Exterminate This! My Boyfiend is a Vampire -- Chapter 3

 Chapter 3

In hindsight, Dane was really the second monster I met.

But, in my defense, the first monster I met seemed human.  

This guy, Dane, was not human. Not even close.

The bat call was on a property near the end of the county line, and the sun was close to setting. I needed to see the area that was infested. I really wanted to make it an hour or so before flyout. If I could set up the one-way trap before flyout, they’d leave and just not be able to get back in.

I had a staple gun, wire cutters, and a roll of chicken wire. It really doesn’t take much to get bats out.

The insect life on this property rang high in my mind. I stopped and pinched my nose, down by the nostrils, and exhaled through my mouth as I fought down the  headache.  

Dusk was the happy hour of Florida’s insects.

I pulled into a beautiful driveway and was met by a dude whose spine didn’t seem to line up correctly. He was leaning against a fence post. He wore a dark t-shirt and straight leg pants, and that’s where normal ran away.

His green eyes were so pale it looked like they’d been bleached, and his skin was whiter than curdled milk. I could have sworn in this low light that his skin was blue, and not just pale white. My vision blurred for a moment. He wasn’t there when I looked back.

I took a breath.

Maybe I didn’t really see a man with blue skin and white hair.

It was possible the stress from my fiancé not speaking to me made me hallucinate. Nothing was really out of the realm of possibility.  

I knocked on the door, and my psychotic episode was either super realistic, or the guy was real.

“How did you get in there?” I asked.

We were off script. Really bad.

I was awkward meeting Mr. HotGuy – Karl – this morning. That was off script. It was embarrassing and harmless.

This was off script in a way that made my defenses rise.

I felt hostile. My fight or flight kicked in.

I honestly have brain damage. It means that some things don’t work the same way in my head as they do in other people’s heads. Conversations are the hardest part of people-ing for me.

I spent a ton of time rehearsing speeches and practicing conversations. When things went off script, my brain backfired like a car. Sometimes I just word-puked, like with Mr. HotGuy, Karl.

Other times, I shut all the way down and left the area. The overstimulation made me feel violent, and the only way to avoid Hulk-smashing the world was to leave.

Cold sweat soaked under my bra strap.

“Dane,” he said. “Come in.”

“I didn’t ask your name,” I said.

Dane smiled. His teeth were pointy. I might have peed a little.

I did not back up. I stepped forward and crossed the threshold of the house.

I did not see Dane move, but he was behind me in a blink.

“You smell amazing.”

The air from his nostrils moved the baby hair at the base of my neck, and I screeched.

“Do not smell me!” I yelled, whirling around. Dane moved again, too fast for me to see, and stood behind me again.

I turned slowly, hyperventilating a little. I stepped back and bumped into the now-closed door. “Sniffing is not part of my contracted services.”

The top of my head felt overheated. My ears were ringing. I was in full panic mode.

 There was a small can of wasp spray in my jacket pocket.

“Don’t leave, lovely,” Dane said oozing toward me.

I held the can out.

“Don’t come closer,” I said tightly.

Dane’s face elongated like a skeletal Cheshire cat. Grinning, eerie. His pupils had rings around them, and they swirled different colors.

I hit the button on the can, spraying him in the eyes with the bug poison. His eyes pooled, teared, grew blood red, and the smile grew.

Dane did not blink as wasp spray spattered against his irises.

I shivered, locked into position, emptying the can in his face.

“Doesn’t it burn?” I asked. I had the weirdest impulse to spray my own eyes, just to see. Fortunately, the impulse passed.  

“Yes,” he whispered. He made it sound like he was touching his no-no parts.

“I should go,” I said.

“Under the eave. The bats are under the north eave. My boss needs to talk to you after this,” he said, still grinning like he just put his hand down his pants and found his dink for the first time.  

I blinked three times. Dane was gone. I hadn’t seen him go.

I was in an empty foyer holding a can of bug spray.

I went to my truck and started it. I had to go.

Then, I decided to do the job anyway. I liked bats. They ate mosquitos.

I do not like mosquitos.

Thinking of mosquitos made me grab a can of mosquito spray and liberally douse myself in it. It was almost dusk, and they’d be out.

Mosquito swarms made me projectile vomit. The high-pitched swarm-scream for blood is instantly overwhelming.

I walked around the house until I found the guano pile at the north corner of the house. I grabbed the ladder, and I found the smallest little gap in the eaves.

Out of nowhere, I felt cold trickles of sweat trail down my backbone and pool in the little divot where my backbone meets my butt.

It was a delayed reaction. A well-adjusted person would have gotten in the truck and left, but I stayed. Now my brain remembered that it was absolutely terrified of being here.

I texted Chelsea and David from the top of the ladder, that I needed a “Get me out of here” call in five minutes.

Chelsea immediately blew up my phone. I turned on my location, affirmed my alive-ness, and got to work.

This is going to get repetitive if I explain it constantly: I have brain damage. Spots on my brain are dark under scans. The spots are from trauma. I have convulsed so hard that my skull has bashed against really hard things, and that left marks.

Those marks make me different. Even more different that my gift already made me.  

Fight or flight doesn’t work the same for me. A lot of seemingly simple things don’t work the same for me.

I was really on the autism spectrum when it came to flight. I didn’t leave scenarios because my life was literally in danger. I left because the stimuli of it all was so overwhelming that I panicked and had to escape. It was too much, too loud, too confusing, too fast. The moment it wasn’t too much, I felt better.

I was probably in a life-and-death situation, but since Dane removed himself, it seemed completely rational to move ahead with the bat removal.

I rehearsed the conversation I’d have with him as I set up the bat netting.

“Thank you for your business. Don’t smell me. Please tell your boss we will send a bill. Thank you. Goodbye.”

I’d made a sort of fish trap of wire netting. The funnel shape would allow any bats inside to get out, but the bats already outside wouldn’t be able to get back in. I wanted to secure it better, so I got down, and went back of the van to get more staples. I was moving a can of cat food when I heard a noise behind me.

Cat food is a universal bait. It’s stinky and almost everything I have to catch likes it.

I spun around and held the cat food can in front of me like a talisman against Dane.

“Can I help you?” I asked, shakily.

He smiled, slowly, like a predator.

“I can help you,” he said.

Dane’s voice had a cold-silk undertone to it, hard and bloodthirsty. He sounded like my spider, Dorcia.

My social awkwardness was about to show itself.

In spades.

“OK, you can’t. Help me. You can’t help me. You’re scaring me. Can you, like, leave, so I can get out of here?” I said. “You can have the cat food it you want.”

What the hell? 

I just offered Dane a can of cat food. He was more likely to strangle me with a robe belt, do porno things with my bare feet, and bury parts of me under the fence post, than take the cat food.  

He took a step closer, nearly touching my hand with his chest, and breathed in deeply, closing his eyes as he did. Dane inhaled for a long, long time and then his eyes popped open. His crazy eyes were still blood red, and teal rings around the pupil moved clockwise. He stunk of wasp spray.  

“You do yoga?” I asked.

Dane sort of bent his body in half, extending the top half over my arm without touching it.

“No,” he whispered. “I do other things.”

“Well, that sounds interesting. I have to punch you in the face, or you need to get away from me so I can go.” I said.

He smiled again and unfolded.

“Do you say everything in your head?” Dane asked.

“Not even in the ballpark,” I said.

It was true. Bugs and their thoughts were on my mind at all times, and if I started hollering, “Eat! Bite! Mate! Sting! Eat! Work!” I’d definitely be locked up. Again.

Dane nodded knowingly.

“I’ll bet,” he said slowly “There’s something special in your head. Something different. I can help you,” he said. “My employer wants to see you. Inside.”

I don’t know that I saw him move, because my hands were shaking, and I was still holding out the cat food. But he was gone. Just gone.

The shadows over the house increased, and the sun was set.

I watched the bats fly out, awed a little by how simple it was for them. They wanted to hear the bugs. They lived by embracing the sound of the flying insects.

I was a dysfunctional human bat.

Nah, that was a bad analogy, but I couldn’t think of poetic thoughts right now, even though the flyout was beautiful.

I may have been the only person I knew with a supernatural power, but my genetic defect couldn’t have been the only one on the planet.

Dane made me feel like I just met the second genuine freak I knew about. And, he also made me feel like he could do a hell of a lot more than chat with spiders. In a very bad way.

Something on this property made my spine slither.

I had a rare moment of mental clarity where I decided to get the hell out of there before Dane, or something worse, popped up.

I did not care about his boss. Not one bit.

But I sure as hell would.

SPOILER! Deleted prologue here