Undead and Unpopular

Chapter 21

“We can't let him live,” Tina said.

“Sure we can.”

“Majesty, be reasonable. I know you are—were—fond of the child, but he is adangerous child.”

“I still consider him a friend, okay? Friends have falling-​outs. Or would that be fallings-​out? Anyway, we don't always get along a hundred percent of the time. Look at me and Jessica!”

“Duhnot ,” Little Miss Myeloma said, her voice muffled through the ice pack Marc had slapped over her face, “drag meh entoh this.”

We were in the (first) parlor. We'd picked it because there were two couches, and Jessica and I both needed one. Shit, I needed a hospital ward. But a couch that smelled like dust was the best I could do, right now.

“Surely after what happened today you do not still consider him an ally?”

“Eric, try to see his point of view! If someone's keeping score, we're ahead of him on points, okay? So, seriously: don't go after him, you guys. Don't order another vampire to do it, either. Jon's out of bounds as far as the vampires are concerned.”

“Foolish sentimentality.”

“Hey, I'm mad at him, too, okay? He shot me. In the chest. With holy water. But I'm not going to kill him.”

Everybody looked at my chest.

“No, seriously. He didn't mean to do that. Or he meant to, but he knew it wouldn't kill me—he was scared, okay? Scared and humiliated, which is just the worst combo ever. At least the worst part's over.”

“Worst part?” Jessica mumbled around her ice pack.

“I was really dreading telling him. I didnot want to do that, boy oh boy. But at least it's out.”

“What I'd like to know,” Marc said from his chair by the fire, “is what he was doing here with a gun in the first place.”

“Are you kidding? That kid's always got about nine guns and knives on him. Those farm boys are tough.”

“Right,” Marc allowed, “but a former Blood Warrior shows up, and you guys don't even frisk him? Make him walk through a metal detector? Something?”

“We knew he was carrying. Mostly because he'salways carrying. But we never frisk anybody.”

“What, that's a rule now?”

“Sure,” I said, and Sinclair nodded, backing me up.

“Come on, guys! The Queen of England's a tough cookie, too; but she puts people through a metal detector and a security check before they can talk to her.”

“If the throne is so easily taken from us,” Sinclair explained, almost exactly the way he explained it to me, “we would be poor monarchs indeed.”

“In other words, if someone gets the drop on you in your own house, too bad for Betsy and Sinclair, but they should have been able to take care of themselves?”

We looked at each other. “Basically,” I answered, “yeah.”

“Great,” Marc muttered, and slumped lower in his chair. “Those of us caught in the crossfire appreciate the attention to detail.”

“Although,” I said, looking at Jessica's face—what I could see around the ice, “maybe we should change that rule.”

“If we cannot protect our allies,” Sinclair said, “the same rule applies.”

“Tough luck, guys,” I said in a fake-​bright laugh, and they both laughed.

“Getting back to the issue of the child,” Tina said, harshing our buzz as visual, “I really think you should reconsider. He—”

The phone rang. She picked it up, glanced at the caller ID.

“We're kind of busy,” I said, a little sharply. The phone was a whole thing between Tina and me.

“But—”

“If it's important, they'll call back.”

“But it's your mother.”

I practically snarled. The phone, the fucking phone! People used it the way they used to use the cat-​o'-nine-​tails. You had to drop everything and answer the fucking thing. And God help you if you were home and, for whatever reason, didn't answer. “But I called!” Yeah, it was convenient foryou so you called. But I'm in the shit because it wasn't convenient forme to drop everything and talk toyou , on the spot, for whateveryou needed to talk about.

Unfortunately, Tina was the type who lunged for it every time it so much as peeped. She couldn't stand the sound of a ringing phone. Always tracked me down: it's so-​and-​so. Well, I'mrecovering from a fatal chest wound, take a message . But it's your mother! Yeah, well, she'll call back. But she's on the phonenow .

I practically snatched it from her. “Hi, Mom, this really isn't a good t—”

“Your grandfather,” Mom said in the doleful voice reserved for announcing funerals, “has escaped.”

“Escaped what? Mom? He's got three kinds of cancer, he's eighty-​nine, and he's hooked up to forty different machines. What are you talking about, escaped?”

“Someone's coming up the driveway,” Tina said in a low voice.

“Well, go take care of it.”

“And if they need to see you, Majesty?”

I cupped a hand over the mouthpiece. “Read my royal lips, Tina:this is not a good time !”

“What?” my mom said.

“I wasn't talking to you, Mom. See, the reason I sound all distracted right now is becausethis is not a good time .”

“Well, why did you answer the phone then?” my mom asked reasonably. “Just let it ring.”

“Gah! Tell me about Grandpa, please.”

“Well, you know he doesn't care for that nursing home.”

“Right. So what else is new. The guy's got three kinds of cancer. And frankly, it probably isn't much fun for the nursing home to have him there.”

“This is true,” Mom replied promptly. She had, after all, been raised by the gentleman in question. “Anyway, he doesn't like it there. The animals are the least of it.”

I had to laugh. The animals! Apparently all these studies had been done about how soothing and restful nursing home inmates—uh, residents—found live-​in cats, dogs, and birds.

So my grandpa's nursing home adopted all these strays, and told incoming residents,why, of course you can keep your angry, incontinent, biting dog Nibbles! No problemo! Bring all his brothers and sisters, too! Share them with the other residents !

On paper, this is a swell idea. What the genius who did the study didn't take into account was: Grandpa Joe. Maybe he had only nice, soft-​spoken old ladies and gentlemen in the study.

Grandpa had grown up on a farm, and had a very pragmatic view of animals:if I can't eventually kill you and eat you, you are taking up valuable air and space . My mom never had a pet—not so much as a goldfish in a bowl—the entire time she was growing up. Neither had I, until I'd moved out after college and picked up Giselle the cat from the pound.

The animals had pretty much taken over the nursing home. They had the run of the place, and took ruthless advantage of it. And they certainly made the staff feel better.Ohhh, how cute, that cat is helping that man with all the terminal illnesses !

So now, my grandfather, who should be enjoying his autumn years, has to boot a snoozing golden retriever out of his bed if he wants to snag a nap after lunch.

“Well, he just couldn't take it anymore,” Mom was saying. “So he unhooked all the equipment he was on—”

“Um, hello, didn't any alarms go off in the nursing station?”

“Well, hon, you know how understaffed they are. And Grandpa lulled them into a false sense of security by pulling his leads out a bunch of other times.”

“Like the boy who cried wolf,” I suggested. The angry cancer-​raddled animal-​hater who cried wolf, repeatedly, to fool his captors. I mean the nurses. “Except a whole bunch of times.”

“Right. So nobody thought much of it when the alarms went off—they figured Joe was up to his old tricks again. So he got into his chair—”

“He can transfer by himself now?” I knew all the lingo from a brief, but memorable, stint as a volunteer at that very home.

“Yes. So he got into his wheelchair and—you know. Escaped.”

“Just wheeled himself out past the border guard, huh?”

“Exactly. You know—oh, look, that sweet old man is coming out to see the world.”

“Morons,” I decided.

“Yes, but they couldn't know. They aren't family. Anyway, out he goes—”

“Outside?”

“I know, I know.”

“It's twenty fucking degrees outside!”

“Well, more like ten there.” There being Brainerd, Minnesota. “But sadly, your grandfather did not foresee his old enemy, fatigue, when he made his daring dash for freedom.”

“Where did he think he was going to go in a hospital johnny?” I wondered. Dumb question. For Grandpa, being half-​naked was irrelevant. Being master of your own destiny was all! “How far did he get?”

“About three blocks outside the home and then fell asleep. A family on the way to visit a relative ratted him out.”

“Vile informers!” I cried.

“So the nurses came to get him, and wheeled him back, and tucked him back into bed—he was so exhausted he didn't even wake up—and imagine how completely irritated he was when he woke up with a cat on his pillow!”

I shuddered, imagining Grandpa's wrath. As a member of The Greatest Generation, he wasn't adverse to blowing shit up to get his way.

“The important thing is, he's okay.”

“Betsy, what am I going to do? He hates it there. I mean hehates it. How can I keep my own father in a place that he hates?”

“You could revel in the payback for a horrible childhood?” I guessed.

“Elizabeth.” On this, as in very few other things, my mom had no sense of humor. I guess when you spent your childhood dodging fists and trying not to get kicked down stairs, it wasn't much fun to joke about it later. “You're not helping.”

“Come on, Mom, it's a nursing home. He's lucky he's not in a hospital. Actually, he's lucky he's not dead.”

“That's true,” she said doubtfully.

“Although, if he's peppy enough to escape, he maybe could be moved some other place.”

“Maybe. But where? Any place private is too expensive.”

“Yeah.” I looked over at Marc, who was tenderly touching Jessica's nose and murmuring to her. She in turn had just finished telling him a heartwarming Grandpa Joe story she had previously heard from me, probably the one involving grenades and the minister. “Listen, I've got an idea about that. My roommate, Marc, has a—”

“Oh, that clever doctor. Did I tell you I met the perfect man for him? He's a grad student, getting his doctorate in Japanese literature—”

“Yeah, that sounds really fun and useful. Listen, his father has this place—they must have some like it up where Joe is, but if not, maybe we could move him down here…”

“What kind of place?”

I told her. And that was how I ended up with my Grandpa Joe living four miles away from my vampire-​infested house. Which may or may not, now that I look back, have been a greater hazard to my health than having my heart temporarily blown up by holy water.

I never did find out who had popped in for a surprise visit. Which was fine with me. More surprises, I so did not need.