Characters:

DON Vampire Bartender at a classy old bar that plays very good music

JAMIE Exhausted vampire, keeper of her sister

AKAINA Overdramatic vampire, lost in her own self pity

Setting:

A bar that caters to vampires.

Special notes:

The vampires don’t need teeth or any other special effects.

The Mexican roadhouse referred to is from the movie “From Dusk Till Dawn”. The sisters are vampire survivors of that movie.

They are ordering blood at the bar. Rh Null is the rarest blood type.

“point O six” is “.06” and “point four five” is “.45” These are both for Blood Alcohol Content.

Two women sit down at a bar. A friendly bartender comes up to them.

 

AKAINA

I don’t want to be here.

JAMIE

You don’t want to be anywhere, but this is the only place in the area that serves our kind and you can’t hunt for shit right now.

AKAINA

I seek only the mistress of death and her velvet embrace.

DON

Keats?

AKAINA

That was an original line, you deathless shadow.

JAMIE

Please, be nice. Sorry. We’ve been on the road a long time and she’s a bit hungry.

DON

No harm done. What can I get for you two ladies? JAMIE O positive with at least a point O six.

DON

Warm it up?

JAMIE

With a lemon?

DON

You got it. And for you miss?

AKAINA

Rh null. Point four five.

JAMIE

No, she’ll have whatever is house AB.

AKAINA

Rh null and I’ll take the whole bottle, if you please.

JAMIE

You can’t sit here and drink Rh null all night. You’ll be broke by dawn.

DON

Should I give you two a moment?

JAMIE

Can we just get an AB and O positive?

AKAINA

I said I want Rh null and that’s what I’m going to have.

DON

Have you two been drinking already?

AKAINA

May I ask you something?

DON

Ok…

AKAINA

Let’s say you spent almost a thousand years in a den of divine torture where your every whim was seen to and you were treated like a goddess –

JAMIE

You are romanticizing what was basically a shit hole.

AKAINA

Then some…cowboys blunder in and destroy everything you’ve ever known.

JAMIE

Not everything.

AKAINA

You roam the world looking for something that could be it’s equal but all you can find is an empty spot inside you where all your hopes and dreams used to be.

DON

Is there a question in there?

AKAINA

Say all that was true about you and you’d decided you’d had enough. How would you pass the time until dawn?

DON

Thinking of throwing yourself into the light of day?

JAMIE

She’s just being melodramatic. We worked at a strip club. Some assholes with a vendetta walked in. It was a slaughter. It was really sad, but we need to move on with our lives. We survived!

AKAINA

You can’t call this empty, endless existence survival!

DON

Wait. You two worked at that roadhouse in Mexico? The one that lured in truckers with the promise of strippers and then drained them dry? Man, it was heartbreaking when that place got hit. We used to get some of our best blood from there.

AKAINA

We lived as the Queens and Kings we were!

JAMIE

Don’t encourage her.

DON

No, no. I mean it. How about two on the house?

DON

Yeah. Times have changed. It’s not like when there were government run orphanages and insane asylums. We get most of our blood from NGO’s like the Red Cross now, but it’s really the Budweiser of blood supply.

JAMIE

You know what I miss? Cults. Good looking, healthy kids giving their blood to save their souls.

DON

Especially during the seventies. The blood was all slightly laced with psychedelics.

JAMIE

Oh man, when the children of God were –

AKAINA

There is nothing for us any more! We have to feed off the forgotten! Lay me down here and let the dawn creep over my hollow body and burn me with its flame.

AKAINA throws herself from the bar and falls to the floor dramatically.

DON

So, I’m guess you two are feeling a little demoralized?

AKAINA

That is a simple word for the feeling of carrying around your own dead soul like a malformed fetus that will not be birthed.

DON

That was a good line.

AKAINA

Whatever.

JAMIE

Yeah, we’ve been a little demoralized. How about you? How is it here?

DON

Well, as you can see, business isn’t exactly booming. I don’t have much to offer the vampire community, unless they want it steeped in preservatives.

JAMIE

You ever thought about opening a strip club?

DON

Yeah…that used to be Okay. But that doesn’t really attract the big crowds anymore. The mortals now all go to the new hipster bars. This generation doesn’t want just a dark place to drink and see tits, they want fancy cocktails and laser light DJ dance parties and all kinds of things.

AKAINA

Death! Why do you elude me!?!

DON

Is her misery always this poetic?

JAMIE

If you can call that poetry. The truth is I accused her of romanticizing the Titty Twister, but she was right. We had run of the place and it really did feel like home.

AKAINA

There is no reason to live!

JAMIE

Why can’t she be more like me? I was there too. I saw all my friends get staked and burned and blessed and drowned in holy water. I’ve been here every step of the way and I’m not…drowning in poetic misery.

DON

We all deal with trauma differently.

JAMIE

The best I can hope for is that she gets blackout drunk and then I carry her to her room and she sleeps through the day.

DON

And then?

JAMIE

I don’t know. Get up at night, hunt and do it all over again. She’s my sister. I can’t just leave her. She would kill herself or…starve or…something.

DON

That doesn’t sound like much of a life.

AKAINA

Let the light of day burn my flesh with its death kiss!

JAMIE

I’ve never been on my own before. It’s always been the two of us.

DON

I guess if I had a brother it might be hard for move on without him.

JAMIE

One time, I took her to a midnight vampire movie so we could feed on the patrons. When we were full she fell asleep, but I watched the movie. It was terrible. But you know what? It was shot completely at night. And I thought: I could do that. I mean, I know all about vampires. I could make vampire movies and I could show how it really is and then I could feed on the actors after. And I could be a creator, you know? Not just a killer. I could put something out into the world. I think that could make me happy.

AKAINA

Happiness is con game, he’ll tell you it is on the table, but he palmed it before the game even started.

DON

If your sister were settled somewhere, do you think you would give that dream a try?

JAMIE

Sure, but –

DON

I’ve got an idea. (to AKAINA) Hey, lovely lady. Would you be willing to get on stage again?

AKAINA

The music has lost its power over me and the dance is not within me.

DON

No, not dancing. How about leading some poetry readings?

AKAINA

What?

JAMIE

What?

DON

The hipsters in this area have been feeling really down since the new administration took over. An open mic poetry night might be just the thing. Some of those kids will even beg to be bled dry.

AKAINA thinks.

AKAINA

Could we call it “Dark Night of the Soul Open Mic Night?”

DON

Deal.

DON helps AKAINA up and she seems willing to give the idea a try.

JAMIE

Just like that?

AKAINA

This is something new. I’m just going to go freshen up. I’ll be back.

She exits. DON puts a drink in front of JAMIE.

DON

To vampire movies.

JAMIE

To doing what makes you happy.

They clink glasses and drink The end.

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