derrick’s neck and the little puncture wounds the would-be vampire had left were well on their way to being totally healed. Robert’s shoulder was still bandaged, but he showed no other ill effects.
Without thinking, as David came in, Derrick said, “You’re late,” as he always had.
David, with a hint of a twinkle in his eyes, but also a bit of tension in his voice, said, “Hey, no self-respecting night shift worker should have to start his job before sundown. Otherwise it wouldn’t be the night shift, would it?”
There was a long pause as Derrick and Robert both suddenly realized exactly why David always arrived after sundown. The tension hung between them, and David held his breath, hoping that his co-workers would be able to accept him now that they’d had a chance to think about what he was.
The silence stretched uncomfortably, and then all at once Robert grinned and broke the silence with his part of the nightly ritual. “You keep being late and one of these days they’ll decided to fire you.”
David let out the breath he’d been holding and replied with a smile, “I’ve got a special dispensation from the powers that be. Besides, if they fire me they’d have to train somebody new.”
“Yeah, we’d probably get some know-it-all college kid who’d try to tell us how to do our job,” said Derrick, and he grinned and winked. The tension vanished and their old easy camaraderie returned.
David went over and sat down at his terminal. He booted up his computer. While he waited for it to start up he looked over at the other two, both already hard at work. There was a crack of unaccustomed emotion in his voice as he said, “Hey, thank you guys. Thank you both. This means a lot to me.”
Robert spun his office chair around to give David a grin. “Don’t mention it. Besides, I just thought of something. I hope you don’t mind if I ask you all kinds of personal questions. I have this terrific idea for my next story. I’m going to write one about a vampire, only he’s going to be the hero. After all, they say it’s best to write what you know.” He grinned as he added, “I think it might be a real hit.”