Fat Vampire: A Never Coming of Age Story

'I didn’t even know it was you. Not at first. I could barely remember what happened, so if you want to blame someone—'

They heard the locker room door open again. More boys approached, three more werewolves. Their barking voices went silent when they saw Doug.

'What’s this little faggot doing here?' said Reid, an enormous senior built like a stack of hamburgers. There wasn’t any laughter. The issue of the little faggot in the locker room was a very serious one that demanded answers.

'I think he came to get a look at Victor,' said another guy just like Reid but larger. 'I think he’s got a big faggot crush. Right, Victor?'

Victor rushed Doug then, half naked, white skinned, like that night in the forest. He pressed Doug back over a bench and against the lockers.

'I don’t have a crush on you, Victor, I swear—'

'Shut the fuck up. Jesus.'

'I just need to talk to you about—'

Victor punched Doug right below the ribs. And so Doug would not be finishing that sentence or starting any new ones for two or three minutes.

Victor’s face was close.

'Four o’clock,' he hissed quietly through his teeth before throwing Doug out. 'The drainpipe behind the soccer fields. Alone.'

13 Nocturnal admissions

DOUG COULDN’T concentrate for the rest of the day and did little more than watch the clock until three thirty. He didn’t know if he was going to a secret meeting or a fight. Maybe more than a fight. Maybe Victor was going to kill him. Maybe he enjoyed it so much the first time he wanted to do it again.

'Why…exactly…are you meeting Victor Bradley by the drainpipe?' asked Jay after last bell.

'We just have some business to talk about. Or he wants to beat me up. I’ll find out when I get there.'

Jay was thinking hard. You could tell because he looked like he was cleaning his teeth with his tongue. 'I’m going with you. Even though I’m still mad at you for ditching me. Although I think I really scored some points with the drama kids—'

'I’m supposed to go alone,' said Doug.

'Yeah, right — so then Victor can show up with the whole football team?'

'Are you really suggesting he’s gonna need help kicking my ass?'

Jay shrugged. 'You have vampire strength now.'

'Not during the day I don’t. Look, thank you, but I’m going to go alone. If I don’t call you by five, then you can panic,' Doug said. He was annoyed with Jay, annoyed with himself for even telling Jay about it. Plus people were making fun of his poncho.

He walked out past the bus bays and the throngs of people, across the parking lot and the soccer field, through a hole in the chain-link fence, and down an embankment. Victor was already there, alone. Victor who, if possible, was even better looking now that he was a vampire. It made his eyes smolder or something. It made Doug look like a blind cave fish.

The day was humid and close. The area around the pipe was rocky and lush green. Flies punctuated the air over something furry and dead. It smelled worse than Victor. Victor he was starting to get used to.

'I checked up on you,' Victor said. 'I did. After I figured out it was you that I attacked. I came by your family’s cabin and made sure you were okay.'

'Thanks,' Doug said, and wanted to slap himself. He was thanking him for this?

'And then when I saw you were okay,' said Victor, 'I knew I must have made you. I guess because I took too much?'

'I wonder if it’s because you were bleeding, and I got some of your blood in me. You haven’t made any other vampires?'

'I don’t think so.'

'So you were made right before you made me. I was your first feed.'

'Yeah. I didn’t know what I was doing. You could have been anyone. Anything.'

Doug nodded. He was sweating under his poncho. 'You looked pretty fucked up that night,' he said.

'She was really rough,' Victor admitted.

'She?'

'My vampire. She was a total piece of ass. French. Looked maybe nineteen, but who knows, right? She could have blown Napoleon for all I know.'

So there were hot vampire chicks, at least. That was comforting.

The fact that Victor wasn’t being a complete dick was coming as something of a surprise to Doug. That Victor was aware that Napoleon was both French and lived a long time ago wasn’t entirely expected, either. He supposed he was going to have to give Victor more credit. He hated giving people more credit.

They had known each other since they were little kids. Never were great friends, maybe, but they’d played together during the summers at their families’ cabins. They’d always gotten along when there were no other kids around to complicate things. Then the two boys got older, and Doug simply assumed in Victor a growing cruelty and stupidity to balance out his more appealing qualities. Sure, after high school he might become a better person, find God or something, but for now, didn’t he almost have to be evil? Wasn’t that part of the deal?

'You haven’t told anyone, have you?' asked Victor. 'About any of it?'

'Oh…no. No. And if I was going to tell anyone, I wouldn’t tell them about you. I’d probably claim my vampire was a hot girl, too.'

Victor gave a satisfied nod. Maybe he’d just gotten what he was looking for. Doug still had some unanswered questions.

'What the hell am I doing wrong, Victor?' he said. 'I mean, look at you — you don’t hide under a poncho all day. And that bat thing—'

'Yeah, well I figure I’m some kind of special vampire,' said Victor. 'One that doesn’t burn up in the sun. You’re not ’cause you were an accident.'

'Oh,' said Doug. 'I thought maybe being able to stand the sun was normal, like in Dracula.'

'Dracula burns up in the sun, dumbass.'

'Not in the book, remember?'

Victor frowned, and then looked down the drainpipe. 'I haven’t read it.'

Doug’s eyes popped. 'You haven’t read Dracula? Are you kidding? I read it, like, first thing. Well, reread it first thing.'

'Yeah, big fuckin’ surprise,' said Victor. 'Meatball gives himself extra homework to do.'

'But it’s like…our instruction manual, right? And in Stoker’s book, Dracula can walk around in daylight all he wants. He’s just powerless then.'

Victor picked up a chunk of concrete and pitched it down the drainpipe. Both boys paused to admire the firecracker sounds it made as it fractured and ricocheted in the darkness.

'Well…' said Victor, 'so much for your instruction manual. I haven’t read it and I’m doing a hell of a lot better’n you.'

Doug had to admit that was true.

'What’ve you been drinking?' asked Victor.

'Nothing,' said Doug reflexively. 'I don’t drink.'

Victor gave him a look.

'Oh…' said Doug. 'Right. Well, there are these cows at the university farms—'