Bite Me

machine was full of rats. Not completely full, the passenger seat was filled by Jared Whitewolf, Abby’s backup BFF. (BBFF, really.)
    “Did you have to get all white ones?” Jared asked. He was six foot two, very thin, and paler than Death shagging a snowman. The sides of his head were shaved and in the middle he sported an unlaquered Mohawk, which hung in his eyes unless he was lying on his back or looking up. In addition to a floor-length black PVC cenobite coat, he was currently wearing Abby’s thigh-high red platform Skankenstein ® boots, which was completely within his rights, as her current BFF. What bothered Foo was not that Jared had on girl’s boots, but that he had on the boots of a girl with distinctly small feet.
    “Don’t those hurt?”
    Jared tossed his hair out of his eyes. “Well, it’s like Morrissey said, ‘Life is suffering.’”
    “I think the Buddha said that.”
    “I’m pretty sure Morrissey said it first—like, back in the eighties.”
    “No, it was the Buddha.”
    “Have you ever even seen a picture of the Buddha with shoes on?” Jared asked.
    Foo couldn’t believe he was having this argument. What’s more, he couldn’t believe he was losing this argument.
    “Well, I have some Nikes upstairs that might fit you if you need to change shoes. Let’s get the rats unloaded. I have to get to work.”
    Jared already had four plastic cages with two white rats in each stacked on his lap, so he unfolded himself out of the Honda and wobbled on the red platforms to the fire door of the loft. “Don’t try to paint them black,” Jared said, peering into the Plexiglas boxes as Foo opened the door for him. “I tried that with my first rat, Lucifer. It was tragic.”
    “Tragic?” said Foo. “I’d have never guessed. Put them on the floor in the living room. I’ll borrow the truck from work tomorrow and pick up some folding tables to put them on.”
    In addition to pursuing his degree in molecular biology, and variously rescuing Abby, formulating vampire serum,and tricking out his Honda, Foo still worked part-time at Stereo City, where he specialized in telling people that they needed a bigger TV.
    “You still have that job?” Jared said as he stumbled up the stairs. “Abby said you guys have total fuck-you money.”
    Why did she tell him? She wasn’t supposed to tell him. Did she tell him everything? Why did she have to have friends at all? She’d given Jared five thousand dollars of Jody and Tommy’s money for Hanukkah—despite the fact that neither one of them was Jewish. “Because I will not let mainstream society make me into the Christmas bitch of the zombie baby-Jebus, that’s why,” she’d said. “And because he helped me take care of the Countess and Lord Flood when they were in trouble.”
    “I need to keep my cover,” Foo said. “For tax purposes.”
    That was partially true. He did need to keep up his cover, because, like Abby, he hadn’t actually told his parents that he’d moved out. They were so used to him being at school, in the lab, or at work, that they hadn’t really noticed that he hadn’t been sleeping at home. It helped that he had four younger brothers and sisters, who were all carrying insane work and course loads. His parents were all about toil. As long as you were toiling, you were okay. They could smell toil from miles away, or the lack of it. He might be able to get away with living in his own loft with his spooky-sexy girlfriend, and doing bizarre genetic experiments on the undead, but if he quit his job they’d sense it in a second.
    It took Foo and Jared twenty minutes to get all the rats up the steps and lined up around the living room.
    “We’re not going to hurt them, are we?” said Jared, holding up one of the plastic cages so he was eye to eye with its occupants.
    “We’re going to turn them into vampires.”
    “Oh, cool. Now?”
    “No, not now. For now, you’re going to need to feed them and make sure there’s a water bottle in each of their cages,” Foo said.
    “Then what?” Jared asked, tossing his hair out of his eyes.
    “Then you can go home,” said Foo. “You don’t need to observe them full-time until the experiment starts.”
    “I can’t go home. I told my parents I was staying over at Abby’s.”
    Foo was suddenly horrified at the thought of having to spend the night in the loft with a hundred rats, two bronzed vampires, and Jared. Especially Jared. Maybe he’d go home and leave Jared to watch