I hurried home to Apple Valley to tell Jessica all about my new job. But the unbelievable stench assailed me on my front step, and I almost couldn't make myself go inside.
I fidgeted on the front step for a minute, debating, and finally told myself, well, you defeated the most evil vampire on the planet just a couple of months ago, so you can do this, too.
I opened my front door and followed my nose to the bathroom, where my best friend was lurched over the toilet.
"Still have the flu?" I asked sympathetically.
"No stupid questions from vampires," she groaned. She retched again. I observed she'd had chicken soup and toast for lunch. "Use your super strength to pull my head off my shoulders, please."
"For crying out loud, Jess, how long you been in here?"
"What day is it?"
I noticed that she hadn't had time to turn on the bathroom light in her headlong gallop, and had initially missed the toilet. Oh, well. The wall needed re-painting, anyway.
When she was finished scatter-puking, I picked her up like a big doll and carried her to the guest bed. Before I'd become a vampire, there was no way I could have done this. Jessica was a few inches shorter than me, and about as pudgy as a stop sign, but she was gangly and hard to move around. Now, of course, it was cake.
I brought her a glass of 7-Up and a wet washcloth. She cleaned herself up as best she could, and then I picked her up and ran back into the bathroom so she could throw up the soda.
"Maybe it's time to go to a hospital," I said nervously. She'd been barfing for two days.
"Marc can give me a shot when he gets home," she said. She sounded hollow, because her head was all the way inside the toilet bowl. Luckily, she'd gotten her hair cut last week.
Marc was my roommate, a resident at the Children's Hospital in Minneapolis. He'd moved in the week I woke up dead. Jessica had a gorgeous, chic little seven-room place in Edina, but she spent most of her time at my place.
"Is there a reason you're being sick here," I asked, "instead of at your place?"
"You don't know how lucky you are," she replied, ignoring my question, "being dead and all."
"Right now I agree with you. Hey, guess what? I got a job."
"That's nice." She looked up at me. Her brown eyes were sunken. She'd looked better on the day of her parents' funeral. "Why are you just standing there? Why aren't you killing me?"
"Er, sorry." I took a breath through my mouth. Luckily I only had to do that about twice an hour. "You know, this sort of reminds me of your twenty-first birthday. Remember?"
"The night is"-she hurped-hurped for a second, then continued-"a blur."
"Well, you were mixing cr
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