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mark his place and set it aside.

  "What's up, E?"

  He said it like we went way back. E? Did he call me E? I thought it was pretty cool.

  "Hey," I answered suppressing a grin.

  He folded his hands in front of him and leaned closer to me over the table.

  "Why do you let him do that to you?"

  The special feeling I had when he called me E fled. Once again I was what I always was - a loser that couldn't stand up for myself. But Zack didn't look at me like a loser. He just sat there patiently waiting for me to answer.

  The volume of voices in the cafeteria went back up to its normal rambunctious level.

  "What else am I going to do?" I pushed my tray away. I wasn't hungry.

  Zack looked at me until I felt uncomfortable.

  "What?"

  "What if I told you we could change all that?"

  "Change what?"

  "Change how people treat you."

  "How?"

  "After spending some time with me - no, no not sexual!" He laughed at my horrified expression. "After spending some time with me, all those jerks would leave you alone. In fact, you could be the bully if you want."

  Over Zack's shoulder, I saw Kyle coming. He was looking right at me with a mean, bulldog expression. That beating was going to come sooner than I expected.

  Zack was speaking to me, but I didn't hear. I was too busy watching the big brute head my way.

  "All right, punk!" He reached for me.

  Zack's hand went out and grasped onto his forearm hard enough to make Kyle cry out. He hadn't seen whom I was sitting with, but once he realized it, the look on his face filled with dread and fear. What an enjoyable transformation to witness.

  People at nearby tables turned to check out what was happening.

  Zack's grip must have tightened even more, because Kyle whimpered and buckled to his knees. As he did, his hand hit my tray and my food once again tumbled to the floor. Good thing I was no longer hungry.

  "You're going to clean that up," Zack told him.

  I looked around. Kids were watching. Mr. Wright stood near the double doors that led out into the hallway. For a second I made eye contact with him. I'm sure he saw what was going on, but instead of coming over, yelling at them with his bellowing voice, he simply looked away. This was too good to be true.

  "Clean it up," Zack firmly ordered. Kyle blubbered and reached for it with his free hand. "Not with your hand. With your mouth. Eat it off the floor."

  Oh my God.

  I swear it was like Zack had everyone under a spell. A slow wave of quietness fell over the cafeteria. The lunch staff busied themselves behind the sneeze guards seemingly unaware of the still, soundless behavior of the student body. Mr. Wright continued to look away as if he were checking out some beautiful sunset.

  "Eat it."

  Kyle's mouth opened over the gray tortilla as I watched with chilling unease. He bit into it and brown meat squeezed out from the corners of his mouth. With his face two inches off the floor and Zack's grip still on his arm, he chewed and swallowed. I wanted to throw up.

  I looked away as Zack made him eat every last bite, then incredibly said. "Now lick the floor."

  I didn't watch, but I heard it, that's how quiet the lunchroom had become. His slimy tongue scraped the floor clean, then Zack pulled him up. "Go, now."

  Kyle stumbled away.

  Again the volume in the cafeteria increased. But slowly, like everyone was waking up. Mr. Wright gave his head a quick shake, and glanced around, confused.

  "What the hell just happened?" I asked.

  "Meet me after school and I'll tell you."

  What Zack told me was unbelievable. Incredible.

  Vampires drinking blood. Unstoppable strength. Partying all the time. Living a lawless life. Living an eternal life.

  "I'm over five hundred years old. I've seen wars. Even fought in some. I've seen the inventions of just about everything except the wheel."

  "What about your eyes?" I asked mostly to humor him. "I thought the sunlight killed you guys."

  We were in an old, abandoned warehouse. Alone except for a few moldy crates. Thick dirt and grime covered the windows. Some were broken, allowing in shafts of dusty sunlight.

  I was sitting on an old desk someone left behind.

  Zack leaned closer to me, and using his forefinger, pulled down the bottom lid of his right eye.

  "Contacts." He backed off. "We've assimilated. We had to."

  Still not convinced, yet wanting to believe, I said, "How do I know what you say is true?"

  And suddenly, very terrifyingly, Zack changed. His brown eyes turned black. Not just the irises, but the entire eyeballs. They glistened like pools of oil. He opened his mouth, and continued to stretch it until it looked as if his jaws would unhinge. Fangs grew two inches long, and small tendrils of smoke streamed out of his nose.

  I cried out and scrambled backwards off the desk.

  Zack laughed and his wicked image shimmered back to normal. It was like a reflection hologram you hold one way and see a guppy and tilt it to reveal a great white shark exposing hundreds of teeth.

  Frightened, I stood with the desk between Zack and me. My heart hammered against my breastbone.

  "You asked, Ethan. I just wanted to show you."

  "That's cool. That's cool," I babbled, wanting nothing more than to get the hell out of there and away from him.

  "Let me show you something else."

  "No, that's okay."

  Please don't show me anymore. I don't want to know.

  "You'll like this one," he assured me.

  He took a few steps back, spread his arms wide and levitated.

  I watched in amazement as he rose to the sixty foot ceiling of the warehouse. He stretched out and flew from one end to the other. With speed and agility, he performed summersaults and dives, his black trench coat his cape. I caught myself laughing in joy at what I witnessed. No longer afraid of him, I couldn't wait to become like him.

  I was definitely in.

  But something went wrong. Something backfired when I drank the blood.

  I met the others that night. There were twelve. I was thirteen. Figures. Nine guys, including me, and four girls. They all looked to be in their teens and they all dressed like Zack - dark.

  I drank the blood with zest, doing my best to ignore the thick metallic taste, and willing the wonder of whose blood it was out of my mind. Instead I pictured my soon-to-be newfound powers. I saw myself flying. I saw myself having the power and strength to put everyone under a spell. But I decided the first thing I would do would be to kick Kyle Walker's ass.

  "Be patient," Zack told me. "Your powers won't come at once. It takes time to build them up."

  "That's okay," I answered, passing the carafe of dark blood. "I've waited this long. I can wait a little longer."

  That night I watched all twelve of them fly and party and drink blood and wine. The fire we lit in the middle of the warehouse reflecting off their faces, making them glow red.

  I was so excited. I finally felt like I fit in with something. I belonged. They laughed with me, not at me. And it was sincere. Not the "friendship" I had encountered with a jock or two where it wound up to be a trick and I became the brunt of some sort of nasty joke. They celebrated with me and shared their own tales of becoming vampires and the things they did after becoming one.

  Neal (who claimed to be over three hundred years old but still looked nineteen) said he tormented the magistrates and jurors who accused then orchestrated the hangings of nineteen people after the Salem witch trials. He said he stood in front of their beds in the middle of the night until they woke up screaming. He showed them his teeth and chased them around their own houses and land. But with the events and accusations of people being witches, they suffered in silence for fear of being the next one hung. He thought that was extremely funny.


  Brenda, a beautiful, petite girl said once becoming a vampire in 1973 she was written up in three different tabloids after being seen flying in the night.

  Zack gave me contacts. Through them, the world was black and white. They screwed up my perception a bit, but Zack assured me I'd get used to them quickly. He also, very firmly warned me several times, that to take them out during the day would mean instant death.

  "Keep them on all the time. The longer you have them on, the more they become part of your eyes. After a few weeks, they pretty much fuse to your eyes so you can't take them off anyway."

  "That doesn't sound good," I answered feeling drunk and in a dream. Above me, Patrick and Marshall were in the midst of some sort of mid-air slap boxing match, laughing and egging each other on.

  "Actually it's good," Zack told me, ignoring the mock fight taking place over his head. The rest of them stood around, looking up, whooping and hollering.

  Zack continued. "About eight years ago a guy - Chris was his name, was rubbing his eyes and one of his contacts fell out. He fried instantly. We have since designed them to stay on the eyeball no matter what. But it takes some time, so be careful rubbing your eyes, or showering for the next couple weeks."

  "Fried instantly?" Whew. The image made my stomach roll.

  "Yep. Nothing left."

  "How do you know it happened if there was nothing left?"

  "Because I was standing right next to him when it happened," he said matter-of-factly. Zack wasn't the most emotional guy I ever met.

  "Why are you doing this for me?" It came out sounding rude, but Zack knew I didn't mean it that way.

  "Because I was once you." He waved at the others. "We all were. That's the kind of