Fangtasia

Aftermath

Ginger's screams broke the shocked silence in the room. It also seemed to bring Eric out of a frozen daze; dropping the stake, which I could now see used to be a beer pump, and moving to the bar to wipe splatter of Long Shadow from his face. I was glad when he moved; it meant he was no longer staring directly at me.

I did, however miss anything that took my focus away from Long Shadow's remains, in which I was soaked. I was willing myself not to throw up, over and over again, and almost said it out loud. Ginger was not as strong willed as I was, and vomited whatever she had eaten just to the side of me.

"Get her away" Eric said. Pam responded by dragging Ginger out of the bar area. I was glad when she left; my body wanted to copy her hysterical reaction to the situation I was now in. With her gone, it was easier for my head to take over and stifle my natural reaction to completely freak out.

That said, I still needed to get out of the room, get this crap off me and get as far away from the puddle of goo in front of me as possible. Taking Sookie's hand, I led her into the staff corridor and through to the staff shower. It was just a small square cubicle in the corner of the small locker room, but it would definitely do the trick. We didn't say a word to each other as she stood there and watched me turn on the water and adjust the temperature.

I gestured for her to get in, which she did, fully dressed. She stood under the water and I watched the shower tray colour and cloud over with thick redness, like something in a Hitchock movie. I left her to it and went into Eric's office, while trying to ignore the squelching feeling and noise my wet shoes were making. I went to the cupboard set into the wall to the side of Eric's desk where I knew he had a few boxes of the branded T-shirts. I found two XXL which I knew would be just about long enough for Sookie and me, and went back to the shower.

Sookie had stripped down to her underwear and was rinsing her hair when I entered. I took a leaf out of her book and pulled the wet dress over my head. I tried to keep as much of it from sticking to my face as possible but it was truly disgusting.

Sookie stepped out when I threw my dress into the corner where I could see Sookie had chucked hers. We swapped places without saying a word. I guess we were both of the same mind; to get the fucking stuff off of us and start dealing with whatever was waiting for us after that. I let the warm water wash every bit of it, him, off of me. When I saw that the water was running clear through my hair and down my body, I turned off the shower and stepped out. I ran my hands through my hair, trying to get as much of the water out of it possible before accepting the T-shirt that Sookie held out for me.

"How you feeling?" I asked and was shocked by my own voice. My perfectly normal voice.

"Alex, you're neck it's-"

"Better." I finished, as I double checked in the small mirror across from the shower. I turned my head from left to right, feeling no twinges whatsoever. I touched the skin and found it smooth and pain free as it was before my attack.

"It's the blood."

Sookie's words chilled me as I realised she was right. The disgusting blood from the disgusting vampire had healed me.

I ran to the bathroom next door and just made it before I threw up.

When I returned from the bathroom, having thoroughly rinsed my mouth out, Sookie was outside waiting for me.

"Feel better?" she asked, sounding like she realised it was a stupid question, but I nodded anyway. We headed back to the bar and I noted that Ginger was cleaning up the goo with a blank smile on her face, but made myself look away as I felt myself gag.

"I see you've already freshened up,' Pam was at our side holding what I feared were clothes of shiny black PVC, "how disappointing" she walked away and dumped the suspiciously small pile on a table as she left the room.