Fetch Dogs Are Optional

• Hagen Steiner, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2017

Nick looked down at his principal, sprawled in the yard with multiple hawthorn stakes sloppily hammered through his chest, stomach, mouth, and skull. He fiddled idly with the mallet and, in a turn of expository reflection, thought back on how he’d gotten here.
Everything in his life had been relatively normal, right up until high school, when the ruddy and bulbous Mr Nogard had taken an immediate dislike to Nick. The in itself wasn’t strange, but the moment it got weird was when he had to attend an evening detention. He’d been about to go home when Mr Nogard had stopped him in the hallway, bared a set of viciously pointed fangs, turned into a large dog, and attempted to tear out Nick's throat. Nick had narrowly escape, and questioned his sanity when he got home. It didn’t make any sense but he wasn't one to discount direct evidence. It had seemed decidedly supernatural, which drove him to look up anything he could on the subject. He’d come to the conclusion that Mr Nogard was a vampire. At that point he’d done everything he could to prepare. There were many versions of how to destroy a vampire, so to be safe he’d found a rusty sickle, carved some hawthorn branches into stakes, bought some fresh cloves of garlic and a mallet, and finally stolen some holy water from the local church. He’d figured that if God were real stealing the water was a sin, but it was to kill a vampire so in His eyes it’d probably be forgiven.
Then came this evening. Mr Nogard had politely asked Nick’s parents to come inside their lovely home, hoping he wasn’t intruding at such a late hour. He’d been invited in, then promptly knocked his hosts out, searching for the boy that had escaped. Nick had returned the favour. Now here they were. Nick thought he may have gone overboard with the stakes, but accounts varied so he’d decided to be better safe than sorry.
“I’ll kill you for this, boy!” Mr Nogard pulled the stake from his mouth and gurgled. Even the garlic and holy water had been ineffective. “You won’t be able to end me. You have no idea what I am!”
“Wrong. I know exactly what you are. I used Wikipedia.” Nick dropped the mallet and picked up his sickle.
“You don’t have the power to destroy me! And Wikipedia is an unreliable source!”
Nick advanced. “That’s where you’re wrong. Say, Mr Nogard, did you know I was born on a Saturday?”
He saw his principal’s eyes widen with fear. “A Sabbatarian… but-“
“I guess Wikipedia isn’t so unreliable after all.” With that, Nick slashed open the man’s stomach with his rusty sickle, releasing foul gases and deflating the body like a fat, ruddy, undead balloon.
“It’s always the last one you try.” He stepped back and frowned. Later, just to be safe, burned the body and buried the ashes. You could never be too careful with these things.