“Will you at least have a cup of coffee with me?” Bless his heart, Don sounded nearly wistful. “It’s not like I’m stupid. The car’s gassed up and ready, like you asked for.”
Bea turned, leaning on the counter, and tried a smile. It felt strange, as if her face would crack, but after a moment the sensation passed and the grin became genuine. “Clean plates and a full tank?”
“If I go to prison it’ll be for something like that, I guess. Instead of accessory to vampire murder.”
Bea almost winced. She didn’t like the V-word, it sounded hokey. Monster was much better, and universally applicable to anything going bump in the night. “Only if you keep doing it. Let it be like that one summer at band camp.”
“Did Jare ever tell you…” He visibly decided to leave a hilarious story untold, for once. “Anyway, cup of coffee and you should have a protein bar too. You’ll adrenaline crash soon.”
“Yeah.” She’d already scarfed one on the bus, despite a dry mouth and shaking hands. It sat uneasily in her stomach, congealed to rock, but the ballast was useful. “Maybe I’ll hit up a drive-thru on the way out of town, get some fries.” Not a burger. I know how those are made. “I’m gonna go get changed, and I suggest you burn what I’m wearing now.”
“Just not with you standing up in it.” His Adam’s-apple bobbed as he swallowed, rapidly. “Right?”
“Your comic timing needs work,” Bea told him, straight-faced, and headed for the bathroom.
Four hours later a strengthless yellow winter sun rose over the city, filling her rearview mirror with wavering gold as wet, heavily patched freeway hummed under the tires. The Nissan was a piece-of-shit sedan, paid for with the last cash remaining from her inheritance, but its innards were good, its wheels were new, and there was a whole American continent to lose herself in.
She could work retail or under the table, she could stay off the radar...and any big city had to have a monster or two in its depths. Her first one was dealt with, so she had a notch on her belt. Now she knew how to slip around after dark, the proper questions to ask in headshops, grungy dive bars, and occult stores. She knew the difference between the marks of wannabe satanists, garden-variety obscene graffiti, and other weird bullshit; she knew how to find the one librarian in every system who holds the key to shelves where certain books are kept, and how to prove bona fides to a closed online forum of monster hunters.
God, how Jared would have loved this shit. Growing up, he and Don bonded over Art Bell, alien abduction stories, and creepy films, going on Sasquatch hikes and exchanging weird comic books. The property on Noll Mountain, paid for with Jare’s half of their parents’ bequest plus the advance for his first book, was supposed to be part of his growing literary mystique. A writer has to have a good setting, little sis.
Honestly Bea wasn’t sure what kind of setting living out in the Vermont sticks was, but Jared was the smart sibling. Her own niche was in practicality, getting the bills paid on time, dishes washed, laundry done. There was no need to really shine with ol’ Jare around, and after her first year of college she’d been grateful for that one eternal fact.
She could do without the pressure. Just look at the way her hands were shaking.
“The place was dirt-cheap,” she muttered, and cast around for sunglasses. No dice, so she flipped the rearview mirror; dawn was a goddamn headache. That was why he bought it, you think you can get that kind of acreage for a good price without something wrong? Something in those hills, there were stories going back at least thirty years. He walked right into his goddamn research material.
Bea reached for the radio, hoping for some classic rock; she shouldn’t be mulling these things in the morning. They were nighttime thoughts, and she was running short on sleep and patience both. Gordon Lightfoot crackled softly through terrible, staticky speakers, and that was good enough. Just over the state line, she could stop in a slightly above-fleabag motel and get some rest.
It was the last part of the plan. After that she had to sit down with a notebook and do some thinking. Plotting, Jare would call it, waggling his blond eyebrows. Gotta have a plot, Bebe.
Well, she’d plotted her way into murdering a monster. You could even view it as having done some good in the world, so now she’d probably be run over by a bus on her way to fleeing the country. Or get into an embarrassingly short car chase, ending with a fiery crash and go figure, she wasn’t wearing clean panties.
Laundry had become far less of a priority, the last few weeks.
At least the news would probably not bother covering a police-assisted vehicular fatality, and might not even mention the disappearance of a reclusive businessman, even if he was a big wheel in behind-the-scenes money. When Don got going about how the government and corporations didn’t want anyone to know about the monsters, she had to admit he was unquestionably correct. He thought it was a conspiracy; Bea was of the opinion that people simply didn’t want to think or hear about unpleasant things.
Not that anyone ever asked her opinion, except sometimes Jared.
That was the thing she missed most, being able to talk to someone. Jare thought she was a plodding pedestrian thinker at best, sure, but her brother also couldn’t find his own socks in the morning and had gotten himself killed by a bloodsucking monster after months of daily torment by said monster’s little green henchmen.
It was a day for helplessly going over things she didn’t want to admit had happened, apparently. Revenge was supposed to feel better than this. She was supposed to feel triumphant, goddammit, but it was just like losing her virginity during senior year of high school—minus the damp embarrassment of having to deal with the condom, at least. A big fat pile of disappointment.
Ghosts had better be real, Jare. You’d better be watching this, and reconsidering some of your life choices.
Not like it mattered anymore.
Twenty miles over the state line she spotted a likely motel. Shortly afterward a woman with ID proclaiming her Sarah Monroe checked in, closed and locked the door to room 23, and headed straight for the bathroom to test the shower.
The pressure wasn’t good but the soap was fresh and water unequivocally hot, so that was when Beatrice finally cried. Snot and tears both disappeared down the drain—when she was little she used to wonder if poo felt sad after it was flushed, bobbing up and down in stinking darkness—so she could be the tough bitch again tomorrow.
She even tried a bit of singing, since Jared always swore it showed courage and confidence. It was going great until her voice broke and she realized she was warbling about wasting away in Margaritaville, one of Jare’s particular favorites.
Which shut her up but good.
A puff of steam as she opened the door to the room, attempting to fasten an incredibly flimsy towel around her chest, and Bea’s body froze before she realized both the bedside lamp and the slightly more anemic version wired to the dresser were burning brightly at max.
I just turned the bedside one on, didn’t I?
