Bill the Vampire (The Tome of Bill, #1)

by Rick Gualtieri

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tried moving it around a bit inside my mouth. Yeah, I still had a tongue... OW! What the hell was that? I had a tongue a second ago, but I’m not so sure now. What the hell? Did someone stick a razor blade in my freaking mouth?

Oh, no. That can’t be right. Thud, thud. It can’t be. Please don’t let that be my heart that I’m hearing. Thud.

Or having a seizure. Thud. Or a goddamned brain aneurysm. Thu...

FUCK! Please start beating again. Pretty please. It’s not fair. I still have so many reasons to live. I was going to go out with Sheila. Well, okay, maybe. One of these days, certainly. Hell, I would have gotten to it eventually. You don’t just walk

move my tongue, too. Can dead people move their tongues? I don’t know. I haven’t Frenched too many corpses. Okay, this is starting to get a bit odd. Shouldn’t I be seeing a tunnel with a light at the end? Maybe I’ll see Grandma and Grandpa – hell, maybe even Elvis is waiting for me at the end of it. Not sure why he’d be, but whatever. Nope, nothing. No, that’s not quite true. Is that ... yes. I can feel my left arm now. Do dead people start getting sensation back? Hmm, I can’t move it much, but it feels like I’m lying on something soft. No, I’m not in my bed. It feels like carpet. Yep, definitely on a floor somewhere. It feels thick ... kinda like a ... oh, no ... a shag carpet. Either I’m stuck in a bad seventies’ flashback, or I’m at that... Loft! Oh, fuck! And with

remember where I am and how I got here. If I’m right about what’s going on, then a face full of dicks isn’t going to sound all

probably getting ahead of myself. Before I bore you with little things like, say, my death, I should probably fill you in on the basics first. How’s that sound? Good? Then let’s start over, shall we?

want to be formal with a dead guy. It’s a pretty cool name, if you ask me, although it did get a little annoying a few years ago when The Matrix came out. For a couple of months, I had to deal with every single person I know ending everything they said to me

Anyway, I’ve always liked how my initials spelled out WAR, kind of like W. Axl Rose, if a bit less cool, maybe. Although, since I go by “Bill” my friends have always pointed out that BAR might be a better acronym. I can’t really complain about that one either, since I might admit to spending a decent

in training, or even a normal Joe by day/superhero by night, but that would be stretching the

things, reality tends to be less exciting than what we would hope it would be. Here are the basics: I’m twenty-four, currently single, and with no real potential hopefuls in

especially since I’m not one hundred percent certain she’d be able to pick me out of a police lineup. Not that she has any reason to. It’s not like I’ve been stalking her these past few years. Sure, I know where she lives, what time she gets to work...

about that. Sometimes I get caught up in the moment. Where was I? Oh, yeah, the basics ... I’m twenty-four; I think I might have mentioned that already. I have short brown hair, brown eyes, glasses, am maybe an inch or two above average height, and about twenty ...

something to do with the fact that I probably look like someone who’d be right at home sitting around a D&D game (which I might admit to doing occasionally ... or every Sunday, whichever comes first).

like to think I’m a pretty smart guy. Maybe not MIT material (fucking elitist cocksuckers!), but I can hold my own in front of a dual monitor setup. Speaking of which, I work as a game programmer for Hopskotchgames.com. You’ve probably heard

made the company millions in online revenue. I dare say I got a nice little bonus on that one ... emphasis on little. Cheap bastards. But still, I can’t complain, at least not too much. I make more

benefits, and can work from home pretty much whenever I feel like it. Overall, there are far worse places to be employed. Don't get me wrong, though. The second I win the lottery, those guys can go fuck themselves sideways.

Brooklyn. I share it with my two aforementioned roomies, Ed and Tom. Ed is my partner in crime over at Hopskotchgames. He does graphic design for them, and we’ve partnered on more than a few of their top downloads. We met in college, and he's the one who got

lot of talent, but is absolutely the least passionate artist I have ever met. Life is one big “Meh!” to him. Some days I’m

to set him on fire and cut his balls off with a dull hacksaw to get a reaction out of him, not that I fantasize much about setting him on fire ... or his balls, ...

everyone I know, I’d vote him the most likely, in the next decade or so, to wind up in a twenty-room mansion with a hot trophy wife by his side. Tom’s all about the money. He works ov...

like a remora (in this case, attaching your lips firmly to their ass) and let them drag you up the ranks. He rounds that part out by also being an obsessive collector. His dad got him into it when

going in overdrive ever since. He’s got a storage bin back in Jersey, where we grew up, filled to the brim with comic books and action figures. That doesn’t even count the stuff he keeps locked

of them. Dude is a little psycho about it. I once repositioned his He-Man figure so it was giving it to Princess Leia doggy-style and you'd have thought I had poisoned his family. Shit, if I ever did poison his family, he'd

me. Not exactly Bruce Wayne, but then again, not a basket case still living at home with Mom and Dad either. My life is steady if a little dull: get up, get some work done, eat some food, then go

repeat until the weekend, when it’s more or less collect my paycheck, hang out with my friends, and bitch about the rest of the week. Someday I hope to get married, have a few k...

know how it is. My plan is a lot like anyone else's: maximize my good times, minimize my bad, and leave the larger stuff to people who give more of a shit than I do. Or at least that was the plan, but then I had to go and fuck it all up by dying.

me start by saying, fuck SoHo! Yeah, that’s what I said. I have never, ever had a good experience there. Every person I know who lives there is a douchebag. Every job interview I’ve ever had

food didn’t suck, the service sure as hell did. It is a place where the tragically hip go to die, and people with more fashion sense than brain cells gather like moths to a flame. So, I should have known better than to wind up at a party there. Even more so, I should’ve known the sweet piece of ass that invited me

another two years, was going to be old enough to legally jerk off to ... not that I would. Well, okay, talk to me in two years and we’ll see. Just don’t tell him I said that. As for Ed, he was holed up in his bedroom/home office. He was a little behind on the level design of a

me, myself, and I. I grabbed a couple of Egg McMuffins in the A.M. from the McDonalds on 86th Street, then jumped onto the R train to head into the city. I didn’t really have much of a plan. I figured I’d spend a few bucks, grab lunch, and then head back. Maybe I’d see if anyone was up for some bar

that don’t live and learn? The first part of my day went pretty much as expected. I popped into the Complete Strategist to grab a few new D&D minis – my current one just wasn’t doing justice to my High-Elf Battlemage – as well as a few new rule supplements that

their child’s college education. After that, I walked over to midtown and spent a little time at the Apple Store where, for about the hundredth time, I stood around debating the merits of buying myself an iPad and also, for the hundredth time, decided that maybe I’d hold off for now. Then I grabbed a few slices of pizza and headed down to the

wouldn’t have met her, and, well ... I’d still be alive. But you’re not here to catch the story about Bill, the guy who went home, met up with some friends, and then spent the rest of his Saturday night drunkenly arguing over who the hottest chick on Smallville was, are you? As I was saying, I went to grab the train back to Brooklyn.

waiting. That turned out to be a big mistake. The train took its sweet time, and I was just starting to tire of the perpetual stench of hobo urine when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Being a city resident, I reacted naturally. That is, I spun around quickly, sure I was about to get mugged and hoping to look intimidating enough

little thing staring back at me. She was no more than five-three, maybe a hundred and five soaking wet (excuse me while I consider the image of her soaking wet ... ah, yes. Quite nice), and totally smoking hot. She had medium-length blonde hair with green highlights,

give you something cliché here, like she was dressed all in black, or had an ominous air about her. But the truth is, she was a very good-looking, well-dressed woman. Outside of the fact that she was talking to me, there was nothing about her that was really screaming threat. Anyway, before

undressing her with my eyes), I said, “Sorry about that. You just surprised me.” “Whatever,” she said, obviously nonplussed with my answer. “Have a light?” “I don’t smoke.” Were people even allowed to do

can do,” I said as I brought my watch up to my face, being careful not to take my eyes off her. I had heard on CNN a few years back that some gang members did this to distract a person so they could slash them with a razor. Okay, she didn’t exactly look like a gang-banger per se, but still, best to be careful. She apparently noticed my paranoia because she smirked in return. “About one-thirty,”

conscious. “Thank you.” And, well, that was it. She stepped back and went into that thousand-yard stare mode that is so common of people waiting for a train. And yet, I couldn't help but feel like she was still giving me the once-over out of the corner of her eye. However, I dismissed the feeling as nothing more than wishful thinking. After all, what straight guy didn’t

about the “that was it” part. It was just “it” for the platform. Turns out “it” started up again when the train pulled in and we got on. The last car was fairly empty, and the few of us there had the luxury of being able to sit without being too close to each other. Just to be on the safe side, though, I grabbed a corner

swell, I could at least take comfort knowing I wouldn't wind up the meat in some smelly, weekend commuter sandwich. If you're thinking that I'm next going to tell you how my stripper “friend” (definitely a stripper – a model probably wouldn't have said a word

for a moment, I made myself a promise a long time ago that, in my next life, I was going to come back hot. Not just attractive, but Johnny Depp-like (as every woman I have ever known will testify), women's panties will get moist if I even look in their direction hot. Call me shallow, but I don't give a damn what anyone else thinks. The world has so many more

sat down next to me, immediately grabbed my shopping bag with no more than a quick, “So whatcha got there?” and started rifling through it. Forget the ugly beasts of the world – if even