“I’ll see if we can track your signal through the cell towers,” he said. “Maybe the truck has a GPS in the cab.”
I ended the call and began making my way along the back of the rig, when I froze, hearing voices. I saw two figures approach the wounded truck. It was a starlit night, clear skies, a quarter moon. Zombie night vision is generally good, but I didn’t need any supernatural powers to pick out the two young men. They wore camouflage jumpsuits—but light-colored desert camo, so they stood out plainly. They carried long rifles.
Since the side of the truck had been blasted open with a rocket launcher, and since these two men were approaching heavily armed, I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to wave my arms and hail them for help.
Earl Joe Bob spotted them as well, and bunched his meaty arms as he stalked toward them. “This wasn’t the deal I had with Ma Hemoglobin! Which two of her boys are you—Moron and Imbecile?”
“No,” said one of the young men. “I’m Huey, and that’s Louis.”
“Well, you’re still Moron and Imbecile to me. You wrecked my rig! We were supposed to meet up at the Rest In Peace area down the road and make the transfer!” He spluttered, waving his hand at the crater in the side of his truck. “What kind of stupid—”
The two boys raised their rifles. Huey said, “Ma thought you might double-cross us, so we took matters into our own hands.”
“You must be two of her human boys,” Earl Joe Bob said. “A vampire wouldn’t be that stupid.”
“We’ll show you stupid!” said Louis. He opened fire with his high-powered rifle. Not to be left behind, Huey shot Earl Joe Bob as well. The bullets slammed into the trucker’s red flannel shirt, and he dropped to the ground.
I silently reaffirmed my wisdom in not waving my arms and calling attention to myself.
Now, as a detective, I solve cases, and I’m the hero in my own story. But sometimes heroes stick around longer if they aren’t always...heroic.
I didn’t know how I was going to get out of here, or how long it would take McGoo to bring in reinforcements. If this truck was on a cross-country trip to deliver a decoy into witness protection, McGoo could be miles away, even if he had been shadowing me.
With a jolt, I got a few more of my memories back: I did remember the idea of taking Sebastian’s place in the coffin aboard the truck. Meanwhile, Robin would take our nondescript and rusty old Ford Maverick, lovingly named the Pro Bono Mobile, with the scrawny blond vampire dressed in my fedora and a similar sport jacket, sunshades down, traveling across the state line to where he would be hidden in his new life. My ghost girlfriend Sheyenne was going to ride shotgun. Nobody would be looking for them. They would be safe. It would be a lark. I was the one under a narcolepsy spell in the back of a semi truck, a decoy. It should have been a long sleep for me.
Now, Ma Hemoglobin’s two boys climbed through the blasted crater in the side of the trailer. My best bet was probably to climb back into the ditch and hide in the mud, but McGoo would never let me forget it.
Instead, I crept along the opposite side of the trailer. If I could make it to the cab, open the passenger side door, and climb into the cab, I was sure to find some kind of firearm, baseball bat, or tire iron that Earl Joe Bob kept there.
I heard Huey and Louis rummaging around inside the trailer, shining flashlights; I saw the gleam through splintered cracks in the opposite wall. They tossed aside a clutter of prepackaged school lunches. “The coffin’s empty! He’s not here!”
The other voice said, “I hate it when coffins turn up empty! But was it empty in the first place, or were we tricked?”
I made it to the front of the rig, yanked open the cab door—and of course the hinges screeched and groaned loudly enough to make any haunted house proud. The two Hemoglobin boys clambered out of the blasted trailer, brandishing their rifles, looking around.
“There he is!” yelled Louis.
“I see him,” said Huey. They began sprinting toward me, running past the body of Earl Joe Bob, who lay sprawled at the side of the truck.
Earl groaned and sat up, shaking his head. “Dammit! You wrecked my rig and you shot me?” He sprang to his feet and flashed a set of ivory fangs.
I should have recognized earlier that he was a vampire. Many truckers who specialize in all-night hauls are vampires; they have no trouble staying awake, though they had to park in Rest In Peace areas and pull down the shades by dawn.
The two Hemoglobin boys turned white and spun around, raising their rifles again. Each managed to fire one more shot. This time, Earl Joe Bob merely flinched before lunging forward again.
“I thought you loaded the rifles with silver bullets!” Huey shouted.
“I thought you loaded the rifles with silver bullets!”
Earl Joe Bob was pissed.
Moving with vampire speed (earlier, I did mention that vamps can be quite swift and agile), he lunged forward and grabbed the young men by their necks, one in each hand. His grip was powerful, and he squeezed hard. I heard the loud double-crack as their necks snapped; it sounded like popcorn in a microwave bag. He tossed the two dead bodies on the ground—truly dead, because Huey and Louis had been two of Ma Hemoglobin’s four human sons. (These days one or the other could still come back as an unnatural, but it wouldn’t be anytime soon.)
Earl Joe Bob made a disgusted sound, brushed at his flannel shirt, looked down at the bullet holes healing in his chest. “I’m as much a mess as my rig is.” He saw me hanging onto the door and flashed his fangs. “And where do you think you’re going?”
The vampire trucker moved toward me. I held up my cell phone as if inviting him to play a game of Curses With Friends. “I already called in for help. The police are coming.”
Earl Joe Bob scowled. “That doesn’t give me much time, then. It wasn’t supposed to go down this way.” He straightened his cap, which sat askew from when he’d been gunned down. He sneered at the two Hemoglobin boys, who lay in their light camouflage on the ground, necks bent at improbable angles. “I hate dealing with amateurs. I’ve dealt with witness protection cases plenty of times, and I’m always available for additional ‘enhanced disappearing’ for a substantial fee. When I make people disappear, I really make them disappear.”
I tried to move along the side of the truck; in a race, I could never outrun the vampire. “Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”
“I don’t lose any sleep over it,” Earl Joe Bob said. “Pay is good, and I gotta earn a living.”
I knew that he was going to have to get rid of me. I was the only one who could explain the mess around me, but Earl Joe Bob would make up some story of his own.
“We can be reasonable about this,” I offered.
“Good idea.” He lunged. I lurched—it was a much less fluid movement than his, but I did manage to evade the first pass. Earl Joe Bob slammed into the side of the trailer, shattering more wood.
“Careful about the splinters.” My mind was racing. I could get one of the jagged spears and thrust it through the vampire’s heart. In my imagination, it all worked out just fine, but in practice I wasn’t quite the nimble athlete that I’d need to be for the scheme to work.
I did break off the long wooden splinter, lifted it—and Earl Joe Bob slapped it out of my hands. At least he got a splinter in his palm, and he paused to pluck it out. That brief respite gave me the chance to scramble through the blasted crater in the side of the trailer.
“Now I’ve got you cornered,” the trucker said. While I shuffled and slipped among the debris of packaged school lunches, I saw his sturdy muscular form silhouetted against the starlit sky as he pulled himself through the hole. “Where are you going to hide?”
I hurled a package of Salisbury steak, which struck him in the center of the chest. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite the stake through the heart I required. The vamp trucker’s eyes were glowing in the shadows. I could see him coming toward me. I nearly tripped backward over the coffin that had held me during my cross-country trip.
Police sirens howled down the highway, coming closer. Ironic, I thought: the cavalry was going to arrive much too late.
“At least we’ve already got a coffin to store you in,” said Earl Joe Bob.
“Been there, done that,” I answered.
He came closer, fangs bared, eyes glowing, hands outstretched. Earl Joe Bob was a burly guy, powerful enough to change one of his eighteen tires simply by lifting the rig and undoing the lug nuts with his fingertips. He could probably rip me limb from limb, stomp on any pieces still twitching, and then claim I’d been mangled in the explosion. McGoo already knew better than that.
“You haven’t thought this through,” I said.
The trucker laughed. “I could say the same to you—a vampire versus a zombie? The vamp will win, every time.” He reached toward me.
That’s when I pulled up the loose silver chains that lay draped over the coffin. I threw them onto Earl Joe Bob.
“Not every time,” I said.
It was like Superman and Kryptonite—a real sight to see. Within seconds, the vamp trucker went from being a scary, overpowering opponent to a whimpering and helpless guy in a flannel shirt who squirmed under the chains.
“Awww crap!” Earl Joe whined. “That’s not fair!”
Now the sirens were louder, and I could see the flashing lights through the hole in the side of the truck. Squad cars raced along the highway, followed by the state patrol. I was still undead and kicking, but I no longer needed them to rescue me. Still, I’d be happy to let McGoo handle the wrap-up paperwork.
As soon as the police climbed into the trailer, I waved McGoo over. He looked flushed and worried. “Shamble, you all right?”
There were shouts outside as other officers found the two bodies of Ma Hemoglobin’s boys.
“Better than they are. And better than he is.” I nodded to where Earl Joe Bob squirmed on the floor under the silver chains.
His cap had fallen off in the struggle, and I reached down and plucked it up. It wasn’t my style—I much preferred the fedora, but that was gone for now, apparently on the head of a disguised Sebastian Bund. Since I felt naked without a hat, I settled the trucker cap in place.
I started rattling off the full story as an officer handcuffed Earl Joe Bob with silver-plated handcuffs. The vamp trucker spluttered and groaned at the way I described a few things, but he didn’t deny any of the details.
“I’ll cut a deal,” he said. “Ma Hemoglobin is scary, and she’s got four boys left. I’ll turn State’s witness. Put me into witness protection, otherwise I’ll never survive until the trial.” His eyes flashed, and he struggled against the silver handcuffs. “I know where all the bodies are buried—some of them more than once.”
* * *
Back in the offices, Robin and Sheyenne were both in very good moods, having delivered Sebastian Bund to his official new undisclosed location.
“He was delightful company.” Robin flashed a smile at me. “Did you know he used to be a singing barista?”
“Broadway showtunes,” Sheyenne said. “That’s all we talked about. He’s a fan of musicals. Why don’t you ever see musicals with me?”
“Because I don’t like musicals,” I said.
She gave me a spectral raspberry. “When you go out on a date, you’re supposed to do something you don’t like. That’s how you show a girl you care for her.”
“I’ll keep that in mind next time we go out on a date.” Our cases almost always interfered with our love life—and so did the fact that, as a ghost, she couldn’t physically touch me, which made the intimate aspect of our relationship much more problematic. “Did we at least get paid for the case?”
“We got paid in satisfaction,” Robin said. “That’s our purpose here, to know that justice is done.”
“Right.” I turned to Sheyenne, repeating the question. “Did we at least get paid?”
She showed me a Chambeaux & Deyer invoice, on which she had merely written in capital letters: SERVICES RENDERED, no other details. “Officer McGoohan was true to his word.” She pulled out a stack of other pending cases and floated ahead to place the files on my desk. “One more step in making the world safe for naturals and unnaturals everywhere.”
“It’s a start.” I looked down at all the folders Sheyenne had gotten out, and I knew exactly what they were. Job security.
JUST BREATHE
By Tim Lebbon
Nia was walking in the woods with her father when she saw the dead squirrel. It was hunkered down against the base of a tree, its tail curled around its head like a bushy grey hat. She froze, her father walked on ahead of her––swishing ferns with his stick, he said you always needed a stick when you were walking in the woods––and waited for the squirrel to notice her presence.
It was moving slightly in the late afternoon sun. Nia frowned. It didn't look like normal movement, and she was used to seeing someone moving wrong because of how her mummy sometimes twisted around in bed. She took a few steps closer.
“Nia?” her father asked. His voice was weaker than it used to be, sadder.
“There's a squirrel,” she said. She walked across the carpet of dried leaves and fallen twigs, her footfalls crackling and cracking, and the squirrel barely moved.
“Covered in ants,” her dad said. He'd come to stand behind her without her noticing. His shadow went the other way, and the tree held the squirrel in its own.
“Why doesn't it run away?” Nia asked. The thought of being smothered in wood ants like that was horrible. She'd gone through a stage of having bad dreams about it, and her mummy had told off her dad for bringing her here. Big ants, the length of her thumbnail, dark with reddish legs, millions and millions of them making nests from pine needles and sometimes, if there was no wind and you stood quiet and still, you could hear them crawling all through the woods, as if the whole pace was alive and whispering.
“It's dead,” her dad said. “Look.” He nudged the squirrel. It tipped onto its back and its tail shifted from its face, showing an open, toothed mouth and one glazed eye. Her dad's stick stirred up the ants, and hundreds of them moved faster, hurrying in their tasks.
“Poor thing,” Nia said. She hated dead things. They looked all wrong. They looked too motionless and broken, and she wished she could fix them.
“Can't see much wrong with it,” her dad said. He turned it onto its front with his stick. She'd once seen him lifting a dead cat with his foot, looking for its collar so he could take it home to its owner. Aren't you going to do something with it first? she'd asked, and her father had frowned at what she meant. He'd know now. But she wasn't going to say anything, because he'd probably tell her off. Mummy said she had a strange view of death, but she always sounded a bit pleased when she said it. Admiring, Nia thought.
“Can I have a look?” Nia asked, taking a step closer.
“Nothing to fix here,” her dad said. He shoved the creature with his foot. It was stiff and still, and did not bend.
Nia saw no wounds, no signs of why or how it had died. If it had been a fox or a buzzard, there would have been blood, and bits of meat gone from it. The fur would have been broken, instead of simply dirty and clotted with dirt. If it's just something gone wrong inside, I should be able to put it right, she thought. I should be able to open it and make things better, like Daddy did with my radio last Christmas. Take the back off, find the loose wire or the bit of brain that's gone wrong, make it all work again.
“Come on,” her dad said. “Let's walk all the way around today. The nurse will be with your mum for another hour, at least.”
Nia left the dead thing reluctantly. She knew it would remain dead, but still she wished she could look closer.
“It's called cancer, Sweetie. It started in my boob, here. And because cancer is nasty, it tries to spread to other places to ruin them as well. So even though the doctors gave me some drugs and put special x-rays in me to try and stop it, they didn't work.”
Nia cannot answer, or
ask questions. This is the first time her mummy has told her what's wrong, and though Nia has known for a while––Mummy is looking poorly, and thin, and she and her dad have been going off for days and leaving Nia with Nanny much more often than usual––to know for certain, to be told, is something she suddenly doesn't want.
“But the doctors are still looking after me. And there's going to be a nurse coming in to see me every day from now on.” Her mother seems flustered, upset. “For a little while.”
“What for?” Nia asks.
“To give me some medicine.”
“Can't Daddy do that? Or me?”
Her mother smiles. She looked more tired than ever. “This is special medicine that goes in a machine. And every few minutes, the machine will put a bit of the medicine into me.” She shifts slightly. Sitting at the dining table is uncomfortable for her, Nia can see that. But even though she's a little girl, she knows her mummy has done it for her. Got out of bed, showered, dressed, and come to sit here to tell her stuff about what's happening.
“And that medicine will make you better,” Nia says. She's tapping her fingers on a table mat, making a tune that's been in her head for a while.
Her mummy doesn't answer. Nia glances up, smiling, uncertain. Her mummy is looking at her in a strange way, and Nia doesn't like it at all. It's almost as if her mummy can't see her, and she's seeing something a lot further away.
“Yes, Sweetie,” she says.
“Good,” Nia says. “Tell the nurse I'll help her if she wants. I know how to fix you.”
She taps again, watching her fingers, trying to repeat the same tune. She hears her breathe heavily, and doesn't look up at her again. Nia is only eight, but she is already a clever, wise girl. She knows that seeing her mummy's tears will change how things are right now. She knows that seeing them will make everything more real.
Mister October - Volume Two Page 18
