Page 26 of Missing Moon

Before I can even lower my arm from the swing that ended this vampire, his remains practically explode into a cloud of bone fragments and dust.

My turn to make a WTF face. I gawk at the remains, what little of them… well, remain.

“What the actual Fuck was that?” asks Emerson in a near whisper.

“A vampire,” I say, casual as anything.

He squeaks.

Obviously, this vampire is no longer a threat to anything, except maybe my lungs if I breathe in too much dust. I glance back at Emerson. “You okay?”

“Are you serious?”

“What do you think you saw?” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

“Random psychopaths who abduct hikers don’t generally explode into ash when they die.”

“No, they don’t. That was really weird. Are you holding a glowing sword?”

“I am.” In for a penny, in for a pound, right?

“Is this really happening?” Emerson stares into my eyes.

“If you want to believe this is all a dream, go for it.”

“Dammit.” Emerson stomps.

“What?” I raise an eyebrow.

“I didn’t get any of that on camera.” He facepalms. “No one will believe me. I usually livestream everything.”

“Can’t really livestream out here. No signal.”

He fishes a GoPro out of his jacket, the GoPro hewasn’twearing on his head. “Dammit. Why does crap always happen when the camera’s off?”

“Just the way things work, I guess.” I drop the sword and let it melt back into water before he can get it on camera.

“So, vampires are real?” whispers Emerson.

I nod. “But you probably don’t want to go around telling everyone you almost got killed by a vampire,” I say, then smile to myself. Hmm. I wonder if I just solved Klamath’s ‘people keep turning up missing’ problem.

“Why not?” Emerson decides to put the camera away again. “Would other vampires come after me to shut me up or something?”

“Nah. Society will just think you’re nuts.” I chuckle.

“Oh.” He exhales. “Yeah, good point. They already think I’m kinda weird for believing in ghosts.”

“C’mon. We’re not far from the house. You can sleep there and head out in the morning when it’s safe.”

“Thanks.” He shivers again. “Holy crap, I almost died. Yeah, I’m definitely getting the hell out of here as soon as I can.”

“Good plan.” I wink at him, and resume walking.

Chapter Ten

There's Something Amiss in Klamath