Living Like A Vampire

by Jacky Dahlhaus

  I leaned against the desk. “You’ll have to scratch the surface of the material before you light it to get rid of the oxidized layer, otherwise it won't light. Actually, I don’t know if my lighter will do the trick as we normally use Bunsen burners in the classroom.”

  Charlie gave me another smile, cheeky this time, and held up his blowtorch again.

  “I’ll try and stick to your side,” I yielded. “Oh, before I forget, once it burns, water won’t stop it. It will only fuel it.”

  “Great stuff for a campfire on a rainy day.” Charlie’s face lit up.

  “No, no, no! You can't look into the flame! I nearly forgot to mention that. The light will be so bright, it'll be like looking into the sun. Remember it emits UV-light. So don’t look into it unless you want to give your retinas a tan. Sorry.”

  Charlie’s smile faded. He took the little zip-lock bag out of his pocket again and looked at the tiny piece of metal.

  “As long as it burns the suckers, I can live with that.”

  Mr. Finkle

  We decided to go to down the staffroom. We had agreed it was a good idea to get some sleep on the comfy couches there. I wasn’t sure if it was the physical discomfort of the canoe or the emotional drain of last night that made me so tired, but I desperately wanted to lie down and sleep. When we entered the staffroom, we were surprised to find a man lying on one of the couches with a newspaper over his head.

  Charlie pushed me behind him and sneaked up on the stranger, ready to clobber the man with his blowtorch. I followed him. As we came closer, I recognized the tweed jacket. I stopped Charlie, and he turned around to me with an annoyed look. I mouthed Mr. Finkle’s name to him. Charlie sighed and seemed reluctant to lower his blowtorch.

  We watched Mr. Finkle and waited for him to notice us. When nothing happened, Charlie cleared his throat, but it still didn’t wake Mr. Finkle.

  “Mr. Finkle,” I said. No response. I moved a bit closer. “Mr. Finkle,” I said a bit louder and shook his shoulder.

  He scared us to death when he suddenly jumped up, waving his arms and scanning the room in total disorientation. The newspaper that had been on his face drifted to the floor, an old article about the sucker attack in the city on the front page.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Finkle,” I said to try to calm him. “It’s only us, Charlie and Kate.”

  “Oh, you two. What are you doing here?” He adjusted his tie and tucked his shirt back in.

  “We could ask you the same question,” Charlie said.

  Mr. Finkle looked down at Charlie.

  “I am here to protect the school from looters, what else?”

  “Yeah? You and what army?” Charlie sat down on one of the chairs opposite the couch.

  “What do you mean?” Mr. Finkle asked. When Charlie didn't reply, our head teacher looked at me.

  “We better sit down,” I said.

  Mr. Finkle sat down on the couch. I took a seat in a chair next to Charlie and told our story. Mr. Finkle listened with bright eyes. He didn’t interrupt me. When I had finished, he sat back, took it all in for a while.

  “That is one hell of a story.” He nodded. “It is obvious that you have seen too many sci-fi action movies,” he added as he folded his hands and pointed his index fingers at me.

  My jaw dropped. He looked at me as if I had told him a fancy fairy tale.

  Mixed emotions welled up in me, one after the other; disbelief, frustration, anger.

  “Sue is dead, Mr. Finkle!” I shouted at him as I rose. I put my hands on the low table between us and leaned over to him. “And many more people have lost their lives.” I pointed at the newspaper on the floor. “This is really happening, don’t you get it?”

  Mr. Finkle looked at the newspaper and chuckled.

  I straightened up and ran my hands through my hair.

  “People lifting other people above their heads and throwing them about as if they were mannequins,” Mr. Finkle said. “Come on, Kate. You must have had a bad dream, that’s all.”

  I turned to Charlie for help, but he just looked at Mr. Finkle in disgust, not coming to my rescue at all. The situation was so frustrating.

  Charlie, you’ve got to help me out here!

  I suddenly realized that this was how Charlie had felt before when he had gone to Mr. Finkle for help about his problem with the other staff. Ever since Charlie had started at Bullsbrook High, Mrs. Sloan had hated him. She had taken offense that Charlie had been offered the job of Arts teacher, not her nephew, and took it out on Charlie. She had coerced her teaching friends to call him names. Not too long ago, it had progressed into hurting him, bumping into him on purpose and stating they hadn’t seen him. Charlie had asked Mr. Finkle for help, but he had pretended the issue wasn’t there, that his most respected teachers wouldn’t stoop so low.

  Pun not intended.

  Not such a dramatic issue compared to the current one, but I now understood how frustrated Charlie must have felt. I looked at him again. This time Charlie did return my stare. His expression told me two things. One was, ‘I told you he was an idiot,’ the other being, ‘Sorry, but I can’t help you.’ I slumped down in the chair.

  “Okay, fine. Think what you want to think then, Mr. Finkle.”

  I gripped the armrests until my knuckles where white. Nobody said anything. I forced myself to take deep breaths, remembering Charlie’s words in the canoe. I felt my heartbeat slow down slightly.

  “Do you mind if we stay here? We’re tired and would like to sleep on the couches.”

  “Yeah, sure. Be my guest. The more the merrier,” Mr. Finkle said cheerfully. After all I had said, it appeared he still didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation.

  Charlie and I got up without a word, picked a couch each, and fell asleep in no time.

  Attacked Again

  Charlie and I woke up later that afternoon, and we were very hungry. We checked the staff refrigerator full of hope. It was as good as empty. There were only some green sandwiches in it that were about to walk off by themselves.

  Mr. Finkle didn’t let us raid the snack machine, and we didn’t want to vandalize it against his will. He lent us some money, but it was only enough for one snack each as it was ‘against his principle to lend money to colleagues.’ We weren’t hungry enough to venture out and visit a supermarket yet, so we had to listen to our stomachs rumbling for the rest of the afternoon.

  To keep our minds off food, we spent the day reading old newspapers. It was scary to recall how the pandemic had started in the cities, and how little had been done to stop it from spreading.

  We had a sense of security in the big building. Mr. Finkle had told us that he hadn’t seen nor heard of any sucker attack in Bullsbrook, but he also admitted he hadn’t talked to anyone over the weekend.

  Early in the evening, Charlie and I went back to napping again, so we could stay awake and be vigilant during the night. I woke up a few times, plagued by nightmares, and I tossed and turned on the narrow couch. Finally, I drifted off into a deeper sleep.

  ***

  When I woke up, I was immediately fully awake. A cold chill made my skin ripple when I saw the darkness around me. A sense of time eluded me for a moment. Quickly I looked around for Charlie and Mr. Finkle. I was relieved when I found Charlie still asleep on the couch opposite me. Craning my neck to see over the back of my couch, I scanned the rest of the staffroom. Mr. Finkle had gone. I rolled off the couch, crouched my way to Charlie, and woke him gently. He didn’t need a lot of rousing and looked alert from the moment he opened his eyes.

  “Mr. Finkle’s gone,” I whispered.

  “Good riddance,” he said, sitting up and rubbing his face.

  “Charlie, we can’t leave him on his own. He’s got no idea what’s coming. We’ve got to find him.” I got to my feet.

  “I know. I was just kidding. He may be an idiot, but he’s still a human, blah blah blah.”

  I put one hand on my hip and opened my mouth but refrained from repl
ying Charlie.

  I better not say anything to keep him in this frame of mind if we want to save Mr. Finkle.

  “He’s probably on patrol through the school,” Charlie said, “making sure nobody steals a pencil.” He stood up as well and stretched.

  I shot Charlie my patented ‘teacher-not-approving-of-student-behavior’ look.

  “What?” he said, “It’s probably what he’s doing, isn’t it?”

  Okay, touché.

  Charlie grabbed his blowtorch, I picked up my Maglite, and we went into the hallway. The old, main school building had a U-shape with the staffroom at the center of the first floor, staircases on the outer corners, and entrances on the inside of the ‘arms’ facing each other. The decor of the building was still original with little yellow tiles on the floor in the hallways and green, marbled linoleum on the classroom floors. The sound of our steps in the hallway echoed through the building, so we tried to tiptoe. We were almost on the stairs when we heard footsteps above us. We stopped in our tracks, listening intently. It sounded like only one person, and I assumed it had to be Mr. Finkle. We hurried up the stairs, peeked around the corner, and saw Mr. Finkle walking away from us three quarters down the length of the hallway.

  “Mr. Finkle,” I called and he turned around.

  “Ah, you’re awake again. No need to join me, everything’s okay.”

  As he was talking, something caught my eye. From our position, I could see the schoolyard and noticed something moving. I stepped toward the window. Immediately I became paralyzed with fear. Suckers were running across the schoolyard. One of them looked up and saw me. He said something to the others, and now they were heading for the entrance of the building. My eyes went wide. I suppressed a scream by jamming a hand over my mouth. Seeing my initial reaction, Charlie glanced out of the window as well. He, too, was visibly shocked.

  “Mr. Finkle, you really need to come with us now!” he yelled.

  By the time Mr. Finkle stepped toward and looked out of the window, the suckers had already disappeared into the building. He saw nothing suspicious.

  “I’m not having any of your charades. Go back to the staffroom if you want to, or leave, but let me do my rounds.” He turned again and walked away from us.

  “Mr. Finkle, please come with us,” I pleaded.

  He waved a hand above his head without turning around.

  At that moment, the group of suckers appeared from the stairs in front of Mr. Finkle. He started to lecture them about trespassing but didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. The first sucker to reach him hit him square in the face and threw him over his shoulder. It all happened so fast. The suckers now surged toward us. Charlie and I turned on the spot and ran down the stairs. We skipped as many steps as we could, but as we hit the ground floor, we heard them reach the stairs above.

  We continued running the length of the hallway, and I was desperately thinking of a place to hide. By the time we neared the other set of stairs, we could hear the suckers closing in behind us. Since we couldn’t keep running in circles, I motioned to Charlie to follow me to the exit, thinking there’d be a better chance of escape outside the school. Thankfully, it seemed Charlie agreed with me as he followed me without hesitation.

  Chased

  After crashing through the doors, we ran into the schoolyard only to halt abruptly with shock from the scene we encountered. I thought I was having déjà vu.

  Hungry suckers were chasing screaming, horrified people. In the short time that had passed since I saw the first group of suckers in the schoolyard, other suckers had herded a group of victims into the center, like they had on the tent site at the campground. Some people were fighting back, with guns and shovels, but most of them were just trying to run away, adding to the melee. It was a scene of chaos and despair.

  I scrambled to think of what to do next. There were too many suckers here and no time to come up with a plan. We needed to get away from the schoolyard but couldn’t turn back. We were stuck between a rock and a hard place. And the rock was approaching rapidly.

  I dashed along the side of the schoolyard, avoiding the thick of the confusion. I hoped to reach Charlie’s classroom in the Arts building where we could pick up something more deadly to defend ourselves with.

  I had run for a few seconds when I realized Charlie wasn’t following me. I turned my head to look for him, but couldn’t see him in the turmoil. We were separated. My heart skipped a beat, my mouth went dry, and I faltered. I wanted to call out to him, but before I could do so, one of the chasing suckers set his eyes on me. As our eyes locked, my throat closed up with terror. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as I took him in. The sucker was stocky, with curly hair, dressed in a knitted sweater.

  I never liked men in knitted sweaters.

  My initial reaction was not caused by his appearance. It was his eyes which held a desire for a hunger that was more than blood alone. The aversion to this man gave me a boost to start running again and go that little bit faster. The sucker raced after me and in no time was within an arm’s length away. He reached out, and I could feel him touching my jacket. I curved my back forward to prevent him from grabbing me. I didn’t know if I was about to go down or get another chance to live. Willing my legs to carry on after a brief stumble, I dared a quick glance backward. The curly-haired beast had fallen but was already getting up again. I had no time to think about him as there were other suckers to dodge.

  I saw two suckers chasing a young man into the Arts building, so this was now a no go. I decided to go around it, as far from the crowd as possible. Mr. Ugly Sweater was closing in again.

  A woman crossed my path, forcing me to change direction to avoid getting in the way of the sucker chasing her. I veered to the left, but the pursuing sucker, in his own attempt to avoid me, had also changed course in the same direction. We collided, crashing to the ground, rolling over each other. We ended up with him lying on his back and me half on top of him.

  Our faces close, I looked into his eyes, and my surroundings disappeared. The eyes were a beautiful dark brown, darker than I had ever seen, and they sucked me into his universe. Here, I was alone with this beautiful soul. Instantly, I knew I had found my soulmate. Neither of us moved, lost in this eternal moment. The chaos that surrounded us didn’t matter. I wanted nothing else but to be with this man.

  My survival instinct kicked back in when I blinked and registered his fangs. My feelings of overwhelming love were exchanged for fear of near same intensity. I had to get away from this killer. I jumped up and tried to run away, but he grabbed the corner of my jacket, halting my movement.

  At that moment Mr. Ugly Sweater crashed into me and knocked me off my feet. My back hit the ground hard. His heavy body crashed onto mine. I saw triumph in his eyes and realized I'd been wrong to think my disgust for him couldn’t get any worse. I thought I was done for when my brown-eyed, sucker soulmate, Mr. Perfect, grabbed Mr. Ugly Sweater’s fist and twisted it behind his back, forcing him off me.

  When I was freed of the heavy body, I took the opportunity to escape. I shuffled backward a little distance before turning over to get up in the opposite direction. As I turned, I came face to face with two black, obviously fake-leathered, high-heeled boots standing in front of me.

  How do people walk in high heels like that?

  As I scrambled to my feet, I saw two long, black, skinny legs in, again, fake-leather, skin-tight leggings above the boots.

  Someone’s got a fake-leather fetish.

  The legs went up and up.

  These legs remind me of a black widow spider.

  I came out of a half-crouch as my vision went further upward. The legs were attached to a long, slim body, clad in a black, plastic top. The person, who obviously loved black and fake clothing, was dressed in a long, black, plastic-looking coat.

  On top of the body was a face. Not a particularly beautiful face, but definitely a face that made you look twice. The features were even, the skin smooth, and the lips fu
ll, painted a dark red. The attractive but stern face was surrounded by a black bob hairdo.

  That’s probably a wig.

  When I was finally upright, the long arms of this long, skinny woman grabbed me and threw me aside with ease. For the third time in the last ten seconds, I hit the ground.

  I am really getting tired of being thrown about.

  My knees scraped the rough playground concrete, and my pants were probably torn through. My hands were certainly sporting grit-in-flesh wounds but weren’t sore.

  Don’t worry, Kate. The pain will come.

  I whirled around. Ms. Black Widow didn’t seem intent on grabbing me again, though. Instead, she calmly walked over to Mr. Perfect who was in a stand-off with Mr. Ugly Sweater.

  “You take care of him,” Mr. Perfect said to Ms. Black Widow after she rested her hand on Mr. Perfect’s shoulder. She was nearly as tall as Mr. Perfect. Ms. Black Widow stepped forward and pushed Mr. Ugly Sweater in the chest, away from us. Mr. Perfect turned around to face me.

  I gasped and kicked myself for not using those precious seconds to get further away from these killers. Jumping up, I ignored the burning sensation in my hands and knees and began to run away. However, Mr. Perfect easily caught up with me and, by putting his arm around my waist, guided me in a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn that took away my speed. My arms were still free though, and I aimed a swing at his head. Unfortunately, I had dropped the Maglite when I collided with him earlier.

  He laughed, sporting perfect white teeth, and easily blocked my arms. He grabbed my wrists and thrust them behind my back, pulling my body into his as he did so. I had no option but to lock eyes with him.

  Here I go again.

  Again, I drowned in his eyes. I would have lost my footing if it wasn’t for Mr. Perfect holding me up.

  “Resistance is futile, you know,” he said, almost whispered it. His vibrant, warm tones drew my eyes to his mouth. He smiled, and I could hardly drag my stare away from those kissable lips.