Worlds Away and Worlds Aweird Read online

  All the people who had been living in our neighborhood for a while knew about the barbecue and just came as a matter of course, there were no invitations. The Hafanars, on the other hand, had moved in during the autumn, after the last barbecue, so I figured we ought to take the trouble to invite them.

  “Glert, Afna, have you two heard about the big barbecue we have every year on the Fourth?”

  “The Fourth? That is one of your culture’s ritual celebrations, is it not?” asked Glert. “We try not to intrude on activities sacred to others.”

  “Oh, come on! Yeah, it’s one of our holidays, but I certainly wouldn’t call it ‘sacred.’ Don’t worry about intruding, it’s for everyone in the neighborhood, you certainly fit in there. We’d love to have you join us.”

  I think Glert was about to accept the invitation, when Afna said something to him in their language. There was some chatter back and forth, which of course I couldn’t understand, then Glert said, “Ken, we appreciate the invitation, but we think it would not be wise. Afna has heard about this, and says you will be cooking great quantities of your food, your ‘meat’ there. I know you are aware of our dietary restrictions, we fear we might get upset, or sick, or…something.”

  Afna chimed in, “Later, when most of the cooking and eating is finished, then we might come over and socialize without fear of giving offense. Would that be okay?”

  “Of course, of course. You’re welcome to come over any time, whenever you want.”

  The weather for the Fourth was clear, warm and sunny, but kind of windy, a stiff breeze out of the northeast. Did I mention that the way the street runs the Hafanars’ house is southwest of ours? Why would I mention that? What possible difference could it make?

  By four o’clock we had everything set up. The wives took care of a long table loaded with potato salad and macaroni salad and things like that. We had all four grills hot, and we started throwing food on to cook. Hamburgers and hot dogs would be ready first and there were already lines waiting for those. The chicken and ribs were cooking too, but they’d take a little longer. It all smelled great. The breeze was wafting the smell of cooking meat right toward Glert and Afna’s. I hoped the aroma wouldn’t bother them too much.

  It was about a half hour later that I saw Glert, Afna, and their kids come out of their house and start over to our yard. I had thought they were going to wait until later, but I had told them to come over whenever they wanted. I waved in welcome.

  Doris had seen them too, and she came over to me. “They look strange. I’ve never seen them turn that color before.”

  She was right. I’d seen their normal slightly green hue and the lime green color when they got upset about our food, but this was a real Kelly green.

  “Something else,” I said, “their teeth, almost like fangs, I never saw that before either. Why would total vegans have fangs?”

  Doris never got a chance to answer before we found out. Glert grabbed one of the men and ripped his throat out with the fangs. Afna grabbed a small boy and literally bit his head off because the neck was so small. One of the Hafanar children picked up a dog and severed its spine with one bite. Everyone was screaming and running around.

  Glert went over to the grills and stood there inhaling the aroma of cooking meat, and as he did, he grew. The rest of his family joined him, and soon Glert and Afna were almost twenty feet tall, their kids at least twelve feet. At this size, a single bite could decapitate an adult human or bite a torso completely in half. Their extended reach meant that very few escaped. Soon the yard was littered with bodies, halves of bodies, body parts.

  I managed to get into the tool shed and lock myself in, and I’ve been looking out through a crack in the wood. Doris somehow managed to avoid death for a while, she was one of the last to be killed, but I just saw Afna tear her apart. There are no humans alive in the yard now, and the Hafanars are looking around like they were seeking more victims. Uh, oh, Glert’s nose is twitching like he smells something, and he’s coming toward the tool shed!

  Gralic

  [Ma and Pa Kettle meet Dracula]

  “HEY, BILLY BOB,” asked Paw, “ain’t there somethin’ strange about yer new girlfriend, Elvira?”

  Before Billy Bob could answer, Clem said, “I saw her down to the barn, kissin’ one of the cows. On the neck. And I seen a couple drops of blood runnin’ down the cows neck when she stopped. Almost like she were drinkin’ thet cow’s blood.”

  Billy Bob looked around to make sure his girl wasn’t there. Then he said, “Well, shore! It’s because we ain’t got no hospital here in Chestnut Holler. She’s got some kind of medical problem. She’s a-nee-mic, that means she ain’t got enough blood. Back in the city, she goes in to the hospital for more blood, they call it a trans-, trans-, transfyooshun!” He paused, proud of having remembered the word. “But the docs told her, if she came down here and couldn’t do that, she should just drink some, from a cow or, or, whatever.” He stopped abruptly. He didn’t want to tell Paw and Clem that he let Elvira drink his blood, or that it made sex with Elvira so much better than it had been with Ellie Mae, his former girlfriend.

  He was saved from saying anything more when Maw poked her head in the door and said, “You men quit jibber-jabberin’ and come to dinner now, y’hear?”

  Paw, Clem, and Billy Bob trooped in and sat. Other family members came into the dining room. Elvira entered and sat next to Billy Bob, reaching under the table to give Billy Bob’s hand a squeeze, out of sight of the others.

  Everyone passed dishes of food around, loading up their plates. Elvira took small portions of most of the food, but she passed one bowl on without taking any. Maw noticed and asked, “What’s the matter with the collard greens, Elvira? I cooked ’em special. New recipe I saw in a newspaper.”

  “Sorry, Maw,” said Elvira—she had tried calling the old woman “Mrs. Beauregard” at first but was firmly rebuked. “What was in that recipe?”

  “Oh, it was a fancy new ingrediment I got down to the Gen’ral Store. Called ‘gralic’ er ‘garlic’ er somethin’ like that. Try it, it makes the greens taste all big-city.”

  “I’m sorry, Maw. I thought garlic was what I smelled, and I’m allergic to it. Makes me terribly sick. Once I ate a lot of it without realizing it, darn near killed me.”

  Billy Bob, who had been just about to take a forkful of the greens, paused and said, “Elvira, honey, mebbe I shouldn’t eat it neither. Would it make you sick if it were on my breath?”

  “Yes, Billy Bob, it might. If you don’t mind…?”

  He grabbed the bowl and pushed the pile of greens on his plate back into it. “Maw, please, if yer goin’ to make anythin’ more with that gralic, warn us not to eat it, okay?”

  “Of course, Billy Bob. Only it ain’t a problem, I ain’t got no more. They just had it in the store thet one time. Old Mr. Wilkins runs the store didn’t know why they got it in. Was a couple months ago, if I recollec’ proper, just about the time Elvira come inta town.”

  Elvira sat there trying to look cool and collected, but if anybody had examined her carefully, they would have seen she was worried. “Oh, my God,” she muttered to herself, too softly for the others at the table to hear. “They’ve found me. They know where I am. What do I do now?”

  Sam Robertson, Head of the FBI Paranormal Task Force, sat at his desk and glared at Agent Boothby. “What the hell were you thinking, Boothby? Distributing all that garlic to stores in the hills? And tipping off the fugitive vampires that we’re on to them? Of all the dumbass ideas!”

  “But sir,” said Boothby, “we also spread around recipes using the stuff. Figured some of the local cooks would use it and poison them…if it didn’t kill them, at least we’d find them when they went to a hospital.”

  Robertson slapped his forehead. “My God, what an idiot. First of all, the vampires are going to smell the garlic a mile away and refuse to eat it. And second, vampires don’t go to hospitals! They gather a coven of thirteen and heal the sick ones.�
��

  “Sorry, sir. It sounded like a good idea.”

  “Well, it wasn’t. So now you gather up a team and head down into those hills and start tracking down those vampires. Go!”

  Maw noticed the big black Lincoln parked outside the General Store, and sure enough, when she entered, there were two big-city men in black suits talking with Mr. Wilkins.

  “I don’t rightly know who I sold thet gralic to. Don’t even know why I had it in the first place, cain’t recall ever ordering it.” He looked up and saw Maw standing there, and got an expression on his face that looked like he had just remembered something. But Maw shook her head, and he continued, “Nup! Nary a clue who I sold the gralic to.”

  One of the men in black spoke. “Mr., uh—” he looked down at the paper in his hand “—Mr. Wilkins, if we need to, we can get a warrant to look at your records, search your computer.”

  Mr. Wilkins laughed. “Compyooter? You think I use a compyooter to run the store? You big-city guys got yer heads up yer butts? A compyooter!” He shook his head and continued to laugh.

  “Well,” said the agent, “your ledgers. Accounts payable, accounts receivable, all that sort of thing.”

  “Sonny boy,” said Mr. Wilkins, “you want to look at my records, fine, yer welcome to.” He pulled out a single sheet of paper and began to read. “Monday. Customers spent four hundred seventy-three dollars and twelve cents. Gave delivery truck driver three hundred one dollars and ten cents. Low on breakfast cereal, TP, OJ, called warehouse to add to next delivery.” He laid the sheet on the counter in front of the agent. “Think I got most of last week’s records in back, anything earlier been thrun away by now.”

  The agent shook his head in disgust, signaled to his partner, and they left the store.

  Maw walked up to the counter and said, “Thankee, Mr. Wilkins, fer not tellin’ them I bought some of that there gralic.”

  “Shucks, Maw, those two are jest like revenoors, and I never told a revenoor nothin’ in my life. Fooled them good, too. Bet if I dug around, I prob’ly got two, three weeks of my record sheets, but they believed one week.” He paused. “Somethin’ about that gralic worryin’ you?”

  “Yup. I put it in a mess of collard greens a few nights back, and Billy Bob’s girlfriend wouldn’t eat it. Said she were aller-gic to gralic. She’s even got Billy Bob cornvinced he shouldn’t eat none, neither.”

  “Thet the same one you said was drinkin’ the cow’s blood?”

  “Yeah, she said she was drinkin’ it because she’s a-nee-mic, and we got no hospital here in the Holler to get a transfyooshun at. Thinks she’s got us fooled, but of course we can tell.”

  “Does Billy Bob know?”

  “Billy Bob ain’t the sharpest tack in the barrel, if I do say so about my own son. Not sure iffn he’s figgered it out yet, but I did see bite marks on his neck. Me er Paw will have to give him the ‘birds ’n’ bats’ talk.”

  Mr. Wilkins nodded as Maw went back to getting her groceries and piling them on the counter. She did it so fast, it looked like she was just pointing at the items and moving them with a flick of her finger. Mr. Wilkins watched, unsurprised, like this was something he saw every day.

  “Billy Bob,” said Paw, “we gotta talk. About yer new girlfriend Elvira. Never did figger out how come you broke up with Ellie Mae—real purty, she was—but I reckon that’s yer bizness. But Elvira, now, she’s different, and I don’t know if you know about it. You gotta be real keerful with her. It’s this drinkin’ blood. Son, is she drinkin’ your blood?”

  “Yeah, Paw, but she never drinks much, just a mouthful er so when we’re…when we’re…” His voice trailed off.

  “When you’all are screwin’, right?”

  Billy Bob blushed. “Yeah, when we’re doin’ it. She bites me and drinks a little blood, and this funny feelin’ from the bite goes all over me and sorta settles in my pecker, and then I can keep goin’ at her almost half an hour before I finishes. I ain’t never felt anythin’ like it before.”

  “Son,” said Paw, “I got some news for you. Your girlfriend’s a vampire.”

  Billy Bob looked shocked. “How kin thet be? She stays up all day, even goes out in the sun and it don’t hurt her.”

  “Don’t know, son, don’t know. But I reckon we better get some answers.” He turned toward the door to the kitchen and yelled, “Maw! You know where Elvira is?”

  “I’m not sure,” Maw replied. She placed her fingers on her temples and closed her eyes. Opening them again, she said, “She’s in the barn. Prob’ly went out to tap a cow. I’ll go fetch her.”

  The two women returned a few minutes later, Elvira still wiping blood off her lips. When she saw Paw and Billy Bob waiting, she said, “I’m busted, aren’t I?”

  Billy Bob looked puzzled, but Paw said, “If you mean do we know you’re a vampire, yup. And we know what you and Billy Bob are doin’, on account of which you’re drinkin’ his blood, too.”

  “But,” said Maw, “we ain’t too sure about some stuff, like howcome you’re up and about in the sunlight. I al’ays heerd that sunlight warn’t good for vampires. Oh, and howcome you’re here in the Holler in the fust place.”

  “Sunlight isn’t good for vampires, Maw, unless we drink a little of the blood of a lover.” She and Billy Bob both blushed a little. “And why I’m here is because the FBI has started a vendetta against vampires. A few bad vampires killed a lot of people, and the FBI set up this Paranormal Task Force to wipe us out. I was lucky, I ran and got away, came here.”

  “FBI, huh?” said Maw. “I reckon that must have been those two big-city men in black suits thet were asking Mr. Wilkins a bunch of fool questions down to the Gen’ral Store. Tell me, Elvira, if you kin kill people, whatcha got in mind for my son here?”

  “Oh, no, Maw, I love Billy Bob just the way he is, I wouldn’t kill him. Nor turn him, unless it was a real emergency.” She saw puzzled looks on the others’ faces. “Turn him means turn him into a vampire. But I’d only do that if he were dying. Actually, we want to get married.”

  Paw looked like he was about to say something, but one of the kids came running into the room, hollering, “They’s a big black car comin’ up the road, some kinda big-city car. Got two guys in it, all in black like they were goin’ to a funereal.”

  Everyone raced to the window and watched the two agents in black suits get out of the big Lincoln.

  “Oh, shit!” said Elvira.

  “Damn revenoors,” said Paw. “I better get old Betsy ’n’ load ’er up.”

  “Wait,” said Maw. Then, to Elvira, “Could you kill them revenoors? Or do thet turn’em thing to them?”

  “I could kill them one at a time, just drink them empty. But it’s a lot more work to turn someone. I have to drink maybe a third of his blood and produce a whole lot of, well, call it venom—that’s the hard part. Then I pump it back into him through my fangs. He’s out for twelve hours or so, and wakes up a vampire. Do you think I should do that? That I’m going to have to?”

  “Yep,” said Maw. “I heerd that after they get the vampires, the FBI’s gonna go after witches. Certainly don’t want that to happen! Elvira, I want you to turn the one at’as drivin’, he’s the boss. The other, turn ’em, kill ’em, whatever works.” She turned and called, “Clem, getcher butt down here, we need you.”

  By the time the agents had walked up on the porch and knocked, everyone was ready. Maw opened the door, and one of the men in black said, “FBI, ma’am, I’m Agent Boothby. We have reason to believe you’re harboring a fugitive. I have a warrant here.”

  As he waved the paper in Maw’s face, Paw and Billy Bob jumped him and knocked him out. Meanwhile, Clem had come around the porch from the back and grabbed the second agent.

  “Okay, Elvira, honey, you just go ahead and drink your fill,” said Maw.

  When Elvira finished with both of the FBI men, Maw said, “Now you said you’all wanted to get married. You got any special kinda weddin’ you want?”
/>   “No, Maw, I’ll take anything I can get. And you probably know more about what Billy Bob would want than I would.”

  “Then let’s do er!”

  Standing between one FBI agent who was quite dead and another agent who was slowly transforming into a vampire, Maw got out the cord for the hand-fasting and the broomstick to make the marriage permanent. Then she stripped her clothes off, and sky-clad, as befitted the Priestess of the coven, she started the Wiccan wedding ceremony for her son and his bride.

  Sam Robertson got up to answer the doorbell, grumbling about who it could be at this time of night. He opened the door, looked out, then said, “Boothby? What the hell are you doing here? Why didn’t you report in to me at the office during regular hours?”

  “Sorry, sir, but I have a little problem with the regular office hours. It’s too light out then.”

  “What are you talking about? Too light, urk!”

  His voice chopped off as Boothby grabbed him in a chokehold. He struggled for a minute, then slowly passed out from lack of oxygen. The last thing he felt was Boothby’s fangs entering his neck.

  Alien Hunt

  [Classified: the Case of Mr. Green]

  IT WAS JUST ANOTHER HIT-AND-RUN. Beat up green Chevy, drunk driver, careless pedestrian. The cops got the driver later in the day—witnesses not only got the license number, but were able to identify the “Stop DWI” bumper sticker—and he’s now in jail, but that didn’t help the pedestrian any. He was dead before he hit the sidewalk. Only one thing was unusual, he wasn’t human. And that’s how I got involved.