“But I haven’t seen him in years,” I continued. My urine trickled down my pants’ legs from the puddle that had gathered at my crotch. Everything continued to tilt and oscillate from the blow and dart’s drug. A smidgen of blood leaked from one corner of my lips. I licked it under the intense scrutiny of my captors, their pale faces leering at me. I drew my knees up to my chest despite the flow of the trapped liquid that it caused, wrapping my arms around my knees. A dim ringing in my ears did not seem to be abating. There was silence except for a tinny unintelligible voice that leaked from the truck’s cab, barely perceptible over the wind. My eyes grew wide as I spotted a yellow glow in the distance as if hundreds of fires were burning off to our north east.
Following my gaze, the blond said, “We’ll be in good ol’ suck city St. Louis soon enough. Then the General can decide whether or not he believes you. Either way you’ll probably end up as somebody’s tasty treat.” His eyes brightened. “I haven’t tasted wild blood in a long time.”
“You like that city too much,” the vamp at the tailgate said. “Pretty soon you’ll just be another soft bastard living off farmed blood.”
“Oh, shut up.” A momentary silence fell over the group in which I concentrated on breathing in deeply and out slowly as the pain in my head fell to a dull ache. The blond’s burst of violence had faded and with it his interest in me.
“I was born in St. Louis,” he said. “I’ve lived here my entire life, if you want to call it that.” The other vampires were looking away from him, their eyes had glazed over, and their jaws gone slack. He stared into distances of both space and time as he spoke; looking right through me, over the wide white road we drove down and beyond the countryside behind me. Automobiles of all types littered the shoulders of the highway, most sitting on rusting axles, or on flattened tires cracked and dried from baking in the summer heat, but the road’s lanes had been cleared. In many places the cars had been simply pushed off the road into ditches or piled together so that a man could scarcely walk between them. Here and there all that remained of a stretch of cars were their blackened burnt out husks, metal burnt to a golden stripped sheen, and their plastic interiors melted into hills and valleys that looked as if they’d been shaped by the rain. Overhead the stars had dimmed somewhat, and wispy clouds floated here and there, but I could still see a broad expanse of the night sky, and the stars told me that we were moving northeast at a fast clip.
The vampire continued speaking though no one listened, he didn’t seem to be speaking to anyone in particular but at the same time he didn’t seem to talk to himself either. Instead the cadence of his voice suggested that he was speaking by rote, repeating words he’d spoken many times before, words that he felt compelled to repeat again and again as some sort of reassuring mantra.
“I went to St. Louis University High. Shit, those were the days. If I’d have known then what I know now, hell, if I’d have known that then I’d have shit my pants and I’d still have no idea what to do. All I mean is those days were something. Had me a thunderbird. Dad told me I could get whatever car I wanted as long as I paid for it myself and I did. I mowed grass, roofed, shoveled snow. I did it all and then some, but it was worth it when I came blowing into that hot dusty parking lot in august, engine roaring and tires skidding. Damn, you’ve got to be a Sir to maintain a car like that these days, not enough mechanics around. Got a girl that year too, Jenny was her name. Curly blonde hair and red pouting lips. Back then it was exciting just to sit in the car and kiss her. That didn’t last long.” He chuckled weakly his eyes crinkling. “I married her straight out of high school and went to work at the Bud plant. You can’t even find Budweiser around here anymore. It’s all cleaned out except for maybe a hidden stash stewing in some musty fridge somewhere. Dad didn’t want me to get married, didn’t want me to work at the plant. I told him I didn’t have the grades to go to college, but he was adamant that I could have at least gone to community college or become a welder or something. I needed cash though. Jenny got pregnant right away. Everything was so rushed. It seemed to rush right up to our baby girl’s second birthday and then it settled down into a boring rhythm. Day after day I drove a forklift loading trucks with kegs, the creak of the shocks as the lift dropped onto the trailer and that flat sound of its metal wheels on the wooden floorboards were my soundtrack. There was beer at work and then more beer at home. It wasn’t so bad now that I think about it, but it sure wore you down.”
That’s when the crazy times began. The news didn’t know what to make of it, terrorism, or disease. A disease that allows you to live forever. Then the infighting began amongst the army. Mom and dad packed up their RV and got out of town. I haven’t seen em since. Jenny and I stayed. We needed the money. I had to work as long as I could. I was one of the few to stay at the Bud
