Club Dead

and out to the parish road, I made a mental note to get the gravel company to come dump some more gravel on my long, meandering driveway. Then I canceled that order, also mentally. I couldn’t afford that right now. It’d have to wait until spring. Or summer.
    We turned right to drive the few miles to Merlotte’s, the bar where I work as a waitress when I’m not doing Heap Big Secret Stuff for the vampires. It occurred to me when we were about halfway there that I hadn’t seen a car Bubba could’ve used to drive to my house. Maybe he’d flown? Some vamps could. Though Bubba was the least talented vampire I’d met, maybe he had a flair for it.
    A year ago I would’ve asked him, but not now. I’m used to hanging around with the undead now. Not that I’m a vampire. I’m a telepath. My life was hell on wheels until I met a man whose mind I couldn’t read. Unfortunately, I couldn’t read his mind because he was dead. But Bill and I had been together for several months now, and until recently, our relationship had been real good. And the other vampires need me, so I’m safe—to a certain extent. Mostly. Sometimes.
    Merlotte’s didn’t look too busy, judging from the half-empty parking lot. Sam had bought the bar about five years ago. It had been failing—maybe because it had been cut out of the forest, which loomed all around the parking lot. Or maybe the former owner just hadn’t found the right combination of drinks, food, and service.
    Somehow, after he renamed the place and renovated it, Sam had turned balance sheets around. He made a nice living off it now. But tonight was a Monday night, not a big drinking night in our neck of the woods, which happened to be in northern Louisiana. I pulled around to the employee parking lot, which was right in front of Sam Merlotte’s trailer, which itself is behind and at right angles to the employee entrance to the bar. I hopped out of the driver’s seat, trotted through the storeroom, and peeked through the glass pane in the door to check the short hall with its doors to the rest rooms and Sam’s office. Empty. Good. And when I knocked on Sam’s door, he was behind his desk, which was even better.
    Sam is not a big man, but he’s very strong. He’s a strawberry blond with blue eyes, and he’s maybe three years older than my twenty-six. I’ve worked for him for about that many years. I’m fond of Sam, and he’s starred in some of my favorite fantasies; but since he dated a beautiful but homicidal creature a couple of months before, my enthusiasm has somewhat faded. He’s for sure my friend, though.
    “ ’Scuse me, Sam,” I said, smiling like an idiot.
    “What’s up?” He closed the catalog of bar supplies he’d been studying.
    “I need to stash someone in here for a little while.”
    Sam didn’t look altogether happy. “Who? Has Bill gotten back?”
    “No, he’s still traveling.” My smile got even brighter. “But, um, they sent another vampire to sort of guard me? And I need to stow him in here while I work, if that’s okay with you.”
    “Why do you need to be guarded? And why can’t he just sit out in the bar? We have plenty of TrueBlood.” TrueBlood was definitely proving to be the front-runner among competing blood replacements. “Next best to the drink of life,” its first ad had read, and vampires had responded to the ad campaign.
    I heard the tiniest of sounds behind me, and I sighed. Bubba had gotten impatient.
    “Now, I asked you—” I began, starting to turn, but never got further. A hand grasped my shoulder and whirled me around. I was facing a man I’d never seen before. He was cocking his fist to punch me in the head.
    Though the vampire blood I had ingested a few months ago (to save my life, let me point out) has mostly worn off—I barely glow in the dark at all now—I’m still quicker than most people. I dropped and rolled into the man’s legs, which made him stagger, which made it easier for Bubba to grab him and crush his throat.
    I scrambled to my feet and Sam rushed out of his office. We stared at each other, Bubba, and the dead man.
    Well, now we were really in a pickle.
    “I’ve kilt him,” Bubba said proudly. “I saved you, Miss Sookie.”
    Having the Man from Memphis appear in your bar, realizing he’s become a vampire, and watching him kill a would-be assailant—well, that was a lot to absorb in a couple of minutes, even for Sam, though he himself was more than he appeared.
    “Well, so you