text: Vampire movies make me laugh. In the movies, we can’t see our reflections in the mirror, which is absurd. You can’t kill us by stabbing us through the heart with a wooden stake. You can only kill a half-breed vampire with a wooden stake. My favorite myth is we burn up in the daylight. Why do they put these myths in movies? Oh, I’m sorry for not introducing myself. My name is Nina Vegas and I’m a vampire. I just moved into a lovely neighborhood with my husband and son. We purchased a nice four-bedroom home that has a glorious backyard pool. It’s sunny here all the time, and it’s perfect beach weather. I’m a financial adviser and my job pays well, but I have a second job that pays me another six-figure salary. I would say that my second job is morbid. It involves visiting funeral homes. I bought a new home in a suburban neighborhood that has plenty of funeral homes in the surrounding area. Sometimes funeral directors pay me to visit at night. Most of the time a loved one pays me to resurrect a family member. I can come out in the day, but I let people believe the myth that vampires can only roam the streets at night. You would never guess I was a vampire by looking at me. I look like a CoverGirl. I’ve had funeral director men flirt with me, and I have to tell them I’m a married woman. They see my curvy body, my scantily clad dresses, and my expensive jewelry. I’ve been told that I look like a runway model, which flattered me. Sometimes I wear a dark veil over my face whenever I visit a funeral home. I wear the veil to protect my identity and my family. There are people out there who want to kill me. I have a 4-year-old son and I don’t want to put my baby’s life in danger. We, vampires, are not completely immortal. We can still burn up in a fire. I’ve caused some funeral directors to lose their job and they’ve hired hitmen to come after me. I get paid mostly by the bereaved. A mother who lost her baby would gladly pay for the resurrection of her child, instead of a funeral director, since funeral directors make their business off the dead. If you resurrect too many people, you put a lot of funeral homes out of business. I’m not the only vampire who gets paid to resurrect the dead. There are other men and women vampires out there who resurrect the dead so they can flash their cash. It’s a great way to make extra money, but you gotta watch your back. Some vampires don’t just use their gifts to resurrect the dead. They also use their gifts to heal the living. An ounce of vampire blood can cure any disease. Doctors know this, yet they keep it a secret from the public because they don’t want to lose their job to an immortal. I’ve heard of vampires mysteriously dying after getting hired to do a few jobs at hospitals. Healthcare companies would lose money if they allowed every vampire to donate their blood to the sick. There would be no need for Medicare. Everyone would be immortal and free of disease, but the good old government won’t allow that. The government has investments in healthcare companies. They want people to stay sick so their investments can thrive. I know what it’s like to be paranoid. I’ve fought people sent to kill me. That’s why I’m always moving my family to a new area. You can’t be a healer or a resurrectionist vampire and live in the same neighborhood for a long period. Eventually, a paid reaper will come after you. I had to realize that concealing your identity can’t always save you from an assassin sent by an angry unemployed doctor or a mortician. A month ago, a man tried to shoot me while I was in my car. The bullet went through my windshield and it grazed my left ear, shattering my earring. My baby was sitting in his car seat right behind me and the bullet struck the headrest an inch above his head. I was taking my son to daycare when this happened. All I saw was a man on a motorcycle and the nozzle of a semi-automatic pistol aimed at my face. Only one bullet went through my windshield and I didn’t give this asshole a second chance to shoot into my car. I rammed my car right into his motorcycle. I drive an Escalade, which is an enormous SUV. So when I drove over his body, my tires squashed him. I heard his bones snapping beneath my car. I drove away after I saw that his body was flatter than the road. Later on, I found the funeral director who sent the hired gun. I executed him in his home. His wife was at work, so she stayed alive. Before I killed the funeral director, I made him apologize for sending a hitman to kill me. I forced him to get down on his knees. You should’ve seen the look on his face when I showed up at his house. He kept asking how I knew and I wouldn’t tell him. Vampires have a sixth sense. This guy didn’t know that because he was stupid. I made him pay for his ignorance. He died in his living room wearing nothing but his fucking underwear. I had no mercy on him, because the hitman he paid to shoot me, almost killed my child! I tortured him by biting off his fingers one by one. And then I sunk my fangs into his throat, putting a hole in his windpipe. I ripped out his throat, and I chewed on it. He had time to see my face before he died. Sadly, I’ve killed other funeral directors and the hitmen they paid to wipe me out. I killed a man who was twice my size. He thought he could surprise me by sneaking up behind me in a parking garage. I felt a needle pierce the side of my neck and I knew it was a tranquilizer. My body went numb, but only for a minute or two. When my attacker whirled me around, I saw that he had a black bandana covering his nose and mouth. He had a skullcap, and he wore a gray tank top. His arms were the size of boulders. Wow, you’re beautiful. It’s a shame that my boss wants you dead. This is what he whispered in my ear while pushing me against my car with his hand up my skirt. I told you the tranquilizer lasted for a minute. Sedatives do not affect a vampire. He made his mistake when he leaned his ear next to my lips, thinking I was trying to say something. I chewed off his ear and I spit it in his face. After I did that, I sunk my fangs into his nose. First, I ripped out his nose ring with my teeth and then I gnawed on his nostrils. I swallowed his nose, and it had a slight saltiness to it. He begged for his life, but I told him to stop talking. He didn’t, so I stretched his mouth open and I used my fangs to tear out his tongue. I dug my long nails into his throat and I lifted him off his feet. Yeah, he was a big guy, but a 6 foot 4, 240-pound man is no match for a vampire woman. I watched the life in his eyes disintegrate after I crushed his throat with my bare hand. A funny thing happened. My husband called me after I killed my attacker. We were discussing our anniversary plans. I kicked the hitman’s body away from my car and I got in, driving away while still talking to my husband. It was so nice to hear his voice. Later that day, I killed the funeral director who sent the hitman. It was a 42-year-old soccer mom and I hated killing her. I know you think my life sounds like the typical Hollywood vampire thriller. Let me tell you something, sweetheart, nothing is thrilling about paid hitmen coming after you and your family. This is my reality and I hate looking over my shoulder every time I'm out in public with my husband and son. I thought about purchasing a gun, but vampires don’t use guns. It's a dishonor to our ancestors. The only upside in my life is resurrecting dead loved ones. It’s not about the money. It’s about making people happy during death. Last week I went to a funeral home to resurrect a woman’s son who the police wrongly killed. The mother was African-American and I could see all the pain in her beautiful face. I understood how she felt because I’m a black mother myself. Well, I’m half black and half Latino. I knew how this woman felt because I almost lost my son. She told me that the cops shot her son when he reached for his phone in his back pocket. These idiots thought he was reaching for a gun. He was 17 years old and scared for his life. The police stopped him because he fit the description of a suspect. He wasn’t the suspect they were looking for, but instead of letting him go; they told him to get out of his car. He panicked when one officer tried to put handcuffs on him. The mother told me he reached for his phone to call her, and that’s when one cop shot him in the back. She wanted to know why God let a group of racist cops kill her only baby. The only thing I could tell her was that God sent me to bring her baby back to life. On this resurrection job, I told the mother to keep her money. I walked into a refrigerated room where I saw her son’s body lying on a table, dressed in a dark men's suit. I closed the room's door and locked it. When I saw the woman’s son, he was so handsome and young. I stroked my fingers through his short, curly hair while leaning over his face. I kissed his forehead, and I took a deep breath before sinking my teeth into the side of his neck. He had a beautiful lion tattoo on the side of his neck and I hated messing it up. If you bite a person longer than twenty seconds, you’ll turn them into a vampire and I didn’t want to do that. So I had to time myself. I reached into my purse to get my phone, and I set the timer on my phone to fifteen seconds. I gave myself enough time to resurrect him but not transform him. I do this with every human I resurrect. It’s euphoric for me when I feel a cold body turn warm. It’s like reviving a dead rose. I smiled at the young man when he opened his eyes and looked up at me. The sunlight coming in through the window made his eyes look like hazel colored diamonds. He had gorgeous eyes. He asked me who I was, and I told him that I worked for his mom. I took him by the hand and I watched him stand up. He was tall and slender. I told him how handsome he looked and he told me I was beautiful like the singer, Rihanna. That made me giggle. The best moment was taking him to his mother and watching her throw her arms around him. She cried so hard while kissing his face. She thanked me for what I did and she tried to pay me, but I refused to take her money. I messed up that day because I wasn't wearing my black veil, but I didn’t care. The funeral director was an elderly white woman who had a German accent. She had her silver hair tied up into a bun and she had a pinched up mouth. She rolled her eyes at me from behind these ancient-looking eyeglasses. She called me a freak under her breath and I gave her the finger before turning my back on her and walking out of the funeral home. I knew she’d send a hitman after me, but I didn’t give a damn. After I resurrected a young woman who died from leukemia, I packed up, moving my husband and son out of the neighborhood. We moved to a quiet little town in West Virginia. A few days ago, I went to a funeral home to resurrect a guy named Frankie Venza. That resurrection job didn’t go too well. I found out that Frankie was a gangster who had a lot of innocent blood on his hands. He had three sons, and they wanted me to resurrect him, but I refused. They offered to pay me 10 million dollars, and I still turned them down. All three of them pulled out their guns, and they aimed them at my face. They told me that if I didn’t resurrect their father; they would load my pretty face up with bullets. I never gave them a chance to pull the triggers on their guns. I was a small woman surrounded by three strong, armed men in black suits. These boys didn’t know who they were dealing with. I devoured them. Bullets tore through my body, but my vampirism gave me regenerative healing. I felt like I was killing the Backstreet Boys. All three of them looked like they belonged in a 90s hip-hop boy band. One boy wore a backward cap, and it amazingly stayed on his pretty little stupid head when I sliced it off using my fingernails. Blood soaked his black turtleneck and his suit jacket. To my surprise, I found out that these boys were human-vampire hybrids. One of them bit my shoulder and I saw he had 24 karat gold plated fangs, which matched the gold bling around his neck. Amazingly, I kept my cool when I saw their father rise from his casket, pulling a small-caliber machine gun from beneath his suit jacket. I realized that all of them were hitmen. It didn’t take me long to annihilate Frankie’s three boys. I wore their blood on my face and dress. There was nothing like executing three young men in their prime who were all part vampire. My hardest moment came when I had to kill their fat ass father. He looked like a Mafia Godfather. He had slick back white hair that touched his shoulders. His suit was impeccable, and he had diamond rings on each finger. I stood my ground when he started shooting at me. Bullets kissed my face and my neck. They ripped through my breasts. I could feel their steel jacketed tips piercing through my liver and my other internal organs. I played dead after Frankie emptied his clip on me. He had no more bullets in his machine gun and I knew his ass was mine. I had the advantage because I was one hundred percent vampire while he was a half-breed. Half-breeds are much more vulnerable. I kept my eyes closed, remaining perfectly still while lying on the floor. Frankie lumbered over to me and he walked with a limp. He kneeled over me and had the nerve to put his hard, truck-size hands on my breasts. I let him grope my boobs for a minute and then I bolted up, sinking my teeth into his double chin. The blubber in his neck impeded my teeth a little, but I finally reached an artery after three, agonizingly long minutes. He tried to sling me around the room, but I didn't let go. He punched me a few times in my ribcage, but I still wouldn’t let go. I wrapped my legs around his fat body and I dug my high heel sandals into his lower back. I had my arms locked around his neck with my fangs buried in his throat. I forced him to carry me in his arms like a little girl as I drained every ounce of blood from his body. It seemed like it took forever to suck him dry. He finally fell to his knees. I had a 300-pound gangster lying on top of me. It took all my strength to push his body off my chest. I was in an abandoned funeral home, so there was no director. It was just Frankie and his three sons. Somebody paid them to assassinate me. My sixth sense told me it was an old German woman, and I was gonna kill this stupid bitch. While I was lying on the floor gathering my breath, I thought about how I resurrected a woman’s 3-year-old daughter. Thinking about this relaxed me. I thought about how adorable the woman’s baby was. The baby had on a wig because her chemotherapy treatments caused her hair to fall out. She looked so pretty in her little black floral dress. Her name was Keisha. Keisha's mom almost fainted when I came out of the room holding her daughter. The baby’s hair grew back after I resurrected her. She had beautiful, gold curly locks. I could tell she was half white and half African-American. I stood there watching the mother hold her daughter while crying and thanking God that she was alive again. She thanked me and kissed me. I was still lying on the floor beside a 300-pound dead body when my husband called me. I told him the plans I had for our son’s birthday party next week. I also told my husband what happened to me at the funeral home, and that it was time to move to a new neighborhood.