time. I refill the water bottle, drink deeply, then peel off my boots and socks and plunge my feet in. It’s icy and hurts only for a little while before the numbing cold makes everything seem okay. I lean back, raise my face to where the sun should be and imagine it on my skin. Problem with being in service with a night crawler is that you don’t tend to see too much daylight. Oh, you have to run errands and some of those are unavoidably day-oriented. But mostly, you become as nocturnal as your master. Feels like shift-work. Do it long enough you either get used to it or go nuts. Or a bit of both.
Behind me there’s a sound; behind me, where I dropped Barry’s box (the katana I kept close). There’s that distinct polystyrene noise and I turn to see the biggest freaking possum I’ve ever seen in my life. It looks like a large dog, a Labrador maybe, on its hind legs and it’s got the lid off the cooler and one paw buried deep inside. It pulls Barry’s head out by the messy black hair.
There it dangles at the end of possum claws, eyes closed, lips slack and a little open, the neck so cleanly severed you could almost admire it as a nice tidy job. I stand slowly. The possum sniffs at Barry’s nose, licks it, then opens its mouth and sinks sharp white teeth into the substance of Barry’s pert little snoz.
I take a good few fast steps and bring the katana sweeping upward and the possum paw drops to the ground, which leaves Barry hanging briefly by his nose in the grip of the teeth of a very unhappy marsupial. Possum spits out its meal and gives me a look that makes me think twice about getting any closer. Then I remember that I’ve got the sword and about four feet in height on the thing. But it’s fast and the remaining claws sharp; my cargos and the leg underneath get a nasty gash before I manage to take the stinking thing’s head off.
I have a rest, bent over, hands on knees, breathing hard while I watch blood dribble out of my injured flesh. There’s a yell and I fear a possum support column may have arrived. But it’s only Barry, waking up.
“What the fuck happened to my nose? Do you have any idea how much this hurts? What the hell did you do to me?”
“Oh, Barry, you don’t want to know. Now, which way? There are no signs for Sun Falls.”
“Just keep following the road.” The he pitches his eyes downwards, trying to get a good look at the state of his nose. I manage not to laugh as he goes a little cross-eyed. “Fuck this hurts.”
A bonfire and five figures gathered around it: a woman, an old man, two young men, and a teenage girl. Raggedy stragglers, left out here with orders to guard the place, I guess. They’re vampires, though, so it doesn’t matter if there are five or a hundred. The rush and roar of water is clear from somewhere in the darkness. I can feel a damp spray I think might come from the falls.
I washed the wound and wrapped my leg up tight, but I know they can smell it before I step into the circle of light. There’s a collective growl that must be something like a gazelle hears before a pride of lions brings it down. I might be able to take out a couple before they get to me. The fire catches the edge of the katana and pinwheels in Barry-unboxed’s wide open eyes. The pack stays back, however. I must look as though I know what I’m doing—well, you can fool some of the vampires some of the time, I guess.
The woman stands and takes a few steps towards me.
“Hello, dinner,” she says. “How obliging of you to turn up.”
“You might want to re-think that,” I say, and raise my boss’s head.
Barry pipes up, “Lynda, keep your hands off her. She’s no one’s meal.”
“Is that you, Barry?” The woman squints. Her hair is wound into filthy dreads, not all of her teeth remain and the breeze tells me she’s not washed in some time. Hillbilly vamps, who’d have thought it? Feeding on the occasional lost tourist, stray cattle, giant possums. “Aw, Barry. What the fuck happened?”
“Long fucking story. I need to use the pool,” he says shortly.
“The pool? No one’s done that