Page 55 of Starved Until Sunset

But it was too late. Demmy slammed the door and set off at a fast clip, hands jammed in his pockets and head down. Cody watched him go, fighting with himself. He should go after Demmy, pull him into a hug and apologize. Because when he got right down to it, the truth was Cody had also felt guilty last night about simply going home instead of searching for Zenona. But he’d been so overwhelmed with what he’d learned and witnessed, he had no idea how to start.

Going after Demmy right now wasn’t the right thing to do. Demmy had specifically asked him, no, told him, to give him space. Cody needed to respect that, even if it drove him crazy all day.

A silver pickup pulled into the lot, an older model but running well. John the Bastard had arrived. He parked next to Cody and got out, throwing a quick glance his way without an acknowledgement. Another fine day at the Parson’s Hollow DPW.

“Fuck everything,” Cody grumbled before shoving open his door and following John inside.

“Was that Singleton I saw walking down the sidewalk?” John asked as he clocked in, not making eye contact.

“Yeah, he’s not feeling well, and decided to go home.”

“You didn’t give him a ride?” John frowned. “Doesn’t seem like you.”

“He wanted to walk.” Cody moved up to punch himself in. “And he didn’t want me to be late.”

“All right.” John turned away. “I’ve got some clean up needed on Main Street. All these fucking tourists are the biggest goddamn litterbugs I’ve ever seen.”

“Yeah, they’re not the best at sharing spaces, are they?”

John grunted in agreement. “With Singleton out, it’s just you and Bill today.” He flinched a bit. “Pete’s still in the hospital.”

“I figured as much. Saw his motorcycle still parked out there.”

“Yeah.”

“Any word on Spiffy?” Cody said.

John looked down at the dirty concrete floor and shuffled his wide feet. “No. No sign of him. And word around town is some doctor from the hospital is missing as well.”

Guilt and grief surged within Cody. Zenona was already the topic of town gossip. And here he was clocking in for his just over minimum wage job with that same goddamn town. But what the hell could he do against a fucking vampire? Correction, a small army of vampires, if Aldrik the Asshole had been telling the truth.

John shook his head as he headed for the stairs to his office. “Take truck two and do a sweep of downtown. Clean up what you can and make sure the trashcans are emptied. After that, check back in here, and I’ll have you and Bill do maintenance in the parks.”

“Yeah, all right.”

Cody didn’t want to take truck two out and clean up the trash left behind by the idiots who had come to his hometown over Halloween to glorify the monsters they’d nearly died fighting. He wanted to go home and make things right between him and Demmy, but he knew it wasn’t time yet for that. Demmy rarely set a boundary for himself, so Cody really needed to respect it. Besides, he needed time to come up with a way to properly apologize for the shitty thing he’d said. And get himself back onboard with going up against vampires.

He grabbed the keys for truck two from the pegboard and wrote his name on the checkout list attached to a clipboard hanging nearby. Checking his phone to see if he might have missed a call or text from Demmy, he wasn’t surprised to find he hadn’t.

It was going to be a long fucking day.

The entire day was a blur of menial labor and complete distraction. Cody cleared trash along Main Street twice, raked leaves, and picked up more trash in the town’s two parks. He cleaned graffiti off the moon monument, as the residents referred to the tribute sculpture dedicated to those lost the night of Nicolae’s attempted uprising, taking care to get every bit off. When he finished, his arm tired from the force of his scrubbing, Cody had lightly run his fingers over an engraved name: HAROLD (HAP) F. BLANCHARD, STATE POLICE SERGEANT.

Blinking back the hot sting of tears, Cody packed up his supplies and headed for the city truck parked nearby. Bill had worked with him in the park before getting called off by John the Bastard to do something else. Working alone, Cody discovered, was not high on his list of things he liked to do. Especially when Demmy hadn’t called or sent a text all day.

By the time he had filled the tank of the city truck and grabbed a couple of shawarmas from the gas station down the road from the DPW garage, Cody was pretty much done in. He regretted every word he’d said to Demmy in his truck. There had to be a better way to discuss their unusual cases without either of them feeling hurt and unheard.

When he exited the gas station, he stopped at the sight of a sheriff’s car parked beside the truck, effectively blocking him from the driver’s door. Lucia stepped out of the cruiser and looked at him over the roof. Her exhaustion was clear from her expression, and the sight of it pinged in harmony with the feeling inside Cody.

“You here to arrest me for something?” Cody opened the truck’s passenger door and set the shawarmas on the seat. Resting his wrists on the side rail of the bed, he looked across it at Lucia.

“Not yet,” Lucia said, and they shared a tight smile.

“Any leads?”

“No. And I’ve been up all night. About to head home and try to get a couple hours of sleep, at least until sundown. Sheriff’s orders.”

“I didn’t see anything unusual today.” Cody looked down at his hands. “Just a lot of trash from the gruesome fucking tourists that’ve invaded town.”