Vampires Don't Sparkle!

by Mia Archer

  The guy who’d been a vampire until so very recently flew at me again. This time he flew right at my face and I couldn’t help but flinch away from the shot.

  “Yeah, pretty fucking sure this asshole is coming at me,” I finally growled. “And I’m not fucking happy about it!”

  “Right,” the geek vampire said, sounding like he wanted to be anywhere but in the room with me at that moment.

  And not because I was a reaper who could rip the vampire soul out of him. No, that was the kind of “right” someone got when they thought another person in the room was losing it.

  The ghost that’d been a vampire came at me one final time. So I swung my scythe and hit the dude head on.

  Sliced right through him, actually. He looked down and his eyes went wide as darkness moved up from that slice and consumed him. It looked like something out of a movie about nanomachines taking over the world and turning people into nano goo or something.

  In short it was freaky. Dan Aykroyd eat your heart out, because that was nothing like how taking out ghosts looked in the movies.

  “You okay there?” the geek vampire asked.

  I wheeled around on him. The other ghost had gone to the other side, but Death had told me I was needed over here. I figured that meant I didn’t necessarily have to be with the asshole when he went to that other side.

  That was more a courtesy thing for supernatural creatures and necromantic assholes who’d been causing me trouble.

  Besides, I had far more pressing things to worry about right now. Like this geeky vampire, and what he could tell me about what the fuck had happened to Stacy.

  So I my scythe at his face again. He looked down and gulped, then held his hands up like this was a stick up or something.

  Just fucking great.

  27

  Geekpire

  “I’m telling you that’s him!”

  I rolled my eyes. Here I was trying to be suitably intimidating to this vampire who’d been getting bullied by his fellow bloodsucking brethren, and so of course that would be the moment that the three supernatural stooges decided to show up and ruin my fun.

  “Um, what are you looking at?” the vampire asked, still holding his hands up and still looking down at my scythe like he was worried it would do some damage.

  I was about to do some damage. I was going to give him a piece of my mind with the thing, damn it. Assuming I could get the three stooges to leave me alone long enough for me to concentrate on work.

  “What do you guys want?” I asked, turning to Luke, Arnold, and Jake who were floating around the vampire giving him a once over.

  “I’m telling you it’s him!” Jake said, swooping in low next to the vampire and causing the bloodsucker to shiver and rub his arms like he could almost feel the ghosts moving in close around him. Which was a pretty typical ghost response.

  “You know this guy?” I asked.

  “I mean he sort of looks like Jimmy Kent,” Arnold said, pulling back and giving the guy a once over. “I’d swear it was him, but it’s sort of hard to tell y’know?”

  “How could it possibly be hard to tell?” I asked.

  “Well the fangs are new,” Arnold said. “And he was younger than all of us, but he’s dressing up in some certified geek stuff from the ‘50s.”

  “Are you going to maybe tell me what the hell you’re talking about and who you’re talking to?” the vampire who might be Jimmy Kent asked.

  “Shut up bloodsucker,” I said. “Or else I’m going to give you the same treatment I just gave your friend.”

  “I can assure you that asshole wasn’t my friend,” he said. “Like nothing close to that.”

  “Listen, Jimmy,” I said, deciding to stop with all the games and try to figure out if he was who my friends said he was. “We have vampires threatening to invade the school and I really don’t have time for this shit. So either you’re going to tell me something useful that makes me want to keep you alive, or undead, whatever, or we’re going to have a problem and you’re going to get the same treatment your buddy there did.”

  “What did you call me?” he asked.

  “Jimmy,” I said, pressing the little ruse even further. “Jimmy Kent. That is your name, right?”

  “How do you know that?” he asked.

  “I told you that was Jimmy!” Arnold said. “Ask him if he still remembers that time he crapped his pants on the old playground in second grade?”

  I snickered. I couldn’t help it. Maybe it wasn’t the best response to the situation, but it was just a little funny.

  “I thought you said he was younger than you?” I said.

  “Well yeah,” Arnold said. “But a kid crapping on the playground is the sort of thing that travels through the whole school.”

  “What are you laughing at?” Jimmy asked, suddenly looking wary. Like he’d started subtly making his way towards the exit, and it was only a well timed snap with my death magic that had him staying in place.

  “One of my ghostly friends who claims he knew you once upon a time was telling me about the time you crapped your pants in second grade,” I said. “Come to think of it, I remember hearing a story like that when I was in elementary school even though it was like twenty years later or something. That was you?”

  “Motherfucker,” he said, glancing around. “Is that you Arnold? Because I’ll fucking bust your ass!”

  “I’d like to see him try!” Arnold said, doing a little figure eight in the air around Jimmy. “People in the real world can’t touch ghosts asshole!”

  “I think he was talking about busting you in the sense of the 1984 comedy,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?” Arnold asked.

  I sighed. “I’m really going to have to show you guys that movie sometime. It might get you to start playing a little nicer.”

  “What movie is she talking about?” Jake asked.

  I turned back to Jimmy. “Yes, that is Arnold floating around and telling me all about you.”

  Oddly enough, Jimmy looked a little sad for a moment. “I took it hard when those guys bought it. I guess it is kind of nice to know that his spirit lives on somehow, even if it is as a smartass ghost.”

  “I’ll show you smartass!” Arnold said, rushing through Jimmy and causing him to shiver just a little.

  “Would you please play nice Arnold?” I asked, trying to keep my irritation to a minimum and not sure I was doing a good job of it. “And how the hell would he take it hard if you were older?”

  “He was in the same D&D group as us back in the day,” Luke explained. “We were some of the older kids, and he was one of the younger ones kinda hanging around the periphery.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “The same D&D gam is probably still going on with new people playing it to this day,” Luke said. “That’s how good high school D&D campaigns work.”

  “Okay Jimmy,” I said, turning back to the vampire and refusing to get distracted with tales of high school D&D games. “So it turns out you knew my ghost friends. That just bought you a little bit of time, but not much. You’re going to tell me everything that’s going on here, or I’m going to send you where your vampire friend went, and you’re not going to like it.”

  Jimmy glanced around the room like he was still trying to think of a way to get the hell out of here, and then sighed.

  “People have been giving me shit for the last four decades,” he said. “I guess it shouldn’t be any different with you.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “I’m talking about I was turned by a vampire who’s been working this school since it was a little red single room schoolhouse,” Jimmy growled. “Usually the asshole turns people because they’re his pretties and he wants to have them for the rest of his undeath, but do you know why he chose me?”

  I looked Jimmy up and down. I mean sure he wasn’t exactly a bad looking dude. He probably would’ve been able to rock the whole geek chic look that’d become so popu
lar lately. But at the same time he wasn’t in danger of anyone ever calling him a pretty or making him functionally immortal because he looked good.

  The guy might be cute in a geeky sort of way if you were into dudes, but a model he wasn’t.

  “He probably got turned because of AV club,” Arnold muttered.

  I glanced at the ghost, but decided to keep his running commentary to myself. After all, this vampire hadn’t been very happy with that commentary so far.

  “He turned me because he couldn’t figure out how to use any of the AV equipment, and he was a huge fan of the “talkies.” Do you have any idea how fucking old someone had to be that they still called movies “talkies” even back in the early ‘80s when he turned me?”

  I kept my thoughts to myself. I’d run into some old stuff over the years as a result of watching dad do his business, but it seemed like Jimmy had some stuff he was working through and I figured I’d give him the time he needed.

  “And it was never anything good, either! The asshole just got around to watching Star Wars last year, we’re talking the original version and not any of the new stuff that’s come out lately, because he has such a long list of movies he needs to catch up on that he’s running on a four decade delay! At this rate I’m never going to get to see the new Star Trek movies, and when I do get to see it fifty years from now all those assholes are going to mock me for liking it!”

  “Wait, there are new Star Trek movies you didn’t tell us about it?” Luke asked.

  “Seriously,” Arnold said, coming up to float in front of me with his hands at his sides. “If there are Star Trek movies and you’ve been holding out on us then we’re going to haunt you until the day you die!”

  I barked out a laugh at that. I couldn’t help myself. “Yeah, well we can watch that if we get through all this.”

  “What the hell is going on here?” Jimmy asked.

  “What’s going on here is I’m perpetually haunted by three huge dorks who are so behind on the pop culture of the past few decades that they rely on me to drip feed that stuff to them.”

  “Oh,” Jimmy said. “Too bad they can’t talk to me. I’d be happy to tell them all about all the cool shit that’s come out lately.”

  “I always knew Jimmy was a good guy,” Arnold said. “Even if he did shit himself on the playground. Too bad he can’t see us.”

  “I’d like to remind you that he’s a bloodsucking vampire who’s probably killed his fair share of people over the years,” I said.

  “Actually not so much,” a feminine voice said from the other end of the room.

  Well then. That was wrong. I was the only lady in the room. The corpse of the former vampire definitely wasn’t talking, and he’d been a dude. That wasn’t Jimmy talking, which meant…

  I wheeled around and found myself staring at none other than that pretty cheerleader girl that time forgot. Veronica. And standing next to her was none other than Stacy. Behind them in the hall I could see a bunch of vampire cheerleaders who looked like they were ready to kick some ass.

  Damn it. I needed to find them, but it would’ve been nice if they could’ve not interrupted me when it felt like I was finally getting some answers.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I think the better question is what the hell are you still doing here,” the girl shot back. She glanced at Jimmy. “And why the hell are you talking with this loser?”

  She turned to Stacy. “Honestly. What the hell did you ever see in this girl? She’s hanging out with the lamest people.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked, feeling just a touch pissed off at all the bullshit I’d endured at this bitch’s hands. “Aren’t you the one who was hanging out with him for decades while you were all doing the whole wannabe Dracula thing?”

  “Whatever,” the girl said. She turned to the other cheerleaders in the hall behind her. “You know what to do girls.”

  The vampire cheerleaders slowly filed into the room one by one. None of them looked like they had anything good planned for me. Though of course they didn’t have anything good planned for me. They were fucking vampire cheerleaders and this bitch just set them on me.

  “Hope you had time to make peace with whatever you believe in,” the girl said. “Because you’re about to die.”

  “Y’know I always dreamed I’d die this way, and not in some lame car crash out in the country,” Arnold said with a wistful sigh as he looked at all the pretty girls filling the room.

  “Would you shut up?” I growled.

  “I’m not going to shut up!” Veronica snapped. “God you’re such a bitch! You don’t tell me what to do!”

  “She’s talking to her ghost friend,” Jimmy said. “Arnold, Luke, and Jake?”

  The girl laughed. A long and loud laugh. Which had the guys deflating right in front of me. That was an interesting look considering I’d never seen them caring about what someone else thought before.

  “You’re hanging out with those losers? They’re still hanging around this place? What are they, ghosts or something?”

  “Holy shit, she knows who we are!” Luke said.

  “You’re happy about that?” I asked, glaring at them.

  “Duh,” Arnold said. “The hot older chick knew who we were!”

  Boys. Ugh. I turned back to Veronica and looked between her and Stacy. I was already angry with this girl for turning my girlfriend into a fucking vampire, but it really pissed me off to hear her talking about my friends like that!

  “That’s it,” I said. “You’re going down, bitch.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” she growled back at me.

  So I tried. I lashed out with some of my magic. It slammed into her and she let out an unearthly wail. Like the sound of an evil vampire soul being sucked straight out of her body, though I didn’t have time to really do anything because her asshole minions came at me at right about that moment.

  “Run,” I said, turning to Jimmy.

  28

  Cheer Chase

  “Y’know I always dreamed about having a bunch of cheerleaders chasing me through the school,” Jimmy said.

  I rolled my eyes. Were they all going to pull this on me? “Not the time or the place for that sort of thing Jimbo.”

  “Come on,” he said. “If you’re into girls you can’t tell me you never had that thought!”

  I didn’t answer the question. It wasn’t one that I much felt like answering, thank you very much. Not when he was absolutely right that I’d had that thought on a couple of occasions.

  It’s not like it was a thought I was going to give voice to when I was surrounded by all the pervy dorks from the school from back in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

  “Would you just move your ass?” I asked. “I thought vampires were supposed to have super speed or something?”

  “Or something,” Jimmy said. “I mean you can go longer and everything, but it’s not like you become Superman or something just because you get bit.”

  “Great,” I said. “That means I’ll have no trouble outrunning those girls, and it means you need to pick up the pace if you don’t want me leaving your ass behind!”

  “He’s not wrong, you know,” Arnold said, floating in front of me in such a way that he could look behind me at the same time.

  “Would you shut up and tell me how we’re doing?” I asked as I skidded around a corner. Well it wasn’t a skid so much as it was floating around the corner, but the end result was more or less the same.

  “I’d say you’re doing okay enough,” he said. “I mean they’re still back there chasing you and everything, but do you really need me here telling you how many vampire cheerleaders are chasing after you?”

  “It would be helpful, yes,” I growled through gritted teeth. “Telling me if any of them are close to catching us would be even more helpful.

  I was stuck between a rock and a hard place when it came to the cheerleaders chasing after us. Sure I could turn around and pr
obably end all of them in an instant by hitting them with a bit of the old death magic. The problem was I’d also just established that hitting someone too hard with a bit of the old death magic when they’d already had an evil vampire spirit take up residence in their body meant they might very quickly become an ex person.

  I wasn’t sure how long a vampire spirit had to be latched to someone’s soul before removing said vampire spirit also removed that soul’s ability to continue living once the vampire spirit was gone, and I wasn’t taking any chances.

  I didn’t exactly feel bad about killing a vampire who’d been out there in the world for decades no doubt doing his or her bloodsucking thing, but I wasn’t all that jazzed about doing the same thing with a bunch of cheerleaders I went to school with who’d just been turned tonight and hadn’t had time to get up to too many nefarious bloodsucking shenanigans.

  “I mean I was never a big sports person, but aren’t you supposed to not look at your opponent in a race?”

  “Would you shut the fuck up Arnold?” I asked. “Forget I ever asked you to watch my six.”

  “Oh I’ll watch your six any day of the week,” he said. “But I don’t think we’re thinking about the same kind of watching right now.”

  I reached out with a tendril of death magic and slapped him across the face a couple of times. That got him to disappear into the wall so he wouldn’t have to worry about me hitting him again, and that was just fine with me.

  “Where are we even going?” Jimmy asked, panting like he’d just run a marathon.

  I eyed him skeptically. “Are you seriously bitching out already?”

  “I had asthma back in the day, and it turns out becoming a vampire doesn’t always fix everything that ails you like in the movies.”

  “You really are like the worst vampire I think I’ve ever seen,” I said.

  “Whatever,” he said. “We need to get away from them before they rip me to pieces!”

  “What?” I asked. “Weren’t you the one who just said it’d be awesome to have a bunch of vampire cheerleaders all around you?”