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been much of a leap to figure out that the crazy old hermit lady who lived in a shack at the edge of the swamp and only came out at night was a vampire.
    Uncle Mike had nearly blown a gasket, though, when word had come down from Congress that everybody had to display a copy of the 2006 Non-Human Species Protection Act taped to a window of their home and/or place of business. That law hadn’t lasted long, especially around here, where we had the charter, and federal regulations were considered to be more like guidelines. It wasn’t just Dead End, though. The entire country had rebelled at that one, and the vampires who’d set up their own special house of Congress had needed to rethink their strategy.
    Eating people who disagreed with them hadn’t been working out, apparently.
    I parked the car next to Uncle Mike’s sparklingly clean F-150, climbed out, and waited. “Three, two, one…”
    Right on schedule, Uncle Mike ambled out of the barn, wearing his standard “I’m retired, and I’ll never wear a suit again” uniform of old blue jeans and an ancient flannel shirt, and started to criticize my car.
    “Sure don’t know why you insist on driving a foreign car. Why anybody would want one of those tin cans when you could have a reliable American car is beyond me.” He scowled at my old but sturdy Toyota as if it might fall apart in the driveway any minute. After he’d heaped abuse on it for seven years, it would probably blow up all over his lawn one of these days, just for spite.
    “Because I got it for cheap, it’s good on gas, and I can’t afford another car with the house payment,” I said, reciting the familiar litany. We’d been over this so often we could set it to music.
    “How is the house? You need me to stop by? That back window off the laundry room still sticking?”
    Uncle Mike was a retired engineer, and he could fix anything. I could probably call him and say, “Hey, this turnip-powered time machine is acting wonky,” and he’d stop by with his tool bag and fix it within a few hours, muttering about the superiority of American-made time machines the whole time. There was no way I could have maintained my house without him. I’d been able to buy the house using my mother’s life insurance money as a down payment, but there was no extra money for hiring handymen.
    My mother, Kate, had died of cancer when I was only three, and my dad—Mike’s brother—had run off to bury himself in a bottle because of the loss of the love of his life, or so he’d said. We hadn’t heard from him since. Mom had left me a small life insurance policy that Aunt Ruby and Uncle Mike had refused to touch. It was meant for my college tuition, they’d always told me when I wanted to bust into it, like the time I’d wanted to buy myself a car for my sixteenth birthday.
    After I’d discovered that touching anyone might send me into death spasms, I’d kind of given up on higher education of the formal kind. I read a lot, though, and took online courses sometimes, mostly in art and history, which fascinated me. Once in a while, a truly wonderful piece would come through the pawnshop, and I liked having the knowledge to recognize and appreciate it. Jeremiah had donated a small but important painting by Frederic Remington to the Orlando Museum of Art in both of our names after he’d bought it as part of a lot at an estate sale and I’d recognized it for its true worth. I was still proud of that.
    A lump formed in my throat, and I had to swallow hard. I still missed Jeremiah so much.
    Uncle Mike was staring at me, probably reading too much in my face, as usual. I couldn’t hide my emotions. It made me a terrible poker player and worse at lying than I was at parking.
    I kissed him on the cheek. “The window is fine. But the hall bathroom sink is clogging. Should I use some of that drain unclogger stuff?”
    I smiled to myself as he went into a familiar rant about the perils of drain cleaner. I couldn’t lie, but