Suck It Up

by Brian Meehl

  Birnam’s face finally creased into a smile. “Mr. McCobb has done us a great service.” He turned to the crowd. “He reminds us that even though the Academy is here to guide vampires from the dark wood of their Loner past, each of us must find our own unique path out of the dark wood, the selva obscura, and into the light.” Birnam turned and handed Morning his diploma. “Congratulations. You are now a Leaguer among Leaguers.”

  Morning didn’t remember walking down the platform or retrieving his robe from the lake. But he must have done these things because he was back in his place at the end of the semicircle, with his damp robe sticking to him like plastic wrap. He was numb to the cold, and the other cadets performing their CDs seemed like a hazy stampede of creatures. What kept looping through his mind was the way Birnam had looked at him. And the creepy feeling that came with it: that even though his final CD was over and he clutched his diploma, it wasn’t over.

  An ovation jolted Morning out of his gnawing anxiety. All the graduates, back in their robes, now held diplomas. The last one was descending the stairs.

  Mr. Birnam stepped to the edge of the platform. “Before I administer the Leaguer Oath, let me tell you how much closer we are to the day we emerge from our greatest dark wood, the selva obscura of our secrecy—the day we reveal our true nature to people of mortality.”

  The crowd inhaled a collective breath.

  As Birnam continued, his voice cracked with emotion. “In my ancient bones, I feel the day we live openly among Lifers approaching.” He turned to the end of the semicircle. “I know this because when I look at you”—he stared directly at Morning—“I see, rising in the east, the first light of Worldwide Out Day.”

  Morning’s skin tingled with goose bumps. It wasn’t his wet robe that chilled him. It was the icy touch of Birnam’s words.

  * * *

  THE LEAGUER WAY

  Our code of conduct is summarized in the oath every cadet takes when they graduate from Leaguer Academy.

  THE LEAGUER OATH

  On my honor,

  I will obey the New Commandments of Leaguer Law,

  Abide by the laws of my country,

  Go among Lifers in peace,

  Pursue my Leaguer Goals,

  Help all and harm none while consuming,

  And, when given the chance, bring Loners to the Leaguer Way.

  * * *

  3

  The Call

  After taking the Oath, the newest throng of Leaguers hurled their diplomas in the air, creating a fountain of twirling batons. But unlike Lifer graduates who wildly throw their caps, Leaguers considered it bad luck if they didn’t catch their diploma when it came back down.

  No one was more surprised than Morning when his diploma slapped back into his palm. He broke into a smile; his anxiety vanished. Birnam’s strange looks and words were probably nothing, he told himself. Just another case of his wild imagination turning shadows into monsters.

  Graduates eagerly slid ribbons off their diplomas and unrolled them. They were less interested in reading the parchment’s ornate calligraphy than in seeing the attachment at the bottom. It revealed the details of their first Leaguer placement, and a grab bag of surprises: where they would live, whom they would work for, what job they would have.

  Morning casually slid the ribbon off his diploma. His placement would hold only one surprise: where he would live. The rest was set in stone. Because he would always look sixteen, he’d live with a Leaguer family and do what all sixteen-year-olds were supposed to do: go to school. Then, after two years he would do what nonaging Leaguers did to avoid raising suspicions. He would relocate to another town, another Leaguer family, and another school where he would repeat tenth and eleventh grade. Every two years he would do the same, repeating the same grades over and over, forever.

  Back in his Lifer days, Morning always wondered about the new kids in school who were supersmart, never studied, and moved away after a couple of years. Now he knew. They were probably vampires. They were only smart because they kept taking the same classes. After a few years of memorizing his classes, he wouldn’t have to study either. It would give him more time to pursue one of the Leaguer Goals that every cadet had to settle on before slipping back into the world of Lifers. Leaguer Goals could be anything that kept a vampire feeding on human culture and not on human corpuscles. Morning thought his number one Leaguer Goal was excellent. He planned to read every superhero comic book ever written. He was a slow reader, but time was not a problem.

  As he scanned down to the note on his diploma, he knew there was one place he wouldn’t be going: New York City. Leaguers weren’t allowed to go back to the hometown of their Lifer days. If they were recognized, there would be too many questions, too many complications.

  Seeing his destination brought a smile. He knew the city well. As well as you can know a city from comic books.

  After returning to his dorm room, Morning changed into sneakers, blue jeans, and a sweatshirt featuring the superhero Animal Man. Then he headed to the graduation party. The only dress code at the Academy was to dress like a Lifer. It was all part of the Leaguer strategy: Blend in.

  The party was in the dining hall. Its formal name was the Blood Court, but everyone called it the quaffeteria. It wasn’t much different than a food court that offered the fast-food gamut from Arby’s to Zaro’s. Except the quaffeteria offered a blood-drink gamut from the Blood Shed to Vegan Veins. And blood was exactly what the graduates craved after the excitement of the ceremony, and their energy-depleting CDs.

  Morning found the party in full swing. The other graduates, with drinks in hand, had also exchanged their gowns for street clothes. Their form-fitting outfits only magnified his nerdiness. He looked like Gumby crashing an Olympics afterparty. But he was used to being a misfit. In his Lifer days he’d been an outsider too. And the motto he’d lived by then worked just as well now, if not better: Suck it up.

  He weaved through the crowd toward Vegan Veins. Luckily, everyone was too busy chattering about their placements to tease him about his moth CD. He caught snippets of conversation. Most of the Americans were going to entertainment capitals in the United States: Las Vegas, Orlando, New York City, Branson. Foreigners were going to international capitals of fun: Rio, Paris, Monaco, Cape Town, Bangkok. The emphasis on entertainment hubs was part of Leaguer Goal Number One: replacing a vampire’s bloodlust—the need to feed—with fun-lust. The megadifference between Loner vampires, who were totally old school, and Leaguer vampires, who no longer did the chomp ’n’ chug on humans, was all in the Leaguer motto: Drink Culture, Not Life.

  But Leaguers still needed blood to survive. And that’s what the quaffeteria was all about.

  Reaching the counter at Vegan Veins, Morning was glad to see his favorite quaffeteria lady. Dolly looked about sixty and had big ears, crooked teeth, and the lithe body of a former dancer. Morning liked her because they shared something in common. Neither of them looked like super-models.

  When Dolly spotted Morning, her elfin smile stretched wide. “Hey, Morning, how’d it go?”

  “I hit a couple of speed bumps, but I made it.”

  “I knew you would.” She raised a fist across the counter. “Congratulations.”

  Morning lifted a fist and tapped her knuckles. “Thanks.”

  “How do you want to celebrate?” she asked. “With something different or the usual?”

  “The usual.”

  She shouted an order to the drink-making station. “Tall Blood Lite, no foam, room temp.”

  The man at the station shouted back. “T-B Lite, bury the head, roadkill-cold.”

  It was another thing that separated Morning from his peers. He was the only vegan in the class. The others drank animal blood from Leaguer farms where the animals were never injured but “milked.” Leaguer farms weren’t any different than dairy farms, but the milk was red. Unlike his classmates, who had a history with human or animal blood before coming to the Academy, Morning had never tasted eithe
r. His time as a Loner vampire had been so short he’d never fed on anything. His first taste of “blood” was after a Leaguer Rescue Squad found him unconscious from lack of feeding. While being transported on an LRS medevac flight from New York to Leaguer Mountain, he was hooked up to an IV and pumped full of a soy blood substitute called Blood Lite. Ever since then it was the only thing that tasted good and satisfied his thirst.

  “Where did they place you?” Dolly asked.

  “San Diego.” Morning grinned.

  “That’s a fun city.”

  “Yeah.” He tapped the superhero on his sweatshirt. “It’s where Animal Man started.”

  His drink arrived in a tall cup with a lid and a straw. He grabbed a quick slurp. The clear straw turned magenta. He didn’t realize how thirsty he was until the smooth, bright taste of Blood Lite filled his mouth.

  “Hey, McCobb,” a voice called behind him.

  He turned and saw Dieter Auerbach and Rachel Capilarus approaching. Rachel had her arm wrapped around Dieter’s bulging bicep. “Hey,” Morning echoed as he checked out the bare band of Rachel’s perfect stomach. He pried his eyes away and looked at her only imperfection: the jock on her arm.

  Dieter smirked down at him. “Congrats on becoming a loser, I mean a Leaguer.”

  As Rachel tossed her head back in laughter, Morning glimpsed the roof of her mouth. It had arched ridges like the ceiling of a cathedral. The vision of Dieter violating that temple with his tongue made Morning wish he had a girl on his arm too: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. “Thanks,” he deadpanned. “I hear I wasn’t the only one they lowered the graduation standards for.”

  Dieter’s hand tensed into a fist, but Rachel stopped the piston from firing. “Dieter, if you want to draw blood, go over to Crimson Keg and get a refill.”

  As Dieter grunted, Morning silently thanked Rachel for saving him from unauthorized cosmetic surgery.

  Dieter’s smirk returned. “Okay, McCobb, everybody wants to know. You ended up as a moth, but no way you were going for that.”

  “Yeah,” Rachel added. “What was your CD going to be?”

  The curiosity in her voice made him want to tell her the truth. But alone, not with Dieter there. He shrugged. “I did exactly what I wanted, a moth.”

  “Yeah, right,” Dieter scoffed.

  “What’s so bad about a moth?” Morning said, sticking to his lie. “You heard Birnam. I did two for one, a Flyer and a Hider.”

  Dieter wasn’t buying it. “Who would wanna do a creature that’s drawn to one of our enemies, fire?”

  “I would,” Morning insisted.

  “Why?” Rachel asked.

  “So I could singe my wings in the flames and mutate into a half-vampire, half-moth superhero named Moth-Fire, who gets his power from drinking fire and then flies around the world saving Leaguers like you.”

  Rachel’s head rocked back again in laughter. Morning grabbed another glimpse inside the vault of her mouth. Before he could fantasize about what he might do in that temple, a tone sounded from the PA, signaling an announcement. The room quieted.

  “Would Morning McCobb please come to the head-master’s office. Morning McCobb to the headmaster’s office.”

  The crowd responded with a teasing “Ooooh.”

  Morning was stupefied. What had he done wrong? Okay, he’d screwed up a few things during his CD, but he’d gotten his diploma, had taken the Leaguer Oath, and was ready to go to San Diego and drink culture, not life. What more did they want from him?

  He tossed his Blood Lite in a trash can and started through the gauntlet of snickering cadets.

  Dieter hit him with a parting shot. “Go get ’em, moth-boy.”

  Laughter jolted the room back to party mode. Morning hurried toward the exit. Just before he escaped through the doorway, a hand brushed his elbow. He spun around to see who else wanted a shot at him. He was stunned to find Rachel.

  She gave him a warm smile. “Good luck, Moth-Fire.”

  “Thanks,” he muttered.

  As he hustled down the empty hallway, Morning felt like he’d been struck by lightning. Whatever awaited him in the headmaster’s office didn’t matter. For all he cared, this could be his last day on earth. He had entered the party as the class freak; he was leaving a superhero. At least in the eyes of the one person whose notice he desired: Rachel Capilarus.

  * * *

  HOW TO SEE A VAMPIRE IN THREE EASY STEPS

  1. Get up.

  2. Find a mirror.

  3. Look at your first vampire.

  Okay, you’ll be looking at an ex-vampire.

  How can you be an ex-vampire?

  Every mammal begins life as a vampire. When you were growing and cell-differentiating in your mother’s womb, you weren’t playing video games. You were feeding on your mother’s blood. You didn’t feed on her with fangs; you drank her blood with a straw known as an umbilical cord. Then you were born and they cut the straw off.

  If you still don’t believe you’re a former vampire, contemplate your belly button. It’s where they cut off your straw of bloodlust. It’s the birthmark of the vampire in all of us.

  * * *

  4

  The Interview

  Like the rest of the school, the headmaster’s office was done in Spanish mission style: dark wood beams, simple lines, adobe, painted-desert colors.

  Morning stepped through the doorway. Behind a large desk, the headmaster’s high-backed swivel chair was turned away, facing a bay window overlooking a rock garden. Morning cleared his throat. The chair didn’t move.

  His gaze lowered to a twisted bonsai tree rising from a sunken planter in the desktop. Studying the minitree’s gnarled trunk and its sparse bunches of dark green needles, he recognized it as a bristlecone pine. For many Lifers a rabbit’s foot was lucky; for vampires it was the wood of the bristlecone pine. It was considered lucky because, next to vampires, bristlecone pines lived longer than anything else on earth. Some lived for more than five thousand years.

  Morning reached forward to touch the tree for good luck. The chair swiveled. He snatched his hand back. Even more startling was the man in the chair.

  “The headmaster let me borrow his office,” Luther Birnam said with a friendly smile. “I apologize for pulling you away from the party.”

  “It’s okay.” Morning tried to mask his shock with indifference. “I’m not big on parties.”

  Birnam gave him a sympathetic look. “I imagine it’s difficult when everyone is older and more mature than you.”

  “They look more mature, but they don’t act it.” Morning wished he could snatch the words back. He had just violated another Leaguer slogan: No Biting, with Fangs or Words.

  To his surprise, Birnam chuckled. “It sounds like you’ve learned to hold your own.”

  “I try, sir.”

  Birnam clicked the mouse on the desk and glanced at the computer screen. “I’ve been reading your file. I was surprised to see you’ve only been a vampire for ten months and two days.” His eyes shifted back to Morning. “Do you know why that’s so unusual?”

  Morning knew why, and he knew Birnam knew why. What he didn’t know was why Birnam was asking a question he already knew the answer to. He decided to play along until he figured out what was going on. “It’s surprising because in this day and age dweebs like me don’t get turned into vampires.”

  Birnam laughed. “I wouldn’t have put it that way, but you’re right. So tell me, why are you such a rarity?”

  Morning was struck by his choice of words. He’d been called a lot of things but never a “rarity.” Even more curious was why the president of the IVL kept asking questions every Leaguer knew the answer to. “It’s basic vampire history, Mr. Birnam.”

  “Yes, it’s a no-brainer, but if you don’t mind”—he spread his hands in an imploring gesture—“humor me.”

  Morning wished he’d brought his diploma. He wanted to wave it in front of Birnam and shout, Look, I graduated! I’m done with tests. But then
he would never get out of Leaguer Mountain. He told himself to suck it up and recite the catechism that Birnam wanted to hear. Luckily, it came from the one class he’d gotten an A in: Twentieth-Century Vampire History. “I’m weird because after World War V, the vampire war between Leaguers and Loners during the second half of the last century, Loner vampires got a lot more selective about who they turned into vampires.”

  “Blood children,” Birnam added.

  “Right.” Morning plunged on. “Before the war, Loners turned all sorts of people into blood children. From my friend Dolly, the old lady who runs Vegan Veins in the quaffeteria”—he played the flattery card, hoping to cut this pop quiz short—“to Luther Birnam, the visionary who created the Leaguer Way, commanded the Leaguer Army during the war, and, after defeating the Loners, wrote a treaty that has kept the peace between Leaguers and Loners ever since.”

  “I like your choice of examples. Please go on.”

  So much for the flattery card ending the quiz. Morning took a breath and continued reciting chapter and verse from vampire history. “After the war, the Loners who survived and refused to become Leaguers numbered less than a hundred. They realized they were an endangered species and that their traditional lifestyle was facing extinction. So they decided to rebuild the Loner ranks with an Aryan race of vampires. They vowed to only make blood children from the young and most beautiful mortals.”

  “Why did they target the young and beautiful?”

  Morning repressed an eye roll. The pop quiz was turning into a friggin’ test. “They targeted them because youth and beauty add up to self-obsession. And Loners believe that the self-obsessed make the best bloodsucking fiends.”