Bite Me

"What is it?” Randon Spade glanced over to his best pal, and near clone, Troy Meecham. Both sixteen-year-old boys were dark haired and pale. Troy was rubbing his neck like he always did when he got nervous.

Their friend, Matthew Calamori leaned over his textbook to look also, almost setting his arm into his neighbor’s book. He was an average sort of boy. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Mildly Italian.

Lifting his hand from his neck where a vampire had once bitten him, Troy glanced at his palm. “I’m bleeding again.”

His friends cringed, leaning back. Vampire bites never really healed.

“So, a vampire has moved into the neighborhood?” their towheaded and usually more mischievous friend, Tom Brown asked, yawning as he tucked the copy of the comic book lower in his textbook with a glance at the study-hall monitor.

Shrugging, Troy frowned, setting his pen down. “I don’t know. The wound has been opening up at night lately, but it really itches right now so he’s gotta be close.”

“Did you tell JJ’s dad?” Matt asked, mentioning their pal whose father was a cop.

Troy shook his head. “Not yet. I wasn’t going to say anything until I knew the bleed was regular.”

“Is it regular?” Randon took up his pen and pretended to write.

Lifting his eyes, Troy slowly nodded, picking up his pen again. “Yeah. Every night for the past two weeks.”

“Two weeks! You waited two weeks to tell us?” Matt’s face flushed. He lifted his hand to hit Troy, but quickly set it down again when he saw the teacher looking in their direction.

“Settle down, boys.” The teacher for study hall glared at the four of them.

“Two weeks?” Matt whispered, glancing to the teacher as she walked the other way.

Troy winced, ducking lower. “I wanted to make doubly sure. Sometimes I’ve had bleeds that have come and gone in five days. This one is staying. And I didn’t want to bother Officer Johnson, with JJ now at college.”

“But why didn’t you tell us at least?” Matt asked.

Cringing, Troy whispered gravely, “Everything has been so peaceful for so long. I just didn’t want it to end.”

“A year and a half is pretty long,” Tom said at regular pitch.

“Shhhhhh!” Their teacher hissed at them.

They all bent over their papers and books again.

Randon tossed a folded paper onto Troy’s desk. As Troy opened it, Randon winked at him. Troy read the message.

We’ll check it out. You stay indoors.

“A vampire is nearby?” Rick Deacon frowned, stabbing his plate of macaroni and cheese. The rust-haired fourteen-year-old made sure it had extra hotdog chunks. “And you want me to sniff him out?”

“We’re all going to look for him.” Matt peeked over his shoulder to make sure the cafeteria monitor was not peering at them suspiciously. “Chen, is there any way you can help? Turn into a dog? Scout around?”

The seventeen-year-old Chinese boy frowned with a shrug. “I don’t know. I’m not supposed to go near China Town, but I guess I can go other places.”

“Is there a place you can shake people’s hands? Find out if they associated or saw a vampire in the past?” Randon asked. He looked to Troy who switched his usual bandage to a thick one to keep the blood flow to a minimum.

With a shrug, Chen glanced to Rick. “But wouldn’t that be strange, me randomly shaking stranger’s hands?”

“Well…” They looked at each other with the uncomfortable realization that it would be obvious they were up to something.

“Travelling salesman?” Rick suggested with a shrug.

“At his age?” Matt cringed with doubt.

Rick shrugged a little lower. “It happens.”

“What’s up, boys?” a lovely, svelte, and wealthy girl of the Mediterranean persuasion sauntered over, grinning at them all. She was a senior most of the male student body drooled over. She purposely gazed over Rick’s head, pretending not to see him. Then she set her eyes on the freshman, peering down as if he were a disgusting cockroach, which was just as well. “Hi, H. Richard Deacon.”

Rick rolled his eyes back at her. Though, when he met her cold gaze, he searched with a panicked glance around him, wondering if it was not too late to duck under the table. Her eyes were uncommonly icy, as was her thin smile. But with no escape possible, Rick looked up again with a weak, pained smirk. “Hello, Selena Davenport.”

“Why so formal?” Randon whispered to Tom. “And why so nervous?”

Tom snickered. “Because he is no longer her escort for the season. And uh, supposedly he dissed her at one of their last parties. It’s in all the newspapers. People were talking ‘engagement’ before all this, so….”

Matt ignored Tom’s mock-gossip chatter with a shake of his head, putting himself between them as he said to her, “Selena, maybe you can also help us. Troy has sensed a vampire nearby. We need all the help we can get to find it so we can tell Officer Johnson to get the creep

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 18.06.2010
ISBN: 978-3-7368-9816-5

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