Dave Rossi vs Dracula
There were times when a writing retreat at his cabin in the woods just south of Arlington was a kind of torturous isolation that left him staring at a blank screen in misery, and there were times it was a kind of outrageous flurry of words and sleep, albeit generally with some pretty disturbing dreams. His kind of writing could have that effect. This was one of the good times, and Dave had finished two chapters since his arrival on Friday afternoon. As a reward to himself, he was taking a leisurely breakfast on Sunday morning. It was ten-thirty, and he had yet to open his computer.
Actually, he was starting to feel like it was time to get back to work, which was annoyingly not the point of taking the morning off. Instead, he took his coffee out to the front porch and whistled for Cagney. That he had to whistle at all was strange; that it took almost a full minute for Cagney to come up to his side was almost unheard of. Cagney wasn’t a puppy any more, but he was a hunting dog – when you called, he came.
When the dog finally leaned against his leg, panting cheerfully, Dave crouched down and rubbed his ears. “Everything okay, boy?” he said, and Cagney whined. He carefully probed the spot on the dog’s neck that had seemed to elicit the response, and got another noise of distress. His fingers came away with flecks of dried blood, and he frowned at them. “All right,” he said, dusting his fingers off on his jeans, “We’re going for a ride.” For the first time, Cagney didn’t beat him to the truck.
The vet diagnosed blood loss and suggested a rabies shot for both dog and human. “Vampire bats are pretty unusual around here, but it’s not unheard of,” he said. “I’d keep him inside for now.” Which, Dave thought, was pretty much the most obvious advice he’d gotten all day. He’d been ready to cut his little vacation short if he needed to, but it turned out both the vet and the local doctor had everything they needed on hand, and there wasn’t a physician in Virginia who didn’t take government insurance, so they were back at the cabin before the sun had sunk all the way below the horizon.
Cagney didn’t complain at all about being shut inside overnight, which was evidence enough that something had happened on the previous night. Instead of staring pitifully at the door like he usually would, he just curled up in Dave’s recliner in the living room and snorted himself to sleep. “Fair enough,” Dave muttered with a fond smile he would never have admitted to, and then gave up on the whole idea of a day off and cracked open his laptop. He’d had an idea for chapter four while driving back from the vet, and he wanted to get it down before he went to sleep and lost it.
Which was why, when there was a thump and a whine and the sound of a scuffle coming from the living room at ten minutes to three in the morning, Dave was still awake, typing at the kitchen table. Wrong cabin, buddy, he thought to himself, moving silently to the drawer by the kitchen door and pulling out his gun.
The thing leaning halfway in through the window did not have a human face, and when Dave came around the corner it hissed, giving him an excellent view of a mouthful of extremely sharp teeth.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he said.
Cagney leapt off the sofa and scurried back behind him. The thing in the window glared after him, eyes glinting in the light pouring in from the kitchen door.
“Look,” Dave said, hoping that someone had been selling unusually realistic Halloween masks out of season, “I don’t want to shoot you. Keep your hands where I can see them, and –“
The thing gripped the windowsill and lurched forward. Dave squeezed off a shot, which he was sure hit its mark even though the creature didn’t so much as flinch. He tried another one, which still produced no reaction.
“Got any ideas?” he asked Cagney. Dave glanced back over his shoulder to see that the dog had vanished entirely. “Good idea,” he muttered. And then something in the kitchen caught his eye.
***
The body was still there in the morning, lying scrawny and twisted under the window, but it was decomposing rapidly as the sunlight crept ever closer to the house. Soon all that would be left was the rope of garlic from last week’s grocery trip. “Embarrassing,” he muttered. Well, at least it was dead. And Cagney was back to his old self this morning.
He’d thought briefly about calling the police, but rejected that idea almost immediately. The last thing he wanted was a battery of psych evals as soon as he got back. He thought about calling Hotch. Hotch probably wouldn’t demand psych evals. Of course, there was the terrifying proposition that Hotch would believe him when he told him he’d killed a vampire in his hunting cabin.
Dave looked down at Cagney, who was leaning against his leg and panting. “Let’s go shoot some ducks,” he suggested, and Cagney barked happily.