Free Fat Vampire by Adam Rex

ones.”
    â€œWell, so what?” said Doug. “You were in the musical, right? You played that waiter character—What was his name?”
    â€œWaiter.”
    â€œSee?”
    Specifically, the kids who ate by the tree were the ones who got good parts in the plays. Lead actors, plus maybe an assistant director or two. Less popular were the kids who got small parts and nonspeaking roles, but at least they were still members of the cast. Doug was crew. Crew were like the friendsyou called only when you needed help moving furniture.
    Doug always tried out for a part in each production, and so far he’d always failed to get one. He often thought about how his life would change if he landed a lead role, but on some level he understood what everyone in Masque & Dagger understood: you weren’t popular because you’d played a lead role, you got lead roles because you were popular. Or, rather, your popularity and your distinguished high school drama career both stemmed from some effortless charisma that shone from your face and spilled from your lips—a shower of quarters when you opened your mouth, a trail of flowers and corpses in your wake.
    Doug was just as nervous about lunch as Jay. More so, perhaps, as he assumed he was more highly regarded and therefore had more to lose. At least the rest of his classes were indoors, so he expected his skin to clear up by lunch.
    â€œI should have brought a baseball cap from home,” he said. “I was in such a rush.”
    â€œYou were hard to wake up,” said Jay.
    â€œI only got like an hour of sleep! My body won’t let me sleep at night anymore. I maybe nodded off around six thirty.”
    Jay had woken him at 7:30, and then again at 8:00. At some point, while he dozed, Doug had changed back to normal. Then he had had only thirty minutes to bike home, watch Mom and Dad pull out of the driveway, sneak into the empty house, shower, and change. In the foggy bathroom mirror he glanced quickly at himself to be sure. Pale. Hairless chest. The impression of being clammy even when he wasn’t clammy. Normal, or what passed for normal now.
    The kids in Spanish class were broken up into groups of two and three, and Doug and Jay took up their usual spot near a poster from the Spanish board of tourism. Mr. Gonzales wandered around the room.
    â€œShe seems really nice,” said Doug. And short enough. And kind of pretty . “I just need a chance to talk to her more. Maybe she could be, you know, the one.”
    â€œWould you turn her into a vampire?” asked Jay.
    â€œI don’t know. If she wanted. I don’t even really know how to do that.”
    â€œThe vampiress drained all your blood, right?”
    Doug nodded slowly at the tourism poster, an unfinished cathedral in Barcelona with facades like two rows of sharp teeth.
    â€œI think so,” he said.
    Â 
    July in the Poconos, near Hickory Run. Alternating sun and clouds, rain every few days. Biting insects, mosquitoes that swarm your ankles and arms like you’re passing out little supermarket samples of blood. New Product! A hundred discrete marks on your skin.
    You were out late again, alone, watching the spiders tick-tack across that field of boulders between the trees. You had to feel your way back to the family cabin through the fireflies and the moonless night.
    The vampire came at you then, milk white. Naked. Howling through the trees. Wounded, open chested, it oozed its red center. The spill collected in tangled crotch hair and traced ligatures down pale legs.
    The vampire pressed down on you. There was no beguilement, no charm or enchantment. You were held fast by the hair as the vampire tore you open and siphoned off your life. Your blood mingled. It wasn’t romantic.
    The vampire made a wrenching noise and folded in on itself. Now small, it flapped thin wings and disappeared into the trees.
    You were left too weak to stand. Your lungs fluttered in your