March 2020
Drake had been hunting all night when he spotted a familiar form.
“Cassius? Is that you?”
“Hey, Drake. What’s up?”
“What’s up? You’re in my territory is what’s up. What are you doing here?”
“My part of town has completely dried up, so I thought I’d see if I had any better luck over here.”
Drake’s fangs came out. “And what made you think that would be OK with me?”
“Dude, I’m just hungry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Drake withdrew his fangs. “I’m sorry. I always get a bit aggressive when I’m hungry, and there’s been nothing to eat lately. What is going on with these humans?”
“I don’t know, but I haven’t had any better luck over here than I did in my territory. I’ve been thinking maybe it’s time to take a more direct approach.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if they won’t come out of their homes, maybe we need to get into their homes.”
“And just how are you planning to manage that?”
“By using the oldest trick in the vampire handbook.”
When Drake and Cassius rang the first doorbell, they weren’t sure what to make of the human who answered the door with a piece of fabric covering their nose, mouth, and chin. Drake glanced over at Cassius to try to gauge his reaction, but Cassius didn’t break character for a second. He was always the consummate professional.
“Hi,” said Cassius without missing a beat. “We’re sorry to bother you so late at night, but our car just broke down, and would you believe it? My phone is dead, and my friend here forgot his phone at home.”
Drake shrugged in a way that conveyed the what-can-you-do? attitude of the hopelessly forgetful.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t let anyone in the house right now. My mom is in a high-risk category, but I can call someone for you.”
This did give Cassius pause, but only for a second. “The thing is, the person we need to call isn’t very trusting. I’m afraid they’ll only respond if they hear our voices. Are you sure we couldn’t come in just for a moment? Your mother won’t even know we’re here.”
“I’m sorry, but I really can’t. Good luck, though.”
The door was closed in their faces and the two vampires looked at each other, stunned. “That has never not worked,” said Cassius.
“Now what do we do?”
Cassius shrugged and said, “Next house.”
But they didn’t have any better luck at the next house. Or the next one. Or the one after that. Every door was answered, but no one would invite them inside and Drake wasn’t sure which of those two things was more bizarre.
In a last-ditch effort to eat before dawn, they broke into an office building, hoping for a fat janitor or ambitious assistant arriving early.
“Anything?” Drake asked as he finished the sweep of his half of the building and met up with Cassius.
“Not a soul,” said Cassius. “I’ve never seen this town so dead.”
Drake shook his head. “We’ll have to figure it out in the morning. Right now we have to head underground if we don’t want to be toasted.”
The next evening, Drake was dreaming of a nice, fat, juicy human, slow and unsteady on their feet as they wandered around alone in the middle of the night – when he was shaken awake by Cassius.
“Come on, Drake. I can get us food, but we don’t have much time,” Cassius was saying.
Drake sat up in his coffin. “There’s food?”
“Not here. We have to travel a ways to get it.”
“What? Why?”
“I’ll explain on the way. Just get up.”
In the car Cassius told Drake about the phone call he had gotten from Ethan, a vampire who lived so far from the city he was practically in the country. “Ethan says there’s a pandemic among the humans, which is why everyone is staying home. It’s why those people wouldn’t let us in their homes last night, and it’s why we couldn’t find anyone at the office building. They’ve shut down almost all of the offices.”
Drake groaned, his throat matching the sounds coming from his belly.
“Hang on, there’s good news,” said Cassius. “According to Ethan, the humans out in his area don’t believe there’s a pandemic.”
“What? How can they just not believe in a pandemic? It’s not like God. Either there is a pandemic, or there isn’t.”
“Who cares? The point is no one out there is staying home. Their businesses are shut down, but they’re all outside protesting the shutdown. None of them are wearing masks and they don’t care who comes into their homes.”
“So we can finally get some breakfast.” The gurgling in Drake’s stomach grew more urgent, as if it knew food was on the way.
“Yes, but it’s not a short drive. I’m hoping we can make it there in time to have a few hours of hunting before the sun comes up.”
“Slow humans,” Drake said, thinking of the dream he had been enjoying when Cassius woke him.
“Slow and/or stupid. I can work with either, but to hear Ethan tell it, we can count on both out there.”
Drake’s mouth watered and he had to remind himself it would still be at least a few hours before he’d be able to sink his teeth into anyone.
But it would be worth the wait.
The end.