FicWad

A/N: Okay, a quick note to explain, guys, as I'm sure you're all pretty confused; I tried updating the old Strike a Violent Pose earlier with chapter two, but FicWad has completely messed up and deleted both chapter one and two from that version, and won't let me put the text in. Therefore, I've had to create this new version- same story, just different story shell. I'm really upset/pissed off about it, cause I've also lost all the reviews I got for the first chapter. I know it's a whole lot to ask, but it would seriously make me so, so happy if you guys could R&R this chapter again? Please? At least get the rating back to green? I'm actually begging you guys. I'll update this with chapter two tomorrow if I manage to get some rates and reviews. So incredibly sorry. I love you all.


Chapter One:
Sprouts, breast implants, and other spherical tragedies

There are a surprising number of advantages about looking like a teenage vampire. Of course, it’s not exactly difficult looking like a teenager, seeing as I am one, but I’m pretty sure looking like a sixteen year old vampire is a little less unusual. Not a stupid, sparkly, fluffy type of vampire- like, a proper one. One with evil, undead bloodlust. And fangs. Sharp, deadly fangs.

And perhaps even a strange fetish for the blood of small, innocent children.

I’m not entirely sure why people think I look like a sixteen year old version of Dracula. Perhaps it’s the unnaturally pale skin that actually is natural, or the dishevelled shoulder length raven hair. Maybe it’s that long, black leather coat I have, or perhaps even that nice little pair of fake fangs I’ve taken to wearing of late.

Okay, maybe I can see why people might think I’m some sort of teenage bloodsucker, but the whole thing has a lot more advantages than I’d have imagined. I mean, you wouldn’t really expect looking like something that’s just crawled out of a coffin would have many good points, but surprisingly, it does.

For one thing, I hardly ever get picked on, due to that (totally fictional) rumour that’s been going round school for years that I haul unsuspecting first years into random closets and guzzle on their blood for my breakfast.

Also, for some bizarre reason I will never understand, a great deal of girls seem to find vampirism some kind of turn on, which if you ask me, is just plain weird. But hey, I guess that’s teenage girls for you.

And actually, that’s not much of an advantage, because, for some strange reason no one else seems to understand, I don’t find non-existent skirts, greasy pink lip-gloss and streaky orange fake tan particularly alluring or attractive. For this reason, it gets kinda annoying when I’m constantly followed around by little gaggles of giggly females in scarily tight, see-through school blouses, all batting their mascara smothered lashes at me, swooning pathetically whenever I smile crookedly with my oddly small teeth, and stroking at my leather coat.

There was also that seriously freaky moment where I got cornered in the school hall after assembly by a throng of simpering, sniggering girls from my year all trying to convince me to take them out and have a mass orgy during which I would suck their blood.

Forget fictional vampirism- girls are the terrifying things.

However, the fact I have disturbingly similar features to a vampire’s does mean that me and me little gang of equally deranged friends don’t get picked on and laughed at the way people like us almost always normally would. Okay, so that’s probably because almost everyone’s completely terrified of us, but really, in all honesty, I don’t understand why- it’s not like we beat people into a bloody pulp or shove people into lockers like some of the beefy, thick-headed jocks. In fact, if it wasn’t for the whole fictional bloodlust thing, I’m pretty sure my friends and I would be the ones being beaten to bloody pulp and forced into lockers.

If you ask me, it’s people’s own fault if they are actually so gullible they’ll believe that one of the- admittedly slightly weird- fifth year guys munches on the trembling flesh of first years.

I mean, seriously- most people here are at least twelve or older, and should therefore know that supernatural creatures are made up. Then again, there is that weird girl in my French class that still believes in Santa…

Who, needless to say, is admittedly in a slightly different category to bloodthirsty and extremely evil vampires.

Perhaps the irrational fear of my peers has something to do with that memorable day at the end of last term when my friends and I decided to see how easy it was to terrorize the teachers and get out of lessons early. Oh, the fun you can have with a pair of fake fangs, a large bottle of fake blood, and one of those long black hooded cloaks.

But the best thing of all about looking like a teenage version of Dracula is that the sour-faced, scowling dinner lady that’s surely been sent to the noisy school canteen straight from the pits of hell, doesn’t dare to bully me into slopping the foul, lumpy, greyish gravy all over my- admittedly already pretty gross- lunch.

“Sprouts?” She snarls at me as I push my tray along the metal rail and pause in front of the steaming vegetables, smirking slightly from behind my dishevelled inky black hair at the obvious hatred etched across the revolting face of the sweaty, satanic dinner lady.

Pausing in front of the dish of limp vegetables, I hum thoughtfully just to infuriate her further.

If I’d been a timid little first year, or even one of the muscly, formidable jocks in my year, she’d have just slammed a mammoth portion of sprouts down onto my plate already, or removed my head with the metal serving spoon.

However, she’s clearly not quite brave enough to dare, presumably because she’s got some stupid notion about my fictional bloodsucking. Her superstitious stupidity only makes me grin more, which probably seriously increases her risk of violent heart attack. Seriously, she looks pretty irritated.

Okay, irritated might be a tiny little bit of an understatement- I’m not actually sure I’ve ever seen anyone so pissed off, not even my weird younger sibling, Mikey, the time I accidentally snapped his most loved, prized possession and only friend in half.

His GHD straighteners. Oh, and there was that time I actually thought he was about to go up in smoke because my pet hamster, Romeo, urinated in his coffee. And Mikey takes his coffee very, very seriously.

I have one weird family. Well, I guess not liking your urine in coffee isn’t that unusual, but apart from that, they’re lunatics. Of course, seeing as I attend Oaklands boarding school for the main portion of the academic year, I don’t see that much of them, other than my peculiar and disturbingly clever younger sibling who also attends the school.

Thank god we don’t have to share a dormitory. If we did, all hell would certainly break loose; the one time we had to share a room in the holidays, the house ended up on fire, which may or may not have had something to do with a toaster, a fork, and my favourite eyeliner. Oh, and my brother’s idea of revenge, which seriously, is not something to be trifled with.

We only see our mentally unhinged family during the holidays; our Mum, who’s a healthy eating lunatic, spends most of her time researching the benefits of Llama milk, and never in living memory has produced an edible meal; our Dad, who spends his entire life locked up in the attic, writing creative non-fiction about the meaning of life that never makes any sense; and my black and white rabbit, Betsy, who growls at me when I’ve been smoking.

So yeah…not exactly the most normal of families, but I guess I had to have inherited it from somewhere. In fact, I’m probably the weirdest of them all.

It’s probably a good thing that Mikey and I only go home a few times a year, otherwise we’d probably be seriously underweight or slightly dead as, thanks to Mum, there would almost never be anything remotely edible in the house- just utterly indigestible, stomach churning concoctions sure to make you regurgitate.

Oh, speaking of indigestible concoctions sure to make you regurgitate, I’m still looking at those sprouts the inhumane dinner lady now looks like she wants to ram down my throat and choke me to death with.

In fact, I’m pretty sure I can see steam coming out of her ears.

“Sprouts?” She repeats through gritted teeth, smoke practically billowing from her nostrils as she jabs the dangerously laden spoon of revolting sprouts towards me, scowling like Satan on a bad day. And seriously, that’s not pretty.

“No thanks,” I say brightly, skipping towards the till and accidentally on purpose knocking the dish of sickeningly soggy sprouts to the linoleum floor on my way.

The dinner lady gives me The Glare of Death, looking ready to go up in flames and return to her home planet of hell, but she doesn’t remove all my limbs with her serving spoon or beat me to death with the sprout dish. She doesn’t even yell at me.

I grin. Ah, the wonderful power of rumours.

Seriously though, you’d think most adults would be clever enough not to believe everything they hear, especially when it’s about their students being vampires, but I then again, she doesn’t exactly look like the brightest crayon in the box. Maybe the angriest one. Or the most repulsive. Or the most satanic Grinch resembling.

Saying that, I’m pretty sure such a thing doesn’t exist- I’ve never seen a satanic Grinch crayon, and I’ve been drawing since I was old enough to choke on pencil sharpenings and ‘accidentally’ scribble all over my bedroom walls. Or my younger sibling’s face…

I’m still grinning as I flop down at my usual table near the back of the noisy school canteen, where two of my much feared gang are already sitting. One is picking suspiciously at a very lumpy plate of oddly coloured cauliflower cheese, the other staring shamelessly over at one of the girls at a neighbouring table, mouth slightly open.

“Hey guys,” I greet them happily, setting my tray down in front of me and grinning at my lunch in satisfaction. Over by the counter, the dinner lady from hell is cleaning up the sprout spillage and looking just about ready to burst into flames or spontaneously implode with fury.

“You look happy,” The blonde guy eyeing the cauliflower cheese as if it’s about to strangle him says suspiciously, looking up at me and narrowing his cornflower blue eyes at my self-satisfied smirk.

“I just showered the dinner lady from hell with sprouts,” I grin, spearing a shell of soggy pasta on my fork and popping into my mouth in triumph, which is marred slightly as the flavour of the watery pasta reaches my taste buds.

“Nice,” the guy picking so fearfully at his lunch replies appreciatively.

“I know,” I smirk, taking a swig of ginger beer to wash away the taste of my lunch.

“Have you seen Zoe?” he asks, setting down his fork and pushing his plate away in disgust, shuddering slightly as a sad little blob of colourless cauliflower splodges onto the tabletop.

“No, not yet…why?” I ask, flicking a bit of my macaroni cheese at the curly-headed occupant of the table opposite me, who’s still staring shamelessly at the redheaded girl at one of the neighbouring tables. Drool is starting to form at the corner of his mouth.

How appetising. That really makes me want to eat my lunch, which is unappetising enough already without the added disgust of watching my friend’s overly excitable saliva activities.

“She’s got my new lavender moisturiser and I really need it back- my hands are losing their smoothness,” the suspicious cauliflower cheese inspector sighs sadly, turning his hands over critically and frowning at his palms.

I roll my eyes to the heavens, or rather, the canteen ceiling. Which I seriously hope is very different to heaven, if there is one.

Anyway, let me introduce you to Bob; the big, muscled, strawberry stubble wearing guy with steely blue eyes and snakebites who is in my feared gang of friends. He’s also the biggest girl I know. Seriously, it’s just not natural for a guy to be that obsessed with beauty products and know more about manicures than…well, anyone.

I have no idea how people actually cower away from him in the corridors- he’s a frilly, flouncy little teddy bear. Mind you, he is a frilly, flouncy little teddy bear disguised in a spiked leather jacket, black eyeliner, and biker boots.

Teddies can come in the strangest forms.

“My heart bleeds for you,” I say sarcastically to him, flicking yet another bit of slimy macaroni at the guy opposite me, whose saliva is starting to make its way down his lip in a most unattractive manner.

“Hey!” Bob says indignantly. “At least I don’t drink people’s blood!”

He says the last part a little too loudly, and everyone at the few tables surrounding us promptly go very, very silent, turning round slowly to look at us with wide, fearful eyes, or in the case of the table of girls the idiot opposite me is staring at, swoon stupidly. One of them actually puts her elbow in her plate of gravy.

Seriously, what’s so alluring about drinking people’s blood? And I don’t even drink people’s blood, anyway, which makes me a pretty rubbish vampire, fictional or otherwise.

I’m also ever so very slightly extremely squeamish at the sight or smell of blood, which I guess isn’t a very good recommendation for being a vampire either.

How did this rumour start?!

Everyone’s still staring at me, which is getting a little irritating, and I haven’t got enough macaroni left to flick at everyone- most of it’s now nestled in the puffy hair of the guy literally drooling over the girls who are swooning over my fictional bloodlust.

I sigh and flick a piece of my pasta at Bob. “Thanks for that, fuckface,” I growl crossly.

Bob removes the shell of slimy pasta from his shoulder, glares at me, and starts texting away on his phone, tossing his fringe out of his eyes in a disturbingly feminine manner.

Everyone is still staring at us, and I have even less macaroni cheese to deflect their stares after flicking a slimy shell at Bob, so I suddenly make an abrupt, violent hissing sound and bear my teeth. Or rather, my fake fangs.

The effect is instantaneous; everyone jumps and turns hastily back to their lunch obediently. A couple of first years dash for the door, looking ready to wet themselves.

I roll my eyes. Jeez, people are so gullible. Just cause I wear black and have a slightly morbid obsession with the undead. And freakishly pale skin.

I guess the fake fangs probably don’t help either.

“Sup, fucktards,” My train of thought is interrupted as a pale, blonde girl with tight stripy green and black skinny jeans, a little zombie hair bow, shabby red converse, and a silver lip ring flops down in the seat beside me and takes a long gulp of her apple juice.

“Hey Zoe,” I greet the disturbingly clever girl who’s been my best friend since I arrived at Oaklands boarding school three years ago, and then resume my pasta flicking at the curly-haired gawping idiot in front of me, whose drool is nearly halfway down his chin by now. “How’s it going?”

“Zoe!” Bob looks up gratefully, cutting in before Zoe can reply to my question. “Have you got my moisturiser?”

Zoe rolls her kohl-rimmed eyes. “Yes, Bobina, I do indeed.”

“Don’t call me that!” Bob protests, getting out a little pot of rose Vaseline and rubbing it over his lips.

“Why on earth not?” Zoe raises her eyebrows questioningly at the Vaseline tub.

“It sounds girly!” Bob pouts.

“You are girly. You’re way more girly than me, and I’m a girl.”

“Yeah, but you’re weird, and I am not girly!”

I choke violently on my macaroni cheese.

Bob looks hurt. “I’m not!”

Zoe snorts sceptically.

“There’s nothing wrong with taking an interest in my appearance!” Bob says crossly, frowning at me as I choke on my ginger beer and splutter it all over the table, shaking my head wordlessly.

In response, Bob scowls crossly, grabs his lavender moisturiser from Zoe, pockets his rose Vaseline and stalks out of the canteen in a disturbingly girlish manner, leaving me still choking slightly with laughter and the sliminess of the school food, and Zoe unable to suppress an amused smirk.

“So, I was asking,” I continue my previous question once my choking has subsided and my airways are fully cleared of macaroni cheese. “How’s your morning been?”

“Great, thank you,” Zoe replies, rolling up the sleeves of her hoodie and exposing several hundred spiked and coloured bracelets. “I managed to persuade Mrs. Phillips to give me extra homework on algebraic fractions, and I got an A* in my geography essay!”

I shake my head despairingly at my blonde friend’s unnatural amount of enthusiasm towards schoolwork; Zoe is almost certainly the only person I’ve ever met who actually relishes the prospect of life-threatening amounts of homework, and who actually adores maths lessons. Seriously, she’s just not right in the head. But then again, I guess if she was, she wouldn’t be my best friend.

She’s just scarily clever- she won a scholarship to come here, and never, to my knowledge, has received anything lower than an A* in any subject. You’d think the teachers would be delighted with this, but some of them seem to become very stressed by her, possibly because she is constantly correcting their spelling, grammar and teaching methods, and questioning everything. In fact, poor Mr. Arnolds, our old RE teacher actually took leave of his job (and sanity) due to dangerously high stress levels after a particularly challenging class after which he was carted away, twitching and muttering.

But he was always a bit of a strange one anyway. In fact, the class used to have a competition to see who could make him turn most purple with rage.

I guess it’s not really a good sign when your skin turns blotchy beetroot coloured so easily- Zoe’s kindly pointing out of his misspellings on the whiteboard was probably just the last straw.

“How about you then, Gerard?” Zoe asks, unwrapping her tuna mayo baguette and cutting through my reminiscent thought of poor Mr. Arnolds’ mental breakdown. “How many classes did you manage to skip?”

“I don’t skip classes,” I protest feebly, while Zoe raises her eyebrows so much they disappear under her fringe.

“Okay, so maybe I do occasionally, but I went to all of them this morning,” I scowl sulkily at my best friend, taking another swig of my ginger beer.

“Oh dear, are you feeling alright?” Zoe asks sarcastically.

“Yes,” I snap. “And now I have two stupid essays to do by Friday- one’s from Mrs. Carmichael, so I’ll have to do it, too.”

Zoe smirks, no doubt remembering what happened last time I tried to evade the wrath of my English teacher, who, sadly, is actually one of my few intelligent teachers and therefore does not feel at all threatened by my gang’s fictional vampirism.

The one time I mistakenly muttered something about draining her of blood if she gave me detention, I found myself locked in her store cupboard for the remainder of the lesson, with a very gory poster of someone being dissected.

I really thought I was going to projectile vomit all over her when she opened the door to let me out at the end of the period.

And I still have no idea why she has a scientific poster of dissection inside her store cupboard. Or why she knew I’m terrified of blood and guts.

Perhaps she’s the real vampire in this school. Or just another lunatic.

“What else have you done then?” Zoe asks conversationally, dragging me from unpleasant memories of Mrs. Carmichael’s storeroom.

“Infuriated the evil dinner lady, tipped a plate of sprouts everywhere and terrified just about everyone in the canteen by hissing at them,” I reply, flicking three pieces of pasta at the unmoving, still staring idiot in front of me, who still seems oblivious to the mini food war I’ve started. And the drool is nearly at the end of his chin now.

“Ah, that would explain the two crying first years that bumped into me as they sprinted out of the canteen, looking as if there was a demonic beast munching on their tails,” Zoe says brightly. “I think one of them might have lost control of their bladder too- there was a funny yellow puddle at the doors.”

I sigh. “This vampire thing really is getting out of hand. I mean, there’s no such thing as vampires! And I’m like, the last person who’d be one anyway with the whole blood phobia thing.”

“I know,” Zoe grins. “That’s why it’s so funny. But it has to be said, you do look a lot like one.”

“I’ve also been trying to catch this idiot’s attention,” I say pointedly, gesturing towards the curly haired drooler opposite me. “He’s drooling over some girl again.”

“What’s new?” Zoe rolls her emerald eyes.

“He’s gunna run out of saliva one of these days.”

“Speaking of running out of saliva, feel like having a midnight feast tonight?” I ask, flicking my last little bit of macaroni cheese at the drooler opposite me.

“How does a midnight feast relate to running out of saliva?” Zoe asks, frowning at me in confusion from behind her glasses.

“Those watermelon and lime laces we had last weekend did really weird things to the mouth,” I shudder at the memory of last week’s late evening/early morning activities.

“We didn’t have watermelon and lime laces.”

“Oh?”

Zoe shakes her head. “But we did have those weird rainbow mint alcopops from Bob’s friend in Oddbins.”

“Oh,” I suddenly have a blurry memory of lots of colours, giggles and the headmaster’s office at some ungodly hour, accompanied by a very, very angry headmaster in penguin pyjamas.

“I’m sure there was something like watermelon and lime laces through,” I persist.

“There weren’t. But you did get dared to eat a worm,” Zoe informs me brightly, pulling out her Chemistry book from her schoolbag.

“Oh,” I suddenly feel slightly sick.

“Yeah,” Zoe looks like she’s having a hard time biting back a smirk as she flicks through the textbook.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t get those alcopops again,” I say hastily.

“Fine by me,” Zoe agrees, finishing off her baguette and turning her full attention to the text book. “But yeah, a midnight feast sounds good. Have you got any of that weird blue vodka stuff left?”

Zoe may be a straight A student, total geek and genius, but she breaks almost as many of the school rules as I do, and that’s saying something. She certainly looks the part of your typical rebellious teenage outcast, but she gets very annoyed if people treat her like she’s stupid just because she dresses a certain way.

In fact, people only tend to make that mistake once.

“No- we finished it, but I can try and sneak out last period and buy some more- I could do with a laugh tonight; his week’s been hell, and it’s only Wednesday,” I reply.

“The traditional boarding school midnight feast,” Zoe grins, taking a gulp of juice. “Only alcoholic.”

The curly haired gawping idiot sitting at the table looks up suddenly. “Did someone say alcohol?” He says, looking bewildered as to why there are little bits of macaroni cheese stuck in his puffy mane of hair.

Let me introduce you to my second in command; Ray Brewers; total manslut, alcohol lover, and occasional guitar genius when he can stop thinking about the autonomy of the female body.

He also is the most sexually crazed teenager I’ve ever met. Apparently, in his hormonally deranged eyes, any moment not fondling a random girl’s boobs is a moment wasted.

Oh, and did I mention he’s a complete and utter idiot?

I guess that was kind of implied…

“Oh, we finally exist, do we?” I say sarcastically to my moronic friend, flicking another shell of pasta his way. “You’ve actually managed to tear your eyes away from that boring redhead?”

“Oi!” Ray snaps, smoothing his hair and looking hopefully in the girls direction once more, who seem too busy with their lip-gloss and giggling over my tight black skinnies to notice my friend’s shameless lusting.

“I was not staring!” he protests feebly, continuing his shameless staring.

“Dude, you’re drooling,” I point out, gesturing to the little trail of spittle running down his chin. “I think you need help.”

“I do not need help! I just have a healthy interest in the female body,” Ray replies, all gooey-eyed. “YOU’RE the one who needs help- when was the last time you had a girlfriend, Mr. Vampire?”

“That’s not a polite question.” I say haughtily, sticking my nose in the air and not meeting Ray’s eyes.

“Yeah, cause you’ve NEVER had one.”

“What’s the point of dating someone you don’t like?” I roll my eyes. “I’m just not a huge fan of fake tan and orange foundation.”

“But, Gerard, you could date ANYONE!” Ray says, tone bitter with jealousy. “You have this weird knack for making anyone you meet fall head over heels for you!”

“I do not,” I protest, taking a swig of my ginger beer.

“Actually, you kinda do,” Zoe chips in, looking up from a page of extremely complicated and life-destroying looking chemical formulae.

“What, really?” I say sarcastically. “Cause I’m just so god damn sexy, right?”

“Why do you think little flocks of blushing girls follow you round and stroke your hair?” Zoe rolls her eyes at me.

“I thought they were just trying to annoy me.”

“Dude, how can you find that annoying?!” Ray exclaims incredulously. “I’d DIE for that kind of attention. It’s so unfair- you get all these people and you don’t even want it! You’re a freaking girl magnet.”

“I don’t ‘get’ loads of people, Ray,” I roll my eyes, running a hand through my dishevelled gothic tangle of hair. “I’m not a girl magnet, and I can’t make everyone fall for me. I mean, it’s not like you two have ever fallen for me.”

“Um,” Zoe bites her lip. “Maybe I found you slightly incredibly alluring when we first met.”

My eyes widen in shock. “Seriously?!” I yelp. This is Zoe, my best friend though all the years I’ve been at boarding school, who’s tomboyish and totally blunt, and never really falls for anyone.

Except she has been spending a disturbing amount of time with my brother lately, and there’s only so long you can discus quantum physics homework for. Which, also, I seriously doubt is something that makes people moan.

Unless it’s with despair.

But the moaning I heard didn’t sound like the kind of moaning you’d do if you felt like throwing yourself off a very large cliff with a very rocky, jagged bottom.

“Yeah, but then I got to know you,” Zoe looks up and grins cheekily at me.

“Thanks a lot,” I say grumpily.

“Actually,” Ray cuts in, actually managing to tear his eyes away from the length of the blonde girl’s skirt. “If I was gay, I’d totally snog you.”

“I think you need a therapist,” I announce, running a hand through my hair and making the little group of girls Ray’s gazing at sigh and melt annoyingly.

“Would she be a female?” Ray asks hopefully. “And have breasts?”

I whack my head on the tabletop, slightly harder than I’d intended.

“Most females have breasts, Ray,” Zoe sighs, without looking up.

My despair and the rapidly forming bruise on my forehead has apparently gone unnoticed; Ray just continues to stare dreamily at the little gaggle of giggling girls who seem more interested in how I’m eating my lunch than the drooling, gooey-eyed, hormonally crazed, puffy haired idiot practically eye-fucking them.

I look at Zoe, who just shrugs helplessly at me and goes back to her lunch. “It’s a lost case, Geezy,” She sighs.

I flick a piece of pasta at Ray to get his attention. Hard.

“Hey!” Ray growls, looking up as the shell hits him squarely on the cheek. He peels it off and flicks it back at me, twice as hard, and it slaps me in the eye.

“Ouch! Thanks a lot, you puffy haired moron,” I cry, rubbing my watering eye as Zoe smirks in amusement at Gerard, the much feared and apparently incredibly sexy, rumoured vampire with a bloodshot, streaming eye.

“To answer your question from ages ago, Ray, before you got sidetracked by females, yes, we did say alcohol. Fancy having a midnight party?” Zoe asks while I flail about and whine, rubbing at my smarting eye.

“Awesomeness,” Ray grins appreciatively, actually managing to look away from the neighbouring table of females for a millisecond. “Any girls coming?”

Zoe rolls her eyes in disgust. “No, manslut. Can’t you stop thinking about breasts for two whole seconds?”

“No, I can’t…they’re just so…round,” Ray sighs dreamily.

“Get a grip, slut,” Zoe sighs despairingly. “Woman are actually people too, you know- they aren’t just breasts.”

“Don’t call me that,” Ray says crossly. “And, stop making such a fuss, Gerard!” He adds, shoving me and making me poke myself in my already streaming eye.

“Oww!” I snarl crossly, eye watering more, but not enough for me to pick up my remaining lonely little shell of pasta and land it in Ray’s ‘fro like a little slimy, cheesy bow. “I’ll drink your blood if you don’t stop pissing me off.” I hiss darkly, rubbing furiously at my stinging eye as Ray grapples in confusion for what just hit him on the head.

I must have said this quite loud, because suddenly all the girls at the table beside us swoon pathetically, more elbows landing in dinner plates, and a couple of second years nearby look round in horror, eyes wide with pure terror.

“Ugh, let’s go,” I sigh irritably, not liking being gawped at as if I’m some sort of freak. Especially when my eyes watering like nobody’s business, which in my mind, is not a good look. Or a scary, vampirish one, for that matter, and I need to keep up my reputation.

“Sure,” Zoe rolls her eyes, finishing her juice and we both stand up, me pulling on my long leather jacket with a flourish.

Everyone surrounding us backs away, making Zoe roll her eyes again.

“C’mon, Ray,” I hiss, grabbing Ray up from the table where his eyes are still glued to the girl’s tight blouse.

Everyone’s still staring unblinkingly at me, Zoe and Ray, whose saliva is once again making a bid for freedom down his chin.

I shake my dishevelled inky hair across my face, bare my fake-fangs and hiss loudly once more, making everyone all recoil in terror, and one of the second years spills her lunch all over the floor, several little green sprouts rolling listlessly across the polished floor.

Over by the food counter, I see the dinner lady from hell start to smoke.

I grin in satisfaction and saunter after Zoe out of the lunch hall, dragging a drooling Ray along behind me.

*

“You really should stop terrorizing people, Gerard,” Zoe says as we walk into the almost completely deserted locker room to get our books, although I can tell she’s biting back an amused grin. “It’s not nice.”

“Why are we here?” Ray whinges suddenly, looking around frantically and trying to free himself from my grip. “There are no girls here!”

“Yes there are,” Zoe replies, punching in the combination on her locker.

“Where?!” Ray says hopefully, eyes darting manically round the locker room.

“Bob’s sitting over there,” Zoe says seriously.

“He’s not a girl!” Ray yelps.

“I dunno,” Zoe shrugs, narrowing her eyes and staring over to where Bob is sitting, inspecting his reflection in one of the lockers and smoothing his carefully styled hair. “If he had a breast implant…”

Ray growls in frustration and storms off, no doubt to seek a more feminine infested area of the school grounds. Like the girls changing rooms.

You might think no one would go to those lengths, but Ray did.

And the PE teacher was not a happy bunny.

But hey, since when are PE teachers happy, unless they’re torturing their students?

And actually, since when are they bunnies either?

If they were, it’d be a lot easier to skip those cross country runs from hell.

“Gerard!” Zoe’s waving a hand in front of my face, making me snap back into the real world.

“Sorry,” I say, leaning casually against the lockers as Zoe closes hers and locks it. “I was somewhere else.”

“I could see,” Zoe grins, heaving her starry schoolbag onto her back. “Thinking about girls?”

“No,” I roll my eyes as we set off down the corridor once more.

“Boys?”

I glare at Zoe, who just raises her eyebrows innocently at me in response, biting back an amused smile.

“What?” She protests in mock innocence.

“What are you trying to say?” I growl, narrowing my eyes. Sadly, Zoe isn’t stupid enough to believe that I might suddenly start sucking her blood, so she is in no way intimidated by my glare.

She shrugs. “Ray’s right. You need to go out with someone and stop lusting after unattainable musicians.”

“I don’t like any of the girls here- they’re all boring and pink and flirty,” I say moodily, fishing in the pocket of my skinny jeans for my eyeliner. “I just don’t fall for people, okay?”

“One day, Gerard, you will,” Zoe says sagely, offering me her tiny little skull hand mirror as we sit down on one of the radiators in one of the main hallways and I star applying the black kohl to my eyes.

“I doubt it,” I say stubbornly, smudging the black for effect and handing the mirror back. “I’m just not turned on by disturbingly short skirts and streaky fake tan.”

“Never say never, Geezy.”

“I didn’t,” I point out.

“Everyone falls for someone someday, whether it’s a guy or a girl,” Zoe says, getting out her purple lip gloss and slicking it onto her lips.

“What are you implying, Zoe?” I say suspiciously, narrowing my eyes.

“I’m not implying anything,” Zoe shrugs innocently, not quite meeting my eye. “So…what’s your Biology essay on?” She asks, changing the subject suspiciously quickly.

“Sea life or something like that. Can you help me with it?” I ask hopefully.

Zoe rolls her eyes. “No.”

“But I know nothing about the feeding habits of an octopus.” I whine, giving her my puppy dog eyes, which is probably a slightly unusual combination with my fake fangs, smudged black eyeliner and safety-pin adorned black leather coat that just sweeps the tops of my doc martens.

“Stop making that face. It’s just disturbing. Not remotely cute or persuasive, okay? The only thing it makes me want to do is call the men in white coats to take you away.” Zoe sighs, tucking her blonde hair behind her multiply pierced ear. “But I guess I could look over the essay for you before you hand it in, just to check you haven’t made any glaring mistakes like last time.”

“Like what?” I say indignantly, smoothing my raven hair and making the girls down the corridor giggle infuriatingly. I tell you, if I really was a vampire, they wouldn’t find it at all sexy when I ripped their heads off.

Not that I actually would, being terrified of blood and all.

Jeez, I’d make a terrible vampire.

“Like saying that Hitler was a famous ballerina, rather than a cold blooded, power-hungry sadist. Or that fish breathe air. Or that the First World War started in 1066. Or even in your English essay last year that Juliet was a famous porn star with double D boobs.” Zoe recites, raising her eyebrows at me.

“Okay, point taken,” I sigh, slumping back against the radiator. “But the thing about Juliet wasn’t my fault- I got Ray to write my essay for me.”

“See, this is why you shouldn’t cheat,” Zoe sighs, and I stick my tongue out childishly in retaliation.

“So,” She says, smoothing her fringe. “Can you sneak out to town last period and get some vodka and sweets and stuff for tonight?”

“Should be easy enough- we’ve got Mrs. Stillman last period, who’s beyond gullible. I’ll just start drinking my fake blood or dive at Ray’s neck and she’ll send us out,” I reply slightly distractedly, fluffing my hair.

“Great,” Zoe replies, just as the bell rings through the corridor and I sigh heavily, while Zoe beams enthusiastically.

Freak.

“So, meet you tonight?” She asks over the sudden bustling of the corridor.

I nod, hoisting my bag onto my back. “Usual place?”

“Yep. Bring Mikey along too,” Zoe calls, and before I can protest, she’s skipping off down the corridor to whatever torture awaits her. Only she doesn’t think of it as torture, because she’s just plain weird.

Then again, who am I to talk?

Everyone thinks I’m a vampire, my friends are either literally drool or invest their time in the joys of lavender moisturiser, or quantum physics homework, and I hallucinate about watermelon and strawberry laces. Basically, I’m an idiot.

Don’t you dare call me an idiot.

I am you, I can call you what I want.

And you have voices in your head. Just saying.

Oh, really? I’d never have noticed, dingbat.

I scowl and try and shake off the pointless bickering inside my skull, carrying on down the swarming corridor of chattering students and wondering whether I should start taking pills. Like, strong medical ones for the insane because I don’t find fake tan attractive. Maybe I just need to look harder, and stop staring at my posters of Ville Valo. Hmmm.

The students give me a wide berth, either not meeting my eyes or gazing fearfully at me with open mouths, which is pretty amusing. Sadly, the way I’m treated like a great white shark in a swarm of minnow fish means that I reach my classroom much to soon, which is pretty depressing, seeing as it’s maths.

Does anyone actually like maths? Apart from maths teachers obviously, and they’re just completely stark raving mad sadists who take joy in killing their students by boredom. I mean, how can someone get enthusiastic about algebra? They’re just a load of meaningless squiggles that make you want to remove yourself from life.

However, before I can quite reach the door, still wondering vaguely if I should take pills for the mentally unhinged and just why I don’t find fake tan attractive, someone short and skinny slams into me, knocking me off course and into the wall behind me.

“Owmmff,” I yelp as my skull hits the wall, although, on the plus side, that kind of impact might shut the annoying little voices inside it which seem to constantly bicker pointlessly with each other.

The thing that’s just so abruptly knocked me flying looks up to see who he just bowled over. His innocent, wide hazely russet eyes widen in pure, shocked horror as they come to rest on me, rubbing the back of my skull.

“Oh my god, I’m really sorry, really, I’m so, so sorry, I just…oh fuck,” he stammers, stumbling back and tripping over his words.

He looks as if he’s in my year, although he’s quite small and blushing furiously, his hair styled into a cute little floppy Mohawk which he rakes his trembling hands through as he looks up at me in terror. Poor little munchkin.

“Chill out, I’m fine,” I say. My voice feels oddly quiet, and my heart’s beating strangely fast against my chest.

I try for a reassuring smile to calm the poor, quivering boy, but it has the opposite effect; his look of terror increases rapidly and he turns on his tail and sprints down the corridor, knocking people flying in his haste to get away from me.

I put my hand up to my mouth in confusion. I mean, sure I haven’t got the prettiest of smiles, but I don’t usually send people scarpering for their lives with it.

Ah. I’d forgotten I’m still wearing those fake fangs.

Oops.


Please, please R&R. Thanks for reading, and once again, I'm so sorry about all this.

CosmicZombie xo