Free Undead and Unsure by MaryJanice Davidson

to notice and step further in.
    “I knew something was wrong yesterday. And now that I’ve talked to Jessica and Marc—and you, too, dear—” Dick-Not-Nick beamed, always happy to be included. A smoothie vote, faithful “forward this to everyone you love so they know how much you love them!” FB follower, the occasional bar brawl: this timeline’s version of Nick was a joiner. “—and I think, yes, I think you may be in real trouble. Something is very—yeek!”
    Mom’s sluggish senses had finally tipped her to Tina’s presence. Not for the first time I thought it was amazing and a little scary how quickly you got used to superkeen senses. I’d heard Tina while she was still upstairs. Heck, I practically heard her before she got up that night. At any point up to her arrival in the kitchen I could have told you exactly what part of the house she was in. I knew she was almost out of fabric softener and had switched shampoos. I knew she hadn’t cracked open one of her treasured flavored vodkas today, and that she’d spent some time in the attic, likely chatting with Marc (she’d gotten protective after he came back a zombie).
    Not bad, right? Then there’s this: I knew those things without thinking about them. Without trying to listen, without walking over to her and sniffing her, without keeping an eye out for her. I just knew them. Just like I could shut all that stuff out if I wanted. I tried to think of a nonvamp parallel and the best I could come up with was when you’re in an airport headed to your gate, there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of people around you all the time. They’re all having conversations and eating and working and using bathrooms and you know all that’s going on, the stream of life just flows all over and past you and maybe even through you, but you don’t have to pay attention to any of it. You just know it’s all happening. And if you’re looking for something specific, you can filter through the stream and come up with just what you want.
    That was the best I could do and as analogies went, it sucked. Still, I wondered—
    “Good God, Tina, you scared the hell out of me!” Followed immediately by, “Oh, I’m so sorry!”
    Tina, who’d flinched at “God,” managed a smile. “Quite all right, Dr. Taylor.”
    “Yes, the other Taylor girl breaks the third commandment several times daily,” Sinclair teased. He was dressed casually: a Joseph Abboud suit in gray wool he’d had for years, my husband’s version of blue jeans and a sweatshirt. He’d been sneaking toast to the puppies, who, now bulging with toast, had abruptly decided, as babies do, that they were going to nap
right now.
Clunk. Snore. “Yet we soldier on.”
    “I thought the third one was to not have other gods before the big guy,” Marc said, at once interested in a new puzzle. “Right?”
    “No, that’s the first one. A lot of people think it’s the most important, but I think it’s just the most important to the big guy.” Hearing
God
out loud was like ground glass in their ears, to vampires. Don’t get me started on what Christmas carols did. This whole month Tina likely wouldn’t go near a retail store of any kind. Thus our
big guy
euphemism. “Put me down for number six. I think the ‘thou shalt not murder’ is the most important.” I caught some of their stares. “What? Sunday school. I occasionally remember something useful. Sometimes more than once a day!”
    Sinclair was leaning toward my mom, his body language radiating “solicitous.” “Are you all right, Dr. Taylor? You seem distressed.”
    “Distressed! Yes!” Mom ran her fingers through her curls and made fists, then winced and let go of her hair. “I’ve been trying to tell all of you that something’s wrong with Jessica’s baby, and all you want to do is talk about Laura and—”
    “Speaking of Ms. Goodman,” Tina said, waving her phone at me, “she called.”
    No, she was waving
my
phone at me. Now where did I