“How have you been, Vlad?” Arnold kept his tone sympathetic
“I’m doing great.” Vlad’s voice, usually a rich baritone, came out almost wheezy.
“Are you sure? You look a little…ill.” He was being polite. Vlad looked terrible. His once-lustrous skin looked gray and sickly, and his face was drawn. He was a far cry from the plump, energetic aristocrat he had once been, and Arnold marveled at the change. They’d been such good friends at one time and spent years crashing weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, and bachelorette parties together. But Arnold had pulled himself together and matured, while Vlad had gone off the deep end. And now, Arnold could hardly stand to look at him. “Do you need a little pick-me-up?” he reached into his pocket and half pulled out a thin flask.
Vlad took two steps back and began shaking his head “no, no, none for me, thanks,” he said. “I’m doing Dry November.”
That explained a lot. Arnold couldn’t imagine doing Dry November. It might be the hip new thing, but it sounded like virtue signaling to him. “I don’t know why you do that to yourself,” he said, “I start getting irritable after a single night off, and I don’t think I’ve ever gone more than three in my life. What is it now, twenty-four nights for you?”
“It’ll be twenty-five tonight,” said Vlad, somewhat proudly, though he was swaying on his feet, and his eyes were glazed over. “You should try it with me sometime. You don’t really understand self-control until you have to deny yourself. And it’s so nice to get rid of the toxins that you carry around from feeding all the time. I just feel so cleansed, you know?” Vlad elongated every ‘so’ with irritating self-importance.
If there was one thing that rubbed Arnold the wrong way about Dry November, it was the moralizing evangelism. As if they were somehow higher beings because they managed to avoid draining so much as a squirrel for four weeks. Their smug superiority consistently clashed with their corpse-like visage. They were, of course, corpses but now looked more like dead corpses, wasting away into nothing. “I’ve always found that moderation feels better for me,” Arnold replied, somewhat testily. “I prefer drinking just the right amount each night, rather than going through those binge and purge cycles.”
Vlad, barely listening, carried on proselytizing, “It’s just that October is always so excessive, you know? Between Friday the 13th and Halloween, I really overindulged. I just woke up on November 1st and could still feel the hangover from the frat party that we raided the night before, and I thought, ‘I need to get control of this. I can’t just let the blood lust drive me all the time.’”
“But have you tried just drinking a little bit each night? Do you ever just sit down and share a hitchhiker with some friends? Life doesn’t have to be all frat parties, you know.”
“I know that, and I don’t do it all the time.” Vlad was beginning to sound defensive. “But it’s easy to get carried away. Like, two nights before Halloween, I tried to split this teenage runaway with my buddy Xavier, but I just got so excited that I drained him dry before he got his turn.”
“Dracula’s Cape, Vlad, a whole person? That would make me sick to my stomach.”
Vlad had the decency to look slightly embarrassed. “He was a small, skinny guy. Couldn’t have been much more than eighty pounds.”
Arnold simply looked at him.
“Well, maybe a hundred…well, like a hundred and forty. I know, I know,” Vlad continued, seeing the look on Arnold’s face. “I know it’s too much. I do. I just get carried away sometimes.”
‘Carried away’ didn’t even begin to describe Vlad. They had barely spoken in decades. Vlad’s addiction had gotten so bad that it was embarrassing even to be seen with him. The guys in Arnold’s feeding group still talked about Vlad’s antics at the annual HemogloBall thirty-four years before when he wound up swinging from the chandelier and spitting a full pint of AB+ down Kountess Kevorkian’s dress. Arnold would rather eat raw garlic than get involved with Vlad again.
But wasn’t he already involved? Vlad had been part of his brood since the early days. They’d been turned the same week, learned to hunt together, and he still felt this annoying affection for Vlad. “Why don’t you come out with me tonight?” he said, against his better judgment. “Demetrius knows a great corner to pick off prostitutes. We can take turns, like we used to when we were young, and ease you back into a more natural style of feeding.”
Vlad looked like he was considering for a moment before he answered. “No, thank you, but no. I need to finish out this month. I have to prove to myself that I can do it.”
Arnold sighed. “Ok, well, will you look me up when you finish? You can’t keep going down this road, man. I won’t watch you do that to yourself again.”
“Sure, don’t worry. I’ve got it all under control.” Vlad was distracted, his eyes darting around.
Arnold could see Vlad’s future spread out before him. He would finish his month and celebrate with something gratuitous like another frat party or a flophouse or a biker bar. He’d be back to his old ways within days, and eventually, whether it was a week or a month or a decade from now, Vlad would fall into a stupor after gorging himself and pass out in a windowed room before sunrise. Four hours later, he’d be a pile of dust in someone’s vacuum cleaner, and there was nothing Arnold could do about it.
Arnold had seen it happen before, and the best policy was to walk away before he got caught up in someone else’s self-destructive cycle. He couldn’t save everyone. “Well, have a good night then,” Arnold said, somewhat sadly.
“Yeah, Arnold, you too.” Vlad turned and shuffled weakly into the alley, leaning on a dumpster for support when he stumbled. He regained his balance, waved a trembling hand, and then disappeared around the corner.
Arnold checked his hourglass and swore. He was late to meet Demetrius, who was always fussy about punctuality. If he ever wanted another tip, he’d have to get there fast. Arnold spun on his toes, and in a moment, a giant bat was frantically flapping its wings southeast across the sleeping city.