The Undead Kama Sutra Read Online Free PDF Page B

cabins were simple huts with painted shutters and doors. Colorful streamers—actually cut up sections of awning—dangled from the eaves. Everything looked cobbled together from a salvage yard. I had expected a luxurious Florida resort and it was instead a Third World shantytown fixed up for a party.
    “Who built this place?” I asked.
    “I did,” answered Antoine. “You won’t believe I got most of this picking through debris from the last hurricane. Saved a ton of money.”
    “No kidding?” I asked. “The guests ever complain?”
    “I give them a retro experience. The Keys as they were back in the day of rum runners and nickel sandwiches.”
    A helicopter rested on a concrete pad between the cabins and the wood line. A threadbare tarp covered the bubblecanopy and another tarp (in a different color, of course) covered the engine beneath the rotor mast. Black stains darkened the concrete under the engine. The copter was a vintage Bell 47 Whirlybird. Ropes secured the tips of the drooping rotor blades to eyebolts in the pad.
    “You have a helicopter? Why didn’t you fly instead of taking a boat?” I asked.
    Carmen cocked her thumb at Antoine. “Ask him.”
    “The copter’s mine.” Antoine’s voice sagged with remorse. “Won the damn thing in a poker game and it’s been nothing but trouble.”
    “You fly?”
    “I gave Howard Hughes his first lesson,” Antoine replied. “I haven’t renewed my license since but I still get around.”
    The Bell’s right skid was missing and a stack of cinder blocks and a car jack kept the fuselage propped upright. Beach and kitchen towels hung from the lattice structure of the tail boom. “This thing’s an antique,” I said. “It’d be worth fixing up.”
    Antoine shrugged. The gesture said, Mañana.
    Two snowmobiles sat on a rusted trailer behind the helicopter. Weeds grew through the trailer and around the flat tires.
    “What are you doing with those?”
    “Different poker game,” answered Antoine.
    We passed through a plume of charcoal smoke carrying the aroma of grilling fish. The smoke rolled out the chimney and the windows of a wooden shack.
    “That’s my gourmet kitchen,” Antoine said.
    “Looks like it’s on fire,” Jolie noted.
    Antoine paused. His aura flared with concern. He yelled to the shack: “Hey, you guys burning my kitchen?”
    From inside the kitchen, there came a clanging of metal and an “Oh shit.”
    A flame shot out the kitchen chimney. Antoine pulled Jolie off his shoulders. Together they sprinted for the shack.
    Carmen shook her head in dismay. She grasped my hand, we turned our backs to the shack, and continued for the pavilion.
    A combo band of undead and living played guitars, a baritone saxophone, a marimba, and a variety of drums at the south end of the pavilion. No one wore anything more than a brief swimsuit and dreadlocks. Some wore less.
    Groups of chalices stood on the wooden floor of the pavilion, arms waving to the music. I counted seven orange auras besides us. I didn’t recognize any of these vampires. Counting Antoine, Carmen, Jolie, and myself, that made about three chalices per set of fangs.
    Along the floor’s edge, vampires sat on the benches of picnic tables, chalices on their laps, the couples necking like teenagers. A wall of palm fronds decorated with flowers, ribbons, and bunches of rooster tail feathers stood on the far end of the pavilion.
    Carmen took me to the center table. A female chalice, topless and fit as a Pilates instructor, removed the lid from a metal stockpot on the table. The smell of a rich bouillabaissewafted out. Bread rolls filled a basket next to a stack of bowls and utensils.
    Carmen patted my shoulder, indicating that I sit. “Antoine’s lack of aesthetic style doesn’t extend to his cooking. Enjoy.” She rubbed my scalp and tousled my hair. “Chow down, Felix, you’re going to need it. Meanwhile I have resort business to take care of.”
    I grabbed Carmen’s wrist. “What do