Yesteryear Fiction

The Vampire's Blog
By Robert E. Petras


The Vampire's Blog

Jan. 2. A tremendous amount of myth, misinformation and exaggeration about vampires has been disseminated throughout the centuries, but, to tell you the truth, we are just as human as any other person upon this planet; we are simply more in touch with our inner animals.

Take Darwin, for instance, he has half the world’s population convinced they have descended from apes. If conclusion jumping were an Olympic event, old Darwin would have been a gold medalist. Had he not been so ape shit over apes, Darwin would have surmised that in addition to primates, homo sapiens had also evolved from bears, cats, wolves, sheep, goats and just anything that has two breasts.

The will to survive is the strongest instinct in nature. It is so strong that when threatened with extinction one species will sacrifice half its genes by breeding with another closely related species and lesser relations in some isolated cases. This phenomenon has been documented by scientists, the most recent a hybrid offspring between a black bear and a grizzly.

Only one period existed when the world’s population of mammals was low enough for such crossbreeding to occur, and Noah’s lot was a horny bunch, family members having sex with the aforementioned beasts. And, yes, some sicko even banged a bat. That’s where I enter the picture.

If you look closely enough, you can see traces of humans’ animal ancestors in their faces. We vampires are pale, thinly framed, dark- haired and ebony- eyed, angular in the face. If you look just a little closer you will see our ears have retained the slightest bit of point at the top. We cannot fly, read minds or transmogrify. But more on that later.

To a perfect world, Morta.

Along the sidebar, Morta inserted pictures of four different people, with a caption reading: “Match the photo with the names—Goat Face, Sheep Shank, Skunk Head, Gorilla Chest.”


The Vampire’s Blog

Jan. 9 We vampires have a great sense of humor. I believe this characteristic has contributed many of the myths and misconceptions regarding my ilk.

We possess only one so-called supernatural power—the ability to become invisible and completely silent for short periods of time, in reality, only a few minutes and change. This ability is no more than blending in with the ambience like a chameleon while telepathically communicating to one or a few people, who see and hear nothing out of the ordinary. To tell you the truth, this transmission is not telepathy, but a high state of concentration. Then—poof—we materialize out of nowhere, scaring the shit out of them.

This stunt is always a two-knee slapper, but I have become disciplined enough to have my cell camera ready to capture these precious moments. I can’t help laughing whenever I peruse my photo album.

Laughter is truly the best medicine, and we definitely as a society need more laughs.

To a perfect world, Morta.


The Vampire’s Blog

Jan. 19 We vampires eat and drink and even smoke as normal humans do; we just become a little gassy. Tobacco smoke exits the old exhaust pipe, if you know what I mean. Smoking allows us to produce special effects for some of our best practical jokes, and one can’t go against one’s nature in Darwinian law.

This past Halloween, my wife Stella and I attended a costume party, dressed (as what else?) vampires. Our exposed skin was all-aglitter, our eyes golden-brown from special contact lens.

It was the party at which we met Goat Face and his wife Missy. Their powdered skin also glittered under the festive orange and purple lights adorning the American Legion hall. We hit it off immediately and pretended to be a popular movie family.

I observed Goat Face use his cell phone to call the hostess of this event to page over the bandstand microphone Phil McCracken. She called out in a nasal, whiney voice, “Phil M-crack-en, Phil M-crack-en.” Her message produced a great peal of laughter from the 200 or so attending the event. The witch’s face under the black conical hat blushed deep scarlet when she finally caught on to the prank.

That Goat Face, he surely had a great sense of humor, even when people were telling him to put on a mask. I knew he would appreciate a good stunt in return.

To a perfect world, Morta.


Along the sidebar, Morta had inserted pictures of Vampire Goat Face and the embarrassed witch hostess.


The Vampire’s Blog

Feb. 2 Goat Face and I hit it off like Ragu and meatballs. Both of us being men of science with a passion for fun and adventure, we decided to advance our budding relationship with bass fishing at the Ohio River.

I was only a sit-down, six-pack, doughball-and-carp fisherman, but Goat Face was what I would call an “angler.” His rods and reels were of the latest technology, and his tackle box exploded with lures, flies and plastic creepy-crawly things of every color.

“The largemouth bass is ten times more a predator than a shark,” Goat Face said as we plunked surface baits across the glassy water. “Twitch your lure so that it resembles a wounded minnow.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“For one thing,” he said, “pursuing wounded prey requires less expenditure of energy, and, secondly, a predator weeds the feeble and unfit so that they do not pass their inferior genes onto successive generations—genes that could eventually eradicate entire populations.”

Using this knowledge and Goat Face’s instructions, I caught what they say in fishin’ vernacular “a truckload of smallies,” but nothing like the five-pound smallmouth bass landed by my friend.

By twitching the life force out of a top-water emerald shiner replica, I was hoping to capture the monster predator’s first cousin when I happened to glance at my Nikes. No more than three inches from my Air Jordans lay the largest black snake I had ever seen. Had I jumped any higher my kind would need to evolve wings.

Playful Pan was doubled over, howling with laughter. The blacksnake consisted only of rubber, as I later learned, but was enough for my inner rodent to poop his pants.

“Good one,” I said, nodding. “I’ll get even someday.”

To a perfect world, Morta.


Displayed along the sidebar was a stringer-full of smallmouth bass and the minnow-like lures Morta had used to catch them and below this photo was one of Goat Face proudly holding his five-pound fish.




The Vampire’s Blog

Feb. 12 The perfect ambience I had to await. Finally, the gloomy, foggy evening I had so desired arrived. Bedecked in an old Halloween Count Dracula costume, I inhaled a half-pack of Marlboros while awaiting to accost Goat Face on his ritualistic evening stroll through a lonely neighborhood park.

A dirt walking track encircled a sandlot ball field, dimly illuminated by one amber street lamp, its soft glow yielding enough light to cast eerie dappled shadows that pulsed in a pagan waltz. A metal chain dangling from a flagpole rattled like ghostly chimes.

Then I heard his brute footsteps approach, becoming louder and louder; thus I concentrated, willing my mind blank, emitting only the telepathic thoughts of invisibility. I could hear every pebble crunched beneath those awkward footfalls, every coarse breath becoming heavier and heavier, the beating of his primal heart.

Puff!

I billowed the smoke and then leaped out, arms stretched overhead. “Good evening,” I said in my best Dracula imitation.

The manner Goat Face screamed, you would have thought he just saw Boris Karloff’s ghost. I had enough presence of mind to snap a photo of Goat Face’s countenance in utter terror before I howled with laughter.

“You son of a bitch,” Goat Face cried as I removed the plastic fangs and the black widow’s peak wig.

“I told you I would get even,” I said.

“I yield to the master,” he said and then knelt upon the dirt track, raising his arms up and down while repeating, “I am not worthy.”

And that’s when I bit him, weeding this inferior being from existence.

A true predator does not allow waste. I fed and fed and felt the rapture only my kind knows to exist.

To a perfect world, Morta.


In the sidebar appears a photo of Goat Face, eyes and mouth wide, gray hair hackled, and, below, a self-portrait of Morta in Count Dracula attire and makeup.


The Vampire’s Blog

Feb. 26 To this day, walking amongst us are aberrations of nature, descendents of beasts who have passed their diseases and inferiorities through the centuries. They are weak in mind, body and spirit and must be eliminated to achieve a more perfect world—Godlike, war and disease free. Someday my race, as well, will face the threat of extinction, for there will remain no one to eliminate or upon which to feed. But the instinct for the species to survive is the strongest instinct of all; so we shall see.

For now, I must eliminate the progeny of playful Pan. His wife bears no trace of an atavistic beast, but their seven offspring bear the sire’s loathsome genes.

To a perfect world, Morta.


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Petras is a graduate of West Liberty State College and has had short stories published in a wide range of genres for more than three decades, most recently literary pieces with RIVER WIND and HOWLS AND PUSHYCATS