As a vampire, death is something that happens to other people.

Everybody's got some kind of opinion about death. Go ahead and pick a random person out of a crowd and they will have some kind of personal connection to death. Maybe they will even pretend to be blasé about death or say that they don't fear death, but this one thing is true: death has touched us all in one way or another.

Maybe it is some ancient family member that everyone is finally relieved to be able to stop checking in on and lying about how well they're looking, and no you don't look old at all Nana, no one can guess you were one hundred and thirty years and will you just die already dammit?

Maybe it's a friend they've been meaning to catch up with and can never seem to make schedules match with until they hear one day that there's been an accident and of course they promise to make it to the funeral, but in the end are either too chickenshit to go or once again, schedules don't match.

Maybe it's someone closer, a friend or a brother who they never expected to be gone just like that and it's just not fair goddamit. That kind of pain... they will carry that with them for the rest of their lives, that knowledge that they can never again hear the laughter of that loved one, and that soon even the smell of them will be forgotten.

Or maybe it is a pet that stuck around way too long but was such a huge part of their lives and saying goodbye is like losing part of themselves.

In the end death touches everyone.

Except for vampires.

Yes it touches us and yes we die, but it's not in the way that people and pets die. For vampires death is more like a holiday or a weekend trip. It's something we always come back from.

The problem is that the act of dying still hurts like a sonofabitch.

***

"Hey buddy. You owe me ten large for saving your ass."

That was the last thing I had ever expected when my drawer was finally pulled open and I blinked into the bright fluorescent light, wishing desperately for my sunglasses, and just shielding my eyes as best I could with my hands. As it was, it saved me from having to look directly up Vern's hairy nostrils as he leaned over and breathed into my face.

"You wanna know what they do to you down at the morgue? They cut you open and pull all yer organs out before bagging 'em and putting 'em back inside, along with a ton of other nasty brutal-type stuff. Luckily you're here, where we make sure all yer bits are accounted fer, and then we lovingly put you back together so yer all nice and shiny and alive. All o' this for the low, low price of ten thousand dollars. So whaddaya say?"

Now, the normal reaction in a case like this would be simply to stutter "What?" and look completely confused, which is what I almost did. But since this was hardly a normal circumstance, being that I didn't come back from the dead every day and since I wasn't enjoying the experience all that much, my response was more in the lines of:

"Fuck you buddy!"

Luckily, that was more Vern's kind of language, and he just shrugged.

"All right then. Fair enough, fair enough. I expect you'll be wanting some clothes then. It's fucking cold in here, what?"

The 'here' that Vern was referring to was a brightly lit morgue, and it gave me the creeps, especially since I had until a few minutes ago, been one of the more silent residents.

The whole being dead thing, that didn't return to my memory yet. I think I was a little too traumatized at that point for my mind to want to start poring over that particular highlight of my otherwise dull and pointless life. I hadn't been planning to die for a good while, and even being a vampire, it was an experience that I had been hoping to put off for a very long time. I had been specifically avoiding mobs with pitchforks and torches due to their vampire killing tendencies.

And now here was this old dude in his sketchy suit extorting me for ten thousand dollars.

Okay: for the sake of clarity, let me back up a little bit, to about ten minutes before.

***

My initial reaction when I had woken up in the semi-darkness had been anger.

There was a low-wattage light in my box, and an iPad installed in the roof of the box. The note taped on top of the iPad said the most helpful thing that anyone could have said, given the circumstances.

DO NOT PANIC.

Now here's the thing about coming back from the dead, at least for me: It was just like waking up. Of course, some people will wake more violently, depending on their various methods of death, or perhaps because of the very last thing they remember. People who died violently like I had, you know with the whole rain of bullets plus the bullet to the brain type of thing, would be a little more traumatized by the suddenness of the entire affair. Others who died more slowly would have longer memories and more pain to remember. They, in fact, may not have wanted to come back. See, the absence of pain is a wonderful thing. In fact, it is the natural state of being for all of us, and we would like to remember those times when there was a lot of the whole lack of pain thing going around.

I would have hated to die slowly.

So I woke up, not yet completely traumatized, and the first thing I was aware of was the note above my head. It said not to panic, so I took its advice, after all, there was probably a very good reason why someone thought I might panic and didn't want me to, right? Or was that the exact reason to panic?

I started to freak myself out a little bit there. Comes from thinking too much.

I felt the familiar strains of panic reaching at me, and then read the note again, thinking that maybe a little positive affirmation would help, but there's something about being enclosed in a metal box that just drives the panic right home. I had finally gotten a bearing on my current location and despite the iPad above my head, it was definitely very box-like and not very reassuring, despite the note--

Hey, there was more to the note. It had been simply folded over, and there was more writing on the inside.

Curiosity being such a huge part of human nature, I stopped freaking myself out and opened the note.

"Greetings. If you have taken my advice and have not panicked, then I would like to apprise you of your current circumstances. You have been placed in storage while your body regenerates from the extensive damage caused by the manner of your violent death. There is a communication system next to the iPad-"

I checked, and there it was. Funny that I hadn't seen it before.

"--so please feel free to alert us when you are awake. Someone will be by shortly to let you out. In the meantime, feel free to watch television on the provided applications. We have full subscriptions available to premium services in all of our boxes, including Netflix, HBO and Showtime, so please, enjoy while you wait"

I hesitantly tapped the screen and after a moment of confusion, figured out which app to select for Showtime.

It wasn't for another twenty minutes that I realized I hadn't actually used the intercom to tell anyone that I was back from the dead yet. Then again, I don't have Showtime and HBO at home, either.

"Um... hello?"

There was no answer.

"Hello? I'm done being dead now. Can I be let out, please?"

Still no answer.

Dammit. I went back to watching the SyFy Channel app. Rather appropriately, they were offering full seasons of 'Dead Like Me.' I spent the next hour being amazed at how they'd managed to take all the cuss words out and apparently half of the humour as well. It was a lot funnier with swearing from what I remembered, but then again I come from the school of thought that everything is funnier with swearing.

It's amazing how watching television can take you away from things. I was getting comfortable and wishing I had some snacks when someone came knocking at my box. I paused the screen and listened.

"Hello?" I said into the intercom.

"You ready to come out yet?"

"Can I just finish this show first? It's got like ten minutes left in it."

"I suppose so. Tell you what, I'm going to get some tea and muffins from the kitchen, and I'll check on you then, how's that?"

"Can you get me a donut while you're at it?"

"Fine, but I'll have to charge you."

So I watched the last ten minutes of the show, devoid of thought for a while. What a charmed existence, you must think, that I was able to get comfortable in a drawer at the morgue. Given the circumstances, I think I was just glad to be able to get comfortable at all, especially considering the alternative of freaking out and trying to claw my way out of a metal drawer. Like that would have been productive. I was just glad I wasn't claustrophobic.

What happens if you get a claustrophobic vampire?

I shudder even to think about it.

******** AUTHOR'S NOTE **********

The book is now AVAILABLE in Hardcover, Paperback and Ebooks. It's going to live here free on Wattpad, but if you love the story and want to support your awesome author (me), grab a copy from one of the lovely retailers below. Who knows: maybe it can become a bestseller with the help of you lovely WattPadders

Amazon - http://bit.ly/Amazon-SIMBAV

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Indigo - http://bit.ly/Indigo-SIMBAV

Check out the website: http://www.bobthevampire.com