Attack of the Vampire Weenies (17 page)

“You are brilliant, Abraham,” the tall vampire said. “We chose well when we gave you the task of guarding us.” Then he lunged at me. Before I could react, he wrapped his arms around me. I braced myself for the bite. But he just held me there, clutched in a grip so solid, I felt as if a tree had grown around my body. Another vampire walked over and wiped my neck with a cloth.

Then they both bit me.

The transformation into a vampire is long and horrible. The next two hours were wrapped in unbearable pain. When I could finally speak without screaming, I realized I wasn't human anymore. I had changed in a thousand ways. I was still weak from the transition. But I knew what I had become—one of the undead who thirsted for blood.

I sniffed the air and looked across the room. Abraham, the one who had led me here, was also on the floor. I could tell from his lifeless smell that he'd been turned back into a vampire.

I didn't understand. I looked up at the tall one, who was standing above me. “Why did you do this? I brought you a cure.”

He smiled. “I know. And we will use it.” He lowered himself to his knees and put his mouth near my ear. “Thanks to you, we no longer need to hunt.”

He reached out and put a drop of the formula on my lips. If I thought the pain of becoming a vampire was terrible, the pain of becoming human was ten times worse.

I realized I would experience this agony a hundred times. A thousand times. I would experience it over and over as they drank my blood, turning me into a vampire, and then cured me so they could drink my blood again. And again, and again.

 

A WORD OR TWO ABOUT THESE STORIES

The most common question writers are asked is, “Where do you get your ideas?” The answer to that, for the stories in this collection, is given below. Here, as a bonus, are the answers to eight other common questions I get asked when I visit schools: No, I don't live in a mansion. Yes, I plan to write another book. Green.
Ender's Game.
1954. Yes, I have a gamer's tag. Bacon. Nope, I won't autograph your forehead.

Not Another Word

As faithful Weenies fans know, one of my best sources of inspiration is my what-if file, which has now grown to more than sixty pages. Each day, my first writing task is to write a what-if question, such as “What if a mime was actually…?” (You know the rest, unless you haven't read the story yet. In which case, get out of here. Go read the stories. Then you can come back. I mean it. There are spoilers here.) I suspect a lot of readers would have been happier if it was the mime who met an unpleasant ending in the story. Maybe next time.

Get Out of Gym for Free

When I was in high school, the gym teacher really did pick four kids to be leaders. I've always remembered that—mostly because I would have gladly done anything to get out of gym. Naturally, given that my best sport was reading, followed closely by eating and wheezing, I didn't have a shot at the position. But the concept stayed with me. And then it hit me that a last-man-standing contest would be perfect for picking a leader. And for making the teacher's life much easier.

Ghost in the Well

Another what-if idea. I started with the idea of a ghost that appears to be asking for help, but is really tricking the helper into joining her. In this case, I knew from the start that the ghost would do something bad to the main character, so the real work was to make this happen in a satisfying way. (Satisfying for the reader, that is. I'm pretty sure the main character would have preferred a different ending.) Manga fans might notice that the title is a pun.

It's Only a Game

Many years ago, a cable service was available that would download games to certain systems. That was one part of the inspiration for this story. I own a fair assortment of video game consoles, but I tend to lag a bit when it comes to keeping up to date. (No need to hold a fund-raiser for me—I finally caught up.) So I've often found myself half a generation behind the rest of the world. It was easy to imagine a kid who was several generations behind. That was the other half I needed. Once I put those halves together, the aliens pretty much had to show up.

Attack of the Vampire Weenies

It hasn't escaped my notice that there are some people who get all giggly about vampires. When people get giggly, it's fun to think of ways that things can turn dark and unpleasant. I'm pretty sure that if you do some research, you'll find it is the vampires themselves who started all these rumors about how attractive they are. We Weenies folks know the truth, and never leave home without a clove of garlic or some werewolf bodyguards.

Rapt Punzel

This was purely inspired by the title. I liked the idea of the girl in the tower being enrapt by something, and television was a natural choice. It's fun and easy to fracture a fairy tale. Try it at home. As for the grisly ending, the stuff that happens in the original versions of many fairy tales makes my stories look positively cheerful.

In One Ear

My ancient earphones have started to disintegrate, trailing bits of foam everywhere. I started looking at new ones, and saw that most of them are inserted into the ears. It's hard not to go from there to thinking about ways that things could turn unpleasant. I also noticed that some people almost never remove their earphones.

Fourth and Inches

This is a pretty common sort of idea. I'm sure we've all imagined that we were suddenly thrust into whatever we were watching. I touched on the concept when I wrote about a remote control with a hidden
INSERT
button. That story, “We Interrupt This Program,” from
The Invasion of the Road Weenies,
was much messier.

MutAnts

This story was totally inspired by the title. Often, a word will turn into a pun or some other form of wordplay in my mind. It wasn't a major stretch to think that a mutant would be an ant that mutates. Or a whole lot of ants. As always, an idea can go in a variety of directions. On a different day, the mutating ants could have caused something funny to happen.

Cat Got Your Nose?

I'm fond of cats, and I'm fond of girl geniuses. The former sometimes smells. I thought it would be fun if the latter tried to find a cure. As a side note, I realized that I've done a bad job of giving dogs equal time in these stories. However, as you've already seen if you've read the stories before reading these notes (and you really should), I've started to make up for it with “Walk the Dog.”

The Ride of a Lifetime

Many years ago, I was at Hersheypark with my family and some friends. There was a new coaster I was dying to ride. I got in line, and the sky started to darken. I could see lightning off in the distance. I made it to the ride before the storm closed things down, but the concept of trying to beat the storm lingered with me. Also, I live near Dorney Park, which has a great assortment of rides. Every year or two, they add a coaster or other major thrill ride, and it's always special in some way—the tallest, the fastest, the longest, and so on. So it's not surprising I'd have coasters on the brain.

Chirp

A what-if story. This one was tricky. I don't ever want readers to guess the ending of a story before they get there, but I also want to scatter some clues so the reader can look back and realize that the ending was inevitable. So I had to show the girl's passion for birds while trying to distract the reader from thinking about whether she shared the main character's magic. If I'd been really brave, I would have also given her some catlike traits, but that would really have been a risk, since I know my readers are smarties. I actually read this aloud at several schools and stopped right before the ending to ask the audience to raise their hands if they thought they knew what was going to happen. Enough kids were surprised by the ending that I felt the story would work.

Bruja

The ending came to me first. I loved the potential horror that would happen if a person unleashed that potion in some catacombs. So I had to figure out how to get the characters underground, and how to break the bottle. That's part of the fun of writing stories. There's a lot of problem solving involved. But it's fun to solve this sort of problem. The best part is that there are thousands of solutions. How would you get a girl into the catacombs?

Elf Improvement

I wasn't sure where this one would go when I started. I just liked the idea of some small creature making life miserable for some innocent kid. In the first version, I just had the elf switch its attention from the kid to the teacher. But I realized there had to be some sort of scene that explained why the elf's attention got transferred. That's why I added the scene with the shirt. The nice part about this—and here's a tip for you writers out there—is that the answer to most story problems is already hanging around somewhere in the story.

Sun Damage

I mentioned that I write a what-if question every day. That's only one half of the equation. I often know what I want to write about. But sometimes I get stuck. Then, when I need an idea for a story, I skim through the file until one of the ideas resonates with me. (
Resonate
is a great word. You can make things vibrate if you sing the right note. And ideas can make us vibrate.) In this case, the idea was “What if some vampires gained strength from the sun?” Of course, the idea is just the beginning. From there, I had to think up a situation that would bring this what-if to life. Or to death.

Sweet Soap

I started out writing about a kid who was an inventor. (It seemed fair to balance the girl genius of “Cat Got Your Nose?” with a boy genius in this story.) I'm not sure where the soap-to-candy part came from. But once I got that far, it wasn't hard to figure out the direction the rest of the story would take.

Roadwork

They're constantly fixing roads where I live. And I recently noticed a five-man road crew just standing around, staring at a small pothole. One of them had a shovel, but he wasn't doing much with it. Maybe that's why I had this story in mind. This sort of story, with a fairly simple shock ending, is best kept short. As with “Chirp,” the hardest task is to try to keep you from seeing what is going to happen. Though, if you guess the ending, that's okay, because there's pleasure in being right, too.

Finders Losers

There is a faded silver tot-finder sticker on my daughter's bedroom window. The sticker was once bright red. I see it every time I go outside, and I see lots of other stickers all around the neighborhood. It was natural for me to eventually mold that sight into a story idea.

Cloudy with a Chance of Message

I saw a letter in the clouds a while ago. (I can't remember whether it was a
T.
) It wasn't clear and sharp, like in this story. But it got me thinking about messages in clouds. I'm not sure, in this day of microwave ovens, whether people still use teakettles, but I liked the imagery of the ending, so I kept it in. (This would be a good time to lower the book and tell the nearest adult, “Imagery is an important component of both mainstream and literary short fiction.” They will be impressed.) Obviously, this title is also a pun.

Family Time

I used to play a lot of board games. Sometimes, the rules were ridiculous. And I've had people try to teach me various games over the years. Some were a lot of fun. Others just had too much stuff to keep track of. I thought it would be interesting to write about a kid who just doesn't understand the rules. (In case you were wondering, the rules in the story are total nonsense. I had fun making stuff up.) I think all of us feel clueless at times.

Gee! Ography

Yup—another what-if. “What if a kid got all the right answers on a test even though he hadn't studied?” When I got ready to write that one, I realized a geography bee would be more fun than a test. Often, when looking for the best way to turn an idea into a complete story, I look for something that will allow as much opportunity for dialogue and action as possible. I don't want my characters sitting around and thinking too much.

The Spider Shouter

With everyone whispering to mammals these days (horses, dogs, uncles, whatever), I thought it would be a nice change of pace to have someone communicate with insects. I actually like spiders. Though I'm more than happy to deal with them one at a time.

The Pyramid Man

If you've read the story, you know what a pyramid scheme is. (It's called that because the number of people involved grows larger with each level. One person sells to ten. Those ten sell to one hundred. They sell to one thousand. It expands just like a pyramid, until it runs out of buyers.) It's basically a bad thing. But it hit me that it would be wonderfully amusing to have someone start a pyramid scheme by selling pyramids. What can I say? I'm easily amused. But not easily scammed by pyramid sellers.

Walk the Dog

As a cat owner, I can't help noticing that dog owners are always saying, “I have to go home now and walk the dog.” My daughter recently got a dog, so I'm even more aware of this. I liked the idea of a girl who is supposed to walk a dog, but is too busy and selfish to really care. When I told my daughter about the ending of the story, she said it was a good example of irony. (She's not just a dog owner. She's also an English teacher.)

Warm Rain

I touched on this idea in an earlier collection, in a story called “Head of the Class.” In that one, I had a kid whose mistakes become truths when his teacher reads his papers. This idea was similar—a kid who is wrong about everything, but turns out to be right. I have this nagging feeling I should have done more with the triceratops, but he really wasn't interested in taking part, so I gave him the day off.