Pushing the head up a few more degrees, I encounter the resistance of bone. The head will twist only a few more degrees before things start to pop and snap.

I lower my head, drooling.

Good-bye, Bongo, I think sardonically.

My heart beats faster.

I nuzzle the soft fur with my lips. Open my jaws.

I am ready to kill him.

But then I think of that name . . .

Bongo. Bongo the dog.

Jerk must have named him, years ago, when he was little. When Jerk was just a little Jerk, his parents' hope and joy and all, saying, "Lesss call him Bongo. Bongo. The puppy. The puppy. Bongo. Bongo."

And I think about Jerk finding the corpse, drained and twisted. And I must remain human. I can't believe what I want to do.

I will remain human at any cost. I drop the dog.

The second I let go, Bongo is barking like mad. I run, but he's chasing me, and barking, and now I really don't know what I'm going to do.

The road is slapping under my feet, and I'm heading down under the streetlamps.

He stands barking, barking, barking at me under a stop sign, as if that were the speech balloon translation.

But I run on, through the suburbs. I run past the funeral home and its lawns, under the sagging power lines, past the darkened windows of the twenty-two-hour convenience store. I run under the railroad bridge.

I am going to search the woods for a racc.o.o.n or something. I am not cold, and I do not mind the company of twisted trees and haunted bracken. I am doing the haunting now.

I have to keep spitting because my saliva is so thick and choking. I really want to kill, and I think how people like Tom would be surprised because they don't think of me as very wild or savage or strong.

I envision the racc.o.o.n's death: I see my shirt torn from the little claws; I rip it off, yanking my way down the row of b.u.t.tons. I see myself sucking on the carca.s.s, on the thick sweet blood, and it runs down my wrists to my bare chest and drips on my belly, mingling with my own blood, and I smear the skin over my own skin.

And in my vision, I stand in the dawn in the devil's orchard by the water tower, watching the sun rise over the reservoir, full of life, the blood caking warmly on my pale skin as the three radio towers blink and blurt out their silent soft rock like gagged victims bleating for help. The sun throws sludgy scarlet smudges over the morning clouds. The trees are full of life; and in the dawn, they are ruby like gore.

That is my vision.

But I find no racc.o.o.ns.

I look for hours. Nothing. Trees.

I walk for the rest of the night. A light drizzle falls as morning approaches. All the while, I am thinking that I will never be the same again - that's the terrifying thing - that Chet will not come, and that I will never be the same again, and that I will be condemned to endless wandering, wandering through tiny towns and lying down in alleys in big cities, lying drunk or in wait of victims, forgetting that I grew up at all, forgetting this life of green avenues and my brother's dumb swears and my mother's voice and my father's quiet love of golf.

Chet will not come, and I will have to flee. They will chase me. The crowd will want to kill me.

I think of Tom - untrustworthy, eyes narrow - and of my father - mute and nervous - and my mother - "It wasn't even human" - about the changeling child on TV - "It wasn't even human" - And a voice says to me again and again this one chilling fact I know is true: that I came into this world from a warm place within someone else; but that I will leave it completely alone.

I walk through the woods until I come again to the road. I start home. My shirt is intact.

I am a failure, even as a vampire.

When I reach my house, it is dawn. My mother is waiting for me in the kitchen. She's dressed in a pink bathrobe, but it looks gray in the dawn. Everything in the kitchen looks gray: the table looks gray, and the dishwasher, and the sink, and my mother, too, who is in a chair.

"Where have you been?" she barks at once, suspiciously. "Where the h.e.l.l have you been? Where? Where?" She hits the table. "Where the h.e.l.l h.e.l.l have you been?" have you been?"

I have to make up an excuse, but the sun is coming up and I'm suddenly very, very tired. I've been out almost all night, since midnight. "I just went out, just now, to, um," I explain groggily, "check the tree."

It is admittedly not the best or most coherent lie I have ever made up.

I shuffle past her toward the front hallway.

"Christopher! Stop, Christopher," she says, but this time softer, as if she's scared to know the answer. "You've been at a party, haven't you? Have you been out at a party?"

I know she doesn't want to hear. I can tell she's afraid.

So I don't answer and go upstairs.

I sit down on my chair. I lay my head down on my desk like it's a broken appliance and I'm dropping it off for repairs.

Briefly, I sleep. I dream of wielding great gouts of fire that wallop the vampires, as they cast their wicked spells. I dream of being cured by a kind touch from Chet. I dream that Rebecca Schwartz loves me and I talk to her like I would talk to no one else. I picture her careful, clever face, and I picture kissing it and her smooth white neck. I kiss her right where the pulse is, and I can feel how hot her blood is. I can feel it moving through her like quick fire; I can sense it caressing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s from the inside, circling like electrons around her secret womb.

I can feel it in my mouth, running down my throat. I feel strong again; I feel alive; I feel the spark of her life twitching in my heart as she drains into me, from under me, as I feel her spasms beneath me and her death.

My alarm rings. A half hour has pa.s.sed. It is time for school. I lift my head slowly, like a moss-covered prehistoric sea turtle might if it were woken up by B movie radiation leakage.

Even the early morning sun is painful. I stand up.

I am not a morning person.

I am not an afternoon person either.

I guess that I am not a person at all.

It is the Sad Festival of Vampires.

At midnight, the runes and spells of warding will have been read, the White Hen shut, and the fate of the world decided.

And if Tch'muchgar is to come from his prison world and thunder through the forests he will have come; and there will be screaming in the lonely houses by the lake and burning in the towns.

And I do not know what to do.

Every city has its rituals to stave off evil and to satisfy the Forces of Light. At least in Clayton, we don't sacrifice people anymore. In Boston it is bad because every year virgins must be offered to the spirits there.

There it is done democratically, through a lottery. The night before the lottery, the city holds a great celebration, like Mardi gras. Originally, it was a night when families could be together for maybe the last time before the name was drawn, the name of a virgin daughter or son. Now it is a difficult night for parents; they must decide whether to enjoy that last night together, sitting sadly in party frocks around their dining room table while outside the horns razz and gla.s.s breaks, or whether to push their sons and daughters out of the house, out into the parties and sweat, and tell them to go and lose their virginity in the crowds.

Needless to say, the night before the lottery is held each year, many seniors from our school take the Worcester-Boston bus, whooping and pounding on the windows. The next morning they come back out in the dismal light with stories of what they did behind dumpsters or in hotels.

n.o.body knows what happens to the sacrifices after they're left in a vault beneath the city. Usually they're just gone in the morning and are never heard from again. Once, a mangled and tattered body was seen cawing and flapping its way crowlike out to sea.

In any case, in Clayton our rituals are not so dramatic.

From the Clayton Crier: Clayton Crier:I've heard spring's over and summer's here - a little bird told me! School's almost out and the nights are getting hot. And that means only one thing: time for the Wompanoag Valley Sad Festival of Vampires!Yes, step right up, step right up for the best weekend of singing and dancing and carnival rides you'll ever sink your teeth into! The fair is coming to Barley's Field! That means fun, hayrides, clowns, games, carbonation, whipped cream, sacrificial goats in the petting zoo, etc., etc.! And while you're there at the fair on Sat.u.r.day night, from nine to midnight catch the loudspeaker broadcast of our quaint and ancient ritual of binding the Vampire Lord! So come: Listen, eat, drink, and be merry!Sad Festival? It should be called the Happy Festival!- by Cheryl Paluski It has begun.

This is the night of tears; the time of fear; sorrow abiding at the eventide.

Paul and his friend Mark and I are driving to McDonald's. They have a special there in which you can buy two Big Macs for two dollars.

My mother sent me out with Paul. He's going to the big party Tony and Kathy Rigozzi have every year. Tony is Paul's age. I think Kathy is in college by now. They live right next to Barley's Field, where the carnival is, and my mother wants me to go to the carnival. She says my friends will be there. She says that I don't see my friends much anymore. She's worried about me. I don't have the heart to tell her I don't have friends anymore.

"I've heard this party is great," says Mark, sliding his hand up and down the shoulder strap. "I mean, I've heard that sometimes girls dance with no top on . . ."

"No way," says Paul.

"Yeah way."

"No G.o.dd.a.m.n way."

"Yeah way." way."

"No way, you meat-brained monkey-licker."

"What?!?" asks Mark, laughing. "What's that, like, supposed to mean? mean?"

Paul squeals, "How should I know, ear-sucking skunk-tart?"

"Welcome to McDonald's. May I take your order?"

Across the parking lot, there are three girls silhouetted against the streetlights. And I see one has the aura around her, the double shadow. She is slim and beautiful with taut, tan legs. But she is not human. She has the darkness of vampirism all about her.

And I realize: To her, I will have an aura, too. To her, I will have an aura, too.

They are looking this way. I have to hide.

Paul calls into the night, "One double Big Mac Super-Huge Value Pack . . ."

"One for me, too," Mark whispers.

"Make that two. Two double Big Mac Super-Huge Value Packs." Paul turns to me. "b.u.t.tplug?"

But - like a rabbit in headlights - "I don't . . ."

"What?" Paul waits. "What do you want?"

I've panicked. That's it - I jump to the floor. Curl up. Below the level of the windows.

"Chris?" says Paul.

I'm looking down. I'm looking at the upholstery of the car and the rugs. The rugs are littered with crumbs. The back of the driver's seat has split slightly, and white foam is pressing outward at the dirty seam, like spittle round a madman's smile.

"I don't know," I repeat, babbling. "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know."

Mark looks at me. "Something wrong?"

Paul is saying, "This isn't a difficult one, Chris."

"No," says Mark to Paul, seriously. "Turn around. Look at him."

Paul shifts around in his seat. He asks me more carefully, "Hey, what's wrong, man?"

"I don't know. I don't know. Don't look at me. Turn around. McNuggets. Fries. A . . . I don't know."

Mark and Paul look at each other. Paul shrugs.

Mark asks, "Do you think he wants an apple pie?"

Paul searches my eyes, confused, and turns back to the speaker. "I guess a nine-piece Nuggets, large fries . . . You want a drink?"

He waits, facing forward, his eyes creeping around to look at me.

"Medium c.o.ke," he says finally.

"That comes to $12.26. Please proceed to the second window."

"Do you want to go home?" asks Paul. We prowl forward around the topiary Grimace.

"Is that Jenny Morturo?" asks Mark urgently, ducking and pointing behind us. "Wonder if she's going."

"Whoo! Woah, boy!" says Paul, and they give each other five.

Mark is waving like a man on an ice floe meeting an ocean liner.

Jenny Morturo has tumbled dark hair and deep, deep red lipstick. She leans against her car. She waves once, then saunters over. Mark rolls down the window - he gets it wrong at first and starts rolling it up.

The other two - another girl and the vampiress - follow Jenny toward us.

"Hi, Jenny," Mark says.

"Hey. How you doing?" drawls Jenny.

"I'm doing well."

"We're 'well,' too," says Jenny Morturo, smiling. "That's Mark and Paul," Jenny tells her friends. "They're 'well.' This is Ashley."