any sound except for an occasional whine, let a sigh escape.
“No more rickety Schwinn basket for you!”
Only after she placed a bowl of water and stale Lucky Charms cereal by the futon did Poe expel a sigh of relief herself. She looked around her sorely missed home. Anime stickers covered one wall marking her adolescent years. Hanging on hooks on the opposite side was an alarming collection of handguns, pistols, semi-automatic weapons, and knives, complemented by a nasty machete marking the end of childhood. A smattering of Japanimation, Sanrio, and Totoro toys 203
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taken from the abandoned shops around Little Tokyo sat on top of DVD and book stacks.
Three sets of robot alarm clocks of Mazinger Z, Ultraman, and Doraemon were displayed on top of the television. Next to the small desk were a mini-gas stove, a fridge, and a milk crate full of canned goods, cereal boxes, and bottled water. A set of bullet tongs and bullet mold lay discarded on the floor. Clear barrels of silver and gold jewelry and sterling utensils lay next to the wall like sweets in a candy shop for bullet smithing. Another two barrels filled with lead pellets sat on top of the small fridge.
Poe’s favorite possession, a replica of Yoshitomo Nara’s painting of a little girl smoking, hung above her futon. Nara was her favorite artist.
“Sorry plant,” she said while watering the browning Chia Pet. “It was outta my hands.”
She was home, and it felt really good despite the awful day. She grabbed a pair of pajamas and sniffed to make sure they were clean. Just in case, she cut off a big piece of plastic cling wrap and wrapped the .357.
Quietly as possible, she let herself out and went back upstairs to take a shower, the water as cold and goopy as ever.
(((
Poe allowed herself to veg out on the extra-long futon with Penny in petting distance. “We deserve this, Pen,” she said emphatically in her Little Twin Star jammies while watching Cool Hand Luke. She devoured the last of the yummy Trader Joe’s banana chips.
To live in her bunker away from vampire politics was all she needed in life. Thirty feet underground was as safe as she could have been.
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“I hate Nazis,” she commented randomly. “And vampires are true fascists, especially when it comes to the color of their food.”
Oh no you don’t. You can’t think about negative shit. You’re retired.
She squinted at the image of thick-necked George Kennedy on the screen and thought of some good points.
“Well, I’m a bit bolder now. I can enunciate well when need be. A few idiosyncrasies and ticks have been pushed back a little. I didn’t even check my shoelaces before going upstairs to take a shower.
“I don’t fear vampires or death that much anymore. If I die, big deal. There’s Penny to think of, though. Then there’s Plasmacore. It’s the perfect symbol of hope. The idea behind it is well worth dying for. And let’s not forget, I’ve tongue wrestled with a hot vampire.”
To prove that her newfound intrepid self had little fear left, Poe crawled out of her futon studded with Bad Badz Maru and Iron Giant pillows and searched for the one DVD she had avoided all these years.
When she finally popped it in the player, Poe plopped back down on her bed, hugging a fuzzy Keroppi blanket around her.
After this, nothing can scare me anymore.
Nosferatu’s creepy white face leered at her in the silent film classic. Poe was so hypnotized by Max Schreck’s demonic image that she forgot to read the subtitles. The movie still creeped her out. But it made her realize how overrated and horrendously boring it was. Terrence Malick had proved that a beautiful metaphor-ridden film didn’t necessarily spell a good movie. She had to violently shake her head to keep from dozing off.
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The immortal undead scratching outside her bunker door with his deathly long nails, depriving her of many a good night’s sleep, was nothing more than pasty complexion and bad teeth. She rubbed Penny’s belly and blew out a calming breath.
“For ages I believed Nos to be the total shit. What a waste, huh, Pen? If the creature ever did show up on our doorstep, I would–”
Then it happened. There was a knock akin to a scratch from the outside. Poe thought the sound was part of the dramatic orchestral score until she turned the volume down. Penny whined, plunging Poe’s heart thirty feet. Clutching the rosary around her