Annie of the Undead by Varian Wolf Page A

a martini in his hand, and a more
slender, more dressed man a little taller than myself. Both had
neatly trimmed beards, the former with dark hair and the latter
with auburn.
    The slender man called after the mad barber,
“Oh, honey, let him be! He’ll quit on his own!”
    “He’s really serious this time,” commented the
larger man, whose soft, peaceable voice seemed an ill match for a
man of his girth.
    “And with those scissors,” worried the other.
“I’d better go after him –or he’ll be sleeping behind bars
tonight.”
    With that, the smaller man headed off down the
street on the trail of the madness.
    “You’ll never catch Hector,” the big man called
behind him, leaning against one of the architectural pillars.
    By now the pursuant pair was a block away and
still going. The woman on the balcony cheered skirt-man on, her
language still laced with colorful metaphors. Other people had
appeared from their various domiciles to concur.
    “Hector’s a mad dog,” said the big man over his
shoulder to us as he nursed his martini. “We try to keep him on a
leash, but sometimes he just lets it all loose, and there’s nothing
we can do about it.”
    “Him? What about Shouting Sasquatch?” I jabbed a
thumb
    “Stanley?” asked the jovial man, looking at me
for the first time. “Oh, he used to be an actor. He swears Marlon
Brando stole a role from him that would have made him famous
instead of Brando. He’s even got an Oscar on his mantel. Nobody’s
really sure where he got it. But he’s harmless. He usually goes
back to bed eventually.”
    From the reactions of practically everyone else
on the street, I gathered that “eventually” was usually quite a
long time.
    There was a frantic shriek from one of the
anti-dynamic duo, who had been playing ring-around-the-lamppost at
the next street corner. Then, they headed down a side street, the
third man some ways behind.
    Then the big man finally saw Miguel for the
first time.
    “Hello, Desperado,” he said, looking up and down
approvingly. “Take what you want; the door’s open. I won’t try to
stop you.”
    “We are hoping for a room,” Miguel said.
    “Yours or mine?” he laughed and then added in
answer to whatever expression was on my face. “Just kidding. I
wouldn’t dream of stealing your man, honey,” he added with a wise
smirk. “But I might dream of him stealing me.”
    “Be careful what you wish for,” Miguel
answered.
    “Ooh, and you’re a feisty one! Of course we’ve
got a room for you . That is, if you think you can stand the
occasional outburst from our resident thespian.”
    “I do not wake easily,” Miguel answered.
    “And I don’t sleep much,” I added, glaring at my
vampire.
    “We will not be in much at night anyway.”
    “All right, I got you,” the big gay Santa
answered with a wink. “We don’t trust anybody who doesn’t sleep
past noon around here. We figure they’re spies for the other
side.”
    “I promise to sleep past noon every night that I
manage to return before dawn.”
    Miguel matched Gay Santa’s wink.
    “Then let those good times roll,” the other
replied, making an upwardly spiraling motion with his martini,
engaging the two olives within in a vortex, “My name’s
Jonathon.”
    “Manuel Mendosa,” Miguel said, and the two
clasped hands. He opened his mouth to introduce me, but I preempted
him.
    “Annie. Name’s Annie.”
    I did not offer Jonathon my hand.
    “Say, is that your ride out there?”
    He gestured with his glass toward the
spaceship.
    “It is,” Miguel answered.
    “What a car! Hey, I wouldn’t park it there if I
were you. You got lucky tonight, but Stanley is likely to squash it
one of these nights if you leave it between his door and the
street. Oh, yeah, and I wouldn’t park it under Esmeralda’s balcony
either.”
    He gestured to the house next to Stanley’s,
cattycorner to where we were standing. You saw what she does when
she gets her panties twisted. Sometimes she