Read Online Vamp-Hire by Gerald Dean Rice - Free Book Online Page A

this
morning after my granddaughter left for work.” He poured Nick a
glass of water, set it down, and placed a piece of chocolate
wrapped in blue tinfoil next to it.
    “Go on,” Dolph said.
    Nick took a drink of water. Then another. He
was thirstier than he expected. Then he unwrapped the chocolate and
popped it in his mouth.
    It was delicious.
    Nick had had candy, but it had been unlike
any other thing he had eaten. It may have been good at first, then
his taste buds would shut off, though, and he may as well have been
eating cardboard. This was great! His tongue was firing on all
cylinders as wave after wave of flavor hit him. It was sweet, it
was bitter, it was creamy. He didn’t know if he’d ever had
chocolate before, but he knew he never wanted to stop.
    “Got another?” he asked. Dolph smiled again.
The expression would have looked more natural on a bear.
    “Maybe later.”
    Nick’s stomach was alive now and he didn’t
want to wait. His vision started to do that thing when he could see
veins beneath people’s skin.
    Then the colonel set a bowl of whatever he’d
been warming up in front of him.
    It smelled… great.
    There was a spoon already inside of it and
Nick wasted no time digging in. He was almost finished when the
colonel ladled more into the bowl. Nick tore into that too and
within minutes he was finished.
    “Thought you’d never come up for air,” Dolph
said. “Want some more?”
    “No,” Nick said, still a little hungry and
embarrassed. “I’m full, thank you.”
    They both turned when the garage door began
opening.
    “Bunny!” Dolph said and rushed to the
door.
    “Bunny?” Nick said under his breath. He was
nervous for some reason. It wasn’t him who had something to hide,
it was her. Well, it probably was him too. Dolph was retired
military and Nick would be willing to bet he still had some ties on
base or on complex. Whatever they called it. One false step here
and he was back in a pen.
    Nick pushed away from the table, eager to get
in front of Dolph somehow. He heard a car door slam and a moment
later another. For a second he wondered why Randy hadn’t stayed
home with Pop-Pop. Then he considered that it would have been
difficult to watch an active three year old and pummel
knife-wielding construction workers at the same time.
    Dolph opened the door to the garage.
    “Bunny!” he said. The smile still looked
unnatural. Nick caught sight of her over the bigger man’s shoulder
and she looked pissed.
    “Pop-Pop, why did you do that to the house?”
She sounded upset too, allowing him to fold her up in a big hug. He
kissed her and Randy on the cheeks, back and forth several times,
and his great-grandson giggled.
    “Why, I fixed the house, Honey-bunny,” he
said in a booming, cartoonish voice. “I can’t let the roof fall in
on my two favoritest people in the world.” ‘World’ sounded like it
should have been pronounced with a ‘u’ in place of an ‘r’. He
turned up the baby talk, looking at Randy. “How would you look with
your brains squished out of your ears?”
    Phoebe pulled a disgusted face. “It doesn’t
need fixing. Ugh, don’t say that in front of Randy.”
    “Oh, he doesn’t care what Pop-Pop is saying,
so long as Pop-Pop squeezes him ‘til his eyeballs pop out!” She let
her grandfather take the tyke off her hip and what came next was
completely revolting. He wrapped his arms around his great
grandson, tucked his face between the boy’s head and shoulder and
began making abhorrent sucking sounds. Randy howled with laughter,
slapping wildly at his head, and Nick seized the opportunity to
wave to catch Phoebe’s attention.
    Her mouth dropped open when she looked at him
and then he began making a throat-cutting gesture. Nick wasn’t
certain if she understood, and hoped she would follow his lead.
    Dolph let the boy go, putting him on his
feet. “Did you have a good day in school?” Randy nodded. It was
obvious he loved his Pop-Pop, though he