Prologue

Join me for this anime/manga inspired tale of high school student Nora and her vampire guy problems...

Prologue

A vampire moved in next door to us this past summer. I knew he was a vamp right away because he was so unbelievably freaking hot. So hot it was almost unnatural. Kind of like those anime boys I watch on crunchy roll. You know the kind -  so pretty most girls would throw themselves in traffic just to meet them. Perfect hair, perfect eyes, perfect teeth, beautifully bare chested through half the episode. Of course I should mention that these boys usually hook up with perfect anime girls with cutesy faces, girly voices, and breasts so large you could carry your lunch tray on them. I was none of these and so I took one look at the vampire boy who was standing on his front porch looking up at the lonely night and said, "yeah, whatever." Then I returned to the manga book I had been reading before I noticed him. Ironically it just happened to be about vampires...

It was hard to concentrate on the book. Once you have seen a vampire they kind of stick in your head even if you didn't get a good look at them. With my face buried in the manga's cute illustrations I tried not to think of that shadowy figure out there on his porch but I kept looking up at my window wondering if I was going to see him hovering outside the glass saying "come on, invite me in." I had never had a boy in my bedroom before and I certainly wasn't going to start with some guy with sharp teeth and a lust for blood.

I was looking back down at the book when I heard the scratching on the glass. I looked up to see something raking across the window. It seemed a fog had descended on our valley and it was all swirling outside my window. I got up from my bed and stepped quietly to look out. Cautiously taking a peek, something scraped the window again. To my surprise, or perhaps disappointment, it was nothing but my cat Sissy trying to get in after a night on the prowl.

I sighed, "Oh, it's you," and opened the window to let her in. She came in easily enough but looking past her I saw him again. It looked like he hadn’t even moved. He was still staring up into the night sky, and against this backdrop I noticed a few things about him. First, he was thin and pale unlike the boys at my school, who all seemed to think they were the coolest thing since Nutella. Half of them seemed more interested in showing their muscles to each other or taking selfies more than the girls who made fools of themselves chasing after them. But this boy was no football star in the making; physique wise he had more in common with the library nerds or science geeks.

Second thing I noticed was that his hair was blonde and uncombed. Again, this set him apart from over half the people I knew. Everyone at Chelsea Valley High seemed obsessed with the whole goth look, meaning they all dyed their hair black. Last year the wrestling team all dyed their hair because they thought it made them look meaner. They still lost. Hair may not make the man, but this vampire boy must not have known this because it sure made him more arresting to the eye.

The final thing I noticed about him while he stood there was that he wasn’t from around here. He looked Asian, probably Japanese. And since there was no Japanese community in Chelsea Valley this made him the only Asian for miles and miles. Normally, around about this time, my mind would have been screaming, “Girl, you have a hot blonde Asian guy living next door! get busy”, but that didn’t happen this time because no matter how you cut it I knew he was a vampire and I was going to have to kill him.

"Vampire Boys Of Summer" 2015 Paul D. Aronson. All Rights Reserved.

Reviews

[Unpeeled_Banana]

The main character seems very nonchalant about realizing her next door neighbor is a vampire. How does being handsome connect with vampirism? This story seems a bit comedic. If you wanted to add some horror element, maybe start with her knowing the next door neighbor is a vampire because she saw him in the act, doing something people would find scary... which is why she is content with having to kill him at the end of the prologue. Mentioning how hot he is might be a good side-note that would still have that funny spark.

[Paul D. Aronson]

Thank you for your comments. Humor first is what I was going for in this piece and I'm glad to see that was gotten. The horror in this story is meant to be secondary. The book is anime/ manga influenced and so there will be a lot of elements that just don't seem realistic based on modern literature tastes. I'm hoping that will create a larger sense of fun in the course of the story. Thanks for reading :)