Struggling to stay afoot, Sally saw the reflection in the glass door: two vampires had crawled under the camper. One had grabbed her. In the inches of space above the camper another white hand felt around like a blind worm.

She lost her balance and fell. Her hands slapped the tiles just before her head would have smacked. Pain stabbed her left ankle as razor teeth snapped, right through her socks. She kicked. Her running shoe punched the face away. There was a howl of pain. Another hand grabbed at her.

You sweet scum, you trash, you shall bleed and bleeeeeeeed, the voices chanted their endless threats.

“Hey suckbuckets!!” Lavinia’s voice bellowed. “Look!”

Whatever Lavinia was doing, it pulled away all but the one vampire who held her. She kicked her foot free, nearly losing her left shoe. Whipping out the stake, she rolled over, angry that, dazed with lust, she’d forgotten to have it out when she jumped.

She brought it down in a vicious arc. It hit just below the neck with a wet sound. The creature thrashed and screamed.

Other hands snatched at her legs. Lavinia yelled, “Lookie lookie, here I am again!”

This time Sally was facing her: Lavinia stuck just a finger (her middle finger, of course) out of the window, then yanked it back. All the other vampires mashed themselves to the barrier.

The wounded vampire ignored Lavinia, eyes glued to the blood staining Sally’s athletic sock. Her ankle suddenly hurt like hell.

She kicked it in the face again. Rolling over, she dragged herself to her knees. Her hand grasped the doorknob.

It was locked.

It shouldn’t have been locked; Runners had to be able to get in. But the door was just glass, no bars. She stood to kick it to shards but in running shoes her feet were too vulnerable.

The wounded vampire clawed at her ankle. She stomped on its hand.

She’d kill two birds with one stone! She stooped and grasped the cursing vampire by its shoulders. Ghastly white fluid leaked from its neck. She shoved its head like a battering ram at the door.

The glass smashed with a satisfying crunch but the vampire’s head suddenly crushed inward as if it had hit an invisible wall harder than steel.

Shocked, Sally dropped the ruined creature. Of course! It had not been invited in and she had pushed it against that magic barrier.

Its feet drummed against the tiles and then it lay still, an ordinary corpse.

Shaken, Sally reached through the jagged hole and unlocked the door.

“Oh shit!” came a roar from behind her.

She looked back. The blindly groping hand had grabbed Lavinia’s fingertip and squeezed it with sharp nails. The other vampires flung themselves at her like moths.

Sally reached for her vial of blood but Lavinia wrenched her hand back. Blood squirted from the lacerated fingertip but the vampire had not been able to nip it off or to pull her out; individual vampires are no stronger than the humans they once were. Three vampires had squeezed under the van by now; they all turned to Sally.

She quickly opened the door, hearing Lavinia’s voice shout “Will you get the fuck in there? Owwww, goddammit that hurts!”

She jumped inside.

She had made it!

Her breathing slowed as she took in the fact that she was here and Bunt was not. Nobody else had made it either. She was the first person to ever beat Bunt at his nasty game.

Beside the door a blood-red fire extinguisher stood next to an overflowing waste basket reeking of rancid grease and stale Cheetos. At one end of the counter to her left were stacks labeled “Free Comics Day.” The cramped space was lined with racks of comics. Trash with big-boobed girls and muscle-bound space wars was jumbled messily with what might have been the sophisticated visual storytelling Lavinia talked about.

Whoever the owner was (he probably lived upstairs to make this a home) he was sure a disorderly slob. The exact kind of person Bunt would have a deal with.

Sally walked cautiously to the rear of the store and back. A stack of something called “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was prominent on one rack. Sally had never read comics or vampire fiction, so her only thought was that slayers of vampires would be popular at this moment in history. Her eye was caught by another title: “Dykes to Watch Out For.” She smiled.

The thrill of being here faded. Her ankle hurt, but when she peeled back her sock it was just a shallow scrape. The blood had clotted, though she’d just made it bleed again.

She pulled the sock back up and ignored the single sharp throb. To be turned into a vampire, you had to be drained dry (she thought).

She still had work to do. First, establish her arrival in case Bunt tried to lie. She pulled out her phone and checked in at Fantasy Life Comix.

Now Lavinia, that amazing woman who had exploded into her life. She walked to the open door. The vampires in the alcove pressed two deep against the barrier. As always, they teased, cajoled, threatened, pleaded.

“Lavinia!” she shouted through the melee. She was relieved to hear a muffled, “What, kid?”

“You have to move! Bunt has to be able to get in. I still have to face him down!” She had won but Lavinia had voiced her secret doubt: Bunt would cheat her somehow.

Through the display windows, she watched the van back up until the recessed doorway was clear, then stop, still inches from the building so that no vampires could squeeze between. Lavinia’s eyes blazed at her through the glass. Her finger was wrapped in napkins.

“I’m goin’ no further; I’m your witness, kid,” the magnificent face said.

Sally glowed despite her misgivings. She gave Lavinia a thumbs up.

Her words gave Sally an idea. She set up one final just-in-case weapon to look as good as possible, and then stood facing the door.

She saw the ripples from Bunt’s approach before he appeared.

Vampire heads swiveled, a susurrant “Aaaahhhh” spread through the crowd. Bodies cleared the doorway, formed into a ring around one moving point. It was like watching a truck loom out of the fog. Droplets of red which glistened in the streetlights flew through the air. Vampires thronged around the moving point, bowing and fawning, their mouths open wide.

It was what they’d done when Sally opened the door of the restaurant. They’d seen the vial of blood in her hand and Bunt in the corner behind her.

Her breath caught as she grasped the full horror of Bunt’s secret method for winning the Home Runs.

Her eyes blazed like Lavinia’s as the Red Sea crowd parted at the doorway and she saw the man himself. Bunt walked slowly, dipping his fingertips into a beaker of blood and scattering droplets like a priest bestowing blessings. Vampires in his service climbed up to press themselves against windows all along the block so that nobody could see what he was doing.

She wondered why Bunt hadn’t been here an hour ago since all he had to do was walk the four blocks. But, of course, he hadn’t expected anybody to make it – he’d probably been watching a porno video the whole time.

Her heart leapt as an anonymous vampire, face crazed, clutched at him to get a larger blood fix. Dozens of hands slammed him back.

Bunt’s face stayed blank. He walked as stiffly as ever, looking more vampire-like than the vampires.

Once more the teasing memory flitted and this time she caught details: a pale, stiff Chinese man in the garb of a hundred years ago, hopping absurdly.

She locked it in! Bunt looked like a Jiang Shi, a Chinese zombie vampire.

She’d seen them in movies on one of the Chinese channels her parents had watched. Why did they feel so important, far beyond the chance resemblance to the way Bunt moved?

He still hadn’t seen her in the darkened store. She thought quickly over what she remembered about the Jiang Shi from the dumb movies and music videos she’d seen. They were corpses so stiff they could only move by hopping. The instructions for stopping them sounded ridiculous to her adult self: put out sticky rice so they’d stop to count the grains; write a spell in chicken’s blood on thin yellow paper and tack it to their foreheads. Nothing helpful there.

Bunt reached the broken door and froze, adoring vampires arranged behind him like a chorus of dancing girls. He sucked his upper teeth. The crowd was thick enough that he missed the camper.

She saw the moment when his eyes picked her out in the dim light: strict, severe, tight and harsh, a true Yan, waiting for him like a vengeful demon.

She smiled coldly at him, hoping her worry didn’t show.