Excerpt: Outside

Everyone knew that vampires existed, but the problem was that nobody knew where. They were known to frequent dark, gloomy castles in Transylvania (wherever the hell that was) and rainy, boredom-inducing American towns, where they sometimes fell victim to girls of translucent skin and all the personality of scrap of cardboard. Some vampires were known to take to brooding about their condition with a fierce possessiveness, while others were comfortable with the kill, slipping into their fangs like a second skin.

The vampire that Birch was acquainted with fit into none of these vampirical stereotypes. Although on second thought she was perhaps a little more than an acquaintance - more specifically, she was an ex-girlfriend of his, before he had had his Revelation, and with whom he was now, against all odds, extremely good friends with. She had once let slip to Birch that she found leaving her fangs out, wearing excessive eye makeup and whitening her face with rice flour all extremely tacky. Vampires were, in her opinion, at their best when lounging in front of the television in a scrappy t-shirt and short shorts, a Bloody Mary (with added blood) in one hand and a box of Tim Tams in the other, remarking casually at the latest pimply fifteen-minutes-of-fame reality-show contestant, “I bet your blood tastes bad. Real bad.”

Birch had at the time, being sprawled across said couch, fingers itching for a Tim Tam but disgusted at the thought of encountering even the slightest smidgen of blood, been inclined to agree.