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“I think Bernard’s a vampire,” Manny says as soon as Fran enters the shop.
She briefly considers just turning around, walking out the door, heading back to her flat, and having a nice relaxing evening by herself. Maybe even packing a suitcase, moving to France, and changing her name.
But instead, something compels her to ask, “What makes you think so?”
“Well, firstly,” says Manny, “he was bitten yesterday.”
“Oh, no. Was it the thing under the bed?”
“No.”
“The thing you saw out of the corner of your eye in the History section?”
“No.”
“The thing between Persuasion and Pride & Prejudice?”
“No.”
“Was it that creepy guy who came in the other day asking for books on cannibalism?”
“Surprisingly, no,” says Manny. “It was a bat.”
He then launches into a long-winded story about Bernard leaving the kitchen window open after throwing all of Manny’s clothes into the garden to punish him for buying the wrong crisps in the weekly shop.
As a result, a bat flew through the open window and into the kitchen, where it wreaked havoc for half an hour while Manny tried to shoo it back outside and Bernard tried to shoo it toward Manny.
“So then I came out into the shop to dial 999, and —”
“Stop right there,” Fran interrupts. “You dialed 999 over a bat?”
“You didn’t see it, Fran,” Manny says with a haunted expression. “This was no normal bat. I think I heard it whisper my name.”
“All right, all right. What happened next?”
“Well, I didn’t actually get a chance to dial 999, because I heard Bernard scream, and when I went to check on him, the bat was gone and Bernard had a bite mark on his neck.”
“What did he say happened?”
“He said the bat flew back out the window,” Manny recounts. “But he didn’t mention the bite. He just closed the curtains and sat down with a book and a cigarette.”
“Hm,” says Fran. “Where is he now?”
“Still in the kitchen. He’s been in there since it happened, just sitting in the dark.”
Deciding she needs to see this for herself, Fran carefully parts the kitchen curtains and peers through. Sure enough, Bernard is seated at the table, reading a book by the light of a single candle.
Manny peeks through on the other side. “Look at him, Fran. He looks so pale and sickly.”
An excellent observation, albeit one they could make about Bernard even when he hasn’t been bitten by a bat.
“And look at his collar,” Manny continues. “Does it not give him a distinctly vampiric silhouette?”
It’s true that the collar of Bernard’s black jacket is standing straight up. But it’s not unusual for his clothes to be facing every which way. Last month he somehow managed to wear his shoes backwards.
The drawn curtains aren’t exactly a clue, either. Probably just a particularly bad hangover.
“Manny, this is absurd,” Fran says, stepping back. “It’s like that time Bernard thought you were a werewolf.”
“Right. That was ridiculous,” Manny says, chuckling. “By the way, you wouldn’t happen to know the phase of the moon tonight, would you?”
“Waxing crescent, I think. Why?”
“No reason.” He looks through the curtains again. “I don’t know, Fran. I think we should do something to be certain.”
Fran decides to humor him. “Fine. Shall we look up how to spot a vampire, then?”
It takes them an hour to find the right book. There’s an entire shelf in the shop labeled Vampires, but it mostly contains books about gardening, with three copies of The Very Hungry Caterpillar mixed in. Eventually, they happen upon a copy of Vampirism for Dummies in the Travel section.
Fran pages through it. Garlic, holy water, crucifixes. The usual stuff.
“Oh, how about this?” she says. “Vampires don’t have reflections. Go and get a mirror and let’s test it.”
“We haven’t got any mirrors,” says Manny. “Bernard made us get rid of them.”
“Well, that does seem rather suspicious,” Fran admits.
“No, this was last week. He said I wasted too much time primping and preening, and it was losing the shop money.”
Fran takes a closer look at him. Now that he mentions it, his hair does appear to have lost a significant amount of luster. And it’s not nearly as swoopy as it used to be. Shame.
“No matter,” she says, reaching into her handbag. “I’ve got a compact. I’ll offer it to him, and you check if he has a reflection.”
Fran opens the curtains and slips into the kitchen, with Manny following close behind. She takes a seat across from Bernard at the table. He ignores her, focusing all his attention on his book.
“Oh, Bernard,” she says, trying her best to sound casual. “You’ve got something on your face. Here, borrow my compact.”
She holds it out to him. Without looking up from his book, Bernard takes it from her and sets it on the table. Then he reaches down to remove his shoe, which he uses to violently pound on the compact like he’s trying to kill one of those things behind the fridge.
He picks it up and hands it back to her. Fran can hear the shards of broken glass rattling around inside. She gives Manny a helpless look over Bernard’s shoulder.
“Bernard,” Manny says then, actually seeming to think on his feet. “What do you say to dinner at that new Italian restaurant? I hear the garlic dough balls are exquisite.”
“No,” says Bernard. “Go and count all the books in the shop. I want to speak with Fran in private.”
Like a loyal dog, Manny goes bounding out of the kitchen.
Now that it’s just the two of them, Bernard closes his book and laces his fingers together on the table as if he’s about to interview her for a job.
“Fran, I have a proposal for you.”
“Bernard,” she says, “I’ve told you a hundred times. When both of us are eighty, and if neither of us is married, I’ll let you touch one of my —”
“No, not that,” he cuts in. “Listen to me very carefully. I’m a vampire.”
Well, then. There’s one mystery solved.
Bernard continues, “I’ve decided I want to drink your blood.”
Fran knows she should probably be horrified to hear this. But it makes her feel sort of special to be chosen. She smiles to herself.
Bernard notices. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re the first person to walk into the shop all day.”
“What about Manny?”
“I can’t drink werewolf blood,” Bernard says, as if it should be obvious. “It’s poisonous to vampires. I need human blood.”
Fran considers this. “Will it kill me?”
“Yes,” says Bernard. “Unless I turn you into a vampire as well.”
“Well, what will I get out of it if you do?”
“Absolutely nothing. It’s a miserable existence.”
Amazingly, Bernard is even worse at selling vampirism than he is at selling books.
But then Fran thinks about her life as it is now. Single, jobless, spending her days hanging around a pigsty of a bookshop with two men who, as it turns out, are mythical creatures. Surely it can’t get any worse.
“Very well,” she says, showing him her neck. “Have at it.”
A week later, Bernard and Fran sit at the shop’s desk in the dark, gazing despondently into their empty wine glasses.
Suddenly, the front door opens to reveal Manny, followed by a beam of evening sunlight that comes inches away from burning their flesh off. They hiss at him, shielding their faces.
Manny apologizes, quickly closing the door behind him. He looks worryingly empty-handed.
“Have you got it?” Bernard asks.
“Please say you’ve got it,” Fran pleads.
Manny shakes his head, and they both groan.
“Manny,” Fran whines. “We’ve just finished the last of the university students from Tuesday. There’s not a drop left.”
“It’s not as if I didn’t try,” Manny says defensively. “First I was thrown out of the hospital. Then I stopped in five different pubs and witnessed not a single brawl. I even rummaged through every bin on the street looking for used dental floss. Nothing.”
Bernard slams his fist on the desk. “Then find us some customers, damn you!”
“I can’t get anyone to come into the shop,” says Manny. “Rumors are spreading. There are missing person posters everywhere. We might have to go on the run.”
In response to this, Bernard leaps out of his chair and flies across the shop (he can do that now), grabbing Manny by the front of his tropical-printed shirt and pushing him against a nearby bookshelf.
“I don’t care if you have to squash every mosquito in London,” he growls. “You’ll get us some blood this instant or I’ll rip off your beard and feed it to the thing in the sink!”
Just as Bernard finishes delivering this threat, something unexpected happens. Manny throws his head back and lets out a tremendous howl. Once it’s over, a look of panic appears on his face.
“Oh, no!” he cries. “Why didn’t you tell me there was a full moon tonight?”
He shoves Bernard away with an impressive amount of force, running through the kitchen and up the stairs. Within seconds, they can hear him hammering nails into the wall as he boards up the door to his room.
“Werewolves,” Bernard says derisively.
Fran runs her tongue over her fangs and sighs. Turns out Bernard was right — it really is a miserable existence.
He hits the ceiling with the broom handle. “No shedding!”
But it’s not much different.