Deaths Excellent Vacation

believe me, Momma, tell me what he had for dinner last night?” After a few moments passed, Jessica shook her head. “Bourbon ain’t no dinner. At your age you need to be taking better care of yourself.”
    “You think I should really get the silver bullets?”
    Jessica nodded. “ And the bag . . . And don’t go hunting for these suckers without those bullets when it’s a full moon.”

Two
    IT was clear that Sheriff Moore wasn’t going to listen to her, clear as a bell rung in church at high noon. The old man was gonna get himself killed for sure. Better stated, he was gonna get eaten. Her conscience wouldn’t allow for that; her mother had brought her up right, after all. Plus, these beasts were encroaching on her hometown. Had taken a couple of young kids in high school that were making out after dark by the lake. Wrong place, wrong time, and tore ’em up so badly, according to the sheriff, that their families didn’t have much left to put in a casket. Now that was just wrong .
    Jessica walked to the refrigerator and opened it, looking for more lemonade. Her cell phone was pressed to her ear, and she glanced up at the clock. At two in the afternoon, Raph wouldn’t be up yet. When it rolled over to voice mail, she muttered a curse under her breath and hit redial. “Answer the danged phone!”
    “What?” Raphael said in a sleepy, irritated tone. “I was working till four.”
    “I’m sorry,” Jessica said, squeezing her eyes shut. True, her brother had been working at the strip club until four, but he hadn’t gotten to sleep until eight and still had company in his bed. “I . . . I . . . just need to ask you a favor.”
    She heard Raphael get up and start moving.
    “Stay out of my business, boo. You might see what you ain’t ready to deal with, calling me all early . . . You supposed to be psychic, so you just oughta check if—”
    “My bad, but I need to ask you for—”
    “Some money.”
    Quiet settled on the line between them.
    “Never mind,” she said, hurt, about to hang up.
    “Now there you go, all proud. I have been waiting for the last two years for you to just call me up and let me help you, boo. What’s the matter with you? You’re my baby sister, so why you feel like you can’t ask me for help? That hurts me, Jess.”
    “I’m trying to hold on to Momma’s trailer,” she said as her voice cracked. “I’m trying to hold on to everything she was and did, and I’m not able . . . Then I gave the sheriff a tip, like she used to, and he thinks I’m crazy.”
    “You ain’t hardly crazy,” her brother said, soothing her with his voice. “You was so good you used to scare Momma. I know that to be a fact.”
    Jessica nodded, sniffed hard, and wiped her nose. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where all that came from.” The tears came from a deep-down pain, something she’d shoved down so far that she hadn’t remembered where she’d even buried it.
    “I do,” Raphael said bluntly, but his tone was still gentle. “You’re twenty-two years old, ain’t had no fun, been living like an old lady; that’s what’s wrong with you.”
    “Yeah, well, I lost my job . . . Nobody around here is hiring, really. Can’t even put up my college money anymore, much less—”
    “I been done told you, girl, that if you just fill out the application to where you wanna go, I got you semester by semester—we family!”
    “But that’s not right,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “You have things you wanna do with your life . . . like go to Paris and—”
    “I work these poles like my ass is greased lightning, honey chile, I’ll have you know. I am going to Paris again, this weekend, and will be there until fashion week, so I am living my dreams. You worry about living yours, boo.”
    Jessica smiled and wiped her face, and then chuckled. “You are such a hot mess.”
    “I am hot to death ’cause I drop it like it’s hot . . . So what you need?”
    She couldn’t answer him for a moment. She really hadn’t thought out what she would do or what she needed. All she was sure of was that she wanted to go to New Orleans to help people survive what was hunting in their bayou.
    “I honestly don’t know,” she murmured, staring out the window. “I wanted to get away . . . go to New Orleans for the weekend, but—”
    “Only on two conditions,” Raphael said.
    “What?” Jessica said, a new smile tugging at her cheek.
    “You go to the bank and take some of that money