Haitian Vampire King: Uprising!

Nightfall, at last I can move more freely. I step out of my apartment. The plain brownstone building in Vanier, Ontario, has been my home for the past two years. The landlord is an old man who doesn't ask too many questions as long as he gets his rent money in time. A tenant who sleeps during the day and comes out only at night? Not something he's given much thought to, I guess. I think about catching the bus downtown, then decide to walk instead. It's only about two kilometers anyways, and I could use the exercise.

I walk across the bridge that separates downtown from the east end, and shake my head as I notice the Shawarma restaurant across the street. I used to be one of their regular customers, just a few years ago. Now I can't stand the taste of any food. Bread, meat, they taste like cardboard to me. Thankfully, I can still drink alcohol, although more for the taste than anything else. A vampire's system isn't designed to process human foods, but alcohol is the exception. Most vampires I know drink a lot of whiskey and wine because it's one of a few things we can still process. I wasn't a drinker in my mortal days but I sure as hell am one now, I tell you that much.

Before this goes any further, the name is Miguel Etienne. A six-foot-one, lean and well-built black man in my early twenties. I was born on the island of Haiti in 1984. In 1994, my parents, Cassandra and Michael Etienne moved to the City of Montreal, province of Quebec. I've spent most of my formative years in metropolitan Montreal, and it's where I met a lady who changed my life. In the summer of 2004, I was twenty years old and after completing my sophomore year at McGill University, I was looking for adventure. I don't know what possessed me to come to the City of Ottawa, Ontario. Many people say it's the most boring of all the big cities of Canada. We don't have a lot of big cities here in the Great White North. Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa, Hamilton, Toronto, Edmonton and Winnipeg, that's about it, really.

I came to Ottawa because I had never been there before and also because my cousin Jean-Donald Etienne was staying in town with his girlfriend, a Lebanese Christian chick named Artemis Abdullah. Jean-Donald has always been a player, and he's banged his share of women, both black and white, when he lived with us in Montreal. He enrolled at the University of Ottawa to study civil engineering and I guess he liked the town because he stayed there even in the summer. I wanted to know how in hell he got himself a tall, gorgeous Arab woman because honestly, I didn't think Arab women were into us brothers. The night I came to Ottawa, Jean-Donald and Artemis came to greet me at the greyhound station. Honestly, the first time I laid eyes on Artemis Abdullah I knew she was trouble but I was too busy checking out her bronzed body, her heart-shaped ass and her big tits to pay attention to what my instincts were telling me.

How in hell was I supposed to know that my cousin Jean-Donald's girlfriend was a centuries-old vampire once feared, both in ancient Greece and in the pre-Islamic Arab world as the monstrous Lamia, the she-demon? I mean, I was raised Catholic and always envisioned demons as red-skinned, horned creatures from hell, you know? Artemis was trouble for sure. In hindsight, there were several red flags that I ignored when I totally should have known better. Jean-Donald told me he and Artemis met at a club downtown, and just hit it off. She claimed to work during the day, thus explaining the fact that he only saw her at night. Yeah, major red flags, man. Also, that summer, there were a string of strange murders all over the province of Ontario. A total of six men and nine women had been found dead, their bodies incinerated. The Ontario provincial police force wouldn't reveal much about the investigation, but they did admit that we might have a serial killer on our hands.

I was completely indifferent to such things. I mean, what are the odds that a psycho killer would show interest in me? Average Joe black man? Besides, from what I've read about serial killers they tend to target women and gays, and since I didn't belong to either category, I considered myself pretty safe. I'd come to the City of Ottawa to get my party on. To be honest, I'd gotten into a bit of trouble back in Montreal. I was dating this tall, gorgeous and big-bottomed, fine-looking Haitian mama named Marguerite Cameau. You should have seen her, man. The face of Alicia Keys, the body of that singer Ashanti and the killer booty of tennis champion Serena Williams. I wanted to wife that, for real. We met at McGill University freshman year. Like me, she was a criminology student. We hit it off and I asked her out. We started seeing each other and for about a year, everything was cool. Until the day I came to her apartment to surprise her and I ended up being the one who got surprised. I caught her in bed with another dude. A white dude at that. Man, I was not prepared for that shit. I think I went a little nuts because I attacked the white dude and nearly beat him to death. Long story short? I couldn't go anywhere near Marguerite or her new beau, some Irish bozo named Connor Grant. Restraining orders, man. They can be such a pain. In hindsight, I made off pretty good. I mean, I didn't end up with anything on my permanent record or anything. The judge was pretty lenient.

Oh, well. That day, I decided that I would expand my playing field. You see, my conservative Haitian parents raised me to be a good brother. Go to school, go to church, date only black women and stay out of trouble. Well, that bitch Marguerite is the one who got me in trouble. So it's goodbye black women and hello to women of other races. For real. I went after white pussy like it was going out of style. That's why I was so fascinated with Artemis Abdullah when Jean-Donald introduced me to her. I had been with white girls and one Asian woman before but I still considered Arab women to be out of my reach. Artemis introduced me to a girlfriend of hers, a Lebanese beauty named Francine Abdul-Hamid. Francine stood around five-foot-nine, busty and big-bottomed, with light bronze skin, green eyes and long curly black hair. The gal was thick, and she liked the brothers. That's all I wanted to know. The fact that she and Artemis might be otherworldly monsters never occurred to me. I just wanted some of that fine Lebanese booty, man.

The summer rolled on, and Francine and I began seeing each other. The sex was off the chain, man. This Lebanese broad was freakier than any woman I'd ever been with. One time, she sucked my dick in the washroom of this club called Mansion downtown. Another time, she tied me up, bent me over her knee, spanked my ass and fucked me with a strap-on dildo. Now, I'm not fruity or anything but I did enjoy the experience. Just like I enjoyed putting her on all fours, spanking her big ass and pulling her hair while slamming my dick into her pussy. I was delighted to be with a freaky mama who took it in every hole. Women like that are kind of rare, man. Everything was great, until the day we were chilling in my apartment and for some reason, something I said pissed her off and she came after me. Now, I'm a gentleman and don't believe in putting my hands on a female but I am not the type to let a woman make me her bitch either.

Francine shoved me with enough strength to make me stagger. When she smacked me, I saw stars, man. For real. This broad had some strength on her, seriously. I tried to restrain her, and that's when she threw me across the room. I crashed against the wall and lay on the floor, beat. Slowly I tried to get to my feet, and Francine stood over me, her eyes bright red and glowing. Was it my imagination or did her teeth seem whiter, longer and sharper? She glared at me with malice in her eyes, and told me she had high hopes for me but now all I could be to her was a snack. I ran for the door and tried to flee, but she easily caught me in the hallway. I struggled against her and somehow, I managed to escape by leaping through a window. I crashed on the hood of this truck that was passing by, just like something out of a fucking movie, man.

I had escaped, but only through dumb luck. I passed out, and woke up at Ottawa General Hospital. When I explained what happened to the cops, they thought I was on drugs. I called my cousin Jean-Donald to warn him about Francine, since it occurred to me that whatever she was, Artemis might be the same thing. Try as I might, I couldn't get the doctors or the cops to believe me. They dismissed my warnings as the rants of a lunatic and threatened to put me in the psych ward if I didn't quite talking nonsense. I kept my mouth shut, and prayed that Jean-Donald might be safe. I didn't know it at the time but Artemis had already taken Jean-Donald, by turning him into a vampire.

I was discharged from the hospital two days later. When I got out, I went to the library and researched everything I could on monsters, demons and other unnatural creatures. I couldn't find anything useful, so I called my grandmother Beatrice "Granny Beebe" in Montreal. I told her everything that happened and she told me that demons and monsters were real, advising me to leave Ottawa and return to Montreal. When I refused to leave without finding out what happened to Jean-Donald, Granny advised me to stay in a church, since it's the only place that creatures of darkness cannot enter unbidden. I should have listened to Granny, but instead I launched an ill-fated attempt to save my cousin from the monsters.

I went to Artemis and Jean-Donald's house in Gloucester, and I brought with me crosses, sharpened pieces of wood ( my idea of makeshift stakes ), and holy water stolen from a nearby church. I got the bright idea of storming the place at night, which was foolish in and of itself. I'd never seen Artemis or Francine in the daytime because, as vampires, they cannot survive direct sunlight. I should have gone after them in the daytime but I thought Jean-Donald might not have that much time. It was imperative to me that I rescue my cousin. I've known Jean-Donald my whole life, we used to play soccer together in the streets of Cap-Haitien, my birthplace. I couldn't just abandon him, you know?

That's why I went to that apartment building in Gloucester, like the amateur vampire hunter I was never meant to be. I went in, and what I found was definitely a surprise. Instead of finding Jean-Donald dead, I found him alive...sort of. Except he wasn't Francine and Artemis captive. Oh no, he was their ally and devotee as a fledgling vampire. My cousin looked at me, all red eyes and shiny white fangs. Francine and Artemis told him to kill me but Jean-Donald proposed turning me into one of them instead. The two vampire women thought that was a wicked idea, and they held me down while Jean-Donald bit me, drained me then forced me to drink his vampire blood. Thus I was inflicted with vampirism. Thirty six hours later, I was one of them.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The story of how I became a vampire. Jean-Donald, Artemis and Francine wanted me to join their happy little bloodthirsty family but I refused. I couldn't forgive my cousin for his betrayal, nor Francine for trying to kill me. I walked out of that building, and thus began to make my way in this world as best as I can. My life has changed. I will never grow old or get sick, and unless I get burned to ash by fire or direct sunlight, I will never die. Vampires have uncharted regenerative powers and can survive being burned, stabbed, crushed or even beheaded. I live with my thirst for blood, and although I've killed to slake my thirst, I don't like it. It's just something I've got to live with, that's all.