Corrine sighed, staring at the flashing cursor in Notepad, wishing that she had some idea for the perfect opening, followed by the perfect short story... With her biography of fallen rockers Vampire Dawn cruising along the top of the non-fiction chart, she'd been tapped to do a short story for a fiction anthology.

About Christmas. Due out a month before that great holiday. So her story had to be in by the end of July. Tomorrow, actually... she tried not to look at the calendar again.

At the beginning of the month, a five-to-seven-thousand-word story seemed like the easiest thing in the world, save that she lacked a plot. And characters. And inspiration.

Flicking through her WinAmp playlist, Corrine settled onto some Vampire Dawn live tracks she'd downloaded while writing before and listened to Eddie lamenting the world of the living.

Part of her wanted to suddenly write horror, though she knew nothing fictional could be anywhere as scary as the dark world Eddie had called home and nearly took Keeping Still's Johnny Danger into.

Vampires at Christmas. Now there was an idea she'd never thought about submitting. But it was too late to call her agent now... And even if she couldn't write the idea for the happy shlocky Christmas anthology, the idea suddenly needed to rush out of her head, past her fingers and straight through the cursor, leaving a trail of letters she was barely recognizing as her own words.

Vampires at Easter would actually be more ironic, Corrine thought as the little down-slider appeared to her right, letting her know she'd written enough that she'd need to scroll to see the top. Which was fine because she knew she was nailing the introduction, nailing the opening dialogue.

Yes, this was the story she'd been looking for all along.

Eddie was talking now, slurring words as he yelled at the crowd, his voice pouring from Corrine's speakers as though he hadn't been dead for years.

"Thanks, Eddie," Corrine said aloud, waiting for the opening chords of the next song to wash over her. Maybe Eddie could live in her story, in the background, in the night, where he belonged, finally, happy... at Christmas.