THIS NIGHT SUCKS
by Elizabeth J.M. Walker
YA Paranormal
Mirror World Publishing
94 pages
Lana is a high school senior enrolled in Vampire Education – a class to teach students about the very real presence of vampires in the world. Lana and her classmates don’t really expect to meet up with any undead bloodsuckers. Vampires are a lot like other scary things that supposedly exist but you hope you’ll never come across: nudist colonies, mad cow disease, and your parents’ sex life.
What is part of Lana’s everyday reality is navigating through one last year of high school while desperately trying to be less nerdy. She still loves spaceships, fantasy novels, and cat stickers, but she also recently got her braces removed, grew boobs, and is working on the makeup thing. She never expected her crush-of-a-lifetime Pete to even notice her – let alone ask her out on a date.
The date is going great until Pete’s ex-girlfriend Katy shows up, all bloody and pissed off. Lana quickly realizes that Katy is not just her ordinary bitchy self – she has been turned into a vampire. After a near death experience, Lana learns that she is changing into a vampire too.
Lana needs answers, and the only way to get them is to find the vampire who started the chain of events – and to find him before sunrise...
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EXCERPT!!!
The overconfident nerd-boys tried to reel the former nerd-girl into their chess club lunch dates and midterm study sessions. They saw one of their own female counterparts straying from her herd and saw it as their time to pounce. Trying to talk to any of the nerd-girls while surrounded by her friends was impossible. Nerd-girls, even with all their genius brain cells, still seemed to be under the impression that boys were icky and that you could be impregnated by a handshake. They were probably right, at least about the boys being icky part, considering how hormonally charged Alan seemed to be and how often he tried to rekindle what we once shared on a snowy playground many years ago.
Case in point, our current conversation: “If you need help studying for the Vampire Ed final, I could be your study partner,” Alan says. “My parents are going to Montréal for the weekend, so we’ll have the whole house to ourselves to study in peace.”
I continue trying to ignore him as he takes the seat next to me in Art class. I work in silence on my newest abstract art piece which I have titled: Lana Tries to Draw a Bowl of Oranges. Alan works diligently on his watercolour dragon project, which looks exactly how a real dragon would look, if dragons were real. (Note: I totally wish dragons were real. I mean, as long as they’re the nice kind that noble heroes learn how to ride and use to help protect the realm – not the other kind that are evil and burn villages.)
“I heard the theme for prom is going to be Under the Sea,” he suddenly says and I almost vomit on my oranges. This can’t be happening. I thought I had at least another week of ignoring to do and then he’d get the hint and not ask me to prom.
“I clean up pretty good. You know, when I’m not wearing all my Hunter stuff,” he continues.
Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention: the really serious Hunters tend to wear cargo pants full of extra garlic and silver crap as well as knee pads and elbow pads – at all times. Even during the day. At school. In Art class. While sitting next to a semi-pretty girl and trying to ask her out to prom.
“Of course, I would still bring my vampire survival kit with me to prom,” Alan rambles on, full of bravado and completely oblivious as to how ill I feel at the prospect of going to prom, let alone with him. “Vampires don’t stop feeding because a bunch of teens want to have a party.”
“Are you really that clueless?” I ask him.
He looks taken aback. A little bit hurt. He rubs at his left eye behind his dorky round glasses that only Harry Potter can pull off, because Daniel Radcliffe is actually pretty hot.
“Well…what? What do you mean?” he asks.
“I’m not going to prom with you,” I tell him.
And here she is. . .
ELIZABETH J. M. WALKER!!!
Elizabeth J. M. Walker lives in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. She has always loved books and writing. As a teen she discovered zines, which inspired her to publish her own litzine of odd fairy tales for over a decade.
She Dreamed of Dragons is her first novel.
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