Vampire Gold: A Samantha Moon Story (Vampire for Hire), Page 3

  Street Sweeping, Tuesday, 8 - 11 a.m.

  Coincidence? I didn’t know, but near the bottom half of the sign was an address. A place to pay a ticket. Right, parking tickets for golf carts. Would wonders never cease? Anyway, the address was the local sheriff’s office here in town.

  I might have ignored the address and the Tuesday coincidence if not for something else: Someone had carefully underlined the address with something that looked suspiciously like red fingernail polish.

  Bingo.

  I swiped on my phone, checked Google Maps, located the sheriff’s station, and headed off.

  * * *

  As I hurried back down toward town, passing charming homes and not-so-charming golf carts, my cell phone chimed. I glanced at the faceplate, a text from Tammy:

  Anthony’s being a pill.

  I smiled. Not because my son was being a pill, but because my daughter sounded exactly like me. Poor Anthony. Just when he thought Mommy had left...there was a whole new Mommy in town.

  What’s he doing? I texted back.

  He’s just bugging me.

  Bugging you how?

  I don’t know. He’s just being weird.

  Weird how?

  He smells.

  Smelling isn’t being weird, I texted.

  But it’s a weird smell.

  I sighed and told her to finish her homework and to leave her brother alone, and when I finished texting and hit send, I looked up and found myself standing at the sheriff substation.

  215 Sumner Avenue.

  * * *

  Nine into eight, love or hate?

  I ran my fingers through my hair as I parked my rear on a bench across the street from the station and really thought about this one. Watching me from a hundred feet or so away was Mr. Cleo Rose. I sensed he was smiling. Or perhaps laughing at me.

  Geez, the things I do for a paycheck.

  As I sat there and considered the third riddle, I did the obvious and pulled up the iPhone’s calculator feature. 9 into 8 was, according to my iPhone, 0.8888888888888889.

  Okay, now that hurt my brain.

  I counted all the 8s. Fifteen of them, followed by a trailing 9. I played with the numbers, adding them, subtracting them, rearranging them. Nothing stood out.

  My brain hurt some more.

  Briefly, of course.

  Nine was also the homonym of ‘nein,’ the German word for no. I played with that variation a little and came up with nothing. Tourists drifted past me. I could hear ocean waves crashing from the nearby beaches. The sheriff substation itself was quiet. I considered going inside and looking for clues, until I realized that that would the last place a crazy man with a crazy beard would venture into willingly. I tapped my fingernails on the bench’s wooden arm. The sound of it echoed around me. I wondered how busy the deputy sheriffs were in a town of four thousand. Then recalled that the town attracted its share of knuckleheads from the mainland. Knuckleheads tended to keep cops busy.

  Nine into eight...

  Well, if I hadn’t had a calculator, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to come up with the sequence of fifteen 8s, with a final 9 taking up the rear. Had the crazy old goat expected his son to carry a calculator with him? I didn’t know. But I decided to switch gears and assume the old bastard hadn’t used a calculator.

  So, what the hell did it mean?

  I looked around the street, studying the various homes and buildings and sidewalks, listening and smelling and tuning all of my considerable senses into my surroundings.

  Nine into eight...

  I was on a street called Sumner, just a few blocks from the ocean. As I sat there, and as more time seemed to pass, and as nothing occurred to me, I realized I was stumped. I hated when that happened.

  Perhaps even more frustrating was that the crazy old goat who had me going in circles was watching me from under a streetlamp not too far away.

  I rubbed my head and considered the clue again, knowing that with each minute I sat here, my kids were closer and closer to tearing each other’s hair out.

  Think, Sam.

  It suddenly occurred to me to double-check the math, especially if the old man had used an older calculator. That is, of course, if the riddle was a math problem. Using my cell phone, I found a different calculator online. I got a different answer.

  0.88888888888.

  Eleven 8s, all in a row, this time with no trailing 9.

  118?

  Maybe, maybe not. I chewed my lower lip, considering, looking, searching...then got up and went across the street and looked from the sheriff station out toward the ocean...

  Directly in front of me was a mailbox, a library book return bin and a streetlight pole.

  And something else...

  More red paint.

  Painted neatly at the bottom of the mailbox, small enough to not be noticed, and official enough to not be considered graffiti were the numbers: 118.

  On the library book return bin, in the same position at the bottom was the word, Sumner.

  And on the pole next to them was an arrow.

  Pointing further down the street.

  Bingo.

  * * *

  118 Sumner turned out to be the address to a shopping center.

  Although I loved shopping, now was not the time. I scanned the names of the stores, but doubted the crazy bastard would have used a store’s name...especially a store that might go out of business. Tourists streamed past me. Most ignored the crazy-looking vampire mama scanning storefronts like her life depended on it.

  Not quite, but I could sure as hell use the bonus money I had been promised.

  Nine into eight, love or hate?

  Well, if given a choice, I would pick love...always love.

  So, with that thought in mind, and trusting my gut, I set out looking for...God only knew what.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, I found it.

  It was a heart chiseled into some brick work near the base of the first store. Yes, the store itself might change, but the classic brick work would have stayed the same...and the inconspicuous heart carved into it would have gone unnoticed by most people.

  Grinning, I knelt down before the inscribed brick and ran my finger over the chiseled faint.

  Inside the heart were chiseled the letters: “Mr. R.”

  I looked over at the spirit drifting a few stores down. I waggled my finger at him. “Graffiti, Mr. Rose. Tsk, tsk.”

  The partially-manifested spirit continued rising and falling, giving no indication that he’d heard me. But he was listening and watching.

  I stood and pulled out the map, making sure I was remembering the final riddle correctly:

  Twenty to one, run run run.

  Twenty to one sounded like horse racing odds to me. Or the time. Twenty to one would be 12:40.

  Or another number...221.

  I took in a lot of air. And I meant a lot.

  Because I was suddenly certain I had solved the final riddle.

  At least, I hoped I had.

  * * *

  Although details of the actual map were vague, if I faced the ocean proper, as the map seemed to indicate, I saw something interesting: joggers running along Casino Avenue.

  And so I jogged, too.

  Or, rather, ran, as the riddle suggested I should. Counting off 221 steps as I did so. Except the closer I got to 221, the more I began to doubt myself.

  Keep going, Sam.

  And so I did, jogging in my Asics, jogging easily, ticking off the steps as I went, feeling the ocean breeze on my face, and knowing that a spirit was trailing behind me in the far distance. Apparently, ghosts weren’t much for running.

  210 steps...

  I scanned the area, suddenly certain I had made a grave error in my calculations.

  216...

  I was on a lonely stretch of beach.

  218, 219, 220...

  I slowed down, taking it all in.

  221...

  I stopped, hands
on hips and scanned my surroundings. I was, of course, standing at Avalon Pier.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  * * *

  I looked again at the laminated map.

  Eighteen dashes, followed by two dashes to the left. Eighteen steps, plus two steps to the left?

  At the head of the pier, I considered counting off 18 steps, but that didn’t seem right. What sort of treasure would be on a pier?

  Certainly not a pirate treasure. And where were pirate treasures? Buried in the sand, of course.

  I leaped off the pier and, starting at the retaining wall, counted off eighteen big steps. I was alone on the beach, so I didn’t care how crazy I looked. No, scratch that. Two people were doing something under a towel about two hundred yards away. My super-sensitive ears picked up on some low moaning and groaning.

  Great.

  I did my best to ignore the lovemaking and focused instead on my steps. The beach sloped down. The pier rose above me. At 18 steps I paused and examined the closest wooden pylon. It was covered in barnacles and seaweed. Most important, carved deeply in it, were the letters: “Mr. R.”

  I turned left and walked two more steps and found myself under the pier. I also found myself filled with excitement, because I could veritably sense the treasure underneath me. A small fortune in gold. Mama could use some gold.

  I felt him before I saw him.

  First, the hair at the back of my neck stood on end, followed by a tingly sensation that coursed through me.

  I turned slowly and was not very surprised to see Cleo Rose behind me. Or Mr. R. Except now, of course, Cleo wasn’t a vaguely-shaped human. No. Cleo had made a glorious, full appearance, complete with exact detail. He was also drawing energy from me, which was fine. As a spirit, he needed to get his energy from somewhere.

  Mr. Rose didn’t look crazy. He was stooped and thin. His face was narrow and pleasant. He wore a thick beard, which, upon second thought, looked sort of pirate-like.

  Mostly, though, he looked mournful.

  No, heartbroken.

  He reached out with a surprisingly real-looking arm. That is, if an arm glowing with super-bright filaments of light could look real. Either way, he placed his glowing hand on my upper arm and I could actually feel him...feel his warmth. A single word appeared in my thoughts.

  Please.

  I felt his anguish, his sadness. I was confused at first, until his pain was obvious.

  Although we were alone under the pier, I suspected that Cleo Rose had made such a complete appearance that anyone would have been able to see him. A true ghost. Except we were alone.

  “You want your kids to find it.”

  The spirit before me, who looked so very much like a man, a real man, nodded slowly. He even blinked. Perhaps it was just a memory of blinking. Surely he didn’t need to blink, right? But I had an image of not just the one son. He had three sons and a daughter. And many grandkids.

  “Or perhaps one of your kids or grandkids?”

  He nodded again, and we stood together, vampire and spirit, under the pier with the ocean crashing nearby. Not too far away, two lovers were in the throes of passion. Now that I was so close, so frustratingly close, I reached out with my inner sight, reached out...and down...down through the sand where I saw a wooden chest buried perhaps five feet below. A big chest...and it was filled with actual gold coins and jewels. Mr. Rose had buried quite a fortune down there. A pirate treasure to be sure. How and where he’d come across the money to do so, I didn’t know or care. Wasn’t my business. But it was more than a small fortune beneath my feet. It was a very big fortune.

  And I had been promised a percentage of it.

  Except it was never intended for me. It had been intended for his kids. Yes, I could take it. I could ignore the wishes of the spirit standing behind me as I uncovered his life’s work. After all, he was a dead man. Who cared what he thought, right?

  Except I cared. His life’s work had been intended for his family. A legacy of love and fun and, yes, insanity.

  The good kind of insanity.

  I had, of course, already been paid for my work. That’s how retainers work in my business. A client pays you in advance.

  I took in a lot of useless air and realized that I had been paid to treasure hunt. Life could be worse. I smiled at the spirit who, even now, was fading from view.

  “You do know that we’re both crazy, right?”

  He smiled again...and disappeared.

  The End

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  Grampire

  You think I like being called gramps for all eternity?

  Hell, no. In fact, I was quite looking forward to death. I lived a damn full life. I married my high school sweetheart, stormed the beach at Normandy, had five kids, and worked in real estate until I had enough to retire. Which I did, and spent the next twenty or so years with my fourteen grandkids and three great grandkids.

  A good life. A perfect life.

  I deserved a good death, too.

  Sadly, my dear wife was the first to go. That hurt. A lot. I knew I wouldn’t last much longer. After all, how does one live with a shattered heart? How can one live with such unbearable, heartbreaking loneliness?

  I knew I couldn’t.

  Hell, I didn’t want to.

  With her passing, I welcomed death. Ached for death. And had I been a lesser man, I just might have done it myself. Put a bullet in the old noggin’. Except you don’t storm Normandy, dodging bullets and bodies, only to take your own life later.

  No, I was going to let nature do that for me.

  And it was doing it. I had felt my body shutting down. My strength leaving me. Within months, my good health disappeared. My body was literally preparing itself for death.

  I welcomed it. Hungered for it. I had lived a long life. A full life. A rich life. I loved my kids and grandkids, but I missed my wife most of all.

  I was ready, ready...

  That is, until that sick son-of-a-bitch broke into the hospital. At the time, I had been given weeks to live. Hell, I even heard a nurse whisper that I had only days. Days! Yippee!

  That is, until that sick prick broke in and...

  I still can’t believe it. I especially couldn’t believe it when I had looked up from my deathbed and saw the pale-faced bastard standing over me, lowering his face onto my neck.

  Yes, my neck.

  I was too weak to scream, but not so weak to feel the agony of his teeth sink into my neck. Not so weak that I couldn’t hear him actually drinking from me, drinking my blood, swallowing hungrily.

  Yes, I had been waiting for death in that hospital room, except death never came.

  That had been twenty-eight years ago.

  * * *

  I’m not exactly what people imagine when they think of vampires. I couldn’t look less like Edward or Jacob, or whichever one was the damn vampire. I certainly don’t sparkle. Mostly, I scowl because I’m pissed off.

  I wanted to die, and now I can’t die.

  Son-of-a-bitch.

  Unlike popular perception, I didn’t revert back to the glory of my youth. Nope. Now I’m permanently broken, permanently wrinkled, permanently hunched and feeble.

  Well, not entirely feeble. I do have more strength than many men combined. But that didn’t do much for my hunched back, or ruined knees.

  My doctors think I’m a marvel of science. My kids think it’s a miracle, too. Only I know the truth. Only I remember the pale-faced bastard hunched over me, drinking from my neck.

  I’m neither a marvel nor a miracle.

  I’m a cursed wretch.

  * * *

  These days I live on a farm, where I feed from my poor chickens and goats and cows. Luckily, I didn’t have to kill too many of them. I just tranquilize the buggers and drain them of some of the red stuff.

  Then I would sit on my porch and drink from a foul-smelling mug, usually drinking with the sun having already long set.

  Yes, I’m a creature
of the night.

  A very old creature of the night.

  And if I ever find that son-of-a-bitch who turned me, well, I had a mind to strangle his neck. Or not. The truth was, he’d given me a great gift, too.

  You see, sometimes when I sit on the porch, creaking away in my rocking chair, drinking my latest batch of chicken blood, wondering when I would see my grandkids again, wondering what the weather would be like the next day, wondering if the cold would affect my ruined knees, my poor sweet dear wife would make an appearance right there on the porch.

  Turns out being a vampire has a few side effects—and not all were bad.

  Some, in fact, were very, very good.

  Now I can see into the spirit world. Most importantly, I could see my wife.

  She often comes over and lays a gentle hand on my shoulder and stands next to me quietly. All while I rocked and drank and smiled and ached—and wondered what the weather would be like tomorrow.

  Someone had to be the world’s oldest vampire.

  I guess it might as well be me.

  The End

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  More Sugar

  Once upon a time, there was a baker who was highly revered and much sought after. His customers included kings and noblemen, warriors and wizards. Everyone, it seemed, always had time to stop by his little shop and sample his delectable delights.

  His name was Benjamin, and he was a very old man who walked with a limp. Some people claimed that Benjamin was an angel. How else could one explain his heavenly creations? Other people claimed that Benjamin, or Ben, never slept, that one could find him there in the bakery from sunrise to sundown, always serving hungry mouths, his door always open. Still others claimed that Ben had lived for a very long time; that he was, in fact, a prophet.

  Either way, because of his great age, his perfect pastries, and his gentle wisdom, Ben was often asked for his advice on a great many things, from a great many people. Kings sought his counsel and so did lowly servants. All were treated equally, and all left with full bellies, whether they could afford the pies or not.