Chapter 1: The Clinton Administration Vampire'Pants' sat up. Her body trembled from the cold. It was hard to think, and she was a little numb. It was taking a while to get her bearings. She looked to the right. A table. With someone asleep on it. No - not asleep. A body. And… lockers. There were lockers?

  She looked down at what she was wearing. Nothing but a white sheet over her naked body. Disturbing. But it was only when she saw the tag on her foot that she screamed.

  “Good. You’re awake,” said a voice from the next room over.

  Now it was coming back to her. The kidnapping. The van. The fear. The knife. The pain. And as she was bleeding to death, she heard a struggle, and the st thing she remembered was bcking out. And then… nothing.

  She thought she died. She should have died. Now she was in a morgue. Wait. She was in a morgue?

  A man in his early twenties, the same age as her, with long hair in a ponytail and wearing a denim jacket emerged from the other room, carrying a bit of cloth in his left hand. She was confused. She remembered the man that attacked her as being short haired, and a lot taller.

  “Stay away!” she yelled, grasping the sheet to her body.

  “Okay,” the man responded. “Should I just toss you this hospital gown, then? It’s not much. But it’s something. For now, anyway. I’d ask how you were feeling, but you were just kidnapped and murdered and now you’re probably looking around trying to figure out where you are, what happened, all of that. Oh, by the way, I’m not the guy who murdered you. Well, not… the first time, anyway. That’d be a guy we’re calling the Stalker. He got away.”

  The man rubbed his jaw.

  “He had a hell of a right hook.”

  “First time?...” she said, then trailed off. She was still trying to get her bearings, but her bearings seemed to be slippery little buggers this particur evening, and despite her best efforts, those pesky bearings had, so far, eluded her grasp. And she was not feeling well at all.

  “Yeah, you’ve had a shock to the system,” said the man, leaving the hospital gown on a nearby chair. It had the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada logo on it. “And you’re probably still feeling a little drunk. Stay right there, I’ll get you something for that.”

  ‘Drunk?’ She hadn’t had any alcohol st night.

  The man left the room, and when he did, Pants jumped off the sb, grabbed the gown, and threw it on herself as quickly as she could. When he came back, he was carrying what looked to be two blood transfusion bags. And he was… sipping from one of them.

  Pants immediately revolted. “Ew! What are you doing?”

  The man shrugged.

  “I love these things. They’re like big Capri-Suns. Don’t worry, I got one for you too. Didn’t know what you like so I went with O negative. Universal donor.”

  She froze. Was this guy also a kidnapper? A re-kidnapper? Kidnapper-adjacent?

  The man snapped his fingers in realization.

  “Oh, right, I knew there was something I forgot to tell you. You were bleeding to death, so, uh, rather than let you completely die, I turned you into a vampire. So you probably still feel a little drunk. As in, I drunk you. Sorry. ”

  The man looked around at the morgue, and pointed at a ptop on a rolling medical cart.

  “Ooh, that’s new! Didn’t have those st time I was here. Love these little gadgets they keep coming up with.”

  Pants took three steps back.

  “You’re crazy.”

  The man thought about it for a second.

  “Probably not. Though if I was crazy, how would I know if I was? You know, I’ve been meaning to see a therapist, but it’s very difficult to get one that works night shifts.”

  The man turned to her, and slowly, as if not to startle her, left the unopened blood transfusion bag on a table, then backed off.

  “Do me a favor and take a sniff of that.”

  “What?”

  “Please. Humor me.”

  She didn’t want to, of course. But ‘don’t piss off the kidnapper’ was probably the best course of action to stay healthy and more or less intact. So, she took hold of the bag, pinched open the top, and took a sniff of it.

  It was orgasmic. And before she knew what the hell she was doing, she had started downing the entire contents of the bag, at once feeling calmer, warmer, less on edge. When she realized what she had done, she opened her eyes wide, and immediately backed up, tripped over her own feet and continued to crawl backwards into the corner of the morgue.

  “Holy shit!” she excimed.

  “Yeah, you never forget your first time,” said the man...

  …No. Said the vampire!

  “You… you turned me into a… into a…”

  The vampire with the long hair and the denim jacket shrugged.

  “Vampire, yes. Again. Sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “Really didn’t have much of a choice. If it makes you feel any better, you were already mostly dead to begin with.”

  She looked at her hands, and saw how pale they were. Though, to be fair, she always looked pale under fluorescent lighting, so that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

  “Am… I’m going to be like this forever?”

  The vampire tilted his head and thought for a second.

  “No, no, I give you, like, maybe a month, tops.”

  “Then, what? Will I go back to normal?”

  The vampire grimaced.

  “Oh, no, then you’ll probably just be regur dead. Unless you want to, you know, start drinking the blood of the living, secure your own life against the life of others…”

  “No.”

  The vampire, surprisingly, sat down next to her, getting on her level, leaning against the morgue wall.

  “Yeah, I get that. It does get a little disgusting. People don’t seem to wash their necks these days. I always keep a little packet of handi-wipes with me, just in case. Anyway, I needed to talk to you, and if you’re completely dead, I can’t do that, hence the whole making you into a child of darkness thing.”

  “Talk to me? About what?” said Pants.

  “About the guy who killed you. You’re the first eyewitness I’ve got.”

  “Is he a vampire?”

  The vampire scratched the back of his head in thought.

  “Maybe. I hope not. I hope he’s just a run-of-the-mill serial killer. But if he is or he isn’t, I mean, he’s sorta shitting where I eat, so I want to stop him before too many people notice all the pretty girls that have gone missing or been found dead.”

  Pants curled up into the fetal position, unable to process any of this.

  “So, uh, I get you’ve just died and came back as one of the undead - hell of a thing - but, well, what do you say we team up and get this bastard?” said the vampire. “I mean, if you’re going to go out early, you should at least take out the other guy with you.”

  “God, I… I can’t wrap my head around this. Vampires aren’t real. They don’t exist!”

  The vampire reached over and pinched her nose.

  “Honk,” said the vampire, and shrugged. “Did that not seem real to you?”

  Pants gred at the vampire, who seemed to be awfully casual about this whole thing.

  “Considering Dracu just gave me a nose honk, I’d say that that’s pretty compelling evidence that I’m hallucinating.”

  “I’m not Dracu,” said the vampire.

  “Then who are you?”

  “They call me… Caleb Tryst.”

  Despite her fear and shock, or perhaps even because of it, she had to snicker at that.

  “Caleb Tryst?” The stupidity of the vampire’s name was just enough to ground her. And when she finally found a grip on an emotion that wasn’t pure horror, she held onto it for dear life.

  “Yes…” said Caleb.

  “That’s… wow, that’s a hell of a name, especially for a vampire. It’s like… oh my god… that’s like a vampire’s drag name.”

  “Shut up,” said Caleb, and scowled. Pants had hit a nerve.

  “No, I’m not letting this go. Caleb Tryst? Why not ‘Amir Amore’? ‘Nox Turnal’? ‘Zayn Zexy?’ ‘Senna Guinne?’”

  “I had to come up with a name, okay. I couldn’t keep using my old name, because the old me was legally dead, and I… I was like, if I’m going to be a vampire, I’m going to be a cool vampire.”

  “‘Caleb Tryst’ is not cool,” said Pants.

  “I admit, ‘Senna Guinne’ is actually better,” said Caleb. “What about you, what do they call you?”

  “Pants.”

  “Oh ho!” ughed Caleb. “Who’s got a stupid name now?”

  Pants sighed.

  “My high school gave out email addresses for assignments. They used the first letter of our first names, and the first four letters of our st name. Patricia Antsel became Pants. Couldn’t get them to change it. Nickname just stuck.”

  “I knew a guy named William Horewitz who would have really hated your school’s IT admin. Well, Pants, since you’re the only lead I’ve got on tracking this guy down, it looks like we’re partners for the time being.” expined Caleb.

  “Wait. So if you’re not Dracu, are Dracu and you like, reted, or…”

  “Dracu’s fiction. At least I think he’s fiction. No, it’s just me.” said Caleb.

  “Are you, like, old? Like a… vampire elder or something?” asked Pants.

  “I’m one of the oldest vampires you’ll ever meet. Other than my sire, who fucked off and never told me his name, I’ve never met any older.”

  “Really? When… When did you become a vampire?”

  “In the year of our lord… nineteen ninety eight.”

  Pants put her hands on her hips and looked at Caleb incredulously.

  “I don’t know what to tell you!” said Caleb. “I'm the only Clinton Administration vampire I know. Almost every vampire I’ve run into has been from the 2000s or ter. There were just like, a handful of us, then sometime around 2008 or 2009, boom, all of a sudden, there were just a shit-ton of vampires. I don’t know where they all come from. I really don’t care, I just… want to unlive my unlife, you know?”

  Well, thought Pants, that expined the denim jacket.

  ***

  Sneaking out of the morgue was retively easy - Caleb expined that he put the guard to sleep.

  “Using your vampire powers?” asked Pants.

  “If by vampire powers, you mean a syringe full of ketamine, sure,” replied Caleb.

  “Oh,” said Pants.

  “You sound disappointed,” said Caleb.

  “I guess we should get out of here first. Then you can expin the rules,” said Pants.

  “The rules?” asked Caleb.

  “You know. The rules.”

  Caleb looked at Pants bnkly, then headed to an old beat up 1998 Toyota Camry.

  “This is our ride. Hold up. Door can get a little tricky.”

  Caleb headed into the driver’s side, which was unlocked, unlocked the passenger side door, and motioned for Pants to get in.

  She raised an eyebrow as she got in. “Clever.”

  “What is?” said Caleb.

  “Passenger door only unlocks from the driver’s side. So you can trap your victims in.”

  Caleb looked at Pants and blinked.

  “Pants, I know we just met, and I know you’re trying to be clever, but don’t make assumptions. I had to open the door from the driver’s side because I don’t have the key.”

  “You don’t have the key to your own–” Pants looked at the steering column. The ignition was missing. The car was hotwired.

  “Pants, I don’t even have a valid licence. Buckle up.”

  ***

  The vampire drove from the hospital to a small, run-down industrial park in the outskirts of Crk County, Nevada, and Caleb stopped the car.

  “Mi casa es su casa,” said Caleb. “Pardon the mess, I don’t have guests. Like, ever.”

  Pants looked around when she got out of the car. This was triggering all her red fgs. Don’t get a ride from a strange man, to… judging by the amount of undergrowth, an abandoned industrial park. But she had followed all the rules and ended up murdered anyway, and she guessed she was a vampire now. Or something. Still, no one wants to get murdered twice in the same night, so she was wary.

  “How do I know I can trust you?” she asked.

  “You can’t.” said Caleb. “You don’t. You shouldn’t. On the other hand, I have a Nintendo, and pying a little Tetris might help you chill out a bit.”

  “Tetris?”

  “I read an article once that pying Tetris helps people deal with traumatic experiences. You, Pants, are in shock. You’ve got many good reasons to be in shock.”

  “How can you tell I’m in shock?”

  “Because you’re not screaming. C’mon in.”

  Caleb opened up the door - this time he did have a key, and held the door open for Pants, who tentatively stepped in.

  The vampire wasn’t lying when he said that he hadn’t cleaned. Clothing was strewn everywhere, there was a bare mattress on the floor, and a beat up old couch. He also wasn’t lying about the Nintendo, hooked up to the old CRT television. There were also, Pants noticed, no windows of any kind.

  “Up to you. Debrief me on your murderer? Py some Tetris? Turn in early? Find some clothes in the clean pile that might fit?”

  “The clean pile?”

  Caleb gestured towards a pile of clothing in a undry basket that had neither been folded nor organized.

  “I don’t suppose you have a dress in there, do you?” Pants asked.

  “No.”

  Pants pored through the pile, picked out some jeans and a t-shirt, sniffed them - satisfied they didn’t smell like anything, she slipped on the pants under her hospital gown, then turned her back and put on the shirt. Only then did she stop to read it: ‘2023 Stanley Cup Champions: The Florida Panthers.‘

  “Hunh,” said Pants. “I was sure the Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup in 2023.”

  “They did. Most of my clothing is, shall we say, acquired on the cheap. A good source of cheap clothing is losing team championship merch.”

  Caleb sat on his mattress, and leaned his back up against the wall.

  “So, I got a good look at the attacker’s height and build, but I didn’t see his face. It’s a lot to ask, I know, but do you remember anything about him?”

  Pants tried to think back, but it was… difficult. Painful. She was waiting for her Uber, and then was grabbed from behind and dragged into a van. She saw the mask. Saw the serrated knife. But before she could scream, it came down and–

  Nope. Nothing. She didn’t think she died instantly - she remembered the pain, but it was if her memory just noped out of there. She tried to push through, but all she got was that his breath smelled. It smelled of…

  “I didn’t get to see his face either. But I… I remember two things. One, he was very strong. Two, his breath stank. I think it was garlic. I guess that rules out him being a vampire, hunh?”

  “No, not really,” said Caleb. “That’s all?”

  “That’s all,” sighed Pants.

  “Well, it’s more than I had, at least,” said Caleb.

  Pants thought he looked a little confused, and more than a little… regretful?

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I was hoping you’d have more information, that’s all,” said Caleb.

  “I don’t know. It’s foggy. Maybe something will come back to me? I mean, I was murdered tonight and–”

  That’s when it hit her. When the shock wore off and the pain and the realisation crept in that she had been killed. That she did everything right and still ended up a victim, and that it was not an instantaneous death at that. It was messy and terrifying, and painful and now she’s in a strange man’s pce, and she didn’t know what was going on with the whole vampire thing and it was all…

  Wordlessly, Caleb saw that Pants was spiraling, and gently guided her to a chair, turned on the TV, inserted the Tetris cartridge into the ancient 8-bit Nintendo machine, and turned it on. He then gently pced a controller into Pants’ hands, grabbed the bnket from his bed, pced it over Pants’ shoulders, and let her py.

  ***

  Pants woke up, though she had no memory of drifting off to sleep. She was lying on Caleb’s mattress – Caleb must have carried her there. Where was he?

  Oh. There he was. Like a big denim-wrapped lump, lying on the couch. He hadn’t even taken off his shoes.

  And then, the lump stirred. Caleb got up, stretched out without yawning, stretched his back, and nodded to Pants.

  “Evening, Pants. How are you feeling?”

  Pants had yet to ask herself that question, so she did a quick inventory. She wasn’t groggy, the way one normally is after waking up. Nor was she sore. She was a little hungry, though. She looked around, wondering if there was any cereal or anything for breakfast lying around.

  And then she realised that she wasn’t hungry for cereal.

  “I’m freaking out, Caleb.”

  “Ah, good. That is a very good indicator that you’ve still got your sanity. I had a pn about the Stalker, but it might require you to do some things you’re not going to want to do.”

  Pants looked hesitant.

  “Wait, shouldn’t you… shouldn’t you be expining the rules?”

  Caleb raised an eyebrow.

  “The rules to being a vampire?” she expined.

  “Oh. Yeah,” said Caleb. “You were mentioning something about them st night. Bad news. It gets complicated.”

  “Okay?”

  “There’s only one hard and fast rule as to what a vampire is. Vampires preserve their own life at the expense of the living. For damn near all of us, that means we drink blood. Others… have other ways of doing so, but it’s rare. Other than that, the ‘rules’,” Caleb said, emphasizing that word with finger quotes, “vary from vampire to vampire.”

  “They vary?”

  “Yeah, that’s why not even the fact that you smelled garlic on the Stalker’s breath helps narrow it down. Some vampires can eat food, even garlic. Some can’t. Some can go out into the sunlight. Some can’t. Some can for a short time, if they wear sunblock. Some…”

  Caleb groaned.

  “Some sparkle. Fucking sparklers. They’re fucking vacuous.”

  “Wait, so, ‘Twilight’ was based on a real vampire?”

  “Very unlikely,” said Caleb. “The sparklers started appearing after the books did.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “I mean it. The books came first. And then the movies. And then, the fucking sparklers. Of course, try telling one of them that, they won’t believe you. But I was there.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, it’s supernatural magical bullshit,” said Caleb. “By all rights, we should be dead. We shouldn’t be, you know, up, and moving. And if you try to reason about it, you just end up tying your brain in knots. The nearest I can figure, when a new vampire is created, the universe takes half the characteristics from the sire, and the other half from the popur zeitgeist of what the world thinks vampires are.”

  “So, I can… go out into the sunlight?”

  “I wouldn’t risk it,” said Caleb. “I can’t, which means there’s a really good chance you can’t. We’ll trim your nails and leave the clippings outside as an experiment, see what happens - if they burst into fme, I would say that’s a no-go.”

  “Oh. What about… powers?”

  “Yeah, they exist. I think you get more with age, I know a few tricks I could teach you.”

  “Like what?”

  “Taught myself how to turn into a bat,” said Caleb, proudly. “Might actually come in handy, if we’re attacked or something.”

  “I’d kinda like to see that,” said Pants.

  “Sure. Sit right there,” said Caleb. He then headed for the middle of the room, and stood up straight, with his hands at his sides.

  “Ready?”

  Pants nodded, and before her eyes, she saw Caleb transform. Where he once stood, now… there was a bat.

  A Louisville Slugger, to be specific. It banced on its end for a few moments before toppling over with a clunk-clumpk.

  Pants did not know how to react to that. On one hand - actual miracle transformation of dark magic and mastery of the powers of night! On the other… was this a pun? Was Caleb cursed somehow with some dark– oh, she did not believe she even thought this– some dark punishment and could only turn into this bat form?

  “That’s… funny?” asked Pants, who wasn’t quite sure if it was.

  Caleb the baseball bat just y there.

  “Caleb?”

  Pants looked around… she headed over to the bat, leaned over, and whispered to it.

  “Caleb?”

  But there was no response. Tentatively, she picked it up and held it in her arms.

  That was when Caleb chose to turn back to his normal form, ending up with him being involuntarily carried in Pants’ arms, with his hands around her shoulders for stability.

  “Hi there!”

  She dropped him.

  But not because she had to.

  “That was weird,” she said. “And you’re lighter than you look.”

  “I don’t have cable, so I have to make my own fun. Anyway, you learned three things, didn’t you?”

  “What three things?”

  “A - you can’t depend on stereotypes from horror movies and books when talking about what a vampire is capable of. B - even the weirdest tricks can sometimes come in handy in a survival situation. C - I’m not lighter than I look. You’re stronger than you’ve ever been. Physically, anyway. Was worried that it wouldn't get passed down.”

  Pants looked at her arms. They didn’t look stronger.

  “That’s important,” Caleb said. “Because you did mention that the guy who killed you was strong. Well, now you’ve got a better chance when you run into him again.”

  “You mean, if I run into him again.”

  “No, I mean, when. I don’t have any leads to track him down, so I figure that there’s a way to make him come to us.”

  “How?”

  Caleb looked at Pants.

  “Live bait. Well, semi-live, anyway.”

  “What? No!”

  “It makes sense. We know you fit the profile of the killer’s preferred victims. Some new clothes, some makeup, maybe some hair dye or a wig, and you could turn the tables on him really easily. Only this time, you’ll be able to drag him around.”

  “This seems dangerous.”

  “Ayup. Especially for you, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

  Pants frowned.

  “C’mon. What’s the worst that could happen? You get abducted and murdered again?” said Caleb. “You’re already dead and living on borrowed time.”

  “Wait, what?” said Pants.

  “As I said. I give you about a month. Blood bags and the occasional stray dog might keep you full, but they’re empty calories, at best. It’s life that keeps us up and moving. There’s no way to stay alive as a vampire unless you’re willing to steal the life force of others. That means drinking the blood of living, breathing people.”

  “Oh.”

  “And obviously you’re not going to go down that route. So yeah, I’m sorry, but this is kind of a temporary situation. As I said, I really just need you to track down this killer.”

  “So I’m going to die?”

  “Well, yeah. But hey, you got an extra month out of the deal. Most people don’t get that.”

  “I’m only 24,” said Pants.

  “I know,” said Caleb.

  “I don’t want to die,” said Pants.

  “No one does,” said Caleb.

  “No, I mean… can’t I–” she started, but Caleb held up a single finger and cut her off.

  “No. You can’t. Because if you do, then I have every person you eventually will kill, and yes, you will, on my conscience. I didn’t turn you because I got lonely, or needed a childe, or…”

  Caleb’s brow furrowed with frustration.

  “This isn’t like some sort of storybook vampire-boy turns girl they live spookily-ever-after thing. I didn’t turn you because I was lonely. Or because you were pretty. Or because I was just so guilt wracked and tormented. No, I turned you because I was preserving witness testimony. Which turned out to be very little help. Now you can help me find this guy and stop him from killing other people, and, more importantly for me, stop the police from looking too hard into disappearing people in the area, or you can spend your next month crying bloody tears into a pillow on an air mattress in this stupid industrial park, up to you, but I am not creating a monster. There are too many damn monsters already, the world doesn’t need another one.”

  Pants didn’t know what to say after that. But she knew her esteem of Caleb went way down after that. She kind of thought of him as a bit sweet and charming once the initial shock wore off; but now, she saw him for who he was. If he was sweet, it was to serve his agenda, if he was charming, it was only in the most superficial, predatory way.

  But if her options were really ‘get revenge’ and ‘feel sorry for herself,’ revenge did sound like the better of the two.

  “So, uh, what do we do now?” said Pants.

  “I guess we get you some decent clothing,” said Caleb. “Which means I’m going to have to do something I hate to do.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m going to have to talk to other vampires.”