BXBX NOVEL Chapter 8
Chapter 8: Chapter 8 The Grande Family
Translator: Doggotranslation
On Highway 27, an old small truck was driving in the direction of the Southern District of Barton City. The surface of the truck was covered with mud and various stains. The only clean thing was the two fan-shaped areas on the front window of the truck. Under those two areas, two wipers that were tied up with adhesive tape were folded in front of the hood.
Benjamin put one hand on the steering wheel and thumped the radio on the lower right of the instrument panel with the other hand. The noise of the electric frequency made Zach, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, frowned.
“Stop hitting it, You will only make it worse!”
“Have little patience, Zach.” Benjamin’s patience was to continue to hit the radio with his big palm, and finally, a faint of music appeared in the white noise, “look! It just takes some time.”
Benjamin then turned the knob. With the music gradually became clear, the werewolf’s head moved with the rhythm, the hand on the steering wheel was changed, and then he rested his arm on the window that had already been rolled down, “Oh, Zach, I like this song!”
‘... Cause this is thriller, thriller night… and no one’s gonna save you from the beast about to strike! You know it’s thriller, thriller night. You’re fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight...”
“Stop! Benjamin, stop! Stop singing! I hate this song...”
“What? I can’t hear what you say? Oh! Oh! Under the moonlight... Cause this is thriller, thriller night...”
“...”
Jim Grande was sitting in the back seat, his squinted eyes were quickly glancing between the two in the front. He had a business card in his hand, [Grand Funeral Home]. Was this the mask that these two “creatures” used to blend in the crowd? Jim habitually put the business card in the pocket inside of the jacket, but he then found that the pocket had already been torn. All over the body, only the ‘Korcyl’ logo, which represented the value of the clothes, remained intact.
The forest on both sides of the road has disappeared, and sparse buildings have begun to appear, which meant that they formally entered the southern district of Barton City, to be precise, the southern suburbs.
“Five minutes, Jim, it only takes five minutes, then we won’t have to listen to the howl of this beast anymore.” Zach turned his head and looked at Jim, who seemed to be thinking about things in the back seat, “Jim, tell me, you are not a rock music fan, are you?”
Jim looked at Zach’s light green eyes and adjusted his posture, “No, I prefer jazz.”
Zach smiled. He patted Benjamin’s shoulder and said, “Look, finally, there is a normal person among us.”
Such ordinary conversations and scenes should have been relaxing, but Jim was nervous, ‘us’, just how many such ‘creatures’ were out there!
Jim hesitantly asked, “You... are you human?”
“Huh?” Zach drawled, and he turned his head back, “At least we look like humans now, don’t we.”
Jim turned to look at the scenery outside the window and stopped asking. In the morning light, Barton City has just awakened.
The map of Barton City was like an owl with a mouse’s tail on its beak. The woods that those three people came out of were the owl’s tail, and highway 27, could be regarded as the owl’s back, connecting the north and south of Barton City. For the people in the North, the people in the South were the rural people in the suburbs. Last night, Mayor Anthony, who Zach visited, was in the North. The mouse’s tail was the famous Charles River, connecting the Massa Bay in the east, and extending deep into the heart of the Federation in the west. Going west along the Charles River would enter the part of the rat’s body – the western part of Barton City, where Zach’s cemetery was repossessed by the city. (Refer Boston map)
Benjamin turned the steering wheel, the truck that no one knew how old it was turned into a dirt road, and made a squeaky noise.
Jim was not afraid that he would be taken to a no man’s land, because in his impression, there was indeed a place called [Grand Funeral Home] on the map of Barton City, and it was indeed in the Southern District Near the border of Barton City.
When he took the initiative to add Grande’s name to his name, he was telling them that he needed an identity. This funeral home, which was real but was clearly controlled by the ‘wrong’ people, was his best choice.
The truck gradually slowed down, and Jim could already see a two-story building, like an ordinary farmhouse, with a typical L-shaped structure, an L-shaped interior, and a tall dome building, which was higher than the building next to it, was exposed, it should be a warehouse or workroom. There were several scattered bungalows between the sparse trees on the roadside, but it seemed they were unoccupied. In front of the dirt road, two pillars stood upright on both sides of the road, and a horizontal bar at the top was written in cursive: Welcome to ‘Grande Funeral Home’. The small line below: ‘The dead loved ones deserve the best! No need to doubt it, we are the best!’
The truck went around the back of the building and stopped in front of the warehouse.
“Here we are, my younger ‘brother.\'” Zach couldn’t wait to push open the door. After jumping out of the car, his hands kept patting on his body. There were obvious gray marks behind the black coat. It was conceivable that Benjamin’s car was as dirty as it looked.
“Benjamin, you should wash your car!” Zach complained.
Benjamin simply ignored it, and pulled over Jim, “You need clothes, do you want mine or his?”
Jim was in a dilemma. Whether it was the height or the dress style, he still preferred Zach’s clothes. But in terms of body shape, his muscular body was more suitable for wearing Benjamin’s clothes, at least if he put on Zach’s shirt, the buttons may not be able to buckle at all.
Yes, Jim could already tell that Zach’s clothes were also customized products, and this kind of clothes was only suitable for Zach himself. Zach was not skinny, on the contrary, he was also very muscular, but he was much slimmer than Jim.
“Yours.” Jim looked at Benjamin and said.
Benjamin nodded, he turned his head slightly sideways, signaling Jim to follow him, and walked to the warehouse.
After Zach patted off the dirt on his body, he did not go to the warehouse. Instead, he entered the L-shaped building from the back door. This was the main building of the Grande Funeral Home.
On the ground floor, there was his office, the coffin display area, and the reception area. The second floor was the accommodation, where the employees of the funeral home lived. Of course, there were basements, makeup areas, storage areas...
Entering from the main entrance, the first thing people saw, would be the coffin display area. Further inside, would be the reception and the office.
As soon as Zach entered the office, he saw Alice, death-heralding banshee, with an anxious look on her face. Don’t worry, this was Alice’s normal expression, just like a mental patient with an anxiety disorder. If you could see the death of strangers, you would also feel the same.
“Za, Zach!” The anxiety on Alice’s face eased a bit as soon as she saw Zach. Dressed in a long black dress, she rose from the chair in front of Zach’s desk and straightened the hem of her dress, her weak shoulders shrunk nervously, “you, you didn’t come back all night. what, what did Mayor Anthony say?”
Alice was not pretty, the contour of her face was defined too clearly, which always gave people a statue-like feeling. With her high nose, deep-set eyes, thin body, and the constant anxiety in her brown eyes, she looked like a withered sapling.
“It was a little late yesterday, so I went directly to Benjamin.” Zach gently adjusted the hair that had fallen on Alice’s nervous and unadorned face to the back of her ear and smiled, “there is Good news and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?”
Alice’s long, straight eyebrows were pressed against each other. She knew that the vampire was trying to comfort her. Probably Zach was desperately trying to find a way to twist bad news into good news.
Banshee shook her head, “Mr. Zach, thank you for trying to comfort me.”
Zach still smiled, pulled out a folded document from his pocket, and handed it to Alice, “I didn’t lie to you this time. We have indeed lost the cemetery in the west, but this cemetery will be our own private property, and no one can take it away. No one, this place will be our home.”
Alice took over the file, and before she unfolded it, the anxiety on her face had disappeared, “Really? No one can take it away! This is our home!”
Having clear-defined contour was not a disadvantage, it was like an unprocessed jade. Alice, who smiled, regained the brightness and beauty that a sixteen-year-old girl should have, and she threw herself into Zach’s arms excitedly. Although the vampire could not pass any temperature to her, she still pressed her face against Zach’s chest, and at this moment, she was very happy.
But the eyes of Zach, who was holding Alice in his arms and with his chin on her hair, was filled with helplessness.
The vampire was thinking about how to maintain this family after losing the city government funds.