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Henry was a zombie. There wasn’t any getting around the fact, and no real explanation for it, either.
One day, he was making his way up the Staircase to Heaven, then he tripped, fell, and found himself waking up back in his body, as if nothing happened.
So that’s how he acted. Like nothing happened.
He’d been this way for a while, and luckily nobody in his life seemed to notice the changes – not that there were too many. He’d loved lettuce since he was a kid, but now that his body had to remain in tip-top shape in order to fight The Rot, it became an even more integral part of his brand. His clumsiness wasn't anything new either, but it was better now that he could barely feel his injuries. Plus, the whole coagulated blood thing made clean-up way easier.
Sure, Henry never thought he’d be grateful for fucked up nerve endings and semi-solid blood, but he never thought that he’d actually have any of those things, either.
Sometimes he felt a bit bad for keeping it a secret. But could you blame him? During movie nights at Drew’s house, his friends had probably watched about a hundred zombie movies. Hell, if he wasn’t one himself, Henry probably would've assumed all zombies were stupid, maniacal, flesh-eating, monsters too.
“Dude, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you think this hard about something in your life.”
Henry quickly turned his head, remembering where he was. “Huh?” He blinked, ignoring the insult.
It was his first Halloween as a zombie (A real one anyway, because Liam still loved to pull up the trick-or-treating photos from sixth grade where Henry dressed up in a shitty Minecraft zombie outfit), but the spooky season had always been a big thing for him and Liam.
Well, Liam mostly.
Yeah, Henry loved dressing up in costumes and getting free candy, but to Liam, Halloween was practically a religion – where the practices included turning his house into a Halloween shrine as soon as October started, and covering his friends’ lockers with fake spiders or fake blood. Hell, Henry could never forget how Jake almost passed out in freshman year from that second thing.
Halloween, or the weeks leading up to it rather, also included Henry and Liam’s tradition of doing weekly horror film marathons every Saturday. Well, films was generous. Every week, Henry and Liam watched the worst horror movies they could find by scouring forum posts and review websites.
Tonight, it just happened to be Liam’s turn to pick. “I said,” he started, motioning to the TV with the remote. “I’m putting on Dracula in the 30th Century, and you can’t say no.”
Of course it was a vampire movie. Over the years, Henry had realised Liam might’ve been the biggest vampire fan ever. Seriously, with the pale skin, red eyes, and terrible sleeping schedule, he might as well have been one.
A scan of the movie’s synopsis told Henry everything he needed to know: A movie from the nineties about a robot Dracula taking the city of Transhumansylvania. He scoffed, “Yeah, with a synopsis like that, I don't think I can,” and as soon as he was done talking, Liam booted up the movie.
The movie was, in all honesty, kind of lame. Don’t get Henry wrong, when Dracula turned out to be some guy painted grey and doing the robot, he laughed until tears escaped his eyes. But when the climax of your movie is all your characters running around some empty playground, it gets pretty boring. So boring that Henry didn’t even realise when he fell asleep.
All he knew is that when he woke up, there was something hot and tingling near his neck. Still, Henry didn’t open his eyes. This had happened before, and usually he’d just drift back to sleep and think that the heat was from a draped blanket, or from Liam sleeping practically on top of him. Jeez, he always let Liam get away with the stupidest shi–
His eyes shot open at the stinging, piercing, feeling in his neck. He’d never felt anything like that before, not since his zombie-fication messed up how he feels things. Instinctively, he bolted upright, right hand jumping up to swipe at the side of his neck. His fingers came back a dark red.
Henry's eyes shot up to Liam, who had quickly moved away to the other side of the sofa with a hand covering his mouth. He looked green, sick. He lowered his hand slightly to speak. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”
“Me?! What’s wrong with you!” Henry shot back, wiping his hand and getting on his knees. “You’re the one going around biting people!” He leaned forward and shot his arms up to grab Liam’s face, using his fingers to open Liam’s mouth.
As he forced Liam’s mouth open, Henry managed to see what he was trying to hide: Fangs. Big and sharp ones, way more realistic-looking than any of the fake plastic teeth he’d seen in costume stores – and, most importantly, they were covered in blood.
What the actual fuck. “Are these real?!” He shouted, eyes darting in between Liam’s eyes and mouth. Yeah, it might not have been the first time he’s done that, but this context was different.
“Obviously?” Liam answered, like it was a stupid question, which it definitely was not, by the way.
Henry pulled his arms back, wiping off his hands on his shorts. “Obviously–” he echoed, before something clicked in his head. He blinked.“Wait– are you an actual vampire?” he asked, voice dry of any humour. Liam’s always had sharp canines, but these were practically supernatural. Besides, Henry thought that Liam was over the whole biting people thing, at least after middle school – and even then, Henry was sure the mark in his neck was going to be permanent.
Liam shoved Henry’s arms away. “Okay, yeah, you got me. I’m a vampire,” he said quickly, making claw motions with his hands. “But more importantly, why do you taste like shit?”
It was a valid question, but Henry ignored it anyway. In his defence, he had valid questions of his own. “Dude– since when? You can’t just drop a bomb on me like that!”
He saw Liam relax his shoulders. “Since always?” His gaze dropped to the floor, cracking a small smile. “I’m gonna be honest, man, I thought you knew. It was obvious. I wouldn't be surprised if Drew and Jake knew.”
“It was not obvious!” Henry cut in and tilted his head. Liam was a weird guy, and maybe Henry wasn't good at gauging what was normal-weird and vampire-weird. “How would I have known?”
Liam snickered and motioned to his face. “Red eyes, pale, pointy ears?”
“I just thought you looked like that,” Henry was quick to answer. “I don’t judge.”
“All the mirrors in my house are covered.”
“Yeah, and that's why you always come to school wearing the same ugly outfit.” (Because Henry did judge, sometimes.)
“I can’t stay outside in the summer for more than, like, three hours.”
“Well, most white people can’t.”
At that, Liam groaned, wiping a hand over his face. “Dude, I literally bit you in middle school.”
“It was your scene phase, I just thought you were being weird,” the shorter boy replied truthfully. Okay, so maybe he was really bad at the whole normal-weird vs. vampire-weird thing. But still.
Liam sighed again, and looked at Henry, exhausted. “Y'know for someone so oblivious, you're really chill about this.”
“I mean, I think it's sick being a vampire,” Henry answered, punching Liam in the arm. He brought his knees up to his chest, and spoke carefully. “It’s better than the whole zombie thing.”
“The whole what?” Liam’s voice sounded breathless, and Henry quickly felt him move over so their arms were pressed together. “What zombie thing?”
“See, I told you! You can’t just drop a bomb on someone like that!” He pointed at Liam’s expression, and the other boy rolled his eyes. “But yeah, it happened way earlier this year. I don’t even know what happened,” he scratched the back of his head. Over and over, he had tried to recall how he died or how he came back and he always came empty-handed.
“That explains why you taste like that, then,” Liam reached for Henry’s hand and fiddled with his fingers. “So can you, like, take your hand off or something?”
“Oh, yeah, so be careful,” the green-haired boy answered, and Liam quickly dropped his hand. It was still attached, luckily. “I have to eat really healthy so all my limbs don't fall off in the middle of class.”
Liam hummed. “Have you ever thought of biting anyone?” His voice trailed up to a high pitch, suggestively.
Henry scrunched his nose. He guessed being a vampire also explained why Liam was a bit of a pervert. “Not you, if that’s what you're wondering,” he nudged Liam’s ribs. “Zombies like brains, and you don’t even have any.”
“Okay–! That was a low blow,” Liam elbowed Henry back.
The zombie snickered. “Yeah, one that you walked right into!” He leaned closer to Liam, but looked away. “Um, honestly though, I’ve thought about it before.”
Liam copied the gesture, resting his head on Henry’s. “Biting people?”
“Biting you,” Henry answered, immediately feeling embarrassed that he said it. For a conversation about consuming human flesh, it felt weirdly vulnerable. He tilted his head back slightly to look at Liam. “Like, if I had to do it, it’d be you. But also that’s illegal so I wouldn’t. When I want… that stuff, I just ask my mom to make steak for dinner. Not that she knows anything.”
He felt Liam nod. “Me, personally, I buy animal blood from the butcher.”
“Ewwww, dude, that’s gross!” Henry suddenly leaned forward, and hugged himself to get away from Liam. “I don’t wanna hangout with you knowing you have blood breath!”
“It’s good! If you were a vampire you’d agree,” Liam crossed his arms defensively. “Besides, you don't even wash your underwear!”
“Can we let that go? I was kidding!” He shoved Liam’s shoulder. “And you’re the one who actually bit me, so…!” He said it accusingly, but there was barely any bite behind his words.
Liam scoffed. “God forbid a vampire be curious,” he muttered under his breath.
Henry rolled his eyes. “Next time you sleep at my house, you’re waking up with teeth marks,” he answered mindlessly. In his head it was only fair. An eye for an eye, a bite for a bite. But when he glanced over, Liam was sitting there with a shit-eating grin. “Jesus, man, not like that. Don’t be a fuckin’ weirdo.”
As if to punctuate the sentence, a howl echoed outside. It was distant, but loud enough to be clearly heard. Henry’s mind wandered, “You think the other guys are like us too?”
The taller boy chuckled. “Yeah, that was literally Jake just then.”
“Really?” Henry raised an eyebrow. It’d be funny if they all managed to band together into some supernatural monster group before they even knew that they were all supernatural monsters.
“No,” Liam tilted his head, looking away for a second. “Probably.”
Henry snickered as he fiddled with the remote, turning on the next bad movie they cued. For his first Halloween as a zombie, Henry thought that this wasn’t so bad at all.