Fat Vampire by Adam Rex

Author:Adam Rex
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-03-26T16:00:00+00:00

22

ORIGIN STORIES

YOUR FUTURE is important, Doug thought as he biked the last few blocks to Stephin’s house. What did that mean? Important because she wants to be a part of it? He wondered if it was possible he was going to marry Sejal. He pictured the ceremony: huge families, lots of pink and red and orange, flowers everywhere, molting flakes of gold. Sejal with painted hands, in some complicated outfit, wrapped up like a present. Doug with a big mustache for some reason.

They get married and then they live together in some cramped little New York apartment. The trains rattle their knickknacks every fifteen minutes, but that’s okay, they have each other, taking long walks by the river and breakfasts in the park.

They don’t move to New York, they sail the world instead; and at each port of call the local constabulary calls upon them to solve mysteries in their own playfully pugnacious fashion.

So far away was Doug that he almost missed Stephin motioning to him from a bench in the park across from his house.

He had on a wide-brimmed hat that Doug thought looked effeminate. Like something his mother would wear to garden. But then he remembered his new, complimentary outlook.

“I like your hat,” he told Stephin.

“I like your hooded poncho. I believe we share a bad habit of not feeding enough? I am a bit sensitive to the sun.”

“Why did you meet me out here, then?”

“Because I believe, regardless, that I need to get out of the house. Can we walk and talk?”

“Sure. Um…is it okay if we don’t meet too long today? I have a lot of homework to do.”

They walked deeper into the park, away from the house, past groups of kids playing with foam swords. It looked to Doug like the sort of game he and Jay and Stuart used to play. He had to resist an urge to shout at the kids, “Run! Vampires!”

“I don’t doubt you have homework,” said Stephin, “but that’s not really why you’re impatient to leave, I think.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve been watching people a long time. I’m good at reading them. And you’re a teenage boy, which makes you about as challenging as Dick and Jane.”

Doug huffed. “Fine. It’s a about a girl—big surprise, right?”

“What’s her name?”

“Sejal.”

“Hm. A little padma from the subcontinent, eh?”

“Mmmm, sure. Yeah.”

“Does this Sejal also know about your condition?”

“About being a vampire?” asked Doug. “No. No, definitely not. I wouldn’t tell her. It would be dangerous.”

“And yet how very dangerous not to. Can you afford not to tell her? If you truly care? The Vampire’s Dilemma—you must have these kinds of human connections to retain your humanity. And yet they’re impossible. And without them you’ll become nothing but a hunter and a hermit.”

And a fucking downer, thought Doug. And a completely depressing pain in the ass.

They circled the park, twining in and out of its concrete paths. At all times Stephin seemed to be distantly watching his leprous house.

“So,” said Doug after a long silence, “did you ever have…someone? Were you ever married?”

“I never married.

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