Vampirism is Hell. No, its worse than Hell because every time you turn on the TV, some old lady religious nut is on screaming about how you're all sinners and after living a cursed life we'll be lit on fire or staked through the heart or explode in the sunlight then we'll be kicked down to the full blown Hell which probably won't be so bad because our whole vampire life is a giant stepping stone. That's my life. Evil, bloody training wheels. Like I said, vampirism is Hell.

I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. That's it, I swear, end of story. If I hadn't forgotten my homework, I never would have gotten detention. If I hadn't gotten detention, I wouldn't have met Spit. And if I hadn't met Spit, I never would have heard of Damion Caipre. Spit was a smallish guy, with a stupid, blank look on his face. He looked harmless, helpless, the last guy you'd expect to be banging his head violently against the desk. It was the last three months of senior year and the teachers were desperately trying to cram half the year in the detention room, so I was wedged uncomfortably close to Spit and an unnamed girl with a school sweatshirt shoved over the kind of shirt that makes any decently hormonal guy walk repeatedly into a wall.

Spit's head banging had become a steady rhythm when a sharp voice almost screamed, "Angelo Demarc!" Spit shot upright. The teacher had seen him. "Do you have a brain in that head or did you beat it out? Honestly, you'd think…" She continued to mutter to herself long after we could hear. Spit, meanwhile, rotated his entire body to face me. At this point, I'm thinking he's a retard. I mean he's gotta be in special classes, or at least on meds. Or maybe he was one of those kids that went crazy from drugs or something. Either way, all I expected to hear from him was a slight stutter followed by whatever noise you make while drooling.

"A note for the future," he begins. Strange, but at least he wasn't drooling on me. "Concussions are not excuses to miss detention." I couldn't tell if it was a joke or babble or even addressed to me, so I just nodded slightly, which he unfortunately took as an opportunity to continue.

"M'name's Spit," he began with sudden enthusiasm. "I'm a senior here. D'ya know my brother, I think he's in your grade. You're a sophomore, huh?" That made me look in his eyes. Sure, I was short, but so was Spit, and this was the senior detention room.

"No," I began, slightly annoyed. Half an hour in a hot, crammed detention room tends to do that to you. "I'm a senior." At this point the girl next to me and the one next to her had begun watching us. Admittedly, on the scale of fights, this wasn't even registering, but quite frankly there was nothing else to look at and I like to think I'm more interesting than the mole on Mrs. Ganby's upper lip.

"Really? So am I."

"I know. You already said that." This is one of those situations where you have no clue how to respond. A few extremely bored onlookers just want something to happen, but you can't think of a single witty or tough comment to say. And you're in detention with barely enough room to breathe, when the guy starts talking again and won't shut up. So I did the only thing I could think of. I sat with Spit's blank look on my face, and then pushed people out of the way to get the door once the bell rang.

I didn't think about Spit too much the next few days, just avoided the girls who sat next to me. Which was tricky because one of them, (the blond one with two red streaks in her hair) was in my science and history classes. Yet it had been four days and she was still giving me these looks where she'd look sideways at me, and I'd look back and she'd raise her eyebrows then look away seeming embarrassed. I had no clue how to interpret this; heck, it took me about two-hundred looks to even be able to describe it. So I was totally lost and wasn't even sure if she remembered me, at wondering to myself why I even cared. I didn't know this girl, why the hell did I want her to forget so badly? But I did. An aspiration not particularly helped by the fact that Spit showed up one day with a class transfer slip. So he wasn't in special classes.

He took a seat three seats down, between that girl and the captain of the tennis team, Jessica Bradford. You have to know here, that in our school the tennis team was the equivalent of cheerleaders, half because we simply didn't have cheerleaders, and half because their uniforms were tighter then those of the basketball or volleyball teams. And as part of that they had developed the traditional cheerleader arrogance, and of course guys therefore developed the kind of instinctive awkwardness around them unless they were either a football player or sleeping. So Spit was acting weird. But even weirder, Jessica was chatting calmly with him and laughing, actually laughing. No head banging, nobody staring, just a pleasant conversation with Jessica Bradford. That wasn't right. Spit even looked different. He was tanner than he had been, much tanner. I hadn't thought about it, but he was kind of pale before, and now he looked like he had sat in the sun every minute. But it was definitely him, he had the same empty look, and even a girl's touch didn't help it. Now that I looked he was definitely Hispanic, even though his accent was from who knows where. But I was the only one who noticed I thought, or at least I was the only one staring, so I should have expected when Spit raised his hand and called "Hey! Kyle!"

If you're a guy you'll know what I mean when I explain the way this conversation went. Imagine, the equivalent of the head cheerleader staring at you while you try to talk with this guy who you keep thinking of as the guy who tried to give himself a concussion. Picture that, and then watch the girl start casually stroking the other guy's arm, and start gazing at him. Now take a look at the kind of outfit she's wearing. Then try to talk.

You get it.

Anyway, five painful minutes later, Spit tells me to meet him in the cafeteria at lunch. I was confused, to say the least. My head was whirling, mostly with fantasies about Jessica being their, ditching Spit and… well you don't need to know. I didn't like Spit, though, but he was Jessica's boy friend. I went. And from there I was invited to his house. I went.

Spit's house wasn't that interesting. It was pretty big, though, which is hard to get in Philly. He had a few videogames, nothing good, and Jessica didn't go. Half an hour in, I was thinking of excuses to leave. How do you fake your appendix bursting? That's about when Spit started talking.

"Kyle, how do want to see something cool."

"Huh?" Brilliant response, I know, but my mind had been busy with thoughts of appendixes.

"Something really awesome."

"What?"

"Look, just come back tonight and I'll show you then." I considered this for a moment, wondering about all the possible things he could have. His place was pretty big, I guess he had money. That left a really big window. This didn't take too much consideration.

"What about your parents?"

"If you come after 11, they won't be a problem."

I showed up at 11:30, really getting pumped. I had spent the afternoon considering it, and running every possible outcome that could ever happen, and had eventually arrived at the conclusion that whatever it was it was going to be great. But there were too many possibilities and I figured at worst it was pot. I'd had a few beers at parties before, never done anything hard though. And Spit didn't seem stupid. He wouldn't go crazy.

Anyway when Spit opened the door, he had this sort of excited expression which was a big jump from how he usually looked, so I figured it had to be good. If Jessica Bradford didn't get rid of it, then this had to be incredible. But, in one great sense of anti-climax, it was a peanut butter sandwich.

"Uh, Spit?"

"Eat it. You'll want it, trust me."

"Um, right." I took a few bites, bewildered, when he began again. "Well, if we leave now we won't wake up anybody."

"You parents are home?"

"Nah, my little sister, Cierra. Come on."

"Where?"

"It's only a mile."

I paused mid-bite. I didn't like this idea. I've always hated walking around after dark. And going to an unknown occasion at 11:45 was stupid. But I found myself trusting Spit and shirking whatever doubts I had. And Spit was excited so I couldn't chicken out.

"What is it?" I asked, trying to sound cool.

"You'll see." He stepped out onto the threshold. He had told me earlier he didn't have a car, and he just sauntered off to the left. I chased after him, still anxious but trying no to show it, or speak. It was too dark to read my watch as we traveled, so I tried to forget about my thoughts and focused on not tripping or losing Spit. I was amazed at how calmly and easily he navigated like he had walked this path nightly. And he was even more confident as he stopped.

The place didn't look abandoned exactly, there were plenty of places like that and this place did not have that feel. It was too, clean, too big. But the windows were boarded off carefully, so not even a crack of the inside showed. I couldn't tell how many rooms there were, but it was decent sized. Spit knocked on the door and for the first time a flash of fear emerged on his face and he flinched a little when a smooth voice called, sounding almost annoyed, "You know you can come in." Spit was surprised, and so was I. I could have run then, I know. They wouldn't have stopped me, but I had no idea what was in that building and I willed myself to follow Spit inside.

There were no lights inside. Not one, and the only illumination was from the street lights flickering outside the open door. But by that little light I could see the pale outline of a guy about my age. He was pale and stoic.

"Alex if you…" he looked up at us and we registered in his mind, "oh, Angelo, and," he paused as if in distaste, "friend."

His eyes stared strangely into mine. An emotion that rang vaguely of fear trickled at the edge of my mind, but a thin, impermeable layer of fog held it at by. It was only those green eyes that bore into my consciousness. But he looked bored and slightly repulsed and turned toward Spit.

"Well, now?" The instant he spoke to another I snapped out of it and full blown hysteria rang through me, but in the second before I regained my tongue, Spit spoke.

"Uh, yeah, now," Spit started, with an unmistakable tremor in his voice, "This is, uh, Kyle." He gasped out my name after a pause, as if it hurt him somehow.

And then I could talk again and with my voice rising with each word I screamed, "Spit! What the hell is going on here?"

Spit looked up suddenly from the spot he was staring at on the ground, but he didn't see me, he looked at the other boy, and suddenly his blank look came back and with his tremor he started, "Don't worry, Kyle. You've just had your first experience with vampire hypnosis. You get used to it."

I found myself shaking Spit, trying to punch him, missing again and again, shaken. What was happening? Who was this guy? Why did spit take me here? How can I get out?

"Angelo, you didn't tell him," the other boy accused.

"You said tell no one." He sounded almost indignant, childish.

He started to reply and then just shook his head and slapped himself on the forehead. "Never mind. Norm, shut the door."

The words were scarcely out of his mouth then the door was closed. I imagine someone stood guarding it , but was the last light had been extinguished it was too dark to tell. The last thing I felt was a sudden shock on my neck. I don't know if everything went black, but if it did, it didn't make much of a difference.