The Human Condition

One

Working as a check out chick wasn’t always my career goal in life. When I was ten I wanted to become a doctor, when I was fifteen I wanted to be an archeologist and explore Egypt, hoping to find some long lost artifact which would send me on a crazy kind of adventure involving Mummies and a Brendan Fraser look alike. Now that I’m twenty-one, the excitement from finding out if a customer was paying with cash or card was all I needed and I was left wondering how I ever found Brendan Fraser attractive.  

“So got any big plans this weekend Lucy?” Every Friday my best friend Mandy would ask the same question and if I wasn’t with her, which was extremely rare, I’d get a text. We all had things we still clung to from our old lives and this happened to be one of hers. I don’t think she knew she was asking half the time, but not wanting to upset her or break the tradition I answered how I always did.

“Not sure yet, you?”

This was where we differed and she started to talk about all the things she had planned, even if half of them were impossible now like the rumor Adam might be having a party Saturday night. Adam died two years ago when the vampires had come to town and he wasn’t one of the ones who were ‘reborn’. Being away from the main cities, we didn’t have so much to worry about but the groups of them that occasionally passed through caused enough damage to make up for it. 

As Mandy got caught up in her daydream I continued serving our last few customers. All the stores closed at three pm during the winter. Late night shopping was unheard of now and while we were spared the terror that other places suffered through, vampires did still live amongst us. Since the laws of the treaty were treated more like suggestions, few pushed their luck and stayed out past sundown.

I went and got a few things I knew we needed at home and the shut down procedures commenced on the store. The thick metal doors and windows that slid down to protect the tiny supermarket could withstand a tornado, but it wasn’t the weather or vampires we had so much security for, it was the looters.

The economy was no worse now than it had been in the forties; a period of new growth was starting to emerge from the troubles of the war and if you believed the government, an era of peace and prosperity was commencing. Yet with so many business owners’ dead, grieving for their lost families or businesses destroyed, so many were unemployed and desperate.

Some tried selling their blood to the vampires, others wanted to be changed but the vampires had their own rules to follow and none of the dead were reborn these days now they had no reason to build their numbers. Finding my beat up old mini cooper it was the one part of my youth I clung to like Mandy did with her non-existent social life. 

“Have a safe night ladies. You know the number should you need help otherwise see you tomorrow” Owen the security guard had been our sports teacher at school and when the war started he joined the cause called Humanity and became a soldier. Now he worked days at Food Mart and his nights were spent as a member of Night Watch, a vigilante group that patrolled the streets after dark protecting the stupid. He would also give us self defense lessons on weekends should we ever have to deal with a vampire again and since he had lost his family, looking after us had turned into one of his main priority and by us I mean our schoolmates in general.

I missed the man he was, the one who would let the class leave early on Fridays and always had a smile on his face. He had always been fit but his body had bulked up now to the point where the hulk looked skinny in comparison. His hair that used to be pulled into a low ponytail had been shaved off and his carefree attitude was now dark and as hollow as his eyes 

“You too Mr. Stevenson” Calling a teacher by his first name, no matter how many years it had been was weird and Mandy waved goodbye as I pulled out of the car park. We only lived three blocks up from the shops. Some days I wished we could walk to work and enjoy the winter sun but we’d seen to much to think we could ever actually do it. For a time of peace where humans and vampires could again live together peacefully, it felt more like a war than ever before. We could see our garage when Mandy pointed out the body on the road and I didn’t pause to check if it was human or vampire; dead or alive.