Vampire of the Vestibule

It’s three a.m. and all’s not well. Every light in the house is on and I haven’t slept through the night in a long time. I’ve barely slept at all since I saw the vampire.
I was working a second job as a night watchman at the blood bank. The job didn’t pay much but it was easy work. I worked the graveyard shift every Friday and Saturday night – eleven p.m. to seven a.m. Lock the doors, monitor the closed circuit television and don’t fall asleep. That’s all that was required. Plus I wasn’t alone. There were blood bank employees in the building, another security guard, and on Friday nights the cleaning crew came in and shot the shit with me. It was actually an enjoyable job. It was certainly more enjoyable than my day job as a tax accountant for a floundering company in a floundering industry.
The first five months at the blood bank were uneventful. I would arrive every Friday and Saturday night at eleven o’clock, ask the security guard whom I was relieving if anything was going on, lock the doors behind the guard as they left for the night, and settle in for a long uneventful night of reading and listening to the radio. Coast-to-Coast AM with George Noory was my favorite. I loved the paranormal topics they discussed such as, ghosts, demons, UFOs, vampires; even the more mainstream topics tackled by Ian Punnett made for interesting listening.
When the cleaning crew came in late on Friday night we would discuss the various adventures or misadventures of the full time security guards. Keith and Anita are the cleaners. They are also the owners of the cleaning company. They’re good people. I’m going to miss them.
Fridays were also the night that Bill – the other security guard at the blood bank – would stop by the front desk and shoot the bull for a few hours. We would talk about our day jobs, prospects for better jobs, get-rich-quick schemes, and other earth shattering topics. Bill was a good guy. I’m going to miss him too.
This second job was my futile attempt at staving off the creditors, repo men, and attorneys who were foaming at the mouth, waiting for the past-due odometer to turn over so they could foreclose on my home. Not my house, my home. A house is real estate. A home is a part of you. Your first home is as much a part of you as an arm or a leg, or at least a heart. It’s the first residence you call your own. The place you can paint or remodel without asking the landlord’s permission. The place where you can make love to your wife and not worry about the neighbors hearing the cries of passion. The place where you bring home your new puppy, get pissed off when she piddles on the carpet, and quickly forgive her when you realize there’s no security deposit to lose. A home is the place where you bring your newborn son to, show him his room, and dream of him growing up to be the star quarterback. Home is where your family grows together and squabbles together and laughs and cries and worries and exults in all of life’s little triumphs together. Home is slipping through my hands like grains of sand between my fingers. I was already behind on the house payments. Since the incident with the vampire not only have I been skipping out on my night watchman’s job but I’ve been calling in sick to my full time job as well.
Lately my relationship with my wife hasn’t been that great either. She’s been distant but won’t tell me why. I don’t know if she’s falling out of love with me, if I’ve lost her respect, or if I’m slowly being replaced by another man. There was a time when my wife adored me. After a few years of marriage adoration faded to love. This love eventually gave way to a comfortable living arrangement. Now I’m not sure how she feels about me. Everyday I ask her if everything is okay between us. She says yes but she doesn’t sound very sincere. I would understand if she told me that she doesn’t love me anymore. I have let her down in so many ways and for such a long time that I’m surprised she hasn’t left me yet.
As I said earlier this job was neither difficult nor particularly eventful. Other than shooing away the occasional street person or trying to find out which department ordered a late night pizza the chief duty was not to fall asleep. I did a good job. I didn’t think I had it in me to stay up all night every Friday and Saturday night with minimal sleep in between but I surprised myself with my stamina. I never dozed off. I got a little loopy a few times and thought I was hearing things but that didn’t happen very often. It was a nice, quiet, peaceful job. At least it was until the quiet was broken by the vampire.
I know what you’re thinking. I’ve been under a lot of stress lately. I haven’t been getting enough sleep. Some armchair psychiatrists will point to this financial and emotional pressure as the cause of my “hallucinations”. But the vampire in the vestibule was real. I know it was real. I may not be able to prove its existence but there is physical evidence that the incident happened. I am not delusional!
It was approximately two-thirty a.m. on a Friday night (or, more accurately, a Saturday morning). The cleaning crew had arrived a few minutes earlier. I was talking with them when I heard the outside door to the building opening with its distinctive whoosh of air.
“Oh Lord. What do we have here?” Anita said.
I looked to my left and what I saw gave me a start. There was a wild looking woman standing not two feet away staring at me through the glass. She looked like she was on drugs. Her eyes were completely dilated, her hair was frizzy and looked like it hadn’t seen a brush in days. She had bruises up and down her arms. It was just a woman but for a brief moment I thought I saw something else. In hindsight I know I saw something else. I had a vision of Hell. I was seized by the most powerful feeling of dread I’d ever experienced. Then my eyes focused and I saw the meth head glaring at me through the glass.
“See what she wants,” Anita said to Keith.
I started to say the same thing when I realized that I was the security guard and it was time for me to earn my $7.75 an hour. The crazed junkie pulled on the door handle and screamed, “Let me in!”
“Oh great,” I muttered.
“Have fun buddy,” Keith laughed as he escaped down the hall.
I stood up and shuffled around the desk to the locked front doors, the blessedly locked doors.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“Let me in!” screamed the hag.
“Do you work here?”
“Let me in!”
“Do you have business here?”
“Let me in you motherfuckin’ cocksucker!”
“Ma’am I’m going to have to call the police if you don’t vacate the premises,” I replied sternly while turning to walk back to the desk.
“Don’t do that Greg,” she replied coyly.
“She knows my name,” I thought. When I turned around the crack whore had transformed herself into a beautiful young woman. Or had I missed this fact when I first looked at her? Maybe she looked like a dirty crack whore because she had such a sour expression on her face when I first saw her. Maybe I just assumed she was a nasty looking bitch because at two-thirty in the morning only nasty looking bitches would be trying to enter the building.
I rubbed my eyes and looked up at her again. She had transformed herself into a stereotypical Hollywood vampire. She looked like Bela Lugosi; the original twentieth century vampire (and still the best in my book). Funny, I thought, Bram Stoker’s Dracula as well as most descriptions of ancient vampires describe them as hideous creatures, animal-like or demon-like in appearance. Real vampires were nothing at all like the charming, often handsome, vampires found in modern cinema.
As this thought crossed my mind the bitch transformed herself into a hideous creature. Its face was covered with oozing boils. Its eyes were as black as coal with a red pinprick in the center of each eye. It had patchy fur all over its body. Its dagger-like fangs were glistening in the lights of the vestibule. Its skin rippled with the progeny of a thousand nightmares crawling just below the surface.
I swooned. Luckily the other front desk, the one where the receptionist sat during the day, caught me before I fell backwards. For a minute I thought the creature was going to walk right through the glass and devour me whole. I was terrified because I knew this thing could kill me, but I was more terrified because somehow I knew this thing could devour my soul as well as my body. I haven’t been a particularly religious man these last twenty years or so but I’ve always believed in God and Heaven and Hell. The older I get the less I fear death and the more I fear Hell. Eternity is a long damn time. I think of that a lot when I’m working my day job and the clock seems to stand still. And now it seems I’m on the verge of eternal damnation. Dear God, help me.
Just then the cleaners entered the lobby. I looked at them briefly and then returned my gaze to the demon. Nothing was there.
“I see your girlfriend left,” Keith teased.
“Yeah,” I replied shakily. “I convinced her we were all out of crack.”
“You look like you got hold of some bad shit yourself,” Keith said. He looked at me with genuine concern. “You look like you seen a ghost.”
“I don’t feel well,” I replied in a small voice as I rushed past him to the bathroom. I barely made it to the toilet in time. After puking up the entire contents of my stomach I fell back on my haunches, head swimming and heart racing. I looked at my watch. Two hours had elapsed.
“That couldn’t be real,” I thought. “But if it wasn’t, why am I shaking? And why do I feel like a heart attack is the least of my concerns?”
As I walked out of the bathroom I noticed the cleaners were leaving.
“What’s your hurry?” I asked. “Why don’t you stick around awhile and talk?”
“Man it’s late and we got things to do tomorrow. Plus we don’t want to interfere with you and Elvira.” Keith grinned as he said this last part.
“But, but, but…” I stammered.
“Later, dude. See ya next week.” Keith and Anita waved goodbye. Anita mimicked the crack whore by banging on the glass and screaming to be let in. I could hear both of them laughing as they left the building.
“I hope I see you next week,” I thought as I watched their taillights disappear into the fog. “I hope I see the sunrise this morning.”
I locked the front doors and headed back to my station when a terrible thought occurred to me.
“Bill,” I said softly. “Oh my God I’ve got to warn Bill.” As I picked up the walkie-talkie to call him I glanced up at the glass separating me from the vestibule. Bill’s face was pressed against the glass. Unfortunately it was being pressed against the glass by Elvira The Crack Whore Demon and not by Bill. From the looks of his jagged neckline the bitch had gnawed his head off. She had reverted to her initial appearance. She was the crack whore again.
Her eyes gleamed as she mouthed the words, “You’re next.”
My mouth went dry. Goose flesh rippled over my skin. I was too terrified to run. This turned out to be my saving grace. Apparently a lot of the legends I had heard regarding vampire lore in movies and on television were based in fact. Rules such as a vampire can’t enter a building unless invited. If I had run out the back door I would have been fair game for the beast. Since I stayed put I was safe for the time being. It couldn’t get to me so long as I stayed put and kept the door shut. I wondered what ruse it used to get Bill to open the guard shack door. I had a pretty good idea. Bill was as horny as the next guy. This thing probably changed its appearance to be the beautiful young woman I had seen earlier. Getting Bill or any red-blooded American male to open the door would then be child’s play.
As Bill’s dead accusatory eyes stared at me through the glass I realized that there was no blood dripping from the tattered neckline. The bitch had sucked him dry. And now she was going to finish the job. She held his head in both hands like a child holding a large apple. Her fangs sank into the top of his skull with a cracking sound. She smiled at me as she chewed his scalp and hair. Then she put her lips to the hole in his scalp and sucked his brains out. She made wet slurping sounds as she hollowed out his cranium. I tried to vomit but the well was dry. I dry heaved several times into the wastebasket. I could hear her cackling behind me as I did.
“I’m gonna eat your brains while you’re still alive!” she screamed gleefully. “If you had opened the door like a good boy it would have been a lot less painful. But now you’ve pissed me off and when I’m pissed off I just go berserk!” She took huge bites of Bill’s head and swallowed them whole. The crunching noise of teeth tearing through bone was unbearable. I had a feeling that Bill’s body would never be found.
As I was debating whether to barter with the bitch – body for soul, eat my body but let my soul take its predetermined path – I noticed the first hint of daylight in the eastern sky. As I noticed this, the bitch must have sensed my relief or her instincts told her it was time to go.
“Until we meet again, Sweetheart,” she cooed before vanishing, leaving behind nothing but a faint mist.
*
I haven’t been back to the blood bank since that night. They keep calling me to find out why I haven’t been to work. I don’t answer the phone. What could I possibly say to explain why I haven’t been to work? The police have left several messages as well. Apparently they would like to ask me a few questions regarding the disappearance of Bill. What am I going to tell them? What am I going to tell the court appointed psychiatrist when they arrest me for Bill’s murder?
There’s a knock on the door. It’s probably the police. Or did the bitch track me down? Is that horrible creature on my front porch right now morphing into something or someone that will prod me to invite her in? Maybe I should just open the door. I can’t go on living like this. My home is about to be foreclosed upon, my wife and son left me, I can’t sleep, I’m afraid to leave my house so I haven’t been working. Maybe death will be preferable to this existence. But do I really want to find out? God I hope it’s the police…