Click on image to enlarge.

	Regular				Club
You Pay:	$0.49				$0.42

eBook Category: Fantasy Sturgeon Award Nominee, Gardner Dozois's Year's Best SF Award Winner
eBook Description: Just because the talking cat you meet keeps insisting he's NOT a talking cat but rather a vampire, well, that doesn't mean you have to believe him, does it? [Artwork by Shaun Tan]

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Tomorrow Speculative Fiction, ed. Algis Budrys, 1995
Fictionwise Release Date: June 2002

140 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [257 KB], eReader (PDB) [21 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [10 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [10 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [83 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [79 KB], hiebook (KML) [76 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [65 KB], iSilo (PDB) [8 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [10 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [54 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [17 KB]
Words: 3263
Reading time: 9-13 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

"...a new angle on vampires ... an honestly written story, well told."--Severna Park, Tangent Magazine

So maybe I'm not the smartest guy in the world. Maybe I didn't even finish high school. But I like to think I know when I'm being suckered. I mean, just because a cat tells you he's a vampire doesn't mean you have to believe him, right?

It's like this. See, I walk everywhere. Not too weird, right? But here in Newport Beach, it's like, people keep stopping their cars, people who live across the street and I only ever wave to them sometimes, they stop when I'm walking up to work and ask if I need a ride! It's maybe ten blocks to the shipyard--I do fiberglass finishing at Blackie's--and these people think I need a ride! I've lived here my whole life, and I've never needed a car 'cause I don't go anywhere. Except out walking.

There're some real nice walks, too, but nobody knows about them. They jog a lot, sure, but it's not the same. You jog to lose weight or whatever, but you walk to go places and see stuff. I only run if someone's chasing me.

My favorite walk has always been down the Coast Highway through Corona del Mar and south toward Laguna. See, you go out after work through Newport to Corona del Mar past all the rich places with their gates and guards out front, and then Corona just stops; there's no houses yet 'cause they're still building them. For about six miles, it's all rolling hills and scrub brush right down to the cliffs along the ocean till Laguna starts up. The highway runs maybe fifty yards from the top of the bluff, and there's nothing but scrub brush and hills on one side, and scrub brush and the ocean along the other. It's a great walk.

So, I'm walking there one night, down by this place where they used to rent horses but they closed it down so they could build houses instead, just walking through the bulldozers and wondering why. I mean, sure, the only time I ever came here with some friends and rented a horse, it just stood there and ate the scrub along the path, sort of growling at me whenever I tried to get it to move. But still, I'd rather have the horses than the houses: how's a guy supposed to look at the ocean with a bunch of stupid houses in the way?

Anyway, there's a nearly full moon up, and down along the cliff's edge, I see this cat sitting there, looking out over the water. I've always liked cats, so I crouch down and start making little cat noises, you know, rolling your tongue like you're purring and such. So this cat looks over, and he says, just as plain as anything, "Just shut up and go away, OK?"