Flight of the Bloodmobile, Chapter 6

Yeah... like I mentioned before, I've written around 12 chapters of this... but for a long time there were a couple chapters I just didn't have titles for, and I didn't want to upload them without titles.  There's still one I haven't titled yet, so I can only upload these until Chapter 10 for now... but still, that's twice as many as what was here before!

Chapter 6

~ Northward with Pigeons  ~

            The Bloodmobile drove all through the night once again, leaving Alabama and passing through several other states on their way back to the northeastern parts of the country.  After briefly passing through Georgia, they drove through North Carolina for a while before eventually crossing the border back into Virginia, right back to where they started.

Well, not exactly.  Rather than driving toward Covington, they avoided the city and instead headed further to the west, finally coming to a stop somewhere in the mountains of West Virginia.

"Well, this looks out-of-the-way enough," Pugh said, "So... should we stop for a nap right here, or just keep going until noon or so?"

"Sleep," Steve said, almost instantly flopping over... onto Crurotarsi's lap.  One rather harsh shove (which nearly threw him against the wall) later, he decided to lay down on his back instead, making sure not to accidentally bump into anyone in the process.

"I'm getting a little worn out myself," Elvis said, folding up a map and putting it away. "All that walking yesterday, and then another twelve-hour drive today... yeah, we should probably stop and rest here."

Everyone else seemed to agree.  While the rest of the vampires got ready for bed, Pugh hopped out of the Bloodmobile for a second, pulling a cellular phone out of one of his pockets and flipping it open.  He punched in a few numbers, then held it up to one of his pointy ears...

            The vampires woke up that afternoon to the sound of... pigeons cooing outside their windows.  Steve immediately sat up in his bed with a confused look on his face, while the rest quickly figured out that Pugh had probably invited his flock of pigeons over to visit while the Bloodmobile was parked so close to his hometown.

Pugh, of course, was already outside, sitting on a tree stump with his legs crossed.  Several pigeons were sitting on his shoulders, on his head, and even in his lap; still others were sitting in the branches of nearby trees, on fallen logs, and even on the roof of the Bloodmobile.  He had a small bag of birdseed in his left hand, and he would occasionally pour some out into his other hand or onto the ground so that the birds could have something to eat.

Elvis and Zamboni climbed out of the Bloodmobile and immediately had several pigeons land on them, causing Elvis to stop in mid-step and wait for the birds to flutter off and Zamboni to freak out a little, attempting to shoo them away.  They were followed shortly afterward by Rhombus, Crurotarsi, and Steve, who were greeted by the pigeons as well.  One actually remained on Rhombus's head for several minutes before finally taking off and flying back over toward Pugh for another handful of birdseed.

"Dude," Steve said, glancing around in awe at the majestic pigeons flying through the air all around him, "What's with all the birds?"

"They're Pugh's trained pigeons," Elvis said, holding out one arm so that three pigeons could land on it.  "You know, the ones that he taught how to read and write English so they could pay the bills while we're gone.  Remember?"

"We've been gone for about a week now," Pugh said.  "So I called the house this morning and let them know where we were.  I wasn't expecting the whole flock to show up like this, though.  Heh..."

Steve paused and blinked a couple of times, then suddenly seemed to know exactly what the other vampire was talking about.

"Oh yeah! I remember now!", he blurted out.  "These guys are the badass ninja pigeons!"

A pigeon sitting on Steve's shoulder turned toward his head and gave him an odd look, then got up and flew off.  Pugh tossed a couple pieces of birdseed up into the air, and the pigeon quickly caught them in mid-flight before fluttering up to a high tree branch and sitting down once again.

"Heh... looks like breakfast's already started," Zamboni said, glancing around at all of the pigeons eating.  "Or is it dinner for these guys? I'm not really an expert on the eating habits of pigeons."

"Speaking of breakfast," Crurotarsi said, taking a couple of steps back toward the Bloodmobile, "Now would be a good time for some.  We still have food in the fridge, right?"

"Running low," Pugh answered, standing up and causing most of the pigeons sitting on him to go fluttering off into the trees.  "We've still got enough blood left for another day or two, but there's not a whole lot of anything else left."

She shrugged.

"Works for me... I wasn't really feeling like fruit today, anyway."

As the pigeons nibbled at what was left of their birdseed, the vampires all headed back into the Bloodmobile to get some food of their own.  A couple of minutes later, the entire group was standing around outside the vehicle once again, each holding a blood packet with a straw sticking out from it.  Pugh, Elvis, and Rhombus split a mango between the three of them, while Zamboni ate a small bunch of grapes (and Steve occasionally grabbed one or two from him when he wasn't paying attention.)  "Breakfast," this time, only lasted about ten minutes; by that point, every packet of blood had been completely drained and the only sign that there had ever been any fruit there was the inedible branching stem from the bunch of grapes.

Pugh waved goodbye to the pigeons as the entire flock began to get up and fly off to the southeast, heading back toward their home in Covington.  As the birds disappeared off into the sunset, the group of vampires piled back into the old Bloodmobile trailer and prepared for another long drive.

Which, like the trip south to Alabama, was interrupted not long after it started by an emergency visit to a Wal-Mart.  Rather than sunscreen, however, this time the vampires stopped in to buy food--a whole bag full of oranges and grapefruits of all sizes, another few mangos, several bunches of grapes, and a watermelon which only just barely fit into the Bloodmobile's refrigerator.  After restocking the fridge with enough fruit to last them for days, the vampires resumed their drive across the country, heading northeast toward New York City.

In Pennsylvania, they passed through Amish country--which marked the first time that Steve had ever seen a horse and buggy, as well as the first time any of them had seen so many beards in one town at the same time.  For a moment they considered stopping somewhere nearby, but they soon realized that their Bloodmobile and other technology would stick out like a sore thumb even if nobody realized they were vampires--and nobody even wanted to imagine what the reaction would be if that little bit of information came out.

Several hours of driving later, they had finally crossed the New York state line.  Of course, even once within the state's borders, they were still quite a while away from the city of New York, a fact that confused Steve a bit.

"Why did they give the state and the city same name?", he blurted out not long after hearing that they weren't quite to the city itself yet.  "That doesn't make any sense!"

Nobody said much of anything in response, though Elvis briefly considered mentioning that they used to call the city "New Amsterdam" in the distant past (he reconsidered when he realized that Steve would probably think the name had something to do with hamsters.)  Before too long the entire group was back to quietly watching the scenery pass through the windows as the Bloodmobile came closer and closer to its destination.

It was almost sunrise by the time they finally reached the outskirts of New York City.  Even from this distance, everyone could tell that this place easily dwarfed the cities of Covington and Tumpaduh; even the larger cities they had passed by on their travels so far didn't seem too impressive compared to the urban sprawl and huge skyscrapers they could now see laid out before them.

"So... how many humans do you figure live here?", Zamboni asked.

"Hmm... can't remember off the top of my head," Pugh said, slowing the Bloodmobile down a bit as he looked for someplace along the side of the road where he could park for the day.  "I'll have to remember to check later.  There's definitely a lot of them, though... probably well into the millions by now."

Eventually, Pugh decided to give up on finding a spot to pull over and instead pulled into the parking lot of a hotel.  Steve's eyes suddenly lit up at the sight of it--finally, he'd have a real bed!  Everyone else, of course, was more interested in the fact that they'd be able to take a real shower for the first time on the trip.  Though they had managed to keep themselves fairly decent by taking baths in various bodies of water and occasionally using the public showers at a local gym when there was one available, neither of those really did the job quite well enough, and they were all starting to feel a bit grungy by this point.

Pugh went inside to pay for the rooms while the rest of the vampires gathered up their luggage and began to carry it from the Bloodmobile to the hotel.  A few people working at the hotel's front desk stared and blinked in shock at the sight of people carrying several large suitcases or duffelbags at the same time apparently without too much effort, though after seeing four of the vampires head into the hotel like this they had stopped paying too much attention.  By the time Steve came in dragging a cardboard box by a rope and carrying a trash bag over his shoulder, he didn't even get a second look from the hotel's employees.

Around ten minutes or so later, the six vampires had taken the elevator up to the third floor, where their rooms were located.  The two rooms were positioned right next to each other on the same side of the hall, with a door in the middle linking the two (which was quickly unlocked and opened as soon as the vampires got inside.)  Each room had three beds crammed into it, a television in front of the beds, and--most importantly--a small bathroom complete with shower and many sets of towels.  Almost immediately, the vampires tossed their luggage onto their beds (or, in Steve's case, dumped them on the floor next to his bed.)

Pugh pulled up a chair and sat down at a table on the far side of his room, then got out his laptop computer and began searching for any useful information on the city around them.  Meanwhile, Crurotarsi and Zamboni managed to get to their rooms' respective showers first, leaving the other shower-seekers waiting outside behind them.  Steve, however, didn't seem too excited by the possibility of getting a shower and instead snatched the remote control and immediately began to flip through the dozens of channels in search of something that would be less boring than just sitting around and waiting for a shower.

"So," Elvis said, taking a seat near Pugh at the table, "Any news on other vampires in the area yet?"

Pugh typed away at the computer a bit, then clicked on something and waited for a few moments before answering.

"Well... New York does have the country's highest vampire population," he said, scrolling through several pages of the website he was reading over.  "More than seventeen thousand in the entire state, and a good portion of that number is in New York City.  I haven't been able to pinpoint any good vampire neighborhoods just yet, though."

Rhombus walked through the door between rooms and sat on one of the beds nearby, listening to the other two vampires.

"So," he said, "We're pretty much surrounded by other vampires here?"

"Not exactly," Pugh said.  "Seventeen thousand is a lot, of course... nearly half of the country's vampire population.  But with eight million humans swarming all over the place, it still might be hard to find them unless we know where to look."

"Let me know when you've got an idea of where the vampire-friendly neighborhoods are," Elvis said, pulling a few maps of the city out of one of his pockets.  "I'm going to mark them on these maps and pass them around to everybody, so we'll all have some idea of where we're going if we get split up."

"Sounds like a plan," Pugh said, glancing away from the computer for a moment before resuming his work.

Within the next hour, all of the other vampires managed to take a quick shower, dry off, and change into some clean clothes.  While Pugh finally headed off to the showers, everyone else gathered around his laptop, poking around at the various bits of information he had managed to find so far.

"Looks like Manhattan Island has a lot of vampires," Zamboni said, glancing over a few of the open web browser windows and trying to match up the names of all the places mentioned to their locations within the city.  "And apparently more than a few humans who look like vampires... or at least try to.  Nobody ever gets the ears right."

He clicked on a picture within one of the windows, causing it to enlarge to its full size.  Everyone crowded around to get a good look at the bizarre sight--it was a human wearing elaborate black clothes, with a long cape swishing behind him and extremely pale skin that would only be possible through the use of makeup.  His mouth was open just enough to display a surprisingly realistic pair of fake fangs; the only things that gave him away were the lack of pointy ears and the rounded, human-like pupils rather than the more oval-shaped ones that actual vampires possessed.

"Humans that dress up as vampires?", Steve said, seeming amazed that such a thing existed.  "And they have fake fangs and everything? Dude..."

"That's a step up from trying to kill us, at least," Crurotarsi said.  "I still can't see how humans keep missing the ears, though."

"From what I've seen, humans get most of their ideas about us from vampire movies and TV shows," Elvis said.  "So... blame Hollywood, I guess."

"Whoa," Steve said, pointing toward the screen and enlarging another picture.  "What is that?"

"That?", Zamboni said, taking a good look at the picture, "Looks like a nightclub of some sort.  And from what I can see in this picture, I'm guessing this is the kind of place where those kids dressed up as vampires hang out."

"Let's see... there's goth kids, punk rockers, vampire wannabes, and... well, I honestly have no idea what that one is," Elvis said, looking over the variety of humans in the pictures.  "And if I'm not seeing things, I think there's an actual vampire off in the background right there."

"So you're saying nobody'd ever suspect we were anything but ordinary humans if we showed up in a place like that," Crurotarsi said, pushing her way past Steve to get a clearer look at the computer's screen.

Zamboni nodded, standing up from the chair and letting Crurotarsi take his seat.

"Exactly.  In a place where nobody looks quite like your ordinary everyday human, a pale humanoid with fangs and pointy ears won't even get a second look."

A few minutes later, Pugh came out of the shower, wearing one of his usual dark blue suits.  Steve blinked a couple times at the sight of the older vampire, not used to seeing him without his trademark cape.

"Hey, Pugh," he said, "What happened to your cape?"

"Nothing much... it's just been a while since I washed it, that's all."

He popped open one of his suitcases and dug through the clothes for a minute, then pulled out another cape.  It looked somewhat different than the one he usually wore, as it hung down more on the front of his shoulders and was missing the tall collar in the back.  Steve, who looked a bit surprised by this, apparently hadn't realized that Pugh owned more than one cape.

"We should probably find a laundromat and get all our clothes washed before we do anything else," he said, gathering up the dirty clothes from his other suitcase.  "There should be at least a few in the more vampire-friendly parts of town."

"I think the hotel has a laundry room somewhere," Elvis said.  "That might be a little safer, at least for now."

Pugh nodded.

"You're probably right," he said.  "But we should still try to find a place to get our clothes washed out in the city... if we end up staying here more than a week or so, we'll probably need to find someplace a little more permanent to live."

"Wait, why can't we just stay in the hotel the whole time?", Steve asked, briefly turning his attention away from the television.  "I mean... what's wrong with the hotel? I like the hotel!"

"It's a bit expensive," Zamboni said.  "Sure, Pugh's got plenty of inheritance money stashed away, but we still can't just go around spending like crazy..."

The vampires, deciding that the hotel's laundry room was probably a better idea for now, got up from their seats and began to gather up all the clothes they had worn during their week of traveling so far.  As it turned out, Steve had actually brought along an entire box of black garbage bags, just in case the one he had been using started to wear out; the others grabbed several of these and stuffed all of the dirty clothes inside them, then carried them off down the hallway.

One short walk (and even shorter elevator ride) later, and the vampires had reached the laundry room.  It wasn't nearly the size of an actual laundromat, but there where a handful of washing machines and dryers sitting around and they seemed to all be working, so they proceeded to empty their bags of clothes into the washers, not even bothering to seperate each person's clothes from the rest beforehand.

While Rhombus stayed behind to watch the clothes and make sure nothing went wrong with the washing machines, the rest of the group headed back up to their hotel room to plan for the rest of the night.  Their main priority, just like the last time they had decided to stay in a city for a while, was to figure out where the grocery stores and restaurants were (so they could keep up a supply of food) as well as finding a place to live after they moved out of the hotel... which, of course, meant looking around in different parts of the city where vampires tended to congregate.

"When do we get to go to that nightclub place?", Steve asked, suddenly remembering the picture he had seen earlier.  The other vampires, who had been discussing restaurants before, turned and gave him a funny look.

"Who said we were going to a nightclub?", Crurotarsi asked.

"Well, nobody, but... Pugh had a picture of it on the computer, right? I thought that meant it was one of the places we were going."

"Hmm... well, it's not that bad of an idea," Zamboni said.  "A club where humans try to look like vampires is likely to attract a few real vampires as well, so places like that are probably right in the middle of vampire communities."

"Still," Elvis added, "We should concentrate on the really important stuff first.  Like food."

"We only have a couple days' worth of blood left," Pugh said.  "I'm going to need to set up the Bloodmobile somewhere and get some donations before too long, or we'll risk running out."

"We're doing pretty well as far as fruits and veggies go," Elvis said.  "So I guess grocery stores take the back seat to restocking the blood supply for now.  We should still look around for one that seems safe, though."

A few hours passed, with Pugh looking up more information on possibly vampire-friendly areas of the city and the others discussing which places they should try first (and which should probably be avoided.)  Eventually, Rhombus came back up from the laundry room carrying the two bags of clothes over his shoulders; he plopped them down on the floor between two of the beds, then headed over toward the table that the other vampires had gathered around.

"So," he asked, "What did I miss?"

"Eh, not much," Zamboni said.  "Just a lot of talking, trying to figure out where we're headed tonight.  Pugh's decided he's going to try and set up a Bloodmobile stop tomorrow afternoon, Steve wants to go to a goth nightclub and stare at the girls, and--"

"Hey!", Steve interrupted, "I never said anything about staring at any girls!"

Crurotarsi snickered.

"Sure, you didn't say it... but everyone saw where your eyes went when Pugh started going through those pictures."

Steve glanced around, looking a bit embarrassed, and then decided to quiet down without saying anything else first.

"Anyway... Steve wants to go to a nightclub, and Elvis and Crurotarsi were both planning on checking out the stores and laundromats and such in a few areas to try and figure out where we can live when we move out of the hotel."

"Hmm," Rhombus said, pausing for a second and thinking.  "It sounds like we're going to be splitting up again, just like in Tumpaduh..."

"Actually... we hadn't quite decided on that point yet," Pugh said.  "It might be a better idea to stay together this time, especially considering just how big this city is.  Can't have someone wandering off on their own and getting lost, after all."

"If we're taking a vote," Rhombus added, "I say we shouldn't split up this time.  That... didn't work very well before."

"Yeah," Zamboni said, snickering slightly.  "If we stick together, it'd be a lot easier to keep Steve from sneaking off and biting some passed-out drunk again."

"Plus, if we're all together, we can ride around in the Bloodmobile," Elvis added.  "Unless the traffic's so bad that it'd be quicker to walk, or maybe take the subway or something."

"Not sure about the traffic at the moment," Pugh said.  "It is pretty late for so many humans to still be up and moving, but... you never know."

"If the traffic's anything like it was on the way in," Crurotarsi said, "It probably would be faster to just take the subway.  The Bloodmobile's so big it would just end up taking up space."

The other vampires nodded; the traffic was pretty bad on the way in, and even if it was only half as bad now it would probably still be enough to slow them to a crawl if they were stuck in a vehicle the size of the Bloodmobile.  Plus, even if they didn't stand out much among all of the weird-looking humans, their vehicle probably would.

"Okay, then," Pugh said, standing up and turning to face the group, "Where does everyone want to stop by first? I'll probably save the trip to the local hospital for tomorrow morning so I don't have to go barging in there in the middle of the night, but we've got hours until then."

Almost immediately, Steve stood and blurted out where he wanted to go.

"Let's go to the nightclub!"

Crurotarsi glared at him for a second, while Zamboni smiled and shook his head.  The others, for the most part, pretty much ignored him.

"Well... we just washed the clothes, and we're not running low on the fruit and veggies just yet," Elvis said, pausing for a few seconds to think.  "So I guess going to that nightclub wouldn't be all that bad of an idea."

"It would give us a good look at what the local vampires are like," Zamboni added.

Rhombus nodded.

"The ones that go to nightclubs, at least."

Pugh shut down his computer and closed it up, then began to walk past the other vampires toward the door.  He then turned back toward the group and went over their plans so far.

"So... looks like Steve, Elvis, Zamboni, and maybe Rhombus want to go to this club and take a look around.  Not exactly my first choice, but... I'm not completely opposed to the whole thing, either."

He then turned toward Crurotarsi, who hadn't said anything in favor of the club (and didn't seem too happy when Steve mentioned it.)

"What about you? Any objections to the nightclub thing?"

She shrugged.

"Nah, not really.  Just got a little annoyed with Steve bringing it up every ten seconds."

Once again, Zamboni snickered; Pugh cracked a smile, Elvis shook his head slightly, and Steve looked a bit afraid, as if expecting another punch to the shoulder more than ever just because of how long it had been since the last time he had gotten one.

"Hmm... looks like that's settled, then," Pugh said, opening the door and then holding it open for the rest of the vampires to pass through.  "We're going to the nightclub."

"I went ahead and marked the place on these maps," Elvis said as he passed out the folded-up maps to the entire group.  "I've got all the subway routes marked on here, too, so it shouldn't be too hard to find the place."

Everyone stuffed one of the maps into one of their pockets (or, in Steve's case, on the inside of his belt), and then filed out into the hallway.  Pugh closed and locked the door to the room behind them, and they all headed down the elevator, each preparing in their own way for their first trip down to the streets of New York City...