EXCERPT FROM "Little Sucker"

I was just passing through Transylvania, heading down Highway 65. Oh, and no, not that Transylvania, by the way. Nope, this one was barely a blip on the map in the northeast corner of Louisiana, just a stone’s throw away from the mighty Mississippi. Still, it was worth stopping at, if only for the kitsch-factor, which the town, if you could it that, played up to the hilt.

“Velcome, velcome,” said the general-store proprietor in what could only be called a hick Romanian accent, his face an ashen white, dried blood (ketchup?) on his chin. “I vant to suck your blood.”

I grinned. “My wallet, more likely.”

He shrugged and promptly dropped the act. “Dracula T-shirts on sale: two for five and a quarter.”

“Why would I need two?” I asked.

The shrug remained. “Heck, why would you need one?”

I gave him six crisp dollar bills and told him to keep the change. He only had the T-shirts in smalls and extra larges. Thankfully, my nephews ranged on the former side. “What’s with the name?” I asked. “Transylvania, I mean? Some sort of marketing gimmick?”

He rang up my order and dropped the shirts into a plastic bag. “Named after the university in Lexington, Kentucky. You ever heard of it?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Welcome to the club,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Anyway, we figured we’d play it up with the whole Dracula thing, lure in the tourists.” I pointed at myself. “Singular.” The sigh returned. “Still ...”

I leaned in. “Still what?”

He held out a pair of glow in the dark vampire fangs. “Two for a dollar. “

I plopped down my buck. “Still what?”

His huckster smile all but vanished as he also leaned in. “Well, the way I hear it told, seeing as my great, great granddaddy was around when the town got its name, there were in fact vampires here back in the day. Most of ‘em got themselves hung just after the town got its neat, little name.”

“So it’s not named after the university?”

His shrug turned nod. “Yep, that part is true. But the way folks figured it, the vampires came when they heard about the town name. Maybe they thought there was some sort of association. Makes sense, right?”

I forced a grin. No telling how much this guy already had to drink. “Um, yeah. Makes sense.” Then I paused, something suddenly nagging at me. “Wait, you said ‘most of ‘em’. Some got away?” Okay, so I’m a tad gullible. I mean, look what I’d spent already on a bag-load of crap. Besides, I couldn’t get a decent radio station out there, and this guy was the nearest thing to any form of entertainment for miles and miles around.

In any case, his nodding continued. “One. Just one. For some reason, the noose didn’t work. Sucker, pardon the expression, got away.”

In for a penny, in for a pound, I figured, so I asked, “To where?”

The nodding abruptly halted. “Eagle Lake, they all thought. Across the Mississippi, not too far from here. River was swollen at the time he escaped. By the time it ebbed, the town had forgotten all about him. Out of sight ...”

I gulped. “Out of mind.” But not out of mine, seeing as Eagle Lake was exactly where I was headed to, a distant cousin’s cabin made available for a week’s retreat. A cold shiver suddenly raced down my spine. “Got any wooden stakes, by the way?”

He plopped them down on the counter. “Two for ten.”

“Why would I need two?” I asked. “Wouldn’t one do the trick if you happened to encounter a vampire?”

Again, he shrugged. “What if you were to miss?”

I handed him the ten. “Good ...” I touched the tip of the nearest stake. “Point.”

He grinned. “Funny.”