Thursday was as slow to arrive as usual. It was Wednesday now and Agatha had been anxiously jumping around the library all day, all week in fact. The thought of the trip out of this godforsaken ice pit had only grew more enticing as the days went on and today is no different.
To get into the mood Agatha has found herself flipping through various travel guides and history books on Florida. By the time Elle had finally showed up Agatha had scattered almost an entire shelf’s worth of reading onto her desk. Her attention was firmly set upon the current book in her hand, one of various myths and folklore surrounding the Florida region.
“You’re here even earlier than usual, what gives?” Elle asks.
“I assumed if I showed up earlier I’d get to leave earlier,” Agatha blindly reaches for her coffee, after a failed grab she looks up from her book and pulls the mug to her lips.
Elle gives her a strange look.
“…Which I am now remembering is not how our jobs work,”
“Well keep this up and Steven is going to think even more highly of you,” Elle sensually wiggles her body.
“For the last I’m not interested in going out with Steven,”
“Oh come on, but he is so interested in going out with you. Just imagine it, you two bookworms are perfect for each other,”
“No,”
“Ugh, fine… for now,”
While Elle spun around on her chair, occasionally sorting through the stack of returned books, and her increasingly large pile of paperwork, Agatha returned her attention back to the her book, well not *her* book but the one in her hand.
The current section was regarding a creature that washed onto the shore of St. Augustine. A tentacled blob that was far to large to be anything normal. It was believed to be the corpse of kraken.
Immediately following that was a rather exhaustive chapter detailing how the legendary Bigfoot actually resides in the swamps of Florida. It was quite the tone shift Agatha thought, shifting from this fascinating creature that lurks in the depths, capable of growing to unfathomable sizes, its tentacles powerful enough to sink ships, to a tall monkey man that walks in some dirty water. That’s not even to mention that it makes absolutely zero sense for Bigfoot to even be in a swamp, all that hair mixing with water is just asking for trouble. Besides everyone knows he lives in the forests of the northwest. Of course Agatha only knew bigfoot was in the northwest because of a small rabbit hole she found herself in about a half dozen books back.
The rest of the day proceeded as all the previous had, deal with a few people checking out books and shoving her face back into her research which had now almost completely spiraled into nonsensical pseudo-scientific ramblings about unicorn fish and comically oversized sharks.
Occasionally Agatha found herself repeating one of the “facts” to Elle who became less and less interested as Agatha continued to spout more, sounding closer to the book with every word.
“Alright, our plane leaves at nine tomorrow and it will take probably a little over an hour so we need to be up and ready to leave by seven,” with the library set to soon close for the day Agatha’s attention moved back to the details of their trip.
“Seven! That‘s way to early. How can you except someone of my disposition to be awake at such an hour?”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way to manage, besides I’m the one that’s going to be doing all the driving anyway so you can just pass out in the passenger seat,”
Elle perks up a little, “A tempting offer.”
“It’d better be, otherwise I will be breaking in and waking you myself,” Agatha said. “So until then, I’m getting hungry and I still have some things I need to do before the morning, so see ya.”
“Yep yep,” was all Elle responded with.
There was silence as Agatha stood from her desk and began collecting her things. Then as Agatha was reaching the door she turned around and looked back at Elle. Before Agatha could even open her mouth Elle shouted.
“Yes yes, I’ll set an alarm or something. Now get, some of us have a job to be doing,”
Agatha nodded and spun back around kicking open the door.
***
Agatha continued to stare down at suitcase. There was just no way it was going to work. For starters the bloody things took up far to much space and then there’s the issue of them just straight up going bad without being stored in a cooler.
Sighing, she collected the bags of blood and stuffed all except for one back into the fridge. Ripping open the bag in her hand she drained into a mug.
She hoped that there was some easy way to feed down in Florida otherwise she was not going to be a very happy vamp the next few days. Maybe she could feed just a little bit on Elle, of course that would come with a whole host of other problems, and likely wouldn’t even be that satisfying, but at least she wouldn’t have to deal with body disposal.
Agatha took a slow sip from the mug and instantly regretted it, letting the blood leak back into the mug. The stuff tasted absolutely rancid, like curdled rat excrement.
“Noooo,” Agatha whined and threw her head back. “This is like the worst possible time, why the hell do I even get these anymore. I’m going to find whoever caused this sick joke and I’m going to kill him, suck him dry and not feel a hint of remorse while doing it, maybe let him bleed out for a while just so he knows how it feels, stupid bastard.”
Agatha plugged her nose with one hand and downed the rest of the blood as quick as she could like a bad shot of alcohol. Plugging her nose didn’t even really do anything, it was mostly just a holdover from her human days.
With her packing finished Agatha zipped up her suitcase and dropped herself onto her bed and rolled until her blankets covered her like a burrito.
This was going to be a long trip.
***
A loud noise broke through Agatha’s sleep. Absentmindedly she flicked her arm towards the alarm clock until she slapped the snooze button dismissing the alarm. She bundled herself a little tighter not wanting to leave the delightful warmth of her bed. That joy was only there for a moment when the loud noise echoed through her room again. Agatha rolled around trying to search for where the noise came from.
It was more muffled than her alarm clock usually was, like it was coming from somewhere else in her house. When the noise happened for a third time Agatha was able to pinpoint the noise, someone was knocking on her door.
Her alarm hasn’t even gone off yet, who the hell could be knocking on her door at nearly six in the morning. Agatha groggily pushed herself up and slowly and reluctantly dragged the blankets off her and made her way to the front door.
The sun pierces through the small window in the door, its heat uncomfortable confusing against her skin. It is far too early for there to be even the faintest hints of twilight, was the world ending and she missed the memo? It was also, as it turned out, far too early for Agatha to care about the potential end of the world.
The knocking occurred one more time before Agatha manage to pry the door open, reveling a slightly panicked looking Elle.
“Elle what are you doing here, we don’t have to leave for another hour. Although I must admit it is nice you’re at least up early,” Agatha spoke slow, her voice scratchy from having barely woken up.
“Well I really didn’t but that probably doesn’t matter anymore because you definitely didn’t,”
“My alarm hasn’t even gone off yet we’ve got time,”
“Aggie, it’s nearly eight, we’ve gotta go!”
Agatha’s mind which till this point had barely even processed the fact that she was awake, suddenly sprung into full production. How had she slept through alarm! Agatha ran back back into her bedroom and frantically threw on the outfit she had laid out the previous night.
By the time Agatha had gotten her things ready a different noise rang out through her home. Agatha glanced over at Elle who was sitting on her couch flipping through a magazine. Elle looked up and shrugged at Agatha.
Agatha followed the noise back into her bedroom. The alarm clock. She forgot to set the alarm back to six and it was instead going off at the normal time.
“Shit,” she muttered.
“Come on let’s go, if were lucky we might still be able to make it, though I heavily doubt it,” Agatha said as she pulled her suitcase behind her.
“Maybe the flight got delayed due to weather, I’m sure we’ll be fine,”
“Doubt it. I suppose we will be taking your car then, as it is currently blocking mine,”
“No, I don’t want to drive,” Elle groaned.
“Too bad, you snooze you loose,”
“Then *you* should be driving miss Agatha ‘oh make sure not to sleep in tomorrow’ Campbell,”
“Fine but were still taking your car, it’ll take too long to rearrange them,”
“Can we just get in a car already it’s cold out here,”
Elle tossed Agatha the keys and the two waddled over to the car careful not to slip on the ice. Agatha slowly pulled the car out and began driving to the on ramp for the highway.
“There’s a notepad with directions in my bag, mind fishing it out for me,” Agatha nodded towards the back seats where her and Elle’s things had been stashed.
“Wow, so not only did I have to wake you up, now I have to read off directions? Whatever happened to me being able to relax and sleep the whole way there?” Elle pouted.
“There’s still the plane, you’ll get your beauty sleep yet, I promise,”
Agatha sped down the road at a speed that was definitely not safe to pull on winter Massachusetts back roads. Eventually pulling onto the highway and starting south towards the airport they would be departing from.
Elle had turned the radio on after about fifteen miles of silence. The station was midway through some new Peter Gabriel song that Agatha didn’t particularly care for.
“You know I almost went to see his tour from a few years ago. A shame Tom couldn’t get the time off for it, might try for the next one,” Elle lamented
“You could have asked me to come,” Agatha said.
“I thought you hated Peter Gabriel,”
“I do, but I like you. It balances it out,”
“Who are you and what have you done with my Aggie,”
“What?”
“First you oversleep, then you offer to come with me to a concert. Since when do you just want to hang out with people for the thrill of it. Are you okay? Oh my god, are you sick? Are you going to die and this is some last chance to spend quality time with your only friend?”
“Elle, you are not my only friend,” Agatha quickly said, mildly offended. “Secondly, I’m not sick, I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.”
“You have other friends? Who?” Elle asked.
“You know… people. There’s like a group of guys I found to play Dungeons and Dragons with on occasion,” Agatha burrowed herself as deep as she could into the seat of the car.
“Oh my god, ewww,” Elle mimed vomiting. “Also isn’t that game like suuuper evil,”
“I mean if you count a bunch of strange men in cloaks yelling at dice evil, than yeah, sure, it’s the spawn of Satan,”
“Aggie, come on you need to have some more self respect and get yourself a group of real friends, girl friends,”
“Hey aren’t you even a little glad I’m not completely reclusive,”
“I mean sure, congratulations on the promotion from ‘spinster shut in’ to ‘nerd that occasionally hangs out with Satanist cultists… who is also still a shut in‘,” Elle sarcastically said.
“Gee thanks Elle, you’re the best,” Agatha drawled.
“I know,” Elle said, returning to her more typical bright tone.
By some miracle Agatha had managed to cut the trip she was expecting to take over an hour to a baffling fifty minutes, that did mean however that they were cutting it extremely close. By the time Agatha was pulling into a parking space it was nearly nine. Agatha hoped against all that Elle’s car clock was at least accurate. One clock needed to be working in her favor today.
Darting through the lobby, the airport was unsurprisingly dead at nine in the morning on a Thursday. The attendants were beginning to close up the gate as Elle and Agatha rolled up frantically waving their tickets in the air and panting. As it turns out working in a library all day is not great for cardio endurance.
One of the attendants looked over and groaned before clearly switching on her “public speaking voice”.
“Are you boarding flight 27?” The woman says with fake smile plastered on her face.
“Yes,” Agatha wheezed out.
“One moment ladies,” she turns around and opens the gate back up and waves the two inside.
Agatha leads the charge and throws her carry on up into the compartment when she reaches their seats.
They both collapse into the seats and take a moment to catch their breaths.
“And now we can just relax and enjoy the rest of the trip. This morning was just a tiny little hiccup,” Agatha said.
“It better be because I’m passing out and I better not wake up until we are in Florida,” Elle slipped a face mask from her suitcase and pulled it over covering her eyes.
“Yea, I think I’ll join you with that,” Agatha agreed, quickly drifting off as the plane accelerated down the runway.
