Fat Vampire by Adam Rex Page A

vampires, too. Try sucking on it a little.”
    Doug sucked on the cross. It tasted like fork. “Nothing.”
    Jay crossed the cross off his list, then they repeated the whole process again with a Star of David.
    â€œNope,” said Doug.
    Jay tossed a pile of rice at Doug’s feet. Doug looked at the rice, then back at Jay. “What? Do I eat it?”
    â€œHow many grains are there?” Jay asked.
    â€œI don’t know—I’m not autistic, I’m a vampire.”
    â€œBut you don’t care? Some sources say if you toss grain on the ground in front of a vampire, he has to stop whatever he’s doing and count it.”
    â€œThese ‘sources’ wouldn’t all be Wikipedia, would they?”
    â€œMmmmm,” Jay hummed, “mostly no. In fact—you know something? Remember when Vampire Hunters mentioned that thing about vampires having to be invited in? I remembered today where I’d heard it before. It’s in that Cody Southern vampire movie that’s always on cable. Love Bites .”
    â€œI don’t remember that.”
    â€œNo, it’s true. I wasn’t sure either, but you can watch the whole thing online. And you know what else? Practically all the good vampires turn normal at the end because they kill the head vampire.”
    Doug nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ve read a comic like that, too. If you kill the vampire that made you a vampire you’re not a vampire anymore.”
    â€œWell,” Jay interjected, “in Love Bites it had to be the head vampire. Like, he’s the top of the family tree. Killing the gang leader vampire wasn’t good enough—Cody had to kill the antique store owner who made the whole gang.”
    â€œThat’s just a movie, though.”
    â€œYeah. It doesn’t really make sense, anyway. Like, how do you know who’s the head vampire? Wouldn’t the vampire that made the head vampire be the real head? Or the one who made him? How far back do you go?”
    Doug thought about this.
    â€œAnyway,” said Jay. “The list. So. I know you usually cutthrough that Presbyterian parking lot on the way to school.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œDo you still? Because then we’d know you can walk on hallowed ground.”
    â€œWell, I can definitely bike on hallowed ground. If the hallowed ground really extends to the parking lot,” said Doug. “Is this really an issue? Cemeteries are hallowed ground. Old-school vampires lived in cemeteries.”
    â€œHmm, yeah. Never mind.” Jay consulted the binder again. “We know already that you have no trouble with mirrors, of course. Right?”
    â€œRight,” said Doug. What he didn’t say was that in the weeks since the change he had avoided seeing his reflection whenever he could. It was superficially the same, but he felt no connection to the boy in the mirror. Victor had taken that, too. There was only an empty stranger; a funeral mask; a pair of weird, dead eyes. He didn’t see himself reflected at all.
    He’d taken to keeping his bedroom mirror covered with a sheet, as if someone had died. Someone had , actually.
    â€œRight,” said Doug again.
    â€œAnd you’ve probably had garlic.”
    â€œOh, yeah. My mom puts it in everything. There was extra garlic in those Manwiches. Do you remember,” said Doug, “in fifth or sixth grade, when she read that it was good for your heart or something? She used to have my dad and me take garlic pills, eat garlic at every meal…”
    Jay was looking more and more uncomfortable. He nodded gravely as if recollecting some great tragedy, until Doug finally said, “What?”
    â€œThat’s why…” said Jay, “people call you Meatball.”
    â€œWhat? No, it’s not.”
    Jay stared at the ground.
    Doug was incredulous. “They call me Meatball because I’m short and…husky.”
    â€œAnd smell