Fat Vampire (5 page)

T
HE PROBLEM,
it seemed to Doug, was that he wasn't even sure how it worked. Did he just
think
about being a bat? Picture a bat in his mind? Contract his muscles? Shout, “Up, up, and away?”

“Up, up, and away,” Doug said under his breath.

“What?”

“I said, ‘This is stupid.'”

Doug had arrived before Jay and had used the time to take blood from one of the docile cows near the greenhouses. He'd done it so many times before, but now it left him feeling empty. He'd tasted real blood,
human
blood in San Diego. He'd felt strong. Invincible. He barely even noticed the sun, for a while. But those two small bags had only lasted a couple of weeks.

“That webcam video was pretty grainy,” said Doug. “Maybe it just looked like—”

“But we know vampires really can do it, right?” said Jay. “How else could you have gotten out of the panda den? And you said the vampiress did it. You said she made it look easy.”

“Yeah, well, she's probably been doing it for five hundred years. Her mom probably made her practice when she was a kid.”

“That doesn't make any sense—”

“Just shut up and let me think about bats, okay?”

A long minute passed, with only lowing and the distant sounds of traffic reaching Doug's ears.
Bats. Small, furry, screeching, winged bats. Bats, bats, batty—

“Screw this,” Doug said finally.

“No,” said Jay, “c'mon. We can figure this out. There's just something we haven't thought of.”

They thought.

“Hit me,” said Doug.

“What?”

“I think you're gonna have to hit me.”

“Why? I can't do that.”

Doug sighed. “If I've ever done this before, it's because I was just hit in the head by a bear. Plus tasered a bunch of times.”

“We don't have any Tasers,” said Jay.

“Thank you for laying that out for me. In lieu of Tasers, you'll have to hit me. Hard as you can. Then maybe some kind of fight-or-flight response will kick in and I'll turn into a bat to get away from you.”

“Fight or flight.”

“Yes.”

“Only half of that is flight.”

Doug almost said, “Duh,” but then he got Jay's point.

“I promise I won't attack you,” he said.

“But what if you do?” asked Jay.

“I won't.”

“But what if you do?”

“Then…make the sign of the cross or something.”

“You're Jewish.”

“I really, really don't think I would attack you—”

“I can sort of make a Star of David with my fingers,” said Jay. “Look.”

“I'm starting to consider it, though,” said Doug. “You know. Attacking you. I'm going to keep my options open.”

“All right,” said Jay, with his fists curled in front of his face like an old-timey pugilist. “I'm going to hit you.”

Doug closed his eyes. “Do it.”

“Are you ready?”

“Don't wait until I'm ready. Just—”

Jay rushed toward Doug and threw a wild haymaker into his shoulder. Doug staggered and Jay fell into a spinach plant.

“Ow.”

“Ow.”

“Okay, don't do the running start,” said Doug. “Did you close your eyes? Don't close your eyes. Stand right in front of me. Yeah. Okay, now—”

Punch.

“Ow! Jeez!”

Punch, punch.

“Okay, no, this isn't—”

Punch-punch-punch-punch.

Jay's blows were growing harder. It was entirely possible he was getting into it. Doug backed away, but Jay followed, punch-punch-punch-punch-punch.

“Ahh! Fuck! Stop it! Stop—”

Something happened. He felt something new, and heard Jay's sharp gasp. He held his breath and tried to slide into it, but it was like trying to stay underwater while his fat body and airless lungs drove him to the surface.

“AHHHHHHHH!” Jay screamed.

“What?”
Doug said, or tried to. His shrill voice squealed through sharp teeth like he was whistling for a cab.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Doug looked down at himself. His body was covered in coarse, curly hair. He'd shrunk a bit—his clothes sagged—but his fingers were twig thin and distended, the webbing between them stretched tight as a drum. He'd changed, all right, but only halfway.

“AHHH—guh,” said Jay, then he doubled over and vomited into a row of parsley.

“Stop screaming,”
said Doug, as low as he could, but his voice still cracked into the ultrasonic. Dogs barked in the distance.

Jay sputtered and sat down in the dirt. “Change back. Please.”

Doug tried. He hobbled around on stubby legs, cradling his head inside his gigantic fan-hands. But how did he change
back?
Not
get punched? He was already not getting punched.

“
I can't believe this,
” he squealed. “
The night before school starts. It's like all the puberty I've been missing till now just hit me all at once. Like I've been saving it up.
”

“Except you're shorter now.”

“
Except that. It's like I've been whacked with the puberty bat.
”

“It's like you sort of
are
the puberty bat.”

“
Can you maybe help me?
” squeaked Doug. “
Instead of making fun?
”

“What can I do?”

“
I don't know. Don't punch me. What's the opposite of punching someone? Shaking his hand? Buying him dinner?
”

“We should get out of the open,” said Jay. They were standing far from the road but were still pretty exposed.

“
And go where?
” asked Doug. “
I can't go home. My mom noticed that time I trimmed my eyebrows. She's gonna notice this.
”

“I can…hide you in our shed,” said Jay.

Doug sighed like a tin whistle. “
Okay…but I need a lift. I don't think I can ride a bike like this.
”

They walked to Jay's car—a long walk, now that Doug was roughly the size and build of E.T. He imagined himself riding home in the front basket of his own bike.

Jay loaded Doug's bike into the trunk and helped him into the backseat, where he could lie down. And as they drove he felt unexpectedly childlike, lying in the back of the car at night, listening to the road hum through the seat, someone there to take care of him.

He'd known Jay forever. They hadn't gone to the same elementary school (Jay had been homeschooled) but had met through Jay's mother, a noted doctor of the hair and scalp. Dr. Rouse had chosen her specialization mostly out of frustration from dealing with her own son's uncombable hair syndrome. To this day if you google “uncombable hair syndrome” you can easily find a photo of Jay from a scientific article written by his mother, his eyes masked by a scandalous black rectangle.

As a toddler he'd had pale, shimmery dandelion hair that could not be combed down nor back nor parted or tamed in any way. Like a spray of fiber optics. Like something that should be plugged in at Christmas. This and a naturally inquisitive temperament had given him the appearance of always being startled.

At the age of six Doug had taken part in a study conducted by Dr. Rouse to investigate a new head lice treatment. He had even been persuaded to have his picture taken for a series of informational posters (caption: Sleep tight. Don't let the head bugs bite) that hung in hospitals and clinics. These posters now fetched upward of fifty dollars on eBay. A hundred if they were signed. Doug didn't really understand it, but that didn't stop him from selling signed posters.

Jay and Doug had met in Dr. Rouse's office, and once Doug's lice had cleared up, the boys fell into an easy routine of play in the common areas and empty clinical spaces. They hid in cupboards and wore rubber gloves everywhere. They made spaceships and Podracers out of stethoscopes and vaginal specula.

Doug's eyes welled up just thinking about it.

“Jay…”
he said,
“I…really appreciate all you…I'd have been screwed these last few weeks without you. You're a good friend. I know I'm not, sometimes.
”

“What did you say?” Jay called over his shoulder. “I can barely understand you.”

“Nothing.”

“H
ELLO?”

“Mr. Lee? This is Jay.”

“Oh, hi, Jay. Is Doug with you? He hasn't come home yet.”

“He's here. We wanted to know if he could spend the night at my house.”

“Tomorrow's the first day of school, isn't it?”

“Yeah, it's okay, though. He can ride in with me. He has his book bag.”

“Why didn't he call me himself?”

“He said you'd say no. We want to play D&D.”

“One last hurrah, then it's back to the coal mines, is that right?”

“Um…right.”

“Well, I suppose. Don't stay up too late slaying elves!”

“…Okay. Thanks. Good-bye.”

“Bye, now.”

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
Sejal followed Cat to the high school office. She'd taken half a Niravam with her orange juice and her surprisingly bacon-oriented American breakfast and was feeling okay.

“Hope we have some classes together,” Cat told Sejal. “Probably not, though. You're way smarter than me.”

“That is not true.”

“It is. Plus you speak three languages and you're Indian and you don't use as many contractions as I do. That alone'll get you into AP everything.”

“Hmm.”

“Don't worry about it,” said Cat. “I can always rely on my
breathtaking hotness, right? See you at lunch.”

“By the tree,
na
?”

“By the tree.”

Sejal entered the office and stepped up to a wide counter. Beyond this were a pair of desks, one of which was occupied by a middle-aged woman as blond and toothy as an ear of corn. Sejal waited to be acknowledged. After a while this didn't seem to be working, so she cleared her throat.

“Hello,” said Sejal. “This is my first day.”

The woman didn't look up from her computer. “This is a lot of people's first day, hon. Take a seat.”

Sejal blinked and looked around her at the otherwise empty office. She sat down in an unfriendly chair next to a fake plant.

There were no sounds, save the faint clicks of a mouse and the constant sigh of an unseen air conditioner. Each click sent a little tickle up her spine. She willed herself to be at peace. She tried to quiet her mind. In moments like these she once would have been texting or talking or checking her email. Now, more often than not, she found herself filling the void by twiddling her thumbs. Honest-to-gods thumb twiddling, but it helped.

Her heart and soul were off someplace, hopping from one computer to the next. They were riding the rails like hoboes.

On a wall behind the counter a framed poster said
POSITIVITY
, beneath a photo of a blizzard-battered penguin cradling an egg on its feet. Below the frame was a cartoon cat who hated Mondays. Sejal rather thought the two posters canceled each other out and searched for a third to break the tie.

The office door opened and a boy entered. He was
gathering up a rain poncho as if he'd just been holding it over his head, though a glimpse of the sky outside confirmed that it was just as sunny and cloudless as it had been a few minutes ago. The boy stood at the counter and waited.

The blond woman rose and said to the boy, “Now then. It's your first day?”

“What? No, I'm just late. I need a late pass.”

“It is my first day,” said Sejal, standing.

“Oh my dear!” the woman said to her. “You're our foreign exchange student, aren't you? Why didn't you tell me?”

“I'm sorry, I didn't think it made a difference,” Sejal explained, though clearly it had already caused this woman to double the volume of her voice.

“Say-jall…Gangooly?” the woman ventured, reading Sejal's name from a file. “From India?”

“Yes. Kolkata.”

“It says here ‘Calcutta.'”

“It is the same thing.”

“And this is an Indian dress you're wearing? It's very exotic.”

The boy was frowning at it. “It's from Dark Matter,” he said. “In the mall.”

The corn woman's entire demeanor went stale as she turned to the boy.

“Name?”

“Um, Doug. Douglas Lee.”

“Reason for being tardy?”

“It…took me longer to get ready this morning than usual.”

The woman sniffed. “That's no excuse. I'm afraid I'm going to
have
to give you a Tardy.”

“Right. Hey,” said Doug, pointing at Sejal's file, “that says she's in the same Pre-Cal class as me first period. I can show her the way.”

 

Pre-Calculus was held in one of the temporary buildings ringing the parking lot, and Doug felt the sun crackling on his skin as he escorted Sejal. It could have felt worse, though—he had recently fed—and there was no way he was going to duck and cover around the one girl in school who hadn't already decided he was a loser.

“I hate that word,” said Doug. “‘Tardy.' Don't you?”

“I had never heard it before a minute ago,” said Sejal.

“Oh. Well, school's the only place you'll ever hear it. It just means ‘late.' And they invented it because they really needed a special word for kids that means ‘late' but also sounds like ‘retard.'”

Sejal laughed. The sound of it rang Doug like a bell.

“So…” he said, “when did you get here? To America?”

“A week ago.”

“You like it?”

“I like it. Everyone has been…very nice.”

“Yeah, well…high school's just starting. Give it a few days.”

A brittle silence passed.

“So,” said Sejal. “You are interested in fashion?”

“What?”

“You knew from where my dress had come. The boys back
home would never—”

“Well…you know, I think guys can be interested in that kind of thing without being…you know,” Doug said in what he hoped would be taken for a confidently masculine voice. He only recognized the dress because he'd spent several summer afternoons at Dark Matter attempting to meet a nice girl with a vampire fetish.

They stopped outside the classroom door. The walk had been too short. And now Sejal was already frowning at him.

“What's wrong?”

“I'm sorry,” said Sejal. “Your face…you look like you've had a lot of sun, no?”

“Oh. Yeah. I spent a lot of the summer at the beach. You know.”

“I didn't notice it in the office.”

“Also…” said Doug, “also I caught some sort of sun allergy. My skin's really sensitive.”

Sensitive
, thought Doug.
May as well ask her to braid my hair.

“Oh. I was going to ask you where you eat lunch,” said Sejal, “but you wouldn't want to eat outside, then, by the tree.”

She was inside the classroom door before he could answer.