Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story Chapter 23~24

Chapter 23 florists chrysanthemum and Terrapin PieShes in town, Jody said. Shes coming over in a a couple of(prenominal) minutes. Jody lowered the cry to its cradle.Tommy appeared in the sleeping means door counseling, Scott still suspension system from his sleeve. Youre shaverding.Youre missing a cufflink, Jody said.I dont figure hes expiration to allow go. Do we die in any scissors?Jody similarlyk Tommy by the sleeve a few inches above w present Scott was clamped. You wide a bring up?Tommy nodded and she ripped his sleeve off at the shoulder. Scott skulked into the bedroom, the sleeve still clamped in his jaws.That was my best shirt, Tommy said, spirit at his bare arm.Sorry, barely weve got to vacuous this place up and observe a story together.Where did she call from?She was at the Fairmont Hotel. Weve got peradventure ten minutes.So she wont be staying with us. ar you kidding? My receive nether the homogeneous detonating dev ice rink where people are aler t in sin? Not in this lifetime, turtleboy.Tommy took the turtleboy endowz in stride. This was an emergency and there was no time for dyingure timberings. Does you m separate(a) utili pattern heapion phrases deal living in sin?I deliberate she has it embroidered on a taster over the teleph 1 so she wont go forth to habit it every calendar calendar month when I call.Tommy shake his charge. Were doomed. Why didnt you call her this month? She said you everlastingly call her.Jody was walk to twenty-four hours, trying to designate. Because I didnt get my monitor lizard.What reminder?My period. I al substances call her when I get my period each month yet to get all the unpleasantness pop alfresco(a) of the way at nonpareil time.When was the hold time you had a period?Jody opinion for a minute. It was forrader she had dour. I dont dumbfound, eight, niner weeks. Im sorry, I senst believe I forgot.Tommy went to the futon, sit cumulation down, and cradled his breaker point in his hands. What do we do now?Jody sat side by side(p) to him. I dont suppose we put one across time to re embellish.In the next ten minutes, while they scant(p)ed up the loft, Jody tried to prepare Tommy for what he was closely to fuck. She doesnt similar men. My buzz off left her for a younger char when I was twelve, and produce thinks all men are snakes. And she doesnt rattling the likes of women either, since she was betrayed by one. She was one of the number one women to graduate from Stanford, so shes a geek of a snob well-nigh that. She says that I broke her gain vigort when I didnt go to Stanford. Its been downhill since then(prenominal). She doesnt like that I blistering in the City and she has never contri providede of any of my jobs, my boyfriends, or the way I dress.Tommy stopped in the middle of bush the kitchen depress. So what should I talk ab forbidden?It would probably be best if you estimable sat quietly and looked repentant .Thats how I always look.Jody perceive the stairwell door blossom. Shes here. Go lurch your shirt.Tommy ran to the bedroom, stripping off his one-sleever as he went. Im non realise for this, he thought. I gain more pass water to do on myself before Im ready for a presentation.Jody opened the door catching her find poised to knock.Mom Jody said, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. You look gr eat up.Frances Evelyn Stroud stood on the landing looking at her youngest missy with respiterained disapproval. She was a improvident, st place woman dressed in layers of wool and silk at a lower place an eggshell cashmere emerge. Her hair was a interweave gray-blond, flared and lacquered to expose a pair of pull together earrings roughly the size of Ping-Pong balls. Her eyebrows had been pick off verboten and painted buns, her cheekbones were high and high get downed, her lips lined, filled, and clamped tight. She had the same striking green eyes as her daughter, flecked now with sparks of judgment. She had been pretty at one time tho was now passing into the limbo-land of the menopausal woman bangn as hand virtually. may I come in, she said.Jody, caught in the one-half-gesture of hold back a hug, dropped her arms. Of short letter, she said, stepping aside. Its darling to reassure you, she said, remainder the door behind her mother.Tommy bounded from the bedroom into the kitchen and slid to a stop on stocking feet. Hi, he said.Jody put her hand on her mothers behind. Frances flinched, ever so slightly, at the touch. female parent, this is Thomas Flood. Hes a put verbotenr. Tommy, this is my mother, Frances Stroud.Tommy approached Frances and offered his hand. enlivend to meet youShe clutched her Gucci bag tightly, then forced herself to take his hand. Mrs. Stroud, she said, trying to forefront off the unpleasantness of hearing her Christian physique come come forth of Tommys m bulge outh.Jody broke the significance of disco mfort so they could pass into the next one. So, Mom, can I take your come up? Would you like to sit down?Frances Stroud surrendered her coat to her daughter as if she were surrendering her credit tease to a mugger, as if she didnt loss to know where it was going because she would never see it again. Is this your be sick? she asked, nodding toward the futon.Have a seat, vex well get you round liaison to drink. We allow Jody realized that she had no idea what they had. Tommy, what do we have?Tommy wasnt expecting the questions to pop out so soon. Ill look, he said, running to the kitchen and throwing open a cabinet. We have java, regular and decaf. He remove behind the coffee, the sugar, the powdered pickinger. We have Ovaltine, and He threw open the refrigerator. Beer, milk, cranberry juice, and beer a sell of beer I mean, non a lot, but plenty, and He opened the chest freezer. Peary stared up at him with a opening amidst frozen dinners. Tommy slammed the lid. t hats it. No liaison in there.Decaf, please, said bugger off Stroud. She turn to Jody, who was return from balling up her mothers cashmere coat and throwing it in the shoetree of the closet. So, youve left your job at Transamerica. are you take a leaking(a), dear?Jody sat in a wicker chair across the wicker coffee table from her mother. (Tommy had decided to decorate the loft in a loading dock 1 Imports cheap-shit motif. As a resolving power it was only a ceiling buffer and a cockatoo away from looking like a Thai cat habitation.)Jody said, Ive taken a job in marketing. It sounded respectable. It sounded professional. It sounded like a lie.You might have told me and saved me the embarrassment of calling Transamerica only to find out that you had been let go.I quit, overprotect. I wasnt let go.Tommy, trying to lead himself invisible, bowed his way between them to deliver the decaf, which he had place on a wicker tray with cream and sugar. And you, Mr. Flood, youre a so urce? What do you write?Tommy b obligationened. Im working on a short story round a short girl growing up in the South. Her father is on a kitchen range gang.Youre from the South, then?No, Indiana.Oh, she said, as if he had unless confessed to being raised by rats. And where did you go to university?I, um, Im sort of self-educated. I think scram is the best teacher. Tommy realized that he was sweating.I see, she said. And where might I read your work?Im not published yet. He squirmed. Im working on it, though, he added quickly.So you have some other job. Are you in marketing as well?Jody intervened. She could see move rising off Tommy. He manages the Marina Safeway, Mother. It was a small lie, nothing compared to the tapestry of lies she had interweave for her mother over the years.Mother Stroud turned a scalpel gaze on her daughter. You know, Jody, its not too late to apply to Stanford. Youd be a bit older than the other freshmen, but I could pull a few strings.How does she do this? Jody wondered. How does she come into my habitation and within minutes coiffe me tone of voice like dirt on a stick? Why does she do it?Mother, I think Im beyond going indorse to school.Mother Stroud picked up her cup as if to sip, then paused. Of course, dear. You wouldnt regard to neglect your course and family.It was a verbal sucker clout delivered with polite, extended-pinky malice. Jody mat up something drop indoors her like cyanide pellets into acid. Her guilt dropped through the gallows immobilise and jerked with broken-neck finality. She regretted only the ten thousand sentences she had started with, I love my mother, but You do that so people dont judge you frore and inhuman, Jody thought. as well late now.She said, Perhaps youre right, Mother. Perhaps if I had gone to Stanford I would lowstand wherefore I wasnt born with an innate familiarity of cooking and cleaning and child-rearing and managing a charge and a relationship. Ive always wondered if its lack of development or genetic deficiency.Mother Stroud was unshaken. I cant speak for your fathers genetic brookground, dear.Tommy was grateful that Mother Strouds attention had turned from him, but he could see Jodys gaze narrowing, going from hurt to anger. He valued to come to her aid. He cherished to make peace. He wanted to hide in the recessional. He wanted to wade in and kick ass. He weighed his polite upbringing against the anarchists, rebels, and iconoclasts who were his heroes. He could eat this woman alive. He was a writer and words were his weapons. She wouldnt have a chance. Hed take down her.And he would have. He was taking a deep suggestion to prepare to light into her when he saw a swath of denim disappearing slowly beneath the frame of the futon his dismembered shirt sleeve. He held his breath and looked at Jody. She was smiling, saying nothing.Mother Stroud said, Your father was at Stanford on an athletic scholarship, you know. They would have never let him in otherwise.Im certain(a) youre right, Mother, Jody said. She smiled politely, listening not to her mother, but to the musical scraping of turtle claws on carpet. She centre on the sound and could hear the slow, cold lugging of Scotts heart.Mother Stroud sipped her decaf. Tommy waited. Jody said, So how prospicient volition you be in the City?I estimable came up to do some shopping. Im sponsoring a benefit for the Monterey Symphony and I wanted a new gown. Of course I could have tack together something in Carmel, but everyone would have seen it already. The bane of living in a small community.Jody nodded as if she understood. She had no connection to this woman, not anymore. Frances Evelyn Stroud was a stranger, an unpleasant stranger. Jody felt more of a connection with the turtle under the futon. chthonic the futon, Scott spotted a pattern of scales on Mother Strouds shoes. Hed never seen Italian faux-alligator pumps, but he knew scales. When you are lying peace s ki llfuly buried in the muck at the bottom of a pond and you see scales, it means food. You bite.Frances Stroud shrieked and leaped to her feet, pulling her right foot free of her shoe as she fell into the wicker coffee table. Jody caught her mother by the shoulders and set her on her feet. Frances pushed her away and spikeleted across the room as she watched the snapping turtle emerge from under the futon gayly chomping on the pump.What is that? What is that thing? That thing is eating my shoe. Stop it Kill itTommy hurdled the futon and dived for the turtle, catching the hound dog of the shoe before it disappeared. Scott dug his claws into the carpet and assed off. Tommy came up with heel in hand.I got part of it.Jody went to her mothers side. I meant to call the exterminator, Mother. If Id had more noticeMother Stroud was breathing in outraged yips. How can you live like this?Tommy held the heel out to her.I dont want that. Call me a cab.Tommy paused, considered the opportunity, then let it pass and went to the phone.You cant go out without shoes, Mother. Ill get you something to wear. Jody went to the bedroom and came back with her rattiest pair of sneakers. Here, Mom, these will get you back to the hotel.Mother Stroud, afraid to sit down anywhere, leaned against the door and stepped into the sneakers. Jody tied them for her and slipped the uneaten pump into her mothers bag. in that location you go. She stepped back. Now, what are we going to do for the holidays?Mother Stroud, her gaze trained on Scott, yet shook her head. The turtle had wedged himself between the legs of the coffee table and was dragging it somewhat the loft.A cab pulled up outside and beeped the horn. Mother Stroud tore her gaze away from the turtle and looked at her daughter. Ill be in Europe for the holidays. I have to go now. She opened the door and backed out through it.Bye, Mom, Jody said.Nice meeting you, Mrs. Stroud, Tommy called aft(prenominal) her.When the cab pulled away, T ommy turned to Jody and said, Well, that went pretty well, didnt it? I think she likes me.Jody was leaning against the door, staring at the floor. She looked up and began to giggle silently. Soon she was multiply over laughing.What? Tommy said.Jody looked up at him, divide streaming her face. I think Im ready to meet your folks, dont you?I dont know. They might be sort of upset that youre not a Methodist.Chapter 24The Return of BreakfastThe emperor butterfly lay spread-eagle on the end of a dock in the exaltation Francis Yacht Club Marina, watching clouds pass over the bay. Bummer and Lazarus lay beside him, their feet in the air, dozing. The troika might have been crucified there, if the dogs hadnt been smiling.Men, the emperor moth said, it seems to me now that there is, indeed, a point to that genus Otis Redding song about sitting on the dock of the bay. later a long wickedness of vampire hunting, this is a almost pleasant way to spend the day. Bummer, I believe a commenda tion is in order. When you led us down here, I thought you were wasting our time.Bummer did not answer. He was dreaming of a park full of large trees and bite-sized mailmen. His legs twitched and he let out a sleepy ruff each time he crunched one of their detailed heads. In dreams, mailmen taste like chicken.The Emperor said, But pleasant as this is, it tastes of guilt, of responsibility. cardinal months tracking this fiend, and we are no close-set(prenominal) to finding him than when we started. Yet here we lay, enjoying the day. I can see the faces of the victims in these clouds.Lazarus furled over and licked the Emperors hand.Youre right, Lazarus, without sleep we will not be fit for battle. Perhaps, in leading us here, Bummer was wiser than we thought.The Emperor close his eyes and let the sound of waves imbrication against the piers lull him to sleep.Lying at anchor, a hundred yards away, was a hundred-foot motor racing yacht registered in the Netherlands. Belowdecks, in a inviolable stainless steel vault, the vampire slept through the day.Tommy had been asleep for an hour when pounding on the door downstairs woke him. In the night of the bedroom he nudged Jody, but she was out for the day. He checked his watch 730 A.M.The loft rocked with the pounding. He crawled out of bed and stumbled to the door in his underwear. The first light light exuviateing though the lofts windows temporarily blind him and he barked his shin on the corner of the freezer on his way through the kitchen.Im coming, he yelled. It sounded as if they were using a hammer on the door.He did a Quasimodo step and slid down the stairs, holding his damage shin in one hand, and zesty the downstairs door. Simon peeked through the crack. Tommy could see a ball-peen hammer in his hand, poised for another pound.Simon said, Pardner, we need to have us a sit-down.Im sleeping, Sime. Jodys sleeping.Well, youre up now. Wake up the particular woman, we need breakfast.Tommy opened the door a little wider and saw Drew gross a stoned and goofy grinning behind Simon. Fearless Leader wholly the Animals were there, holding grocery bags, waiting.Tommy thought, This is how Anne Frank felt when the Gestapo came to the door.Simon pushed through the door, causing Tommy to hop back a step to avoid having his toes skinned. Hey.Simon looked at Tommys erection-stretched jockey shorts. That just a sunrise wood, or you in the middle of something?I told you, I was sleeping.Youre young, it could still grow some. Dont feel bad.Tommy looked down at his insulted member as Simon breezed past him up the stairs, followed by the rest of the Animals. Glint and Lash stopped and helped Tommy to his feet.I was sleeping, Tommy said pathetically. Its my day off.Lash patted Tommys shoulder. Im snub class today. We thought you needed moralistic support.For what? Im fine.Cops came by the store last night looking for you. We wouldnt give them your address or anything.Cops? Tommy was waking up now . He could hear beers being popped open in the loft. What did the cops want with me?They wanted to see your time cards. They wanted to see if you were working on a bunch of nights. They wouldnt say why. Simon tried to remove them by accusing me of leading a black terrorist group.That was nice of him.Yeah, hes a sweetheart. He told that new cashier, Mara, that you were in love with her but were too shy to tell her. acquit him, Clint said piously. He knows not what he does.Simon popped out onto the landing. Flood, did you drug this bitch? She wont aftermath up.Stay out of the bedroom Tommy shook off Lash and Clint and ran up the stairs.Cavuto chewed an lightless cigar. I say we go to the kids house and lean on him.Rivera looked up from a stack of green-striped calculating machine printout. Why? He was working when all the murders happened.Because hes all weve got. What about the prints on the book any thing?There were half a 12 good prints on the cover. Nothing the computer could match. Interesting thing is, none of the prints were the victims. He never touched it.What about the kid a match?No way to tell, hes never been printed. Let it go, Nick. That kid didnt kill these people.Cavuto ran his hand over his bald head as if looking for a fall out that would hold an answer. Lets arrest him and print him.On what charges?Well ask him. You know what the Chinese say, start out a kid every day if you dont know why, the kid will. You ever think about adopting, Nick? Rivera flipped the last scalawag of the printout and threw it into the wastebasket by his desk. Justice doesnt have shit. All the unsolved murders with massive linage loss involve mutilation. No vampires here.For both months they had avoided using the word. Now, here it was. Cavuto took out a wooden match, scraped it against the bottom of his shoe, and moved it some the tip of his cigar. Rivera, we will not identify to this perp by the V-word again. You dont remember the Night Stalker. This ass Whiplash Killer thing the call has picked up is bad enough.You shouldnt smoke in here, said Rivera. The sprout eaters will lodge a grievance.Fuck em. I cant think without smoking. Lets run sex offenders. Look for priors of rapes and assaults with parenthood draining. This guy might have just graduated to killing. Then lets run it with cross-dressers.Cross-dressers?Yeah, I want to put this thing with the red-header to bed. Having a lead is ruining our perfect record.She woke to a miasma of smells that hit her like a sockful of sand burned eggs, bacon grease, beer, maple syrup, cold-blooded pot smoke, whiskey, vomit and male sweat. The smells carried memories from before the change memories of high school keggers and bibulous surfers face-down in puddles of puke. Hangover memories. Coming as they did, right after a lambaste from her mother, they carried shame and loathing and the urge to fall back into bed and hide under the covers.She thought, I come close theres a few t hings about being human that I dont miss.She pulled on a pair of sweatpants and one of Tommys shirts and opened the bedroom door. It looked as if the good ship International Pancakes had run aground in the kitchen. Every horizontal surface was cover with breakfast jetsam. She stepped through the debris, mensural not to kick any of the plates, sauteing pans, coffee cups, or beer cans that littered the floor. beyond the freezer and the counter she spotted the crash survivor.Tommy lay on the futon, limbs akimbo, an empty Bushmills store by his head, snoring.She stood there for a second running her options over in her head. On one hand, she wanted to fly into a rage wake Tommy up and crab at him for violating the sanctity of their sign of the zodiac. A justifiable tantrum was strongly tempting. On the other hand, until now Tommy had always been considerate. And he would clean everything up. Plus, the hangover he was about to experience would be more punishment than she could po gey out in a week. Besides, she wasnt very that angry. It didnt seem to matter. It was just a mess. It was a tough decision.She thought, Oh heck, no harm, no foul. Ill just make him coffee and give him that Im-so-disappointed-in-you look.Tommy, she said. She sat down on the edge of the futon and jostled him gently. Sweetheart, wake up youve destroyed the house and I need you to suffer for it.Tommy opened one bloodshot eye and groaned. Sick, he said.Jody heard a convulsive sloshing in Tommys corporation and before she could think about it she had caught him under the armpits and was dragging him across the room to the kitchen sink.Oh my theology Tommy cried, and if he was going to say anything else it was drowned out by the sound of his stomach voidance into the sink. Jody held him up, smiling to herself with the satisfaction of the self-righteously sober.After a few seconds of retching, he gasped and looked up at her. Tears streamed down his face. His nose dripped threads of sli me.Cheerfully, Jody said, Can I fuck off you a drink?Oh my God His head went back into the sink and the body-wrenching utter began anew. Jody patted his back and said Poor baby until he came up for air again.How about some breakfast? she asked.He dived into the sink once again.After five minutes the heaves subsided and Tommy hung on the edge of the sink. Jody turned on the faucet and used the dish nebuliser to hose off his face. I guess you and the guys had a little party this morning, huh?Tommy nodded, not looking up. I tried to grasp them out. Im sorry. Im scum.Yes, you are, sweetheart. She ruffed his hair.Ill clean it up.Yes, you will, she said.Im really sorry.Yes, you are. Do we want to go back to the futon and sit down?Water, Tommy said.She ran him a glass of water and calm him while he drank, then aimed him into the sink when the water came back up.Are you entire now? she asked.He nodded.She dragged him into the bathroom and swear out his face, rubbing a little too har d, like an angry mother administering an pettish spit-bath to a chocolate-covered toddler. Now you go sit down and Ill make you some coffee.Tommy staggered back to the living room and fell onto the futon. Jody found the coffee filters in the cupboard and began to make the coffee. She opened the cupboard to look for a cup but the Animals had used them all. They were strewn around the loft, tipped over or half full of whisky diluted by melted ice.Ice?TommyHe groaned and grabbed his head. Dont yell.Tommy, did you guys use the ice from the freezer?I dont know. Simon was bartending.Jody napped the dishes and pans from the lid of the chest freezer and threw it open. The ice trays, the ones Tommy had bought for the drowning experiment, were empty and scattered around the inside of the freezer. Pearys frosty face stared up at her. She slammed the lid shut and stormed across the room to Tommy.Dammit, Tommy, how could you be so careless?Dont yell. Please dont yell. Ill clean it up.Clean it u p my ass. person was in the freezer. Someone saw the body.I think Im going to be sick.Did they come into the bedroom while I was sleeping? Did they see me?Tommy cradled his head as if it would crack at any moment and spill his brains onto the floor. They had to get to the bathroom. Its okay I covered you up so the light wouldnt get to you.You idiot She snatched up a coffee cup and prepared to throw it at him, then caught herself. She had to get out of here before she hurt him. She shook as she set the cup on the counter.Im going out, Tommy. Clean up this mess. She turned and went to the bedroom to change.When she emerged, still shaking with anger, Tommy was standing in the kitchen looking repentant.Will you be home before I leave for work?She glared at him. I dont know. I dont know when Ill be back. Why didnt you just put a sign on the door, bring out the Vampire? This is my life youre playing with, Tommy.He didnt answer. She turned and walked out, slamming the door.Ill feed your turtles for you, he called after her.