It was raining outside and it was a Thursday. Probably the worst day of the week as far as Simon was concerned. He glared at the umbrellas moving past the window. The black ones were too common, the random American flag one was nauseatingly too patriotic and the artsy Monet painting ones made him snort into his cup of half-decaf.

He had walked into this particular coffee house before the rain started and it must have signaled God to turn on the showerhead, because the instant the door clicked shut behind him, the rain fell in unabashed waves upon the city. For a full hour now it had drenched every skyscraper, strip club, bank and school within a fifty square mile radius.

Amidst the clicking of hi-fi wireless internet connections and a general hum of conversation, Simon nursed his coffee and occasionally glared at the notebook in front of him. There had been talk earlier in the day, on every various news channel, that the last living panda had contracted some incurable flu. Tears across every continent poured from the TV screen as environmentalists raged against deforestation and lack of preservation. The poor Chinese doctors who tended the animal stuttered at questions of how they could let this happen while the President of the great US forgot the question and instead answered one concerning rampant bamboo growth in the southern states.

Simon could hear somebody now a few tables over, shaking their head at the sadness of it all. The panda with her big watery eyes and perhaps four days to live was the least of the world's problems, though it was a good indicator of the state of things. The world population was steadily declining due to several pandemics over the past two decades. Oil reserves had finally exhausted themselves. Pakistan and India were in the third year of an all out war. Canada was now officially a part of America, their free healthcare the first thing to go. Unemployment levels had peaked again at a high of 22% and Amsterdam had finally closed its doors to all non-residents. Keep out of our Eden. The Dutch certainly had it figured out.

Simon remembered the promises of decades ago and the fallout of their fruition. In 2011 when scientists in England and Australia, working together on a way to stop the aging process had actually succeeded, the first wrinkle Simon would ever have appeared suddenly on his forehead. The news, of course, sent uproars of confusion at the ethics and morality of it all, while governments were either working to ban it or allow it. It took about two years before the first shots of the new FoY-serum were available on the market. FoY short for fountain of youth, of course.

Those who could afford the roughly $119,000 shot lined up all around the world, every conceivable language giggling and murmuring at the prospect of eternal beauty. Four years later, the price went down and the neat little package was available at all dermatologist offices for the convenient price of $5595, with a good six to nine month waiting list.

It still took six years after its release for the world to see the mighty crack in the mirror. Sometime in May of 2017, the first proven case of mutation caused by the wonderful FoY-serum appeared in a young woman from Melbourne. She had been one of the first volunteer test subjects for the project's initial study. It seemed to the doctors who examined her that the serum, which was really a collection of highly mutated DNA strands, had finally caused a breakdown in the woman's own genetic material. The result was a rather intense sensitivity to natural light and such a severe anemia that the woman took to cutting her own arms just to suck out her blood. She had even developed an entirely new set of teeth, fully equipped with retractable fangs and saliva that healed wounds when applied.

The search for eternal beauty had birthed an entire planet full of vampires.

Well, not entirely.

The 'mutation' seemed to be restricted to the excessively rich and famous and roughly 91% of the affected were women. It seems the ungodly price originally attached to a shot that only cost about one hundred bucks to manufacture had actually saved a great deal many of the world's population. Still, over 237 million people had been given a swift kick into the realm of darkness and the rest of the, sadly, declining population was left to deal with it.

Simon watched over the years as countless measures were taken to do something about the problem. The research scientists who developed the serum were sued, though the fact that they had all taken the serum themselves didn't seem to matter much. Legislation was written in every country trying to handle the new problems both cops and doctors had to deal with. Support groups sprang up, both on the internet and in hospitals. There were even talks of finishing up the Mars TerraForm project two years in advance just to move them all off-planet. Of course, in the end, every possible plan was put into place.

So now, twenty four years later, there were vampires on Mars and Earth all holding steady jobs in elementary schools, driving cabs, running for re-election and in rehab for drugs, sex, and rock & roll. Despite their bloodsucking urges, the vampires were really still very human. They ate, drank, and were generally quite merry save for the strict laws put upon them, especially in America and Europe. One hardly saw them doing anything by themselves. It was much safer to be in groups. All of them were required to carry identification and to wear a simple blood drop shaped stone somewhere visible on their person. She wore hers set into a ring on the middle finger of her left hand. However, that evening there was one sitting alone across from Simon.

He watched her cradle her skinny half-caf mocha latte, the steam rising up to soak into her dried milk-coloured skin. Her hair was thin, spider silk strands of honey blonde cut in a short bob around her angular face. She had the distinctive raised blue veins on her arms, though Simon could just barely see them peeking out from the cuff of her long sleeved white sweater. She wore tight fitting pants in some reptilian pattern of greens, blues and gold. Her eyes wandered over the computer screen in front of her and she occasionally blinked rather hard to bring the moisture back into them.

Simon stared at her for a long while. Not like it mattered. No one was paying him any attention. His coffee had gone cold so he broke his scrutiny and went over to the counter to order him another one, this time with a shot of espresso and a little hazelnut. He had seen plenty of them before. All slight shadows of their former beauty. The serum somehow began to degenerate the skin cells after several years, causing a general tightness to the skin and hollowness around the eyes.

She may have been in her mid twenties when she took the serum. Now of course she was well into her forties and a veteran of the lifestyle. Many of them had lost their jobs when the hysteria took over, and now, though a great deal were actual contributing members of society, many were involved in the booming business of Coven Inc. This was an interesting product of the vampire subculture that actually catered to the curiosity of the Agers, or so they liked to call the people not affected by the mutation; for you see, the Agers aged and died whereas the Ageless just simply died.

Coven Inc. was a global entertainment business. It had nightclubs in every major city and was run interestingly enough by one of the discoverers of the serum. Simon had actually gone to the one there in the city. The vamps were the waiters, the dancers, the singers, the owner, the valets, the djs and even the bouncers. Completely owned and operated by the Ageless. It was, legally, a safe place for both vamps and Agers to gather without fear of one another, though really it turned out to be more of a meeting place for thrill seekers and weirdoes to go and get bitten by some dark haired vixen.

Simon could tell that this one, her stiletto heels digging into the hardwood floor, was definitely an employee of one. A good many of the clubs were rather classy and catered to the wealthy, but he could tell she probably worked at one of the more, let's say, tasteless establishments. She was too used looking, too worn out and though there was an overall prejudice against her kind, Simon couldn't help but grimace looking at her.

For years since the vampires had appeared, Simon had kept a notebook. It was something he did to simply pass the time and it was filled with page after page of notes on any Ageless person he met. Sometimes he wrote a few lines, a description, or a comment. Other times he waxed poetic on their appearance or whatever he saw them doing. Now he flipped open the book and removed his pen from inside his jacket pocket. As insane as the world had become, he never failed to find it amusing the things he noticed. He grinned at his previous entry and shaking his head set to work on hers.

She continued to drink her latte, none the wiser that one much older than she watched her every move. Life was always much more complicated then anyone could ever expect. The world changed and remained the same. Wars, births, love and disease raged on and on. Religion was on again, off again. Science and technology marched on into the future dragging the rest of the world behind it, and after 2913 years of living the true vampire lifestyle, Simon was still learning it the hard way.

Want to comment on this Short Stories? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Short Stories and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...