Bloodsucking fiends: a love story

utilities.
    She left the door at the top of the stairs unlocked, then went down the steps and propped the big fire door open with a soda can she found on the landing. She might have to get back in fast, and she didn't want to be slowed down by keys and locks.
    Her muscles buzzed as she approached the vampire, the fight-or-flee instinct running through her like liquid lightning. A few feet away she picked up a foul smell, a rotting smell coming from the vampire. She stopped and swallowed hard.
    "What exactly is it that you want?" she asked.
    The vampire didn't move. His face was covered by the high collar of his overcoat.
    She took another step forward. "What am I supposed to be doing?"
    The smell was stronger now. She concentrated on the vampire's hands, trying to sense some movement that would warn her of an attack. There was none.
    "Answer me!" she demanded. She stepped up and pulled the collar away from his face. She saw the glazed eyes and a bone jutting from the neck just as a hand clamped across her face and jerked her back off her feet.
    She tried to reach behind her to claw her attacker's face but he jerked her to the side. She opened her mouth to scream and two of his fingers slipped into her mouth. She bit down hard. There was a scream and she was free.
    She wheeled on her attacker, ready to fight, his severed fingers still in her mouth.
    The vampire stood before her, cradling his bloody hand.
    "Bitch," he said. Then he grinned.
    Jody swallowed his fingers and hissed at him. "Fuck you, asshole. Come on." She fell into a crouch and waved him on.
    The vampire was still grinning. "The taste of vampire blood has made you brave, fledgling. Don't take it too far."
    His hand had stopped spurting blood and was scabbing over as she watched. "What do you want?"
    The vampire looked at the sky, which was turning pink, threatening dawn.
    "Right now I want to find a place to sleep," he said too calmly. He ripped the scab from his fingers and slung a spray of blood in her face. "Until we meet again, my love." He wheeled and ran across the street into an alley.
    Jody stood watching and shaking with the need for a fight. She turned and looked at the dead bum: the decoy. She couldn't leave him here to attract police -not this close to the loft.
    She glanced at the lightening sky, then hoisted the dead bum onto her back and headed back to the loft.
    Tommy ran up the stairs and burst into the loft eager to share his discovery about Simon's illiteracy, but once through the door, he was knocked back by a stinging rotten odor like bloated roadkill.
    What's she done now? he thought.
    He opened the windows to air the place out and went to the bedroom, careful to open the door just wide enough to slip through without spilling sunlight on the bed. The smell was much stronger here and he gagged as he turned on the light.
    Jody was lying on the bed with the electric blanket pulled up to her neck. Dried blood was crusted over her face. A wiggling wave of the willies ran up Tommy's spine, stronger than any he had felt since his father had first told him the secret of ball-park hot dogs. ("Snouts and butt holes," Dad had said, during the seventh-inning stretch. "I've got the willies," said Tommy.)
    There was a note on the pillow by Jody's head. Tommy crept forward and snatched it off the pillow, then backpedaled to the door to read it.
    Tommy,
    Sorry I'm such a mess. It's almost dawn and I don't want to get stuck in the shower. I'll explain tonight .
    Call Sears and have them deliver the largest chest freezer that they have. There's money in my backpack. I missed you last night .
    Love,
    Jody
    Tommy backed out of the room.

Chapter 18 – Bugeater of the
    Barbary Coast
    Tommy woke up on the futon feeling as if he had been through a two-day battle. The loft was dark but for the streetlights spilling through the windows and he could hear Jody running the shower in the other room. The new freezer was humming away in the kitchen. He rolled off the futon and groaned. His muscles creaked like rusty hinges and his head felt as if it were stuffed with cotton – like a low-grade hangover – not from the few beers he had shared with the Animals after work, but from the verbal beating he had taken from the appliance salesman at Sears.
    The salesman, a round hypertensive named Lloyd, who wore the last extant leisure suit on the planet (powder blue with navy piping), had begun his assault with a five-minute lament on the disappearance of double