“What can you buy with money? Does it buy you human blood?”

“Do not be silly. I have Ethan for that.”

“Ah, your pet.”

“My lover. My human lover.”

“And that is why you exist here, among prey.”

Continue reading A Vampire Clocks Out →

The waitress was cute, perky and most likely seeing someone on the weekends, not to mention busy as hell during her shift, sapping all of Ethan’s courage to strike up a real conversation. Probably wasn’t worth the trouble anyways, lest she use her charm to sell him more drinks and empty his wallet. She began to walk over to him a third time, so he had to give her the “five more minutes” sign again. Once he saw her discontent, no matter how much she tried to hide it, he impulsively pointed to the picture of the dark porter on the menu, which seemed to ease the concerns on her face about a large enough bill that would justify a large enough tip. Just keep everyone happy, Ethan thought to himself.

He checked his watch, and it had been twenty minutes since he was able to sit down at a table for six in a bar that was soon to become crowded with the Friday evening rush. So Ethan, ever the good co-worker, volunteered to get the table and hold it for everyone until they finished their last-minute work upstairs. He tried to look busy and not at all lonely sitting at a large table by tapping away on his phone. He even made sure to type with both hands and stare intently at the screen with serious, narrowed eyes to look like it was work, even if it was really just the daily sudoku puzzle.

He had nearly figured out where to put the last two sevens just when a figure cast a shadow on his table. Ethan looked up to greet his first beer of the night, but it wasn’t the waitress standing over his table. The figure hovering over him was that of a shorter woman in casual, non-waitress clothes, staring curiously at his phone as if she’d never seen one before. He didn’t look hard enough just yet, only catching the sense of fascination in her eyes.

She was cute. Creepy, though. He smiled nonetheless.

“How’re you doing?” he said. Continue reading A Vampire Takes a Selfie →