Vampire Campfire

by Clare Kauter

  I glanced down at the clock display on the checkout computer. Ten to five. Ten minutes and then my shift was over. I’d been a checkout chick at Gregory’s Groceries for four years now. Four years of employment at a supermarket that barely passed health regulations. Oh, joy. You’d think that after working somewhere for that long you would at least have a bit of cash saved up. Only in my dreams.

  I cast my gaze around the supermarket. Not that you could really call it that, being that there was nothing exceptionally ‘super’ about it. Supersized rats emerging at night, maybe. Perhaps you could say that the owner had superpowers in his ability to sweet talk health inspectors. It amazed me that they didn’t close Gregory’s the moment they entered and were confronted by the cat-sized cockroaches guarding the front door.

  I stood there surveying my surroundings, trying to spot the owner-slash-founder-slash-manager of this gem of a store, Mr Gregory himself. Strangely enough, the man’s real name was Jeremy Martin. Apparently there had been a misunderstanding when the sign was printed and he was too cheap to get it redone, so the store remains Gregory’s to this day.

  Jeremy wasn’t hard to spot, even amongst the large crowd of Wednesday shoppers. (I think it must have been pension day or something. Or maybe everyone came shopping after bingo.) It may have been more difficult to find Jeremy were his wife not with him. Mrs Jeremy Martin was a nice woman with what most people considered to be a respectable husband. She had married Jeremy at age 18 and had been regretting it ever since. OK, so that’s just speculation on my part, but if I’d somehow ended up married to a ferret like Jeremy, I would definitely be regretting it. And judging by the way Lea was screaming at him now, I was pretty damn sure she agreed.

  I didn’t really know Jeremy that well as a person. I just knew him as a boss, and he was a crappy one of those. He never paid me enough unless I did special off-the-books jobs for him. He made us scrub the real use-by dates off produce and stamp on new ones after hours, and for that he gave me a decent amount of cash. I would never have done anything illegal if he hadn’t paid me well for it. At least not for him.

  I gathered up my belongings and, standing, took a deep breath before making my way back through the crowd towards the angry Lea and her ferret. As I got closer I was able to make out some bits of the torrent of abuse Lea was hurling at Jeremy.

  “Just tell me where the hell you were on Monday night, Jeremy. I want the truth. And don’t try and spin me that line about you helping your sister. Just admit what you were doing, you creep!” She let out a stream of descriptive words about her husband. Some people may have said that they were vulgar, but not me. Every single one of those words suited Jeremy down to the ground.

  “I just want to know where you were!”

  “Darling, I’ve told you over and over again, I was with Karen. My sister. Now, you need to calm down and –”

  “DON’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN, YOU ARSEHOLE! IT’S YOUR OWN BLOODY FAULT!”

  Ah, the joys of married life. I wondered where Jeremy had been. I had no idea of course; he was probably with his sister, like he said. A plan was forming in my head. Well, it was my last day…

  What have I got to lose? I asked myself. I might as well go out with a bang.

  I strutted over to Jeremy, pretending not to notice his irate wife, or at least pretending not to care. I gave Jeremy a kiss on the cheek (which was kind of gross, but it was for a good cause).

  “Hi Jeremy,” I said, just loud enough for Lea to hear. “Dinner was great on Monday night. We’ll have to do that again some time.”

  “THAT’S IT! I’M GETTING A DIVORCE!” Lea screamed. And on that note, she left. I thought she did it in a very dignified fashion, considering how angry she’d been a moment before. She just walked out as though nothing had happened.

  Mission accomplished. Almost. I’d ruined Jeremy’s life and reputation. I’d saved Lea. She was only 22 and beautiful. She’d have no trouble finding a better husband – not that she could get one much worse. I was hoping now that she had a bit of experience behind her she’d pick better second time round.

  Now for the next thing on my list. I turned to Jeremy, whose face was red and contorted with rage.

  “Charlie – Davies –” he spat at me. “You – are –”

  “Suspended?” I suggested.

  “Yes! Two weeks.”

  I snorted. “Oh dear, how can I live without my pay for two weeks? Oh wait, I’ve lived without it for the four years I’ve worked here, so I guess I can manage. By the way, I’m quitting.”

  “By company rules you’re required to give –”

  “A two week notice? Yes, I know. This is it. At the end of my suspension, I’m not coming back. Have a nice divorce, Jeremy.”

  I was amazed that by the time I’d reached the street I still hadn’t screwed up. So amazed, in fact, that I was checking behind myself as I walked along to make sure my skirt wasn’t tucked into my undies (my classic party trick). When I turned my head back around to look forwards, a brick wall ran straight into my face and broke the bridge on my glasses. Oh well. No day is perfect.

  I walked all the way back to my parents’ house holding my specs together with one hand. I didn’t have a car or a house of my own, so I walked to work and lived with my parents. I know, I know. What a grown-up.

  My parents’ house was your average Gerongate abode. There was nothing all that special about it. It was a two storey, three bedroom home designed in the 70s. As it had slowly moved on through the decades, much of the interior/exterior had (luckily) been updated. However, there was still evidence of the original decorating to be found in the lounge room, where you practically had to wade through the cream-coloured shag pile carpet in order to reach the couch.

  I had once pointed out the lack of taste in that rug to my mother. She just told me that if I didn’t like it I could move out. She had never changed that carpet, so I guess she was hoping I’d go for the ‘leave’ option. She’d probably call in the decorators the second I was gone. I was sure she hated it just as much as me; she probably just kept it as an incentive. Mumsie’s quite cunning like that.

  I entered our house through the front door and walked through to the back. I was heading for the kitchen to see if I could scab some food off my mother. She’d probably be cooking something, since I hadn’t seen her in the garden when I came in. Now, despite the kind of mental images this may provoke (“Oh, thy mother art such a lovely housewife”), that’s not quite accurate. If you think that her hobbies make her sound a little repressed, then you need to take into account that another of her favourite pastimes is driving her bad-arse Nissan with the massive bull-bar out into the country and ‘sight-seeing’ (read: drag racing) with her best friend, Violet McKenzie (who drives a Prado). She thinks we don’t know she races, but it’s pretty obvious – who goes for a country drive with their best friend in two separate cars?

  I stood in the doorway of the kitchen getting high on the smell of biscuits cooking. Mmm. She was putting a second round of mixture on the trays ready to go in the oven when the first lot was done. Mum had her back to me, but she must have heard me come in because before I even spoke she said, “No, there will not be any mixture left over, you won’t get it if there is, and you can’t lick the bowl. You can eat one of the biscuits when they come out of the oven, like a nice, civilised grown up would do. And –” She turned to face me. “Jeez, what happened to your face? It’s hideous!”

  I can always rely on Mum for a confidence boost.

  “Well, the wall wasn’t watching where it was going…” I trailed off.

  “Get some ice on it or something, for god’s sake! It’s all bruised and swollen. Where does it hurt?”

  Well, I was guessing it was probably hurting in the same place it was bruised and swollen, but I told her anyway.

  “Just up the middle of my face.” She passed me a bag of frozen peas to put over it.

  “So, apart from your ‘run-in’ with the wall,” – at this point
she began to laugh hysterically at her own joke – “how was your day?”

  “Great!” There was no sarcasm in this statement, and my mother cut her eyes to me suspiciously.

  “Drugs?”

  “No, I – ”

  “You found a wallet full of money on your way home and you’re keeping it?”

  “No, I – ”

  “Oh well. Better luck next time.”

  “I’ve got big news. It’s the reason I’m happy.”

  “You’ve finally got a boyfriend and he’s asked you to move in with him! Isn’t that wonderful? Quick, let’s go upstairs and I’ll help you pack. Who is he? When do I get to meet him? How old is he? Not that I care too much if he’s going to get you out of my house.”

  “MUM! That’s not it. I don’t have a boyfriend.” She looked a bit put out at that. “But I did quit my job today.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes…”

  She was concerned. I could see it on her face.

  “Where are you going to work now?”

  I paused. I hadn’t really thought about that. In fact, I’d totally overlooked it.

  “Umm…” I began. “Umm…”

  “Yes?”

  Oops. Forgot about that bit. That whole getting-another-job thing. I wasn’t really qualified to do anything. At all. Maybe I could get unemployment benefits. It probably paid better than my last job.

  “I don’t actually know. I don’t s’pose you’ve heard of any jobs available?” I hoped she had. I’d do anything. It couldn’t be any worse than working at Gregory’s. I was desperate. “Anything?”

  “I’ve heard there’s an opening at Coles.”

  Well, maybe not anything.

  * * *

  The next morning I stumbled out of bed far too early. Somehow I managed to make it to the bathroom with my eyes still shut. When I finally opened them and caught sight of myself in the mirror I nearly screamed, thinking there was a monster in the room with me, but when I put on my glasses (which I’d taped together last night) I realised it was just my own purply-blue face in the reflection. The bruise hadn’t gotten a lot better over night. If anything, it was worse.

  I had a quick shower (only half an hour – quick for me), avoided looking at myself in the mirror again, dressed in semi-professional clothes, and headed down to the kitchen for breakfast. After that I planned to spend the rest of the day job seeking. I settled on a glass of orange juice (which I spilt) and a piece of toast (which I burned) with jam (which kind of made up for the other two mistakes), and then I sat down and grabbed the newspaper to study while I ate. I meant to look for jobs vacant in the Classifieds, but the heading on the front page caught my eye. This had been the hottest piece of gossip going around Gerongate yesterday. I’d heard about it from everyone I talked to. Well, nearly everyone – Jeremy and I hadn’t had a chance to discuss it, for obvious reasons. I’d been far too busy destroying his marriage for that. But everyone else had mentioned it. When I saw the headline I just couldn’t resist.

  OLD MCKENZIE HAS THREE FARMS, $2 BILLION, NO HEAD…

  (What a touchingly sincere title. So sensitive I could barely stand it.) I discovered that Francis McKenzie had been found dead on Tuesday morning, when his (headless) body was discovered by a couple of kids. They must have been awful burdens on society to get a karma trip like that.

  The decapitation wasn’t what had killed him, luckily – it looked like he had been shot to death first. Phew. It would suck to be murdered, but if I had a choice between dying of bullets or having my head hacked off, it wouldn’t take long for me to decide.

  I read further down the article and found out that Frank had left everything he owned (which was quite a substantial amount, what with him being a billionaire and all) to one person – his nephew, James McKenzie.

  I knew James McKenzie. Everyone did. He was two grades above me in school, and he was the most popular guy there. He was also my mother’s best friend’s youngest child. After he completed Year 12 he’d gotten straight into police academy. He must’ve done OK there because a year later he was working as a cop at a Gerongate Station.

  Personally, I didn’t really like James McKenzie. I’d always thought that he had an over-inflated sense of his own importance. I suppose that wasn’t really his fault if you saw the way people acted around him. Not me, of course. I’d been friends with him when we were little because of our mothers, but he changed. (I know, I know – “He’s not the same person as he was when he was four!” Whatever.) We still had to see each other a lot while we were growing up (much to our disgust) but since it generally ended in tears/swearing/violence, we tried to keep our contact to a minimum. I’d hardly seen him since his mother kicked him out, even less since we finished school, and that was fine by me.

  Everything James ever had was a present from his Uncle Frank. Frank had no wife or kids and was a bit of a cranky old fart, to tell the truth. He didn’t like many people, but he and his nephew James got on like a house on fire. When James was kicked out of his parents’ house (age 16), Frank had taken him in and made him continue on with school. When James had decided to become a cop, Frank had payed his fees, and given James a house (free of rent) as a graduation gift. And it wasn’t like this was just some shack in a side alley. We are talking a few million dollars’ worth of mansion. I’d never actually been inside, but I’d driven past and it was massive.

  Some people have all the luck.

  But now Frank was dead, and everyone was accusing James. It was understandable that they thought it was him. I mean, he had motive (a couple of billion motives, if you catch my drift), and the only person who could give him an alibi had left for South America on Tuesday afternoon, hadn’t been questioned, and was currently unable to be contacted. And James had means. Frank had been shot with a pistol, and in Gerongate – and the rest of Australia, as far as I knew – only cops were legally allowed to carry pistols. If James had used a registered gun then it was only a matter of time before he was caught. Of course, being a cop, he probably came into contact with plenty of unregistered guns, too…

  Poor little James. Means, motive and, right now, no alibi. Everyone thought he was a murderer, and his perfect reputation was in tatters. Boo-hoo. Now don’t get the wrong idea – it wasn’t like I was enjoying this. Well, maybe I was. It was just nice that for once I wasn’t the one being publicly humiliated.

  It was sad about Frank, though. What a gross thing for someone to do. And everyone thought his nephew had done it – at least, nearly everyone. I thought McKenzie was a moron, but I still didn’t think he was a killer. I wasn’t sure he had it in him.

  When I finished reading the article I flipped over to the ‘Jobs Vacant’ section. Not much there. Coles needed new checkout workers. McDonald’s was looking for young people to pedal their ‘food’. Same old, same old. I checked the date on the paper. It was yesterday’s. Hmm. So the jobs in the paper weren’t looking incredibly promising. Google didn’t throw up much either.

  There was only one thing for it.

  I shuddered at the mere thought.

  * * *

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