Gidion's Hunt Page 2

  “Sorry, Grandpa, we gotta make this one fast.” He flung open the trunk.

  “What? You can’t make time to chat with your grandfather? You got a date or something?”

  “Yeah, with Dad.”

  Gidion tossed all the sports gear into the backseat. He made sure to pull out the gym bag, though. He kept a change of clothes in it for just these occasions when his hunting got messy.

  Grandpa lifted the black tarp to reveal the white body bag beneath. “Your dad, huh? What’d you do to piss him off?”

  “Aside from breathing?” Gidion took the heavier end of the body. They nodded their three-count and lifted it onto the waiting gurney.

  “You bagged a thin one tonight, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.” He helped push the gurney inside. They’d gotten good at maneuvering this thing to the cremator room. This room definitely didn’t fit with the rest of the place’s subdued, earth-tone décor. Aside from the big grey behemoth cremator machine, the room was white walls and a black and grey linoleum floor.

  “So, what happened?”

  “Got pulled by a Henrico officer just down the road. I think Dad was working the radio, so I was instantly busted.”

  Grandpa grunted, which reminded Gidion of the traffic cop, only with a lot more smoke-induced texture. “How many times have I told you not to speed when you got a package?”

  “Yeah, yeah, blame the White Rabbits.”

  “You’re doing cocaine?” His eyeballs looked ready to pop out of his head.

  “They’re a rock group.”

  “Oh.”

  They nodded their three-count and lifted the body onto the cremator’s conveyer. Gidion wiped his brow again. The cremator had the room pretty hot, but he’d been in here enough times now to know it wasn’t preheated enough yet to toss in his catch.

  “I thought the Beatles’ name sounded stupid,” Grandpa said. “What the hell kind of name for a rock band is ‘White Rabbits’? They aren’t a group of faggots, are they?”

  Oh dear God. “Don’t really know. I just like their music.” Gidion was starting to think his visit with Dad might be a good thing after all.

  “You learn anything from this bloodsucker?”

  Other than my world history teacher looks kind of hot? Gidion decided not to say that one out loud, partly because the thought was sort of gross. “Nothing to help me find the local coven. He was just another stray.” Gidion was already running out of the room, back to the garage. “Gotta run, Grandpa. Love ya!”

  “Good luck, boy!”

  Gidion jumped into his car. “Yeah, luck. Right.”

  He heard Grandpa shout something else he couldn’t quite understand as his grey car jerked back into the night. No time to stick around and find out what he was going on about. Gidion made sure to close the garage door this time. Grandpa had been really cross the last time he’d forgotten, and he already had enough lectures penned onto his calendar thanks to that stupid traffic stop. At least the funeral home was on the way to the police station, so he hadn’t lost too much time with his delivery.

  He caught the light at the next intersection and veered onto Parham Road.

  “Okay, okay, okay…Think fast, Gidion. You need an explanation for being out this way at night,” he said in a sing-song voice. He had all of three blocks left to cook up his excuse. “I’m so screwed.”

  His excuse manufacturing time counted down as he passed the various public service buildings. The government center and the jail on his left warned he had just one block left. Parham Doctors Hospital on his right might as well have had a sign posted out front that said, ‘We save lives, except for Gidion Keep’s, because he’s a goner.’

  The brown brick Public Safety Building, which Henrico County’s police and firefighters called home, was on his left. The place was more like three buildings. His dad worked in the nearest one, naturally. He pulled into the half-deserted parking lot and parked as far from the door as he could get.

  He picked up his cell phone and sent a text message to let Dad know he was here. A response didn’t take long. ‘Wait in your car. On the way.’

  If Dad was working the police radio, then he’d have to get someone to take it over so he could come outside. That gave him a little longer to create his explanation.

  “This is so stupid.” It wasn’t like Dad didn’t know about vampires. According to Grandpa, he’d also hunted them when he was Gidion’s age and hunted up until Mom had died. That was more than a decade ago. Gidion had only been four, and he couldn’t remember a lot about her now. He’d made the mistake of telling Dad that one time, his tenth birthday. Dad had looked like he was gonna cry.

  Grandpa said if Dad ever found out what they were doing, he’d go ballistic. Gidion believed him.

  The passenger door to the car opened and in came Dad. Damn, that didn’t take nearly as long as he’d expected.

  “Well, we’ve had a busy night,” he said in his radio voice. Gidion wasn’t sure where his dad had gotten a voice that deep, because it sure wasn’t from Grandpa. Whenever Dad had yelled at him as a kid, he’d been so scared he’d shake. Things hadn’t changed much now that he was a teenager.

  “So do I really have to ask?” Dad said.

  “Oh.”

  “Yes, ‘oh’.” The voice boomed inside the car. Dad wasn’t much bigger than he was, but that voice almost squeezed Gidion out the window. “What are you doing out this late? For God’s sake, the whole reason I’m on midnight shift is so I can free up my schedule for you during the day and evening. Do you think this is fun for me? Jesus, I expect better from you than—” Dad’s voice trailed off as he looked down at Gidion’s pants. “What the hell have you been doing? Your jeans are a mess.”

  Oh, crap. Suddenly, Gidion realized what Grandpa had been yelling on his way out of the garage. He’d forgotten to change clothes.

  “Gidion Keep!” Dad glared at him. “What the hell have you been doing? Quit trying to cook up some stupid excuse. Answer me right this second.”

  Gidion panicked, eyes running in all directions when they settled on the pile of sports stuff in the backseat.

  “Football,” he said. “Seth, Pete, and I went to a park in the West End after the game and threw the ball around.”

  “Which park?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged for good measure and then reminded himself not to ham it up too much.

  “Short Pump?”

  “I don’t know. I guess. Seth picked it out. I just followed them there.”

  Dad scowled. “That explains your clothes, but then why were you on Staples Mill Road? That’s nowhere near there.”

  It was moments like this that Gidion could totally believe Dad used to be a police officer. When Mom died, he’d transferred to Communications to work the 911 phones and the radios so he could have a more “consistent schedule.” The older Gidion got, the more convinced he was that Dad resented being reduced to a civilian, that he missed being on the road.

  “Dad, I was on the way home and realized I needed some gas. Only place I knew would be open was the Wawa up the road from here.”

  “Turn her on.” Dad leaned over so he could see the gas gauge.

  Gidion cranked the car back to life. Dear Lord, he hoped the car was as low as he’d made it sound. He’d been sitting near a quarter tank earlier, but if it wasn’t riding near the “E” yet…

  “All right,” Dad said, satisfied by the placement of the hovering needle. “I can’t believe you idiots were in a park this late. Are you boys that stupid? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you out there at this hour?” He shook his head. Gidion recognized the change in tone. He was safe for now. “You have enough money for gas?”

  “Yeah, my paycheck from Grandpa went through today.” This was part of Gidion’s cover. He helped Grandpa at the funeral home on the weekends. He was looking forward to his next paycheck. Grandpa gave him a hundred dollar bonus for each vampire he killed. He was so gonna download some new tune
s.

  Dad cracked a smile and grabbed the top of Gidion’s head the way he used to when Gidion was a kid to mess up his hair. “I suppose on the bright side, at least I got to see you tonight. Feel like I haven’t seen you all week.”

  “I can think of better ways to see you.”

  “Yes, I agree.” He laughed. “At least I’m off the rest of the weekend, and your grandpa will be over Sunday to watch the games with us.”

  “Cool.”

  Dad opened the door to get out. “You go straight home.”

  “After I get the gas, though, right?”

  He sighed. “Yes, after you get some gas, but then you go straight home. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You call me when you get home, and do it from the landline, not your cell phone.”

  “Okay.” Dad wasn’t stupid. He’d give him that. The caller ID would rat him out if he didn’t call from the house. Looked like he was done hunting for the night.

  “You working for your grandpa tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, he’s got me driving the hearse for two services.” Gidion considered that easy money, but he had to wear a suit and tie. Those processions also went way too slow. Just once, he’d like to take off at sixty and totally freak out the folks trying to follow him.

  “All right. Go home, and get some sleep. Love ya.” Dad closed the door and hoofed it back to the Communications Center.

  “Crap, that was close.” He leaned back and let out a long breath. Thank God he’d noticed the football in the backseat, or he’d have been uber busted.

  He wouldn’t get to do anymore hunting this weekend with Dad home. So far, all he’d managed to bag were nomadic vampires, the ones without a coven. They’d all been guys, too. Grandpa said that was normal starting out. The most important thing was making sure the coven didn’t find him first. That meant not telling anyone what he was doing. Even his friends didn’t know. Grandpa would pop a lung if he found out about Ms. Aldgate. What the hell was he going to do about her?

  Chapter Four

  Since he wasn’t carrying a corpse in his trunk the next day, Gidion didn’t worry about hanging so close to the speed limit as he rushed South on 288. Metric’s latest album blasted from his stereo and competed with the wind rushing through his car’s open windows. He was running late, thanks to Grandpa, who insisted on giving him the manila envelope which was catching some rays in his passenger seat.

  Every Saturday afternoon, he and the guys met at Richmond Comix to pick up the new issues of their favorite series. Seth had already sent a text threatening to buy Gidion’s copy of Red Robin for himself if he took much longer. His car felt like it lifted onto two wheels as he hooked a right into the shopping center along Midlothian Turnpike.

  They’d started meeting here every Saturday back when they were in fifth grade. Back then, they rode their bikes here to spend their allowances. These days, they were each working with four wheels and their own paychecks. Gidion spotted Seth’s dark green Mini Cooper, the “Green Machine.” Pete’s spray-paint black, beat-up Camaro had made it today, too. The Camaro worked so rarely, they’d nicknamed it “Death.” They joked that Gidion’s car didn’t have enough personality to warrant a name, but he already called it the “Little Hearse” in his head. Only, he couldn’t tell his friends why.

  “Took you long enough, dude.” Seth stood at the register near the back and thumbed through a copy of Amazing Spider-Man.

  Pete didn’t even look up from where he was hunting through the shelves in the far left corner of the long store. He just held up a hand in a half-hearted wave. Ever since school had started back, Pete’s aloofness had received an upgrade which included wearing all his collars turned up and swearing off haircuts.

  “The second funeral service ran over.” He didn’t understand why some preachers felt the need to go long on those things. They all just said the same stuff. Tragic loss, taken before his time, pray for the family, blah blah blah. While they were at it, they could at least throw in a suggestion to tip the driver who’s sweating off half his body weight while he waited in the hearse.

  Seth grimaced. “You’ll never catch me riding in a car that carries dead people.”

  “Technically speaking, we’re all dying, so every car carries ‘dead people’.” So spaketh Peter the philosopher. He wasn’t exactly your “cute dolls and puppy dogs” kind of guy, not these days anyway. Gidion knew for a fact Pete still had a baby doll stashed in his closet which he used to pretend to breastfeed when he was five. In his defense, Pete had been competing with a younger sister for his parents’ attention. Not much had changed, even though he was just way too scary tall for anyone to ignore.

  “So what are you looking for over there, Pete?” Gidion asked as he stepped up to the counter. The guy working the register moved with the silent indifference of a zombie to pull Gidion’s orders from his box.

  “I’m looking for what every guy really wants in a comic book.” He picked up an issue of Red Sonja with the heroine on the cover swinging a sword and wearing something slight enough that one good sneeze would require the cover to have a cover. “Well-drawn tits in spandex.”

  Seth arched his eyebrow as if doing his best Spock impression. “Isn’t she wearing chain mail?”

  Pete turned the comic book so he could look at it and shrugged. “Well, true, but really, we all know the spandex part is optional.”

  “I hear that.”

  Gidion shook his head as he handed over his debit card to the zombie behind the counter. “Remind me again why I let myself be seen in public with you two?”

  “So you can borrow issues like that one when you get lonely.” Leave it to Seth to deliver the perfect comeback.

  Pete wasn’t one to let a smart remark pass without one of his own. “Well, we don’t all have a nice pair of real tits to enjoy.”

  Gidion laughed. “Considering she’s just a freshman, do they really qualify as—?”

  “Hey! That’s my woman you two are talking about.”

  Gidion looked at his watch. This must have been a record. They’d taken less than two minutes to invoke Seth’s girlfriend, Andrea. That was pronounced Ahhhhn-drea, of course, because God forbid anyone mispronounce it—especially in her presence. She’d latched onto her “teddy bear” Seth less than a week after school started. For all of Gidion’s quips, he envied Seth. He’d become the first in their triumvirate to land a real girlfriend. They’d agreed this past summer that any girls prior to car ownership didn’t count. That meant the month Gidion was “going out” with Cathy Hollis in sixth grade was null and void.

  The cashier rolled his eyes as he returned Gidion’s debit card with his receipt.

  Gidion looked over the thick stack of comics in his bag as they went outside. Red Robin, Captain America, Avengers and plenty more…He’d made off with a lot of fresh reading material.

  “Hey, we should go to a movie tonight.” This was the first Saturday night in months he wouldn’t be hunting for fangs.

  “No can do.” Seth slapped himself on the leg with his rolled up Spider-Man issue. “I got plans.”

  “Wait.” He just realized Seth wasn’t carrying a bag. “That’s all you got?”

  “Dude, restaurants ain’t cheap. You just wait and see.” Less than a month dating and he was already the expert.

  “What about you, Pete?”

  “Uh, technically, I’m out, too.” He shrugged and sat on Death’s hood, which placed him eye level with Gidion. “Gotta go do something.”

  “Seriously? Since when did I become the only guy here without a social calendar?”

  Seth and Pete exchanged this queer look.

  “What?”

  Seth pointed at him with his rolled up comic book. “Dude, you’re the one who’s been ‘Mr. Mysterious and Busy’ for months now.”

  “Oh.” He winced as he remembered he needed to lock in his cover for last night. “Speaking of which, if anyone—as in any adults—asks, we were throwing a football a
round at Short Pump Park last night.”

  “Dude, I was making out with my woman, and no way I’m changing those details…not unless you wanna contribute to my dating fund.”

  Gidion looked at his bag of comics. After this haul, he barely had enough left for gas to make it through the next two weeks.

  “Well, let’s limit contact with my dad to hit-and-runs, okay? Just to avoid any lengthy Q-and-A.” They looked unconvinced. “At least until after next week?”

  Seth swatted him on the arm with his comic. “Relax, dude. We got your back.”

  “So what were you doing last night?” Pete asked.

  “Uh…probably—”

  “—better we don’t know,” Seth and Pete said in unison.

  “Sorry, guys.”

  “You okay?” Seth said. “I mean, you aren’t getting into drugs or gambling or something are you?”

  “No!” Holy crap. He knew he’d been off in limbo a bit, but damn.

  “Hey, drugs wouldn’t be that bad a thing.” Pete’s voice started off all incensed, then trailed into a mutter. “Long as he shared.” After a minute, Pete seemed to realize they were staring at him. “Just kidding.” He put on this big smile which really didn’t fit his face. Weird. Gidion had gotten to where he couldn’t half tell when Pete was really joking.

  Seth was the first to leave, which had become the norm of late.

  “So, what are you doing tonight anyway?” Gidion asked.

  “Just things.” Pete dug through his bag of comics, and Gidion couldn’t help but wonder if his friend was avoiding looking him in the eyes.

  “And you guys were calling me all ‘mysterious.’ What’s up? You got some dark secret like ballroom dancing lessons with your mom?”

  That restored the eye contact, and twisted Pete’s lips with disgust. “I am not dancing with my mother. I have some standards.”

  “So what are you doing?”

  “What does it matter?” Pete got off the hood and tossed his bag of comics into his car.