I ran back to the truckasaurus and was safely driving away when I heard the helicopters in the distance, their propellers beating the air, and their searchlights piercing the night.

nineteen

Fly Me to the Loon

Wil had woken up nine days after being shrouded, and I hoped I had that much time before the Poindexters returned to this plane of existence.

I packed away most of my belongings and put them in a long-term storage locker. I rented a security deposit box for the gifts from Ian … except for the disco ball earrings, which I tucked into my makeup bag.

I found an old three-bedroom bungalow for lease near the desolate desert town of La Basura. The house was on a side road, miles away from other houses, and I figured that strange greenish inhabitants could go unnoticed there for some time.

I rented my loft to Juanita, the leader of My Dive’s house band. Then I said hasta la vista to my Stitching & Bitching group, one of whom was happy to adopt a striped cat; she also took my unfinished knitting project, the blue-gray scarf and yarn.

I told Nancy I was going on a long-term writing sabbatical, which she thought was loony and said so. “It sounds too serious for you. I give you a month max before you realize that a life without nonsense is not worth living.”

“It’s good to have ideals like that,” I said. “You’d have to be doubly silly on my behalf until I return.”

At dusk, on my last day at my loft, I gazed out the windows. Ever since I met the vampires, this seemed like a special time, the time to gather and talk, to share our days and our affection, espirítu de los cocteles.

My life with Oswald at Casa Dracula had been like a favorite novel I’d read when I was young, and now that I read it again, I had a more mature perspective on the characters and themes. My friends had been right all along, but my journey back to Oswald was one that I needed to take.

Mercedes came by with Cuban ham sandwiches and strawberry Nehis. We stood at the wobbly kitchen table, the only piece of furniture left, and ate silently. When she had crumpled up the wax paper wrappers and put them in the paper bag, she said, “I heard an interesting rumor from Los Hackeros.”

“Does it involve alien abduction?”

“No, but it’s right there with other conspiracy theories. Word is that a notorious military contracting firm has just folded because their computers suffered a massive attack that spread to their main data center and all their international locations.”

“Really?” I said, cheered.

“Los Hackeros say that only a genius could have had the espionage skills needed to infiltrate that organization and design such a comprehensively malicious worm.”

I grinned. “Sounds like another one of those urban myths, like vampires and werewolves and Elvis sightings.”