Gil's All Fright Diner Part 12

"So how was your day?" he asked.

"Same ol', same ol'. I saw some birds. I think they were ducks. And a Volkswagen Beetle drove by. Haven't seen one of those in a while."

"They started making 'em again."

"Cool."

"The engine is in the front now."

She frowned. "Well, that's stupid. It's not really a Beetle then, is it?"

"Nope," he agreed.

They listened to the music a while. She silently sang the lyrics with Buddy.

"How was your day?" she asked.

"Okay. I slept."

"Oh. That's right. I forgot. So do you have to sleep during the day or can you walk around if you want?"

"I'm pretty much dead when the sun's up."

"Do you dream?"

"Vampires don't dream."

"Never?"

"Well, we don't really sleep. We just sort'a shut off."

"b.u.mmer."

Cathy nodded along with the music. Earl considered putting an arm around her shoulder, but it didn't seem right. He wanted to, he thought, but it seemed a little forward on his part. And what if she didn't want his arm around her shoulder? Just because he could touch her didn't necessarily mean she wanted him to.

For just a nice thing, this sure as h.e.l.l felt like a date. It'd been a long time since he'd been on one, and he'd never been very good at it.

Cathy reached over and took his hand in her own. He was glad the undead didn't have to worry about sweaty palms.

She smiled again. He smiled back again.

"So this cemetery-guardian job," she said, "how does it work? I mean, I can't do anything. How am I supposed to guard anything?"

"I'm not real sure. Have you tried to do anything?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know, but just because you're immaterial doesn't mean you can't do stuff. I knew a ghost in Alabama who could make fog and chain-rattling noises. And there was another in South Dakota that was able to shatter gla.s.s and move small stuff around."

"How'd they do that?"

"They just did it. I don't know a lot about ghost powers, but I don't think there is any special trick to it. It's just practice, I think."

Cathy lay back on her plot.

"That stuff about vampires being able to change shape, that isn't true, is it?"

"It's true."

She propped up on her elbows. "No way."

"Sure is."

The ghost grinned with charming suspicion. "You're s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with my head. There's no way someone . . . even a vampire someone . . . can turn into a bat or wolf."

"And mist," Earl added.

"Yeah, right. It's just impossible."

"Like ghosts and vampires?"

"Okay, smart guy. Show me."

There was teasing doubt in her voice. Coming from anyone else, it would have annoyed him. Coming from her, he could only flash a goofy, lopsided smile.

He bowed. "For my first trick, I'd like to do a little shape- s.h.i.+ft I call 'The Wolf.'"

She held her hands out and performed a soft, aristocratic clap.

Like most of his vampiric talents, Earl had never truly mastered shape-s.h.i.+fting. He never had much reason to, and on those few occasions he had, it always left him stiff and sore. Cathy was partly right. Shape-changing was one of the harder feats a vampire might attempt. It involved a lot of bone-s.h.i.+fting, muscle-twisting, and organ-shuffling. Not to mention the displacement of those extra pounds that separated wolf from human. They melted away, but all that nonexistent weight seemed to rest on his kidneys. Or maybe that was just canine instinct that made him want to p.i.s.s on everything.

He hunched over and balled his hands into tight fists. He grunted and shook with the effort and finally let loose with an embarra.s.sing intestine-churning growl. And nothing happened.

"Are you okay?" Cathy asked.

Earl leaned against a wooden tombstone. "Yeah. Just give me a sec. Getting it started is the hardest part."

He stood tall and straight, attempting to regain some dignity, and tried again. It took a long minute for him to gather together his will and push it through his body. At first it felt like the mother of all bowel movements. The gurgling warm sensation started in his guts and spread from there. Once it started, he just had to ride it out.

His transformation was a lot smoother than Duke's. Whereas the beast within Duke literally burst out of his skin in a gruesome, nausea-inducing metamorphosis, Earl's change was a fluid moment of grace. And, unlike Duke, Earl's clothes even changed with him, disappearing to wherever all his extra weight went. The man melted into the wolf. Not the half-ape monster that Duke became, but an una.s.suming, feral canine. As a wolf, Earl looked more like a bony mongrel than a wild predator.

Cathy's eyes flashed with delight. "That's fantastic!"

Earl's lips parted and he bared his long, yellow teeth in a canine grin of pride. He took a moment to adjust to his four-legged form and push away the urge to take a leak on all the nearby tombstones.

She reached out and rubbed his muzzle. Then she scratched under his chin. He was tempted to roll over and let her rub his belly, but quickly changed his mind. Naked dogs had a harder time concealing certain biological reactions than fully clothed humans. He let her ma.s.sage his ears for a few minutes before going into his next trick.

Now that he was back into the swing of things, the change from wolf to bat was surprisingly easy. He flew a couple of quick laps around the graveyard while she watched in wonder. A tremendous satisfaction entered him at the sight of her enjoying herself. It didn't really help her situation, but at least it took her mind off it.

He decided, somewhat optimistically, to try changing to mist. He'd only done it four times before. The last time his concentration had slipped for only an instant, and he'd lost his legs to a sudden gust. But he was willing to lose an appendage or two for another of Cathy's smiles.

It turned out to be easier than his earlier changes. As a cloud of curling fog he drifted in the breeze while concentrating on holding onto all his floating molecules. Cathy pa.s.sed her ectoplasmic fingers through his body. A tingle ran through his insubstantial nerves. Had he currently possessed knees, they would have wobbled at such an intimate touch. Instead his form of fog tumbled over in an excited, whirling loop. He hoped she didn't notice.

Transforming back into a man proved harder than he remembered. It took considerable time and willpower to gather up all his errant pieces and jell them back into physical form. He wasn't entirely certain, but it felt like some of his internal organs hadn't made the trip back. There was a vague empty sensation where his liver and spleen should have been.

He bowed to another round of applause.

"That's impressive," she observed.

Earl would've shrugged, but his aching shoulder wasn't up to it. A wise vampire always stretched before a.s.suming forms. It was just common sense.

A brown police cruiser pulled into the diner. A tall, lean man Earl guessed to be the sheriff got out and went into the diner.

Buddy launched into a hissing rendition of "Peggy Sue" that sounded as if it were being beamed directly from the outer regions of the galaxy. Cathy jumped up and took Earl's hands.

"This is my favorite. Do you want to dance?"

"I'm not a good dancer."

"That's okay. Neither am I."

"I only know how to waltz."

"Really? Me, too."

Earl glanced at the cruiser. The sheriff could wait another five minutes.

She moved closer, guiding his hand to her back. She began the dance, then smoothly gave him the lead. At first, he was far too busy counting in his head and avoiding open graves to enjoy himself. And though ectoplasm had always been cool to the touch before, something about Cathy made him uncomfortably warm. But gradually, without him even realizing it, she drew closer and laid her head on his shoulder. They slowly spun through the cemetery in each other's arms. They kept dancing even after Buddy was swallowed whole by static.

She smelled like blooming roses and freshly dug earth. Was that the scent of all ectoplasmic beings, he wondered, or was it just her? He'd never gotten this close to a ghost for this long.

"You know, Earl, you were right."

"Yeah? About what?"

"You aren't a good dancer."

"I'm the only one available," he replied with a grin.

"Good point."

He held her at arms' length, and she twirled once. She fell back into his arms.

"Earl, how old are you?"

"Ninety-seven come May."

"You don't look it."

"Well, I try and stay out of the sun. It keeps the wrinkles away."

She laughed. It fluttered through the graveyard, filtering into the world of the living. Any mortals pa.s.sing by would have stopped and wondered where it came from. They would've found a man dancing with an imaginary partner and decided it better to mind their own business.

Earl and Cathy stopped dancing and looked into each other's eyes. Strands of phantasmal hair drifted across her face in the light breeze. He brushed them away and caressed her cheek. Her blue lips parted ever-so-slightly. They leaned closer.

Earl's heart thumped in his chest. Once. For the first time in sixty-nine undead years.

And then a shadow rose up behind him and plunged a wooden stake through his heart. His eyes glazed, and he crumpled to the ground.

"Earl!"

The shadow crept forward. Cathy could see in darkness better than the living could see in daylight. But she couldn't quite see this creature, an eel of black smoke slithering across the night. In one moment it seemed roughly human-shaped. In another it was a scuttling collection of tendrils. But mostly it was a glob of s.h.i.+fting shadows that refused to be truly perceived by even ghostly eyes.

It didn't seem to notice her. It hunched over Earl in a menacing, amorphous way.

"Get away from him!" Cathy shouted.

The shadow ignored her while running blackened limbs over the vampire.

"I said, get away from him!"

She lashed out without thinking. Much to her surprise, her ephemeral fists connected with a bulb of dark that might have been its head. It squealed and tumbled back. Cathy put herself between Earl and the shadow.

The thing took on an almost human form. Two crimson eyes glinted.

Cathy met its gaze with the lack of fear that came from being dead and the knowledge that there was very little more that could be done to her. So she hoped.

"Backoff!"

Something registered in the thing's eyes. It wasn't fear. Perhaps it was respect for a fellow creature of shadow. Maybe regard for her determination. Whatever it was, the shadow decided it didn't want the vampire enough to face her. It slipped away. Cathy suddenly noticed that it was not alone. Four other forms slinked through the graveyard. The five banks of near-imperceptible fog rolled across the road toward the diner. One stepped by the diner's neon sign and became solid under the hard light.

It was a man (or something that had once been a man) with green skin and tattered clothes. It raised its head to the light and hissed. The ravens perched on the sign cawed loudly and flew away. The sign clicked off and, once again, the creature became a shadow swimming in darkness.

Cathy turned to Earl. He wasn't breathing. He wasn't moving. He just lay there, wooden stake poking through his chest, staring up with a blank expression. She didn't know if he was dead, but he'd told her that a stake through the heart wasn't supposed to be fatal. Or was it? She couldn't remember.

"d.a.m.n it, Earl. Don't be dead. Please don't be dead."

She turned him on his chest and grasped the stake. It was sticking through the vampire so she could touch it. She pulled. It held tight. She pinned him down with one solid foot on his back and twisted while she yanked. The stake budged. Not much. Barely half-an-inch.

"Come on," she snarled as she tightened her grip and tugged with all her might.

And the ghouls oozed their way toward the diner.

Inside Gil's All Night Diner, Duke and Marshall Kopp sat at the counter drinking coffee while Loretta refilled salt and pepper shakers.

"Find where those bodies disappeared to?" Duke asked between sips.

"Found a leg and some tire tracks," Sheriff Kopp replied. "Sent the leg and some photos of the tracks up to White Water for a.n.a.lysis. Fingerprints. Hair fibers. That sort of thing. Probably won't lead to anything, but worth a shot." He drank from his own cup. "How 'bout you? Any progress on your end?"