Better Off Undead

by Martin H. Greenberg

  “Thought I’d surprise my parents,’’ I said through the window. “Just here a bit late. You wouldn’t believe the traffic I ran into,’’ I added.

  The man looked up as I handed him my driver’s license. His face froze. After a long moment, he stuttered, “My, that’s an interesting . . . breed. What is it?’’

  I glanced over at the dinosaur. It was sniffing its reflection in the truck window with great intent. “He’s a Great Saurdino Dirtback,’’ I said with a grin. What the hell. I was already having a fun night.

  “How fascinating,’’ the man said, returning my ID while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on my passenger, who was now licking my windshield.

  His gaze occasionally nervously darted down to his coffee cup, then back up at the creature, as if it might disappear if he looked away too long.

  “Have a nice night,’’ he said, and opened the gate.

  “You, too,’’ I replied, and drove away.

  Getting the animal into the cabin was a Herculean effort. It seemed fascinated by the trees surrounding the site, and I was tugged along on a five-course gastronomic tour of every tuber, weed, tree, shrub, and bush before I got him inside.

  In the cabin, I tied him to the coat rack on the wall for a minute, and flicked on the lamp beside me. The modest pine furnishings, a little kitchen, and a half dozen rather nice hunting trophies were illuminated by the warm glow.

  I turned around to find that the animal, and my coat rack, had vanished. Behind me, I heard a happy chirp, and then a crunch. Suddenly, the room was pitch dark. I slapped on the overhead light—revealing the ridiculous sight of the creature with its mouth full of my mom’s favorite lamp and a very confused expression on its face.

  “Aw, for the love of Christ . . . that was a nice lamp,’’ I said, as it spit out the pieces of lamp. It occurred to me that the creature should have gotten hurt by the glass, at least, if not by the live filament.

  I took a closer look at the thing’s mouth, prising it open while it gurgled in protest. To my surprise its pointed mouth was actually a tough beak, lined with teeth down either side. The creature struggled out of my grip and leapt up onto a worn white couch in a shower of dirt. I heard splintering furniture.

  “Squirk!’’ it chimed from the top of the collapsed couch, eyeing my bookshelf in a way I didn’t like.

  “Squirk, yourself. I think it’s time we figured out just what you are, fella. Do you understand the word ’bath?’’’

  It tilted its head to the side and chirped musically at me again. It seemed altogether very pleased with itself. But I still couldn’t tell what condition it was in while it was covered in all that dirt. Besides which, I hoped that a bath might rescue the remaining pieces of furniture.

  With a stolid, resolute hand, I grabbed its leash. This was going to be fun.

  To my surprise, the animal did not mind the water. In fact, it took to the bathtub very quickly. In the process, it also took to the sponge and two bars of soap, which were down its gullet before I could utter a protest.

  I made a mental note that I would have to feed it after the bath was finished.

  But as more and more dirt washed away, I saw that the animal was fatally wounded.

  It was definitely a dinosaur, one of the duckbilled ones from the look of it, and I could accept that I didn’t know much about it. But I had hunted long enough to know a lethal wound when I saw one, and there was no possible way for it to be alive. Its emaciated torso was more holey than a cathedral, it seemed to have multiple, irregular wounds bad enough that there was no way to patch it up, and it had a gash on its leg that would have had a Marine calling for his mother.

  But it was chirping happily as water trickled into it and back out of it like a defective bucket. More curious was the fact that I could find no signs of scabs, even though its eyes were sickly yellowish, and that its pebbly green skin curtained off its raw flesh in some places.

  After it had been cleaned up somewhat, I led it downstairs and did some research in a dinosaur encyclopedia I’d borrowed from my neighbor’s kid earlier that evening. I pulled some canned corn out of the pantry, dumped it in a bowl and set it out for the beast. For my dinner, I got out a couple bologna sandwiches I hadn’t had time to eat for lunch. I dissected one and threw the meat on top of the other while I went back to the pantry for mustard.

  Grabbing the dinosaur book on the way, I flipping it open and found a perfect picture before I found the mustard. My guest was definitely a corythosaurus, judging by the little frill and head shape.

  What concerned me was that he was a member of a technically extinct species, and he was currently sitting here in my kitchen. More importantly, he didn’t appear to be in the best of health, although after that many millions of years, that was to be expected.

  Suddenly, my concentration was broken by the bologna sandwich sliding off the edge of the table.

  “Oh, no,’’ I said, putting the book down to find the miscreant with a piece of meat in his mouth, “You’re a plant eater. You aren’t going to like that.’’

  The dinosaur answered by sliding the bologna very neatly into its mouth, and nosing around the bread for the other piece. I cocked an eyebrow quizzically. Then I understood. Like a dog, he was colorblind. As far as he was concerned, round and flat meant that it was edible.

  Without quite knowing why, I got up, rooted around in the closet for a moment, and came back with one of Rex’s old collars. “You know, you seem to catch on pretty quickly. If I’m gonna take care of you anyway, how’d you like to be a pointer?’’

  For a moment, he almost seemed to understand what I was saying. His eyes lit up, and he swished his tail in a happy, repetitive arc that beat my guest chair to pieces.

  I looked at the collar. Rex had been a big dog.

  Carefully, I slid it around the dinosaur’s neck. To my surprise, it fit perfectly.

  “Well, it’s kinda fitting,’’ I chuckled. “Since you’re a dinosaur . . . I think that you would make a wonderful Rex.’’

  For just a moment, as I looked at the dinosaur with his new collar, I would have sworn that I saw him puff out his over-worn chest with the solemn weight of his new position.

  Over the next couple of weeks, I trained Rex the same as I had trained the hunting dogs, with lots of patience, and strangely enough, with the occasional piece of meat as a reward.

  I guessed that the bologna wasn’t likely to be very good for him, but in the shape he was in, indigestion could hardly do him in. Besides, he expressed a definite partiality for it, and eventually, I realized that I was never going to train him on canned corn alone.

  After a week of training, he simply wouldn’t eat the corn.

  By the end of the two weeks, Rex was the best dinosaur pointer ever to be seen by the world. In fact, he had a natural instinct for tracking that was nearly unbelievable.

  Now that I didn’t have the job at the construction site any more, I took some time off before looking for another job. I’d probably have to use Brandon as a reference, but he’d be okay. It’s not like I was any threat to him now.

  Still. I wasn’t keen to have another run-in with him. After all, I may have saved him some trouble, but the least I could expect him to pull if I saw him would be sanctimonious and bureaucratic speeches about how he really shouldn’t be seen with the clinically insane, and I didn’t have much patience for that.

  Rex, meanwhile, started working his way up to bigger pieces of meat. Now and then, I’d toss him a piece of ham, which usually translated in his mind as “extraordinarily large leaf.’’ He even started burying the bones, something I wasn’t certain what to make of.

  Later, when I went out to tend to the grounds around the cabin one day, one of the little jobs necessary if you keep semi-permanent residence, I saw a small dust storm being flung up nearby; it was of larger proportions then Rex’s normal snack hunt.

  As I approached, I realized that at the center of the dust was an eight foot hole, from which two ab
surdly happy eyes were staring triumphantly as Rex pulled the largest bone I had ever seen out of the ground and, after a laborious climb, dropped it at my feet. As it landed, it made a dense thump. It was made entirely out of minerals.

  And that was when I realized exactly what my next job would be.

  The last time I saw Brandon was from a distance, while I was working on a new dig. There were less fireworks then I expected, but considering that our last engagement had involved firearms, I was more than willing to see things quiet down a bit.

  It was sometime after I got my latest job as an excavator on paleontological digs, thanks to a quick discussion with the friend from whom I borrowed the book. I took the courses I needed at the local museum and passed the tests with flying colors. At my interview, I had asked that I be able to bring my “dog’’ onto the digs, provided it didn’t damage anything. It was time to do what had gotten me Rex in the first place, and play a hunch.

  Rex soon became popular around the site, because he had an uncanny ability to find fossils where no one else even thought to look. In fact, I even got my picture in the paper as the owner of the semi-famous “rock hound,’’ and no one bothered looking up his species, because after all, he couldn’t really be a dinosaur. We couldn’t have spilled our secret if we tried. I was his owner and I made sure to file papers to prove it with animal enforcement, complete with a contrived pedigree from a dog breeder in need of a few bucks before he left town. Rex ended up as a rather distant cousin of the Newfoundland.

  But one bright spring day when Rex and I took a lunch break in a town near the excavation site, me with a sub sandwich, and Rex with his usual packet of cold cuts from the deli, I happened to look to the side and see a familiar figure in a dark coat. He seemed to look my way, then had an animated conversation with one of the other men on my team, Doug.

  After a minute, he stood up straight, glanced at me again, then got back in his car and left.

  I got hold of Doug as I was finishing up.

  “What was that all about?’’ I asked, as though I expected the usual press person or similar.

  “Oh, it was just someone asking about you again, Ands,’’ he said, business as usual, “From the article, you know. He asked about your dog. I told him it was a—what’s the name now?—Sardine Dustback?’’

  “Saurdino Dirtback,’’ I corrected automatically. “And what did he say?’’

  Doug leaned against a nearby parking meter. “He didn’t really say much of anything. He just laughed and mumbled, ’Damn clever’, and then drove off.’’ He glanced up as he started to walk towards the dig. “Know him?’’

  I smiled and threw Rex the last of my sandwich, a treat he relished if he could get it.

  “You could say that,’’ I replied, and headed back to the dig with Rex, the best Saurdino Dirtback I’d ever had.

  UNDEAD

  Vampires. Blood-suckers. Life-takers. The traditional undead envisioned by Bram Stoker. The Count certainly viewed his undeath as better in some respects. So, in a way, these stories pay homage to Stoker’s original view of the undead. But that’s only a passing nod; the undead in these tales are nothing like Dracula.

  Kate Paulk shows us that vampirism doesn’t have to be a big deal—even when a would-be slayer shows up. Twelve-step treatment programs get a hilariously unexpected update by Rebecca Lickiss. Charles Edgar Quinn explores vampire hunting as a sport. The things that scare us in the night as children sometimes follow us into adulthood in Amanda S. Green’s narrative. Finally, S.M. Stirling takes the undead to a creepy new level with a family squabble that’s anything but expected.

  NIGHT SHIFTED

  Kate Paulk

  It was just on half-past eleven when she walked into the store. I gave her a quick look; enough to see who it was, nothing more. At least, that was the plan. The things you see on graveyard shift at a convenience store.

  This kid was maybe twenty, and she had “Buffy Fashion Victim’’ written all over her. She even had a bad bleach job and a Sarah Michelle Gellar haircut. On Gellar—Buffy the Vampire Slayer—that style looked good. On this kid, it looked like a straggly home cut. Then there was the big vinyl shoulder bag that was supposed to look like leather but it was cracking and showing white underneath, and the fancy pewter crucifix on a chain around her neck. It was probably supposed to look like silver.

  As for the clothes . . . the kid’s jeans might have fit someone a bit less on the anorexic side. They hung loose on her. The floaty micromini she wore over them did nothing to help. Then, God help me, there was the tee shirt. White, with pink edging and those silly cap sleeves that make it look like someone burped on the factory floor. And written across the front, in pink puffy letters, “Grrrl Power.’’ I kid you not.

  I half expected to see a Powerpuff Girl on the back of the thing.

  She smelled of cheap perfume and fear.

  Just great. Smelling like that, there was no way she was here to shop, so I kept an eye on her through the security monitors. I can stop your average shoplifter cold, but some dumb kid dared to do it for a fraternity gag? After what happened when I tried to join a frat, I prefer not to mess with the frat stuff.

  I had asked myself a thousand times how I was supposed to know the guy who bit me was a vampire, and I still didn’t feel any better about it. Then there’s what it did to my college schedule. Night classes are kind of hard to get into, especially night classes that run after sundown. I still had to support myself, and while a vampire working graveyard shift had its own irony, the job didn’t bring in much above minimum wage.

  At least my boss was a decent sort. He always came in early the few days around the daylight savings changeover when sunrise came before my shift was due to close.

  The kid wandered around the store, looking at stuff like she didn’t really see it. If she was here to shoplift, there was nothing I could do until she actually put something in her bag and headed out the door. Company policy.

  She picked up a bag of Doritos and meandered towards the counter.

  Now, I’m not your most attractive male, and being changed doesn’t magically make you any better looking. You just get paler and a bit skinnier. But that doesn’t excuse her for flinching back like I was some kind of monster. I didn’t even have my fangs showing.

  She dumped the Doritos on the counter.

  “Will that be all, ma’am?’’ I might not be much of a vampire, but God help me, I’ll be a polite one.

  “You are so staked, sucker.’’ She even tried to fake the Buffy accent. With her Texan drawl, it didn’t work.

  I blinked. This was something the store didn’t have a policy on. At least, not an official one.

  So there I am, looking at this wannabe slayer, and she’s pointing this sharpened dowel at me. I mean, dowel! Not even a decent chunk of two by four! She hadn’t sharpened it properly, she had it aimed at my gut instead of my heart, and it shook so much in her hand I doubted she could do more than scratch me.

  Oh, and the counter was damn near as wide as she could reach. All I had to do was take a step back.

  Why did I get all the wannabe slayers? It’s not like I’m anyone’s idea of ultimate evil. I’m a convenience store cashier, for Chrissake! I don’t need more than a pint of the red stuff a week, and I try to get it in daily doses. Preferably with someone who knows what I am and doesn’t mind a little nibble, although if I don’t have a girlfriend, it’s kind of expensive paying for a fifteen minute simulated quickie each night, just so I can get my few ounces in.

  Not that I’ve got much choice. I can’t afford to let myself get so low on the red stuff that I can’t control what I drink, because it’s damned inconvenient trying to hide bodies. If the cops got hold of me over a dead body, well . . . I’d be a dead body. With maybe one or two exceptions, no cop would believe I was a vampire until I went up like a candle, and by then it’d be too late.

  I smiled at Miss Grrrl Power Wannabe Slayer, a nice smile that didn’t show my fangs. “Pardon,
ma’am?’’

  She shoved the dowel a little closer to my liver while I rang up her Doritos. “Enough with the talking, it’s, like, time to die.’’

  I really did not have time for this. I don’t get sick pay, and there’s no way I was going to go to a hospital. The kid was worse than the potheads who did their best to buy out our stock of blunts each night. At least the potheads were harmless.

  I sighed and laid my hand flat on the dowel, pushing it to lie on the counter. “Look, ma’am, you’ve been overdoing it. Why don’t you put this thing away and go home. I’ll pay for your food if you like.’’ I didn’t usually offer like this, but the wobbly determination the kid showed deserved something from me. I don’t even like Doritos.

  She snatched the dowel away, glaring at me as she took a few steps back. “Don’t try any of your mind, um . . . things!’’

  Poor kid. I’d like to get my hands on the idiot who sent her out. “I’m not doing anything, ma’am.’’ I spread out my hands so she could see them. “I’m just trying to earn a living, same as anyone else.’’

  She gave me a confused look, and her bottom lip trembled a bit. “But I . . . they said . . .’’

  I could imagine. “Yeah, I’ve heard it all before. Spawn of evil, dark angel . . . it’s crap.’’ I shook my head. “I never asked to get changed.’’ I moved out from behind the counter, nice and slow. Maybe if she could see I was nothing special she’d calm down.

  She backed up against the beer bin, shaking hard enough to rattle the ice. Her free hand fumbled until she got hold of the cross and pointed it at me. “Stay away!’’

  I sighed. Sometimes it’s not a bad thing there are so many dumb myths about vampires, but it gets old. Especially when you’re trying to calm down a wannabe slayer who doesn’t seem to know the first thing about it.

  Like the cross. It might have bothered me if it had been real silver. Or even polished pewter. It’s the way the shiny stuff concentrates light, not any built-in holiness. A good set of sequins would do the job just as well—one reason you won’t find any vampires hanging around Vegas.