Page 5 of Plaidypus
“The hotspot turned your brother into a vampire?”
“Yep.”
“And you two are still in town?” she blurted.
“My truck is dead, and we just have an old beater somebody gave us, because they didn’t need it anymore. Getting out of town is also expensive.”
“We can afford it,” she replied. “If your brother is a vampire, there’s no way he can stay in that town. They’ll lynch him.”
“You mean stake and decapitate, but that sounds nicer,” I admitted. “We took a video of the local wildlife, and Matthieu is putting it online. He wants to try to crowdfund our escape to the United States. We would like to inquire on the status of your couch, and if it might be spacious enough for a pair of freaks.”
“Platypuses aren’t freaks, Nadine. How many times must we tell you that?”
“I didn’t get the spurs, so therefor I’m freak.”
“The spurs are a male platypus thing, Nadine. You’re female. You just don’t get them. I’m sorry.”
“How is that even fair?”
“It’s truly not, but you will survive. Also, your brother is not a freak despite his status as a vampire. I’ll have your dad talk to his boss about it. There are a lot of programs to help vampires. Who is donating for him?”
“I am.”
“Shapeshifters do not have sufficient regeneration to feed a vampire, Nadine. Who else is donating for him?”
“Nobody. That’s part of why I’m a freak. As I was not killed in the accident, the hotspot didn’t turn me into an undead. Instead, I got the lycanthropy virus, apparently. I am dodging being tested, but I’m pretty sure I’m rocking lycanthropy. I’m guessing it’s fairly advanced. According to my nose, I am some form of predator.” I considered the mummified ice wolf. “I’m hoping for a wolf. Wolves kick ass. Undead wolves kick even more ass. But I’d happily take a wolf. Fierce wolf huntress by day, man-eating platypus by night.”
“Okay. I’ll discuss this with your dad, and we’ll get back to you about it. I take it you haven’t notified the CDC?”
“Stake and decapitation,” I reminded her. “We are working very hard to avoid that. And sunlight is bad news for vampires, so we’re playing it safe. I mean, there’s a damned zombie moose in our front yard. Do you know what I can’t do when there is a zombie moose in the yard? Leave.”
“Zombies don’t really eat brains, Nadine.”
“This one might try, and because she’s a moose, she would win. I don’t want to be eaten by a zombie moose.”
“Do you need a few minutes to calm yourself?”
“Possibly. The past few weeks have been a little harder than I like. But I’ve been able to keep my brother fed so far. Barely, but I’ve been managing.” I inhaled, held my breath, and exhaled to restore my flagging sense of calm. “A mummified ice wolf liquified a bunch of beavers in our yard today. I think it’s fair that I’m not precisely calm right now. I don’t think there’s enough hot chocolate in the house to make it through this.”
“And your truck? You’d just paid it off.”
“It was totaled in the crash. I’ve been using the insurance payout to handle life for a while. It’s hard to find a job that lets me keep Matthieu’s tank topped.”
“I’ll ask your father to see what we can do to get you both safely here. Your statuses will need to be reported to the CDC, but they’ll probably help get you out of there, especially when we notify them how the townsfolk tend to react to the undead. But to be fair, you all do have a fairly significant undead problem up there.”
“No kidding. Think I should name the zombie moose? She’s pretty mellow.”
“No, you shouldn’t name the moose. You’d want to keep her, and where would you keep a zombie moose in New York City?”
I frowned, as the logistics of keeping a zombie moose in a city hadn’t occurred to me. “We could live outside of the city with our new pet moose.”
“She’s a zombie, Nadine. Be reasonable.”
“And Matthieu is a vampire! What’s the difference?”
“One is capable of speaking English and still counts as human enough to have rights. He can also vote. She cannot.”
The zombie moose continued to graze, and I realized she’d eaten the grass and mouthed at the bare ground. “I will concede she’s not very bright. She’s graduated from eating grass to grazing on the dirt. I’m not sure she realizes there is a difference.” I sighed. “I’m sorry we didn’t call you sooner.”
