Crimson Kisses {Chapter 1}

I grew up in a filthy town called Stone Falls, population 500. In Stone Falls, it's impossible to keep a secret; you know everybody from the gossipy neighbors, the freeloaders, the liquor store employees, even those totally creepy social outcast men who prowl the streets late at night in search of friendship and cheap beer. Nothing weird happens here, you see, it's a happy little town full of cheery Church-going folk that will remember your name in five minutes. Sadly (as my mother grimly states): all good things come to an end - and my bathroom slipper-comfortable existence in Stone Falls quickly collapsed when I learned that my prefered outfit consisted of black skirts and nail polish, and my favorite drink was a Blood Clot cocktail. Going out on dates was a problem. Since I had been shy practically since birth, living the normal life of a 16-year-old girl was flat out impossible. Guys asked me out, I politely told them no. When half of Raven Creek High School started to wonder if I was a lesbian; I simply rolled my eyes at them, told everyone to mind their own business and lived in a cardboard box. Being a vampire at sixteen isn't exactly easy, but at the same time, it isn't boring either. 1

"Kacy Rose, is there something you'd like to share with us?"2

I looked up in horror to find Mr. Wimple, short and fat as a garden gnome, standing in front of my desk holding a ruler like he was gonna slap my knuckles with it. Startled, I hid my hands under my desk for protection. He was my maths teacher and annoying tutor. It was funny, but he had three hairs on his head that were combed back, Homer Simpson style, and always spat yellowish phlegm into a soggy handkerchief as if he was dying from lung cancer or something. With him glaring at me like that, still firmly grasping that steel ruler, I half-expected him to pounce over my desk like a kung-fu nun; all fists and whooping battle cries. 3

"What do you have there?" Mr. Wimple pressed on. 4

"Just my mp3 player", I mumbled, bristling in annoyance. You take away Kacy's music - you get hurt. Not kidding.5

"Should you be listening to Marilyn Manson in math class?"6

"No, but it's actually Madonna."7

He cocked a bushy gray eyebrow at me. "Don't get smart with me, young lady. I don't care if you were listening to satanic rap songs...just pay attention in class, okay? Your grades will thank you."8

"Yes, sir", I grumbled, fighting to keep myself from pummeling him. Sitting two seats behind me, Starla Perkins - sluttiest girl and homecoming queen - was smacking chocolate mint gum and leering over at me with a mocking grin. I swear, that girl had the intelligence of an ameboid and could chew gum so furiously you'd think her jaws would fall out one day. She could have gone into the Gum Chewing Olympics, or won a gold trophy for the #1 most annoying gum smacker. Sitting beside her was a chubby, bubbly girl named Hilda Baker, one of those types who would walk bare-foot over smoldering hot coals to be popular. Even though she was insecure and never followed the dress code, Hilda still dressed like Starla; even wearing her curly hair in the same shiny blonde ponytail, her lips the identical shade of flamingo pink, pudgy feet stuffed into dainty little red heels. The way Hilda talked to Starla in that fake syrupy voice was enough to make anyone retch. Wrinkling my nose in disgust, I slipped my black Skull Candy earbuds back in, cranked up the volume to maximum, and focused on nothing but "Beautiful Stranger" Madonna lyrics for the rest of class. 9


"How to Survive High School" by Emily Dutch. I blissfully inspected every book in the library, never bothering to put them back in their proper places (which drove the snotty librarian assistant, Lily, totally rabid). My personal favorites were always those thick, hardcover books that screamed self-help titles such as "Surviving Depression" or "Getting through Adolescence" - anything with catchy headlines that promised survival in a certain stage of life. Which one did I need more; surviving high school or my dark inner self? To my great dismay, there were no books on satanic cult worship or gothic hair-doos, so I settled for a novel named "Sweet Fang" with the glossy picture of a beautiful dark-haired girl sitting on a tree stump, a shower of white rose petals in her black curls. Come to think of it, the girl looked like someone who'd be in a Tim Burton film; all seductive in that spooky, I'll-tear-your-heart-out kind of way. Just as I was about to flip the pages to the first chapter, a hand suddenly clamped down on my shoulder. 10

"What's up, goth princess? Caught you sneaking in here."11

"Stalker", I said moodily, taking his hand off my shoulder. "Didn't you hear? This is my second home now."12

"Oh really? I thought your second home was the Wrist Cutters Club."13

"What an original comeback!" I snapped at him, totally pissed off now. It was none other than Danny Hardy, a very smart-ass, party animal, happy-go-lucky guy who had written the word GAY in his "To Kill a Mockingbird" novel in Mrs Lee's English class. Even though Danny was almost godly when it came to popularity status, I still couldn't stand him at times. The worst was when he lifted his dark eyebrows at me, a bratty grin spreading across his face that could make any girl melt like a block of hydrogenated butter in the hot July sun. The guy was gorgeous, I'd give him that, but that didn't mean he wasn't a total jack ass for attempting to grope me many times. Usually his best buddy, Marko, would be hanging around him with a bottle of bourbon in his coat pocket; but today, thankfully, he wasn't anywhere in sight. 14

"You smell like Old Spice and hand-rolled cigarettes", I told him in a nasal voice, avoiding his very blue and too beautiful icy eyes. Dang, he could have gotten any girl he wanted, but instead he settled for a freak like me. Flattered, I focused my attention back onto my Sweet Fang novel, imagining myself dressed up in a lacy black wedding dress like the girl in the Corpse's Bride film, awaiting my lovely Underworld prince. 15

"Your complexion is looking especially pallid today", Danny observed. 16

"Whoa, that's a big word for Danny Hardy", I shot back. "Did you just look it up today? I'm really impressed." 17

"Maybe you should hold back on the black eyeliner, you look like a raccoon, or some kind of aggressive nocturnal animal."18

"Don't make me drink your blood", I warned him, suddenly aware that the comment wasn't that farfetched. My stomach was a swarm of butterflies, and in an instant I felt a stab of pain and weakness, as if someone had slammed my body into a brick wall. It was freezing cold, my flesh going hard as solid ice. What the hell was going on? 19

Danny's goofy grin vanished when I stumbled back, arms hugging my chest to keep in my body heat, shivering uncontrollably. 20

"Are you okay, Kacy?"21

"I-I don't know...I'm r-r-really c-cold." Everything started to blur and blend together, like water colors being mixed on a watery canvas. Danny's handsome, worried face disappeared in my line of vision as I pushed past him, dropping the Sweet Fang novel to the floor. On wobbly legs I managed to stagger out of the deathly cold library whose windows were now jagged with ice crystals. There was only one word etched into my brain at that moment: blood. Stupid me, I could have expected for this to happen - the fever came as unpredictably as thunderstorms; but when it did, my body paid the price. Everyone knows a vampire can't munch on lunchables like other people and expect to live; nothing can sustain your appetite like the rich, coppery taste of blood. Like everything else that could go wrong in my life, the blood crisis was one out of the other hundred things that sucked. Big time. 22


{ Later that day } 23

Cowering like an abused kitten in my room, I sucked the salty blood from my pinpricked finger, letting out a sigh of relief when my normal body temperature flooded back. You wouldn't have to question my sanity if you saw my room. It was a cult-like shrine of Batman worship, glow-in-the-dark skulls, emo teddy bears with bandaids for eyes, and even a poster of Bulletproof; a Gothic Rock band I adored. Okay, I may be as emo as Ozzy Osbourne, but that didn't make me retarded enough to practice voodoo spells or witchcraft. If you ever wanted to meet someone who was an expert in the art of witchcraft; talk to Bianca, my psychopathic older sister. She was the one who chopped off Barbie doll heads when she was twelve, not me. 24

Licking the surprisingly sharp, newly grown-in baby fangs, I wrenched my eyes shut and prayed to God this wasn't happening. Fine, there were fangs in my mouth, my normally dark brown eyes were now a bright eerie blue, and for some odd reason my skin was even whiter than before. Not too bad, right? Sniffing miserably, I looked up at the huge poster of my beloved rock band, the lanky lead singer Hal decked out in black leather pants and an awesome jacket that billowed out like Batman's cape when he did those Mission Impossible dives from buildings. What would Hal do if he turned into a vampire? I wondered, gazing dreamily at his spiderweb tattoos and wild black hair. Oh god, I was such a ditzy little fanboy...make that vampire. Ugh. 25

Flipping through the Sweet Fang novel again, there was something vaguely familiar about the main character, whose name happened to be Jane ROSE. She apparently was a social outcast, was obsessed with cult classic horror movies, and cuddled vampire bats when most girls would clamp their hands on their mouths and scream in whiney, girly voices: "Eeeew, get that thing AWAY from me! It has diseases..." 26

"Chapter one: Crown of Darkness", I read out loud in a quiet, husky whisper, hoping my parents and freakshow sister wouldn't hear me. 27

"Midnight fell like a silk curtain on the city. Jane, clad in faded jeans and an even more faded T-shirt, held her Dracula doll to her chest tightly as her breath fogged the silver window pane. The smell of blood was intoxicating, the taste of it reducing her to the state of a drug-induced hospital patient; helpless, put under a wicked spell. The boy she had met at the movies...who was he? He was the only one who had wiped the tears from her eyes, who didn't turn away when she told him how it all began; the first time she bit into a throat and the softness of it, like the skin of a ripe peach. Jane's fangs had just grown in five days ago, but already she had cravings for human blood. As if things weren't bad enough; the girl was now hopelessly in love with a boy who admitted he was a vampire as well. She was hurting people she cared about because of the cravings, or what she'd dubbed as 'the fever'." 28

Shuddering, I slammed the book shut and threw it across the room, my breath coming out in ragged, shallow gasps. No way, there was absolutely no freakin' way that stupid novel was somehow depicting my life as a vampire - chapter by chapter. Studying the front cover again, the girl's face suddenly morphed until it was almost identical to mine. Jane had the same pale blue eyes, full lips, wavy black hair and pale skin as me...or was it all just my imagination? 29

"Whatcha doing in there, bat girl?" Bianca hollered from behind my door. Great, I thought, just what I need. "Hey, that movie's on at seven, you know; the one where that dude sings while he slits people's throats or whatever, and his wife like bakes them into meat pies."30

"Sweeney Todd?"31

"Yeah, that's the one. It's pure gory Burton goodness."32

"I'm having a bit of a problem at the moment..."33

"What, you got your period or something?"34

Bianca could be such an idiot sometimes. Swinging my legs off the bed, I yanked open the door, inches from my sister's pancake powder white face with her huge green boggle eyes (made ultra boggly from black eyeliner) flickering at me with a mixture of amusement and wonder. This close she reeked of pot and lysol. Her long feathery dark hair - with its skunky white highlights - was wrapped up in a messy bun.35

"Welcome back to reality, shadow diva, am I interrupting your ritual?"36

"Very funny. If you're not careful I'll burn you on a steak."37

"Oh SO mature. For your information, you can't burn witches on stakes unless you drop them in water tied up - with a stone on their bodies."38

"What exactly do you want, Bianca?"39

"A boy called here", she said teasingly, sticking her tongue out at me. "I know, shocking right? He had this deep, sexy voice and said he wanted to meet you at the Star Cinema at nine o'clock tonight."40

My heart skipped a beat. All of a sudden there was a prickly sensation, as if sea urchins were stuck in my throat. Swallowing painfully, I remembered the novel: "The boy she had met at the movies...who was he?" Oh crap. 41

"Thanks for letting me know", I told her quickly, making a beeline for my closet. A girl like me doesn't go on many dates, but maybe, just maybe; dating a teenaged vampire could somehow be less awkward. 42

"Don't forget to bring your rubber fangs", Bianca sang, laughing. 43

Shaking my head, I shrugged off the snide remark and, while humming the Batman theme song to myself, started to rummage through my dusty black hand-me downs. 44

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To be Continued... 46

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