Between Fangs

Steve once pushed his tongue over his teeth, between the two new fangs. They made it impossible to run his tongue along his teeth.

They felt weird. They weren’t that much longer than the rest of his teeth, but human teeth still weren’t meant to protrude like that. Their mouths weren’t shaped for it. (But he wasn’t human any more, was he?)

Now he knew why Dracula had that exaggerated voice. It was hard to talk with fangs sometimes. Well, that probably wasn’t the reason he was given that voice. It was just. . .

His name was Steve. He had to be careful saying his own name.

***

“You didn’t ask for this either, did you?” Steve asked.

His question was quiet, but his teacher, Professor Pryce Collins, clearly heard. He looked at Steve with his red eyes, lips pressed together.

Steve tried not to wrap his arms around himself. He wasn’t a baby anymore. “I mean, you always say you’re older than you look, but you weren’t when you were first bit, and I doubt anyone asked you.”

Collins actually smiled, lips still pressed together over his own fangs. “Not many people logic that much out. But no, you are correct. I was attacked by a vampire. And his original goal was to kill me.”

The one who’d turned Steve hadn’t been planning to kill him. They wanted more vampires. But Steve certainly hadn’t wanted to be one, and had certainly been attacked.

***

Steve rushed down the path away from the city, into the forest. The plan had been to get away from the smell of blood. He could smell the blood in each individual person he passed, and could even tell, by smell, if they were human or . . . something else. He knew some vampires could tell individual people apart just by scent. He couldn’t do that, but he could see how it was possible. It was incredibly overwhelming. He just wanted to get away.

It hadn’t really worked out. He could still smell here. He could tell he was picking up the scent of a deer, and a squirrel, and . . . an owl? He was pretty sure it was an owl.

His sense of smell hadn’t gotten stronger in any other way, so far as he could tell. He couldn’t smell scentless things like concrete or bricks. He had to lean down to smell plants, and would have a hard time telling them apart. It was just blood.

Steve stopped running, taking a seat on a stump and staring out. He couldn’t see the stars from here. Too many tree branches full of leaves in the way. He could see the leaves. If he stared ahead instead of up, he could see more tree trunks and bushes. He couldn’t see the wildlife, but he could obviously tell it was out there, and sometimes he could see the rustling of something moving through the undergrowth.

When he first turned into a vampire, he wasn’t sure what he’d do about eating. He thought he’d be too grossed out to drink blood. It was blood. It was a dark red liquid that smelled and tasted awful to most people, that came from people.

Well, he still hadn’t drank blood from humans, even though his sense of smell insisted that blood would be the best. Most people who were turned into vampires who still cared about morals drank from animals. There wasn’t much human blood voluntarily given to go around, while there was plenty that ran off meat. And Steve had had some of that. Hunger overwhelmed any feeling of disgust he could have in the moment.

He pushed his tongue up between his fangs again. He’d said he did it once. Really, it became a habit, like people who poked at their hangnails or bit their lip.

***

“It’s going to be hard, isn’t it?” Steve asked Professor Collins while he graded. “I was fifteen when I was bitten, and I’m going to stay fifteen forever, even when I’m like, two hundred. And it’ll be hard to be taken seriously.”

He’d wanted to hurry up and grow up when he was a human. It wasn’t hard to think about the issue now. And Professor Collins would know. It was why Steve was talking to him.

“That’s true,” Professor Collins agreed. “But you were a teenager. When you get older, a bit of a presentation change should help you look a bit older, more mature, without looking ridiculous. And it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I look younger than you at first glance, and I still have a job. I have a home that’s just mine. I can choose what to do with the rest of my time, like any adult would. It might be hard, but it will work out.”

Steve wouldn’t mind a home to call his own. His parents had kicked him out when he turned, and that was putting the response mildly. They thought he had died in any way that mattered, that his soul was gone when he transformed, when his heart stopped. They thought anything he did now was just an imitation of that life.

Steve still felt like himself. He didn’t think it was true. But maybe it was. If he was an imitation, maybe he would still feel like the real Steve. That would make him a better copy, wouldn’t it?

***

Steve shifted from a bat back to a human. Well, a person. He was standing in the grass, near the top of a cliff. It was in the forest. There were still trees around, but from the edge of the cliff, all the trees ahead were below him. He sat down, legs dangling over the edge.

He could heard a bird call. He could smell the blood of a mouse, buried just beneath the dirt for the night. Ahead, the trees rustled faintly in the wind. And above them were stars. Steve was far from the lights of the city or passing cars. There were lots, and lots of stars out here. Some shone brighter than others. Some clumped so close together and so numerous that the sky was pale blue in that spot, like it was day. He saw a shooting star streak across the sky. A friend had shown him this place. He knew from back then, that if he stayed, he’d see more than one shooting star.

Steve leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. If he leaned too far and fell off, he could always turn into a bat.

The person who’d forced him into being a vampire had wanted there to be more vampires. This was not a popular thought. According to Professor Collins, it was partly a numbers problem. More vampires meant you’d need more blood to support them.

And that was maybe true, but Steve also thought it was just because being a vampire was awful. He couldn’t go out in the sun. Regular food tasted like nothing when he ate it, and he couldn’t go close to garlic at all. He didn’t die unless he was killed. He keep the appearance he had when he was bit forever, which was maybe cool for some people, but certainly inconvenient for others. Or maybe his parents were right, and he was already dead, living out some sort of fake echo.

Other people had told him that wasn’t how it worked. Some of them told him he was being too dramatic, that being a vampire wasn’t the end of the world, and that there were some definite positives, once he got the hang of them. And that may all be true, but it didn’t magically change his mind. He hadn’t asked for this. He didn’t want it.

Another star shot across the sky. Steve shoved his tongue between his fangs.

He hadn’t wanted this, but what was he going to do? There was no cure for being a vampire, no reversal. And he wasn’t going to step into the sun and burn himself to death. He wasn’t that kind of miserable, he didn’t think. So, nothing for it, except to keep living.