Unidentified Funny Objects 2 (10 page)

Dining out with toddlers:
Today's family restaurants are either completely fireproof or equipped with the latest family-friendly extinguishers. These venues will now only accommodate groups of six and fewer. Do not allow children to run among the tables or chase the wait staff, and be sure to leave a large gratuity. Do not expect to be welcome at any, now rare, historic restaurants, heavily-tapestried venues, or cafés featuring wooden decks. Avoid gasoline-powered food trucks at all costs.

In an emergency:
This manual can be used to extinguish small fires.

Success gallery:
(photo) Betsy Van Morris of Glen Cove, NY, feeding Sue-Ellen, age two, while wearing the experimental scorch-guard parent-cover, in clown print.

**Remember, you are your child's best advocate and resource. Teach them responsible eating, before it's too late.**

Parents of younger children and tweens: Please see manuals #4332 and #7554.

Parents of teenagers: Please phone the Department of New Health Services with your success stories as soon as possible. Our thoughts are with you.

Fran Wilde writes speculative fiction and fantasy short stories and novels. She can also tie a bunch of sailing knots, set gemstones, and program digital minions. She rarely ties gemstones, programs sailing knots, or sets minions. Hardly ever. She's on the Twitter
(@fran_wilde)
, and can be found talking about food and genre fiction (nothing flambé yet!) at
www.franwilde.wordpress.com
.

By Matt Mikalatos

I woke to the sound of my own name, though it was not yet time to rise. I reached for the comforting feel of my coffin lid and discovered to my dismay that I was lying on a feather mattress, covered by a quilt which must have weighed at least ninety pounds. I had forgotten that I had moved into a boarding house.

“Isaac van Helsing,” the voice said again.

I pried my eyes open. Standing at the foot of my bed was my former servant and thrall, Richard. This surprised me, as he was dead.

He thrust out his lower lip, pouting. “You murdered me. Your loyal servant!”

Richard had recently tried to murder me. He had pinned me, sucked my blood to become a vampire and left me to die at the claws of a rather nasty zombie bear. He was a vampire for about thirty seconds before he stupidly walked past a sun lamp I had set up. The last time I had seen him, it had been while emptying out my Dust Buster. I cleared my throat. “You were never particularly loyal.”

“Semantics,” Richard said. “And now, I’ve returned as a ghost. For sweet revenge!” With a flourish, he lifted one transparent hand and yanked back the curtains. On reflex, I raised my hand to shield myself from the sunlight, but a weak grey light filtered through the window. It was dusk. Late dusk, at that. Richard cursed.

I lowered my hand and rolled my eyes. “Ah,” I said, tonelessly. “The sunlight. It burns.”

“Don’t mock me! It was daylight when I got here. It’s difficult to wake you. You sleep like the dead.”

I pulled on my jeans, then my shirt. I padded barefoot toward the kitchen, Richard floating beside me. “This is all your fault,” he said. “I don’t have a job now. How will I make a living?”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re dead. You don’t need to make a living.” I could hear Mother Holmes, the owner of the old boarding house, clanking pots and humming to herself. She refused to treat me like a vampire, choosing instead a smothering maternal attitude of smug, but loving, superiority.

“Good evening,” I said, and Mother Holmes turned, her face wrinkled as an ancient apple. She plopped a bowl of stew on the table in front of me. The smell of garlic wafted from the bowl, burning my eyes and blistering my skin. I pushed it away. “Mother Holmes, as I’ve told you three nights in a row, I cannot eat human food.”

She scowled. “You pay for room and board, and that is precisely what you will get.”

She spooned a bit of stew into her mouth and looked at Richard. “It’s good to see you again, dear. What are you up to these days? You look much too thin.”

Richard gave me a long stare, then turned to Mother Holmes. “I plan to haunt Isaac for a century or two. Maybe murder him if I get a chance. Outside of that, I’m not really sure.”

A hearty knock came from the door, and I gladly leapt from my chair to answer. Mayor Rigby stood outside, his hat in his chubby hands and an apologetic smile on his face. “Good evening, Mr. Van Helsing,” he said.

He stepped quickly inside and I closed the door behind him. He nodded to Mother Holmes and dropped his hat. His sweaty, nervous manner practically shouted “prey,” and I licked my lips without thinking. “Is there a problem, Mr. Mayor?”

“Nothing you can’t handle,” he said, counting out three hundred dollars in bills and laying them on the table.

Richard floated over. “Is it the squirrels?”

I gave him an irritated scowl. “Be silent, this is business for the living. The dead are best seen but not heard.”

Richard mumbled something about how I was undead, and I made a mental note to find a good exorcist. The mayor put his finger on the bills. “This is only the up-front money, of course.”

I nodded. This was our current arrangement. I removed supernatural horrors from his community (myself excluded) and he paid me. I then paid Mother Holmes and remained, as always, one of the rare vampires unable to afford a castle or underground grotto. I was never good with money. Still, my current modest room was a considerable upgrade from my previous home: a black, windowless cargo van with a coffin screwed into the floor, currently parked in front of Mother Holmes’s house. “Is it,” I asked, “the squirrels?”

“No, no,” the mayor said, annoyed. “They’re a minor inconvenience. Hardly worth the money.”

I had no idea what was going on with the squirrels, and must admit to a feeling of relief. I had no desire to chase rodents through the trees, supernatural or not. “What seems to be the problem, Mr. Mayor?”

He looked at his feet and flushed. “It’s the leader of our neighboring town. Her name is Katie Lou Riley. Every week Ms. Riley calls and leaves disturbing messages on my voice mail… truly disturbing messages. She threatens that she will come and take over our fair town’s government. I was hoping you could persuade her to stick to her own town.”

I cocked my head and looked at him carefully. “That’s all? You’re not holding anything back?”

The Mayor coughed delicately into his hand. “Well. She does have certain… powers.”

“Like?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Mind control. Things like that.”

I shrugged. As a vampire I could hypnotize people, control animals, turn into a wolf or a bat, and live forever, so long as I didn’t get a wooden piercing, eat garlic, or wear cross jewelry. Some mayor with mind control powers shouldn’t be too much to worry about. “I’ll take care of it,” I said.

Richard floated through the table. “I’ll come with you. To watch your back.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Watch my back?”

“In case there’s a chance to slip a knife into it.”

I couldn’t stop him, so he floated alongside me as I drove the cargo van to the next town. As we crossed the town limits, I felt a deep shiver go down my spine. I pulled the van to a stop outside of city hall, but it was nearly ten at night. All the offices were closed.

I rolled down the window. A rousing chorus of song came from a nearby church, and lights blared from the windows. Richard and I exchanged glances and we made our way toward the church.

“Something’s wrong,” I said, as we got closer. A band of people burst from the church, beating spoons against pans and shouting like maniacs.

Richard grinned, showing his ghostly teeth. “They’re going to kill you, I just know it.”

I snatched a townie out of the dancing, shouting mob and yanked him toward me. “I’m looking for Katie Lou,” I said. His eyes lit up and he cheered.

“He’s one of us, boys,” he shouted, and the crowd let out a huzzah.

I scratched my cheek. That was puzzling. “Where is she?”

“She’s sleeping. She’s a… what’s the word?”

Another person in the crowd shouted, “Narcoleptic!”

A third person said, “Well, not exactly. She just sleeps a lot.”

I drew myself to my full height, puffed out my chest and bared my canine teeth. “Then let us wake her!”

The crowd, strangely, did not appear terrified. Instead, they let out a terrific cheer, and swept me toward the church. I fought against the dark tide of the crowd, because a vampire cannot enter consecrated ground. I would catch on fire and burn to death, a rather unpleasant way to go. Richard knew this, and it was with obvious pleasure that he began to shout, “Yes, yes, everyone into the church.”

I struggled against them, but there were too many, and in my panic I couldn’t turn into a bat before they washed me over the threshold. I screamed. But I did not catch fire. I looked down at my cold, pale hands.

Richard squealed and flew around my head shouting, “Call the fire department!” until he realized I was unharmed. He settled glumly beside me. “Never mind.”

I sighed. “I expect you to be pleased by my death, Richard, but gloating is beneath you.”

He rolled his eyes. “You never really knew me, did you?”

The church looked much like any other church. A small stage near the front with a podium and the black maw of a baptismal font behind it. A neat row of pews lined up like ribs. One thing seemed to be missing. No crosses anywhere. Not over the door posts, not on the stage, not on the hymnals or in the brick work. I hadn’t caught on fire because this was not consecrated ground. A tingling sensation traveled across my scalp. The crowd lined into their seats, still beating on pots and pans, blowing trumpets, having loud conversations on their cell phones. I gripped a pew. If Katie Lou could not be on consecrated ground, she was more than just some woman with mind control powers.

A man in a white suit came jogging from the side of the church and onto the stage. “Good evening, everyone!” They all cheered. “Ten years ago I got a woman pregnant and when Katie Lou saw our daughter, well, she decided that this was the sort of baby she would like to eat. Katie Lou said to serve the baby up on her ninth birthday. That’s today! Happy birthday.” More cheering! He gestured to the side stage and three men brought up a small girl in a white robe, bound tightly with ropes.

My blood started to boil. Well, technically not my blood, but I was the one who had it last, so, finders keepers. No one hurts kids, not when I am around. I became a vampire when I was only eighteen, helping my father in the family vampire hunting business. And there was no way that an insane town mayor was going to eat a little girl while I watched.

“Never!” I shouted.

Everyone stopped. The man in the white suit looked at his assistants, as if they might know the answer to his questions. “Who is this, now?”

“I’m Isaac Van Helsing,” I said, my voice trembling with emotion. “And I’m a vampire!” I dropped my jaw and did my best impression of a rattlesnake. I was pleased to hear gasps from the crowd.

The next thing I knew, I was bound to a long wooden plank by heavy metal chains. Richard floated nearby, his head propped on his hand. My head throbbed intensely when I moved it. “What happened?”

Richard grinned. “Someone shot you with a tranquilizer gun.”

I frowned. “That works? On vampires?”

“Just kidding. You went into a trance and walked onto the stage and they tied you up. I guess Katie Lou is going to eat you, too.” He pointed at White Suit, who was riling up the crowd. “That guy says she likes you.”

I shook the chains. I didn’t have enough leverage to break them. The little girl was five feet away from me, her face battling between resignation and mild terror. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m going to get you out of here. What’s your name, young lady?”

She looked at me uncertainly. Her bangs were cut unevenly, and she looked tiny and helpless in her white robe. “The Sacrifice.”

“No, dear, your name.”

“That is my name.”

I growled. “That is not okay.” A growing sense of dread washed over the church. I looked back at the baptismal font. Cold, clammy air came from it. I tasted salt water on my tongue. “If I only knew who Katie Lou is,” I said. “Maybe we would have a chance.” I turned my attention to White Suit. He was holding a ream of paper over his head with one hand, the other holding a bottle of Elmer’s glue.

“Now is the time to wake her from her slumber,” he shouted. “Pen and glue!”

The crowd echoed him with fervent delight. A black light came on, and people’s clothes started to glow. I could feel a presence, itching at the back of my mind. Richard shimmered, the beginnings of a psychic storm picking at the edges of his existence. “I’m glowin’ off Katie Lou Riley!” White Suit shouted.

Wait. Pen and glue. I’m glowin’ off Katie Lou Riley. Why did that sound so… familiar? It was like hearing someone speak with a heavy accent. I knew I should understand, but I couldn’t quite figure it out.

The Sacrifice gave a little scream. “I can feel her coming! If you’re gonna do something, it’s got to be quick!”

White Suit laughed and held his hands over his head. “We’re going to get fat again!”