My Secret Life As A Teenage Vampire - A Young Adult Vampire Series

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  One

  “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” Edgar Allen Poe

  You know that feeling – that unsettled, I-forgot-to-turn-off-my-flat-iron feeling? The one that no matter how hard you try, you can’t get out of your mind? Sucks, right? Now, multiply that feeling by a million… why, you ask?

  Because I can’t remember who I am.

  I mean, it’s not like I’ve forgotten how to dress myself, brush my teeth, or turn down the volume on the tv remote. I remember that stuff. But, after the accident, I couldn’t remember anything about my life. Not my parents or my childhood – or even the music I liked or food I enjoyed. I couldn’t even remember my favorite color, which I was assured was red.

  I’m having to learn myself all over again.

  Adapting to what my doctors called ‘normal life’ has been anything but easy. Luckily, my parents made the decision to move to Astoria long before my tragic mishap; so, I didn’t have to feel guilty about leaving my forgotten life behind. I was told that Atchison had been our home since I was two.

  We were moving to Oregon. Astoria, to be exact.

  I’d never been anywhere outside of Kansas, let alone halfway across the country, I think. Not that I remembered any of my life back in Atchison, but I tried to piece my life together with all the information my parents had given me.

  I stared passed my reflection in the backseat window to the towering evergreen trees as they blurred by. Thick fog hung like cotton in their tall bows. At that moment, I longed to feel the warmth of sun on my skin although it was cloaked somewhere in the vast nothingness of grey looming above us.

  I swallowed hard and turned to the dark-haired boy sitting next to me. My brother, Nate, I was told. He was a good-looking kid, but we had no commonality aside from the dark hair and fair complexion.

  “Are you excited?” I asked him with as much enthusiasm I could muster. While I thought he was pretty cool for a kid, it was like talking to a complete stranger.

  The boy’s mouth curled up at the edges as he nodded but the smile never reached his eyes. “Uh, yeah. I can’t wait to see the ocean!” he said with all the eloquence of a nine-year-old.

  “Me too,” I replied with what felt like a grin. “You know, they filmed a movie in Astoria.” I caught a glimpse of Mom’s approving gaze in the rear-view mirror. She winked, and I turned back to Nate.

  “They did?” he said with his eyes lighting up at the word filmed. Nate had a passion for filming absolutely everything. Or so I discovered when I woke up in the hospital to the sight of video camera’s blinking red light in my face. Even now, his favorite camera lay dormant at his side.

  “Yes,” I said, adjusting a stray pieced of hair, tucking it behind my ear. “But it’s old. I don’t know if you’d like it,” I said, shrugging with my pretend indifference. “It’s about hidden treasure… and thieves.”

  “No, that sounds cool!” he said quickly, leaning closer to me with his eyes sparkling. I smiled. Apparently, I captured his interest.

  “Let’s watch it together when we get to the new house,” he said, then added, “you know, like we used to.”

  I shrugged again, turning back to view the new green world outside of my window. “Guess you’ll have to ask mom if we can.”

  “Mom?” he asked quickly.

  I looked to the woman in the front seat. She was strikingly beautiful for any age. Chestnut waves fell in loose curls around her face and her bright, emerald eyes lit up in the rear-view.

  “We will have to get your dad to dig out the player.” Mom looked at the man who was fast asleep in the passenger seat and smiled warmly, “but I think it’s a great idea, Mary.”

  “Yes!” Nate said, holding his fist out in front of him and pulling it down.

  I chuckled and shook my head. It was a great break in the silence of our drive to Astoria.

  I’d Googled the port city of Astoria over a hundred times after they told me we were moving there. Google. That was another thing I had full recollection of, which had come as a complete surprise during my tests. Why would my brain hold on to such trivial information yet block my real memories?

  “Look at that,” Mom said, gesturing out the window to the place where a mighty river raced to the ocean. “The Columbia River.”

  Nate and I both stared out of the window, admiring the vast water that ran alongside us and disappeared over the horizon. Mountains rose dramatically from the shore of the other side of the river.

  I sighed. Our new home - what would it be like there? I pressed my head against the cool, glass window and closed my eyes.

  My senior year of high school would be at Astoria High School. I wanted to feel jaded at the thought of starting a new school for my senior year, as any teen would. I couldn’t though. How could I hate my new school when I can’t remember my old one?

  I sighed.

  God, I just wanted to feel normal again.

  Honestly, I wasn’t sad about my memory loss, just frustrated. It’s one thing to forget a friend’s birthday… but your own? I felt stupid.

  After waking up in the hospital two weeks ago, I went home and raked through every family album, every single piece of paper with my name, Mary Shuman, on it. I wanted to figure out who Mary Shuman was. And everything I’d found was mildly helpful at best.

  Mary Shuman was cheerful, had a decent number of friends back home, a taste for KitKat bars and played the violin; though, I’d yet to test that talent. Mary Shuman seemed a perfectly wonderful human and yet, I still had no idea who she really was. I opened my eyes as Dad stirred in the passenger seat.

  I watched him for a moment and smiled. Of my family, he was the only I felt I resembled, but only slightly. Dark hair, fair complexion, and large brown eyes. He too, was very handsome, for a dad, anyway. I could see why mom had been drawn to him. For the most part, I had a rather good-looking family.

  Me? I was okay, but nothing in comparison to the rest of my family.

  We passed through Portland, which I’d read quite a lot about, and continued through the fir tree-covered landscape on toward our destination. As we drove, the tree-scape thickened, firs reached higher and the houses grew further and further apart. The sun, which had remained behind cloud cover for most of the drive, appeared to be at its lowest point as tiny streaks of purple, orange, and pink smoldered between the gaps in the overcast sky.

  I found myself drifting to sleep and before I knew it, a hand shook me awake.

  “We’re here,” Nate said.

  Car doors opening echoed around me as I took a moment to orient myself. A metallic, after-nap taste filled my mouth as I tried to blink away the fog. After a moment, I got out of the car to help with the unpacking. Finally, I ascended the steps of our new home in Astoria carrying a box of my belongings.

  Somewhere upstairs, my bed was waiting for me. Oh, my bed.

  Our furniture was moved from Atchison a couple of days ago. Tempting as it was to head directly for my room, I knew I ought to at least give the place a look around.

  The ever-darkening sky made it difficult to see much of the exterior of our new home. However, I’d seen pictures of it online and knew the all-red, wood paneling, and deep-brown front door made for a less than pleasant aesthetic. Despite the colors, the Victorian-esque cons
truction told me it had been a looker at some point in the past.

  I walked in the door and looked around with a frown. The interior wasn’t much better. Someone sure had poor taste in decor. The tan carpet in the living room gave way to stained wood floors in the floral wallpaper-covered kitchen. Was floral wallpaper still even a thing? A large stone fireplace greedily occupied much of one wall of the family room. A wide staircase led upstairs to the kids’ bedrooms, each on the other side of a shared bathroom.

  I slowly walked up the creaking staircase, running my hand over the smooth, wood railing. Nate shoved past me as he ran up the stairs. He looked in one room and then the other before going into the one on the left, slamming the door behind him.

  “This one’s mine,” Nate shouted from inside the room. I shrugged. Guess that meant the bedroom on the right was mine.

  I sighed, letting my shoulders sag a bit. “Thanks,” I called, twisting the bronze doorknob.

  I opened the door and stopped.

  De ja vu. I shivered.

  Why did that keep happening? It was becoming a post-accident norm. I’d see something, feel a strong emotional pull this way or that. Seemed to be the only way I learned about myself. Like the first time I tried steak after I left the hospital—I couldn’t stop from eating an entire rare 12oz ribeye. I was positive it had to be my favorite food.

  God, the flavor of the meat.

  Or the velvety depth of a rich red wine that mom and dad allowed me to drink at dinner – on very rare occasions. Even the first tattoo I saw after the accident. I had a sort of connection with it, even though I don’t have any.

  So, what was it about the bland grey paint of my new bedroom that rattled some sort of memory? I sat the box down on my bed and went to the window. It was dressed in more hideous floral patterns. I pulled back the curtain gently, as to not disturb dust or whatever, and peered out the window. The world outside was dark save for street lights, which faded in the fog and the inky night.

  Nate poked his head in through the open doorway—blinking camera in hand. “So…” he said with a mischievous grin, “what cha think?”

  “I think,” I said, turning dramatically toward him with a hand on my hip, “that if you’re room isn’t also dull grey…you’re going to help me repaint this.” I gestured to each of the four walls.

  “I think,” he said, mimicking my tone, “that you snoozed, so you lost.”

  He quickly turned to leave but I was faster and grabbed the back of his shirt.

  “Hey!” he yelled as I tackled him to the floor and pinned his arms beneath my knees, tossing his camera lightly to the side. “No fair!” He struggled but was no match for me. “Mom! Mary’s trying to kill me!”

  I laughed evilly with my hands in the air in mock-victory.

  “Mary,” Dad’s voice carried up the stairs, “stop trying to kill your brother. You’re supposed to wait until he’s asleep.”

  Nate and I started laughing immediately and my moment of weakness allowed him to wriggle out from under me. It’d been the first time we’d had any real fun together since the accident.

  I stood and took a deep breath. I could hear the shuffling of feet, large boxes and furniture from downstairs. There would be no lack of those sounds tonight. I sighed and opened the box on my bed. It was filled with a variety of clothes Mom and I recently purchased for school. I pulled a light-blue sweater and a pair of jeans out and laid them out nicely on the bed. I stared at the clothing for a moment. Did they fit the first day of my new school? School started tomorrow and until this very moment, it hadn’t exactly felt real.

  I had my schedule ready to go as well as a few other miscellaneous items. But, just like everything else in my life, school was a big unknown. At first, all the unknowns were a bit frightening. It was like wandering through a large room without the lights on. Anything and everything came as a surprise.

  A light knock on the door brought me back to my room. “Come in,” I said, still staring down at the outfit sprawled across my comforter.

  “You doing okay, Sweetie?” Mom asked as she entered the room. I looked up and our eyes met.

  “Yeah, I think so,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt.

  “Let me know if you need anything, okay?” her smile was like that of my younger brother’s—it never quite reached her eyes. Of course, I could be imagining it all.

  I stared at the door after she closed it behind her. I loved my family, but after I woke up in the hospital without knowing who I was, how do you go back to normal? They were basically strangers to me. I was sure that my cold treatment of them didn’t make it easy for my parents or Nate. How do you get that time back?

  With a sigh, I hung up my clothes, climbed into bed, and turned out the light. Despite the new environment and the first day of school on the horizon, I somehow managed to fall asleep.

  Two

  Astoria High School.

  Home of the “Fishermen”.

  Student population—600.

  I stared at my new school from the comfort of the station wagon. My station wagon, I corrected myself. I looked around the decent interior of the car for a moment before returning my attention to the grey world outside. The car was my gift this morning. Of course, it came with the stipulation of dropping off and picking up Nate from school.

  The sky was a perfectly opaque, flat gray. The school sat off by itself. Fir trees framed the generic, almost soviet-looking building. I watched as students made their way up to the school – a much more varied mix of shapes, sizes, races, and dress.

  Although it wasn’t raining or snowing, I still couldn’t bring myself to leave the warmth of my car. I stared at the clock. 7:45 am—fifteen minutes until class. Pulling my backpack into my lap, I looked through its contents once more; map, history book, syllabus for French class, and my chemistry lab binder. In the back seat were my violin case and unnecessarily massive text book for calculus.

  7:47 am. Ugh.

  Time to rip off the Band-Aid.

  I took a deep breath, adjusted my blue sweater, and forced myself outside the wagon and toward the looming building.

  First day of my senior year – and I was the new kid. All the stares and looks I got as I walked up to the front doors made that obvious. Man, with a student population of just 600, of course I’d stick out.

  My old home town in Atchison wasn’t much larger than Astoria. The difference was I had a lot of friends back home, or at least I thought. What else would I think after waking up to a hospital room with tons of flowers, balloons, and little stuffed animals?

  I reached for the handle to the front door and wondered which was worse, facing a school full of people I knew, but couldn’t remember; or trying to remember who I was in a school full of people who didn’t know me.

  Finding my first class was easy as I’d hoped; and only slightly less eventful. I could have done without the several variations of stares: blank, curious, confused, and the popular who-the-hell-is-she. Owell.

  Ms. Riley’s Advanced World History class had fifteen students total; several of which appeared to be Freshman or pre-pubescent-looking Juniors and Seniors, and the rest looked to be about my age. With only three seats available, I took the one next to a strawberry-blonde girl wearing silver crescent moon earrings and an assortment of crystal rings on each finger. I smiled to myself. I heard the pacific northwest was full of ‘free sprits’. Guess she was one of them.

  The bell rang and Ms. Riley wasted no time before staring in on her lecture.

  “Welcome,” she said in an overly breathy voice, taking to the front of the room as an actress might take to the stage. “Advanced World History will be a class I want you to look back upon fondly. Not only is this subject the most important thing you ought to be learning—if I may quote one of the great philosophers of twentieth century ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’—but you will find that history is rich with…

  The quote caught me. I couldn’t r
emember my past. What did that mean for me? I rested my chin on the back of my hand and stared out the window. Was I doomed to repeat something I didn’t remember?

  Class carried on for another fifty minutes; and while I found Ms. Riley to be a bit eccentric, she was an excellent teacher. ‘Moon’ girl sitting next to me spent most of class doodling all over her binder. I struggled to keep my notes up to speed throughout the lecture as I was too busy making self-observations about the school and students. It was so much to take in.

  The bell rang. “I shall see you all tomorrow,” Ms. Riley said, waving enthusiastically as we all exited the classroom. “And remember, ‘we cannot escape our history’!”

  I stared after the teacher for a moment as I gathered my things. So strange. I know she wasn’t speaking to me directly, but it felt like it. Wow, I was paranoid. I shook my head and stood.

  After double checking my schedule and map, I made my way through the halls toward French class. Several students met my gaze as I wandered through the school, a few of whom kindly pointed me in the right direction after I’d asked them which way hall 1000 was. One guy offered to walk me to class; his cheeks turning crimson after I smiled and thanked him for doing so. He nodded, clearly embarrassed, and disappeared down the hallway. I quickly found an empty seat as the second period bell rang.

  Madame Beaulieu was, it appeared, nowhere in sight.

  “Hey,” a soft feminine voice called from behind me. I turned and saw the girl with the crescent moon earrings from my history class. “You’re new this year, right?” Her deep-espresso eyes glimmered as she leaned forward in her seat. Her long hair fell loosely around her heart shaped face; pieces of which were braided and twisted.

  “Is it that obvious?” I bowed my head slightly.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she said reassuringly, “It isn’t that. It’s just that Isaac never talks to anyone, but certainly talked to you.”

  “Isaac?” I asked, turning to face her. Her eyes were wide, and she wore a simple smirk upon her lips. She seemed amused.