Free Vampires: The Recent Undead by Paula Guran Page A

anathema to you when you’re dead. Not people, but things and ideas. So I guess if you did worship the sun, then it could fry you as a vamp. Same if you loved eating Italian, with all that garlic in the sauces. Or maybe you were way serious about church.
    Here’s a funny fact: pretty much any vampire turned in the past few decades can be warded off with chocolate. And if not chocolate, then some kind of junk food, not to mention cigarettes, coffee or beer. Junkies are probably the biggest problem for normal people since you can only ward them off with needles and drugs. There’s not much by way of sacred icons anymore.
    - 8 -
    Apples kept following her captor’s directions. Eventually they exited the Queensway and drove down increasingly small back roads in the rural area west of the city. When they finally reached a bumpy track that was only two ruts on the ground with branches raking the sides of the car, he had her stop.
    “Get out,” he said.
    She did, stretching her back muscles and looking around her with interest. She didn’t get out of the city much, but ever since she’d been turned, she’d had this real yearning to just run in the woods.
    Gage slid across the bench seat and joined her on her side of the car, the gun leveled at her once more.
    “So you killed Randall because he told you some B.S. story about boffing some twelve-year-old.”
    “Not to mention killing her.”
    “So how was that your business?”
    “Well, call me crazy, but I take offence to misogynist morons hurting kids.”
    “So you’re just some do-gooder.”
    “Not to mention his intention to do the same to me.”
    Gage gave a slow nod. “But I still don’t get how you killed him. You’re just some—”
    “Slip of a girl. I know.”
    “With a big mouth.”
    He frowned at her. His nervousness was a stronger scent now, some animal part of his brain already registering what the rest of him hadn’t worked out yet.
    “I just don’t get it,” he said.
    “And that’s where you made your mistake,” she told him. “That’s the question you should have asked yourself before you ever came by my house with your little party invitation and threatening my little sister.”
    The gun rose, muzzle pointing at her head.
    “You’re way out of your league, kid.”
    “I don’t know.” She grinned, showing him a pair of fangs. “See, I’m faster than you.”
    Her hand moved in a blur of motion, plucking the gun from his hand and flinging it a half dozen feet away.
    “I’m stronger than you.”
    She grabbed his hand and twisted it, bending it up around his back, exerting pressure so that he couldn’t move.
    “And I’m hungry.”
    She bit his neck and the hollowed fangs sank deep. He began to jerk as she drew the blood up from his veins, but it was no use.
    It never was.
    Afterwards, she sat down by his body and began to talk, conversing with the corpse as though it was asking her questions. She took her time in responding. After all, they had three days to wait.
    Normally she would have simply stashed the body and come back when it was time for it to rise, but considering the problems she’d already had with his brother, she didn’t feel like tempting fate a second time with one of these Gage boys. She called home on her cell phone and luckily got the answering machine, which let her leave a message without having to explain too much. Her parents would still be mad when she got home, but hey, she was nineteen now, no matter how young she might look.
    When she stashed the phone back in the pocket of her jacket, she went and found a good-sized branch that she could carve into a stake while she talked and waited.
    - 9 -
    Do I have any regrets? Sure. I can’t have babies, for one thing. Well, yeah, I can still have sex. I just can’t have a baby and that sucks. I always figured when I got old—you know, like in my twenties—I’d get married and have kids.
    I miss eating, too. I mean, I can eat and drink the same as you, but I