“Heh heh. That guy sucks. Heh heh.”

  I’d heard that joke before.

  “Any idea who it is?” I asked.

  “Who? Heh heh.”

  “The Destiny Drac?”

  “They say he can walk through walls, bro. Heh heh. Locked doors don’t mean shit. He sneaks up on you when you’re sleeping, sucks your blood. Like a vampire, bro. Heh heh. And you know what they say? When he looks in the mirror, guess what he sees?”

  “Nothing?” I ventured.

  “No, bro. He sees a monster. Heh heh. Heh heh. Heh heh. You want some more brownies?”

  “Sure. Gimme two.”

  He gave me two, then left. I put one aside, and put the other one in my bedpan, for when Nurse Ratched came back.

  I noticed Sam was watching a Godzilla movie on her phone with her earbuds in. I threw M&Ms at her to get her attention, and then said I’d watch the movie with her by mirroring my cell phone with the room television. She was down for it, and we watched the King of the Monsters and Mothra team up against King Ghidorah, who had multiple heads.

  But then I had to get to work, so immediately after the movie, and another nap, it was lunch time. Some sort of soup. Bad soup. Soup that tasted like underwear. Bad underwear. The kind of underwear you wouldn’t even think about picking up and taking home if you found it in an alley.

  I ate it to keep my strength up, but I got something scratchy in my throat. My bet; it was an underwear tag.

  Of course, during all of this napping and eating my keen mind was at work on…

  Something. What was I supposed to be doing?

  Oh, right. Blood.

  I was pretty sure I’d faced a vampire cult before, but my memory was hazy, because; that phantasm thing. Luckily, I still had the phone number of the Florida guy who was tagging along for the ride when I busted that vampire case and saved the day.

  While Jack, Phin, and Sam were wasting their time doing things that were probably unproductive, I made a call.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Andrew Maalox?”

  “This is Andrew Mayhem.”

  I squinted at my cell. “My phone lists you as Maalox.”

  “Is this…? I’m showing an unknown caller. This better not be who I think it is. I’m hanging up on you just in case.”

  And he hung up on me. Rude.

  I called back.

  “No,” he said. “I’m having a completely mediocre day and I want to keep it that way. Goodbye and go to hell.”

  “Don’t hang up, Mayberry. It’s your old buddy Harry McGlade.”

  He hung up again. Must have been some sort of bad connection.

  I decided to text.

  Working a case with suspected vampires. Didn’t I save you from vampires? I don’t remember the details.

  I added a frowny face emoji, and a heart emoji.

  A moment later he texted back.

  Are you drunk? How can you not remember that nightmare? He followed it with a confused face emoji.

  Maybe you’re the one who can’t remember it, I texted, adding a raised eyebrow emoji, a question mark emoji, and an eggplant emoji.

  He didn’t respond, so I sent him an emoji of Danny DeVito.

  Andrew: Do I even want to know why you sent me a Danny DeVito emoji?

  Harry: I’ll tell you if you remind me of that vampire thing.

  Andrew: It was a cult called The Pires. They drank blood. We almost died. Dumb luck saved us.

  Harry: I’m pretty sure I was the one who saved us. I added an emoji of the Rutherford model of the hydrogen atom, hoping he’d ask why I added an emoji of the Rutherford model of the hydrogen atom. He didn’t.

  Andrew:

  Harry: Don’t you want to know why I used an emoji of the Rutherford model of the hydrogen atom?

  Harry: I could have used the Niels Bohr model. But that’s such a Bohr. Heh heh.

  Andrew: At least YOU enjoy yourself.

  Harry: Nothing exists without atoms. We couldn’t have this conversation in an endless void.

  Andrew: An endless void sounds pretty good right about now.

  Harry: Your funny.

  Andrew: YOU’RE funny, dumbass.

  Harry: You’re right. I am the funny one. Why are you texting me?

  Andrew: You texted me, you inebriated (that means drunk) idiot.

  Harry: Let’s try to be adults and not reduce ourselves to playground insults, poopy face.

  Andrew:

  Harry: I’m awaiting your brilliant comeback to “poopy face.”

  Andrew:

  Harry: While I’m enjoying the flirtatious banter, I need answers.

  Andrew: Why should I help you?

  Harry: You’re being rude. Then I hit him with three middle finger emojis.

  My phone rang. It was Mayday. He gave me a long, overly dramatic sigh. “The Pires kidnapped us and threw us in a pit. A lot of people died. You screamed like a little kid and wet your pants. Like a small, incontinent, cowardly child.”

  “I’m not recalling it.”

  “Really? How many times a week do you get thrown into a pit and wet your pants?”

  “My sex life is none of your business. Unless you want me to text you some pictures.”

  “Please, God, no, don’t even joke about that. I’d have to burn my phone.”

  “Heh. Then it would be a burner phone.”

  “What else do you need to know, McGlade?”

  “Were they real vampires?”

  “I don’t know, do you think they were real vampires? Take some time before you answer. Mull over the question in your mind.”

  “I do love to mull.”

  “This is a shtick you do to entertain yourself, right? No one can be this stupid.”

  “The joke’s on you, Andrew. Because I am this stupid.”

  “Just tell me what I can do to end this conversation quickly.”

  “You want me to tell you quickly? Or that you want to end the conversation quickly?”

  “I hate you, McGlade. Not in a playful banter way. Actual loathing.”

  “You need to open up your heart and let the love inside, Mayhem.”

  “I’m shocked you got my name right.”

  “Hey, did you see those Allstate Insurance commercials with that character named Mayhem? Those are hysterical. It’s so clever naming a character that. That guy is famous. I bet the dude who wrote that is crazy rich. Imagine the royalties they get for using that character.”

  “I’m hanging up.”

  “So we didn’t face real vampires? Just wannabes?”

  “You really don’t remember this?”

  “I have a brain disorder.”

  “Well, duh. Yes, private investigator Harry Glade of the Brain Disorder, they were just wannabes.”

  “We didn’t need crosses or garlic or holy water or wooden stakes?”

  “Nope.”

  “How did I save the day?”

  “You didn’t. The Pires got away. The cops caught them later.”

  “Sounds anticlimactic.”

  “It was. Very disappointing.”

  “Just like anyone who has ever had sex with you.”

  “Are we done yet?”

  “Spoken like anyone who has ever had sex with you.”

  “We’re done here.”

  “I’ve got what I needed to know. Thanks, Maalox.”

  “No problem.”

  “Do you want to know where I got those super-esoteric emojis?”

  “It wasn’t weighing on me, no.”

  “I got emojis of everything. Name something. Anything.”

  Andrew sighed and spoke to somebody on the other end. “Fine. My daughter wants to know if you have an emoji of the exotic purple mangosteen fruit?”

  “Of course. Be a pretty shitty emoji set without any mangosteen fruit.”

  He said something to his daughter again. “How about the Australian ornate wobbegong?”

  “In golden-brown or bluish-grey?”

  “Golden-brown.”

  “It was a trick question. I have wobbegong emojis in both colors.”

  I hung up, texted him ten mangosteen emojis and ten wobbegong emojis, and just to show off, ten Gaboon viper emojis. Then I blocked his number.

  Next up on McGlade’s Amazing World of Fast-Paced Crime Investigation; a nap.

  I needed the rest. I had surgery scheduled for tomorrow, Covid-permitting.

  When I awoke, I Googled news stories about the cult known as The Pires. They’d all gone to prison, and all been brutally murdered while paying their debts to society. Which was a tragic shame, because I really needed a lead.

  But that did link to some articles on clinical vampirism.

  There were several sub-categories of practitioners, known in the psychiatric community as “nutjobs,” including those who self-harmed and drank their own blood, those who did it for sexual gratification, those who did it because they wanted to identify as vampires, those who did it for sadistic reasons, those who really believed they were vampires, and those who thought they needed blood to live.

  Renfield’s syndrome. Since the late 1800s, there had been over 50,000 people diagnosed with an addiction to drinking blood. Named after the vampire’s human assistant in Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula. It usually began with zoophagia, the act of eating living creatures. As the delusion progressed, it often led to consuming human blood.

  This led down more rabbit holes.

  Articles about cannibalism, and subsequently werewolves and the persecution of those believed to be cursed by the devil to eat human flesh during a full moon.

  Which Google reminded me would happen tomorrow.

  Clinical lycanthropy, where people believed they were werewolves, wasn’t as widespread or popular as drinking blood. But there had been notable cases of people who thought they were wolves, or that they could change into wolves, including a few serial killers over the decades.

  From reading about wolfmen, I transitioned to articles about the moral panic of witch hunts in medieval times up through colonial America and, most recently, the bullshit of the Satanic ritual abuse claims of the 80s and 90s, based on the bullshit of recovered memories.

  And that came full circle, back to Blood’s alleged victims, whose own stories of being half-asleep while someone sucked their blood reminded me of recovered memories.

  Except I knew they weren’t recovered memories, because that same thing just happened to me and Jackie.

  Which led me to a startling realization.

  “When is dinner?” I asked.

  That’s when I noticed that I’d been so deeply immersed in McGlade’s Amazing World of Fast-Paced Crime Investigation, that I hadn’t been aware I was the only one left in the hospital room.

  My crew had apparently abandoned me while I got stuck doing all the work.

  Which was the exact moment my appointed surgeon, Dr. Luff, chose to pay a visit.

  Luff had black raven eyes and a shock of wiry blond hair that would likely destroy any comb that tried to glide through it. He was one of those people who didn’t look at you, but instead looked through you. Like you weren’t there, and he couldn’t acknowledge the actual human being inside the sack of skin and bones he was going to flex his surgical skills on.

  Luff checked my chart, then glanced in the direction of my face.

  “You’re going to need seven percutaneous pins to properly set the bones,” Luff stated. “They’ll protrude through you skin for three to four weeks.”

  “Cool. Can I put fruits and vegetables on them like little shish kebabs?”

  “No. That could precipitate infection.”

  “What about bacon-wrapped shrimps? I can sterilize them first. With flame broiling.”

  “I saw your show,” he said, speaking of non-sequiturs.

  I waited.

  “On TV,” he continued. “The show they made about you.”

  “I’m aware of it. The show is called Fatal Autonomy. We’re doing a new season about a cowboy who lost his footwear.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s a reboot,” I said.

  Dr. Luff didn’t react. Instead he stated, “The episode I saw made fun of obesity. And incontinence. And the mentally challenged.”

  “You’d have to be more specific. That’s pretty much every episode.”

  “Do you think making jokes at the expense of marginalized communities is humorous?”

  “Yes. Especially if they have a funny accent.”

  No reaction at all.

  “You know who the easiest group to make fun of is?” I asked. “Comatose people.”

  “Because they can’t fight back?”

  “Because they aren’t woke.”

  No reaction.

  “You know the hardest group to make fun of?” I asked. “Stamp collectors. Because they are all about cancel culture.”

  The guy just stood there. Like an unlaughing statue.

  “Because you cancel stamps,” I explained.

  “I understood the reference.”

  “Bakers are also fragile. It’s so easy to get a rise out of them.”

  Nothing.

  “It’s also easy to get a rise out of men who take Viagra.”

  Nothing.

  “I put up a partition between my house and my neighbor’s house. But he stole it. I guess he took a fence.”

  Nada. Zip. This guy had no soul.

  “You know why you can’t tell racist jokes in a bank vault?” I asked. “Because it’s a safe space.”

  I was running out of jokes about public shaming and mob mentality, so I was pleased when Dr. Luff said, “I wish you luck with your cowboy reboot. Get some rest. Your surgery will be at 6 A.M.”

  “Looking forward. I’ve been very mad since my leg was broken. Do you want to know how mad? Hopping mad.”

  He walked off.

  I added him to the suspect list.

  I also made a new list, which I called the Assclown List, and added him to that as well.

  Hopefully he was a great surgeon. Because if he screwed up, I had a great lawyer.

  PHIN

  I hurt. A lot.

  My bite wounds had been repaired with a temporary stitch-and-staple job until I could get my skin graft surgery the following day. But that wasn’t the reason for me using a wheelchair, even though McGlade insisted it was.

  The real reason I was on wheels was so I didn’t fall on my face because I was concussed and got dizzy easily. Also the prescription painkillers didn’t make balance any easier.

  But I refused to let that stop me from being the toughest person in the room. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. There was no way Detective Kertis could kick my ass. I’ve beaten down bigger guys while I was in worse shape.

  Injuries and opiates be damned, I was going to be useful.

  While Jack made some video calls and Harry and Sam watched Godzilla, I wheeled myself through the hospital halls to try and hear some Destiny Drac gossip.

  In my younger, cruder days, I got information from people through a combination of bribes, coercion, and violence. In my defense, I didn’t hang out with a nice crowd, and I never punched anyone who didn’t have it coming.

  The hospital environment required more discretion, and some finesse, if I wanted to get any answers.

  But every quest for answers began the same way; asking the questions.

  Happily, Harry McGlade still had one foot in the 1990s, which meant he carried around business cards. They were the icebreaker I needed to engage complete strangers.

  I began with the nursing station in the center of the ward, where I rolled up to two women and a man as they practiced their profession. The thin man with a large Adam’s apple wore yellow scrubs, a stout woman with grey hair wore green scrubs, and a tall woman with bony shoulders wore a polka dot top with a blue bottom.

  “Excuse me, I work for Hollywood producer Harry McGlade.”

  “Room 305, bed C?” asked Yellow Scrubs. Young, thick eyebrows, N-95 mask with smiley faces on it, name badge read DOUG with a matching picture of him.

  “Yeah. You ever see Fatal Autonomy?”

  “Nah. My mom likes it, though. She’s into bad TV.”

  I’d never watched the show, but that concurred with my wife’s opinion.

  “I watch it,” said Green Scrubs, name badge DORIS. “I like that female cop who is always wetting her pants.”

  That was the character based on my wife. Part of the reason Jack didn’t like it.

  Polka Dots, name badge SHELBY, lightly shrugged. I tried out my spiel.

  “Well, Mr. McGlade is looking to make a movie about this town, and he’s trying to find out about one of your local urban legends. The Destiny Drac.”

  Yellow Scrubs said, “We all heard about him. Drinks blood.”

  Green Scrubs said, “Some people think he’s a vampire. He’s probably just some confused kid.”

  Polka Dots shrugged again.

  “So the Destiny Drac is male?” I asked.

  Green Scrubs laughed. “I guess that’s sexist, isn’t it? No one can describe him, but we assume it’s a man because men do most of the violent crime.”

  “It could be a woman,” Yellow Scrubs said. “No one has died, right? Are they even hurt? Should this be called violent crime? It’s more like theft, right? A pint or two of stolen blood.”

  Green Scrubs disagreed. “Being jabbed with a needle is assault.”

  Yellow Scrubs folded his arms across his chest. “Then we commit assault every day. I’m not saying it’s consensual. And I’m not saying it’s cool. But if some guy—or girl—breaks into my house at night and all they take is some blood, I’d consider myself lucky. Could have been a lot worse.”

  No shit.

  I kept my features neutral. “We’ve heard rumors that the Destiny Drac may operate out of this hospital. Have you guys heard anything like that?”

  Green Scrubs chuckled. “It’s a hospital. We’ve got more gossip, rumors, and bullshit being spread than in any ten high schools combined.”

  Yellow Scrubs nodded enthusiastically. “We hear things all the time. Maybe it’s someone on staff. RN, NP, PA. Interns, residents, med students. Maybe it’s a first responder who is here a lot.”

  “A first responder?” I asked. I eyed Polka Dots, who was aloof to the point of creepiness.

  “Paramedics or EMTs,” he said. “Police. Firemen.”