Done for the horror prompt "fangs", this is our take on vampires. This story contains blood, slight gore, and some strong language.

Fangs

When you first wake up in the morning, I doubt any normal person ever thinks: "This is the day I'm going to die." I know I never did. And why would I? I was, for the most part, a healthy, normal sixteen year-old boy. Sure, I could have stood to lose a pound or two (who couldn't?), but it never stopped me from doing anything. I went to school, hung out with my friends, all the usual stuff. Never once did it cross my mind that I wouldn't live to see my high school graduation. It's true I didn't put a whole lot of thought into my future, but I knew when I was older, I would make it big somehow and would have everything I ever wanted.

But life could be so cruel.

I woke up on another grueling school morning and got myself dressed before eating the same breakfast my mom always makes me and heading off to the same shitty school I'm forced to go to five days a week. I usually stopped to hang with my same old group of friends in the hall before class, but by the way Stan was looking at Kyle with that dopey, hazy-eyed stare and the way Kyle was fidgeting in place with a slight blush on his cheeks, I could tell they'd both gotten laid last night. Hearing about how Kyle was in bed was about the last thing I needed to know, so I bypassed them and just went to sit in the classroom until the teacher came in. Even though I ripped on them since we were kids for being fags, I didn't expect them to actually be fags. It still weirded me out, even though it'd been going on for a couple months. Some things just aren't easy to get used to, I suppose.

First period was dull, second was worse, so by the time lunch rolled around, I was bored out of my mind. Math and social studies will do that to you. Grabbing my things, I hurried out of class as soon as the lunch bell rang so I wouldn't have to spend one extra minute that I didn't need to there. Lunch was definitely the best part of the day, not just because we got to eat, but because I didn't have to sit there listening to some boring old geezer ramble on about trig or something equally as mundane. I grabbed some food and a pop, then went over to sit at the same table as always, noting thankfully that Stan and Kyle were no longer giving each other the bedroom eyes. They gave me a nod of greeting as I sat down to eat. We then proceeded to listen to Kenny tell us about some hot chick he saw yesterday at the mall as we ate. Kenny was always talking about chicks, or tits, or sex, and even though that stuff was great and all, it got a little monotonous after awhile, so we'd just nod in the appropriate places as he talked.

Everything made it seem like a very boring, ordinary day, until Butters came running over to our table. That in itself wasn't unusual: Butters was a gullible kid, he could get excited about almost anything. What he said next didn't even seem unusual at the time – he was always coming up with stupid ideas, after all. But oh, how I wish I could have seen the future at that moment and realized that this wasn't the same old shit, that it was unusual. Unusual and dangerous. But, there was no way for me to know that this seemingly typical conversation in the cafeteria would be the thing that led me to my untimely demise.

"Fellahs! Fellahs! You'll never believe it!" he nearly yelled as he ran up to our table. He looked nervous, his eyes wide and alert, and I noticed he seemed to be looking around and over his shoulder.

"What is it now, Butters?" I say with an annoyed sigh. "We're trying to eat."

"I know, but it's important! You know that weird new group of kids? The ones with the black clothes a-and the weird-colored hair?" He leans down towards us and lowers his voice to a whisper. "I found out that they're vampires."

I see Stan and Kyle look at each other and raise an eyebrow, then Stan turns back to the blond. "Vampires, Butters? How are they vampires?"

"Yeah. They dress different, but that doesn't make them vampires," Kyle agrees next to him. Butters frowns, not seeming to be happy with the responses he is receiving.

"But they are! I saw them drinking blood in the gym!"

I sigh again. I knew this vampire idea he had was a load of shit, but I was getting sick of listening to his whining, and I knew he wasn't going to leave us alone until he convinced us that there were real vampires at our school. So, I said the thing that I would later regret above all else, though I didn't realize it at the time.

"You know what? You might be right, Butters. Those kids are freaks, they really could be vampires. If that's the case, we're going to need to know how to protect ourselves, so you should go watch them and try to find out what their weaknesses are."

Kenny grins in the seat next to me, shoving a couple of fries into his mouth. As always, he picked up on exactly what I was trying to do and played along. Good ol' Kenny.

"Yeah, I bet you could even find their secret lair or something."

I see Butters' eyes widen, this thought obviously having never crossed his simple mind before. But here he had us "believing" what he was saying, and not only that, but we were giving him a mission as well! It was far too easy. He'd always do anything we asked of him. Poor thing.

"Y-you really think so? Well gee, that could be pretty dangerous…"

I wave my hand dismissively. "Yeah, but I think you're the right man for the job. Go find out everything you can. We're counting on you."

That's the last thing he needed to hear to be completely convinced. He stands up straight and smiles, thinking he is really doing something to help us, which makes him happy. "Okay! I'll do it! I'll go try to learn as much as I can, and I'll let you all know what I find. I won't let you down, Eric!" With that, he hurried back out of the cafeteria, obviously going to get started on his project.

"Fuck, is that kid stupid," I muttered, taking a big bite of my pizza. Kyle frowned at this. He always had to find something wrong with what I did. Fucking annoying Jew.

"You know, Cartman, you shouldn't tease him all the time. Yeah, he gets carried away with stuff like this, but you shouldn't take advantage of it."

Stan, of course, agreed with him. "Yeah, dude, it's kind of not cool."

I sighed. Again. Why did I bother hanging out with these guys? "You didn't want to sit here and listen to him ramble on about fucking vampires for the whole lunch period, did you? No. I got rid of him for now, so stop whining like the fucking little Jew you are and just enjoy it."

Kyle growled and I knew he was about to start bitching at me, but then Stan – always playing the fucking mediator – put his hand on his shoulder to stop him. "Just let it go, Kyle. He's right, Butters is kind of annoying sometimes, but this is pretty harmless. They'll probably just yell at him to leave or something."

The Jew wanted to say more, but he sighed in defeat instead and went back to eating his lunch. I grinned to myself, always pleased to see Kyle unhappy. And that shut him up for the rest of lunch.

After that, the day carried on as normal. Butters was supposed to be in one of my afternoon classes, but I was too bored to notice that he wasn't there. I had completely forgotten about the conversation we had at lunch. The next day at school, he was gone as well. None of us thought anything of it though: kids got sick all the time and stayed home, so we figured that's what had happened. No one had suspected anything was wrong until the day after that when they did the morning announcements.

Butters was missing. His parents hadn't seen him in two days, not since the day he came to talk to us in the cafeteria.

The vampire kids got him. That was the first thought I had. No one knew a lot about them, they were a relatively new clique at school. Maybe they had seen Butters sneaking around and had

killed

-done something to him. But that was ridiculous, wasn't it? Of course it was. They had probably tricked him into thinking they were real vampires and he had run off to hide somewhere. It had happened before – Butters getting scared over something and disappearing for a few days, I mean – so it wasn't too much of a stretch to think it had happened again. Eventually he would realize he had been tricked and come home. Everyone would forget it happened and things would go back to normal. Yeah, that was it. Either way, I wasn't going to waste my time and energy worrying about it. It was just Butters, after all.

And I didn't. Kyle, of course, brought it up at lunch, but the discussion didn't last long, and after that I completely forgot about it. After school was out, I went home, played some video games, and had dinner, just like I did almost every day. I thought about having Kenny come over for awhile, but he had yet another problem with his fucked up family and had declined. I've always kind of wondered if Kenny being there would have made a difference – he'd usually stay late, sometimes even crash there over night - but, looking back, it probably wouldn't have mattered. After dinner, I ignored my homework and played some more Xbox in my room until I started to get tired. Noticing it was just about 11:30, I decided I might as well go to bed. I turned off the game, changed out of my clothes, and climbed into bed.

It had to have been about an hour after I fell asleep that I woke up to something tickling my neck. I tried to bat it away with my hand, but when it didn't stop, I opened my eyes to see what the hell it was that was disturbing my sleep.

"…Butters?" By the light of the moon spilling in through my open window, I could tell that the person who was sitting on top of me was definitely Butters, but anyone who knew him would have had to do a double-take to recognize him. His usual bright blond hair was now jet black and monochromatic. The clothes he wore were all very dark as well, from a black t-shirt with a skull graphic on it to the fishnets and studded bracers on his arms. Around his neck, he wore what looked like a silver bat pendant. It was pretty much the exact opposite of how I had ever seen Butters dress. He usually looked bright and cheery, but this new make-over just made him look gloomy. His fashion sense wasn't the only thing that had changed either. Even in the dim light of my room, I could tell his skin was paler. He looked almost sick

he looked like a corpse

and from where his skin was touching my shoulder, he felt cool. There was something different about his eyes, too. Normally they were a light, almost sky blue color, but now they looked dull, almost gray…lifeless, even.

"Butters, what the fuck are you doing in my room?" I nearly shouted at him as I pushed him off me and onto the end of my bed. I put a hand to my neck and felt moisture there. My eyes widened briefly before my face quickly turned to disgust. "Were you kissing me?"

Butters sat up, crouching on the bed in front of me like some kind of wild cat ready to pounce on its prey. A smile stretched across his face as he looked at me, and that's when I noticed his teeth: they weren't just teeth, they were fangs. Real fucking fangs. And these definitely weren't those fake plastic ones you could buy at the store for Halloween. They had to be an inch long, maybe more, and I couldn't help but wonder how they fit in his mouth so neatly. The rest of his teeth had been sharpened as well, giving him the nastiest smile I had ever seen on a human being.

Was he even human anymore?

"Not exactly. I was tasting you. Your skin is so sweet, I can't wait to try the rest of you!"

What the fuck? Butters was quirky, anyone could have told you that, but when had he gone crazy?

"What the hell are you talking about? You can't just barge into my room in the middle of the night and give me a fucking hickey! And what's with you? Everyone said you've been missing. You look like one of those pussy goth kids or something."

He smiled again and slowly crawled towards me, then put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me back to lie down against the mattress. He straddled my waist and leaned over me, looking at me with those dead eyes. "I've been reborn now, and it's all thanks to you, Eric. If it weren't for you, I never would have had the courage to talk to the vampires, and they never would have helped me. I feel so alive now! But I've never been as hungry as this before either. You have no idea what changing does to your appetite!"

Reborn? Vampires? What the fuck was he talking about? None of it made sense. I tried to push him off of me, but realized I couldn't. I was twice as big as the scrawny kid, but no matter how hard I tried to sit up, he wouldn't budge from his spot on top of me. How the hell had he gotten so strong?

"Butters, dude, what are you doing? Get off me, this is weird." I hated to admit it, but I was starting to feel very nervous about the situation.

"I'm gonna eat you, Eric. I'm going to drink every drop of your blood."

What-…

And that was the moment when my mind finally put everything together. The disappearance, the dark clothes, the corpse-like appearance, and those nasty fangs… Butters was a vampire. A God damned hungry vampire. And it seemed like I was about to become his first victim.

No no no, this isn't happening. It's not possible. It's Butters, Butters can't be a vampire there is no WAY he's a vampire. This is just some crazy dream and you're going to wake up and laugh at how fucking stupid it is. He's not he's not there is no fucking way I am going to die being eaten by fucking BUTTERS.

My mind was racing. The sheer impossibility of the situation was too much for me to handle, and I started to panic. This was Butters we were talking about! The nicest, lamest kid in school! How could he turn into something so… so evil? And now he was going to kill me? No, I wasn't going to let this happen.

I struggled again, putting in all my effort to try to get him off me. If I could get up, I could get away, I could defend myself. I had a million different things in my room I could have used to bash him in the head and knock him out. But no matter how hard I tried, Butters stayed in place, holding me down on the bed and seeming to be unfazed by my thrashing. It looked like he was almost enjoying watching me struggle. That fucking asshole.

"Butters, you fucking dick, let me up! You got me! You're a vampire, I believe you! Just let me go and leave and I'll forget this ever happened!"

"Sorry, I can't do that," he said calmly. "I tried to ignore my hunger, but I can't anymore. It's nothing personal against you, Eric, you just seemed like the best target." He continued to keep me pinned to the bed, but leaned down and I could see him opening his mouth, baring those hideous new fangs of his, and a second later, I felt him bury them into my neck.

What I wasn't expecting was the pain. Of course I knew vampires got their blood by biting their victims, but in all the movies I had seen, the people always seemed to show more fear than pain when they were bitten. It was just two teeth, after all. I figured it would numb you, like a mosquito bite, so they could take all the blood they wanted from those two little puncture wounds. But this wasn't like that at all. The second his fangs pierced through my skin, an intense, burning ache shot from my neck all the way through my body, from my fingers to my toes. I tensed, my eyes widening and my body went stiff in response. Every one of my muscles tightened, and no matter how much it hurt, I couldn't scream.

Butters sunk his fangs deeper into my neck as I laid there, and I could feel the rest of his teeth cutting into the flesh as well, leaving a wound that would have looked nothing like a vampire bite from any movie I had ever seen. The fangs pushed through skin and muscle, and then I could feel them puncture my vein. In an instant, blood is pouring from the wound, the hot liquid running down over my neck and shoulder to soak into my shirt and the sheets I am laying on. Butters seemed almost startled by this, as I see him sit up enough that I can see his face. My blood was smeared all over his mouth and chin, which he slowly licked off with his tongue, and suddenly I was angry. That was my blood on his face, the blood that gave me life and which I couldn't live without, and he was stealing it from me. He was stealing my life, and he had no right to do that!

The anger pushed me past my paralyzing shock and again I began to struggle. I thrust my body upwards, trying to knock him off, and to my amazement, it works. He must have been too busy savoring the taste of my blood that he left himself off guard. He fell back onto the bed and I didn't miss my chance, reversing our positions and getting on top of him. I didn't know what I was doing - all I wanted to do was kill him. He had to pay for what he had done to me. I clamped my hand down over his mouth and squeezed. I wanted to suffocate him – was it even possible to suffocate a vampire? – and make him suffer. His dead, gray eyes widened slightly as he felt my large hand clamp down on his face, clearly having not expected his "prey" to fight back. But I had him! No way was he going to over-power me this time! I was bleeding badly, the blood soaking the left side of my shirt almost down to my stomach now, but as soon as Butters was taken care of, I could get to the hospital and have it taken care of.

I thought I had him, I really did, but then he bit me again. He opened up his mouth and clamped down on my hand, his sharp teeth easily ripping into my flesh and bone. I screamed in pain and quickly pulled my hand away, noticing with horror that I now had four fingers instead of five: my index finger was lodged between his teeth. He sat up and smiled at me, then began to chew, and I could hear the bones crunching in his mouth as fresh blood trickled down his chin. I was shocked. Totally fucking shocked. Biting me was one thing, but actually eating my fucking finger was another.

I felt sick.

All I could do was stare, my mouth hanging open slightly in sheer horror. My mind couldn't comprehend what was happening to me, and the possible life-saving anger that had washed over me earlier was now completely gone. I was numb, and it wasn't helping that I was slowly dying from blood loss.

Butters swallows what was once my finger and puts his hands on my shoulders again to push me back down onto the bed. He is grinning, and I could see little pieces of my flesh stuck in his teeth, but I was still in too much shock to care.

"Gosh, I thought you had me there for a second. I'll have to be more careful next time. But don't worry, it's all gonna be over real soon." His voice was calm, and I wondered if this person about to kill me was even the real Butters anymore. The Butters I had known had never wanted anything but to be friends with everyone, and no matter how much shit we put him through, he never blamed us for it. So how could this thing who had eaten my finger and drank my blood and intended to kill me be Butters?

As those thoughts passed through my dying mind, Butters – no, the vampire – leaned over me once more and began sucking on my gushing vein. I had bled so much already, I couldn't believe there was any more left in my body, but it was still flowing heavily. He fed greedily, his tongue running over the open wound to make sure he lapped up every drop of fresh blood that was being spilt. I wanted him to stop, but as my racing heart kept pumping more and more of my life blood from my open vein, I had no more energy to fight back, so all I could do was lay there and let him continue. When the blood flow began to weaken, he bit down on my neck again, and again, shredding open the flesh and veins with his teeth in order to get more of it. He ripped off chunks of skin and muscle, swallowing them along with the precious blood that he sought. It hurt, but not much. I was too tired to feel much of anything anymore.

He kept eating, and I kept bleeding, and it wasn't much longer until keeping my eyes opened felt like an impossible task. My anger was gone, my will was gone, and all I wanted to do was go to sleep.

As I closed my eyes for the last time, I felt Butters' mouth move from the gore that was now my neck to whisper in my ear.

"Thank you, Eric."