Neckbeard Vampire: Nightbeard Rising Read online

Neckbeard Vampire:

  Nightbeard Rising

  By D.S. Morg

  Inspired by my own cringe-worthy teenage self and the fine ladies and gentlesirs of /r/justneckbeardthings.

  *tips fedora*

  What do I do when you get close?

  If I kissed your neck, would you slit my throat?

  Are you thinking of me when you're putting on your makeup,

  Darling, and dying your hair like you do

  Well you're wasting your time if you're trying to impress me

  I waste all my time just thinking of you.

  -The eternal voice of Anonymous

  Chapter 1

  Dex tensed up as the door creaked open, the sound magnified in the heavy silence. Surely they heard him now.

  His hand felt up the length of the wall for the light switch.

  Click…Darkness remained.

  He instinctively tried it a few more times, snapping the plastic knob up and down until convinced beyond all doubt that the light was indeed broken. Disappointing, but not surprising. It wasn’t the first time that lights were cut when she made a new nest. He reached into his pocket, sifting through the loose change for the smooth body of the Zippo with the Gothic Cross etched on the front.

  Step by step, he slowly made his way down the stairs, removing himself from the sunlight beaming through the kitchen windows. Dex quieted his breath until the loudest sound he heard was that of his own blood pumping through his veins with every beat of his heart.

  Still nothing could be heard in the black beneath, more than once the thought of an ambush crossed his mind…or worse: maybe it was a dead end—a false lead? Or maybe, and more likely still, she had already sucked the life out of this poor, smelly bastard. But for this breed, sometimes that was the better way to go.

  He stepped forward once more stumbling forward with a few coarse scuffs on the concrete floor as he realized that he had reached the bottom of the stair.

  The sound of striking flint, a quick spark, and the lighter fluid burst into a steady flame, casting dancing shadows against the walls.

  As one arm, holding the fire, thrust itself up to light his path in front of him, the other immediately covered his face. The familiar stench of her preferred prey crawled its way into his nostrils. It was a musty, aged smell: the acrid fragrance of decay.

  “No.” Dex quietly said to himself, “This trail’s not dead.”

  Fighting hard against the culminating excitement of the nearing kill, he pressed on into the abyss, with every cautious step calculated as he made his way deeper into this lair of death.

  A crunch underfoot made him freeze in his tracks, with his hand magnetically drawn to the hilt of his katana while a flash of pity scraped his heart. This wasn’t her lair…the empty Dorito wrappers, which Dex could now clearly see littered the entire room, were proof enough of that. She doesn’t need to eat…at least not that. The poor fool, he thought.

  If he was lucky, then her prey was already dead. But of course, she would have toyed with his heart first—much as a cat does when it catches a mouse. That’s how she worked…she knows their loneliness and she knows the depths of their delusion…

  Dex considered the possibilities of this chump’s fate, accepting that, most likely, she simply enslaved him. Of course she doesn’t have to drain them to make them serve her—she only does that to the ones she considers of particular worth to her cause. Unshaven, overweight servants of the night, endlessly fawning over her, doting on her every whim, all in hopes of the promise of evading the dread of the friend zone.

  But the other ones she doesn’t even try to bleed out. The ones that disgust her the most— those she doesn’t dare to touch, even for feeding…she’s disgusted by them, but she takes them for her own purposes—whatever needs she might have at the time. And they, too follow her with the hopes of unspoken, yet strongly implied reward.

  She’s well aware of the extent of their desperate loyalty…so pathetically eager to please, so groveling. Gentlesirs. They always get far less than they bargain for.

  As he scraped through the greasy debris snack times unnumbered, Dex’s heart filled with pity. Hopefully she had just chosen to kill this one quickly. The floor was cluttered with endless fast food wrappers encrusted with stale drops of once melted cheese, sticky plastic cups with the words “BIG GULP” emblazoned on the sides, and Mt. Dew bottles refilled with that which was definitely not Mt. Dew. It was a crude cocktail of nostalgia. Dex pushed the thoughts from his mind, and drew the lapel of his trench coat tight to against his face, determined to push on, now so close on her trail.

  Rot and human feces. There must be a bedpan somewhere in this suburban nightmare. Of course she doesn’t notice the smell—that sense was forfeit when she accepted the Dark Gift. Now, she only feels hunger—hunger for blood and hunger for power; and she’ll do whatever it takes to eat.

  In a distant corner of the room, a thin beam of electric light shone out from the crack of an unmarked door. Bingo.

  Creeping towards the door with steady, carefully place steps, Dex snapped the Zippo lid down and dropped it into his pocket, letting the darkness once again overtake the room. Steadily, he drew his Katana from its sheath.

  Dex had to be careful. While in life, these “men” were little stronger than children, Dex knew from experience that it was a mistake to underestimate his opponents.

  He positioned his stance in front of the door, careful not to disturb the light that lay across the floor below, lest the element of surprise be lost. He pressed an ear tightly against the wood paneling. Nothing.

  Nothing? How could there be nothing, surely the computer would not be left on if there was…wait.

  Click click.

  Tap tap tap

  Click click. Click click.

  The distinctive sounds of double-clicks and tapping keys gave proof to the life within the darkness. Someone was in there, and they had no idea they were being hunted.

  Preparing for the attack, Dex willed his heartbeat to a crawl, the sound of pumping blood gradually disappeared from his ears. The continued clicking and tapping gave reassurance that whoever was in there had no suspicion of his coming.

  But then it stopped.

  The susurrations of hushed voices, whispers and snickers. One high pitched as of a prepubescent boy, and the other deeper, more salacious, and rife with cunning. Dex unbuttoned his trench coat, revealing a large Crucifix on his chest—glimmering softly in the electronic light still steadily streaming through the bottom of the door.

  But scarce had he unsheathed his spiritual weapon when the crash of cracking wood tore through the silence of the basement, thrusting Dex back into the darkness. Before he could orient himself, a crushing weight laid itself upon his chest, and the dense, moist air of heavy mouth breaths overwhelmed his senses.

  Mocking words, whispered into his ear seemed shockingly light in the weighty dark.

  “What’s a matter, Dexey? You thought you’d take her away from me, didn’t you? No, sir. I was born to protect Milady. It is my mission and my purpose. You will not, you CAN NOT stop me!!”

  ‘Milady.’ She had been called by many names throughout the generations, but of all the lot, this was her favorite. She loves it, she drips over it, and she relishes the sound of every syllable—a relic of her youth, an artifact from her first life, now centuries past. Perhaps she chose it because it reminded her of what she was…or maybe because it was already so familiar to her many servants. It didn’t matter—to Dex, it was the name of an enemy, regardless of where it came from.

  Dex reached out in desperation for his katana, clawing his fingertips across the basement carpet, long encrust
ed with the stains of various bodily fluids and sugary beverages. The crushing weight shifted on his chest.

  The voice spoke again, wafting another wave of halitosis-stained air, “I was lost--a misplaced soul leading a group of outcasts…that is until she found me. She set me on a new path, a path of service,” he sneered with awe as he spoke of his mistress, “And now you WON’T take her away from me! I am hers and she is mine!!!”

  But then the ham-beast interrupted itself, sneering, “is that a…a…a crucifix?!”

  The voice was so close, the stench of mouth-diarrhea so dense that, that Dex could feel the cretan’s grin stretch wider with each word.

  “Aren’t we a little old for hokey superstitions about the mythical Sky Fairy, hmm?!”

  Every word the creature breathed rose with stinking heat, as though wrought in some filthy pit of rancid decay. Dex began to strongly suspect that this particular specimen may have crossed over to her side some time ago.

  “Fool! Well Fundie—maybe it’s time to fun-DIE!?” and he burst out laughing, then turned back to a shadowy figure in the other room. “Can I finish him, Milady?”

  The mountain of flesh had addressed the dark silhouette of a supple, young girl, cast against the blackness from the steady light of a computer monitor. She did not respond, except for a momentary, apathetic glance towards her servant.

  Either she was confident that her ham-slave might take care of the intruder, or she just didn’t care.

  The glowing digits of a dresser alarm clock caught Dex’s attention. 17:43. So that was her plan. Sundown would be complete in only a few minutes, and she would be free to flee the nest, going wherever she pleased.

  “Listen…to…me!” Dex struggled hard under the pressure of his massive opponent to squeeze out the words.

  “Silence, fool! Your time is finished!”

  “Listen--She’s using---” but his words were cut off by the shifting of the gargantuan weight upon his chest.

  Dex was losing breath quickly, if he couldn’t break free, then he would pass out—leaving him to the mercies of this vile creature.

  The beast, now confident in its newly perceived dominance, pinned down the head of its victim and stroked the hair—a sadistically cringeworthy gesture.

  Although this sort of mocking behavior was typical with her victims, Dex could never get used to it. She would regale her servants with tales of new authority and respect, and they would, as a rule, reveal his true colors as cowardly, man-child dictators.

  “Using me?!” It finished Dex’s sentence for him. “Fool!” It snapped. “You know nothing of love!” The fatty snarled.

  Dex’s voice cracked with pain as he writhed on the floor. The hammy had taken his arm and was slowly twisting it to the breaking point. He’s discovered his new strength, but it hasn’t fully matured, his facial hair was only beginning to grow patchy. Thank God in Heaven, Dex considered that, if this hammy was a few more weeks into transformation, then he’d be significantly stronger and Dex might not have a chance.

  Struggling to free his arm, he frantically searched around the dark floor for something that he might grip to leverage his strength and knock the beast off of him. Hope rose as his fingers wrapped around a hard, wooden knob, which Dex presumed to be the leg of the sofa. He held tight as the stench of chicken nuggets and Cool Ranch threatened to knock him unconscious.

  Mustering his strength and twisting his body, Dex gathered enough leverage to roll onto his side and throw the beast onto its back with a squeal.

  “AHHH!” It shrieked into the darkness, it burns!”

  “Indeed it does, friend. It’s a crucifix.” He forced the metal against the thing’s face as it writhed in agony, now too weak to put up a respectable fight.

  “Please! Stop! Make it stop!!!” It begged, but Dex’s heart was stone. “Milady! Help thy humble servant!”

  “Your screams fall on deaf ears, friend.” Dex answered coolly.

  And he was right, the girl in the room moved, she hardly even looked up—if she looked up at all.

  With a better position, and his opponent at bay, Dex searched the darkness for a glimmer of his Japanese steel.

  The beast reached out in fruitless desperation to its she-master. Dex was reminded of a child anxiously stretching out for its mother to take it up into her arms and lift it from danger.

  “She’s gone,” Dex said. “You should have chosen your friends more carefully.”

  The beast struggled and flailed, yearning for but a glance of his Milady, only to see an empty room. The clock read 18:05, and the sun had now set.

  Disappointment and embarrassment swept over his face as he realized that Milady had long abandoned her servant without so much as a ‘good bye’.

  Dex prepared to take pity on the beast, but then its voice shot up once again into the night.

  “You’re lying, snake! Just like your phony god! She LOVES me! She is mine, my very own waifu, I treat her with the respect she deserves! She’s…she’s…Milady!” The ham clung hard to the only explanation that might offer a thread of comfort.

  Dex sighed with regret as he considered the state of his opponent: so a piteous and so lacking in self-awareness. It wasn’t really his fault, after all; like so many before him, she led this boy to genuinely believe that she was somehow his…that—if he served her with all faithfulness--he might somehow keep her for his very own.

  The creature wailed and fought beneath the sting of the crucifix, but if Dex couldn’t find his Katana—then the fight was only beginning. The darkness seemed impenetrable. Suddenly, he remembered something! He quickly pulled his hand along the side of his coat, feeling for his lighter.

  Drawing it from his pocket, he flipped the lid and struck the flint. Success! The light of the flame crashed through the room, sending the darkness scurrying in hurried retreat.

  The light confirmed, this beast was just like all the others: a skinny-fat sack of flesh, draped in a once-white t-shirt the size of a bedsheet with the words “…now go make me a sandwich.”

  Long thick clumps of hair grew in patches across his many chins. The face was markedly boyish, with swollen eyes and puffy cheeks. It breathed through the mouth, exposing a dozen or so teeth of various shades of mustard, with two protruding canines that looked abnormally large.

  The sword, as it happened, lay only inches out of reach. He pounced towards the sword, doing a forward roll before springing onto his feet, with the glistening blade pressed against the gullet of the creature.

  In the flickering light of the zippo, the boy lost its beastliness. As it realized the truth of its plight and impending doom, the threats turned whimpering and the whimpering turned to crying. A grimace of begrudging defeat fought its way across his face.

  Dex’s heart was stirred inside of him.

  “Listen friend,” Dex spoke gently to the boy, his voice laden with pity, “I know your life.”

  “You know nothing of me! You couldn’t possibly understand the burden of my intelligence! How it repulses others, how no one…NO ONE understands!” The fatso spat back, turning every syllable into a curse.

  He squinted his eyes, mustering the accumulated hatred of decades of Internet trolling. He continued, “I finally found someone who loves me for ME! She was beautiful, funny, intelligent, and loyal—and you…you…”

  “Drove her away? No, you fool. I didn’t drive her away,” Dex sighed, it was just so pathetic. “I understand your life--,” He tried to reason, but the thing interrupted

  It hissed the words at him, “How could you understand anything?! You’re nothing like ME! You know nothing of what it means to possess a 144 quotient of intelligence, you possess not the wherewithal to even comprehend the depths of my understandings! I understand string theory—you don’t even understand strings!”

  Dex tried to speak again, but the beastly creature, with unnatural speed, swung its flabby arms, knocking the crucifix away and lunging at him.

  But t
he newly undead had only begun to crawl, learning and testing its new abilities…it wasn’t fast enough. Dex stepped to the side, raising his sword chest high, causing the thing to thrust the blade through its own heart.

  It writhed in pain and its expression of anger turned to fear. After a moment of flailing, it gave its last breath and slumped into a heap on the floor.

  Dex sighed, speaking now only to the darkness,” I understand your miserable life because I’ve lived it.”

  The words lingered in the air before dissipating into the void of the basement.

  Another enemy slain. Dex reached around to the back of his belt and unclasped the cover of a small leather pouch and produced a clove of garlic. Pulling his Katana from the mound of flesh, he wedged the blade between his victim’s cold lips and pried open the mouth as the steel scraped against the teeth.

  With neither ceremony nor hesitation, he stuffed the clove into the mouth, forced the jaw shut and cut off its head.

  The head tumbled to the floor and Dex continued to stare at the body, waiting for the corpse to burst into flames.

  Within seconds, the body would be replaced by a pile of ash, but as the seconds turned to minutes, a fearful thought fluttered through Dex’s mind. He recalled the dozens of her undead minions that he had slain. Every single carcass had burst into flames within only a few seconds.

  He walked over to the slump, and grabbing an old t-shirt from the floor, wiped the oozing blood away from the neck long enough to inspect the skin. Nothing. Not a mark. Then he inspected the head. The wrists. Even the inner thigh. Nothing.

  The blood drained from his face as he fully grasped what he had just done.