Inspiration Tuesday: Soulslumber by shende-bende

Like the Syrup and Butter private conference halls attached to The Big Biscuit Night Club, the Gravy hall was large enough to comfortably hold a five hundred person event or—if the center tables were removed to make a dance floor, mosh pit, or whatever—it could hold a thousand in a standing room only fashion.

The Gravy hall still sported the wedding set up from the night prior. White folding chairs crowded where left around round white wine-stained satin bunted tables. White lace strewn from the rafters in a complex braid and the white trestle, also braided with white lace, still stood on the wooden platform at the front of the room.

Standing door guard at the green room North Lord Maze was using to hold private meetings, Chuck Garcia kept steady watch over the fifty-three vampires still in the main room. Most gathered together in small clicks peering at the other small clicks.

Chuck sneered. Their posturing was like that of “cool kids” trying to out cool the others.

A few younger vampires, no more than a decade dead, tried to curry favor by running messages between the clicks as they power-played in innuendo; jockeying to control what part of the city Lord Maze declared public.

The only sound breaking up the whispers came from an obese, newly turned vampire. Oblivious to the others, she went around the tables desperately clanking lids away from plates with remaining food. Feeling starvation, she kept trying to eat. No matter how finely she chewed the food, right after she swallowed, she’d heave it back up, and would move on to the next plate or the next table.

Chuck had done similar when he was turned, but having been a raging alcoholic, it was booze for him. He couldn’t keep anything down and now, could only get a drunk-buzz by drinking from someone with a .4 BAC.

Any sympathy Chuck would’ve had for the woman unable to scratch her jones had been lost hours ago when the waft of uncovered day-old fish permeated the room. Her regent, a slightly larger man standing near two other rotund vampires, kept a lazy eye on her like a jaded parent would a toddler exploring a child-proofed house.

The smell didn’t bother the sloths, but everyone else—too cool to cover or throw away the spoiled food—spoke through crinkled noses.

Chuck would’ve done it, but he was on door duty.

For someone of Chuck’s prowess and skills, it was a simple job really. Don’t let anyone in that North Lord Maze didn’t specifically call for. A battle-tested veteran, he could single-handedly beat away any of these sissified cliques if they tried to force their way in. But, when Carolynn Crimson walked in, if Chuck could still sweat, he would’ve.

© Ezekiel James Boston