SPACER I’ve been doing this too long anyway.

SPACER Same damn thing week after week, year in and year out. Hell, decade in and decade out. How long has it been?

SPACER 54 years.

SPACER 54 long years.
SPACER I’m 68 years old, for Chrissake! Three years passed any normal man’s retirement and too damn old to be running around with this kind of business. I’m not selling Amway here!
SPACER 54 years and not a penny to show for it. No pension, no social security, no 401-fucking-K. Not even a goddamn cheap gold watch with my name on it. Just an ulcer, a two pack a day habit, and memories.
SPACER My first one was by far the worst. I remember it as if it was...

SPACER Shit, as if it was 54 years ago. What was that guys name? Thaddeus? Therapy? Thorazine?
SPACER Therradine. That was it. Therradine. What an old shit he was!
SPACER I remember the fear and the repulsion I felt as well as the anticipation. Therradine had been a screamer. Screamed his sweet ass off! Didn’t do him any good, of course. I remember the taste of vomit left in my mouth when it was over, too. I had eaten chicken that evening...

SPACER Or was it pork?
SPACER Yessir, 54 long years.
SPACER Almost fitting that it ends like this. Not with this one in particular, mind you. Who gives a royal shit who this guy is? It just feels right. The irony, I mean. I’m glad almost.

SPACER Oh, it was a mess when I first started out. Fourteen and not a hair on my balls. I didn’t know the first thing about it. Didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Hell, they don’t write handbooks and text manuals about this stuff. You gotta be a natural, I’ve always thought. Either you got it, or you don’t. Period.
SPACER And I had it. I loved the romantic aspect of it. I got off on feeling like I was doing a service to my country. And one that was more important and more dangerous than the candy-ass Army! What do they know about danger? Anybody can put their ass on the line. Try putting your eternal soul in front of the firing squad. That’ll keep you on your toes, Private! But I had the passion, the determination, and the belief. That was always the hardest part, wasn’t it? Believing.
SPACER Of course, it got easier as years went on. By the time I was sixteen, I stopped tossing my cookies after each one. That helped a lot. When I turned seventeen, I decided to make a career out of it. I knew it wouldn’t make me rich, but I could live off what I took from them when I was done. After all, they didn’t need it anymore! Besides, the old woman said I had ‘the gift.’ It was my duty not to waste ‘the gift.’ That bitch. Well, here I am old woman: half a century later and no better off. The world’s still full of them.

SPACER Now... Hell. Now they got up to the minute newsbriefs. And the Internet. Forget about it! All I had to do was look for headlines with words like “Slaughter,” “Massacre,” and “Bloodbath.”
SPACER Yeah, I’d say it was getting downright easy to find ‘em. Too easy, maybe. Could be their numbers are growing. Could be. Doesn’t matter for me now, though. I’m retiring.

SPACER I’ve heard a couple hundred people describe it, but I never imagined it would feel quite like this. Kind of like freezerburn or pulling your tongue from a frozen pole in the winter. Painful, but not entirely unpleasant. Either way, these bones are too old and decrepit to fight it. I’m retiring, want to or not.
SPACER I’m glad I don’t know him, too. That’d be too damn depressing. Even for an old, dying man. He seems all right enough, if that’s possible. No shredded throat or ripping out my heart or anything. Nope, just the good ol’ fashioned two pin pricks to the jugular. Traditional. Clean. Romantic.

SPACER Hell, I’ll probably pass out before I go. I could only be so lucky.

SPACER Maybe someday someone will figure out what I’ve been up to for so long. Maybe then I’ll get a little recognition. Maybe then I’ll get some kind of slap on the back. Maybe that’d make the last 54 years worth my while. Maybe then I could be buried with some respect:

SPACER “Here lies Gabe Turner, Vampire Hunter”

SPACER Maybe.
SPACER But that doesn’t matter to me now.

SPACER I’m retired.

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