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NOSFERATU AND THE NANCY BOYS By: Carrie Harris

Sunday, May 3rd, 2009

“Thith ith the latht thtraw,” said Nosferatu.

He used to look forward to the yearly Vampiric Court meetings: mingling with the fanged elite, noshing on a virgin or two at the bar, and finally settling in to discuss important matters to the community of bloodsuckers. Nossie had always been a stellar debater if only one could overlook his speech impediment. Vlad Dracul himself was always saying that Nossie’s impassioned argument in opposition to the Bloodmap Proposition of 1701 changed the course of history.

Of course, that was before V.D. discovered skin care. And once he went down for a decade’s worth of beauty rest, the shit hit the proverbial fan.

Everything changed. Everything except for Nosferatu, anyway. Bathory got tattooed and pierced so heavily that she clanked when she walked; Carmilla shaved her head and joined a punk band. The normally staid court meetings were suddenly overrun by a bunch of nancy boys with fangs. They gelled their hair. They courted young women but refused to suck their blood. They sparkled.

And they made fun of Nossie. It started slowly: a handful of business cards for dentists strewn across his seat one year, pamphlets for cosmetic surgery and otoplasty the next. But this year, they’d gone too far.

“I don’t want a makeover. I want to look thcary,” he protested.

Ruthven just laughed and shoved him into a chair. A cloud of face powder and cologne hung thick in the air around him, tickling Nossie’s nose. He sneezed right in Ruthven’s face, spraying him with red-tinged spittle.

“Mind your manners,” snapped Ruthven, snapping his fingers. One of the thralls hurried over with a clean cloth and wiped his face.

“Manners, sthmanners. I thuck blood, you thtupidhead. What do I need manners for?”

“Oh, bollocks.. I give up.”

Ruthven threw up his hands and retreated with an expression of disgust, and Nossie vaulted out of the chair as soon as there was space enough to do so. He’d go to the bar, drink down a virgin or two, and leave. He did not want to stay for the presentation on vampiric hairstyles or whatever idiocy they were talking about tonight. Frankly, blood stasis was starting to seem like a good idea. Maybe when he woke up in ten or fifteen years, someone sensible might have come along and staked all of these imbeciles.

He made it about two steps before one of the youngsters appeared in front of him, wearing a bright smile and a shirt from Abercrombie and Fitch. Nossie wanted to rip it off of him. Didn’t this boy understand the history, the pride that one should take in the vampiric wardrobe? He wasn’t even wearing black.

The kid held up a little vial. “I have something that will make you feel better, Master Nosferatu,” he said, with suspicious smugness. “There’s no ill that a little sparkle makeup won’t cure.”

“Thtop! Leave me alone.”

“Hold him,” said the boy, his angelic face twisting into a sneer.

It felt like the room itself descended upon Nossie. Hands grabbed his wrists and ankles, forcing him to the ground. They rubbed lipstick on his mouth in a clownish smear; hands roughly mashed a wig onto his head. Glitter fell like rain into his face, making him sneeze again. They taped his ears back with duct tape that puckered and tore at his cheeks when he moved.

And then suddenly, they retreated.

He leapt to his feet and someone behind him threw a feather boa onto his shoulders. He whirled, teeth bared, ready to pounce. There was a bright flash in his face, a wave of laughter as they snapped pictures with fancy pastel camera phones.

For the first time in centuries, Nosferatu saw the world turn crimson.

He’d gotten tame too, over the years, the blood lust fading as he became domesticated. But he’d never sunk as low as these degenerate pop star wannabes. He’d never lost the beast entirely. And now it welled up inside of him.

It was time to show them what a monster really was, time to remind them that vampirism had nothing to do with pretty hair or nice dental work. He ripped the tape from the sides of his head, howling at the pain. His buggy eyes fixed on Ruthven, pupils glinting like pools of blood under the fluorescents, and then he pounced, clawing through the designer shirt and tearing into the flesh underneath. The vampires fell, one by one, under the gouges of his teeth.

It was glorious.

He let the thralls go, loosened the ropes binding the virgins with his own bloody hands. They ran shrieking through the carnage-smeared room. He grinned, feeling better now than he had in years. Humans were too easy; they believed erroneously that vampires were handsome and harmless. They wanted to be bitten. Perhaps this would educate them a little.

For now, the nancy boys were a hunt worth pursuing. They gave vampires a bad name. Besides, no one put sparkles on Nosferatu and lived to tell the tale.

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