Recruitment

My head is pounding. I wipe the sleep out of my eyes and see instantly that I am in the driver’s seat of my Subaru SUV.  I look around and I have no idea where I am parked or how I got here.  It appears I have parked in a dark old barn. Weird. While I live in a rural area, I don’t live on or near a farm with a barn.

I get out and bend down to touch my toes and just stretch out in general. I am 6’4’ and athletic or reminiscent of athletic.  At 50, one does experience some decline as well as acquire some aches and pains.  While the driver’s seat of my car is comfortable, it is by no means a king-sized bed.  Surprisingly I touch my toes with ease and hear no back popping noises, no straining at all. The pounding in my head has subsided.  I feel good. 

The barn smells old and dusty, which makes sense because it is a dirt floor in an old dusty barn.  There are bridles and riding gear hung from the walls.  They look old and unused for ages.  No smell of freshly applied Neatsfoot oil. No sheen on the leather.  The stalls are devoid of any indication of recent horse habitation.  There is hay in the loft but not freshly cut and baled hay. Old moldy hay, very pungent.

I get back in my car and see it is 7:30 p.m, October 12th so it is dusk.  That means I have lost about 24 hours. The last thing I remember is that I went to Sam’s to buy some groceries and stopped at a Mom and Pop bar close by to grab a burger and onion rings.  The groceries are in the back seat of the car but did I make it to the bar for that burger?  My stomach is rumbling so I reach around and rustle through the grocery sack and grab an apple.  A Honeycrisp to be exact, my fav.

I take a bite and the apple tastes crappy.  Does one bad apple spoil the whole bunch?  I believe that question has been asked before.  I roll the window down, actually I push a button and the window goes down, and spit the apple out onto the dusty floor and toss the rest of it out as well. I turn and grab a bottle of Coke, acquired from Sam’s, from the back seat to rinse the bad apple taste out of my mouth.  It’s warm but I go for it anyway.  I unscrew the cap and take a big swig.  While I get it down, I am far from refreshed.  It tastes like battery acid or what I envision battery acid tastes like.  I am having no luck here.  Time to leave.

I get out of the car and go swing the barn door open so I can make my exit.  The barn door swings surprisingly easily on its hinges even though they look rusty.  I hop back in the car, start it and drive out into the night.  With my driver’s side window down, I can smell the fall harvest in the heartland. Corn and beans being harvested.  Combines are whirring through the adjacent fields well into the night this time of year.  Time is money.  The leaves on the trees that line the roads are trying to decide if it is summer or fall, partially turned from green to yellow heading toward orange and brown. Those that have fallen to the ground crunch loudly as I drive over them.

It takes a bit to get my bearings but I realize where I am and head toward home via a gravel road that will eventually lead to a paved county road that leads to State Highway 141.  I figure I am about a half hour from home.  Time enough to hear a selection of songs from my youth, courtesy of the local golden oldies radio station.

Why did I drive into a dingy barn and camp out in my car for 24 hours?  

I mull this over until I turn into my driveway and park my car.  I walk from the driveway to my front door muttering the words to the last song that was playing on WOW Golden Oldies, Ricky Nelson’s Garden Party.  Precisely the part that says:

“When I got to the garden party

They all knew my name

But no one recognized me

I didn't look the same”

I enter my abode. It was the family house so I inherited it.  The house is basically a square, a one hundred year old square. Nothing of architectural or historical significance.  I think it was a Sears and Roebuck plan popular in the 1890’s. The back of the square is the kitchen and back porch which has a doggie door to give my dog, Atlas, access to the backyard in my absence. Atlas, upon hearing me enter the house, ran in through the back porch doggy door to greet me after my 24 hours AWOL.  Actually he probably just wants to be fed and I am just the guy to do that.  He slides to a stop on the kitchen tile like Tom Cruise in Risky Business and gives me the doggie version of the skunk eye at the entry to the living room from the kitchen which is about ten feet from me.  He keeps his distance, always about ten feet away.  No running up to get some attention.  

“Atlas, come here.  What’s the deal?” I ask.

He is having none of it, still keeping his distance and giving me the eye. I sat down in my leather recliner to mull over my increasingly odd situation. Since I live alone, no one was there to help me mull, be that a blessing or a curse.

I grabbed the tv remote off of the table next to my recliner.  Since it was October, many streaming channels were showing an assortment of Halloween, horror and/or slasher movies to build up to All Hallow’s Eve.  I started watching a movie that was a remake of a vampire book I had read ages ago. Compulsively I searched for what vampire shows were on other streaming channels.  I fast-forwarded through all of them to find the parts where an ordinary Joe Schmo was converted to a demon of the night, an undead, hominus nocturna.  I went back to the original Dracula as well as the 2024 retelling, the Night Stalker, Salem’s Lot, Lost Boys, Vampire Diaries, Buffy the Vampire Killer, Day Shift, Night Teeth, Fright Night and more.  Legend upon legend, concept after concept, a story told and retold.  Fascinating stuff, this making of the undead.  P.M. became A.M. and I gave up on tv and found my bed by trundling up the far too steep stairs of my aging dwelling.  I collapsed into it feeling quite exhausted. My last thought before slumber was: is this fascination with vampireology just coincidence?

I slept through the day and awoke somewhat refreshed around 7:30 P.M. of October 13th.  My days had become inverted. I slept when others were awake and was awake when others slept. No matter what time it was, I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten in two, maybe three days.  I ambled to 

the kitchen and poured some dog food into Atlas’ bowl.  He was still not in the mood to approach me and was keeping to himself in the spacious fenced-in backyard.

Time to feed myself.  I am far from a chef but I can cook.  However, I have learned that if I cook, I end up grazing my way through a recipe, ad libbing whenever possible, using the wrong tools, stabbing things with sharp knives, and taking way too long.  So I keep my kitchen gymnastics to a minimum.  I proceeded to construct a ham sandwich which in ordinary times satisfied my hunger pangs.  Sour-dough bread, ham, lettuce, tomato, mayo, mustard and swiss cheese were the building blocks of the aforementioned sandwich.  I took a bite and immediately spat that bite out into the kitchen sink.  It tasted like fecal matter.  I opened the fridge and grabbed a jug of iced tea.  I chugged straight from the jug to wash the taste away.  The tea was as horrible as the sandwich.

Had my taste buds changed along with my sleep patterns?

There was a knock at the door.  I went to answer.  A figure dressed in a black cloak was at the door, back turned.  I opened the door.

“Yes?” I said.

“Hello Paul.  May I come in?” The figure asked. It was apparently a female from the tone of the voice. The cloak hid her features.

“Depends.  I don’t think we have an appointment.  Who are you? How do you know me?” I countered.

“My name is…Inga.  I know a lot of people.  I am here to be your friend, your guide.”

“Hello Inga.  Nice to meet you.  I guess I could use a friend.  But I don’t need a guide in this town. In case you didn’t notice, it is tiny. Three blocks in any direction is a corn field.”

‘I can guide you to other places, metaphorically. Aren’t you curious?” Inga bantered.

“Curiosity can kill but knowledge is power.  I prefer knowledge. How are you in that category?”

“Well, Paul, l do my best.  But first, are you hungry?  How are you sleeping?”

“Starving and crappy. Do you have some insight to offer?

“I can solve both.  May I come in?”

I bowed and waved my arm to infer admittance.  Inga chuckled at my gracious motions and entered the house. I saw that she was quite attractive, somewhere between 30 and 50 would be my guess (I don’t guess ages well at all), 5’9”, dark hair, sharp features, bright eyes. She was absolutely luminous.

Once inside, Inga removed the hood of the cloak from her head and held out her palm to  reveal a red gummy.  “Take this.”

l picked up the gummy and inspected it carefully.

“Inga, Halloween is a couple of weeks away.  And you got it backwards.  Its trick or treat.  I offer the treats, you provide tricks if you don’t like my treat.”

“Good to know.”  She paused and said, “Paul, you’re feeling…out of sorts aren’t you?  Hungry, tired.  Food is unacceptable and unsatisfactory.  It will only get worse.  Also, time has, shall I say, escaped you.  Can you account for your whereabouts recently?  You also look…bad.  That, too, will get worse.”

She offered me a small compact mirror.  I gazed upon my image. My eyes and cheeks were sunken, my skin was pale and oddly translucent.

“Yeah, my boyish good looks are suffering at the moment but how do I know you aren’t just offering me poison?”

“You don’t but I know whatever you have tried to eat recently was poison to you.  I don’t want to say what have you got to lose, but what have you got to lose?  If you don’t take it, you will suffer for a week or so and lapse into a coma.  You live alone so you may or may not be found. If you are, they can’t help you.  I can.”

“Is that so? Are you a witch?  A gypsy?  I find you interesting, but I am a boy and you are a somewhat attractive woman. If you were ugly, I’d have tossed you out by now…” I responded.

“Fine, you awoke in a barn a couple of days ago.  It was my barn.  I guided you there because you were quite open to my suggestions.”

“Was I?  Did we meet outside of Sam's? That’s the last place I remember before waking up in the barn.”

“Yes, I met you there. We chatted.  Well, I chatted, you listened. “ 

With that, Inga moved much faster than I could comprehend, grabbed the gummy back and shoved it into my mouth.  It melted away immediately. My head rocked backwards and my brain commenced a Timothy Learyesque trip through misplaced and lost memories, synapses and neurons which hadn’t whispered to each other in decades suddenly reunited enabling me to see 99% of my human history from diapers to meeting Inga and the ensuing conversation and trip to Chez Dusty Ol’ Barn…

Inga pulled a small bottle of liquid out of her cloak and instructed me to drink it.  I did so obediently.

“Feel better Paul?” Inga asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I do.  When I woke up in the barn, your barn, I felt good but that didn’t seem to last.  Now I feel great.  I am assuming the gummy is responsible for that?  What kinda drug did you force on me?”

“Oh, that could be called esencia de Inga.  When I met you, I offered you an opportunity.  The opportunity was to change from boring old you to a different version of you.  A better version.  But you have to eat right to continue the change. Otherwise you will regress, deteriorate.”

“Esencia de Inga?  Some special concoction you made?  Supplement? Herbs? Vitamins? THC? What?”

“Literally me Paul. My blood.  You can’t ingest human food anymore.  It won’t sit well with you. You’ll waste away.” Inga acted like information was just as common as trading recipes over the back fence.

“Hold it, you're talking like you’re something not human, not normal? That sounds like a vampire.  But those are legends, entertainment.” 

“Oh Paul, what’s normal anymore?  Society is more accepting of people not adhering to norms.”

“Inga, while that may be true, I’d still like to know what I am signing up for and with who?”

She shrugged her shoulders and said “My organization has been around for a very long time.  We’ve made some changes.  Our Conversions didn’t like the idea of hunting for human blood so we devised the gummy system using donated human blood.  We have our own blood banks.  We make the gummies in assorted flavors so it is all quite easy.  Science is real.  ;;bbbbNone of the negatives remain.”

“Quite the sales pitch Inga.  Are you conducting a membership drive and my name just popped up on your lead list or what?”

“We always need new associates.”

“Do you now?  I don’t seem to fit the role of the undead as I understand it.”

“Again, Paul, we’ve made some changes.  The job description, if you will, has changed.  We have enough of the traditionalists roaming about ripping people’s throats out.  They can be quite unsavory.  We want to move in a new direction.”

“Fine, when’s orientation?”