Vampire High School (Book 1: Gregor Academy) Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Ian Hall and Lachelle Miller. Hallanish Publishing, thru Smashwords Inc.

  ISBN; 978-1-4661-3215-3

  All rights reserved, and the authors reserve the right to re-produce this book, or parts thereof, in any way whatsoever.

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  While every effort has been made to cleanly edit the text, through human error and automatic formatting, typos do slip in. If you find errors, accept my apology, but bring it to my attention, so I can continue to provide a better book for future readers. The book will then be updated periodically to reflect newer and purer editions. Thank you.

  Vampire High School; A Brand New Vampire World.

  The Trilogy; out on eBooks everywhere;

  Vampire High School Book 1: Gregor Academy

  Vampire High School. Book 2: The Helsing Diaries.

  Vampire High School. Book 3: The Rage Wars.

  Coming soon;

  Vampire High School. Book 4: The Blood Red Roses.

  And our new ‘backstory’ novellas;

  Vampire High School New Blood 1: Donny Kelp

  (The story of Jackson Cole)

  Vampire High School New Blood 2: Alan McCartney

  Vampire High School Old Blood 1: Howard Weeks

  And coming soon

  Vampire High School Old Blood 2: Tomas Lucescu

  Vampire High School. Book 1: Gregor Academy

  By Ian Hall and Lachelle Miller

  Contents;

  Chapter1. The Visiting Cheerleader.

  Chapter 2. The Gregor Six.

  Chapter 3. Conflict of Interests.

  Chapter 4. The Myth Takes Hold.

  Chapter 5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

  Chapter 6. Being a Helsing.

  Chapter 7. Buffing It All Up.

  Chapter 8. The Cheerleader Returns.

  Chapter 9. Vampire Executioner.

  Chapter 10. More Questions Than Answers.

  Chapter 11. Vampire’s Revenge.

  Chapter 12. Keeping the Story Straight.

  Chapter 13. Going All Corporate.

  Chapter 14. New Car, No Hope.

  Chapter 15. Break a Leg.

  Vampire High School

  Book 1: Gregor Academy

  Chapter One. The Visiting Cheerleader.

  It was Friday evening; football night.

  The first High School game of the season, and there were kids everywhere. The visitors, nearby Everton High, hadn’t arrived in numbers yet, so the area was a sea of White and Crimson. Flags, jackets, shirts; it was great. The Gregor Academy marching band was drilling near the main entrance, doing dips and the well-rehearsed shimmies, the final practice before taking to the field.

  My best friend, Alan McCartney was somewhere in the middle; first clarinet. Great guy, he’s got a bunch of the greatest friends, plays clarinet and guitar. Girls melt at his feet most of the time. Everyone wished they were Alan.

  I’ve known him for just over a year.

  The band wears white, with burgundy trimmings, (Mrs. McCartney was always complaining and washing Alan’s uniform) and the white was shining like fresh snow in the early floodlights. I stood waiting for the cheerleaders who normally followed the band; I mean, a guy’s got to have some entertainment in his life.

  The band turned, doing a boogie version of the school’s anthem, (Go Hawks!) when the music slowly fizzled to silence. The band began to run in all directions; it was like someone let off the stink-bomb of a lifetime. The musicians evaporated from the centre out, and I just watched in fascination as some stampeded towards me to safety.

  I jumped up on a low wall, and clung one handed to the black lamppost like that guy in “Singing in the Rain”.

  When it all was quiet, standing alone on the concrete was Alan, kissing a visiting cheerleader.

  Well.

  At first I thought they were kissing. Her back was to me, and I couldn’t see much of anything at all.

  (I heard later that she marched with him, holding his hand down her top; so he wasn’t playing much clarinet. Then she got kinda passionate, and drilled his neck).

  As the crowd cleared, they were standing in a crazy tight embrace. She had one hand on his crotch, and she was feverishly chewing at his neck. This chick had the cutest butt you’d ever seen, long blond hair, everything a guy could want. And she was munching on my best friend.

  I was just beginning to get a wee tad jealous, when I suddenly knew something was way wrong.

  Alan dropped his clarinet- his pride and joy. His folks had paid a fortune for it.

  The ebony tip hit the concrete and shattered, sending shards of black wood and silver parts in all directions.

  Then this cheerleader turned round to face me, and I saw Alan’s neck. Man, no matter what stain-fighter Mrs. McCartney was going to use, she wasn’t getting that color out in a hurry.

  “Mandy.” I hissed. I didn’t know her second name, but I knew they had an off-and-on thing going on.

  My best friend’s white tunic was deepest red from his neck to his balls, and spreading lower as my mouth opened. It hung in shreds from his shoulder. Arcs of blood pumped rhythmically from his neck, the deep red pulses flashing in the spotlights.

  “Help!” I roared, but it did more harm than good. Hearing my cry, Mandy let Alan go, and he fell to the ground like an empty suit.

  Mandy caught my stare and flashed me a fleshy-bloody grin, then ran off as fast as her pretty legs would go.

  Man, her tits bounced real good.

  Yeah, I know I’m going to get some flak for that observation, but there are a few facts to learn before jumping to the wrong conclusions about me.

  My name is Lyman George Bracks, and despite all the alliteration and double entendre that my friends could have found in my triple barrel, people still call me ‘Red’.

  “Yeah, so what?” You ask.

  I have the ultimate curse; a mop of shaggy red hair. Yeah. Laugh now, but you don’t have to deal with it every day.

  I do.

  I know I’m destined to never getting to first base with any girl anywhere, because they’ve already been warned off by their friends for even thinking about dating a ‘ginge’.

  Yeah, laugh.

  So, yes, I did check out Mandy’s tits as she ran away.

  I waited till the last of the retreating bandsmen had passed, then I ran to Alan’s side. I knelt down on the grey stone and lifted his body onto my lap. The blood was still pumping from his neck, so I put my hands on the worst parts to try and stem the flow.

  “You’ll need replacing in the band.” I joked through my tears. “When your throat’s ripped out by a visiting cheerleader, you’re not likely to be returning to the Gregor Academy marching band. At least not any time soon.”

  Go Hawks!

  I thought of the opponents; from Everton High, a town ten miles west.

  I lifted my eyes to see the crowd, gathering round me. A hundred cell phones were dialing 911. “Man, this is going to put an edge on the age-old rivalry.”


  ~ ~ ~

  Hi. My name’s Mandy. Mandy Cross.

  Being a vampire’s not necessarily all fun and games. Sometimes it kinda sucks. Pun intended. First of all- you’re technically dead. Secondly- you have to eat your friends. Thirdly- after a couple snack attacks you don’t have too many friends left. Least not the human ones.

  And if that’s not bad enough- then to be a vampire and have your unbeating heart ripped right out of your chest, thrown to the ground and marched over by some fanged Don Juan…

  If you’re buying into that fire crotch’s BS about Alan being all Mr. Wonderful, then you’re just as lame as he is. Pick up Gregor Academy (Vampire High), turn it upside down and shake. Not one of the jerk-offs that falls out will know the real Alan McCartney like I did.

  The guy was a douche.

  He had it coming. And if you just skip over all the chapters written by that effing retard Lyman George Bracks, I’ll tell you the for-real story. Of course- if you like being a loser- listen to Lyman, the King of Loser-Town.

  BTW—he was totally checking out my rack as I was running away. What a geek.

  Last summer was a very rough time for me.

  I should have been a senior at Everton High this year; the school for regular kids, who haven’t been forced to drink vampire blood, killed and then come back to life.

  Like I was saying… last summer was not a good time. I’d spent my junior year being all into this total jock called Craig. I was seriously in love with this guy; we did it and everything. But, soon as summer hit, he hooked up with some other chick and like totally just blew me off.

  BTW- that other chick just happened to be my BFF, Cami. Spoiler alert: Cami is now fish food.

  That was one of the things that was so totally awesome about getting in with a real life vampire. Alan was all “you don’t have to take s-h-i-t from anyone; your soul is already gone, so it’s not like you can go to Hell or anything”.

  But, it’s not like I just went “Oh, cool. I’ll become a vamp so I can tear out Cami’s throat.” In fact, it took a long time for me to make that decision. Not that Alan didn’t work overtime to try to convince me it was worth the gross blood sucking and even getting bitten. Seriously- that dude was so stoked up on plasma half the time who knows if he really believed what he was saying.

  His VH buddy’s gonna try to tell you Alan was all cool and stuff, such a nice vampire and wouldn’t hurt anybody. Like I said before, though- I’m the one who really knew him. He’d jump through my bedroom window at two in the morning and have red Kool-Aide stains all over his face. Except it wasn’t red Kool-Aide. He told me to pretend that it was so I wouldn’t totally hurl. But, for real, it was… feline blood. Yep- that a-hole drank cats! One of my cats even. Mr. Stinky; may he rest in peace.

  That’s how Alan and me met, in fact. I was so depressed that summer that I couldn’t sleep like at all. So, I’d go out to the gazebo in the middle of the night and just kind of, you know… chill. One night I was sitting there; ironically reading Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith, when I heard a rustling in the hydrangeas behind me.

  I dropped my book and ran for the back door. I don’t know why I did this- total brain fart- but, instead of running inside, I just flicked on the flood lights and stood there like a dum dum.

  I made that kissing sound you call cats with, “Stinkmesister, is that you, baby? C’mere, Stinkyson…”

  I watched in like total horror as my sweet little Persian came limping out from behind the hydrangeas. Two stumbling steps later and he fell over; dead as a dodo. I freaked and then launched into some weird Superwoman mode.

  The rake was just like leaning up against the house so I grabbed it and went to town on the bushes. Then I just like hit something that couldn’t have been bush. Next thing I know this dude is like popping up from behind the plants, blood all over his face and holding up his hands like I was gonna arrest him or something.

  “Okay- knock it off,” he said.

  I totally slugged him with the metal part of the rack. The pointy things went right into this temple and he dropped. I was so pissed about my cat that I didn’t care; I went to Mr. Stinky and tried CPR.

  Of course, Mr. Stinky stayed dead. But, the guy with the rake for a face didn’t. He crawled at me like a snake, all yellow-eyed and bleeding. Then he grabbed my ankle and bit. It only took a little blood for him to heal.

  Anyway… that’s how Alan McCartney and me became friends.

  ~ ~ ~

  The cops were called of course, I mean, a hundred piece marching band has at least fifty cellphones in pockets or inside bra cups, but that kind of stuff takes a while to arrive. I knelt in the growing pool of blood and held him and cried. The rest of the band soon came round, but there was no “Let’s do what we learned in First Aid”. That bitch had hit a big artery, and there was no way back.

  Alan was either very dead, or dying before my eyes.

  Trust me, I was sure.

  In two minutes he’d bled out totally, I was kneeling in his shiny red-ochre, probably ten others were standing in the same growing pool.

  Then, bursting through the silence like a firework on the fourth of July, Grant Porteus hit the first notes of ‘Last Post’ on his cornet. I knew it was Grant without looking up. Alan was pretty well liked, and Grant was the kind of guy who knew instinctively the right thing to do; always.

  For all the hundred or so kids on the concrete, we were pretty quiet.

  The ambulance eventually came. Its siren pierced the silence, and the band parted reluctantly to let the paramedics through.

  They didn’t attempt resuscitation though, they just nudged me out of the way, wrapped him up, lifted the body onto a gurney, then left.

  The police came and like school kids all over the country, the band kind of dispersed, standing in guilty groups, most having nothing to say.

  A few did something very strange, and they all did it in the same way. In the midst of all this weirdness, it was weirder.

  They bent down to the pool of blood, ran their forefinger in it, and licked it clean. I counted them; six altogether. I knew them all; counted them as quasi friends; friends by association with Alan, no more.

  I didn’t ask. I just observed. But I took mental note of the names of ‘the six’.

  Soon, a cop tapped me on the shoulder and asked me questions.

  “Mandy something.” I answered. I wanted to mention her tits, but I just closed my eyes and remembered them.

  “Do you know her?”

  “She came to school once.”

  “Here? To Gregor Academy? When?”

  “Last week. I don’t know.” I must have looked a real fruit case, but he took my name, and told me they’d be back for more questions later. “Alan spoke to her. That’s all I know.”

  With my bottom of my shirt, and my jeans all covered in his blood, I kinda wandered around aimlessly after that.

  “Tonight’s Game is Postponed”, the big electronic scoreboard said ten minutes later.

  I looked around for a friendly face, but found none. Girls were crying, but each of them seemed to have someone with them, and I wasn’t bold enough to intrude.

  I looked for ‘the six’, but they were conspicuous by their absence.

  In the depths of my loneliness, I decided to go home, and set out for the gate. I was walking past the school sign when I spotted Dorothy Squires sitting on the curb. She was one of our cheerleaders, and sitting so low, her knees were high in the air, her already short skirt was bunched up at her waist. She wasn’t crying, but she looked pretty beat up.

  “You ok?” I asked.

  Okay, I know it was a dumb thing to say, but I wasn’t really expecting an answer anyway, she’s a cheerleader, and they don’t talk to the likes of me.

  She looked up at me, and presented a grim smile. Lips closed. Then she stuck her legs out onto the road, and smoothed her skirt down. It was too late, I’d already seen her white knickers lots of times on the field. She was a cheerleader for go
odness sake.

  “Hi, Lyman.” She sniffed, then pointed up to my bloody clothes. “You’re covered in his blood.”

  Lyman, the name hit the back of my brain in microseconds. She hadn’t called me ‘Red’. No one called me Lyman, except grown-ups.

  “You need anything?” I asked, hoping it was a grope or something. I had nothing else; no cigarettes, no gum.

  Dorothy got unsteadily to her feet. “You guys were close, huh?”

  My tears started without warning. I felt a fool until she came close and hugged me. Not to lose a chance to feel those goodies against my chest, I hugged her back, but the tears didn’t stop, even though I wanted them to.

  My friend had just died, and here I was, getting farther with any girl ever. And Dorothy Squires was a cheerleader!

  She held me then, stepping back, looked up into my eyes. Man I thought we were going to kiss. I moved forward like the awkward geek that I was and she instantly held a forefinger in the air between us.

  No kiss then.

  She was shaking her head slightly, but for some reason I focused on the finger.

  It was the bar to our kiss; but it was more.

  Her nails were manicured, her fingernails varnished white.

  But under the nail, winking at me like a sliver moon was a wet ridge of crimson.

  The white varnished part was licked clean, but under her fingernail, Dorothy Squires had Alan McCartney’s blood.

  ~ ~ ~

  Okay. Back to me- Mandy.

  There are lots of things humans think about vampires that are just totally false. Let’s get them out of the way right now.

  First of all: vampires like totally “disintegrate” in the sunlight. Give me a break. Really? You’re telling me that you believe if this supernatural predator was coming at your throat- all you’d have to do is raise the shade and kill it off?

  Not so much. Vampires troll the nights when they need to feed. Only because we’ve got amazing see-in-the-dark vision and humans don’t. It’s much stealthier to catch a prey that can’t see you back. But- yeah- we can totally come out during the day, too.

  Oh… and garlic. Kind of one of my fave’s, people. Especially with pasta and mushrooms. So, that’s another myth I’d like to shoot down. Crosses don’t burn us. We don’t wear black capes, we don’t have unfolded wings on our backs or turn into bats.