The Day the Vampires Awoke

He wasn't sick anymore. But he wasn't human anymore, either.

Aden Curtis sat on the edge of his bed, looking in the mirror on the closet door.

His skin was pale.

His eyes were no longer brown.

They were silver. Molten, shifting, glowing in the dark room.

He wiped a crumb of silver from his lip.

Just an hour ago, the world had been ending. Now, it had been remade.

An hour ago, Aden Curtis sat on the edge of his bed.

The room was dark, save for the streetlights bleeding through the blinds.

He watched the second hand on the wall clock tick.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

His body was vibrating. It wasn't a choice. It was the ALS.

The muscles in his thighs and arms twitched under his skin like dying worms.

He looked at the glass of water on the nightstand.

He was thirsty.

He told his brain to lift his right arm.

The signal fired, but the wiring was frayed. His arm moved sluggishly, heavy as lead.

His fingers curled around the glass.

They trembled.

The glass slipped.

It hit the carpet with a dull thud. Water soaked into the cheap beige fibers.

Aden stared at the stain.

He didn't have the energy to pick it up. He didn't have the energy to be angry anymore.

He just felt a deep, hollow rot in his stomach.

Doctors said he had a month. Maybe less. His diaphragm would paralyze soon, and he would suffocate in his sleep.

His phone buzzed on the mattress.

The screen lit up the gloom.

11 PM. The usual spot. Cash only.

Aden closed his eyes. He took a breath that rattled in his chest.

He reached under his bed and dragged out the old Nike shoebox.

It was light. Inside was fifty thousand dollars. Every cent his parents had left him, liquidized.

He pulled on a thick hoodie. It hid how thin he had become. It hid the atrophy.

He grabbed his cane.

Getting down the stairs of the apartment complex took ten minutes.

Every step was a negotiation with gravity.

The night air in Argent City was wet. It smelled of exhaust and damp concrete.

Aden walked. He dragged his left leg.

People walked past him. They looked away. No one wanted to see the dying kid.

He reached the alleyway behind the convenience store.

The ground was slick with oil and rain.

Tom Bo was waiting in the shadows. He was smoking a cigarette, the cherry glowing orange.

He saw Aden and smirked.

"You made it," Tom said. "Thought you might trip and break a neck on the way."

Aden didn't speak. He dropped his backpack on the wet asphalt.

Tom kicked it open with his boot. He riffled through the stacks of bills.

"It's all there," Aden said. His voice was weak.

Tom nodded. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a metal case.

He tossed it to Aden.

Aden fumbled, nearly dropping it. His hands were shaking so bad.

He opened the case.

Inside lay a single vial. The liquid was dark red, thick, almost black.

"Unregistered," Tom said, blowing smoke into the rain. "Clan rejects. Ninety percent mortality rate. You drink that, you probably die screaming."

"I'm already dying," Aden said.

"Suit yourself. No refunds when your heart explodes."

Tom grabbed the backpack and walked away. He didn't look back.

Aden stood alone in the alley.

He looked at the vial. This was it. The fifty-thousand-dollar gamble.

He didn't hesitate. He uncorked it.

The smell hit him. Iron and sulfur.

He tilted his head back and downed it.

It didn't taste like blood. It tasted like battery acid.

It burned his tongue, his throat, his esophagus.

Aden dropped the vial. It shattered.

He fell to his knees. The cane clattered away.

Fire spread through his veins. It wasn't a metaphor. It felt like someone had injected boiling oil into his bloodstream.

He curled into a ball in the mud.

His heart hammered against his ribs.

Thump-thump-thump-thump.

Then it stopped.

Silence.

Darkness took him.

Time passed. It might have been a minute. It might have been an hour.

Aden gasped.

Air rushed into his lungs. It was cold and sharp.

He sat up.

He touched his chest.

Thump.

A long pause. Six seconds.

Thump.

His heart was beating ten times a minute. Slow. Powerful. Like a hydraulic press.

Aden looked at his hands.

They weren't shaking.

He stood up. He didn't reach for the cane.

He didn't need it.

His legs felt solid. The weakness was gone.

He clenched his fist. The knuckles popped loud and clear.

He felt power coiling in his muscles, tight and ready.

Then came the hunger.

It wasn't a rumble in his stomach. It was a void. A black hole opening up in his gut.

He needed to eat.

He stumbled out of the alley and ran back to his apartment. He didn't limp. He sprinted.

He burst through his door and tore open the fridge.

Cold pizza. Leftover pasta. An apple.

He shoved the pizza into his mouth.

He gagged.

It tasted like ash. It tasted like rotting garbage.

He spat it out onto the floor.

He tried the apple. It tasted like wax and dirt.

He vomited bile into the sink.

The hunger grew sharper. It was a physical pain, twisting his insides.

He stumbled back into his bedroom, wiping his mouth.

He knocked over his mother's jewelry box on the dresser.

It crashed to the floor. Necklaces and earrings scattered.

A silver ring rolled across the carpet and stopped near his foot.

Aden stared at it.

His mouth watered. Saliva pooled under his tongue.

The scent of the silver was intoxicating. It smelled sweet, rich, heavy.

He fell to his knees.

His rational mind screamed no. It was metal. It was hard.

But his body didn't care.

He grabbed the ring.

He put it in his mouth.

He bit down.

Crunch.

The silver shattered like hard candy.

It wasn't hard. It was crisp.

He chewed. The metal broke down into a warm, savory paste.

He swallowed.

A wave of euphoria washed over him. The pain in his stomach vanished.

Aden sat on the floor, breathing hard.

He looked in the mirror on the closet door.

His skin was pale.

His eyes were no longer brown.

They were silver. Molten, shifting, glowing in the dark room.

He wiped a crumb of silver from his lip.

He wasn't sick anymore. But he wasn't human anymore, either.

Morning light sliced through the blinds.

Aden flinched. He raised his arm to cover his face.

He waited for the burning. He waited for his skin to blister and peel like bacon in a skillet.

Nothing happened.

The sun felt warm. Gentle.

He lowered his arm. His skin looked normal.

He frowned. Every movie, every lore forum said vampires burned in the sun.

Maybe the vial was a dud. Maybe he was just a freak, not a vampire.

He went to the bathroom to wash his face.

He turned the faucet handle.

ROAR.

The sound of the water rushing through the pipes was deafening. It sounded like a waterfall crashing next to his ear.

Aden recoiled, clutching the sink.

He heard footsteps. Heavy, booming thuds.

They were coming from the apartment below.

He heard a cat meow three blocks away.

He squeezed his eyes shut. "Stop," he whispered. "Too loud."

He focused. He tried to dial it down.

The noise receded, settling into a hum.

Then he heard it.

A wet, sliding sound. Slither. Squelch.

It was coming from the other side of the bathroom wall. The Johnson's apartment. Emily's room.

Aden stared at the drywall.

He didn't just stare at it. He looked through it.

The paint and plaster faded into a gray mist. The wooden studs appeared as dark bars.

Beyond them, he saw a heat signature.

A girl. Emily. She was standing in front of her mirror.

But something was wrong.

There was a cold blue shadow wrapped around her spine.

It pulsed.

Aden watched, frozen, as Emily's head turned.

It didn't stop at her shoulder. It kept rotating.

One hundred and eighty degrees.

She was facing her back to the mirror, but her face was looking directly at her own reflection.

The blue shadow shifted.

Thin, translucent tendrils erupted from her ear canal. They waved in the air like anemones, tasting the room.

Aden stepped back.

His heel hit the bathtub. Thud.

The tendrils in the next room froze.

They snapped toward the wall. Toward him.

Aden stopped breathing.

He willed his heart to slow down. Thump...... Thump.

He stood perfectly still, like a statue.

From the hallway in the Johnson's apartment, a voice called out.

"Emily! Bus is coming!"

The tendrils retracted instantly. They sucked back into her ear.

Emily's head snapped back to the front with a sickening crack.

"Coming, Daddy!" she yelled. Her voice was bright, cheerful.

Aden slid down the wall to the floor.

His shirt was soaked in cold sweat.

That wasn't a vampire. That was something else. Something parasitic.

Tom Bo had said the city was full of eyes. Aden hadn't understood until now.

He couldn't stay here.

He needed to see if this was isolated. He needed to go to school.

He dressed quickly. Jeans, a long-sleeve shirt.

He walked to the door. He reached for his cane, then stopped.

He left it leaning against the wall.

He walked out. His stride was smooth, powerful.

The Johnson family was leaving their apartment at the same time.

Mr. Johnson was adjusting his tie. Emily was in a pink dress, holding a lunchbox.

She looked adorable. Normal.

Then the smell hit him.

Underneath the scent of strawberry shampoo, there was a stench. Rotting fish. Stagnant pond water.

Emily stopped.

She looked up at Aden.

Her eyes were blue. Then, for a fraction of a second, the pupils constricted into vertical slits.

She stared at the jugular vein in his neck.

Aden felt the hair on his arms stand up.

"Good morning, Emily," he said. He forced a smile.

Emily blinked. Her eyes were normal again.

"Morning, Aden," she said. Her voice dropped an octave. It was raspy. "You smell... different today."

Mr. Johnson patted her shoulder. "Come on, sweetie."

They walked toward the elevator.

Emily looked back over her shoulder. She licked her lips.

Aden stood in the hallway.

He reached into his pocket. His fingers brushed against a silver fork he had swiped from the kitchen drawer.

He squeezed it.

The metal bent like putty in his grip.

He wasn't safe. But he wasn't helpless.

The yellow school bus rattled down the street.

It was packed. Bodies, backpacks, noise.

Aden sat in the middle, by the window. He wore noise-canceling headphones, but they did nothing against his new hearing.

He could hear the scratching of a pen three rows back. He could hear the gum snapping in someone's mouth.

And he could hear the squelching.

It wasn't just Emily.

He scanned the bus. He lowered his sunglasses just enough to peek.

The thermal vision flickered on.

Three rows ahead, the captain of the football team sat with his arm around his girlfriend.

Inside his chest, wrapped around his lungs, was a cold blue mass.

Two seats behind him, a freshman girl was reading a book. A parasite was coiled in her stomach.

Aden counted.

One. Two. Five.

Seven infected students on one bus.

He felt sick. It was an invasion, and no one knew.

The bus hissed to a halt in front of Argent High.

Aden got off. He kept his elbows in, avoiding contact.

The hallway smelled of floor wax and that underlying rot. The scent of the infected.

He reached his locker. His hands were steady as he spun the dial.

Whack.

A hand slammed onto his shoulder.

Aden spun around. His fist was already clenched, ready to strike.

It was Chadwick.

"Whoa, easy, tiger," Chadwick said, hands up. He was grinning. "You jumpy today?"

Aden exhaled. He scanned Chadwick quickly.

Warm red heat. Normal organs. No blue shadow.

"Sorry," Aden said. "Just... tired."

Chadwick looked down at Aden's legs. "Dude. Where's the stick?"

"The cane?"

"Yeah. You're standing. Like, actually standing."

"New meds," Aden lied. "Doctor said I might have been misdiagnosed. It's... remitting."

Chadwick punched him lightly on the arm. "That's awesome, man! Serious. We can finally play co-op without you needing a nap every hour."

"Yeah," Aden said. "Awesome."

They walked to history class.

Aden kept counting.

The infection rate was staggering. At least thirty percent of the students he passed had the rot inside them.

They walked differently. Smoother. More predatory.

He sat at his desk in the back.

Mr. Henderson was writing on the whiteboard.

"Today we discuss the fall of Rome," Mr. Henderson said.

His voice had a strange resonance. A low hum that made Aden's eyelids heavy.

Aden shook his head. He looked at the teacher.

Mr. Henderson turned around.

A nictitating membrane-a second, translucent eyelid-flicked across his eye and vanished.

He was one of them.

Aden gripped the edge of his desk. The wood creaked.

In the front row, Chloe Lane was filing her nails. She was the queen bee of the junior class.

A large fly buzzed around her head.

She swatted at it lazily.

The fly moved to the girl next to her. Jessie.

Jessie was staring straight ahead. She didn't move.

The fly landed on her collarbone.

Aden watched.

Jessie's jaw unhinged slightly.

Thwip.

Her tongue shot out. It was too long, pink and wet. It wrapped around the fly and retracted in a blur.

It happened in a tenth of a second.

No one saw it.

Except Aden.

Jessie chewed once and swallowed.

Then she turned in her seat.

She looked directly at Aden in the back row.

She smiled. The smile went too wide. It stretched her cheeks until the skin looked like it would tear.

She raised a finger to her lips.

Shhh.

Aden felt a cold drop of sweat slide down his spine.

They knew he could see them.

The bell rang.

Aden grabbed his bag. "We need to go," he whispered to Chadwick.

"What? Why? It's taco Tuesday."

"Just come with me."

Aden dragged Chadwick toward the boys' bathroom. He needed a place to think. A place with no eyes.