Who Knew?

2nd Place Winner in the January 2004 round of

ID: 377129   (Rated: 13+) The Stake & Garlic Vampire Contest  Write about vampires! :-) by Jenn

using the following prompt:
Everyone knows that a person who is bitten by a vampire will become one. But, this month, I want to read stories about people who become vampires in ways other than the usual. Choose an obscure method of vampirism and write a story about it.

Who Knew?

         You hear people talking about fate all the time, but let me, Jack Sepet, tell you, life is made up of nothing more than sequences of timing, either for good or bad.

         Like a guy's walking across the street, minding his own business, going with the light and all, when a ten dollar bill blows right up against his shin. Cool. He bends over to pick it up and SPLAT! -- a furniture delivery truck plants its front grill in the guy's ass and that's all she wrote.

         Or a gal decides to cheat just once on her husband. He's out of town, so he'll never know, right? She can't know that he had a flat on the way to the airport, missed his flight, had to rebook for the next day, and caught every traffic light on green as he returned home in time to find her with her feet pointing to the ceiling, toes curled in climax, squealing like a deflating bagpipe as the pool boy grunts and thrusts to completion. Ah, the smell of chlorine in the morning!

         On the good-timing side of the coin, a pimp dressed in a suit the color of an over-ripe plum, wearing a wide-brimmed fedora with a yellow feather waving from the hatband gets a call from one of his girls while standing in line to buy five-hundred bucks worth of lottery tickets. He steps aside to take care of business, and the little old lady behind him, surviving on her Social Security check of four-hundred and eighty bucks a month by supplementing her diet with Alpo, unfolds a wrinkled dollar bill from her coin purse and purchases one ticket that will bring her twenty-seven million dollars after the numbered ping-pong balls fall into place come Friday.

         Nothing but timing, see?

         So, I wasn't surprised that night after my shift as a Dallas Police Detective ended, and I squatted in the back aisle of the Stop 'N' Shop convenience store scanning the shelves for a can of chicken noodle soup, to hear the bell over the front door tinkle, followed by an anxious voice exclaiming, "Gimme the money! Gimme the fuckin' money!"

         The store clerk rattled off something in a heavy accent I assumed was the Iranian equivalent of "By-Allah's-almighty-ass-do-not-hurt-me!"

         Cautiously peeking between the boxes of tampons on the top shelf, I saw the would-be robber: Black, fourteen or fifteen years old, nervous as a guy being circumcised by a doctor with severe Parkinson's Disease.

         What timing. The little shit decides to pull a robbery while there's a cop in the store. If he carried a weapon, it was hidden from my sight. Drawing my service revolver from its shoulder holster, I leveled it at the kid's narrow back and yelled, "Police! Freeze!"

         He didn't freeze. Instead, he looked like one of those first motion pictures, where the action is all jerky and out of sync. He looked at me, he looked at the money the clerk held in trembling fingers, he snatched the bills, looked at me again, then hauled ass, body-slamming the door and disappearing into the night. I couldn't risk a shot without endangering the clerk, so I gave chase, cursing the kid for making me run. The thirty extra pounds I carried around my waist, compliments of thousands of donuts consumed during my twenty year career, bounced as I ran. It would, of necessity, be a short chase.

         I bolted from the store and just caught a glimpse of the kid high-tailing it into the alleyway beside the building. Stomping along behind him, I turned the corner and aimed at him again. "Freeze, or I'll shoot, ya little bastard!" I yelled, knowing I wouldn't actually put a slug in the kid's back over the thirty or forty bucks he'd scored. He slowed not one bit. Then I realized that, held tightly in my other hand, was the can of soup I'd found just as the kid entered the store.

         What the hell. I reared back and flung the can as hard as I could. Mmmm! Mmmm! Good! I thought, as the can bounced off the kid's nappy-haired cranium and he stumbled to his hands and knees.

         Out of breath and wheezing, I collared the kid, yanked him to his feet, and shoved him face-first into the side of the building. Three times. Holstering my gun, I slipped my cuffs off my belt and clamped one around the kid's left wrist. As I wrestled with him to restrain his right hand, he twisted around suddenly, half facing me. The limited light glinted off metal, and the knife blade slipped unhampered between my ribs with an upward slant. Shit. Less than a week until retirement. Great timing.

         My two-hundred and fifty pounds hit the pavement all at once. I didn't crumple, sag, or fold -- I simply crashed, falling backward, cracking my head as it smacked the ground with a hollow thud that reverberated in my ears.

         The kid took off. Might as well -- he'd already killed me. Heart stuck, I felt the warm wetness pumping out of my chest, saturating my shirt and cascading down my side to form a lake beside me. As my vision clouded, I thought the large green dumpster would be the last thing I ever saw. But then the cat came from the darkness and leaped onto my rapidly heaving chest. Missing one eye, its left ear a battle-ravaged stump, it lapped greedily at my blood. As my blood pressure dropped, and my eyes glazed, the icy fingers of death beckoned me to the other side. No bright light. No tunnel with dead friends and relatives welcomed me to paradise -- only inky nothingness.

         Whoa! My eyes snapped open and I sat up so abruptly my bifocals flew across the alley. Energy flowed through me in a palpable, frenzied, wave. Without conscious thought I reached out and grabbed the ugly cat around its middle with blurring speed. As the animal screeched and clawed, my other hand shot forward and effortlessly ripped its head from its body. Tilting my head back, I poured the cat's hot blood into my gaping mouth and gulped it down. When the flow ceased, I wrung the cat dry, catching every drop of its fluids on my tongue before lobbing the carcass up into the open dumpster for a perfect two-pointer.

         Then I was on my feet. Fingering aside my blood-soaked shirt, I saw no trace of the knife wound. "OK, now this is weird," I said aloud. I knew I wasn't dead or dreaming because I felt the wind on my face; the chill in the night air. My nose wrinkled and I stuck out my tongue as I fully realized I had just drunk a cat. Instead of feeling sickened, however, I felt wonderful. Strong -- like I felt as a teenager. Impervious. Indestructible. As an added bonus, I felt "Little Jack" spring to rigidity in my pants! I'd thought "Little Jack," due to my stress, age, and poor diet, had become only an instrument of urination. It was nice to have him return to his former glory. Very nice.

         Stooping to retrieve my glasses, I found one lens shattered and the other missing from the frame. Amazingly, however, my vision couldn't have been more clear. I tossed the broken eyeware over my shoulder and, taking a deep breath, I returned to the store to tell the clerk his money was gone. As soon as I stepped inside though, the clerk's eyes bulged; he emitted a girlish squeal, and ran to the back of the store. I heard a door slam and a bolt slide home. Then I caught a hazy, shimmering, reflection of myself in the finger-smudged glass of the door. No wonder he ran. Drenched with caking blood, and with cat hairs stuck to my chin, I wasn't a pretty sight. Shrugging, I ambled out to my car and headed home. Strange things were happening, but, as a detective, investigating was my business. I was sure I'd finger it all out.

         Fifteen minutes later I stood naked in the bathroom of my efficiency apartment (the residence a cop winds up with after four failed marriages) and peered into the mirror over the sink. My image was even more vague, as though seen through a layer of petroleum jelly, but still clear enough to see the new chalky pallor my flesh had attained, and the sharp, lengthened appearance of my canine teeth.

         There was no indication of the knife wound, nor of the puckered scar I'd carried in my left shoulder for nearly fifteen years after being shot by a speeding whore during a raid on a crack house. Looking down at my middle-aged body, I saw that even childhood scars resulting from bicycle accidents and falls from trees had disappeared.

         After taking a long, hot, shower, during which "Little Jack" (so named by one of my wives, ostensibly as an endearment rather than a description of size) bobbed his renewed need for attention and was summarily satisfied, I first tried to coax Glock, my ten-year-old Boston bulldog, from beneath the bed where he fled with a yelp as soon as I entered the apartment. He wasn't interested in the dog biscuit I waved at him. Instead, he kept his flat little butt pressed tightly against the wall, showed me his teeth, and emitted a deep, ominous, growl. He clearly didn't like the changes his master had undergone.

         The next order of business, after pulling on a pair of boxer shorts, was a visit to the all-knowing Internet. Don't get me wrong, with the evidence already at hand I was relatively certain that old Jack Sepet was now a vampire. I admit it: I watched "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" regularly and, after her cute little sister, Dawn, began exhibiting some interesting curves and protuberances, quite intently.

         As for believing in the reality of vampires, after my years in law enforcement, seeing the atrocities humans can inflict upon one another, the concept of the living dead paled in comparison.

         So, the question in my mind wasn't what I'd become, but rather how. I'd not been neck-chomped by a vampire, the standard, garden-variety method of joining the ranks of vampirism, so I searched the Internet for alternatives. Jeez. There were over a dozen lesser known possibilities, but only one that could account for my turning: having a cat or other animal jump over the corpse. Who knew? The one-eyed, stump-earred cat I'd supped on must have jumped over me right after life drained from my body. Again, a matter of timing. No cat, no jump when it did, and my cold, dead body would still be decorating the alley.

         As I went through my nightly ritual of preparing the coffee-maker, setting my alarm clock, and putting down fresh water for Glock, the little guy finally crept from beneath the bed and tagged along behind me, sniffing my legs. Although he was still not his usual bouncy self, and regarded me with wary glances, he did take his regular place beside me when I slipped into bed and clicked off the light.

         I dreamed of bacon frying, and the scent pleasured my senses, making my mouth water. Mixed with the pleasurable sensation, however, I felt an increasing discomfort in my buttocks. Mildly uncomfortable at first, the level of pain grew and grew until it was unbearable. I awoke, screaming. The only thing frying was my plump, white, ass! Scrambling from my bed, I slapped at my smoking butt and hippity-hopped away from the slash of sunlight pouring through a two inch opening in the window curtains. "Damn, damn, damn!" I hissed between clenched teeth, causing Glock to again scuttle beneath the bed.

         Sizzling gobbets of dripping fat fell to the carpet like wax from a candle as I hurried to the shower, got in, and directed a cold spray of water onto my scorched rear. Still, it did smell vaguely of bacon. Fortunately, no sooner than I'd put out the fire and gently patted myself dry with a towel, the muscle and flesh began to regenerate. In the few minutes it took me to draw the curtains, turn off the clock before the alarm engaged, and drink my first cup of coffee, the wound was completely healed. So much for working the day shift, I mused.

         I called in sick and, simultaneously, requested a transfer to night duty for my final week. There should be no problem, as there was a waiting list of detectives who desired the daylight hours.

         Hunger gnawed at my gut like a dog gnaws an old shoe. But, after experimenting with a slice of toast and a scrambled egg -- that were immediately jettisoned back up my throat -- I realized that my food eating days were over. I'd save a bundle on groceries. I also realized that the cat's blood had not completely satisfied my hunger. It seemed obvious that human blood was going to replace donuts on my menu.

         Carefully avoiding the direct sunlight, I let Glock out the sliding glass door at the back of my apartment into the small enclosed courtyard where he did his morning business, as I sipped another cup of coffee while I pondered my options and devised a vampire code of ethics. It was a short list:

         1. Feed from no innocent.
         2. Use my new powers to make life even more miserable for the bad elements of society.
         3. In a semi-Robin Hood manner, steal from the cash-flush bad guys and stash away money to supplement my woefully inadequate public servant retirement benefits.

         After all, so far as I knew, I was virtually immortal. Retirement could last a long time. As for the bad guys, I knew the major players in town -- as did any experienced cop -- and where to find them. With the new strength I felt flowing through me I would need no backup, no Kevlar vest, no warrants, no evidence -- no rules. A cop's dream -- to be able to go after the crooks with impunity.

         Under the safety of darkness, I drove to one of the most crime-ridden areas of town, where just being white was an invitation to get killed. I took a pleasant stroll down a few alleys until the inevitable happened, and two men stepped from the shadows a few yards ahead of me. Although dark, my night vision was superb, and I instantly recognized both men as members of a brutal, drug-dealing, Chinese gang.

         The taller of the two men, Chang, lit a cigarette with a match, then flipped the match toward me. "You're in the wrong place at the right time," he said, grinning. "Hand over your wallet, fat man."

         I patted by protruding belly and chuckled. "Not at all, boys. I'm in the right place at the right time. Supper time. And I fancy a little Chinese food tonight."

         The pair exchanged a quick glance and, via some unspoken communication, they attacked, whirling and yelling, exhibiting some of that martial arts crappola. Chang's right foot swung toward the side of my head, but I saw everything as though it were in slow motion. I grabbed his foot, easily snapped the ankle, and shoved him away. The other guy aimed a straight punch at my heart. I caught his fist in mine and squeezed until it sounded like a bowl of Rice Crispies being introduced to milk. Snap, crackle, pop. He screamed, but I held his crushed hand and yanked him toward me. Encircling his neck with my other arm, I drew him close and sank my teeth into his neck. Oh, he fought, but I drank my fill of him before twisting his head around backward with a satisfying crunch.

         Chang, standing on his uninjured foot, leaned against the wall, his face a mask of terror. "Please," he said, "don't hurt me."

         I stepped within reach of him. "You're out on bond, aren't you, Chang? Did the little girl you raped beg you not to hurt her? Did that stop you?"

         His look of terror became one of confusion when he heard his name. "Who are you, man? Cop? You can't hurt me. I got rights!"

         "You sure do. You have the right to remain silent . . . forever," I said, grabbing a handful of his shoulder-length hair and ripping it from his scalp with a soft, sucking sound. Before he could scream, I was on him, tasting his blood gush down my throat. Another snapped neck, and I let him fall.

         "One from column one, and one from column two," I joked to myself as I headed for home, feeling the power of the blood course through me.

         My final week on the job went quickly, and I spent as much time as possible researching certain bad guys. The ones who didn't prowl the alleys, but the ones with mansions in respectable parts of town -- the ones with the money -- those were to be my targets. On my last night I received a cheap, gold-plated, pocket watch from the city, and a nice .357 Magnum revolver in a mahogany, purple-velvet-lined display case from my buddies. I declined the ritual party at a topless joint, claiming I already had other plans. That didn't stop my friends from celebrating without me. Hangovers would be the order of the day come morning.

         My first target, I decided, would be Jose Herrera, a Mexican immigrant involved in running drugs across the border for distribution, prostitution, illegal, high-stakes gambling enterprises that changed locations one step ahead of the law, and the smuggling of van loads of aliens into this country from Mexico. Several such loads of human cargo, people who scraped and saved the several thousand dollars each to pay Herrera or others like him, had been found left in out-of-the-way locations, with heavy padlocks on the trailer doors, in the heat of summer, with no food or water. Of the hundred and thirty people found in one such trailer after being locked in the dark and stench for a week, twenty-eight were dead -- among them seven children. The survivors were patched up and put on buses back to Mexico, their dreams of a better life in America turned to hideous nightmares.

         Herrera, however, had never been directly linked by viable evidence to any of the crimes. Even should evidence eventually be discovered, his team of highly-paid lawyers would see that the career criminal never spent a day in jail.

         Thanks to a one-eyed cat's wonderful timing, and a middle-aged, tubby vampire, however, Herrera's life was about to undergo a drastic turn for the worse.

         My research into Herrera indicated that he was unmarried and childless, so I was unlikely to come across any "innocents" when I put my plan into play. Plus, my senses were heightened to such an extent that, by scent alone, I could determine how many people occupied a particular place, their gender, and even approximate age. As I did a slow drive-by of Herrera's walled estate, I sensed the presence of five humans, all male, and all adults.

         It was a nice little shack -- a two-storied, cream-colored, multiple-balconied home of probably eight-thousand square feet, with a six car garage, nestled on two manicured acres of land in the most prestigious part of Dallas. The property was listed in city tax appraisal records with a value in excess of six million dollars. Who says crime doesn't pay? Herrera's neighbors were the cream of Dallas society.

         A ten-foot high wall of brick surrounded the entire estate, with the exception of a heavy metal gate protecting the entry. Beside the driveway outside the gate stood an intercom unit complete with a video relay to the house. Visitors must first be identified before someone inside opened the gate with a remote control. Security cameras spaced at twenty foot intervals lined the top of the walls, slowly rotating back and forth, scanning the outside world in search of intruders. People like Herrera made many enemies.

         My plan was simple: get inside, find Herrera, have him give me all of the illegally acquired cash he had laying around the house, and leave. I didn't try to hide my face with a mask because I had no intention of leaving any potential witnesses alive.

         Parking my six-year-old Chevrolet several blocks from Herrera's compound, I took full advantage of some of my new powers -- speed and an unearthly agility. I ran the distance to the southern wall of the estate in seconds and skittered up and over the wall like a spider, dropping lightly to the grass beyond. No lights flashed on, and no alarms rang out. As I suspected, just as my mirror now cast no reflection back at me, neither would the security cameras be able to detect my image.

         I sensed the presence of three warm bodies downstairs, and two upstairs. Taking the direct approach, I walked to the front door, steadied myself, and planted my size eleven shoe just below the lock with a solid kick. Whoa! The result even surprised me. The heavy, deadbolt lock ripped away from the frame, the door crashed inward, and very nearly broke away from the hinges on the opposite side. Easy enough.

         I had time to take in the magnificently marbled entry foyer, the enormous crystal chandelier, and the ornate, winding staircase before three high caliber slugs thudded into my chest, knocking me backward a step. Ouch.

         The biggest Mexican guy I'd ever seen, well over six foot tall, and as wide as a double-door refrigerator stood, feet spread, aiming a fully automatic Uzi in my direction. His heavy brow wrinkled downward as if trying to figure out why the first three round burst hadn't put me down. I stifled a pretend yawn with the fingers of my right hand and asked, "That the best you can do, Pancho?"

         Chittering some gibberish in Spanish, he let go with another three rounds which whizzed through the space I'd been occupying when he pulled the trigger. By then, however, I was standing beside him. Yanking the weapon from his hands, I turned the barrel on him and shoved the gun through his massive chest. Disbelief widened his eyes and he dropped to the marble floor, dead as a . . . well . . . dead as a big old Mexican guy with an Uzi planted in him where his heart should be.

         Two more guards, armed with revolvers, slid around a corner into the room and laid down lead in my direction. Ho Hum. Their heads got all warped and disfigured when I whacked them together three or four times, turning their brains to oatmeal. Three down.

         From upstairs, I heard more of the, "Macarini? Frejoles e enchilada, que mamacita! Hasta casa noche el puta??!!" yammering which, had I seen it in print would surely have a bunch of those little accent marks and upside-down question mark thingies. If they're gonna live in America they should fucking talk American, I thought, as I dashed up the staircase.

         A solitary guard, armed with a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun, stood in front of a closed door. Sweat rolled down his forehead like the river he'd probably swum across to get here. His first shot exploded, shredding my left forearm and really pissing me off. For kicks, I curled back my upper lip and showed him my vampire teeth while attempting to bring that crazy/spooky Bela Lugosi look to my eyes. It must have been effective, because his next shot went wild over my head. He dropped the shotgun, grasped the small crucifix dangling from his neck by a gold chain, had a hurried conversation with God, and wet himself.

         "Adios," I told him as I ripped out his throat and tossed it aside. I checked my watch then, certain that a silent alarm must have been set off either when I entered the house, or by one of the dead guards. Not wanting to take a chance on my old friend "timing," I noted that I had been in the place only four minutes.

         The door the guard died protecting was, of course, locked. Another kick, another busted door. A lavishly appointed bedroom, with more frills and pastels than one would expect for a murdering bastard like Herrera, lay before me. I thought I understood, then, why Herrera was unmarried.

         My nose led me to a an enormous walk-in closet, where I found Herrera cowering behind a row of thousand dollar suits. I grabbed the collar of his lavender, silk, pajamas and yanked him to his feet. "I'm here for the money, Herrera. Where is it?"

         "Money? I keep no money here. Only what's in my wallet," he said, trying his best to sound truthful.

         I ripped his left ear from his head with a sound like two pieces of Velcro separating. He clamped his hand to the bloody orifice and called me a few names in Spanish. I waved the ear in front of his eyes and pinched his other ear between my fingers. "The money, asshole."

         He was tough, I'll give him that. He pressed his lips tightly together and shook his head. More Velcro sounds. Another ear forfeited. He whimpered when I caught his nose between the knuckles of my index and middle fingers, and his resolve evaporated. "Here," he whined, pressing a button behind the suit rack. A hidden door slid open, revealing a small room. Whoa! It resembled a bank vault. Stacks of banded currency lined three sides of the room, neatly stacked on three-tiered shelves.

         Herrera tried to pull away, seeing how distracted I was, but I pulled him back and tore at his exposed neck with my teeth. I drank until he slumped in my grasp, then added another broken neck to my record. His blood was delicate, with a fruity taste. Or maybe that was just my imagination after seeing his frou-frou decorated bedroom.

         Helping myself to the lavender sheets from his bed, I scooped the banded bills into the centers, folded the corners together, and slung the weighty load over my left shoulder, noting that my injured forearm was as good as new.

         As I drove away, the first police cruiser passed me with colored lights flashing and siren blasting. Timing.

         Back at my apartment, I took Glock for a short, but productive, walk before I set about counting the money. The bands contained twenties, fifties, and hundred dollar denominations -- five-thousand dollars to a band. One-thousand and eighty tidy little bundles. Five million, four-hundred thousand dollars. Whoa!

         Within three months after my sizable withdrawal from the Last National Bank of Herrera, I visited the other criminals on my list. My bankroll became healthier with each strike. I traded in my apartment for a modest, but nice, home with a large fenced yard for Glock, and replaced my old car with a new van. Nothing conspicuous. I also made many anonymous cash contributions to a host of charities.

         Crime in Dallas, of anything larger than occasional small robberies and random homicides, plunged to an all-time low.

         Personally, my weight dropped to that of my college days, about one-eighty; every wrinkle acquired over my lifetime disappeared, and I never felt so good. I figured I could make trillions of dollars by offering to bite, and turn, every woman over the age of forty. On the other hand, who would want to bite a woman over forty? Thanks to my new, youthful, appearance, a shit-load of money, and Academy Award performances by "Little Jack," young women kept me busy.

         Realizing, however, that I couldn't be everywhere at once, I formulated a plan. Beginning with my police colleagues in Dallas who were nearing retirement, and who, like myself, had no family to speak of, I approached each with a proposition: let me turn you and, together, we could form a network of crime fighters. After showing them my renewed youth, and demonstrating my powers and skills, the ranks grew rapidly.

         We then cautiously spread the word to other cities, then states and, finally, countries. The International Society of Underground Crime Knights (I.S.U.C.K.), following my original vampire code of ethics, stunted crime around the globe. No serious criminal act went unpunished. No I.S.U.C.K. member went unfed.

         Timing is everything -- and it was time to give the world back to the good guys.

The End