She shivered. “I—I’m careful,” she said at last.
Hey! Shellinger thought. Here was the human angle. Here was what Randall was bleating about. A frightened little girl with enough curiosity to swallow her big lump of fear and go out exploring on this night of all others. He didn’t know how it fitted, just yet—but his journalistic nose was twitching. There was copy here; the basic, colorful human angle was sitting fearfully on his red leather seat.
“Do you know what a vampire is?”
She looked at him, startled, dropped her eyes and studied her folded hands for words. “It’s—it’s like someone who needs people instead of meals.” A hesitant pause. “Isn’t it?”
“Ye-es.” That was good. Trust a child to give you a fresh viewpoint, unspoiled by textbook superstition. He’d use that “People instead of meals.” “A vampire is supposed to be a person who will be immortal—not die, that is—so long as he or she gets blood and life from living people. The only way you can kill a vampire—”
“You turn right here, mister.”
He pointed the car into the little branchlet of side road. It was annoyingly narrow; surprised wet boughs tapped the windshield, ran their leaves lazily across the car’s fabric top. Once in a while, a tree top sneezed collected rain water down.
Shellinger pressed his face close to the windshield and tried to decipher the picture of brown mud amid weeds that his headlights gave him. “What a road! Your folks are really starting from scratch. Well, the only way to kill a vampire is with a silver bullet. Or you can drive a stake through the heart and bury it in a crossroads at midnight. That’s what those men are going to do tonight if they catch it.” He turned his head as he heard her gasp. “What’s the matter—don’t you like the idea?”
“I think it’s horrid,” she told him emphatically.
“Why? How do you feel—live and let live?”