Sustainable Vampirism

 

 "All that blood looks good on you. It really brings out your eyes."

     Elizabeth grimaced as she looked down at her Adventure Time t-shirt covered in smeared blood. She hated getting messy, but it was part of the process. Count Markworth was still looking at her with desire. She stuck her tongue out at him and he laughed.

     "Well, if you were a little more mindful in your killing I'd have more time for that," she quipped as she brushed a blood-crusted lock of hair behind her ear. She spent most of her day sorting through the bodies so that she could properly dispose of them in a sustainable way.

     They met at a green initiatives meeting. Well, he wasn't actually in the meeting. He was walking outside the building where the meeting was held and when he threw his plastic cup on the ground she stopped to scold him. When she was done explaining that plastic takes 1000 years to break down, he looked at her with amusement in his eyes and invited her for coffee. She wanted to say no, but he was charming, even if he was a lousy steward of this planet.  

     On her third sip of the delightful latte, he told her that he was Count Markworth and that he had been alive for 500 years. He told her that he was a vampire. He stared at her with his icy blue eyes and asked her if she was afraid. Elizabeth shook her head, "I am only afraid of your total lack of consideration after being on this planet for 500 years." She was adorable. He took her hand and they went back to his place. 

     They made love and he drank her sweet, humanitarian blood. Elizabeth was curious above all else and asked him about the logistics of the vampire lifestyle. He told her how he had to hunt nightly. She explained that she did not identify as a vampire and that she was a lifelong vegan. He had figured. He had detected no animal products in her blood. She then asked him the oddest question "Do you dispose of your carcasses in a sustainable way once you drain their blood?" 

     Honestly, he wasn't sure.

     "Well, I have my servants dig a pit and we throw them in." 

     Elizabeth clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes at him. 

     "What?"

     "You need to strip the bodies so that the clothing and jewelry can be recycled. You may also be able to cut their hair and donate that. For that matter, it's possible many of the body parts can be recycled." Of course, not all the blood could be drained if they did it that way, but it would be so much more recyclable. 

     He had never really thought of things that way. He had been doing this for a long time and his carbon footprint hadn't been on his mind. She was right, of course. She was young and energetic. She made him want to be a better being. After 500 years of wandering on this planet, that was remarkable to him. He wanted to keep her around. He offered her a job as his personal sustainability coordinator. The look in her eyes was as if she had won the lottery. She took the position quite seriously.

     She stood in front of the slab with her surgeon's knife, carefully cutting away anything that could be reused. As the blood splattered onto her hair and snarky t-shirt of the day, he didn't think he had ever seen anything so adorable. While she was doing this, she was smiling and humming along to the music in the background. He felt good that he was able to feed in a much more sustainable way. He could murder, but now he could murder green.