What Do We Do?
“Hello, everyone. We have convened this emergency meeting on the chance that someone – anyone – in our group has an idea of what to do over this entire…situation.” Jacob Reedy opened the meeting of the vampires with a simple request, half plea and half confused gesture of welcome.
“You can see that not all of us are present. Some – such as Betty – were unlucky enough to be in the group that is being held in the town hall as of a few hours ago. I’m glad the rest of you – those who were willing and able – could come.”
“Betty called me a few minutes ago.” Jessie, the waitress at Jacob’s bar offered up to the awkward silence. “She said the centaurs are being very nice to them, and have promised them breakfast in the morning. They have apparently been communicating with their captors, and it seems the dragon that was holding that woman up in the town square is in charge of everything, decided by popular vote of the creatures who were released.”
“What is the US Military doing? Do you know?” Rosemary Halis piped up from her chair. “They have to be doing something – the secretary of defense was flown here.”
“As far as I know, or as she would tell me, the military has helicopters and troops stationed at our airport, but they won’t make a move until they receive orders from the secretary of defense. The secretary is holding off the troops, explaining that they’re not really being held hostage – they’re just discussing informally in a closed location.”
“So they are being held hostage.” Jacob’s eyes narrowed. Betty was a close friend of his and he would hate to see anything bad happen to her.
“Yes.” Jessie agreed. “But not at gunpoint.”
“Well obviously. I think a man with the feet and meat of a horse wins out over a gun. You can’t exactly take hooves away, if you know what I mean.” Jack spoke up, smiling briefly.
“Hey, there’s no embargos, right? We can still get our blood? I’d hate to have to start feeding off of fairies. God knows what that’ll do to us.” Judy spoke up for the first time. She had told no one of her foray into the bedroom of Charlie and Angela Johnson, fearing retribution for pure stupidity. She had realized what had happened almost as soon as it had happened, and she had hoped that it would simply fade into a memory of “one of those nights”.
“Right now, we have no problems getting blood. But, chances are, we might want to make ourselves known to the general human population. I think we might have to choose sides.” Jacob warned her, turning the conversation away from its light hearted banter.
“I say this only because I may be a bartender, but I know how people work. When something new and threatening comes along, all of humanity forms into two groups: us and them. For a while now, it’s been us – the vampires – and them – the humans.”
“And now that there are two extremely large groups that may start fighting…” Jack led into Jacob’s next statement.
“We have to choose. We will be exiled by humans if we hide and then come out after the threat of those creatures is gone. And I have a feeling that if humanity chooses to put what they fear behind that veil, we’ll be heading there, too.” Jacob sighed. “I never imagined it would come to this. But now that Charlie knows about us, we can’t very well keep silent about what we are or what we need to do to survive. Maybe we can play it off as a disease and meld into the general crowd, but I have a nagging feeling that we won’t be able to.”
“You mean one of us is going to slip up and use the word, ‘vampire’, around them.” Rosemary said in plain terms for everyone else to hear. Jacob nodded.
“You know…I’m not really close to any of you or anything, but I think I might have an idea.” Judy spoke up again. “I’m young in both human terms and vampiric terms, but Jacob: you were alive during the Vietnam fiasco, weren’t you? What side did you choose?”
“I was a soldier. I took two tours in ‘Nam. Why?”
“Well, this is going to turn out to be one of those situations, isn’t it? There’s three groups: one general culture which is divided over another culture. A small division – us – but nonetheless, a division.”
“So what side do you want to be on?” Jack asked, blankly. Rosemary pitched in the rest of Judy’s explanation, filling in the blanks for her husband, slow in the ways of human nature.
“She wants us to be the hippies, darling.” Rosemary offered to her husband. “She wants us to dress in tie dye, use lots of hallucinogenic drugs, proudly proclaim our innocence and rebellion against the bloodshed that will come, and generally be useless slackers.”
“Wasn’t Betty one of those?” Jessie asked, looking towards Jacob, who knew the woman best.
“We don’t talk about that much.” Jacob admitted. “No one does. But I can see where you’re going with this. If we establish ourselves as first victims of a disease, and second as neutral to all conflict, we will piss off both sides, equally.”
“You mean, make friends with both sides, equally.” Jack corrected Jacob, slowly catching on.
“No.” Jacob argued. “We’re going to pull American Politics in the beginning of World War Two. We’re going to be like Switzerland, or the United Nations, or even Canda. We shall all be Belgian.”
“Hey!” Judy protested. They all looked at her questioningly. “I was born in Canada.”
“Fine. We are going to be the United States Government in reference to women and all blacks until 1970. We are going to be the President with his total, complete indifference to other religious beliefs.”
“Okay, getting a little harsh there, Jake.” Rosemary laughed. “I’m all for it – we’ll make our announcement to Charlie and entrust him to inform the rest of the world. And then we’ll make our posters and start picketing the town hall.”
“What about work?” Judy asked.
“Well, considering that the majority of the town of Sedona works at Green Tech, and Green Tech is responsible for this entire mess, I don’t think we’ll have to be too worried about our jobs until this entire thing pans out the way that it’s supposed to.” Jacob admitted. “I mean, I’ll still have a job, because I have a business to run. I have ‘act of God’ insurance too, so if that god damned dragon decides to sit on my bar like it did that grocery store, I’ll be covered.”
“There’s a flaw in our plan already, though.” Rosemary contributed to the conversation. “Betty’s not here to make the decision with us, along with a few others – gods know where they are – and Charlie is currently being held by a group of centaurs. Remember?”
“Yeah, I know. But luckily, Charlie and Betty are in the same group being held hostage. And that means if we call Betty, we can get her to agree to our plan, then tell her to break the news to Charlie, so we don’t have to. She knew him in person and greeted him by her full name by the end of the other night.” Jacob defended their plan of action. All nodded in agreement.
“Alright. It is way too late for us to be up much longer. It seems we have a long day tomorrow.” Jacob stood, announcing the end of the meeting. “Please guys, stay the night if you want – there are plenty of couches and floor space down here, and if you’re not driving home – I know you, Judy, live just a few blocks from here – get a ride, or walk with someone. I don’t want anyone of our clan falling victim to anyone else. Is everyone good on blood?”
All of the vampires, now diseased, war-protesting hipped, nodded that they were fine, had ample protection and transportation, and began their goodbyes to each other. It had been an odd meeting, to say the least, but they had at least discovered where they stood in what they feared was going to be an epic battle of all time: right, smack dab in the middle.
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