The Experiment

I love writing vampire stories - have done since I was in my teens. And I'm a huge 'Buffy' fan too. So, why not revisit my fun-times with a high school vampire theme? Why not indeed.

enjoy.

My phone chimed again as I stood at my locker and the bell rang for class. It was Mum reminding me to not ‘dally on the way home from school.’

“Yeah, I know.” I muttered grabbing the books I needed and pushing my phone into my bag as I slammed the door and ran to my next class.

There weren’t that many kids in Mr. Clien’s English class today – less than last week – and he was starting look worried as I walked in, “Sorry I’m late.”

“No, it’s okay, sit anywhere, but closer to the front if you can.” He said offered up the empty seats there with his open arms but I hesitated as I noticed nobody else had taken them. He looked over at me, fear oozed from him; and for an adult to show it was bad, “I was told another four aren’t here today.”

“Crap.” I said without thinking, “Sorry... I didn’t mean to...”

“No... it was my reaction too. But come on, sit and we’ll get on with the class.”

I sat near Lisbeth – a chick who normally hated my guts – and she glanced over at me with a scared expression in her eyes, “Missy, are you okay?”

She asked me, “Have you seen Ben?” Ben Fencer was her boyfriend and the quarterback on the football team, “I haven’t seen him all morning.”

Shaking my head, “Normally I see him in home room, but he wasn’t in today.”

“Crap. I didn’t hear from him last night; we talk until late over homework on skype.” She said, “I have a bad feeling about him.”

Looking towards the front of the near-empty class, I sighed, “Same here.”

The bus lurched and I woke from sleeping.

The last thing I remember was walking outside to the car park where my car was to find it wasn’t there anymore. I pulled out my phone and headed back to the building to go inside... then...

“Dammit... what then?” I whispered looking down at my hands to find I was cuffed to the back of the seat in front of me. It was dark outside, and looking out the window, I had no idea where we were going.

“Missy?” a voice hissed from behind me; and I recognised it as Lisbeth’s hoarse voice, “Where are we?” I almost turned around, “Don’t turn around, they’ll notice and you’ll get beaten.”

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I looked out the window again, “I wish I knew. How’d they get you?”

“I was at cheerleader practice... they got the whole team.” She sniffed, “You?”

“I walked out to my car to find it gone. I was going to call my Mum from inside the building.”

A man in black walked up the aisle from the front of the bus, his voice deep and dark reached our ears, “No talking!”

“Yessir.” I mumbled.

We arrived to a large building in the middle of nowhere just as dawn was breaking and colouring the skies. I gazed toward the eastern horizon and wondered if my Mum knew where I was. Did she know what was going on? Was she freaking out? Did she call the police, or where they in on this whole thing?

I’d never know.

Lisbeth stood next to me in her shackles, “Makes me wonder if this will be our last sunrise.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing.”

Once the busload of us were all lined up in twos, we were led off through the security fence and down a long path towards the building, where we were put into cells with the person next to us and left there for a day – or was a week?

We never saw sunlight again.

Lisbeth sat on her bed across from mine crying one ‘day’ when the locks on our door clanged open and the guard stood outside, “Lisbeth Henry and Missy Torrents?”

Lisbeth just sat there looking at the floor, so I answered, “Yep, that’s us.”

“Stand up. Time to move out.”

“Can I ask where we are or what is going on?” I asked.

The guard looked up from his clipboard and stepped inside the cell as I was fitted with shackles, but Lisbeth still sat there crying, “Well, your school was picked for a little experiment Missy. Goodlord who picked your name?”

“My full name is Missouri – Missy is a nickname.” I said.

“Nice. You’re parents were dumb enough to name you after a state.”

“It’s a family name.”

He blinked, blushing a little, “Oh, I see. And well, the grade point average isn’t great, neither is the football team... and well, nobody’s going to miss you all.”

“What?”

“Well, the population of your school are undergoing a few little government experiments. If it works out, well, we’ll move onto the next crappy school and do it too.” He smirked.

I didn’t know what to say, and Lisbeth cried harder as they moved onto her, but she didn’t move to get to her feet, “She’s been like this since we arrived... I tried talking to her, but Lisbeth isn’t like most kids.”

The guard nodded, “Okay... spoiled.” He pulled out his service pistol, checked the clip and readied it.

“No. She lost her boyfriend.”

“Yeah, to us.” He pointed his gun at her head.

“Lisbeth, get up or they’re going to kill you.” I snapped.

Her puffy eyes moved to me, and slowly she stood, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I turned away, thinking he was going to shoot her, but when I didn’t hear anything, I turned back to find he had put his gun back in its holster, and she was next to me, “Don’t do that again.” The moment we stepped out the door, we were given injections into our arms and darkness engulfed us.

I woke in another cell.

This one was bigger and there was a camera watching me.

Looking across the cell was another person – it was Lisbeth, but not her. It’s safe to say that this thing wasn’t human and I had every intention to get away as fast as I could. Lunging toward the glass screen, I felt a high voltage run through me and I was thrown across the room and hit the wall.

The creature just watched with fascination at my reaction towards it. Then it rose from its sitting position and moved towards me, lifted one of its long fingernailed hands towards me and looked into my face with such care I wondered if I was really in danger.

It was then I really looked into the creature’s eyes to find I was looking at ... “Lisbeth?”

“Oh my god, I’m not dreaming am I?”

“What happened? Did you come over all demon-y when you woke up?”

She snapped me a glare, “Well, in actual fact I did.”

“Oh shit. And what happens now? I’m your first meal?”

“No, I’m supposed to turn you into what I am.” She looked down at her hands, “They’re normal – kind of. But I saw a mirror when I was drowsy and waking up from whatever they did to me... and...” she began to cry again.

“Oh jeez, you have to stop crying like this.”

“Missouri, you don’t understand.”

“What?”

“I cast no reflection.” She looked me up and down, “And you smell so good right now.”