JLS Sims

I got older, as all people do, and before long I became a teenager. I’m sure you’ve heard of “teenage rebellion”, where teenagers go off and party and drink and get up to all sorts of mischief… well, that wasn’t me at all. I was a bit of a dork, actually. I got along really well with both my parents, and I spent my nights relaxing at home, doing homework. I was an A+ student! I know, I know. This isn’t conducive to an interesting story. I assure you, though, it does get interesting. Later.

Anyway, as teenagers do, I spent some of my time thinking about what I wanted to do — and be — when I was older. Despite my academic prowess, all I aspired to do was find a nice wife, settle down, and be surrounded by children and grandchildren for the rest of my life. Married life seemed an attractive prospect; after all, I had the example of my parents to look to. One day, my father started a fire (yet again)…

…and Mum made a bemused face and walked past. “Another one, dear? Was that really necessary?”

I guess the ease and comfort my parents lived in really appealed to me.

However, the first one to make my heart flutter was not a girl, but a boy. His name was Joel, and for some reason I couldn’t stop smiling and giggling when he was around. That’s how you know, right?

After plenty of awkward giggling and conversation, I finally asked the question I desperately wanted the answer to. “Do you like what you see?”

Joel broke into a cheesy, almost ashamed grin. “I… I think… I really like you.”

I grinned sheepishly in return, and — as a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing — leant forward for a kiss. And so we did.

We held onto each other for a couple of seconds after the kiss, probably both relieved at having not been rejected, when I turned around to see my dad smiling patronisingly at the two of us. I thought I could guess what he was thinking — “Aww, young love!” — and got him to butt out as quickly as I could.

“Are you a psycho or something, dad? Go back to your cooking!”

Once Joel had left, it was difficult to restrain my joy. I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face! So this was how love felt! I spent my evening dancing to my radio, never tiring quite enough to have to go to bed.

I loved and adored Joel, but I am but a mere mortal, and when the hottest girl at school decided she liked me, I was powerless to resist. Her name was Willow Wood, and she kinda… did things to me.

We chatted on the front lawn for a while, her telling me that she hoped to be an athlete in the city one day, when suddenly she leant over towards me and kissed me on the lips. My heart raced! “Hey,” I said, “why don’t you come inside, Willow?”

We went upstairs, where my radio was still blaring music from when I’d turned it on that morning. “Oh!” she cried. “This is my favourite! Come on, Zach, let’s dance!” And so we danced, and danced for hours; as time went on, we became more daring, our bodies moving closer together, our legs sometimes even snaking up…

Finally I couldn’t help it any more — damn, she was tempting! — and I drew her into my arms, nibbling softly at her neck. She squealed in surprise, but seemed to enjoy it; at any rate, she gripped me harder, and pulled my head closer towards her, and towards her chest. Things were going very, very well for me, and I thought I knew what would come next…

But then, abruptly, Willow pushed me aside and barricaded herself in the bathroom. I had never felt frustration as I felt it in that moment. Not only was she hot, but she knew she was hot, and knew how to best use this to her advantage. I tell you, she could’ve told me to do anything and I’d be hers! How I wanted her at that moment! But when she finally left the bathroom, looking perfect as always, the moment was gone.

Ah, I’m making myself out to be a total ignoramus. I’m not, I swear! Each and every evening, I’d sit down on the sofa and read the New World Times. And, of course, some disturbing events were afoot. Vampires — long the things of myth and legend — were cropping up all over the city. Prominent members of society — including my own Aunt Isabella — were making the headlines for being undead, but really it was becoming a crisis. Before long, it was estimated that 10% of the population ventured outdoors only at night.

Of course, Aunt Isabella was not a huge fan of these headlines; she derided the Times as having “gone downhill”. I asked her how much of a problem she felt the soaring “vampirism rate” (as the Times called it!) was, and she waved her hand dismissively.

“It’s not a problem at all!” she cried. “How many individuals do you know who’ve been vampirised? Only me, am I right? And how many individuals do you know in total? The Times is making a fuss over nothing.”

As I dated both Willow and Joel, I asked them both what they thought of the great crisis. Willow didn’t think much of it — uninterested, not unconcerned — but Joel and I were able to discuss it long into the night.

“It’s horrible,” Joel told me. “I won’t even head Downtown at night! Have you seen what a place looks like after someone’s been bitten there? There’s, like, blood everywhere. The smell of iron. It’s strong, man. And I’ve heard that once you’re a vampire, you can’t… feel, any more. It’s all cold and numb, like your nerves have all died except you can still move. Spooky stuff, man. Ugh, it gives me the creeps. Why’d you ask me, again?”

Months passed, and I admit that the news was not my main preoccupation. No, the relationship between Willow and I became more and more serious, and before long we were going steady. I felt honoured that such a cute — and popular! — girl had chosen me to be her significant other, and I was totally smitten with her. We made out all over the school (and got into detention a couple of times because of it, oops) and at home as well. We could barely keep our hands off of each other. We wrote cheesy poems in each other’s honour, but better than that was just the contentment we got from each other’s presence. Many times we would sit in each other’s arms, whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ears.

Joel went to another school, and didn’t hear about Willow until I told him one day. “Hey, Joel, I have something to tell you. I’ve fallen in love with a girl.”

Joel felt betrayed — especially at how my love was a girl. I tried to reassure him, to say that I loved his company and I’d love to remain friends, but he didn’t feel up to it. Watching me date Willow, get engaged to Willow, marry Willow? He couldn’t do it. And so we parted ways for good. I felt like a piece of my soul was twisted out of me as I watched him walk away for the last time.

I invited Willow over, and told her about how I had parted ways with such a great friend. (I did not tell her that the relationship had not been entirely platonic — somehow, I doubted that she was the kind of girl who would’ve taken kindly to that.) She smiled and reassured me that it was OK, that she would be there for me no matter what, and that I had tons of other friends at our school that she was sure were way better than that bastard, Joel.

It felt so good to have her there for me, consoling me. Our cuddling soon turned into kissing, and full-on making out. At last, she whispered to me some of the best words a teenage male could ever hear: “How about we disappear into your room?”

Careful not to disturb anyone, that was exactly where we went. Willow locked my bedroom door behind us, and then we kissed some more. Her hands worked deftly to unzip my jacket, to unbutton my shirt, and in return, I untied the bow on the front of her yellow cardigan. In a kind of frenzy, we stripped each other until we were almost bare. She grinned at me alluringly, and gestured towards the bed.

I woke up hours later, a snoozing, naked Willow still in my arms. I remained in bed with her for a while, cuddling her, but I was disturbed by a ghastly noise from the floor below. It sounded almost inhuman. A clock on my bedside table confirmed that Aunt Isabella should have been home from work, and I couldn’t help but to think, “Is she biting someone?” I knew I was being ridiculous. My Aunt Isabella? My sweet, intelligent, helpful Aunt Isabella? Still, now the dark thought had entered my mind I couldn’t let it go. I kissed the back of Willow’s head and slowly extracted my arms from around her breasts. I grabbed some underwear from the darkened floor, threw it on, and headed downstairs.

As I walked down the stairs, the noises grew ever louder. What was it? Was it… crying? Groaning? Struggling? I couldn’t be sure. I turned the corner into the lounge area, and was horrified by what I saw. Blood had spilled across the floorboards; Aunt Isabella was holding a man in place as her mouth lapped at an open, gaping wound on his throat. He struggled and fought, but as the seconds passed he stopped struggling, and stood still. When my aunt finally extracted her teeth from this man’s throat, they were coated with blood.

Hoping against hope that my aunt had not noticed me, I ran up the stairs two or three at a time, and re-entered my room. Willow was still fast asleep, but I sat on the bed and gently shook her awake. I felt my eyes filling with tears. Willow woke up slowly and looked at my tear-stained face through the darkness.

“What happened?” she asked, her voice full of compassion. “Are you OK?”

“My aunt,” I said. How could I phrase what I had just seen? “Downstairs, my aunt… she… she’s bitten someone, blood all over the floorboards…”

“What do you mean?”

“You know my aunt’s a vampire, yeah? Well, she bit someone, and I saw!”

“I… I… oh, Zachary, I just woke up, I can’t… not right now… you sure, you absolutely sure, it’s not a dream? You did see it?”

“Course I’m sure,” I answered. Willow didn’t know what to do but to hug me, to reassure me again. I felt glad to have her around, in that house with me. She’d support me. Whatever happened, I knew she’d support me.

The next morning, I broached what I’d seen with Mum. She listened carefully to my story, not dismissing it out of hand like I’d been afraid she’d do. Once I’d finished, she sighed. “Zach… I don’t know what I can say,” she said, speaking softly. “I mean… I know Isabella’s been biting people. Known it for years now. It’s what vampires do. When they turn, they experience the impulse to bite, no matter who they were in life. It’s going nuts right now — they’re estimating the vampire rate’ll be at 20% by the end of the year. And look, something’s gonna be done about it. Just hang in there, cos I promise you, something’s gonna be done about it.”

And soon enough, something was. It was my final year of school when the government finally declared war on the vampires. Some of the news that filtered through to me was truly horrifying. Anyone bitten must commit suicide, lest they feel the urge to bite anyone else. Should vampires choose not to commit suicide, they must be prepared to be arrested and executed by “real humans”; neither could live while the other survived. Aunt Isabella fled our home before Mum handed her in.

And when I finally graduated high school, my life plan was set in stone. While Willow would move into my family home and join the business world, I would be drafted into the army and fight to save our city. In the same summer in which I had graduated, I was sent off to training camps on the outskirts of town, where I would be taught to shoot, interrogate, drive tanks and kill. The vampires must die.