Travel Light

“Night’s Rest,” says Millie in her dramatic narrator voice. “Founded in 1873. The last census puts it at 9,782. Its high school mascot is Percy the Fighting Knight. The town slogan is, ‘Stay one night, and you’ll never want to leave!’ “

I can hear her rolling her eyes.

She says, “I’m glad Percy is a fighting knight. And here I thought they were all pacifists.”

I glance in the rearview at the bundled figure in the back seat, a cell phone clutched in her mittened hand. “Someone’s in a mood today.”

“No, I love going to towns where the local theater has shown nothing but 80s movies for the past six months.”

“What’s wrong with 80s movies?”

“Nothing, as long as you like swimming in testosterone and gratuitous nudity.”

Some days you can’t do anything but add fuel to the fire, so we finish the drive in silence.

We pull up to the boarding house where we’ll be staying. Our landlady, Francine Stein, stands outside, waiting to greet us.

Her eyes widen as I wheel Millie out of the van.

“And who’s this little angel?” she says with a cheer that sounds forced.

“This is my daughter Millie.”

She leans in and says, “Well, hello there, darling! You can call me Fran!”

Millie says nothing.

“I’m sorry, but she’s very shy around strangers.”

Fran’s smile drops for a second but returns with a vengeance. “Don’t you worry, sweet girl, in no time we’ll be the best of friends!”

She offers to help unload the van as I wheel Millie inside.

“Mom, will you take me to the dentist? I think all of her sweetness gave me a cavity.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being nice.”

“Uh huh. She’s going to be one of those people always dropping in to ‘see if I need anything’. We can’t stay long, Mom, she’s going to find out.”

“No, she won’t. No one’s found out yet.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

Fran helps me unload the van. As we carry in some bedding, she says, “So, uh, about–”

“There were… complications… during the pregnancy, plus she decided she wanted to enter the world… very early.”

I fight back a lump in my throat and say, “The doctors said she wouldn’t last a week, that pulling the plug would be a mercy.”

Fran scoffs. “Doctors, what do they know?”

I nod. “She’ll never walk. She’s sensitive to sunlight and her body temperature is so low she has to be bundled up even on the warmest days. But her mind…”

I shake my head in amazement. “She’s smarter than I’ll ever hope to be. She’s only 12, but she’s taking advanced calculus courses online. Heck, she was balancing my checkbook when she was 6.”

Fran smiles. “Every cloud has a silver lining.”

I nod. “Her name is actually Milagro. It’s Spanish for ‘miracle’. She hates it of course, so she goes by Millie.”

We reach our room and set down the bedding. “And there you have it, her backstory.”

“If you ever need help with anything, let me know.”

“I will, thanks.”

Maybe Millie was right…

Between the drive, unloading, and moving in, I am dead tired and flop onto my bed.

When I wake up, it is night, and somehow I feel even more tired, which is never a good thing when you’re hunting vampires.

“About time you woke up,” Millie says. “I thought I would have to do the hunting tonight.”

“I’m sure you’d be a great help if vampire sloths ever become a problem.”

“You should definitely quit your day job. Anyway, while you were snoring loud enough to wake the dead, I looked up any recent mysterious deaths and found several candidates. They’re all at the morgue, which is at the hospital. Ask me its name. Go on, ask me.”

I’m going to regret this.

“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the name of the hospital.”

“ ‘I’ll bite’? Yeah, you should definitely quit your day job.”

“You know, you’re not too old enough to get spanked.”

“Good luck. I got what, ten layers on? Anyway, the name of the hospital is, drum roll please… wait for it… Angel of Mercy.”

Now I’m the one rolling my eyes.

“Better eat before you go. I ordered pizza.”

I look over at the box, a third of its contents gone. It will be a thin crust with pepperoni and double bacon, pretty much what she lives on despite my best efforts.

I shake my head. “Not hungry.”

“But you will be. Eat.”

“Hey, who’s the parent here?”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“So, how many possible candidates did you find?”

“Three.”

“Prepare files for them. I’ll get ready.”

“Already done. They’re on the table.”

I pack them up and get ready to slay some undead.

Turning someone into a vampire isn’t like what you see in the movies. There, they show the vampire draining someone to the brink of death, then feeding them some of their own, and BOOM! Instant bloodsucker.

The reality is similar except for one thing. It takes three days to transform, which gives me a chance to stop them from rising. The more religious-minded of us point to this as a sign of their unholy nature, that it makes a mockery of Jesus’ resurrection.

It doesn’t matter to me as long as they die when you stake them through the heart.

The key to infiltrating anywhere is looking like you belong, so I enter the hospital wearing a set of scrubs. The security guard, who looks like he was old when JFK was president, doesn’t even look at me.

I head down to the morgue, which is unoccupied – at least by the living. After all, where are the stiffs going?

If only they knew…

Anyway, they are stored in individual refrigerated lockers, which have all been thoughtfully labeled, so I go to the first potential.

It’s a boy in his late teens. There aren’t any marks on his neck, but that’s no surprise; the last thing suckheads want is to announce their presence so they tend to go for the arms or legs to make the bites look like track marks.

I draw the stake I holstered between my shoulder blades and do what needs to be done.

The next one is a woman about my age. In life, she was very well-endowed, but now they sag to the side like a pair of volleyballs tucked under her skin.

I raise the stake.

“What are you doing?”

I turn to see a middle-aged guy in scrubs. He has a potbelly and closely cropped hair to hide the fact it’s thinning out.

***

ARREST AT LOCAL HOSPITAL

Grisly Discovery Made at Local Boarding House

NIGHT’S REST - Late last night, police arrested a woman at Angel of Mercy Hospital for desecrating several corpses.

Sheriff John Renfield said the woman attempted to flee but was caught before she could escape. He refused to go into detail about the specifics of the desecration except to say it did not involve necrophilia.

An investigation quickly revealed the woman was staying at the boarding house owned by local resident Francine Stein, where police discovered an additional corpse, that of a 12-year-old girl. Renfield said the girl had been dead for several months at least.

He refused to give any further details but did say it appeared Stein was not involved in the woman’s actions nor had any knowledge of what her resident had stored in her home.

***

They throw me in the loony bin. Smart, very smart. It completely eliminates the chance of anyone believing me, plus they can hold me as long as they want.

I’m in a padded cell for “observation”. A camera keeps an eye on me.

This is one heck of a pickle I’m in.

“Mom.”

It’s so quiet I almost miss it.

“Millie?”

“Do you have any other kids?”

It’s coming from a vent. I crawl to it.

There she is, still bundled up and wearing her sunglasses.

“How did you–?”

“A girl has her ways.”

“Figured a way out yet?”

“Vents are out. Even as small as I am, I barely fit. But we’ll figure something out.”

“Yes we will, my little miracle.”

I hear her roll her eyes.