Free Fat Vampire by Adam Rex Page A

chest and you were desperately thirsty. Your death was like a slow fall into a deep well.
    When you stirred again, it startled two coyotes that were sniffing at your carcass. The vampire’s blood laced your empty veins; tensed their red, spindly fingers; and closed you up like a fist over the closest animal. It thrashed, but you drank it dry and rose unsteadily, needing more. Still night. A hundred yards distant you could tell (without any trouble at all) that the second coyote had paused to look back. You chased it for an hour and fell upon it in a copse of trees.
    When your mind found its place again, you collapsed and dry heaved into a creek and washed the stains from your skin. There were no wounds on your body, save a long, dry welt on your neck. But your clothes were covered in blood. You buried them.
    Â 
    â€œ Bienvenido al supermercado ,” Jay was saying. Doug just stared at him for a dim moment, dumbfounded by this talking animal and his Spanish classroom exercise.
    Oh, it was Jay.
    â€œThis would…this would all be a lot easier if I was justan asshole,” Doug said. “I could just find someone and hold them still and feed. I wouldn’t even have to kill them. I could just take a pint or two, like I do with the cows. I wish I could be sure that wouldn’t turn them into vampires, too.”
    Jay pushed aside his textbook. “There’s gotta be a way,” he said. “Look.”
    He produced his calculator from his backpack.
    â€œSay you drink from someone once a week. Is that about right?”
    â€œYeah,” said Doug.
    â€œSo if your first victim becomes a vampire, then in a week there are two vampires who need to feed. You and him.”
    â€œMe and her ,” Doug stressed.
    â€œAnd then in two weeks there’s four vampires, and in three weeks eight, and on and on. So guess how many weeks it takes before everyone on Earth is a vampire.”
    â€œI dunno.” Doug sighed. “Ten.”
    Jay frowned. “You don’t think that. You just guessed low so my answer won’t sound amazing.”
    â€œSo what is it already?”
    â€œIt’s, like, thirty-four. Thirty-three and a half.”
    â€œThat’s really amazing.”
    â€œAnyway,” said Jay, sounding deflated, “it means there must be a way to just feed, like we thought. Maybe even a way to feed so the victim forgets, like some kind of vampire hypnosis, or else there’d be news reports of vampire attacks all the time.”
    â€œI don’t like that idea,” said Doug. “Hypnosis. It’d be like slipping something in her drink.”
    â€œWell, what if the person…gave you permission?”
    Doug covered his face. “We’ve been through this. I appreciate the offer, but it just seems… gay. I’d rather drink a little cow here and there and try to meet some girl who’s into it. Like this new girl. She’s pretty goth for an Indian.”
    â€œI’m not saying I want you to do it,” said Jay. “It’s just…hard to see you hurting so much. You could just drink a little of my blood, just to see—”
    â€œUh-uh,” said Mr. Gonzales as he loomed suddenly over their desks. “ No inglés. En español, por favor. ”
    Jay glanced in the teacher’s direction, then stared at his hands. “Um… Podría usted…beber un poco de mi…sangre? Es correcto? Sangre?”
    â€œ Sangre es ‘blood,’”
    â€œ Sí ,” said Jay. Doug pretended to read his book. Mr. Gonzales coughed.
    â€œYou’re supposed to be pretending to buy pineapples,” he said.

12
PACK LUNCH
    S EJAL CARRIED her lunch through the center aisle of the crowded cafeteria like a bride, aware of the careless stares of other students, the brush of their eyes on her skin—the designs that they left there, some pretty, some not. For the second time that day a boy asked in a loud stage