Today, being a werewolf or a vampire, a ghoul or a monster is not easy...

My friend the ghoul

As always in the spring, my friend Vanyok went out "hunting"; he was an ordinary, inconspicuous Russian maniac, like many others. Despite the prevalence of this profession, especially recently, Vanyok was very proud of himself and would declare, not to me, of course, but rather in front of the mirror:

"Oh, I'll show you this! We, sexual maniacs, are eagles!"

And no one knew who he was threatening, for what purpose he was risking, incidentally, so much of his otherwise spotless biography. We, his friends, were not maniacs at all; we didn't even know or suspect what kind of Man walked among us!

Vanyok was like everyone else, even more so — he was weaker than everyone else and was constantly unlucky, so unlucky that he could have died, just because he was unlucky. For example, he regularly found himself in all sorts of cataclysms, terrible disasters and accidents, with casualties... If anyone ever cut their finger, it was Vanya, no one else — he, definitely. Now we often recall that funny story from ten years ago, when everyone was at some spring cleanup, and Vanya got hit with a rake... Then we carried parcels for him to the intensive care unit until mid-July. And recalling another story, we involuntarily wonder — could this very insignificant incident have been the beginning of the dark history of Bloodsucking?

Once upon a time, in school, we were all in the same class. First-grader Vanya was playing with a girl named Valya during recess. And what a coincidence! Valya, fighting Vanya off with a mop, splintered her finger (and I must say, mops were rarely painted back then). The splinter was trivial, but Valya, as usual, burst into tears. Vanyusha was flustered, but then began to console her, then tried to remove the splinter; he succeeded with difficulty, but a fair amount of blood spurted out! You don't need a Shakespearean imagination to imagine Valya collapsing unconscious. Everyone came running, as if they had nothing better to do, but Vanyusha grabbed Valya's finger and put it in his mouth; he, and others, always did this when they cut or burned themselves. The ending was typical: Valya came to, braided bows and danced hopscotch, and basically, everything rolled on as before, boringly. And no one, not even I, noticed then how Vanyok was transformed after tasting Valyukha's blood, what a predatory gleam lit up his fishy eyes! And then the years passed, and Vanyok grew up, and so did we all, not running away like some, but living on in our former friendship, growing stronger year after year. Only Valyukha broke away from us, and even before that, she'd avoided our company, especially if Vanyok was present — she'd get up and leave. Well, we noticed that right away, as well as Vanyok's glowing eyes, and we'd all tease her amiably: "Vanya, have you fallen in love or something? Get married, you fool!" But Vanyok didn't marry, didn't even try; he just looked at her strangely and licked his lips.

We'd noticed something was wrong long ago, but it turned out to be too late; Just a year ago, he complained to me about feeling unwell, saying he "didn't have enough space," that he was drawn, he said... And no one knew where he was drawn to, and that's human indifference - no one even asked "where"? And then the police detained him, for what - no one knows. But he came back from the police the next day not himself, and ever since - like they switched him... And again - no one cares - go away, Vanya, go away... And Vanya went away: we often saw him near the garbage dumps, so well dressed, and were perplexed. But he remained silent. Once, the vigilantes caught him at the train station, in the women's restroom - he blushed. We understood that anything can happen, we even tried to help, introduce him, find him a job, but it was all in vain - Vanya brushed it off. And one Sunday, we saw our Vanya in a woman's dress with lipstick... Everyone guessed what was going on, but it turned out to be a complete miss... And then it all came out of nowhere, unexpectedly.

And that's what it was called – bloodsucking!

But Vanya didn't commit murder; he respected people. There was only one thing left – toilets, garbage dumps...

And the spoils – tampons...

©1998 Mikhail Dmitrienko, Alma-Ata