Unidentified Funny Objects 2 by Robert Silverberg, Jim C. Hines, Jody Lynn Nye, Mike Resnick, Ken Liu, Tim Pratt, Esther Frisner Page A

which must have weighed at least ninety pounds. I had forgotten that I had moved into a boarding house.
    “Isaac van Helsing,” the voice said again.
    I pried my eyes open. Standing at the foot of my bed was my former servant and thrall, Richard. This surprised me, as he was dead.
    He thrust out his lower lip, pouting. “You murdered me. Your loyal servant!”
    Richard had recently tried to murder me. He had pinned me, sucked my blood to become a vampire and left me to die at the claws of a rather nasty zombie bear. He was a vampire for about thirty seconds before he stupidly walked past a sun lamp I had set up. The last time I had seen him, it had been while emptying out my Dust Buster. I cleared my throat. “You were never particularly loyal.”
    “Semantics,” Richard said. “And now, I’ve returned as a ghost. For sweet revenge!” With a flourish, he lifted one transparent hand and yanked back the curtains. On reflex, I raised my hand to shield myself from the sunlight, but a weak grey light filtered through the window. It was dusk. Late dusk, at that. Richard cursed.
    I lowered my hand and rolled my eyes. “Ah,” I said, tonelessly. “The sunlight. It burns.”
    “Don’t mock me! It was daylight when I got here. It’s difficult to wake you. You sleep like the dead.”
    I pulled on my jeans, then my shirt. I padded barefoot toward the kitchen, Richard floating beside me. “This is all your fault,” he said. “I don’t have a job now. How will I make a living?”
    I rolled my eyes. “You’re dead. You don’t need to make a living.” I could hear Mother Holmes, the owner of the old boarding house, clanking pots and humming to herself. She refused to treat me like a vampire, choosing instead a smothering maternal attitude of smug, but loving, superiority.
    “Good evening,” I said, and Mother Holmes turned, her face wrinkled as an ancient apple. She plopped a bowl of stew on the table in front of me. The smell of garlic wafted from the bowl, burning my eyes and blistering my skin. I pushed it away. “Mother Holmes, as I’ve told you three nights in a row, I cannot eat human food.”
    She scowled. “You pay for room and board, and that is precisely what you will get.”
    She spooned a bit of stew into her mouth and looked at Richard. “It’s good to see you again, dear. What are you up to these days? You look much too thin.”
    Richard gave me a long stare, then turned to Mother Holmes. “I plan to haunt Isaac for a century or two. Maybe murder him if I get a chance. Outside of that, I’m not really sure.”
    A hearty knock came from the door, and I gladly leapt from my chair to answer. Mayor Rigby stood outside, his hat in his chubby hands and an apologetic smile on his face. “Good evening, Mr. Van Helsing,” he said.
    He stepped quickly inside and I closed the door behind him. He nodded to Mother Holmes and dropped his hat. His sweaty, nervous manner practically shouted “prey,” and I licked my lips without thinking. “Is there a problem, Mr. Mayor?”
    “Nothing you can’t handle,” he said, counting out three hundred dollars in bills and laying them on the table.
    Richard floated over. “Is it the squirrels?”
    I gave him an irritated scowl. “Be silent, this is business for the living. The dead are best seen but not heard.”
    Richard mumbled something about how I was undead, and I made a mental note to find a good exorcist. The mayor put his finger on the bills. “This is only the up-front money, of course.”
    I nodded. This was our current arrangement. I removed supernatural horrors from his community (myself excluded) and he paid me. I then paid Mother Holmes and remained, as always, one of the rare vampires unable to afford a castle or underground grotto. I was never good with money. Still, my current modest room was a considerable upgrade from my previous home: a black, windowless cargo van with a coffin screwed into the floor, currently parked in front of Mother