Next in line was Gary, an actual forty-year-old virgin. I knew that personal detail from my notes, but I didn’t doubt it. A potheaded camera pro, Gary wore a holey, stained T-shirt. His jeans and shoes looked like they survived either a nuclear holocaust or the rebuilding of a Chevy.
The youngest, and mouthiest, was Zane. Zane shopped frequently at Mia’s store and looked it. In black JNCO’s and a black silky shirt with flame buttons, he was one long line of darkness. He wore a dog collar and had his black-with-red-tips hair spiked a good three inches above his head.
Oh, and they all smelled like French whores.
I sneezed my way to the cemetery and figured, if nothing else, they would keep Vance from sniffing at me to figure out “what I was.” When we got to the cemetery, they told me to kill my headlights. I parked my car, and we all piled out. “Now what?” I yawned. I hoped to get this over with as quickly as possible. Sleep sounded really good. I rubbed at my eyes, now blurred from lack of sleep.
Zane stood far too close to me and mumbled in my ear. “I am going to take pictures and so are you. Hopefully we’ll catch something on film. Jimmy works the machine that tests for magnetic fields and Gary has a temperature sensor to pick up any drops in temp that might mean there is a presence.”
Ah, ha. Silly me. How could I not know that? “So, where do I take pictures?”
“Where ever you, like, feel something,” answered Jimmy.
Dig, I thought sarcastically. “How many pictures does this thing hold?”
This time I earned a dirty look from Gary. “You gotta stop talking so much. You are going to scare stuff off.”
“It’s ok.” Zane tossed an arm over my shoulder companionably. “She’s new. The memory card will hold three hundred.”
“And I have to take all of them?”
Vance chuckled. He and Gary were a good way into the cemetery already, but his voice carried in the silence.
“Yeah, then we will unload them and email any good ones back to you.” Zane pointed to buttons on the camera as he spoke.
Yeah, because I wanted the “good” ones. “Can I have a flashlight?”
Now even Zane looked like I was trying his patience. “How would we catch anything if we lit the place up?”
Ahh. Okay, that made absolutely no sense to me, but what did I know? I didn’t believe in ghosts, either. Zane entered the cemetery, leaving me the only one standing near the car. Yeah, cemeteries at night were creepy. I looked around. All of the headstones loomed like ghosts in the darkness. One, a huge angel, seemed to be glaring down at me.
The silence weighed down on me. The soft crunch of footfalls on the frosty ground made me keep looking behind me to make sure no one was following me even though logic told me it was the rest of the group moving.
With shivers up my spine and the hair on my neck at attention, I was creeped out by the whole scene. I decided the faster I took three hundred pictures, the faster I got to leave the spooky cemetery and go home and sleep.
I tiptoed into the cemetery. Tree limbs hung down like twisted arms in the moonlight. The headstones cast inky black shadows. The ground made a cracking sound almost like glass breaking under my feet, and I began shooting random pictures. I walked for awhile and couldn’t hear the others anymore. As I stepped behind one monolith, I froze, thinking I saw a ghost.
I shot a few pictures of it, since that, after all, was why we were here. It lay on the ground and looked like a man. I crept a little closer and it didn’t move, so I shot another twenty or so pictures. I walked closer yet. In the moonlight, it looked as if the man wore a red blazer and a button down shirt. His legs lay in an odd position, and he was still not moving.
I got closer and shot more pictures. I guess it made sense. I mean if there were vampires and witches, why not ghosts? And since I had decided I was officially crazy, why not embrace the craziness? Okay, there were ghosts and I was getting some great pictures of one. Maybe I could sell them to the National Enquirer and become so rich that I would be considered eccentric rather than nuts.
The ghost still didn’t move, and I realized I must be a really good ghost hunter to get so close. I snapped more shots. About five feet away from the thing, I began to wonder if he wasn’t a ghost after all.
His eyes faced up and his mouth hung open. Oh God, was he a dead guy?
I could not have found a dead body. Looking around, I realized the monolith was the last of the headstones and I probably stood on the edge of the cemetery. I backed away from the body, but couldn’t take my eyes off it.
Yup, I’d found a body. Shit.
And then I fell.
I yelped, but I didn’t fall far. Only about six feet, since I landed in a grave.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I pulled myself to a sitting position. Actually, I was probably better off in a grave than up there, looking at a body.
Until the body fell in, too. Zombie!
I screamed a good one when he plopped like a sack of potatoes on my legs. By kicking at him, I managed to get my legs free, which was good since I wasn't sure how good a camera would be against a zombie. He didn’t try to grab me, he just lay there like a…dead body. Someone just threw a dead guy on me.
Footsteps ran away above me, and then more footsteps ran toward me.
I looked up, but Vance’s head blocked some of my moonlight.
“Help!” I squeaked.
He put an arm down and pulled me out of the hole.
Gary, Jimmy and Zane all gaped at me. My hair had fallen down again and mud, some dried vampire blood, and some dead guy cooties covered my hair and clothes.
I was not at my best.
I started to cry. I know, it’s so terribly girly, but let’s sum up here. I drove from south of Pittsburgh to northeast Ohio. Then, I ran a weird store and stabbed a vampire. I got bit in the ass at a strip club and I made out with the vampire I stabbed. Now, I stood rumpled and smelly in a dark cemetery, where I found a dead body and had it thrown on me in a grave. I couldn’t help it, I had reached my weird limit for one twenty four hour period. I wanted to curl up with a sloppy pizza and a good book and pretend I wasn’t me. Instead, I was stuck in a graveyard with a dead body, three ghost hunters and a vampire.
When I recovered, I noticed the men stared at me helplessly. I got up and pulled my hair back into a wad on my head. “There’s a dead body down there.”
Three ghost hunters and a vampire peered into the hole.
“Um, it’s Marcus,” Vance identified the body.
“Dude,” Jimmy muttered.
~
Vance decided we were better off calling in the dead body and leaving. I worried about that. What if I left DNA connecting me to the scene in the hole? I didn’t watch forensic TV for nothing. He hopped in the hole and came up with three strands of hair and the camera.
I was satisfied with that. If a vampire said he’d found all traces of your scent, you roll with it I guess. We piled back into my car and I dropped off the ghost hunters at an all night diner, since they weren’t ready to turn in yet.
Vance sat still in the car next to me while I stared at the Witch Parking Only sign. “What are the chances of you finding Marcus while ghosthunting?” His voice rippled through the darkness and I shivered at the velvety smoothness of the sound.
“I guess I don’t need those iron supplements. That was the same Marcus, right?”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I am beginning to think that this whole mess has something to do with me.”
Not answering, I waited for him to continue.
“See, someone attacked me while I was resting for the day. They knew where I slept, staked me, and dumped me in a dumpster.”
I continued my blank regard. Maybe shock? Or perhaps getting numb to the nonsense.
“And then someone staked Madam Zulu,” he continued.
“Why aren’t you dead? Vampire, stake and all…” Even as I asked, I realized I requested logic to be applied to illogic and doubted he’d give any
sort of answer which made sense.
“They missed. They hit my collarbone. The common misconception is that when you say the Pledge of Allegiance, you are putting your hand over your heart by sticking your right hand to your left breast.” He demonstrated. “More accurately, however, you would put both hands together and bend your elbows at a ninety degree angle to gauge around where the heart is. They hit where most think the heart is rather than where it actually lies. Also, it is nicely protected by the sternum.”
I nodded. Yup, gibberish. His eyes kind of glowed again which looked pretty, like a blue night light. “Okay, so what does Madam Zulu have to do with you?”
“She was a—how much do you know about vampires?”
Snorting, I covered my face briefly. “They don’t exist. Mythology created after Vlad the Impaler, a bloodthirsty man from Transylvania, started mounting his enemies heads on pikes outside his fortress. A man later wrote a book, required reading for high school nowadays, which said they hated crosses, garlic, stakes to the heart and long walks on the beach on sunny days. That and stakes to the heart kill ‘em. I mean you.”
He shook his head. “You get a guy drunk, take him at a few hands of cards and he writes one stupid book you never live it down.”
“Huh?”
“Stoker. I knew him once. He wrote Dracula. He thought it was terribly funny.”
I nodded. Mhhmm’Kay, that made about as much sense as the rest of the evening.
“He was right on about the sunlight and stakes. And the blood drinking. Can’t really get around that one, but you get used to it.”
Turning the key, I put the car in reverse.
“Where we going?” Vance re-fastened his seatbelt.
“I need food before you explain anything else then you are leaving, and I am sleeping.”
“Okay.” He slouched into the seat and looked awfully comfortable for a walking dead man. Fifteen minutes later, I had a block of cream cheese, a bag of shredded cheddar cheese, a can of chili (no beans) and a bag of tortilla chips, all bought with my crotch money from Julia. This late night meal is brought to you by the letter S for stripper and L for lapdances. Thanks, Julia.
I plodded up the stairs to Mia’s apartment, fighting off exaustion mostly with sheer stubbornness. Peeking in on Vickie, I was greeted by snores, yet again. I tried one last time to make a grab for the iPod and again got a grumble in response. Soon the sun would rise, so I gave up in hopes of sleeping some before she woke for the day. Back to the kitchen, vampire in tow, I began to make food. Since I wasn’t talking, Vance didn’t either. Plopping the block of cream cheese in a plastic dish, I gooped it around a little to spread it then dumped the chili on the bed of white. Finally, I topped off my mess with a hefty handful of shredded cheddar.
Tossing the dish in the microwave for two minutes, I snagged a bottle of water. Impatient, I tapped the door until the timer beeped then retrieved my melty gooey mess and headed for the living room. Dropping onto the sectional Sven abandoned at some point in my absence, I opened the chips and water before dipping a chip in my goo.
Ohhh, it is so, so good. Vance gazed with some doubt at my meal, so I offered him the bowl. “Want some?”
He took a chip and dipped carefully.
“Make sure to get some Philly on it.” Loading another tortilla chip for myself, I crunched happily. He ate his gingerly. Vampires eat. Who knew?
“It’s not bad.” He shrugged. “Can’t be good for you, though.”
“Nope.”
“How did you come up with it?”
“I didn’t.” I continued to munch as I spoke so my words came out in a garble. “Found it on the cream cheese box.”
“Hmm,” the sound rumbled from him and seemed to caress my skin.
“You talk, I eat.”
“So, I was at Madam Zulu, right?” He adjusted his sleeves in a gesture that I was beginning to recognize as characteristic. I nodded, and slurped down some water.
“She was a blood buddy of mine.”
“Define ‘blood buddy’?” I asked before digging in the chips with fervor.
“Blood buddy is like…she shares her blood with me and we are friends, but we’re not involved in any relationship.”
“Oh, like a f—”
“Yeah, but without any F.”
I nodded. Got it.
“She was staked. Since she was a psychic and therefore a mortal creature this, of course, killed her.”
I nodded again. I was beginning to feel like a bobblehead Janie, but I was too hungry to care. When my mouth was empty, I put in, “So, she was psychic and didn’t see that coming?”
He frowned at me, and his pupils shrunk a little. “I did mention that she was my friend?”
“Yeah, sorry.” I returned to the chips. I actually seemed to be handling the conversation better when I ate and bobbled my head.
“And now Marcus is dead.” His voice held a ring of finality. He sounded genuinely sad over the loss of his friend.
“My condolences. And Marcus was…?”
“Another blood buddy of mine. That was why you were buying him iron. To donate on a regular basis, you have to keep your iron up.”
Iron carried oxygen in the blood. Made sense—donating blood to a vampire would make you anemic. “Two of your food stuffs staked. How many more do you have?”
He shifted, obviously uncomfortable with my question. “Mia.”
“You are involved with Mia?” That surprised me. For one, he wasn’t her type. She liked quiet guys, or at least she did when I knew her well. Then again, we hadn’t been as close lately. Maybe her tastes changed? On the other hand, why had he kissed me, knowing I was her friend, if he was involved with her?
I gave him a very dirty look. Douchecanoe.
“It is a good thing I can read your mind.”
I frowned, not satisfied.
“Blood buddies rarely exchange blood. The connection is personal and emotional and no one human can supply enough to keep one of us alive. Modern technology made the exchange easier and removed the physical from the act of sponsoring blood, avoiding an overly personal connection via the blood bond. Where do you think the bags in the fridge came from?”
“A hospital.” My voice was frigid.
“Try here. You buy the bags online, shipped in two days for free. Also needles and rubber strips and—”
“You’re saying you never actually took blood from Mia, she just donated it in a clinical way to a bag which you later ate?”
“Yup.”
Still seemed personal—eating another person and all—but better than biting her neck or something, I guessed. Then I wondered why I cared. It wasn’t like I was considering becoming involved with him. I shifted uncomfortably.
When I saw his smirk, I decided it was time for a topic change. “So, why would someone be out to get you, vampboy?”
His turn to look uncomfortable again and he stared at the TV for a minute as if collecting his thoughts. “Well, I’m not popular with drug dealers.”
“Neither am I, but none of them are stealing my refrigerator.” Which, based on his description, seemed an equivalent comparison to blood buddies.
He chuckled. “Vampires deal in blood. To live, we must have it. I am…we’ll call it leader amongst the local vampire population.”
My scalp felt nasty, so I scratched at it absently as I considered him. Wearing eau de dried vampire blood and undertones of incense and sage, I’d topped off my scent ensemble with a fresh coating of grave slime. Oh, and let’s not forget the dead body funk from my not-zombie boyfriend earlier, like icing on a horrible stink cake. Through all of it, Vance still looked crisp in his pretty white girl-shirt. I wasn’t sure if I hated him or wriggled in envy. “So…” I prompted.
“Well…” He relaxed and began to inspect his fingers as if they were of interest. I think he was fidgeting, vampire style. “Drugs ruin the blood. They take all nutritional value from it, since they lower oxygen levels. The oxygen is what k
eeps us alive. People who do drugs are usually the same people I…recommend as food for my people.”
“You tell your underling vampires to prey on the weak, the lowlifes of society?”
“Yes.”
“And they listen to you?”
He smirked. “They haven’t got a choice, not really. They either do it my way or leave…or they can deal with me.”
Again I considered his effeminate braided hair and white frilly shirt, which admittedly didn’t make him look terribly girly, but still... “And you are some big, bad, bossy vampire?”
“I never used quite those words to describe myself, but accurate nonetheless.”
“So, do the drug dealers know about all that?” I leaned toward him.
“They know that they die if they come on too heavy in this area, however it is unlikely they suspect vampiric intervention.”
“What about meth? I mean, this county has a huge meth problem. People are making it in their garages. Apartments and hotel rooms are blowing up because of quickie labs…how do you monitor or regulate that?”
“That has proved problematic.”
“Ah-ha.”
“Recently, someone has been on my lands and funded them. I have begun to suspect it is one of my own kind.” He leaned back on the couch and looked up at me.
“So, some bigger, badder, bossier vampire is paying drug dealers to make the drugs. Why? Doesn’t he need the food, too?” It was odd to refer to people as food.
“If he brings his own people in, yes. But to get me and my people out, no.”
“Why couldn’t it be a she?”
He smiled. “It is cute how surly women get over men in power. Do we have a female president in this country?”
“No,” I snapped.
Odd Stuff Page 5
