Scary Dead Things - 02 (23 page)

But it seemed to do the trick for the moment. Gan was mesmerized by
Cartoon Network
and
Nickelodeon
, thus allowing Ed and myself to retreat to our respective home offices to get some work done. Sadly, programming deadlines wait for neither man nor immortal beasts of the night.

Unfortunately, I didn't spend any real time as a teenager babysitting; otherwise, I would know that the Golden Rule of doing so is not to let the kids out of your sight. About two hours passed before I heard some loud yelling, in Chinese presumably, coming from the living room, followed by an equally loud crash. Ed and I raced out to find Gan standing there, or more specifically, Gan standing there with her fist through the screen of our TV.

Ed pretty much summed it up for both of us by yelling, “What the fuck!?”

“This box was insolent,” Gan said in a pouty tone.

“What the hell does that even mean!?” again yelled Ed.

I stepped forward to intervene. I may have explained that Ed was my friend, but I had little doubt he'd meet with the same fate as the TV if she deemed him too
insolent
as well. “Gan, why did you kill the nice TV?” I asked in a patient voice.

“I demanded that it bring back the yellow one. It refused, so I punished it accordingly.”

“The yellow one?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “The one who lives in the fruit and makes these things called patties.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Ed, an edge to his voice. “You smashed our TV because
SpongeBob
ended?”

I shrugged and gave him a sheepish smile. “Guess I should have showed her how to use On-Demand.”

That was pretty much the straw that broke Ed's back. Attacking him and treating him like dirt was OK. Breaking the TV, not so much. He left in a huff with heavy hints that Gan should be gone by the time he got back. I really couldn't disagree with him. When I was recruited into this whole vampire thing, I accepted that I would probably face horrors beyond my imagining and endure an eternity of dealing with the darker forces of the universe. At no point did I ever think that babysitting would be included in that package; otherwise, I might have just let them stake me on that first night like they had wanted to.

Around mid-afternoon, I gave Sally a call. She would be awake by then, no doubt looking forward to another night of filling the coven's larders with the city's suicidally depressed. Well, she was going to have to change her plans. No way was I letting her or the others out of helping me with Gan tonight. I was the coven leader, and if I ordered the rest of them to make with the Romper Room, then by God, I was going to get me some Romper Room!

“Let me guess, not a social call?” asked her voice as soon as she answered.

“Not even remotely. Starlight back yet?”

“She should be back here by sundown. I sent a car up for her.”

“Good,” I replied. “Assign someone else to help her.” I lowered my voice so Gan wouldn't overhear. “She's gonna need it.”

“None of the others are going to be happy with that.”

“Ask me if I give a shit about what makes the others happy. Last I checked, none of them seemed overly concerned with my state of mental well-being.”

“OK, calm down. I'll ask around.”

“Better yet, put Dusk Reaper on it. He gives you any lip, tell him he and I will be having a long sit-down to
discuss
.”

There was a pause. I couldn't see her, but I knew Sally well enough to know she was probably smirking. “Can do,” she replied.

“Good. I'll bring Gan over as soon as the sun goes down.” I glanced over at her and noticed she was still sitting around in my T-shirt. “Oh crap.” I had forgotten all about getting Gan some new clothes to wear.

“What's wrong?” Sally asked over the phone.

“Grab your pocketbook. Once I get there, you and I are going shopping.”

* * *

Sundown came, and I got Gan dressed as best as I could, considering my apartment's complete lack of little girl clothes. Once done, I grabbed my wallet and told her we were heading out.

“Where are we going?” she asked. “If tonight is to be our wedding, I shall require more suitable attire.”

“Uh, yeah. Sorry, the hall was all booked up for tonight,” I lied. “We'll try again another day.”

“Then where do you take me?”

“I'm going to leave you with my coven. I...didn't like the way the human talked to you. My vampires will be more respectful.” (
maybe
)

“Yes. That would be good. But what of you, my love? (
argh, don't call me that!
)  Will you stay there with me?”

“Not tonight.”

“Then where shall you be?”

“Out,” I said, opening the door and leading us into the hall.

“Ah, I see!”

“You do?”

“Yes. You wish a night out to...how do they say...sow your oats.”

What the!? Oh, whatever. As long as it got her out of my hair. “Yeah, OK. That works,” I muttered. We started to descend the stairs. All I knew was that I couldn't get to Manhattan fast enough.

As we were coming down, we ran into Tom going the opposite way.

“Hey, Bill!”

“Hey. Can't really talk, got things to do,” I said, dragging Gan downstairs with me before she decided to see if I had rethought my policy on sampling my roommates.

“I need to tell you something,” he called down to me.

“It'll have to wait,” I yelled back, as I went through the front door.

“Dude!” his voice followed me out the door. “My girlfriend...I think she's a...”

I didn't quite catch that last part as the front door had slammed shut, but to my vampire hearing, it had sounded vaguely like
bitch
. That figured.
Welcome to the club, buddy
, I thought as Gan and I headed out towards the city.

* * *

Have I ever mentioned that there is something about being in a shopping mall that fills me with a near uncontrollable rage? No? Well, it does. Living or dead, I have always hated mall trips. I find the typical mall dwellers to be their own fetid little subspecies of humanity, maybe the result of some deranged genetic experiment to fuse man and cockroach gone awry. Vampires may be bloodthirsty monsters and zombies are disgusting walking corpses, but mall denizens...well, let's just say I'd sooner hang with the zombies. I don't know if I believe in Hell, but if it exists, it probably very closely resembles the Manhattan Mall.

Sally, on the other hand, looked like she was having a grand time. I don't think I'd seen her smile as much in total during the past several months as she was doing now, dragging me from store to store. I know it's cliché to talk about women and shopping, but she was doing her damndest to live up to the stereotype.

I thus found myself standing in some smarmy little boutique up on the third floor, holding Sally's iced latte for her as she spritzed herself from yet another bottle of perfume that probably cost more than the down payment for a car.

“How's this one smell?” she asked, thrusting her arm into my face.

“Skanky,” I replied morosely.

“You have no taste,” she said with a feigned sulk.

“I also have no sense of smell. I think it burned out two stores back.”

“Don't be a complainer,” she said, handing the bottle back to the equally smarmy sales girl who was helping her out. “You're the one who wanted to go shopping.”

“For clothes
for Gan
,” I reminded her for the fortieth time.

“Relax. You can't just dive into these things. We have to work our way there.”

“If you say so,” I replied in a dead tone. God, this was taking forever. I glanced out the door, and then my eyes fell on the
Victoria’s Secret
a few shops down. Well, that at least had potential. If Sally decided she needed to try on some lingerie, there was at least some entertainment to be had in that.

Alas, it was not to be. As we walked towards it, she saw my longing gaze wandering in its direction. “Down, boy!” was the only thing she said as she strode past.

“Can't even throw me a bone?”

“I'm not touching anything that contains references to you and bones in the same sentence,” she said, dragging me into a shop called
American Girl
. Considering that's exactly what I wanted Gan to fit in as, the name of the shop definitely seemed hopeful. At long last, my ordeal seemed to be nearing an end.

“Any chance we can bag the hotline and maybe just send the coven here to clean out this place?” I gestured to the mall as a whole. “Should be enough to keep them in blood for a while,” I quipped while she searched through the outfits on display.

She stopped what she was doing and gave me an eye-roll. “Gutting this place would just be...wrong. Even I have my moral limits,” she replied. I was contemplating which of the fifty or so possible answers rolling around in my head would be the best when she finally held up a little dress. “Now, this is adorable. I think we have our first winner.”

I took a look. OK, whatever; I guess it was cute. Then I happened to notice the price tag. “Holy shit! I just wanted to get her some clothes, not finance her college education.”

“Don't be so stingy with your bride to be,” she teased. Bitch!

“Seriously, whatever happened to jeans and a couple of tees?”

“Gan doesn't strike me as the tom-boy type. Nor does she strike me as the
Sears
clearance rack type.”

“I noticed. Speaking of her
highness
, I hope she isn't giving Starlight too much trouble.”

“I'm sure they'll be fine...ooh, here's another cute one!”

* * *

After about another twenty minutes, during which I seriously contemplated a mall-based murder spree, we finally made it to the counter with a small bundle of outfits for Gan. The cute counter girl sized us both up as we approached. She gave Sally the smallest of sneers, but then reversed her expression when she turned to look at me. I actually got a nice, friendly smile. Come to think of it, I had noticed more than a few glances in my direction during the mall trip but had been too irritated to put two and two together. Now it was finally clicking.

In the past, I had noticed that whenever I went anywhere with Sally, I would get stares of envy from other guys. It was obvious why. Sally was gorgeous, and they were all wondering what I had that they didn't (
fangs and an aversion to sunlight
). I knew because I had done it myself on more than one occasion. It's especially true if the guy in question with the hot babe on his arm isn't all that much to look at himself. Dudes like me just want to walk up and ask them for their secrets.