Double Dead by Chuck Wendig Read Free Book Online

back,” he told Creampuff. A smile spread across his face like butter in a hot pan. He licked a fang. “Let’s go eat.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Fat is Flavor
     
    Blood pumped into his mouth and down his throat, his tongue playing in the wound like a boy splashing in a kiddie pool, and as he drank, Coburn was reminded of something an old chef friend of his used to say: “ Fat is flavor .”
    Even in blood.
    Salty. Sweet. Thick.
    Equal parts milkshake and liver pate .
    Fucking delicious.
    The fat man wobbled and swayed but did not fall, his hand still idly fingering the button on his jeans as if he still might decide to stop and take a piss here along this overgrown fencerow, the tall needled pines on the other side playing home to an army of complaining nightbirds. Coburn cupped a steadying palm under the man’s chest—his tit, really—and dug in deeper, savoring the warm and buttery blood.
    Only an hour before, Coburn and Creampuff came following the dots of oil and the trail of exhaust down a back country road until it wound down a gravel drive. A sign, choked by ivy and mold, read: Lake Towhee .
    And there, parked on a knoll overlooking a scum-topped lake, sat a big, clunky RV. A low fire, now mostly glowing embers, lay smoldering, the smoke and ash drifting in whorls toward the pregnant midnight moon above.
    Coburn could smell them. Not one, but several—used to be he could identify humans by the smell of perfume, the scent of leather, the odor of mouthwash or toothpaste. Now it was mostly just a gross mélange of body odors: sweat and bad breath and piss and scum. And maybe, just maybe, an undercurrent of soap.
    Oh, and blood. Coburn could always smell the blood.
    Must’ve been four or five people up there. The buffet, it seemed, was open once more. Good thing, too, because Coburn was on the edge of a keenly-honed hunger, and hunger made a vampire do very strange things.
    He and Creampuff hid amongst a nest of dry reeds, watching. A fat man came out of the camper, a windbreaker as big as a four-person tent draped across his body. Coburn marveled at the man’s size. Here it was, the end of the world, the gates of Hell ripped open so that all of its rotting souls could come tumbling out, and this shit-heel somehow managed to remain morbidly obese.
    But hey, the vampire thought, who cares? Big boy means big blood. Buckets of the stuff. Gallons. His toes curled just thinking about it.
    The big dude had a rifle. He leaned it up against the RV, next to the door, then tottered off toward the forest’s edge.
    He was going to take a piss.
    Coburn looked to Creampuff, then pressed his finger to his lips. He thought again about trying to coerce the dog to do as commanded, but before he had to, the terrier hunkered down on his belly.
    “Wait here,” Coburn said, and then he stalked the fat man.
    And now, here he was. Dumb fuck came up. Coburn threw a stone to distract him—and as soon as big boy turned around to look (pivoting his prodigious mountain body), Coburn bit down from behind.
    “Guh,” the fat man said. Way his lips worked made him look like a fish, gasping. The blood was wonderful. Oily and sweet. This was what the Japanese called umami , Coburn thought. The salty satisfaction of fish sauce.
    Then—
    The sky split with the sound of thunder.
    Coburn felt struck, as if by a fist.
    The sweet smell of the blood in his nose gave way to another odor: the acrid, rankling stink of gunpowder.
    It took all his will, but he wrenched his fangs free of the fat neck and let the poor bastard bleed like a stuck pig.
    Behind him, a fireplug of an old man. No—not old, not exactly. Late 40s, early 50s, maybe. Weathered face. Small dark eyes. Hair going silver even now and an ill-sculpted gray beard clinging to his chin.
    In his hand: a lever-action rifle. A .30-30, by the look of it. Probably the same one that fat boy here left by the RV door.
    Coburn grinned, licked a goopy drop of blood from his lip before it slid down his