Monday, November 1, 2010

The Book of Sarah

It's me, Bob. Those mole kids are nuts. I really do not enjoy playing games with them. They cheat and they're crazy. I guess it comes from living so close to the noise from the rumbling subways your whole life. It's starting to get to me too. I lost that Yahtzee game. I lost big time. And they play for real. Hell, I don't have any money to give them. So I had to kick in extra mouthfuls (yeah, they expect whole mouthfuls!) of my blood. Now one of them's so hype he's bouncing off the walls and driving the rats into a frenzy. And the parents? They are absolutely no help at all. If you ask me, these mole people are a little too weird. They ain't blaming me for the little hype son of a bitch. Seems he's always hype. But what the hell am I supposed to do about the other one? I can't be climbing up to pull her down from the ceiling all the time! She digs her nails (claws?) in too God damned hard. I got my own troubles. And now that prisoner guy starts moaning and banging his head against the cinderblock wall all the time, 'cause he figures I'm going to need a feeding after giving those little brats all that blood and all. I tell him - No. Relax. It ain't my time of the month. But he won't listen. Shit, look at him. He just peed hisself. Can you imagine how crap like that smells to a vampire!? But I think all this racket is starting to wake up my brain and rattle things around a little. I'm remembering stuff. Turns out I was a prisoner in Rockview State Penitentiary. That's where 'Ole Sparky' the first electric chair in the U.S. lives. I'm not proud to tell you this, but I was supposed to be one of his customers. Seems I was on death row. I can't remember what for. Maybe that will come later. Well, actually I was a customer, but a not completely satisfied one, 'cause he did not do too good of a job. I was left all singed and frazzled up all right. But there was still a bit of kick in me. But do you think the management even cared? Hell no. Some guys. I think they must have been guards or something. Turned my twitching body over to a strange fella for some money. He dumped me in the back of a Studebaker I think it was and drove out to an old drafty gray stone barn in the country. I was jibber-jabbin'. I was trying to communicate, but I coulda sang the whole friggin' score of White Christmas to him for all the good it'd do. He did not listen to a single grunt, whistle or fart noise issuing from my drooling mouth. No sir. That strange son of a bitch just threw me down on the cold, dirt floor. Then he walked out and drove away. He didn't even close the barn door. Any kind of varmint coulda crawled in and got me. And back then, I wasn't quite so used to rats as I am now. So it got dark. I still could not coordinate my movements. The best I could come up with was a sort of Saint Vitus Dance on  the floor. Must of looked like Pee Wee Herman. There was this big heavy, trapdoor a little ways off. Somebody forced it open from the other side and it crashes down on the hard-packed dirt with a real solid thud. Then I hear these scary footsteps climbing up a squeaky, creaking wooden ladder. I could not turn my head all the way around, but out of the corner of my wildly gyrating eye, I see this sinister, hulking shadow steppin' out and comin' toward me. He (it?) sees me. He looks down and grins. He just grins. He don't say a thing. Then he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder. He trudges back to that trapdoor and we go down. Shit, folks must have heard me scream for miles around. Probably thought it was Big-Foot or the Windago like we called him in our area. But he didn't kill me. No, he did not do that. He transformed me. You know what he made me into. I do not have to tell you. After it was done,  he climbed up into the loft. Right near the edge.. right near this big, industrial wood chipper (which he had already turned on). The noise was deafening, 'specially to my newly minted vampire ears. I peek up. He don't say a word. He don't even look at me. He just stepps off and does a perfect feet-first dive right into the maw of that log shredding giant. He never even made a sound. And it took that thing a good seven seconds to finish him off. I heard they used that load of mulch to dress the apple trees they got growin' over by the courthouse. You ever see those trees? No, of couse you haven't. But if you did, you would know.