This was in 2010ish and I was working in the electronics section on a closing shift (I’m reasonably sure it was a Sunday since that’s when most of this crazy stuff happened).  Let me set the scene…

We were a while from closing and there was a sale on 360s.  A guy walks in and wants one of the 360s (mid 20s and wearing a baggy white shirt with a ball cap).  We had had incidents where customers were offended by us checking the seals in front of them so I commonly would check the seals on the way to the counter as is was easy to do without drawing attention to it.  It should also be known that the store did not take back systems and our boss was really good at making sure that if one was taken back it was thoroughly inspected (by me or one of the other gamers) before it was reduced and put back on the shelf.  This system had no reduction sticker and the seals were not cut so this system was new and unopened.  I rang the customer up and he left… all was good… till he came back an hour or so later.

Now we were getting close to closing and the customer from earlier attempted to return the system saying that it had been open when he bought it.  I knew this was a lie but I looked to see if this was one of the shockingly large number of people who swap out the controllers and then try to return the system with the probably broken controller.  It was.

I found irrefutable evidence that the controller was old but the system was new and matched the serial number on the box (always the first thing I would check).  When I confronted the customer he became belligerent and this is par for the course.  You never get innocent ones being aggressive it’s always the guilty ones.  I was used to it and shrugged it off.  Called the manager and waited.  Our store manager was the best, always quick to help staff in trouble.  When he arrived things went from bad to worse fast and soon the customer was threatening to kill me and the manager when we left that night.  I admit I was hoping he would since it would save me a trip and a bit of effort… always great when dinner comes to you.

I finished my shift without incident and left, turning down the offer of an escort to my car, and headed to the back parking lot.  Everyone always wondered why I liked to park in such a dangerous place and this is why… no cameras and no innocent people (at least at night).  He was waiting there for me with a knife which was just what I was hoping for.

This is the point in our story where the squeamish may wish to look away…

I want to make something clear.  I don’t kill people and I never have.  It’s stupid and draws way too much attention but there are risks when you leave witnesses too.  The way I would normally deal with witnesses is to make sure they don’t see me in the first place.  There are lots of blind alleys and I’m very fast so I only need to get out of their line of sight and I can seemingly vanish.  This is the same tactic I used this time.  I pretended to be terrified and I ran towards the trees with him following close behind.  As soon as I hit the dense foliage created by two trees I jumped up and out of sight.  I waited in the shadows till he passed through and out of the sight of any casual observer.  Once he was I dropped down on top of him and pinned him face down on the ground.  It happened fast and he never even had time to yelp.  He was quite the fighter, which was not much of a surprise, but considering what an ass he was I was kind of glad he was terrified.

This is where I have to step out of the story for a second.  I know I said that I wouldn’t hold anything back but it’s surprisingly hard to talk about this as it’s something we are so used to keeping secret.  If you’ll bear with me I’ll have to work up to talking in depth about the most private part of our existence (and the reason that we are feared by humans, forcing us to hide).

In this case the ass survived with a bit less blood and some new piercings to commemorate his brush with a vampire.  Don’t worry, he won’t turn but maybe he will be more wary walking into the shadows.

Hey everyone!  Sorry it has been so long since I posted last.  You would not believe what has happened to me!  My whole life was turned upside down and for the first time in my life I don’t have to live in the shadows.  I’m getting ahead of myself.  I have had some comments noting that I never specified which of the times that I have attended high school I was referring to.  This happens to me all the time.  I often find that I forget to include context or assume that people will automatically think that I am referring to the most recent time and since I came out as a vampire there is no reason for there to be that assumption.  In my last entry I was referring to this most recent time I was in high school which would be in the early 2000 sometime… I forget exactly when and it really doesn’t matter since I live so long.  I should also note that only relatively recently did it become common for people to attend high school.

For today’s story I have a tale of terror from my time as a flaggy!  A bit of an exaggeration I know but it really shouldn’t be.  This should be seen as a terrifying rather than an accepted risk and it could have ended very differently with a second either way.

It is easy to forget in the rush of day to day life that the people that seem to be inconveniencing you are really there for your protection.  As a flaggy it was my job to try and stop people from getting hurt whether that be the road users or the contractors working in the area.  I know it can be frustrating when you’re running late and encounter construction that you know will ensure you’re late for wherever you’re heading but if I was human I would be dead because of someone in too much of a hurry to be safe.

I was working with a contractor who was replacing the ground wires on a pole near a school on a school day after the bell had rung and class had started.  This process takes around a half-hour and is for the protection of you and your house.  In the area where I live we have what is called a neutral system which, if I understand correctly, helps minimize fluctuations in the voltage so that lightbulbs don’t burst if there is a surge.  At the time this system was not in use everywhere and I don’t know if that has changed.  The purpose of the ground wire is to prevent damage to your house from excess voltage which is not stopped by the breaker panel (and also reduces the risks of you getting accidentally electrocuted).  Without the ground the voltage would go up and down with demand causing lights to flicker among other things.

As you can see this is a very important operation that could have serious consequences if it’s not done and the best time to do it is during the week when there are fewer people walking past the pole (the kids are in the gated school grounds across the street and the adults are at work).  I was there to ensure that cars focused on what was being done to the pole would not run down a child or plough into another car.  A couple of minutes into the work I encountered an individual who was the reason that there needed to be a flaggy.  This guy was driving a black sedan and had his small son in the front seat.  I waved the stop sign at him because there was another car coming and there was the risk that they would collide.  The man barreled past me and would have run me down if I’d been slower and almost hit the oncoming car in his rush to get his kid to school.  I wasn’t able to get all the license number or I would have reported him.  He could have killed innocent people and I know he saw me trying to stop him.  That was the worst part of it; he looked me in the eye before he tried to run me down.  I keep thinking maybe he was daydreaming but that only makes it worse.  So glad I can’t die from being hit by a car but it sure does get the adrenaline running!

This was only one of a number of incidents where I was confronted by people who just should not be driving.  I was lucky but there have been other flaggers who have lost their lives because of someone’s careless driving.  There is nowhere that you have to be that is more important that someone’s life.  Please people drive safe and respect the flaggers who are there to keep you safe and get you on your way as fast as they can.

I know that this story doesn’t have the same zing as one filled with details of my people’s lives but it is so very important and if I were human I would not have survived.

Hello blogosphere! I’m new here, call me Gwen. Let me tell you about myself. I am older than I look but I never act my age. I love action movies and video games…the gorier the better. I am a voracious reader and I love too many genres to pick a favourite. Right now I am reading a classic… Dracula. Man did Stoker have it wrong. Seriously! Sunlight killing vampires! Crosses, Holy Water… HA! That is all a load of shit. Let me tell you about real vampires.

You may be wondering how I could know such things…well…I am one. I am somewhere around 500 years old though I kinda lost count a while back. I will admit that I am pale but no more than a human could be. My skin is like porcelain in texture and pale ivory in colour. I can’t tan…my skin is not able to darken or burn. My eyes are normal…sort of. They change colour when I am very emotional but other than that they look dark brown. I am a LIVING creature! I am not dead or undead thank you very much! I am nocturnal by nature but, just like you can learn to stay up at night and sleep during the day, I can learn to sleep at night. I can heal from any wound and I am almost impossible to kill so I really have nothing to fear from people which is good because you have been out to eradicate my species for ages. In what follows I will let you in on my life. I will not hide any aspects of my nature and you can judge for yourself whether I am to be feared or not.

Many people believe that vampires appear as beautiful people but this is false. We blend. There are few ugly vampires but that is more due to natural selection. I would not say that I am beautiful though others have said so. I am not super thin but I am super strong. Most vampires are like me… average… and often women. There are no ugly male vampires and that’s because it would be very difficult for them to convince a woman to go willingly with them. Even an ugly woman can get a man alone for a while.

Blaring question: do vampires drink blood? Answer: Yes. Now let me elaborate. Vampires do drink blood and it is not always human. We can drink animal blood but not for extended periods of time. Ultimately we need to feed on humans but that does not mean we need to kill them. Like a human our stomachs only hold about 2 cups of fluid. That being said a person will not die from losing that amount… they may be dizzy but it would not kill them. We really don’t want people to die; it draws attention and it causes suffering to others whom we may come to know. It is really awkward when you find out that the person you were feeding on is a friend of a friend and they decide to introduce you.

I know you probably have a ton of questions so here is the short version

1. Sunlight                   ——————-                                No
2. Garlic                        ——————-                                No
3. Holy Water            ——————-                                No
4. Crosses                    ——————-                                No
5. Running water     ——————-                                No
6. Wooden stakes   ——————-                                No
7. Fire                             ——————-                                No
8. Iron/Silver              ——————-                                No
9. Immortal                 ——————-                                Yes*
10. Dead/undead       ——————                                  NO
11. Born or Turned   ——————                                  Born*
12. Infectious               ——————                                  Very Rare
13. Fangs                        ——————                                  Yes

*We are immortal but we do age up until we reach an age of between 20 and 25 then we stop aging forever.

I am betting that you are wondering what high school was like for me. I was a nerd… I took all the available AP courses and did well in them. I was a bit of a teacher’s pet but that was more because I was still new to fitting in with humans and so I didn’t realize that being polite to teachers was considered sucking up. Oh well. I had a group of human friends whom I hung out with during the lunch hour… we played card games. I won quite often ;). The best part was the Halloween party I threw every year. I should have been in set design for what I did with such a small budget. I spent hours making the cobwebs look real. A fake murder scene in the entrance complete with bloody tracks and prints! A mad scientist setup and fake cemetery. We had a blast and I was able to show off my fangs without anyone realizing they were real.

The hardest part about high school was feeding. The best places to get people to come with you are bars and clubs but there are quite a few criminals on the street too. I had drug dealers operating out of an alley not far from my house so that made things easier. Other than the drug dealers I used to go for late night walks in the bad part of town. I have never done the whole feeding on animals bit since I love animals… my whole family is that way. We have pets, 2 cats and a dog.

That pretty much covers high school. It really was uneventful. Sometimes it can be hard if young vampires have difficulty being around people but I never had that problem. I was never tempted to attack one of the students at my school and neither was my sister. University was a little different but that was more because of my job.

I was working 2 jobs while attending school full time. It was brutal but I was making it work. On Fridays I would go to this sushi place just down the road from my school and practice my Japanese. By the way, we can eat human food it’s just more like junk food to us. I love pizza and chocolate which is why I am not super skinny like my sister. It was really fun and the people were so nice! Some Mondays I would go to the movies between my classes…morning bio and evening crim… but only if I had finished all my homework. I usually worked Friday, Saturday and Sunday as a flaggy (other than the one semester I took Japanese) and 5-10pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at the other job.

The other job is not one I am super proud of but I have to stay under the radar so it works. I also work as a store clerk in a large store. I have been moved around as of late but back then I worked in the electronics section. I met some real characters there J. For the most part it was pretty good. The other people in my department were fun to work with and we all got along with two exceptions whom I am not going to talk about. I did not handle them as well as I wish I could say I did. Don’t worry they remain unscathed but I was more than a little tempted. It was, at its worst, worth having to move but I convinced my supervisor to not schedule me at the same time as them. I hate having to resort to such childish measures but I really would have gone after them.

We were all really close in the department and we all talked outside of work so it was really sad when the department was combined with two others and our supervisor was let go. It sucks even more because the person who replaced her was terrible. She follows staff around telling them to move faster no matter how fast they were moving to begin with. More than that she would spread rumours about other managers and staff. She would say horrible things to you if there were no witnesses and she even was known to reduce staff to tears. This woman was not management material. She knew nothing about how to get things done and as a result her staff suffered since she used them as scapegoats. By this time I was in another department so I escaped the worst of her abuse. It used to be that this place was relatively pleasant to work in now it feels like slave labour. With every day I grow more tired of this horrible place but I have to stay below the radar so there are few options.

Long ago vampires didn’t keep such a low profile but now we have no choice. There are paparazzi following anyone of interest, hackers stealing photos of anyone who may make the front page and everyone looking for the shot that will make them rich. It is a dangerous time to be different.