My resting place is nothing to write home about, just a plywood pauper’s coffin that has seen better days. I suppose it could be worse. If my coffin had been carved from ebony—a lesser-known weakness for my kind—it would burn me just to touch it. But some nights it’s tough to keep my chin up because there’s a rat that lives in the drains who seems to have developed a taste for plywood. He tunnels over when I’m out feeding and gnaws at the wood. I didn’t even know rats could tunnel. Surprising what you learn being a vampire.
The long and the short of it is that if I can’t catch that rat, I’ll be left freezing all winter without a coffin. Maybe I could turn the rat and he could guard the coffin for me. But creating a familiar is tricky business. You have to get the blood draining just right or the subject dies and then you’re back to square one.
It’s a much easier job to make a new vampire than a familiar. Just give your victims a sip of your own blood and three days later they’re kicking their way out of the dirt all angry and confused. In my opinion there’s a real market for vampire counsellors. Someone to guide you through the process. It’s very traumatic waking up dead, I can tell you. Not as traumatic as high school but pretty close. I could really have used a friendly face, someone like Miss Quan, our language arts teacher from Hillfield High, to take me through the change step by step and help me process my emotions. Miss Quan was lovely and wore old-fashioned blouses with a brooch at the throat, and I wouldn’t ever bite her even if I was in the middle of a dry spell, though that brooch did draw attention to her neck.
この記事は The Strand Magazine の Issue 60, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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この記事は The Strand Magazine の Issue 60, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
INTERVIEW Laurie R. King
CREATING new works based on an iconic fictional character who’s been around for over a century can be a minefield for an author.
ADVENTURE ON A BAD NIGHT
BEFORE dinner was quite finished Vivien began wanting to get outdoors, into the air she hadn’t seen since afternoon.
THE EDINBURGH BANKERS
“MR. Holmes, I’m not asking for myself. It’s for the livelihood of the rest of us.”
The Adventure of the Home Office Baby
FOLLOWING the occasion of my marriage, and relocation with Mary to our newlywed home in the Paddington district, only a few blocks east of the great station itself, I was able to continue building my new practice while still finding time to assist Sherlock Holmes in a number of investigations.
KEVIN OF THE DEAD
PEOPLE often say to me, “Kevin, what’s it like being undead and all that?” And I say, “It’s a job, you know?” You get up at sunset, brush off the dirt and slugs, climb out of the box, and off you go into the night looking for some poor unfortunate to siphon a pint from.
AUNT NELLIE'S DIARY
MANY contemporary readers know Louisa May Alcott only as the author of the classic Little Women, the much-beloved story of the March sisters’ journey from childhood innocence to mature womanhood.
INTERVIEW John Grisham
FOR the last thirty years, the term legal thriller has been synonymous with John Grisham. Credited with single-handedly popularizing the genre, he has inspired scores of other authors and, in the process, has become both a commercial and critical success.
The Dowser's Discovery
“IF you don’t mind, sir,” said old Fiedler as he finished pouring our coffee, “I’d like to go into the village this morning with the others. It’s market day.”
THE AMIABLE FLEAS
IN May 1954, more than fifteen years after writing Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck rented a house for himself and his family a stones-throw from the Champs-Elysées in Paris.
INTERVIEW Don Winslow
EVER since Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett revolutionized the crime novel with hardboiled heroes, gritty settings, and moral complexity, countless authors have tried to carry the torch.
