Club Dead

Check out our episode here! Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

A few months have passed since Sookie, Bill, Eric and Sam spent some time at the maenad murder orgy. The weather has gotten colder and Sookie has just gotten off a six hour shift waiting tables at Merlotte's. She comes home to Vampire Bill expecting some hot and sexy times, but no. He's busy on his computer and doesn't really pay attention to Sookie at all, until he realizes she's looking at his screen over his shoulder. He's not looking at anything scandalous, just a vampire from 1756. He shuts down his computer and tells Sookie that he's working on something very important, but not for Eric... This is for the Queen of Louisiana. Sookie laughs, but finds out that Bill is *dead* serious. She tells him maybe she'll just leave him alone until he's finished with his project and he agrees, then tells Sookie that he's going to ... uh ... Seattle? ... for eight weeks and if he doesn't come back, Sookie should hide his computer and tell Eric everything.

Feeling utterly rejected, Sookie leaves Bill's and drives by the Bellefleur place. She is jealous of all the renovations they're doing on their house ever since a random estranged relative died and left them tons of money and/or Bill realized he is Portia and Andy's great great great grandfather and felt bad for them so he secretly gave them a bunch of money. Bill is her boyfriend, and here she is scraping to get by. Well, if he's going to leave her to go on a secret mission, maybe she can pick up some extra shifts at the bar. It's not like she's got anything else to do.

Before Sookie can leave for Merlotte’s, she’s surprised by Bubba who has been sent by Eric to keep watch over her until one of the others from Fangtasia can get there. Bubba can’t exactly hang out in the bar to keep watch over Sookie on account of him being… err… the former King of Rock and Roll, so she plans to introduce him to Sam and stow him in his office. That doesn’t happen though. As Sookie is waiting to introduce Bubba to Sam, someone taps on her shoulder. It’s a rough-looking biker and he attempts to punch Sookie in the face, but luckily she’s able to knock him back, right into Bubba who crushes his throat. Sam, Sookie and Bubba figure out that this biker is a werewolf from Mississippi and he had plans to kidnap Sookie. Good thing Bubba was there. They get the body out the back door and then Sookie gets to work.

Arlene, Sookie’s friend and another waitress at Merlotte’s, asks Sookie if the guy who was looking for her found her. He came in asking if Bill Compton’s girlfriend was in, but didn’t know who she was or what she looked like. That’s puzzling, but Sookie and Sam can’t really put anything else together and the night passes without much further excitement. Until Pam comes in, that is. Sookie has never seen her outside of Fangtasia, so whatever she’s here to say can’t be good. And it’s not… Bill is missing. Sookie says no, he’s in Seattle, but Pam reveals that to be a lie and says that he’s in Mississippi, but someone got him, and it seems that whomever took him is interested in Sookie, too. Bill was supposed to have returned the night before, which he didn’t tell Sookie, and was supposed to have met with Eric and Pam at Fangtasia. Pam tells Sookie that Bill had some bad news for her. Sookie doesn’t take this well and leaves.

When she gets home, Sookie decides that nothing in her life is normal anymore, but if Bill were gone, maybe it could be. She wouldn’t be involved in any of this vampire or were or shapeshifter stuff if she hadn’t met Bill, but she’d likely still be a virgin, too. Darn that ability to read minds! It ruins all Sookie’s normal relationships. Now she’s worried about Bill, but angry with him, too. She stomps up to bed, thinking about how much she needs Bill and also about how her life must not be good enough for him to want to stay.

The next day, Sookie doesn’t feel like doing much of anything, but she eventually checks to see if Bill’s computer is hidden in his sleeping spot at her house, which he told her it might be, and it is, so he knew that whatever was going to happen to him was going to happen and he hid his computer. After checking for it, Sookie realizes with sadness that she has finished the last thing he had asked her to do. Dejected, Sookie goes back to bed.

Sookie wakes up later, extremely excited because Bill is back and in bed with her! As she unbuttons his pants she realizes… it's not Bill. It's Eric! He, Pam and Chow have come to tell Sookie that Bill has been kidnapped, possibly by the king of Mississippi. Sookie finds the royalty hilarious for some reason, but doesn't say anything about what she knows about Bill working for the Queen of Louisiana. Eric says there was a mix-up at the airport and now Bill is possibly being held by the King, but that Bill went to Mississippi to see another vampire, Lorena, that he used to be in love with. Oh no. Sookie immediately hates Lorena and wants her dead. She makes a deal with Eric that if she can find Bill and bring him back before the Queen realizes he's missing, he'll kill Lorena. Eric tells Sookie he has someone who will escort her to Jackson to look for Bill.

Enter Alcide Herveaux, ruggedly handsome werewolf. Alcide comes to Sookie's house to pick her up and she serves him breakfast because he is Man With Manly Attributes and women should serve ruggedly handsome men if they are able. They have an immediate attraction for each other because he is Man, but he also just broke up with his girlfriend, Debbie Pelt, a shapeshifter, and she is already engaged to an owl. Sookie likes Alcide, too, but mostly because he is Man and also because she is missing the constant Bill banging. Sookie and Alcide are going to go to a vampire and shifter club nicknamed Club Dead where Sookie will listen in to people's thoughts for clues about Bill's whereabouts. To prepare for the evening, Alcide suggests that Sookie go see his sister, Janice, who owns a beauty shop and get her hair and nails done. His sister is very nice to Sookie, who is pretending to be Alcide's new girlfriend, and is glad that he is no longer dating Debbie.

When they arrive at Club Dead, Sookie is startled when Alcide's truck drives itself away and then they are greeted by a goblin at the door. This place is very weird indeed. Unfortunately for Alcide, Debbie is having an engagement party at the club and she flounces over and insults Sookie by implying she is a prostitute. The evening gets worse later when Alcide excuses himself to the restroom and a werewolf comes over and hits on Sookie. She politely declines his advances, but then he gets aggressive and squeezes his crotch and also Sookie's shoulder, enough to draw blood with the second one. This draws the attention of a very southern vampire who comes over, flicks his tongue on Sookie's wounds and breaks the leg of the wolf. Alcide comes back then, feeling bad about what happened, but everything's okay. The vampire who came to Sookie's rescue is none other than Russell Edgington, the King of Mississippi, but he doesn't introduce himself using his title. He insists that Sookie and Alcide come back to the club the following night to make up for the trouble that just occurred.

When they get back to Alcide's apartment, Sookie goes to her bedroom and is immediately greeted at the fifth floor window by Eric. He wants to know what's going on and Sookie tells him about Russell. In amongst all the adventures of the night at the club, she managed to learn that maybe the king kidnapped Bill. It's important that she somehow get herself more involved with Russell and maybe even get to his house, but that's going to be tough because he is gay so Sookie can't use her sexuality to get there. She'll just have to figure something else out.

The next day, Sookie goes to see Janice again. She gets her nails painted and tells Janice about Debbie's engagement party and they're overheard by a girl in the salon. She says some cryptic things about Debbie and how she's always out and acting crazy at the full moon. Janice, who obviously knows her brother is a werewolf, and Sookie panic. Does this girl know about shifters and Weres? No, but she does think that Debbie is a witch and really, she's only off by one letter.

Later, back at Alcide's, after an adorable game of Scrabble, Sookie and Alcide notice a smell in the apartment and discover that the Were who hit on Sookie is now a corpse hidden in Alcide's coat closet. They decide they can't call the police for help because no one will believe that this corpse just showed up in the closet, so they wrap him up in a shower curtain, sneak him out of the apartment and drive him out to the woods in the middle of nowhere to dispose of the body. When they get finished, they have lunch and they try to figure out who could have put the body in the apartment, but it doesn’t really get anywhere. They also talk about how they’d be good matches for each other, but nothing comes of it because Sookie’s still kind of with Bill and Alcide is still hung up on Debbie.

Back at the apartment later, Alcide gets a visit from Terence, the werewolf Packmaster, who asks questions about Jerry Falcon, who is the guy they just disposed of in the woods. Alcide doesn’t mention that of course, but does talk about what happened with Jerry accosting Sookie and the King of Mississippi intervening. Terence wants Alcide to leave Jackson, but they’ve got to go back to the club again at the king’s behest. Since Terence and some of his pack works for the King, he understands the request. Eric stops by after Terence leaves and tells Sookie that he has searched everywhere for Bill but he cannot find him and he is most likely dead. Sookie won’t give up though and is determined to find out everything she can at the club. Eric says he’ll be there in disguise to try to learn things, too, but he really thinks Bill is dead.

The trip to the club that night is tense. When they arrive, the King is waiting for them and with him are his human boyfriend, Talbot, an older vampire named Franklin and Sookie’s friend Tara of all people. Uh oh. Tara’s going to ask about Bill… can’t have that happening, so they run off to the ladies’ room where Sookie says her life is on the line so not to say anything about Bill. Sookie notices that there aren’t many Weres there and then asks about how this place is kept secret from everyone else and Alcide tells her it’s spell-bound, like… by witches. They also talk about the night before and Sookie pretends to be upset, which doesn’t match with her demeanor from the night before, and Talbot sees it. Then Tara comes to the rescue by pulling Sookie up on stage for a very seductive dance that gets everyone turned on, especially Alcide, who then grumbles about Sookie not looking too hard for Bill, which is odd. There is someone in the audience who isn’t grumbly about the dance, though… Eric.

Before Sookie can go speak to him, she picks up on a brainwave of someone at the bar who is about to stake a vampire, King Russell’s second in command, Betty Joe. The man is with Steve Newlin from the Fellowship of the Sun and they’re about to make a scene! Sookie, pretending to not be a telepath, shouts STAKE! and is promptly stabbed. All the shifters in the club transform and take off after Steve who makes a run for it while Betty Joe crushes the other man’s skull. Franklin and Tara rush over to Sookie and then Eric, calling himself Leif again, comes to help, too. As the Weres and shifters eat the crushed head guy and everyone else chases after Steve, Sookie, Leif, Russell and Talbot head to Russell’s mansion.

With the help of a vampire with extra healing abilities named Ray Don, they get the stake out of Sookie and heal her. Sookie passes out and wakes up later with Eric in bed with her. She thanks him for staying with her and he suggests that there are *ways* of repaying him, and even though she says she’s not going to have sex with him, they do start making out. As panties shift aside, Bubba crawls in through the window. Oh Bubba… They ask him if he’s been in Jackson the whole time, and yes, he has been, because Eric asked him to keep an eye on Sookie. Somehow he managed to sneak onto the king’s property without being noticed, and they use that to their advantage. Both Eric and Sookie are pretty sure that Bill is somewhere on the grounds of the mansion, so they send Bubba to find him and make a plan to get Bill out if he is still alive. Eric gives Sookie his blood which leads to more sexiness, but again, nothing comes of it… well, Eric comes… but that’s beside the point.

Sookie showers and when she returns to the room, Eric and Bubba are there. Bubba has found Bill! He’s being held in a garage by a female vampire, surely Lorena, and two others and Lorena has been torturing Bill with a knife. Eric leaves to get a car for Sookie and she plans to rescue Bill as the sun rises. The vampires will need to go to ground at daylight and the werewolves that Bubba assures Sookie will take over then will probably be tired because of their full moon adventures. This is the one and only opportunity they will have to rescue Bill.

Sookie sneaks out carrying a blanket to cover Bill and the stake that was only recently removed from her side. She finds the garage and sees the car Eric left for her nearby. She opens the trunk and then sneaks into the garage to find Bill. He’s chained to a chair and covered in cuts. Sookie struggles to free him and finally manages to get all the chains unfused from his skin but then, Lorena arrives. After a very quick fight, Sookie full of Eric’s blood and Lorena wary from being awake in daylight, Sookie stakes Lorena and gets Bill in the trunk of the car then goes back and hides Lorena’s body in the swimming pool. Luckily it’s December, so the liner is on top. No one will find her there for a long time. Sookie gets in the car and drives toward the mansion gates. The wereguard has no issue with her leaving, but asks her if she’s coming back later for the crucifixion. Uh… what?! No. Not likely.

Sookie takes off but has no idea where she’s driving. She finds a gas station nearby and asks how to get to Jackson and from there, she manages to make her way back to Alcide’s apartment. She parks in the darkest corner of the garage she can find and passes out. After waking several hours later, she opens the trunk to check on Bill and is pushed inside! Sookie gets a brief trace of thought and realizes it must have been Debbie who locked her in the trunk. Now what is she going to do? She’s locked in a trunk with Bill who is starving and injured. Will he help her escape when he wakes or will he take advantage of the living, barely breathing human locked in the trunk with him?

That’s exactly what he does. Sookie tries to tell Bill that there is TrueBlood for him to drink but he doesn’t listen. He bites and begins to drain Sookie and then he rapes her. After a lot of screaming and crying, Bill finally realizes it’s Sookie that he’s just violated and nearly killed. He asks if Sookie is okay, uh no, obviously not, and then he punches a hole through the trunk roof so she can breathe. She explains where they are and what happened, and then Eric arrives and Sookie passes out.

When she wakes up, she asks Eric, Alcide and Bill about the crucifixion that’s going to take place at Russell’s. They try to figure out whose it is, maybe Bill? Maybe the fanatic who tried to stake Betty Joe? Uh oh, Sookie thinks a little harder and remembers seeing inside the Were's thoughts. It’s Bubba! They decide to have Sookie call Betty Joe and tell her who they are about to crucify, and they get him down just in time and then ask him to perform. After ending the call, Sookie is a little surprised that no one said anything about Lorena and Bill missing, but then she thinks of another corpse, the one in Alcide’s apartment. So many corpses!

Before they can talk about any of the corpses, werewolf or vampire, Debbie shows up so Eric, Bill and Sookie have to sneak out and to the empty apartment next door. They listen to Debbie being a bitch for a little while and then Sookie and Bill finally talk, and then she strangles him, and then they talk some more. Sookie reveals that she never said anything about Bill’s secret project and that she knows that Bill was planning on leaving her for Lorena. Then they talk about the secret project. Bill is making a vampire directory. Some vampires think it’s great and others… not so much. He’s been compiling a list with names, images, dates and other pertinent information and believes he has about eighty percent of known vampires recorded. That’s a pretty big deal. They stop talking and listen to Debbie and Alcide fight, Sookie thinking that they should never be together again, then she realizes the same thing about herself and Bill. She decides she’s done and asks Eric to drive her home.

When they get pretty close to Bon Temps, Eric pulls over for gas. Sookie goes inside to the restroom and while she’s in there, robbers come in and hold the gas station attendant at gunpoint! Sookie thinks they are robbers, but actually, they’re looking for her. Luckily, another blonde walked into the gas station at the same time and the attendant was able to pretend she was the only one. Sookie reads the attendant’s mind and learns that he has a gun in his truck, so she sneaks out to retrieve it. Outside, she discovers that Eric is missing! He turns up shortly, having been trapped in a silver net by the robbers, but he was able to get out easily. They go inside with the gun and then Eric compels the robbers to tell him why they are after Sookie.

It turns out, there are forty others out on the interstate waiting to find a tall blond guy, a big dark guy and a blonde woman with a nice rack. They are supposed to take them back to Jackson because they were suspected of having something to do with Jerry Falcon’s disappearance. Eric compels the robbers to forget they ever saw him and Sookie. They leave the gas station and drive the rest of the way to Sookie’s house.

When they arrive, Eric complains about Sookie’s driveway and she explodes in rage. She screams about being poor and doing work for the vampires and missing her actual job and Bill spending all his money on the Bellefleurs. Eric asks if Sookie thought about telling him or Russell about Bill’s vampire phone book and how much they would pay for that, but she didn’t think about it at all, which maybe makes her even angrier. This conversation doesn’t last long because then Sookie realizes that there are several strangers in her house, some Weres, some humans. Eric is shot and Sookie is grabbed and knocked out, but then Eric and Bill come in and eat everyone.

After Sookie wakes up, they talk about why they were attacked and it was because of Jerry Falcon. Bill says he’s going to kill him, but Eric intercedes, telling him that Alcide and Sookie have already taken care of him after finding him in the closet. Then they talk about Alcide and Sookie and Debbie and how Bill talked to Russell about getting a car to drive back to Bon Temps. Bill explains that Russell was angry with Lorena for letting him escape and agreed to leave him alone if he would put in a bid for him to get the vampire phone book. Bill also learned that the Weres were after Sookie, so he got in his car and drove as fast as he could to her house.

Sookie falls asleep so the vampires leave, and then when she wakes up, she calls Jason to bring over her mail and they realize that her driveway has been regraveled and then later Alcide comes by to bring Sookie her suitcase that she left at his apartment in Jackson. They talk for a long time about everything that happened with Debbie and how she's pretty terrible and how Alcide wants to try to have nothing to do with her anymore. Then they puzzle about who put Jerry Falcon in his closet. Either someone really mean or someone really stupid… Sookie asks if maybe it could have been Debbie, but Alcide doesn't think she has what it takes to kill someone, but Sookie does. Alcide then tells Sookie that he's glad they met and then they kiss and he grabs her boob. Since she was attacked just the night before, the boob squeeze is painful, so Alcide apologizes, they trade phone numbers and then he leaves.

Sookie is feeling pretty sorry for herself after that and she's also very sore. Pam comes by to tend to her, at Eric's behest, but because she is Vampire and Sookie is only human, Pam can't be her lady's maid. She says Eric and Bill will be by soon, but Bubba gets there first. He's decked out in a spangly red outfit, fresh from his performances at Russell's. He apologizes for not being with Sookie the night before when she got beat up, and then Sookie realizes that it was Bubba who killed Jerry Falcon. Eric sent him to watch after her and he's been following her around ever since. He knew Jerry hit on Sookie at the club and then saw him breaking into Alcide's apartment. He followed him, broke his neck and shoved him in the closet, thinking Sookie and Eric would be able to take care of the body. Well well well.

Bubba leaves and shortly thereafter Eric and Bill arrive. Bill begins brushing and braiding Sookie's hair while they talk about the discoveries that were just revealed about Bubba. Pam thinks this story is hilarious and Bill stops brushing Sookie's hair when she says she wishes that she had known about what Bubba did to tell Alcide when he visited earlier. Bill begins brushing Sookie's hair again as Eric tells him that the Queen called him, upset that Bill has not yet finished his task for her. He says she will be pleased when he calls later to tell her he is finished. Eric begins yelling at Bill after this, telling him he almost lost everything. Sookie is tired of their arguing, so she rescinds their invitations to her house. Bill goes first, hairbrush in hand, then Eric. Once they're outside, Sookie laughs maniacally because she realizes she has Bill's vampire phone book and no vampires have permission to enter her house to retrieve it.