Chapter OneThe shrill sound of the telephone bell echoed down the hallway. From a small room at the end of the hall, a muffled voice cried out: “Can someone get that, please?” No one came. The phone rang again. And again. “Guys, I’m a little indisposed, can somebody take that call…please?” There was a pleading note in the voice this time, but still no one heeded the call.
The sound of a cistern emptying drowned out the shrilling phone bell momentarily. Still fastening the waistband of his trousers, Ellery Twist burst into the hall and slid along the parquet in his socks. “It’s okay guys, I got it, don’t you worry.” The pleading note in his voice was gone, replaced by a hint of sarcasm.
The telephone, like its owner, was a 1950s relic. Ellery snatched up the receiver, and in a voice as smooth as the polished floor answered: “Twist residence, Ellery speaking, who is this?”
A depressingly familiar voice crackled down the line. “Mr. Twist? Lieutenant Zimmerman here, Alabama State Police.” Ellery visibly sagged as he recognised the caller.
“Oh hi there, Bob. What’s he done this time?”
“Plenty, I’m sorry to report,” replied Lieutenant Zimmerman. “Are you sitting down? This may take some time…”
Ellery Twist was not sitting down. In fact, by the time he replaced the bakelite receiver in its cracked cradle, he was virtually airborne. Grandpa Twist, black sheep of the family (and a sheep in wolf’s clothing come to that) had pulled off some disreptuable stunts in his time, but his latest exploit probably topped them all. According to Lieutenant Zimmerman, who was never one to embroider the facts unnecessarily, Grandpa had been seen that afternoon pushing a handcart down the main street of his home town of Mobile, Alabama. The handcart was piled high with the kind of lumber one might expect to see at a garage sale – old pictures, crockery, a broken cane-backed chair, boots, books bound up with string, a bundle of clothing and assorted other garbage. Arriving at the intersection of two major roads, Grandpa parked in the middle of the road, bringing the traffic to a standstill in all four directions. Then, as the astonished drivers leaned out of their windows and watched, he proceded to douse the handcart and himself in gasolene. Two shots into the handcart from a Colt 45 revolver and the whole lot went up in flames. By the time the Police and the Fire Department turned up, Grandpa was well alight. He was now being held in a secure wing of a nearby hospital and not expected to last the night. Lieutenant Zimmerman urged Ellery to come at once.
Ellery, however, was in no particular hurry. He knew something about Grandpa that Zimmerman could never have guessed. Even so, he assured the officer that he and the family would drive down to Mobile straight away to ‘pay their last respects.’
Brushing aside a strand of his hair that had fallen out of place, Ellery walked into the large living area of the family’s apartment. The huge, echoing loft space was momentarily empty. Then, one by one, the members of the Twist family began to appear, in no particular order. Never there when they’re needed, Ellery gloomily thought to himself.
“Who was on the phone?” This enquiry came from Ellery’s wife, Valerian. Tall, dark and velvety, she might have stepped out of a black and white movie from the 1940s. She was arranged, as though for a photograph, on the old leather sofa in the centre of the room, and reading a thirty year old copy of Vogue magazine.
“Just the Alabama Police,” sighed Ellery, sinking into an armchair. “Again.”
“Uh-huh.” Valerian did not so much as look up from her magazine. “What’s he been up to this time?”
“Tried to cremate himself, from the sound of things.”
“Well, that’s not so awful is it?”
“In the middle of an Intersection in Downtown Mobile?”
“Oh well, Grandpa always did have a wonderful flair for theatricals.”
“What’s that about the theatre? Are we going to see a play?” Mona, second youngest of the Twist offspring had silently emerged from a darkened recess. Her hair was red and quite mad, and she was dressed in a deliberately thoughtless mix of polka dots, stripes and leopard skin. In a pair of boots that would have been rejected as too severe by Frankenstein’s monster or a deep sea diver, she crashed across the room and fell across a spare sofa.
“What have I said about boots in the house?” asked Ellery, as Mona propped her feet up on a fragile glass table. “This hardwood floor cost three thousand dollars!”
“And these boots cost a hundred dollars. They’re brand new, never been worn outdoors.” Ellery knew better than to argue. “So what play we gonna see?” Mona asked. “Not Shakespeare, please!”
“Nobody’s going to any play. We’re going to Mobile,” replied Ellery.
Mona’s eyes lit up. “Cool! We gonna see Gran’pa?”
“If he’s still alive by the time we get there.”
“Why, what’s he done now?”
For Mona’s benefit, Ellery repeated an edited version of the story he’d just heard from Lieutenant Zimmerman. By the time he’d reached the end of the tale, Mona was laughing. “Cool! He’ll be okay. You know Gran’pa!”
Ellery nodded. He knew Grandpa all right.
While Mona had been listening, her brother Woody, a short, mop-haired scaled-down version of Ellery, had appeared from the kitchen clutching an unlikely-looking sandwich. “You got planning permisssion for that?” asked Mona as he flopped down next to her, dropping pickles onto the leather upholstery.
“I was listening from in there,” said Woody. “Is Grandpa sick?”
“He’s always been sick,” said Mona. “Sick in the head. Isn’t that right?”
“Mona, don’t be so disrespectful,” snapped Valerian. But Ellery found himself in agreement with his daughter.
Woody, at eleven the junior member of the family, chomped on his sandwich. “When are we going?”
“Well, it’s a long drive, so the sooner we leave, the sooner we’ll be there,” Ellery replied. He had a habit of making meaningless, obvious statements.
“Aren’t we flying?” said Mona in a complaining voice.
“I thought you liked driving,” said Ellery.
“Yeah, but all that way!” Mona made a grab at Woody’s sandwich. “Hey, give me some of that willya! You got enough there for all of us.”
“I thought I’d better start emptying the fridge if we’re going away,” Woody replied.
“That’s not fair. I’ll want something inside of me if we’re driving all that way.” Mona looked set for one of her sulks.
“We’ll eat on the way,” said Ellery. “How’s that? Now you guys had better get your things together. I want to be on the road inside the hour. And has anyone seen Helvie?”
Mona jabbed a thumb in the direction of the window. “I think she’s out on the balcony.”
Sure enough, as if on cue, a ghostly presence appeared behind the net curtains and Helvetica, Ellery’s eldest daughter, breezed lightly into the room, a copper watering can in her hand. She looked surprised to see everyone there. “Hello. I was just freshening up the window box.” She drifted into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a glass of wine. “Anyone else like one?”
“Not for me,” said Ellery. “I’m driving.”
“Oh? To where, may I ask?” Helvetica settled on the arm of Ellery’s chair and listened while her father ran through a still more edited account of Grandpa Twist’s latest exploit.
Helvetica was the mysterious one of the Twist family, cool, tall and elegantly boho. She fanned her forehead in mock alarm as Ellery ran through the gory details of Grandpa’s near cremation. “Whatever are we to do with him?” she asked when Ellery had finished.
“I know what he’ll want us to do with him,” Ellery replied.
*
“Bury me! I’ve had enough o’ this world! Put me in with Grandma! Under those rocks! You know where!” Wild-eyed and looking none the worse for his fiery escapade, Grandpa Twist glared at the family from his hospital bed. “That’s what y’all have come for, ain’t it? Lay me to rest, I tell ya! I’m ready! I’m-a-goin’ to see Grandma! She’s lonesome there all on her own in them rocks! Bury me tonight! Don’cha wait for me to die, neither!”
Ellery exchanged glances with Valerian. It was just as he’d expected. They’d driven all night and most of the following day in Ellery’s ageing Cadillac just for this, a repeat performance of something they’d all seeen many times before. Ellery had lost count of the number of occasions on which the old man had demanded to be buried.
A doctor and nurse hovered at a respectful distance, trying to look dignified and sympathetic. Never mind that the doctor had warned the nurse that old Mr. Twist was ‘a raving psychotic bastard’ just five minutes before the family arrived. Ellery would probably have agreed with him.
The old man looked so worked up he could probably have spontaneously combusted. His face was puce and his eyes strained at their sockets like a couple of wild dogs on a leash. But none of this was new to the Twist family. They’d seen it all before.
*
Guadeloupe Twist’s wild days began back in Louisiana in the 1930s. ‘Loupy’ as he was known to his friends, soon earned a name amongst the workers on the fishing boats of Delacroix as a wild card. When Loupy went out on the town, the town went into hiding. Many were the times that the National Guard had come looking for him on some new murder rap; but somehow they could never make them stick. Everyone knew that Loupy was guilty of course. When the moon was full, he would go down to the waterfront and crawl around on all fours, howling like a coyote. On one memorable occasion, he was cornered in a warehouse after smashing up a barroom. The State Troopers were all there, bristling with guns and megaphones. They warned him to come out (he was rumoured to have taken a shotgun and a barmaid as a more-or-less willing hostage). When the officer in charge ordered his men to break down the door, a bat fluttered past them.
The barmaid was found, unconscious but unmolested. Of Loupy Twist, there was not a sign.
Word of his exploits spread to New Orleans, where Loupy eventually showed up working as a short order cook and playing occasional ragtime piano in an Oyster Bar. By this time, people were saying he was a werewolf. Or a vampire. Or both. Could you be a werewolf and a vampire? Loupy would have laughed if he’d heard them.
Eventually he drifted into working on the railroad. And where the railroad went, the stories of werewolves and vampires went with it. Lafayette, Biloxi, Baton Rouge; all had their own tales to tell of Loupy and his crazy exploits.
He was even declared dead and buried one time down at Galveston. Loupy had been arrested after a wild and drunken night involving stolen automobiles, wild women, illicit liquor and shotguns in no particular order. Somehow he found himself in a jail cell, with a metal ball strapped round his ankle. Loupy used the ball first to smash the lock off, then to put the lights out on a couple of State Troopers. The ensuing chase saw him pursued down to the waterfront where he leaped aboard a yacht, still carrying his ball and chain, and shinned up the mainmast, only to come crashing down when a pistol shot found its target. The metal ball took him right through the deck and the hull below. He never surfaced, and was found washed up on a beach five miles away. The coroner’s verdict was death by drowning.
Yet it was only a month later that a ‘madman’ answering Loupy’s description was reported terrorising motorists by pretending to be a wild dog on the highway just outside of Tallahassee. When the patrol brought him in, the Sergeant at the police house couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘Loupy’ had somehow returned from the dead. Everyone decided that the drowned man from Galveston must have been someone else. But Loupy’s mythology now included resurrection. He really did seem to be indestructible.
Had anyone in the Mobile Hospital known of Loupy’s history, they might have done some quick mental arithmetic and arrived at the startling conclusion that he must be at least a hundred years old. Yet he didn’t look a day over 99, as Loupy himself often joked. In actual fact, his appearance suggested a man of 60 or 70 rather than a centenarian.
Somehow, he had settled down and raised a family. But Loupy never quite gave up his wild ways. Long after his son, Ellery, had moved to New York and started a family of his own, Loupy was still being picked up by the patrolmen of three states on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to ‘suspected werewolfery.’
So his latest adventure, while unique even by Loupy’s standards, had come as no surprise to the rest of his family. Old Grandpa was indestructible, everyone knew that. He would probably outlive them all. Yet there was something about the strange look he gave Ellery when the family were getting ready to go that told him that perhaps the end really was finally at hand. As the others buttoned their coats and filed out of the private room in which the eldery Loupy had been installed, a white and bony hand clutched at the tail of Ellery’s jacket. “Just stay on a while, son,” wheezed the old man. “I got somethin’ to say that aint for the hearin’ of nobody else but you.”
Ellery gave a nod to the doctor and nurse that sent them scuttling from the room, then kneeled down beside the bed. Old Loupy’s eyes seemed to flare briefly with the madness of old. “Son,” he said in a cracked voice, “I know I done no good in this world, and I know I’ve sure left you with a legacy and no mistakin’. And for that I’m truly sorry. I know you think I’m a-gonna git better like’n all the times afore that I’ve done wrong. But this time I knows it. Us folks don’t go on forever, doesn’ matter what you hear in them fairy stories and in the movies. But I’ll always be aroun’ one way or the other, jus’ like Gran’ma is still around even though y’all reckon she’s a-sleepin’ peacefully out there in the rocks. I’ll be gone by daybreak, I know that for sure. And just you make sure you lay me deep, and use them rocks to weigh me down. Y’know I was always a one for sleepwalkin’. Now then, there’s just one more thing ‘n then I’m done. If you feel in the drawer of that there cabinet, you’ll find a latchkey. It belongs to a little property of mine a ways up the Alabama River up in the woods. Just you take good care of it. It’s a nice little place.”
Ellery opened the drawer. It was empty apart from a single, rusty key. Attached to it, on a piece of string, was an old, yellowing label with an address on it: ‘Guadeloupe Hall, Mobile, Alabama.’
“Just you keep that safe and when I’m gone she’s yours,” hissed the old man. Ellery slipped the key into his pocket, then took old Loupy’s hand for what might well be the last time. Grandpa tugged his hand free and gave a snort of contempt. “I don’t want none of that sentiment! And no weepin’ nor widows weeds when y’all lay me to rest. I want buryin’ out there in the rocks where I left your Gran’ma. Y’understan’?” Ellery nodded, then the old man smiled and closed his eyes.
Out in the corridor, Ellery took the family to one side. “This time he thinks he’s really a gonner,” he whispered. “He might be right. Look. He even gave me this.” He showed them the key.
“Guadeloupe Hall?” Valerian looked baffled. “Where’s that? I thought Grandpa lived in that trailer park.”
“It’s probably just some old cabin,” replied Ellery.
“Is he really gonna die?” asked Woody.
Ellery shrugged. “That’s what he reckons. And you know, this time, maybe he can see it coming. That would go some way towards explaining his behaviour yesterday.”
“You don’t know Gran’pa,” said Mona. “He’ll pull through. He always did.”
But the following morning, the hospital called the motel where Ellery was staying with the family to let them know that old Mr. Twist had passed away peacefully in his sleep.
Chapter TwoGrandpa Twist’s funeral was brisk and without fuss, exactly as the old man would have wanted it. In spite of his insistence, he was not laid to rest out in the rocks where, according to legend, he had buried his wife twenty years previously. For one thing, neither Ellery nor any other member of the Twist family knew in which rocks Grandma was to be found, or even if the old man’s story was true.
They all turned up to see him off at a bright, anonymous memorial home that Ellery found in the yellow pages. For various reasons laid out in the old man’s will, it was not permitted to have Grandpa’s remains cremated, nor could he be laid to rest in consecrated ground. But the funeral parlour promised that they could take account of his wishes and Ellery was happy to leave all the arrangements in their hands. Somehow, he still couldn’t quite convince himself that old Loupy was gone for good.
Ellery’s white 1959 Cadillac Eldorado looked a little out of place amongst the black limousines of the funeral cortege, but he felt that Grandpa would have approved. The Twist family, none of them dressed in mourning, in accordance with Grandpa’s wishes, sat in the huge, boat-like car with the hood down, waving at passers-by as the procession of vehicles wound its way through Mobile and out onto the freeway.
Ellery was surprised how many people turned up to see Grandpa off on his last adventure; then again, he had been something of a legend along the Gulf Coast, and many of the mourners probably knew nothing more about him than what they’d read in the newspapers. Then, of course, there were the other members of the Twist clan, who appeared to have descended on the town en masse. At the sherry party after the interrment, you could hardly move for old and withered editions of Ellery, some male, some female, some neither one thing or the other. One or two looked hairy enough to have laid the ghost of old Loupy’s werewolf stories.
The Twist family tree was old, diseased and had seen many of its branches lopped off down the generations. Its roots were deep and complicated and spread all the way back to medieval Europe. Some of the family members looked as if they themselves could be traced back a similar distance. Mona tugged at Woody’s sleeve and pointed out a particularly aged specimen: “Look at him over there! Doesn’t he look exactly like Bela Lugosi?”
“That’s Aunt Agatha,” replied Woody, stony faced.
Ellery, meanwhile, had been cornered by a stout, red-faced Senator, who was showing him a prized revolver that he claimed to have won at a county fair back in ’56, and inviting anyone within earshot to his son’s forthcoming wedding celebrations. “Gonna be the biggest goddamn party this side of the County Line,” he promised, as if that meant anything.
Valerian was surrounded by a posse of aged aunts. “Well, the good people of Alabama can rest easy in their beds now he’s gone!” said one of them. A second aunt, thin, black and bird-like, raised a glass of cheap sherry. “A-men to that!”
“But underneath it all he was essentially a good man – wasn’t he?” Valerian searched the withered faces for an answer. The aunts looked at each other like the members of a hanging jury who are all agreed on a guilty verdict.
“He was an asshole!” declared the first aunt.
“Sure enough,” said another, who looked old enough to be sepia-tinted. “All that drinkin’ blood and rapin’ and stealin’ and the Good Lord knows what else.”
“Oh, but those were only stories,” said Valerian. “Weren’t they?”
“I know folks who’d cross the street to avoid him,” said the first aunt. “And others who, if they was drivin’ down the street, would swerve so as to hit him! Don’t you tell me they was only stories!”
And, one by one, the aunts each unburdened themselves with tales so vile and bloody and utterly outrageous that they could never be repeated in print.
Helvetica moved among the crowd in her own mysterious way. She rarely spoke, preferring instead to absorb the atmosphere around her. Her colourful bohemian clothes instantly set her apart from the legions of black clad relations. Helvetica was all beads and lace and chiffon. Her hair tumbled down her back in wine dark waves. Her feet were bare. Helvetica didn’t ‘do shoes’ as she explained to anyone who asked. She’d left her last pair somewhere a long while ago and never thought to look for another. Sipping occasionally from a tall glass of red wine, she breezed between groups of gossiping relatives, tuning in occasionally to some titbit of conversation, but mostly just letting it all flow past her. Then someone tapped her on the arm. “Oh, er, hi there, allow me to introduce myself. Ralph Warden, Alabama Chronicle. Someone told me you’re one of Loupy’s relatives. Now, I wonder can I guess which one?”
“I’m Helvetica,” she said, simply.
“Nice to meet ya,” said Ralph Warden, extending a hand. Helvetica ignored it. “So then, howd’ja get a name like that? Preacher drop you in the font when you was being baptised or something? Y’geddit? Font? Helvetica? Sorry, I’m a newspaper man, I pick up on things like that.”
“Actually, I was born in Switzerland,” said Helvetica, smoothly, turning to move away.
Ralph Warden followed her. “Really? Switzerland, now there’s a place I’ve never been. Famous for cuckoo clocks, cheese and chocolate, right? And bank accounts. I guess you’ll be wantin’ one of them pretty soon now, once they read the will, huh?”
Helvetica stopped and looked at him. Ralph Warden was thin of body and had hair to match. It stopped smack on top of his head, as though afraid to venture any further forward. “Excuse me, what do you mean precisely?” asked Helvetica in her cool, clipped voice.
“Well, I mean, what with the old guy havin’ stashed away so much dough all these years… that’s what I’ve heard anyway, and my sources are usually pretty reliable.” Warden leaned close and lowered his voice. “They say he was good for half a million.”
“Really?” Helvetica, who was uninterested in money or the things it could buy (especially shoes) showed a disappointing lack of enthusiasm. Ralph Warden frowned. “Forgive me if I’m talkin’ out of turn, but y’all don’t look too impressed. Nonplussed, is what I’d call it. You did hear me right, didn’t you? Half a million bucks, and that’s not even takin’ into account what he must have had in real estate.” He took a pace back and cocked his head to one side. “I have got this right? You are a relative, aren’t you? Only you’ve got that Twist nose for sure. No mistakin’ it.”
“I’m his grand daughter,” said Helvetica. “One of them.”
“Okay then.” Ralph Warden took a shot of whisky from the tumbler in his hand. “So let me chance my arm here. Are you, by any chance, of the, er, same…what’s the word now…persuasion as your late grand pere?”
“What do you mean exactly?”
Warden huffed and went rather red in the face. “Well now, it’s not as if it’s known for certain of course, but everyone in these parts reckons that those stories were more than just rumours. No smoke without fire, if you get where I’m coming from.”
“I don’t think I do,” replied Helvetica. “Are you implying that there was something - unusual about my late grandfather?”
“Well, you must know the tales, being one of the family. I guess maybe you guys don’t like to talk about it? Keep it dark, huh? I can’t say I blame you. Still, if you ever feel like, you know, confessin’, then I’m willing to pay good money for an exclusive. Not that you’ll need that kinda carrot danglin’ in front of y’all with half a million bucks comin’ your way. Still, you think it over and if you decide you wanna go for it, call me.” He fished in the top pocket of his jacket and produced a stubby business card.
Helvetica took it, thanked him, and excused herself. When she was a safe distance away, she stuck the card in a plant pot.
Ellery had shaken off the gun-toting Senator and, so it seemed, everyone else. He had arrived at that moment in any party when there seems suddenly to be nobody to talk to, yet everyone else is still deep in conversation. Talk and laughter surrounded him on every side. Even his glass was empty, and the stewards had all conveniently disappeared. Finding himself at an open French Window, he slipped outside, thinking he might steal a quick cigarette while Valerian wasn’t looking. He had promised faithfully to kick the habit. That and a few others. Patting his pockets in turn, he found nothing there but an empty disposable lighter and a set of spare jacket buttons. A soft breeze wafted gently alongside, and turning, he found Helvetica at his elbow. “Helvie! So it’s all gotten too much for you too, huh?”
Helvetica shook her head. “No, I just felt like a turn on the lawns. Delicious aren’t they?” She wriggled her toes in the soft grass. “Oh, I keep forgetting. You’re not in touch, are you? You should try it.”
“Maybe when it’s summer, huh?” They walked together for a while.
“I was accosted by an extraordinary man,” said Helvetica. “Claimed to be a newspaper reporter. You’ll never believe what he told me. Seems our late relative was rather comfortably off.”
“He’s nuts,” said Ellery. “The guy was broke. Why d’you think he lived in that godawful trailer park for so many years.”
“So this story about half a million dollars isn’t to be believed?”
Ellery grinned. “Sure isn’t. Half a million…what?” He stopped and pulled his daughter up short with a tug on the arm. “Say that again!”
“Half a million dollars. That’s what Grandpa was worth. According to this newspaper man.”
Ellery looked round, wild-eyed. “What newspaper man? What did he say? Where’d he get this from?”
“He didn’t tell me.” Helvetica repeated what she’d heard from Ralph Warden, watching the colour drain slowly out of Ellery’s face.
“Half a million? For real?”
“Well, you know the sort of people who write for newspapers. I dare say he’s got the whole thing out of all proportion.”
“Yeah, but half a million…where does a story like that get started?”
“Where do any of these tales get started?” Valerian sipped at her red wine. “He was trying to ask me if I was, how did he put it? Of the same persuasion as Grandpa!” She chuckled.
Ellery, already the colour of freshly laundered sheets, turned whiter still. “What did you tell him?”
“I pretended I didn’t know what he was talking about.”
“Good girl. Rumours are all very well, but once a guy like that gets it from the horse’s mouth…sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound the way it did.”
Helvetica dug him in the ribs with her elbow. “This horse won’t be giving out any family secrets.”
“I just hope he doesn’t pick on Woody,” said Ellery. “Or Mona.”
“They don’t know yet, do they?”
“Why sure they don’t. Facts of life, and all that jazz. A kid is entitled to their age of innocence. They’ll find out all about it when the time comes, just like your mom and I told you. Now c’mon, let’s rejoin the party.”
The first person they saw when they stepped inside was Woody. “Dad,” he asked, plainly. “Can you answer me something?”
“Sure, son, ask away.”
“I just bin talkin’ to a guy from the newspapers. He says Grandpa was a werewolf. Then some other guy came along and said he was nuts.”
“Sure he was nuts,” said Ellery. “Your Grandpa wasn’t a werewolf.”
“That’s what the other guy said. He said Grandpa was a vampire!”
Chapter Three
“Kids, for the last time! Grandpa was as normal as I am! Now can we just quit with this werewolf and vampire thing, please?”
Ellery was back at the wheel of the Cadillac, speeding along the Interstate. All the way from Mobile, there had been just one topic of conversation. Was Grandpa, or was he not, a werewolf or a vampire? Or was he both?
“You can’t be both,” Mona had insisted. “You’re either one thing or the other. It’s like being straight or gay.”
“That’s crap!” said Woody. “This guy told me…”
“Woody, darling, watch your language, please!” Valerian leaned over the front seat.
“Well, she’s talking crap. Sorry, poop, whatever.” Woody glared at Mona.
“Dad, is it true?” cried Mona.
“For the last time, kids, please. Can it!” Ellery scowled in the rear view mirror. (Specially adapted rear view mirror, he remembered. Hard to find for a ’59 Cadillac.)
“If Grandpa was a vampire, then are you one too, Dad?” asked Woody.
Ellery adjusted the mirror so Woody could see his reflection. “Say, Woody, take a look in the mirror. What d’you see?”
“Nothin’.”
“What?”
“Well, you know. Just us and the cars going past.”
“And me, right? You see me in the mirror?”
“’Course I do.”
“There you are then. I can’t be a vampire, can I? Vampires don’t show up in mirrors. It’s a well-known fact. And I’ll tell you another. You know that chicken thing your mom does, with the garlic?”
“Yeah, I hate it!”
“Me too!” chimed in Mona.
“Uh, well, it’s an acquired taste. Kids don’t normally like garlic. But I love it. And garlic is the one thing that vampires can’t stand.”
Mona went white. “Does that mean…that Woody and I are vampires? Because we don’t like garlic?”
“Heck no! If that were the case, then every kid in the land would be a vampire.”
Woody bared his teeth and pretended to bite Mona in the neck. “Say, watch out, I’m a vampire!”
Mona pushed him off. “You’re scary enough as it is.”
Woody was prodding his teeth now. “Hey, Dad, I think I’m growing fangs! Would that be cool, or what?”
“What? No! Look, Woody, can we just forget this whole vampire thing? What say we listen to some music? That’ll take our minds off monsters and werewolves and stuff.” Ellery flicked on the car radio. Perfectly on cue, the strains of ‘Monster Mash’ burst from the speakers.
Woody cracked up. “Cool! How d’you do that, Dad? You had a CD installed in here?”
Ellery slapped his forehead. “You kids’ll kill me.”
“If we’re vampires, we probably will,” said Woody. Mona thumped him.
