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  “Also, I’m encouraging each crew member to name his personal Redeemer—maybe after an old girlfriend or something. But! The point is, the hunt is on! There’s a vampire in San Diego!”

  “Sunny San Diego,” said Mike.

  7

  THIS WEEK, ON VAMPIRE HUNTERS…

  ON THE EVE of the first day of the new school year Sejal sat on the floor of Cat’s bedroom, looking at CD liner notes.

  “I like them,” she told Cat. “They’re almost Bollywood but slower, no? How do you say their name again?”

  “Like ‘Suzy,’” said Cat into her cavernous, dark closet. “Siouxsie and the Banshees. They’re totally old school, right?” She parted and reparted the dark curtains of her wardrobe, tossing this and that onto the bed.

  “Thank you again for lending me clothes,” said Sejal, who at that moment was wearing a pair of Cat’s jeans and a cast-and-crew T-shirt from her high school production of My Fair Lady.

  “It’s perfect. I used to be more Elizabethan, but now I’m strictly Batcave, so I was probably going to sell these clothes anyway.” Cat had taken to the task of dressing Sejal with great enthusiasm, as though she’d been sent a huge doll with MADE IN INDIA stamped on the foot. “Are you okay? You seem a little fidgety.”

  “I am like that only. And I’m anxious about school. I—I feel I should tell you I’ve sometimes had panic attacks. Not for a long time now, but…I do not want to freak you out.”

  “’Cause of…the Google?”

  Sejal nodded at her feet. Panic attacks when reminded that she could not just close her eyes and vanish from the real world with its fleshy claustrophobia. Panic at the thought that she’d failed to log on and check her status for two hours, a day, four months. She pictured the complicated yoga of it—hands at her temples like blinders, bent at the waist to gaze at her own navel. Downward spiral pose.

  Panic, especially, with the memory of what had happened. Of what she’d done.

  “Huh,” said Cat. “You want some Prozac? Or a Xanax? I don’t need it, but my parents got me all kinds of that shit after I started dressing this way. I don’t think it’s expired or anything.”

  Sejal shrugged. Her parents had been very strongly against drugs, but she was an American girl in training. “Maybe a half a pill.”

  Cat produced an amber bottle from a drawer in her nightstand and tossed it onto Sejal’s lap. “It says Niravam but it’s totally Xanax,” she said, as though Xanax might be a name she would know and trust, like Coca-Cola.

  Sejal didn’t open it. She felt a little better just knowing it was there. “I like the cover of this Cinema Strange album,” she said. “Can we listen to it next?”

  “Yeah, but we’ll have to stop it when—Aw, crap!” said Cat, looking at the clock on her nightstand. “It’s already started!”

  “What has?” asked Sejal, drawing her legs up quickly as Cat thundered past.

  “Vampire Hunters. It’s this rad show on the Crypt. Last week they totally almost caught this one vampire, but it turned out he was just German.”

  She clicked the TV on her dresser through a dozen channels, finally stopping at a commercial for paper towels.

  “These are European vampires then, isn’t it?” asked Sejal. “Like Count Dracula? We have stories about vampires in India, but they are not the same.”

  “It’s American vampires, mostly. And they’re not really like Dracula. They’re more like the sort of people you’d meet at a gallery opening, you know?”

  “Not really.”

  “Shh! It’s on!”

  INTRO MUSIC

  INT. VAMPIRE HUNTERS STUDIO

  ALAN FRIENDLY

  What really happened in San Diego, California, just a few short weeks ago? What dark predator stalked these idyllic shores?

  EXT. LOCATION SHOTS OF SAN DIEGO—STOCK FOOTAGE OF A WOMAN IN A BIKINI ON ROLLER SKATES

  ALAN FRIENDLY (V.O.)

  On August third, not every visitor to this harbor city came in search of fun in the sun. On such a summer’s day, one young man was California dreamin’…of blood.

  EXT. HOME OF PAUL KLEIN AND FAMILY

  ALAN FRIENDLY (V.O.)

  Our hunt begins at the home of Paul Klein, straight-A student and artist. On this first Wednesday in August Paul hosted a few close friends for a quiet get-together. How could Paul and his friends know that their party would soon be crashed by darkness? Friends like Carrie Lawson.

  INT. KLEIN HOME—MEDIUM SHOT OF CARRIE LAWSON AND PAUL KLEIN

  CARRIE LAWSON

  He came right up to me, out of all the people there…and he starts talking in this real player voice, like this hypnotic voice—

  ALAN FRIENDLY (off camera)

  What did he look like?

  CARRIE LAWSON

  He was tall? Like, average height?

  PAUL KLEIN

  He was short.

  CARRIE LAWSON

  Like kind of a tall kind of short. With dark hair and eyes. You could tell he was really rich, like he had a really big house.

  ALAN FRIENDLY

  Did he mention where to find this house?

  CARRIE LAWSON

  No. But right away he tries to get me to go outside with him. He says he wants to show me his fangs, to share his eternal curse, right? My friend Trish was there, too, but he wasn’t into her at all.

  PAUL KLEIN

  That’s when a couple of the guys decide he has to leave. They say he was really strong, for a little guy. He wouldn’t leave without his friend.

  ALAN FRIENDLY

  There were two vampires?

  PAUL KLEIN

  What? I don’t know. He was there with a friend. The friend had locked himself in the half bath. We found him and they left together.

  FOOTAGE OF HALF BATH SHOT IN GRAINY HANDHELD VIDEO

  ALAN FRIENDLY

  Folklore experts tell us that a vampire cannot enter a home without first being invited. Did you invite this dark stalker inside?

  PAUL KLEIN

  No. Well…he had a flyer.

  CLOSE-UP OF PARTY FLYER, TURNING SLOWLY COUNTERCLOCKWISE OVER CEMETERY STOCK IMAGE FROM EPISODE 1.7. MUSICAL STING #9 (FOREBODING HORN SECTION), TRANSITION TO DRIPPING BLOOD EFFECT #2 (BLOODY CURTAINS)

  ALAN FRIENDLY (V.O.)

  Did a canary-yellow flyer promising two-dollar beer cups and vodka-soaked watermelon slices make an altogether more sinister promise to two thirsty children of the night? Is this all the invitation a vampire requires? Phoenix Community College Professor Charles Hargraves says yes.

  INT. PCC TEACHERS’ LOUNGE

  PROF. HARGRAVES

  There is an account from nineteenth-century New Hampshire in which the citizens of a certain village were invited, via a broadside posted on a certain tree, to come view the wealthy ironmonger’s new water closet. This was the only invitation the infamous Manchester Vampire needed to enter the home, kill the ironmonger and his family, and steal twelve dollars.

  INT. VAMPIRE HUNTERS STUDIO

  ALAN FRIENDLY

  When we come back—what dark business did these evil forces have at the San Diego Convention Center? And does the blood of baby pandas have the power to turn ordinary vampires into supervampires? Plus, we’ll give you a first look at the new weapons in the Vampire Hunters arsenal. Watch your backs, Army of Darkness—here come the Redeemers!

  OUTRO MUSIC, SCREAM SFX #6, FADE TO COMMERCIAL

  Doug had the phone up to his ear before the first ring finished.

  “Hello?”

  Jay’s voice came through in a panic. “Are you watching—”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re talking about us! They’re hunting us!”

  “They’re hunting me.”

  “Well,” said Jay, “they made it sound like I’m a vampire, too. Maybe if they find me they’ll just…stake first and ask questions later, right?”

  “Did you hear that girl from the party talking?” asked Doug. “She sounded totally hot for me.”
<
br />   “And what was that about new weapons?” wondered Jay. “Redeemers? Sounds holy. Maybe it’s something with holy water.”

  “Maybe I could visit San Diego again…over a three-day weekend. Or over Thanksgiving break. ’Course, my parents would kind of notice I was gone…”

  “Does holy water even really work on you? Do you have to be religious for it to work? We should know these things. I can’t believe we haven’t run…tests or something.”

  “I can’t believe these commercials last so long. Hey! Back to Vampire Hunters, all right? No one cares about term life insurance!”

  “I’m going to do some more research online,” said Jay. “We should test out everything everybody says about vampires, shouldn’t we? I mean, if those vampire hunters track you down, we need to know what’s real and what isn’t…”

  “Shut up, it’s back on.”

  “Like, that getting-invited-into-houses thing they mentioned. Is that true? Like what if they were chasing you and you tried to hide in a building or house, but you couldn’t because you couldn’t get in—”

  “Will you shut up already? TV!”

  ALAN FRIENDLY

  —was when we knew it was time to head back to our roving headquarters for a new tool against these two foot soldiers in the army of the undead.

  CLOSE-UP OF REDEEMER, ROTATING SLOWLY WITH VITAL STATS RUNNING COMPUTER-STYLE DOWN THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE SCREEN LIKE IN THOSE CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION SHOWS. MUSICAL STING #24 (REDEEMER THEME)

  ALAN FRIENDLY (V.O.)

  Vampires, say hello to the Redeemer. Ancient wisdom meets twenty-first-century know-how in a repeating stake launcher that can neutralize fifteen vampires per minute at thirty yards.

  EXT. BALBOA PARK, SAN DIEGO

  ALAN FRIENDLY (V.O.)

  I prepared my personal Redeemer, Ann Marie, and assembled the Vampire Hunters team outside the gates of the San Diego Zoo, where the trail suddenly went cold…cold as death.

  INT. OFFICE OF BILL WINCHELL, CHIEF OF ZOO SECURITY

  BILL WINCHELL

  We don’t know how he got in…whoever got in that night. The gates, all the service entrances were secure. We might have missed it, if not for the call from a panda lover, watching our webcam.

  STILL IMAGE OF BLOODRED TELEPHONE AS RECORDING OF EMERGENCY CALL PLAYS

  ZOO SECURITY

  Hello, Zoo Security.

  CALLER

  Hi, I was just watching the PandaCam?

  ZOO SECURITY

  This is not the information line, ma’am. Zoo hours are—

  CALLER

  I know, but I was just watching, and in the panda room? There’s a guy.

  (SILENCE)

  ZOO SECURITY

  What?

  ALAN FRIENDLY (V.O.)

  Security officers rushed to the enclosure where panda Lee Ling and her baby, little Shuan Shuan, slept peacefully, unaware that a predator had invaded their happy den. We can now show you enhanced webcam footage of the next few chilling moments. Don’t take your eyes away for an instant.

  Doug didn’t. Jay didn’t. The video played out silently on their television screens.

  “I…turned into a bat,” said Doug.

  “Oh, wow.”

  “That’s what happened. I turned into a bat,” Doug whispered as they aired the webcam footage a second time but slower. “Look, I left my clothes behind. There was a skylight in the ceiling. I must’ve flown up out of the skylight.”

  “Oh wow.”

  ALAN FRIENDLY (V.O.)

  We present now an artist’s rendering of a possible panda-empowered supervampire.

  ARTIST’S RENDERING OF PANDA-EMPOWERED SUPERVAMPIRE. MUSICAL STING #11 (DISQUIETING FLUTES)

  “Meet me at the farm,” said Doug, and then hung up.

  8

  BATTING PRACTICE

  THE PROBLEM, it seemed to Doug, was that he wasn’t even sure how it worked. Did he just think about being a bat? Picture a bat in his mind? Contract his muscles? Shout, “Up, up, and away?”

  “Up, up, and away,” Doug said under his breath.

  “What?”

  “I said, ‘This is stupid.’”

  Doug had arrived before Jay and had used the time to take blood from one of the docile cows near the greenhouses. He’d done it so many times before, but now it left him feeling empty. He’d tasted real blood, human blood in San Diego. He’d felt strong. Invincible. He barely even noticed the sun, for a while. But those two small bags had only lasted a couple of weeks.

  “That webcam video was pretty grainy,” said Doug. “Maybe it just looked like—”

  “But we know vampires really can do it, right?” said Jay. “How else could you have gotten out of the panda den? And you said the vampiress did it. You said she made it look easy.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s probably been doing it for five hundred years. Her mom probably made her practice when she was a kid.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense—”

  “Just shut up and let me think about bats, okay?”

  A long minute passed, with only lowing and the distant sounds of traffic reaching Doug’s ears. Bats. Small, furry, screeching, winged bats. Bats, bats, batty—

  “Screw this,” Doug said finally.

  “No,” said Jay, “c’mon. We can figure this out. There’s just something we haven’t thought of.”

  They thought.

  “Hit me,” said Doug.

  “What?”

  “I think you’re gonna have to hit me.”

  “Why? I can’t do that.”

  Doug sighed. “If I’ve ever done this before, it’s because I was just hit in the head by a bear. Plus tasered a bunch of times.”

  “We don’t have any Tasers,” said Jay.

  “Thank you for laying that out for me. In lieu of Tasers, you’ll have to hit me. Hard as you can. Then maybe some kind of fight-or-flight response will kick in and I’ll turn into a bat to get away from you.”

  “Fight or flight.”

  “Yes.”

  “Only half of that is flight.”

  Doug almost said, “Duh,” but then he got Jay’s point.

  “I promise I won’t attack you,” he said.

  “But what if you do?” asked Jay.

  “I won’t.”

  “But what if you do?”

  “Then…make the sign of the cross or something.”

  “You’re Jewish.”

  “I really, really don’t think I would attack you—”

  “I can sort of make a Star of David with my fingers,” said Jay. “Look.”

  “I’m starting to consider it, though,” said Doug. “You know. Attacking you. I’m going to keep my options open.”

  “All right,” said Jay, with his fists curled in front of his face like an old-timey pugilist. “I’m going to hit you.”

  Doug closed his eyes. “Do it.”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Don’t wait until I’m ready. Just—”

  Jay rushed toward Doug and threw a wild haymaker into his shoulder. Doug staggered and Jay fell into a spinach plant.

  “Ow.”

  “Ow.”

  “Okay, don’t do the running start,” said Doug. “Did you close your eyes? Don’t close your eyes. Stand right in front of me. Yeah. Okay, now—”

  Punch.

  “Ow! Jeez!”

  Punch, punch.

  “Okay, no, this isn’t—”

  Punch-punch-punch-punch.

  Jay’s blows were growing harder. It was entirely possible he was getting into it. Doug backed away, but Jay followed, punch-punch-punch-punch-punch.

  “Ahh! Fuck! Stop it! Stop—”

  Something happened. He felt something new, and heard Jay’s sharp gasp. He held his breath and tried to slide into it, but it was like trying to stay underwater while his fat body and airless lungs drove him to the surface.

  “AHHHHHHHH!” Jay screamed.

  “What?” Doug said, or tried to. His shrill voic
e squealed through sharp teeth like he was whistling for a cab.

  “AHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

  Doug looked down at himself. His body was covered in coarse, curly hair. He’d shrunk a bit—his clothes sagged—but his fingers were twig thin and distended, the webbing between them stretched tight as a drum. He’d changed, all right, but only halfway.

  “AHHH—guh,” said Jay, then he doubled over and vomited into a row of parsley.

  “Stop screaming,” said Doug, as low as he could, but his voice still cracked into the ultrasonic. Dogs barked in the distance.

  Jay sputtered and sat down in the dirt. “Change back. Please.”

  Doug tried. He hobbled around on stubby legs, cradling his head inside his gigantic fan-hands. But how did he change back? Not get punched? He was already not getting punched.

  “I can’t believe this,” he squealed. “The night before school starts. It’s like all the puberty I’ve been missing till now just hit me all at once. Like I’ve been saving it up.”

  “Except you’re shorter now.”

  “Except that. It’s like I’ve been whacked with the puberty bat.”

  “It’s like you sort of are the puberty bat.”

  “Can you maybe help me?” squeaked Doug. “Instead of making fun?”

  “What can I do?”

  “I don’t know. Don’t punch me. What’s the opposite of punching someone? Shaking his hand? Buying him dinner?”

  “We should get out of the open,” said Jay. They were standing far from the road but were still pretty exposed.

  “And go where?” asked Doug. “I can’t go home. My mom noticed that time I trimmed my eyebrows. She’s gonna notice this.”

  “I can…hide you in our shed,” said Jay.