Undead and Unwed Read Online Free PDF

wife, but braved HellHouse the day of my funeral to get my shoes back. "Oh, Jess...why? I was dead, for all you knew. I didn't need them anymore."
      "Well, I did," she said tartly. Which was a lie; Jessica has feet like Magic Johnson. "Besides, it wasn't right. That jerk had to have swiped your dad's keys, snuck into your house, and stole! I knew you wouldn't have wanted her to have them. I figured I'd donate them to the Foot."
      I nodded. In her spare time (which was to say, fifty hours a week), Jessica ran The Right Foot. The Foot gave interviewing tips, advice, résumé assistance, and hand-me-down suits and accessories to underprivileged women to use for job interviews. It would have been an excellent place for my shoes to end up.
      "Awesome idea, and bless your heart for thinking of it." I bundled my shoes into the ball gown, making a sack out of the dress and slinging it over my shoulder like a vampiric Santa. "Of course, there'll be none of that now that I'm back from the dead. Let's book."
      I scooped up Antonia's jewelry box, stopped in the kitchen, and handed the sack of shoes to Jess, who looked on with interest as I dumped the Ant's jewelry into the blender, clapped the top on, and hit 'liquefy'. The grinding, jarring, screeching brought her on the run. My father, as was his long habit, went to hide in his den, comforted by his proximity to his collection of old whiskey and new porn.
      After a few seconds, during which time we all stared at the mightily vibrating blender, I let the whirling blades groan to a halt. "Don't you ever go into my home again without permission. Touch my things again, whether I'm dead or not, and I'll kick your ass up into your shoulder blades." I said this perfectly pleasantly while I yanked the handle off the fridge and handed it to her. "Got it? Super. See you at Easter."
      We left. The sight of Antonia O'Neill Taylor shrinking back from me as I passed her was one I'll treasure forever.
    CHAPTER SEVEN
     
      After some argument, Jessica and I parted ways, and I drove to my mother's house. Now that I had decided to make a new life for myself (not that I had any idea how), I couldn't let another minute go by with Mama thinking I was still dead.
      "That's fine," Jessica had said, "but you might have explained to Papa and Mrs. Taylor that the reason you're walking around is because you're a vampire." Her voice broke on 'vampire' and she smothered a giggle. I couldn't blame her. It did sound ludicrous.
      "You saw them," I retorted. "Did they look like they were up for any explanations? Dad wouldn't even come out to say goodbye."
      "Good point."
      I had asked Jessica to share the news with whomever she thought needed to hear it, but she was horrified by the idea. "In the movies, the vampire always goes underground," she argued. "Stays dead to their friends and family."
      "A) This isn't the movies, and b) I'm not having my friends and family think I'm dead when I'm walking around. This is not a secret! I'm not skulking around in the shadows like some anemic idiot for the next two hundred years."
      "What about the government? Scientists? What if they want to capture you or study you? Plus, you've got a death certificate. So your social security number doesn't work, your credit's no good...you can't just pick up where you left off. Betsy, think it over."
      Those thoughts hadn't occurred to me. How was I going to make a living? Maybe I could be a clerk on the night shift at a motel, or something. "Tell or don't tell, it's all the same to me. I'm just saying, I'm not keeping it a deep dark secret. How'd you like it if I hadn't told you?"
      "That's different. We're practically sisters."
      "People can tell," I said brightly, "by the close family resemblance."
      Jessica rolled her eyes. "I'm just saying, you don't have to tell everybody . Your family and me, I think. Maybe Officer Nick. You could invite him over...have seductive music playing—something awful by