Fat Vampire: A Never Coming of Age Story

need a chance to talk to her more. Maybe she could be, you know, the one.'

'Would you turn her into a vampire?' asked Jay.

'I don’t know. If she wanted. I don’t even really know how to do that.'

'The 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.

'I think so,' he said.

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 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.

'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.

'This would…this would all be a lot easier if I was just an 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.

'Say you drink from someone once a week. Is that about right?'

'Yeah,' said Doug.

'So if your first victim becomes a vampire, then in a week there are two vampires who need to feed. You and him.'

'Me and her,' Doug stressed.

'And 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.'

'I dunno.' Doug sighed. 'Ten.'

Jay frowned. 'You don’t think that. You just guessed low so my answer won’t sound amazing.'

'So what is it already?'

'It’s, like, thirty-four. Thirty-three and a half.'

'That’s really amazing.'

'Anyway,' 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.'

'I don’t like that idea,' said Doug. 'Hypnosis. It’d be like slipping something in her drink.'

'Well, 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.'

'I’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—'

'Uh-uh,' said Mr. Gonzales as he loomed suddenly over their desks. 'No ingles. En espanol, por favor.'

Jay glanced in the teacher’s direction, then stared at his hands. 'Um…Podria usted…beber un poco de mi…sangre? Es correcto? Sangre?'

'Sangre es ‘blood,’'

'Si,' said Jay. Doug pretended to read his book. Mr. Gonzales coughed.

'You’re supposed to be pretending to buy pineapples,' he said.

12 Pack lunch

SEJAL 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 whisper as she passed if Sejal had ever read the Kama Sutra. Maybe the same boy.

'Dude, I think she heard you!' said another. Laughter all around.

That’s what I get, she thought. It hadn’t been necessary to walk among them all like that. She could have skirted around the side, but she’d made the effort to be visible, to be an actual actor in the actual world. As if, as the new girl, she really needed to give them an excuse to stare.

She dipped her head, let her hair fall in front of her face.

She had to remind herself of one of the points her psychoanalyst was always trying to drive home: that the internet was less inviting, that it was even more critical. Her conspicuous stroll through the cafeteria of the internet would have started a flame war. Each nasty comment would burn like a match against her skin. How could she miss the warmth of all those matches?

She exited the cafeteria and walked toward a large tree in the center of the quad, drawn to a shining, friendly face like a smiley. A face that seemed just now to be lit with the divine light of the universe.

'There she is!' said Cat. Cat stood and invited Sejal to sit in the grass with a tight cluster of other kids.

'Hi,' said a girl with long, slender arms. 'I’m Ophelia. Cat’s probably told you about me.'

Cat had, in fact. She’d given Sejal a rundown of a dozen different names, most of which were promptly forgotten. Sejal shook Ophelia’s hand, let her eyes linger over the soft brown feathers and long pink bangs of her hair. Sejal wanted this haircut.

'This is Troy and Abby and Sophie and Adam and Phil,' Ophelia said, christening each with a flick of her wrist. They became more animated, as if made real by the gesture of Ophelia’s invisible wand.

'Where are you from again?' asked Sophie.

'Kolkata. In India.'