“And they bite,” goes Jared.

“Yeah, they bite,” goes Foo. And he pulls up his pant leg and shows me where he’s been bitten like a dozen times.

And I’m like, “You can’t go vamp without me.”

And he’s all, “No, I’d have to have some of their blood in me, and I was careful not to even get any on me.”

Then all of a sudden there’s a stream of mist coming up my boot (I was wearing my red Docs) and a little head starts to appear out of it.

Then Foo snags a tennis racket from, like, out of nowhere and smacks the rat head, which goes flying across the room and hits the wall, trailing like a comet tail of mist.

I know! A tennis racket. WTF?

So I’m all, “Where did you get a tennis racket? Is that a secret thing with you?”

“Missing the point,” sings Jared, like I’m totally missing the point. “Hello? We need to be freaked out that they’re going to eat us, Nurse Oblivious.”

And right then the mist starts taking form again and coming at me, and Foo bats another half-mist rat across the room.

So I’m all, “Okay, good point. What are we going to do?” And I, like, gesture at the button on my sun jacket, because Foo has replaced the battery, which is out of a laptop, and I’m ready to toast some rodents.

And Foo’s all, “No, not yet. We have to figure out a way to study them. I need to turn them back to rats. And I have to figure out how this mist is manifesting. I mean, technically, it’s not possible.”

And I’m like, “You mean it’s magic?”

“I mean I’ve never even heard of anything like it in nature.”

“Like magic.”

He’s like, “There’s no such thing as magic.”

I’m like, “The Countess said it was magic.”

He’s like, “My grandmother thinks the microwave is magic.”

So I’m all, “It’s not?”

And Foo’s all, “Magic is just science we don’t understand yet.”

So I’m all, “Told you.”

And he like sighs all heavy and does his exasperated science face at me, and he’s like, “We have to get them back in their cages. They can’t feed when they are in mist form, so we just need to get them feeding and then we can catch them and put them in the cages.”

And I’m like, “Can you believe that Tommy couldn’t learn to turn to mist in five weeks and your rats did it, like, overnight? He must be a total tard.”

“Or we have genius rats,” goes Jared, just as Foo is tennis racketing another rat head off his leg.

So I’m all, “Nope, I don’t think that’s it. Why don’t you just put out a little dish of blood and when they turn solid to drink it you can just tennis racket them into a box?”

“We tried that. They figured it out,” goes Foo.

And Jared’s all, “See. Genius rats.”

Then, to Foo, I’m all, “He has a thing for rats.”

Foo’s like, “Yeah. I got that. They turn back to solid when exposed to UV light, too, but then they start burning.”

Then Jared’s like, “Once, when Lucifer 2 got stuck in a drain pipe in our garage, we sucked him out with my dad’s Shop Vac.”

And Foo’s like, “That’s it. We can suck them up with a Shop Vac.”

So I’m like, “That will just blow the mist out the other side?”

“I can put a really weak UV LED in the barrel of the Shop Vac. Maybe that will be enough to turn them solid without burning them. I’ll experiment a little while you’re gone.”

And I’m all, “Foo, you know it makes me hot when you talk all nerdy, but what do you mean, while I’m gone?”

And he’s all, “To get the Shop Vac. We don’t have a Shop Vac.”

So I look at Jared, all wobbly-assed on my Skankenstein^® boots, so he’s useless, and I’m like, “Well, I’m not dragging a Shop Vac back on the bus or the F car. Give me your car keys.”

And Foo’s, like, big “OH NOEZ” mouth and anime eyes, like, “Whaaaaa?”

And I’m like, “Unless you really do love your car more than me.”

And he’s like, “’Kay.” And hands them over. Which, as it turns out, was really poor judgment on his part.

More L8z. Gotta jet. The tow truck is here.

’Kayso, it turns out that driving an actual car is way harder than it is in Grand Theft Auto: Zombie Hooker Smackdown. Even though there was only, like, minor damage, it could have been totally avoided if you didn’t have to shift so much. Everything was good going to get the Shop Vac, because I only used first and second gear. It was coming home, when I started feeling confident and decided to see if there was a third gear, that it went kind of wrong. Still, all the screaming and crying on Foo’s part was kind of over-emo, considering that after the tow truck lowered the Honda, you couldn’t even see any damage if you didn’t crawl under and look at where the fire hydrant had sort of rearranged a couple of wiry-looking things. And Hondas are totally waterproof for the most part, so no biggie, right?

So, it was like this-

I drive totally ninja all the way to the Ace Hardware in the Castro, but I didn’t park because it involves backing up, which is not in my skill set. So I’m, like, double-parked, and I run in and this crusty guy behind the counter is all, “You can’t park there.”

And I’m like, “Fuck off, butt-munch, I have a guy.”

’Kayso, I find my gay Builder Bob guy, and he’s all, “Darling, how are you? Fab boots!”

And I’m like, “Thanks, I like your apron. I need a Shop Vac.”

And he’s all, “What size?”

And I’m like, “It needs to hold about a hundred rats.”

And he’s all, “Girlfriend, we need to party or go shopping and dish.”

And I’m, like, totally flattered, because shopping is a sacred thing to gay guys, but I stay on mission, and I’m all, “In red, if you have it.” Because red is the new black and because it will match my Docs.

And so we’re going to the Shop Vac section, Bob is like, “So, how’s the dark lord?”

And I’m all, “Oh, he’s gone. He tried to tear out my jugular vein, so the Countess threw him out the window and it hurt his feelings.”

So Bob pats my shoulder and goes, “Men. What are you gonna do? He’ll be back. The drill worked okay, though?”

And I’m like, “Oh yeah. We got him out, but he broke both his legs because he was kind of eager.”

Then Bob gets all protective Daddy-voice on me and is like, “Safety word, sweetheart. Everyone needs a safety word.”

So I’m all, “’Kay.”

Then Builder Bob helps me get my Shop Vac into the car, because it turns out that it takes a vacuum big enough to sleep inside to suck up a hundred rats.

’Kayso, then I drove and that thing happened with the car and the cops came and they were all, “You don’t have a license and you’re not allowed to drive on the sidewalk, blah, blah, oh my God my insipid cop life is so boring I should just eat my gun, bluster, blah, blah.”

And I’m all, “Chill, cops. Call my cop minions Rivera and Cavuto, s’il vous plaît. They will confirm that I am on a secret cop mission and should not be fucked with by pathetic day dwellers like yourselves.” Then I presented them with Rivera’s card, which I whipped out of my messenger bag like it was my badge of badassness.

So cop one, who is in charge because he has the car keys, is all, “I’ll check this out, wait here while I go make radio noises in the car like a humongous loser while my wife is home boning some huge stud-muffin.”

I’m paraphrasing.

And in like two minutes, up pulls Rivera and Cavuto, and they have a dog now. His name is Marvin, and he’s très cute. He’s all red, and like a Doberman or something badass, but he totally likes me and his little stubby tail was wagging and I let him drink some of the hydrant water out of my hand, and he did, even though there was plenty of water everywhere, but I guess it tasted like street and whatnot.

So I’m like, “Hey, Rivera, tell these douche waffles that you and the ass bear are my bitches.”

And Rivera is all concerned quiet cop voice, “She has mental problems.”

“Head injury caused Tourette’s syndrome,” goes Cavuto.