Billie the Vampire

Thankfully the porch provided some shade as Billie Joe rang Mike’s doorbell. The sun was being sickeningly bright today, shining down mercilessly. He couldn’t wait until winter. ‘Short days and long nights. Sounds good to me.’ Billie was interrupted from his thoughts when Mike opened the door. A look of surprise flitted across the bassist’s face when he saw who was at his door.

Billie Joe wasted no time in getting to the reason why he was there. “Mike, I’m sorry for not telling you I was a vampire at first, and for attacking you. I just—my life’s been a mess ever since I became a vampires. And I understand if you aren’t comfortable around me anymore, especially after seeing what I did last night…”

“Bill, we’ve been best friends for years,” Mike cut in. “I know you can’t help it that you’ve suddenly become a blood-thirsty vampire. I’m not afraid of you. Like you said, you’ve already attacked me, but you didn’t bite me. I doubt you will unless for some reason you have no control over yourself at all whatsoever.”

Billie Joe smiled. “Thanks for trusting me, though I’m not entirely sure you should so much. But I do know I have more control over myself during the day. Night’s when I have to make sure I’m careful. You’re right though, I probably won’t bite you or anyone else I know.”

Then Mike suddenly remembered that he was just standing in the doorway with Billie Joe on the porch. “Oh, you can come inside. I doubt you really like today’s weather…”

Billie Joe raised his foot to step into the house when he suddenly tripped on the step and fell face first. Mike spun around to find his friend sprawled out on the ground, attempting to get back up again.

“What happened?” he asked, offering his hand.

Billie grabbed it. “I just tripped on the step. I don’t know why. Maybe I knocked my head harder than I thought last night.”

“I’m glad that you’re still alive…” Mike said quietly. “When we found you last night, we all thought the worst when we saw how many there were. I guess being a vampire, though, helps.”

“Yeah…”

They were both silent for a moment before Mike said, “Maybe you should work on ways to keep people away without having to, you know, bite them.”

“What do you mean?” Billie asked curiously.

“I mean, work on ways to scare people off so you have some way to defend yourself other than biting people and sucking their blood,” Mike answered. “I’m sure it shouldn’t be too hard to do that if vampires really do live up to their reputation.”

The idea sounded like a good one. Billie Joe really needed to stop all the biting. Turning away, he let his fangs retract and tried to put on the angriest face possible. When he turned back around, he saw Mike recoil a little at the sight.

He took a deep breath. “That’s definitely good for a start, but I think I have an idea that’ll help you look even scarier.”

Billie’s face returned to normal. “What?”

“Well, if you look any angrier, I wouldn’t want to get within ten yards of you. And I know just the annoying person that’ll make your eyes glow redder than ever.”

“Tré…”

“Yep. I’ll call him and tell him to come over.”

‘Well, I was going to apologize to him too. I guess now I can just wait until he comes over. I bet he’ll be okay with me being a vampire too. He might even be excited… He would’ve been right about something.’

“Yeah Tré, just get over here… Okay, bye.” Mike hung up before turning back to Billie. “Oh, and there’s another thing that I just thought of. Do you show up in pictures?”

“I don’t know,” Billie Joe admitted.

“Let’s hope you do. It’s going to be pretty hard to explain to the press why you suddenly don’t show up in any pictures.”

‘And yet another bad thing brought on by being a vampire.’ Then another thought occurred to him. ‘What if I’m stuck like this forever? Vampires don’t die unless they’re killed… I don’t want to live for hundreds of years after Mike, Tré, Adie, even my kids, die.’

“You okay?” Mike asked, a concerned look on his face.

“Yeah, just thinking…”

They sat in silence as they waited for Tré. When the doorbell rang, Mike got up and answered the door. Billie was still thinking about things and how being a vampire was complicating his life so much. He was interrupted with a start when he felt something hit him square in the face. His gaze turned down to his lap where he stared uncomprehendingly for a moment at the culprit. He blinked as another thing hit him: another clove of garlic. Eyes narrowed, he glared up at Tré who was preparing to throw another.

“What the—“ he was cut short by a clove of garlic landing in his open mouth. He instantly spat it out, coughing. “I don’t even know if that does anything to me yet! Are you trying to kill me?”

Tré just grinned, throwing his last one, hitting Billie in the forehead, right between his eyes. Billie Joe snarled, fangs coming out, eyes glowing an intense red. Tré instantly shrank back, now regretting his great idea. His friend’s face was so contorted with a rage Tré never knew anyone could possess that he almost forgot for a moment who he was looking at. Billie Joe suddenly seemed to have a bigger and more menacing presence than usual as he stood, fists clenched. For a second, Tré was afraid he had gone too far and now Billie would attack him, being in a blind rage. But then his eyes stopped glowing and his fangs retracted. He slowly returned to a relaxed stance before sitting back down.

“Heh, I’ll never do that again,” Tré said nervously. “It’s like you’ve got PMS now, only deadly.” A glare from Billie Joe got him to shut up.

“Now I don’t think I’ll apologize to you anymore for attacking you,” he muttered, tempted to scare the drummer again for his comment.

“Aww, that hurts. You know I didn’t mean it,” Tré pouted. “You always say I never think before I say anything. That’s why you love me so much.”

“Yeah, I sure 'love' it when you make fun of me being a vampire, Tré. But did you already forget how dangerous a vampire can be?” Billie grinned, showcasing his two inhumanly long and pointed teeth.

“See, that’s what we’re working for,” Tré gulped. “You being your scary self.”

“For your best interest, I’ll take that as a compliment,” Billie Joe said silkily.

“Oh now don’t tell me you’re one of those highly refined vampires,” Tré joked before he could stop himself. He was rewarded with a clove of garlic being thrown at him. It hit his cheek, hard. “Ow…”