The Florida Vampire Hunters

In the sultry darkness of an Orlando dawn, primal forces as old as…the other primal forces stretched and welled, and an instinct as old as…the primal forces we’ve been talking about woke Durward McDiarmid from his nocturnal slumber. He stretched, rolled, landed more or less on his feet with the agility of an empty can rolling down a flight of steps. He stumbled to the bathroom, dodging the festooned pantyhose and wind chimes that blocked the door.

There was no time to fumble for a light switch, so he tentatively reached out to the wall to find his way to the toilet. Then he fumbled his way back and closed the door, since Eliza didn’t like the sound of voiding. A trickle became a steady flow that tapered off to a trickle again. Durward patted his abdomen.

“Beat you again, prostate,” he muttered.

The time on the alarm clock read 6:07. It was accurate. Sunrise was at 6:20. Sunset was at 8:04. Durward checked his phone. His thumbprint, facial expression and passcode all worked. Auspicious. The phone had not worked like that since the upgrade to OSNazi14.0. The time was 6:09. He went into the bedroom and leant over his love, kissed her gently on the shoulder and said:

“Time to get up, my love.”

“Mrnngle,” came the pillow-muffled reply.

“Hoppity up!” he said cheerily.

“I said ‘Mrnngle’!”

“We’re off to hunt the dark, evil, undead, fattening forces that menace our lives and shit!”

“Errr…ten minutes?”

“Do you want some coffee?”

“Ten minutes!”

“I’ll put the kettle on.”

Durward negotiated the cluttered staircase like a mountain goat. That is, he occasionally bleated when he stepped on some unknown toy or deposit the dogs had left there overnight. The dogs, hearing his caprine wails, started up a choir of howls, barks and dry-food farts that sounded to Durward’s accustomed ear like a small dentist’s drill powered by mosquitoes. He grimaced, and unconsciously checked the clocks dotted around the loungeroom. They were more or less accurate, with the hands and numbers in agreement for the most part.

The loungeroom was separated from the rest of the house by a maze of baby and toddler gates, each with combination locks, that a dog couldn’t jump but which Durward could step over if his balance was up to it. Fortunately, this morning it was, and he stepped over them like a dancer.

The floor was littered, more or less carpeted, with ‘peepads’, the disposable paper nappies supposed by some to capture dog excretions. Actually, the dogs peed and pooped around them, so the safest way to negotiate the route to the kitchen was to shuffle your stocking feet while the incontinent canines danced around you mockingly. In due course, Durward arrived at the kitchen, but not without a few scares. A chewed-up chew toy can resemble a doggie dump to even the most sensitive toes, and Durward had to manfully suppress the urge to yelp every time his feet touched something.

He surveyed the coffee pod options: Pumpkin Spice, Yule Log, Toujours Lautrec, Frosty, Michael Bublé, Banana Split, Organic, Orgasmic were some, but, buried under the cardboard cartons, was some Colombian. He put the Colombian on first, wondering what insane combination of petrochemical executive and breakfast influencer had come up with Dolphin Splash as a coffee flavour. He fired up the pod machine, then his laptop. He spent the next ten minutes drinking coffee and filtering the spam out of his emails.

True to form, Eliza came down the stairs in about twenty minutes. Durward looked up as he heard her descend. He thought, not for the first time or the thousandth, that even though he found fault with everything else in Florida, he couldn’t’ find fault with Eliza. She still had the curves of a Playboy model, the wit of a Renaissance countess and the sort of Southern accent that sounded like honey and butter tastes.

“Morning, my honey,” she said.

“Morning, my crumpet,” he said. “Coffee?”

“That would be lovely.” She kissed him on the forehead. The feeling of her lips seemed to last twenty minutes.

“What’s the coffee?” she asked.

“Colombian.”

“Yuck.”

“Do we have to go through this every morning?”

“All signs point to it,” he grunted, and went off to make Eliza some coffee.

The modal average time across all the clocks was 10:34 by the time they got around to the next stage in their battle against the central Florida nosferatu . They stepped out confidently in the bright sub-tropical sun, clothes all neat and clean, sunglasses stylish but understated, phones charged and ready and, accompanied by a steely reserve reminiscent of the worst beer in the Americas.

“Where to?” asked Durward, moving to the left of the car and then realising that he wasn’t the one driving.

“Walmart,” Eliza replied. “Got to get the stakes.”

“That would be Lowes for stakes.”

“Lowes, then. Whatever.”

Just then, Eliza’s phone rang. She answered, putting the phone through the car’s speakers.

“Dude!” said her sister Abby.

“Dude!” she replied.

“What up, man?” asked Abby.

“We’re just on our way to Walmart – “

“Lowes,” Durward interjected.

“Lowes, whatever – to get some stakes.”

“Out hunting vampires again?” asked Abby.

“Yep!”

“Cool! Wanna swing by Steak ‘n’ Shake later for some steak and a shake?”

“Sounds like a plan, man,” said Eliza.

“Does Durward want to come?”

“I’d be delighted,” said Durward.

Abby laughed.

“He sounds so English,” she said.

“He is.”

“I’m not.”

“Cool! See you there. Don’t let the vampires bite!”

As they ran the gauntlet of an American intersection, Durward opined:

“I sometimes think she calls just to hear herself.”

“Your point being?”

“Yeah, it’s a family thing.”

“Hmph!”

“Huh?”

“I said, ‘Hmph!’”

Walmart had the reputation of being a busy department store where you could buy everything from suet for your pet birds to TVs for your pet dogs. It had based its retail strategy on people not really knowing what they wanted to buy, so it stocked everything. This was certainly why, after deciding to go tyo Lowes, they ended up in the carpark next to Walmart at 11:00AM. There was a few minutes trawling around the car park to find a parking spot close enough to the actual store and which didn’t have dirty nappies and homeless people in it.

“Straight to the hardware section,” said Eliza, “and no getting distracted by the TV’s.”

“Straight to the hardware section,” Durward replied, “and no getting distracted by the…can I get distracted by the bar fridges?”

“No!”

“Well, you come with me, then.”

“I’m not going into the dirty hardware department! Get the stakes while I pick up a few essentials for myself.”

The hardware department was staffed by the usual trio of American sales people: the large Midwest type who knew the stock back to front and was full of suggestions, the tall black man who was there to make other black people feel they were part of things, and the little guy who could habla Espanol .

“Good morning,” said the Midwest guy.

“Hello,” said Durward, “and good morning. I’ve come in for some stakes.”

“Stakes? Garden stakes, nursery stakes, planting stakes, mapping stakes, or maybe a nice cube roll for barbecue?”

“Nice gag,” said Durward. “No, I need rounded ash stakes, thirty inches long, sharpened to a point.”

“Killin’ vampires, eh?”

“Er, no. No. Just, er, the cockroaches here are huge, right?”

“Right. Follow me.”

They walked over to a display stand.

“We’ve got ash, oak, Florida cedar, some maple ones down from Canada, even some eucalyptus from California, which should make you feel at home.”

“Why?”

“You sound Australian.”

“I’ve lived there, I wasn’t born there. Well, I came in for ash, but since you have this amazing range, I – well, Walmart really does have everything, doesn’t it?”

“We try.”

“What would you recommend?”

“Well, ash is traditional. We can’t get the real traditional hawthorn wood, because it makes good hedges but not good stakes. A lot of people are trying the eucalyptus out, too. Rosewood is another option, because you get the wild rose effect, but we don’t stock it. We can order it in, but I guess you want them by tonight.”

“If possible, yes.”

“Now, that’s the traditional way. Hammer – you’ll probably want a Norton 24 for that, a good two-pounder with impact strength so you don’t build up a sweat hammering away. But American know-how and British craftmanship have combined. Let me show you this.”

“What the hell is that?” asked Eliza, meeting Durward near the checkouts with a cart full of puppy treats, sweetened yoghurt, and cans of peanuts.

“This,” said Durward proudly, “is the Harker-Holmwood Staker 2000. American know-how, British craftmanship. ‘Space age’ was in there somewhere, but I forget why. It uses compressed air to push the stakes in, so no need for hammering, which is a safety measure. It can deliver seventy-five stakings an hour with a thirty-inch stake at sixty-two foot-pounds, so it’s only limited by how fast you can feed in the stakes. And it has Bluetooth.”

“That’ll come in handy.”

“We have to get the app.”

They kissed. The surrounding shoppers stopped and ‘oohed’ like a talk show audience. Eliza was mortified. Durward turned to the crowd:

“Thanks for coming, folks. Another show at four o’clock!”

“It’s hopeless!” Durward wailed twenty minutes later. Somehow they had zigged instead of zagging and were lost as thoroughly as someone watching a British mystery series. “He’s planned everything ahead of time! He’s foreseen our every move! We’re toys before his mighty intellect! The forces of darkness are ranged against us and there is nothing, nothing, we can do to stop them!”

“It’s a Del Taco,” said Eliza.

“Yeah, but these menus! So many choices. Do I want spicy fries or normal ones? How do I know? Is it an ethical choice?”

“Drive through is never an ethical choice.”

“Yeah, but time, time. We don’t have time to dine in.”

“Whose fault is that, gimmick boy?” Eliza pointed over her shoulder to the HH 2000 charging up off a cable stuck in the car’s USB port.

“You’ll be gimmicking out the other side of your face once we get that little baby thumping. Hammers and hope? Thing of the past!”

“How much did it cost?”

“That’s not important right now.”

“When will it be important?”

“Never, as long as we have separate bank accounts. Now, love of my life, time and sunset wait for no man, so let’s get moving.”

Ten minutes later, with normal fries and cheeseburgers consumed, they were hurtling across town to the den of evil down near Disney World, the other den of evil. ‘Hurtling’ was only temporarily true, of course. Turning left down a street, driving four miles only to find the street blocked off and having to do a U-turn to drive four miles back to where you attempted a short cut in the first place is part of Florida life, Durward thought, but when you’re racing the sun to defeat a remorseless undead thing, it’s like…

“It’s like he’s working against us! He has agents in the counties and in the cities and at the airports and even in the drive through at Del Taco! We’re never gonna make it, we’re never gonna make it!”

“Who’s drivin’ this car?” Eliza asked.

“You are,” Durward replied, crestfallen.

“Then shut up. God, look at my nails!”

“What about them. They look – I mean, there’s ten of them, right? That seems politically correct.”

“They look terrible! We have to stop.”

“What?”

“I am not staking anything with nails like this.”

Eliza swept the car across three lanes of traffic, swung down a side street and rallied her way across the speed humps, causing the car to lurch dangerously and imperilling the HH2000 where it sat on the back seat. A left turn out onto another busy road and across three more lanes of horn-blaring traffic got them on the road to the nail place.

“Nice indicating,” said Durward, as his stomach caught up with the rest of him.

“Indicators are for geeks.”

“Yeah, it’s nobody’s business which way you’re turning, right?”

“Right?” she replied. “Right.”

Durward was a thoroughly modern man. This meant he could stand a mani-pedi if none of his friends saw him, talk about TV shows while staying stone cold sober, if none of his friends saw him, and mentally twiddle his thumbs for forty-five minutes while three women talked about subjects that would make a hairdresser blush. If any of his mates saw him here, he could probably shrug it off as the price of love, but there was a sports bar two doors down where he wasn’t allowed to go because that would show how insensitive he was. So, he watched the sky get more yellow and the shadows move across the salon floor and wondered about doom. The odds were stacked against them now.

Why hadn’t they just got out of bed at dawn, driven over in light traffic via the convoluted traffic algorithm Google maps used, arrived at the vampires’ lair and got to staking the traditional way? But he knew that half the problem was his, and as he looked over at Eliza laughing over some reference to someone’s schlep of a boyfriend, he knew that true love could allow some procrastination, and good grooming could win out over evil. He looked down at his own nails, clean and pink against his tanned hands. Maybe they could use a bit of a shine, but there was no time…

“You coming, or what?” asked Eliza. Durward rallied as if he’d come out of a coma.

“Huh, what?”

“We’ve got a job to do.”

“Well, yes, but are you sure you don’t need your hair coloured before we go?”

“Never drop the ‘C’ bomb,” she glared. “Besides which, that’s across town.”

“When has that stopped you?”

“Alright, alright. But there’s nothing stopping us now, I promise.”

“You promised,” said Durward, looking at the crepuscular sky, with the sun sinking behind the unused office space in downtown Orlando. Storm clouds were gathering on the northern horizon, and some cars already had their headlights on, more to impress other drivers with how actinic their light was than to actually aid in seeing the road ahead.

“I did not!”

“’But there’s nothing stopping us now, I promise’. Those were your exact words.’

“That doesn’t constitute a binding contract, and you know it.”

“It’s binding if I makeit binding.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, wouldn’t I?”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Durward said sheepishly. He never won these arguments. He never tried to win, because he’d realised a while ago that the consequences of victory were worse than those of defeat. He slumped back in the seat, showing surrender as clearly as he could.

Eliza leant over and kissed him, anyway, somehow keeping an eye on the road and trusting to luck and the courtesy of other drivers. The odds of her dying on any given day were three million to one, but her life insurance premiums still kept going up.

The day was just a glow in the western sky that washed out the fainter stars when they arrived at the vampires’ lair. Google Maps had taken them via a convoluted route set up, they knew not by whom, to confuse their enemies. It had certainly confused them – Durward was convinced that he’d seen at least one of the Pyramids on their way there.

Nonetheless, they were now there. The house itself wasn’t a crumbling Gothic pile, with towers, cupolas and junk mail gathered on the front doorstep. In fact, it was a McMansion built in 1993. At least, there was the number ‘1993’ displayed atop the front door, while the actual address was in brass numbers on the cement block fence to the left of the kitsch front gates.

“No class,” said Eliza.

“don’t know. This place doesn’t stand out much amongst these houses. Are you sure you have the right address?”

“The US Postal Service never lies. This place has had no parcel or mail deliveries in the last year. Who but the undead could boast that?”

Durward, who could say that and not think it a boast, forbore to reply.

“Have you got your…machine?” Eliza asked.

“Yes,” Durward replied with exaggerated tolerance. “I bought a hammer, too, just in case.”

“Alright, off we go.”

Incarnation of evil and Freudian sexual motif the nosferatu may be, but they are also much influenced by the culture around them. Thus, it was that the fearless vampire hunters found a key to the house under the back door mat. The mat itself said ‘Bienvenu! Comment inn!’ which had to have been a custom job.

The back door had a fairly predictable trap. As Durward pushed it open with his foot, there was a deep twang and a crossbow bolt flew out, hitting the back fence with a solid thunk.

“Owie,” said Eliza.

“Owie, indeed. Now, what else has he got instore for us?”

“In store for us,” Eliza corrected him.

“That’s what I said.”

“No, you said ‘instore’.”

“Well, why the fuck would I say that? What does it even mean?”

“Well, you said it! I can’t explain your Aussie meanings.”

“Yeah, well,” Durward conceded.

“Well, shall we get on?”

There was no kitchen floor. Instead, the joists covered the basement area in a grid of sturdy wood, and the floor of the basement glittered with upturned knife blades. That one was straight out of Stephen King, and the fearless vampire hunters suddenly knew that they weren’t dealing with a demonic mastermind, but with one recently undead who had done their homework and seemingly had a lot of money behind them.

Something tickled at the edges of their memories. They were both educated, literate people and, thanks to a morbid curiosity on Eliza’s part, and a sexual curiosity on Durward’s, they had a rich knowledge of vampires and vampire lore. They kept using nosferatu as a euphemism because there weren’t many others that didn’t somehow involve the word ‘suck’, but apart from that there was very little even Bram Stoker could’ve taught them about the ways and mores, whys and were-forays (whatever that means) of those who hunt at night.

That’s why they had been prepared for the lack of flooring and the cellar’s pointy embrace. But they weren’t prepared for the table balanced precisely on the joists, with a thick envelope, and a sheet of what appeared to be actual vellum next to it.

Eliza walked over to the table while Durward, trying to keep all his eyesight in the back of his head, looked around like a querulous sparrow overlooking a very dangerous breadcrumb.

“Is it a note?” he asked.

“No, it’s a note.”

“I – why do you do this to me?”

“Because I love you.”

“So you say. Read the note.”

“I shall read it to you,” she started. “God damn it, who writes cursive these days? And I have to read it in this light. It says:

“Dear Miss Mackinac and Mr Raft,

It seems superfluous to say, and time-consuming to write, a letter explaining my movements and motives, but courtesy, no? I was well aware of your attempts to find me and, shall we say, administer the coup de grace ? I daresay the coup de grace is not your forte? Please consider the proximate envelope as my gift – a reward for effort and, I hope, compensation for the sadness of defeat? I have made certain enquiries into Miss Mackinac’s affairs, and I think this should suffice. If not, I have other demesnes, with equivalent gifts. It amuses me to imagine how you will find them. Perhaps a clue? Perhaps the happiest place on Earth is not so happy, after all? Ah, rhetoric – if I have judged your schedules correctly, and I rarely fail, some of my associates are even now approaching you.

Warm and red regards,

D”

“How did he manage to convey italics in cursive script?” asked Durward.

“ That’s what you took away from it?”

“I got those italics. So, now what?”

Eliza put the paper down and looked at it critically.

“It has words, but says nothing,” she said eventually.

“How neo-postmodern of you,” said Durward. “I mean, it.”

“You’re damn right you mean ‘it’.”

“So, what about the envelope?”

“Oh, yeah!”

Inside the envelope was a wad of currency, mostly US, large denominations.

“He’s trying to buy us off,” said Eliza, ready to throw the cash away.

“He’s succeeded with me,” said Durward. “There’s got to be thirty grand there!”

“That won’t buy us off!”

“No? No, I suppose it won’t. Maybe it wasn’t meant to. Who the hell are Mackinac and Raft?”

“Never mind,” said Eliza.

“The Florida Vampire Hunters live to hunt another day.”

“Night. We hunt the night.”

“Night, yeah,” said Durward. “I meant ‘night’.”

THE END

Bio: D. J. Rout was born in Rhodesia, not Zimbabwe, in 1962. He moved to Australia with his parents shortly after Australia went decimal and just before the Unilateral Declaration of Independence. He now lives in the rainy, heritage-rich city of Ballarat where he spends too little of his well-earnt retirement writing and doing the housework and probably too much of it drinking, but he feels that a heart attack is just around the corner and he doesn't want to meet that standing up sober. He dabbles occasionally in NaNoWriMo and you can see some of that at Captlychee.com. His other website, a href="www.users.on.net/~hippy/default.htm">www.users.on.net/~hippy/default.htm has so much that is now deprecated in HTML that the World Wide Web Consortium regards it as a crime against humanity.

E-mail: D J Rout

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