Fat Vampire Value Meal (Books 1-4 in the series) by Johnny B. Truant Page A

willing to take any conversational port in a storm. And most of what he seemed to want to talk about was how hard he was going to nail Nikki once he broke through her veneer.  
    With the unexpected and unwelcome addition of Walker, the first part of the night shift went much the same as the day shift always had. Reginald didn’t have a window, so large stretches of time passed where nothing seemed different, with Walker raising his petty annoyances every few minutes. The only real difference was that when he went into the kitchen for coffee (which he still very much enjoyed, just like pizza, fried chicken, and the rest), he ran into Maurice, with whom he exchanged a few words. He also ran into the new girl, except that she wasn’t exactly new. Maurice said she’d been working at the company for as long as he had.  
    Walker left at midnight and the world became blessedly quiet. It was as if a weight had been lifted off of Reginald, but he wasn’t the only one who felt the change.  
    “Oh, hey, did it just get less assholish in here?” the not-new new girl said aloud as she watched the door close behind Walker.
    Reginald looked up. It seemed unlikely she was precisely talking to him , but he was the only other person within earshot. So he smirked, but said nothing.  
    “Now the party can start, right?” she said. This time she definitely was talking to him.  
    Reginald smiled, then looked down.
    “Reginald, right? I’m Nikki. I would have introduced myself earlier, but I’ve been socially beaten down since that jerk started working nights. It’s like living under a totalitarian regime.” She extended a hand.  
    Reginald decided that this was the largest number of words a woman had voluntarily said to him in ten years. Reginald shook her hand. It was small but strong, and soft as powder.  
    “Have you met Maurice?” she said, gesturing. “He wears a sword on his belt.”  
    “Yeah, we knew each other from before. We overlapped a bit when I worked days.”  
    She nodded. “Well, nice to meet you.” And she turned to go.  
    Being the only three people in the office, Nikki, Maurice, and Reginald pinged past each other for the rest of the night like the last few bingo balls left in the hopper.
    “How’s your hunger?” said Maurice, who he ran into a bit later. “Did you feed yet?”  
    “Um… kind of,” said Reginald.  
    Maurice made a face.  
    “I’m going out for lunch,” Reginald added.  
    At 2am, Reginald put on his coat, nodded to Maurice, and headed out to his car. He drove the few miles to Claire’s house and, suddenly very aware of how bad all of this could look, parked a block away and approached on foot via a small alley behind the row of houses. As he walked, he decided that this was a dumb idea. Not only was he fraternizing with a little girl through her window in the middle of the night, but she probably wouldn’t even be awake. Kids said dumb things, then forgot them.  
    But as he rounded the corner between Claire’s house and the abandoned house next door, he saw a chair sitting on the grass next to a window. A light was on in the window, and as he approached, the sash raised and a small head wearing an anorak hood stuck out and smiled.  
    “Reginald!” she said.  
    Reginald shushed her, then scampered up to the window. “Your mom will hear you!” he said. “And for the same reason, are you sure you want that light on?”  
    “She’s totally passed out drunk,” said Claire. “I could set the house on fire and she wouldn’t flinch.”  
    “Oh.”  
    Claire read his facial expression. “It’s okay. She does it all the time.”  
    “Oh.”  
    “I mean, I’m used to it.”  
    “Gotcha.”  
    Claire sighed inside of the giant fur hood. “I shouldn’t’ve said anything. Now you’re going to think she’s a sleazy drunk. She’s not. She’s really nice. But it’s been hard on her, raising me alone, and she has to work two jobs and I think it just