Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions (Wicked Lovely 5.50)

“Take one down, pass it around . . .”

“ . . . ninety-eight bottles of blood on the waaaaaaaall!”

“Enough!” I grabbed my stake again and whipped it into the air. “The next person to sing another verse of that stupid song is going to get staked, so help me God. I don’t care if you are defanged, I’m going to—”

A loud pop came from outside the car, followed by a steady thumping.

The girl vampire screamed, and Joe yelled, “What was that?” as we kept bumping along. Then the driver slowed to a crawl and our thumps slowed with him. Every time the tire rotated, we heard a dull, slapping noise.

The sound of a flat tire.

“I think it’s a flat,” the driver and I both said at the same time.

“Just like Brad and Janet,” the girl vamp whispered.

The driver pulled the car onto the shoulder. I followed him outside and came around to his side. “Definitely a flat,” he said, kicking the deflated piece of rubber.

“Do you have a spare?” I asked.

“Yes, but I’ve never . . .”

I sighed, rolling up my sleeves. “Get it for me. I’ll do it.”

He went to the trunk and came back a moment later with the tire and a jack in hand. The other vampires got out of the car too.

Kneeling down, I started to jack up the car. In the background, I could hear Joe instructing the others, “No, no, you have to be in sync when you jump to the left and then step to the right. Kelly! It’s a pelvis thrust, not a pelvic wiggle. Like this!”

“Call me Magenta,” I heard her whine. “You know that.”

I couldn’t help myself. I stopped to watch.

Three vampires in fishnets and feather boas were lined up, knees pushed together, doing a dance that looked like something straight out of a bad Ke$ha video.

It was the strangest thing I’d ever seen.

So I did what any normal person would have done in the same situation. I hauled out my phone and started filming it. This baby was going viral.

When I turned back to the spare and picked it up, I knew immediately that we had a bigger problem. “Damn it.”

“Janet! I love youuuu!” came the reply.

“We have a problem,” I called to the driver. He was too busy trying to get in on the “ jump to the left and step to the right” action to pay any attention to me. He didn’t respond, and I yelled, “Hey, you. Driver. What’s your name?”

He turned. “Me?”

This night was only getting better. “Yes, you. Name?”

“I’m David. That’s Dickson, you already know Joe, and she’s Kelly.” He pointed at each one.

“Magenta,” Kelly hissed.

“Great. Thanks for that. I’m Jane. We have a problem, David. This spare tire won’t work. It needs air.” I looked at my phone. No service. “Seriously?” I shook it, but nothing changed. “I can get reception in the middle of the woods, but not on a main road?”

I turned back to David. “Do any of you have a phone? I’m not getting service.”

He looked sheepish. “We really don’t like cell phones. Can’t we just use the tire until we get to the next exit? There’s bound to be a gas station there. Someone can help us.”

“The next exit is twenty miles down the road. The tire won’t take us that far; we’ll bend the rim.”