The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

"There are eyes around me," the man said in the corner, his back turned in fetal position, rocking back and forth. "I can feel them. Can you? Can you feel their gaze? It's like, the hunter breathing down your neck, waiting to strike when you least expect. But I am always ready. Oh yes, I am."

Bill looked at the man, questionably.

"Who's looking?" He braved a moment and asked.

"Them, the ones in the walls," the man lowered his ranting to a whisper so soft they might have been lost to the world in the dusty air. "And they have ears you know, the walls. They can hear. And what if? What if they could speak? Oh, the horrors they have seen the torments they must know! And only I know their secrets. I know what hides behind them, with a thousand eyes breathing like a hungry beast liking its famished jaws. To know what I would drive one mad!"

Bill need not reply, hoping his silence would answer the remark well enough. The mans' wiry hair like that of a sick animal, this stench of urine and sweat, this man was truly crazy. Yet, beneath the rambling and raving, there seemed to birth some fact. Bill too had felt the eyes upon him. And things in this place, this asylum, were never what they seemed

"What do you know?" Bill asked the almost skeletal man.

The mans' frail figure shuddered at the thought.

"Things best not be spoken," he insisted. "Macabre dreams only those damned to hell could conger, and for one as, innocent, as your mind so clearly is, I'd wish not to taint it with such horrid thoughts."

"But I must know," Bill pressed. "I've heard things at night behind the walls, and have felt the eyes, just like you've said."

"No," the man shock his head in disapproval. "You think me made don't you?"

"No I,"

"You lie. And if not, then you would. These things are not for the faint, not for the ignorant, and not for the infidel."

"But I'm not. I do believe."

"In hell?"

Bill, lowered his head, and sighed.

"Yes. I've been there before."

"Maybe," the man said, his body growing still. "Things here are not what they should. And you say you are ready?"

"Yes."

Slowly, the man turned around, keeping his head tucked between his legs. The apron the nurses gave him did little to cover his exposed penis, sticking to the cold tile floor. Then the man raised his arms, revealing crusted blood caked to his inner elbows. His chest too was sown in gore. Finally, he raised his head, and to Bill's horror, he had removed his eyes. Claw marks and flesh had been dredged around his sockets, exposing dried wounds that lead inside his skull.

"I can see," he started. "Free of taint. Things are not as they should Bill, and now, I see only truth."

“I like toast.”

“What?”

“With Jelly”

“You bring me to a fancy coffee shop, make me pay almost ten bucks for a one cup of coffee that you haven’t even touched, and all you have to say is ‘I like toast’?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Oh, with jelly.”

“How is this helping me? How is this going to help me find a wife when all I’m doing is listening to you complain about toast?”

“Two things: one, I didn’t say I was finding anyone a wife, I’d never wish that on anyone. And second, I merrily commented while sipping my maple nut mocha chino with three sugars, four creams, that I like toast. Do you have any idea how hard it was to make toast when I was alive? We had to make a fire from sticks and rocks, then put a pan to burn, grind the wheat into flour, mix the batted, and bake the bread long before we could even think of toasting it. And don’t get me started on butter. You people have it so easy with your, pre-sliced loaves, and your toaster ovens. All you have to go is drop a slice in the toaster, slab on some butter and BOOM! Your tummy’s full.”

“You don’t look a day over twenty five, god why me.”

“Hey now, I’m just training. But Fredric ’ll do.”

“I know your name!”

“Why do you keep looking over your shoulder?”

“That guy.”

“What about him?”

“He keeps staring at me.”

“You are whispering into thin air.”

“He’s creepy.”

“He’s sipping his coffee.”

“Yeah, and staring at me.”

“No offence, but you’re not all that much to look at.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, you are all skinny and flat chested. And you’re totally a guy.”

“For all you know he could be some gay homicidal maniac looking for his next hunk of fresh meat!”

“No he isn’t.”

“How would you know?”

“Hello, intern angel here!”

“Okay fine. Then why is he staring?”

“You remind him of his third cousin Frank who died tragically in a horse accident one night in September while he was working late with his wife Lydia in there gift shop they own just two blocks from Jeffrey Lane selling old porcelain lighthouses Lydia’s grandfather makes at home now that he’s retired from the navy in which he proudly served about ten years.”

“Okay I get the point.”

“Oh, and his ex-wife.”

“How?”

“You look like her. All skinny and flat chested.”

“I hate you.”

“I like strawberry jelly.”