I'm Dreaming of an Undead Christmas

  A shadow moved down the row of trees, hidden behind the pine boughs. I took a deep breath to offset the nervous tension coiling in my stomach. I would not make the mistake of calling out, “Hello? Who’s there?” like some stupid horror-movie heroine. I would be attacked with some class, damn it.

  I pulled the canister loose from my pocket. I felt a little bad about the ease with which I was considering dousing him with a substance that would leave him burned, itchy, and feeling like he’d just made out with dry ice. But honestly, it would teach him to stop sneaking up on me, so it would be a wash, really.

  I saw . . . something just beyond the trees. The white outline of a face materialized against the darkness, as quickly as my weak human eyes could detect it. Suddenly, the white shape lunged toward me through the trees, like something out of a bad 3-D movie. I froze, unable to move.

  The face became clearer for a split second, a beautiful male face with even features, eyes that reflected an eerie gold under the moonlight. But then the man (ghost? vampire?) retreated into the shadow cast by a large pine. And all I could see was the eyes, standing alone like the Cheshire cat’s, watching me as I watched him.

  What did he want? Should I yell for help? Did I need help?

  As quickly as the face had appeared, the eyes disappeared, and I heard someone moving quickly away from me, through the trees.

  I blinked, waving my hand in front of my face, sure that I was dreaming or experiencing some sort of hallucinatory allergic reaction to fir trees.

  “Gigi?”

  I jumped at the voice behind me and screamed. Turning, I slung the canister out and squeezed the trigger before I realized it was Ben standing behind me and not some scary incorporeal face. The stream of colloidal silver flew in a perfect arc, right into his eyes.

  “Ah!” Ben yelped, slapping his hands over his face. “What the hell?”

  “Oh, my gosh, Ben, I’m so sorry!” I exclaimed, dropping the canister

  “Oh, God, my eyes!” Ben cried. “My eyes! It—wait, no. It doesn’t burn.” He blinked rapidly, and the grayish solution trickled down his cheeks like runny mascara. “I’m OK. What the hell is that?”

  “It’s pepper spray for vampires,” I explained, offering him my nubby purple scarf to wipe his eyes. “Microscopic silver bits floating around in liquid. You’re going to be OK. In fact, colloidal silver is used by a lot of health nuts to treat burns and eye infections, so I might have just done you some good.”

  There was enough light to see that he was giving me “deadpan face.”

  “You’re right, too soon.” I wiped the last of the gray streaks from his cheeks. “What are you even doing here?” I asked, trying not to sound annoyed that my boyfriend had dared to enter my presence.

  “Iris invited me. She thought it would be a fun double-date sort of thing. But my mom had a bunch of errands she needed me to run. I told Iris I didn’t think I’d be able to make it,” he said, giving me a quick, familiar peck on the lips. “But here I am.”

  OK, now I was annoyed with Iris, which wasn’t fair, because she didn’t know about my growing feelings of “meh” toward my boyfriend. She thought she was doing something nice. What girl in her right mind wouldn’t want Ben Overby to join her on a moonlit stroll among fragrant Christmas trees?

  I brushed his damp hair away from his big green eyes. Ben had one of those sweet, all-American faces that practically screamed “let me date your daughter.” An endearing, slightly upturned nose, high cheekbones, and a wide, smiling mouth. Why didn’t that face give me the shivers anymore? Why couldn’t I just be happy with someone who loved me?

  “I suck,” I said, sighing.

  “What?”

  Shaking myself out of my internal hate-fest, I shrugged and said, “I suck as a girlfriend. Nice girls don’t spray their boyfriends in the face with self-defense chemicals.”

  “Eh, you’re not so bad,” he assured me, wrapping an arm around my waist.

  Iris and Cal skidded to a stop just in front of us. “Are you OK? We heard yelling,” Iris said. “Oh, hey, Ben. I thought you weren’t coming.”

  “Yeah, you heard yelling like five minutes ago,” I scoffed. “Where have you been? I don’t want to be lectured about slow reflexes anymore.”

  Cal and Iris didn’t defend themselves, which I found suspicious. I clicked on my flashlight and pointed it at them. Both of them were looking at the ground, their faces flushed and guilty. Well, as flushed as vampires could get, what with the zero-blood-flow issue. And Cal had skipped two buttons on his shirt.

  I narrowed my eyes at them. “What took you two so long to get here?”

  “We couldn’t find you,” Cal protested.

  “You couldn’t find me? With your superhearing and night vision?” I was full-on smirking now. “Are you sure there wasn’t something else distracting you? Something you could be doing in the privacy of your bedroom like normal people instead of dragging loved ones to spooky tree farms as a cover story?”

  “Oh, ew,” Ben said, cringing at the thought of my sister and her husband doing dirty, naked things in the woods.

  “Shut up, Gigi,” Iris hissed.

  “I don’t want to hear any more about putting myself in defenseless, stupid situations, you tragic horror-movie cautionary tales,” I said, pointing my finger in Cal’s face. “And you will not sneak up on me anymore.”

  “But you need to stay alert!” Cal protested.

  “I just sprayed Ben in the face with colloidal silver. I’m plenty alert.”

  “Cal!” Iris exclaimed. “Why have you been scaring Gigi? Is this more of that ‘constant vigilance’ crap?”

  Ben raised his hand. “I’m fine, by the way.”

  “Iris, can we just pick out a tree, any tree, and get out of here?” I begged her. “I think we’ve covered all of the holiday tradition bases. Fear, loathing, inappropriate sexual behavior. Let’s call it a night.”

  “Fine.” Iris sighed, pointing toward a tall blue spruce behind Cal. “Let’s take that one. Cal, start sawing.”

  “Yes, dearest.” Putting his vampire strength to practical use, Cal wrapped his hand around the trunk of the tree and yanked it out of the ground by the roots. Bracing the tree against his thighs, he sawed off the roots, leaving a perfectly smooth trunk.

  “It’s faster this way,” he insisted.

  “Your traditions are weird,” Ben whispered.

  I rolled my eyes skyward. “Tell me about it.”

  Was emotional torture via boredom part of my “audition” to work for the World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead?

  On the evening of my interview, I sat in the local Council office’s painfully nondescript waiting room and fidgeted. A lot. The Council had not been courteous enough to provide a TV or magazines or anything to distract me from the fact that I was sitting in the most stimulus-free room on the planet while waiting to interact with the undead. And while I had been fifteen minutes early for my appointment, Ophelia was nowhere to be found nearly an hour later. I resorted to playing Candy Craze on my phone to prevent beige-madness.

  And while I certainly understood that someone who oversaw all of the vampire-related issues in the tristate area could have unexpected mayhem and bloodshed derail her to-do list for the day, I couldn’t help but be a little annoyed. I was on time. I was ready. I’d put on my special navy-blue “professional” blazer and pulled my hair into a bun and everything.

  Was this some sort of psychological-warfare tactic? Was Ophelia trying to prove I didn’t have the spine to work for vampires? Well, bring it on, sister. I was a Scanlon. “You can’t outstubborn me” might as well be stitched on the family crest.

  I sighed, adjusting the heavy knot of dark hair at my nape. I was probably just in a bad mood because I had authentic spruce splinters under my fingernails. I was up to my cuticles in real Christmas spirit. Af
ter the fifth Band-Aid earned while wrassling our Christmas tree into the logic-defying tree stand, Iris eventually agreed that we would go back to using a fake tree next year.

  Of course, Iris’s including Ben in the evening may have made me a little grumpy about the whole thing. I was going to have to tell her about my boyfriend ambivalence, or she was going to keep pushing the two of us together in the interest of sisterly double dates. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy spending time with Ben. I did. In the same way I enjoyed spending time with Collin or Jamie or Sam. He was a friend. That was all.

  The door opened, and I popped up to my feet, discreetly slipping my phone into the back pocket of my smart pinstriped slacks. Ophelia Lambert looked like a teenage dream but behaved like a cross between Hannibal Lecter and Michael Corleone. I didn’t really understand her relationship with Jamie. He seemed to grasp that there was a cold-blooded schemer under the big Kewpie-doll eyes and glossy chestnut ponytail, but he treated her like she was the most lovable thing on the planet. And because Jamie was my friend, I would give her the benefit of the doubt.

  Sort of.

  Because of what she would only call “personal history,” Jane didn’t have many warm, fuzzy feelings toward Ophelia, either. The only nice thing Jane had to say about her potential future daughter-in-law was that Ophelia’s personal style had changed over the years since she’d started dating Jamie, meaning she’d stopped wearing jailbait-themed outfits in favor of sweet little sundresses and sweater sets, like the candy-apple-red cardigan and pencil skirt ensemble she was currently sporting. I might have rolled my eyes if not for her awesome red patent-leather pumps with the little ankle straps. If I rolled my eyes, she wouldn’t tell me where she got them.

  “Miss Scanlon.” Ophelia somehow managed to say my name without any change to her blank expression.

  I raised an eyebrow. Apparently, we were going to pretend we didn’t know each other. “Miss Lambert.”

  She turned on her heel and walked through the door to the administrators’ offices, without signaling that I should follow. I did anyway, letting Ophelia lead me into a spacious office decorated with way too many Hello Kitty desk accessories to be considered normal. Iris had warned me, but really, nothing could have prepared me for the crystal-encrusted Hello Kitty stapler. The only remotely approachable object on the desk was a portrait of her little sister, Georgie, who had been turned into a vampire when she was nine. The least freaky thing in the room was a picture of an undead child. Yikes.

  “Just a few quick questions before you . . . complete your assigned task,” Ophelia said, settling into her Hello Kitty pink leather office chair. She waved an indifferent hand toward the chair opposite hers.

  I sat. But I did not appreciate the pause before “complete,” implying that I couldn’t complete said task. It was a loaded pause.

  “What makes you think that you’re fit to work for the Council?” she asked, without looking up from the paperwork on her desk.

  I gave her my best “interview” smile. “Aside from being one of only a handful of programmers living in this area who could handle the job? Having lived with a vampire relative for the last three years, I am uniquely prepared to deal with the special issues involved in working with and for the undead.”

  “You seem very confident in your skills as a programmer.”

  Now she got the “bitch, please” smile. “I have no reason to be anything but confident.”

  “Are you sure you’re not just attempting to develop inroads with certain vampires?”

  I frowned. “You mean my brother-in-law? Because I don’t have to make inroads with him. We pretty much live on the same road.”

  Ophelia rolled her eyes and slapped an index card onto the desk. Two words were neatly printed on the card: “Geraldine Dvorak.” Ophelia huffed. “Come along,” she said, and escorted me down the hall to a tiny, windowless room lined with well-stocked floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a desk, and a globe. It was like a study hall for those people who end up on Dr. Phil because they’re afraid to leave their houses.

  Ophelia nodded to the card in my hand. “That is the name of a local vampire who is interested in finding her living descendants. Using only the resources in this room, find those descendants, and list them with their contact information. Please print legibly. You have two hours.”

  I glanced around the room. “But there’s no computer equipment. I was informed that most of the job description involved computer programming.”

  Ophelia smiled sweetly. “Yes, I know.” And then she snatched my purse out of my hands and slammed the door shut in my face.

  “Rude,” I grumbled as I heard the lock slide into place.

  It took me an hour, but I soon discovered . . . that I was in no way qualified for this job. I searched census records, marriage records, birth records, voter registrations, even the Cole Directory. I couldn’t find a single Dvorak who had ever lived in McClure County.

  And that was saying something.

  I leaned back in my chair, staring at the enormous bookshelf across the room. A huge three-inch white plastic binder stood out from the tooled-leather books. The bright pink label read, “Vampire Registration Records, Western Kentucky Division, 2000–present.”

  “Hmmmm.”

  Shoulders slumped in near-defeat, I crossed the room and flipped through the book, searching for the Ds.

  There was no vampire named Dvorak listed anywhere in this half of the state.

  This was ridiculous. I was auditioning for a job that revolved around computers. I should be allowed to use a computer in my search.

  I shifted in my chair to prevent the corner of my sparkly purple phone case from poking me in the butt.

  Wait a minute.

  I was only allowed to use the resources in this room.

  I whipped my iPhone out of my pocket and opened my Internet browser. “Smartphone, bitch!”

  OK, no one heard me, but it was a moment of personal victory.

  I Googled “Geraldine Dvorak,” swiping through the results with a fingertip. My lip curled back into a snarl. “Ophelia!”

  I made a monumental effort to calm myself. Threatening an already-predisposed-to-be-bitchy vampire was not a good idea . . . even if she deserved it, the freaking cow!

  I banged on the door until some hapless vampire data-entry stooge passed by and let me out. With a growled “Thank you,” I stomped down the hall toward Ophelia’s office. The HBIC herself was sitting at her desk, placidly filing her nails.

  “Geraldine Dvorak?” I spat, slapping the index card onto the desk. “Really? The uncredited actress who played the role of Dracula’s bride in the original Bela Lugosi film?”

  Given the way that nerve in Ophelia’s cheek was twitching, she hadn’t expected me to locate this information. “How did you find out? Did Jane somehow slip you the answer?”

  “No. You told me I could use the resources in the workroom. That included my phone, which has an Internet browser. I harnessed the power of Google. You gave me an impossible task so I couldn’t get this job! I don’t know what I did to make you hate me, but that’s just low. And antifeminist . . . and mean!”

  Ophelia sank back into her chair and crossed her arms over her chest in a gesture that was almost pouty. “No, I have given every applicant the same impossible task.” She sighed. “So far, you’re the first applicant to confirm that the vampire actually existed before declaring the search pointless. Also, you’re the first one I haven’t searched for a phone. I thought you kept it in your purse, like a normal person. And don’t presume to lecture me on the principles of feminism. Betty Friedan based her entire philosophy on something I once wrote on a cocktail napkin.”

  “How old are you, exactly?” I asked.

  “Do you really think that line of questioning is going to help you here?”

  “Nope. So does this mean I have the job??
??

  Ophelia thought about it for a good long while before finally saying “Yes” in a tone so begrudging you’d think I’d asked her for a spare kidney. “It appears that we can’t find anyone more qualified than you to fill the position.”

  How did she manage to make that sound like an insult and a compliment at the same time?

  She sighed again. “Welcome to the team.”

  “Your enthusiasm is overwhelming.”

  Her answering smile was downright acidic. “Just wait until orientation.”

  Vampires lack the enzymes to process solid food. Their new liquid diet is not a “crazy fad” or a rejection of your much-beloved green-bean casserole. Eating the casserole will make them projectile-vomit, which is a downer for any holiday meal.

  —Not So Silent Night: Creating Happy and Stress-Free Holidays with Newly Undead Family Members

  This bonding activity could only end in tears and third-degree burns.

  “Something is bubbling,” I told Iris from across the Jetsons’ kitchen, where she was shelling about five pounds of pecans on a polished-aluminum tabletop. It was as close as she wanted to get to the golden, rippling mixture of butter and sugar on the space-age stove that was eventually supposed to be toffee. I lifted the pot off the stove and tilted it toward Iris’s spot at the table.

  “Was this how it looked when Mom did it?”

  Iris shrugged. “I honestly couldn’t tell you.”

  “Ack!” Tess shrieked, launching her petite frame across the kitchen. She’d actually donned her chef’s jacket, but I think it had more to do with protecting herself from molten sugar and knife-wielding amateurs than trying to lend dignity to this debacle. “Don’t do that! You spill that stuff on your floor, it will be like trying to clean up the unholy offspring of cotton candy and lava.”

  “OK, then. Let’s not do that.” I gently put the pot back on the stove while Tess tried to explain the delicacy of the “soft ball” stage of candy versus the “hard ball” stage using an old spatula and a glass of water. It was all very confusing and made me sorry I hadn’t given Oompa Loompas more respect while watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.