THE BLEEDS: A VAMPIRE STORY

THE BLEEDS
On human blood the vampire feeds,
Fulfilling his abnormal needs,
Souls transformed into vampire seeds,
They prowl the night and spread the bleeds.

By Mike Colin
Reportor,
Human News Nuts

Last week I went down state to Mt. Pleasant Michigan, home of Central Michigan University. I went down after my old buddy Lenny (The Bleeder) Devine called me up and insisted he needed my help to solve some big problem he had regarding his girlfriend. He made me promise to drive down to Mt. Pleasant as soon as I could and meet him at Burger King. We used to call him “The Bleeder” because he used to get nose bleeds all the time. I figured his fingernails were too long and scratched up the inside of his nasal cavity. He of course denied his finger ever went into his nose.

I met Lenny at the Burger King which was just off the I-75 overpass in Mt. Pleasant. We each had a coffee and talked about the great year the CMU Chips football team was having. The Chips ended up taking the national championship in the MAC division.

After some football small talk, I asked Lenny why he wanted me to drop everything and drive down to Mt. Pleasant. I wondered if there was some big blowout party he wanted me to come down to. Lenny informed me that he had stopped socializing with anyone at the college. He even stopped going to class. I told him that he was stupid and he was going to flunk out of school and end up a bum like me. Lenny insisted that he had a much bigger problem than his social life or in even getting his degree.

“You see Mike,” Lenny was nearly crying as he spoke, “I’m turning into a vampire and I need you to help me destroy myself before it is too late.”

I immediately thought that Lenny had just come from happy hour at The Green Spot. “That’s hard for me to believe,” I said. “What proof do you have that you’re turning into a vampire?”

“You don’t believe me,” he sobbed. “I’ll show you at my place.” Lenny got up from the table and we both went outside to our cars.

Lenny got into his car and I followed him to his house. Lenny’s dad owned a car dealership and was really rich. Lenny appreciated nice cars and was driving a new Aston Martin just like James Bond. I was a bit disappointed that Lenny didn’t notice that I was driving a Jag. Of course it was a Jag my girlfriend gave me before she flew off to Cancun with a bunch of guys.

Lenny had a large ranch house and we walked right into it. He hadn’t even locked the door when he left and that was a bad idea in that town. If you leave your door unlocked in a college town then when you get back there might be a bunch of people you don’t know partying inside. Lenny’s house seemed empty of people except, someone seemed to be moaning in one of the bedrooms down the hall. I started toward the room with Lenny behind me. Lenny didn’t try to stop me as I opened up the door to the room where the moans were coming from. The room had almost no light inside with the only window in the room entirely covered with black, heavy tarps. Lenny entered the room behind me and immediately shut the door. The only light in the room was a night light on the wall. I reached for the light switch but it was completely covered with duct tape so it could not be switched on.

On a bed was Lenny’s old girlfriend Sandra. Her hair had turned completely grey. She was white as a sheet and she tossed and turned constantly. She was squeezing her eyes tightly closed as though she was avoiding someone shinning a flashlight directly into her face. Sandra seemed to be struggling to get up but, it was as though there were some invisible shield that was holding her down on the bed.

“What the heck is wrong with Sandra?” I asked. “Is she having some kind of fit?’

“It’s still daylight outside and she can’t get up,” Lenny explained. “Even in here she can feel the heat of the sun. We’ve got to do something. In a few minutes it will be dark and she has already changed. Soon she will rise up off the bed and be an unstoppable feeding machine. But, I can’t destroy. I made her into this monster. I made her a vampire. My own bloodlust got the better of me a few days ago and I bit her on the neck and drank her blood until her heart had no more blood to pump and she died. Lenny had tears coming from his eyes and he started stomping on the floor. “Lenny was starting to become really emotional. He was flinching and squeezing his fists like he was having some kind of emotional breakdown.

I asked him “how in the world is she a vampire and yet you are not? You’re not telling me something Lenny. In fact I don’t believe she is a vampire. I think this is just a hoax you and Sandra are pulling on me.” I then reached over to the black tarps covering the window and tore them down with one big jerk. I looked out the window as the setting sun came pouring into the room. Sandra screamed and I looked back at her only to see a plume of smoke rising from the bed and an outline of ashes where Sandra had laid.

Lenny just stood there looking at where his girlfriend had been laying. He didn’t seem upset that Sandra was gone. He stood still with no emotion showing on his face. He actually seemed a little bit at peace. “Well,” he said,” I’m glad we got this over with. I couldn’t destroy her myself but, if you hadn’t she would be at our jugulars right about now and we’d both be members of the living dead club.”

“I still don’t get it Lenny,” I said, “how is it that Sandra was made into a vampire by a non vampire like yourself? You’re clearly not a vampire or else you would have blown up in the sunlight too.”

Lenny looked at me and said in the calmest voice he had used since I met him in the Burger King “Let’s go out in the living room, fix a stiff drink and sit down. Nothing I tell you is going to change what’s happened. I’ve got to end up like poor Sandra or else I’ll be cursed to be a bloodsucking monster. Since you’re going to eventually do me in I think you need to know the whole story from the beginning.”

Lenny and I went out into his living room. There was a wet bar there and Lenny poured a half a glass of bourbon for each of us. We both sat down and Lenny took a long, hard drink of whiskey. I took a sip of mine. I didn’t want to get too drunk yet until I had found out what was going on. It was dark outside. I expected that any moment some bloodsucker would come running through the house and rip open my neck with a pair of fangs. I guess I’ve just seen too many vampire movies.

Lenny looked at his empty glass of whisky then; he looked me right in the eye and began his story. “Sandra and I had been all the way downtown that night. It was a Friday night so all the bars were pretty wild and we had hit most of them. Maybe we hit all of them. I was pretty well out of it and so was she. We got onto the old railroad tracks and were walking back to the Towers. That’s the dorm complex where Sandra is a RA or, resident assistant this year. She was so happy to get that job. She interviewed for two years until they finally gave it to her.

Well, we walked along about two miles and finally got to the north end of campus. The Towers were still a ways off at the south end. We didn’t care since we were each trying to show off by balancing on one of the rails of the track. We each laughed as neither of us could walk more than a couple of steps without falling off. It was a good thing a train never came along because we were laughing so loud we never would have heard it.

Sandra was a few steps ahead of me when she stared up at the sky behind me and said ‘Lenny, look up there. See it. It looks like a bunch of giant bat people flying in a “V” shape, like a flock of ducks.’

I laughed and turned around thinking she was just pulling my chair but, as I turned around a giant bat fell on top of me and knocked me to the ground. I didn’t feel much except like a pin prick in my neck. I do remember the awful smelly breath of the thing. That’s all I remember because I passed out.”

The next day I woke up about noon. I was in my bed here at the house. The first person I saw was Sandra. When she saw I was awake she ‘How are you feeling Lenny?’

‘I feel o.k.’ I responded. ‘I’m not quite sure what happened?”

‘It was awful Lenny,’ Sandra sat down on my bed and picked up my hand and laid it between her own soft hands. ‘I thought that thing was going to kill you. I ran back to the towers and came back with help but the bat creature was gone. You were laying on the tracks and you wouldn’t stop bleeding the blood just kept oozing out of you neck. I wanted to call the paramedics but he guys who were with me were afraid the cops might want to launch an investigation and do blood tests on you to see what was in your system. I couldn’t remember what all we did last night and you were still breathing so we decided to bring you back here. “

‘Thanks for looking out for me Sandra,’ I said. “I can always count on you to do the right thing. I’m feeling really tired now. I think I’ll just sleep some more.’ I remember rolling over on my side falling into a dream state right away. It was a horrible dream and I saw blood spurting all over my room. I could taste the metal flavor that blood has. It was sickening at first but, then I started to like the flavor. I liked the warmth of the fresh blood. It was like mothers milk to me. I never wanted to dream to end. I wanted to stay there in my ecstasy forever.”

“But it did end,” I interrupted Lenny because the guy was going on and on too much and I didn’t think he’d ever get to the point. “What happened when you woke up?” I asked.

“Oh I woke up alright.” Lenny answered,” I woke up to find all the blood spraying and tasting wasn’t really a dream. On the floor beside my bed was the lifeless, blood drained body of my best friend in the whole world. Sandra was laying there white as a sheet, just like she was when you saw her. Only, she wasn’t moving. She wasn’t moving at all. She was dead. She was white and, cold and, dead.”

I figured I must have become a vampire and I had to be destroyed. So, I sat in front of the window with the sunlight blazing on me and the only thing that happened was that I became a little bit tanner. I then started thinking that because I had lost so much blood maybe some of the vampire virus was lost out of me. I had assumed it was a virus based on my class in human anatomy. I’m a natural bleeder so when I bleed I bleed a lot. I decided that I needed to bleed some more in order to stop from becoming a full fledged vampire. I read in the University paper that there was a blood drive going on at the university center so I went over there to be drained. Afterwards, I felt great, that is I felt more like a normal human being. Since then I’ve been going to every blood bank I can find and getting as much diseased blood drained away as I can.”

I shook my head and looked at Lenny and said “So you’ve invented a way of not becoming a vampire even if you’ve been bitten. You just bleed yourself to get rid of enough infected blood so that you don’t change. I guess you’d call the disease and the procedure ‘the bleeds’. You know there is a problem with your going around and having your vampire blood drained away at blood banks. You see your blood could be infecting hundreds of other people. By infecting the blood banks, you could be creating an army of vampires. Who knows? There could be dozens of vampires running around outside right now.”

Lenny looked me strait in the eye and said “I never wanted to hurt anybody. I never wanted to attack Sandra and make her one of the undead. She was a beautiful girl”
Lenny started to cry. Guys like Lenny don’t usually cry unless they’ve had way too much to drink. Lenny was in a really bad way. He killed his own girlfriend, turned lots of innocent people into vampires to save his own backside and was now probably realizing that this was not going to end well for him.

I decided that I had to say something. I had to come up with a plan or else just sit there while Lenny bawled and wait for the guy to turn into a vampire and open up my jugular vein like it was a can of beer. I said to Lenny “Hey Lenny, I have a plan. I’m going to go over to the hardware store and get the strongest chains I can find and bring them back here along with some heavy duty locks. I’ll then chain you up in front of your porch sliding door that faces east so that if you do turn, and I mean only if you do turn by tomorrow morning, we’ll be ready so that you won’t have to remain one of the living dead forever. There should be enough light coming through the glass in the door to vaporize you quickly so you won’t suffer.”

Lenny stopped crying and looked at me with an air of bewilderment and said, “You mean you’re going to kill me. Why couldn’t I just keep bleeding myself? I suppose I wouldn’t have to go to a blood bank to get bleed out enough to stop from becoming a full fledged vampire. What if you stayed here and helped me bleed out a little each day. You know, just enough to keep me human.”

I sighed and said “You know that is a bad idea. Sooner or later something will go wrong and you’ll become a vampire anyway. We won’t drain enough blood or the procedure might just stop working after a while. Besides, once people find out that your blood could make them immortal a lot of rich people will be coming here, trying to get infected and when they do they will just create more vampires. You have to be destroyed just like Sandra had to be destroyed. You know that there is no other way.”

Then Lenny sighed and said, “I guess you’re right. Who wouldn’t want to live forever even if it means only coming out at night and having to drink blood. Hurry back from the hardware store Mike. It’s going to be dark soon and I don’t want to change into one of those things. I’d probably end up killing you and you’re the best friend I have.”

“I’ll be back,” I said trying to mimic the Terminator. Lenny smiled at my impersonation. That was good to see. That was the first time he smiled since I met him at the Burger King.

It took me two hours to get the chain and locks. My gas tank was on empty so I had to get gas or else risk running out before I could get the chains back to Lenny’s. After I got gas I didn’t have enough money to buy the chains and locks at the hardware store. I don’t have a credit card so I had to hunt down an ATM machine. I had a hard time finding an ATM machine that did not charge me a huge fee for using it. Once I got the chains and some really tough paddle locks, I went through the drive through at Burger King and then I headed strait back to Lenny’s house. Unfortunately it was past sundown. I just hoped Lenny hadn’t changed into a vampire yet.

When I turned the corner and could see Lennys place I noticed three big beautiful road hogs parked in the driveway. I parked at the curb so the road hog warriors could pull out and leave. I left my chains and locks in the car. I did not want to let Lenny’s company become suspicious when I dragged in the heavy chains from the trunk of my car. I was wondering how I would convince the bikers to leave when I got to the door. I was about ready to ring the doorbell when the door was flung open by Lenny and he motioned me into the house.

We went into the living room and there I confronted the bikers. They were three of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. One was a blond, one was a brunette and the other was a red head. I thought to myself poor Lenny. He has these three gorgeous girls over and he has to send them away so I can chain him up incase he becomes a vampire. I decided it wouldn’t hurt to introduce myself before we kicked them out. I figured that after Lenny was turned into a pile of pot ash the girls and I could console each other over the loss of our mutual friend.

I began with the line I always use when I meet new girls, “hello, my name is Mike. Who are you beautiful ladies?”

The blond woman spoke first saying,” My name is Josephine and these are my two best friends, Miranda and Mary and we already know all about you Mike Colin. You have some heavy chains and paddle locks in your car to chain down your best friend Lenny so he can be burnt to a cinder when the sun comes up tomorrow. You’re not very nice for a best friend now are you?” The girls started toward me like they were closing in on a rack of lamb.

“You girls are vampires,” I exclaimed. I had a feeling of real dread come over me. My heart felt like it had fallen into my shoes and I wanted to back out of the room and run away but I found myself just backing up into a wall. I had no escape. “Lenny,” I shouted, “can you help me please. I only wanted to help. You asked for my help. Don’t tell me you’ve already changed?”

“I’m afraid I have changed into a vampire Mike,” Lenny answered. “These girls are over two hundred years old and could somehow tell where I was and when I had changed. They just showed up on their road hogs. They asked me to go to Cancun with them for the winter. I’m going to Cancun to party with others of my kind. I’ve decided to live forever as a vampire. Giving up sunlight for immortality seems like a no brainer to me. What about you Mike? Do you want to become one of us?

The brunette said,”I think Mike is kind of cute. I’ll let you ride with me all the way down to Mexico sweetie. My hog is big enough for both of us. There are a lot of nice places to stay at on the way south. A lot of hotels have vampire sweets set up for us just to get our business. They have nice mahogany coffins for us to stay in during the daylight hours. They even have the coffins lined with dirt from a graveyard to make our sleep all the more peaceful.” I then noticed that the brunette had already been drinking that evening. A little drip of blood ran down from the corner of her lips. The thought of having to drink blood all the time to survive made it easy for me to decide not to want to become a vampire.

“I don’t want to become a vampire,” I said. “I want to live out my life as a normal human and enjoy the days as well as the nights. Just let me be and I’ll just go home and not say anything about you to anyone.”

The brunette leaned into my face. She was so close I could smell blood on her breath. “You’d better keep quiet about us North boy. If anybody finds out that we even exist then I’m coming up to Traverse City to get you. You understand me, North boy?”

“Yes I do” I replied, “I might write about you on a blog but nobody ever reads those things. Your secret is safe with me. No one will ever know that you guys even exist.”

“Let’s go girls,” Lenny said as he turned and walked outside to the bikes with the girls following behind him. Lenny got on the bike with the blond and tore off out of the place with the brunette and red head following close behind.

Because of the blood donations Lenny made, there could be hundreds of vampires running around Mt. Pleasant. I was not going to wait around that town until I ran into one so I got into my car and drove right back home.

I feel kind of like I wasted my time going down to Mt. pleasant to help Lenny out. I did burn his girlfriend up with sunlight but, I did not stop Lenny from becoming a vampire. I did learn that many vampires head down to Cancun in the winter time. They must go down there to wait for all that fresh young blood that heads down there for spring break. Spring break in Cancun must be a regular smorgasbord of blood; so I can’t imagine Lenny choosing to go down there and suck down all that gory red stuff. He was always so squeamish. Lenny never wanted to eat the worm at the bottom of a bottle of tequila.

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