Our class president is a vampire hunter?!

By A. R. Tivadar

For once in her life, Olguța was not running late to class. She saw professor Dumitrașcu at the other end of the wing where the classroom was located, but blessed be all gods in the sky, he was stopped by Miss Gorun for a morning chat.

She slipped into the classroom as quickly and silently as she could. Some girls whispered cheers of congratulations, while others were fighting for their lives not to laugh. 

All lightheartedness ceased when professor Dumitrașcu entered the classroom. The girls greeted him “good morning” in unison, a solemn choir, and he wordlessly sat down at his desk, opening the register, pen ready in hand.

“Atanasie Olga?” He croaked.

“Present!” Olguța said, masking her still panting breath.

“Avramescu Ana-Maria?”

“Present!”

“Bârlădeanu Sofia?”

“Present!”

He went through the attendance list quickly, moving his wrist lower on the pages and flipping to the next ones. In class 8A there were 20 girls.

“Lupulescu Gherghina Maria?”

“Present!”

“Marcovici Clara Maria?”

“Present!”

“Mocan Andreea?”

“…”

Professor Dumitrașcu raised his eyes from the book when no answer came and, indeed, her chair in the back of the room was empty.

“Where is she?” He demanded. 

“She is not feeling well, Sir.” answered Lavinia Grozav*, class A’s president since 3rd grade, and Olga’s desk neighbour. “She had to call the nurse to her dorm during the night.”

Professor Dumitrașcu huffed without further comment, slicing a dark line with the ink of his pen, marking her absent.

“Simion Raluca?”

“Present!”

When the morning class ended, the halls filled with girls in uniforms spilling out from its many doors, rivulets of paris blue and navy blue mixing into one main stream, giggles instead of bubbles and brown hair instead of foam. Olga Atanasie rushed to Lavinia Grozav’s side. 

“Lavi!”

“Yes?” She turned to her while still walking, face serene as always.

“Is Andreea alright?”

“I think she is now. Have you not heard it last night?”

“No, I didn’t. I sleep like I’m in a tomb…”

“No wonder your morning clock doesn’t work!” Lavinia laughed, but there was no malice behind it, unlike other girls.

Indeed, Lavinia Grozav was a pillar of peace and kindness. Olguța could not remember, in the eight years they’ve known each-other, ever seeing Lavinia stressed out or upset or even frowning. It truly seemed nothing could shake her, nothing could take away her beautiful smile. She never made Olguța feel stupid when she explained math or physics to her, and she never lost her patience with her either.

Unlike Olga, who only had one older brother she saw twice a year, Lavinia came from a huge family, the youngest of eight. She left for trips with them frequently and, during Christmas events, Olga caught glimpses of the Grozav clan. They all looked like Lavinia: tall and lean like greyhounds, chestnut-brown hair, a pale complexion, winning smiles with straight white teeth. Lavi was a carbon copy of her father, just female. They seemed wealthy, at least on the same level as the Atanasie family, yet Olga could never figure out what they did for a living. 

Olga thought Lavinia was better suited to be a politician’s daughter than she was. She was never awkward, never stuttered, her hair was not straw blonde and unruly, her nose was not huge…

Olga was taken out of her dark thoughts when she felt Lavinia’s gentle hand on her arm.

“Let’s eat together today!” She said.

“Alright!” Olga smiled, grateful.  

They walked down the staircase, along dozens of other girls. The school, wider than it was tall, had two main levels separated by an impressive grand staircase. Above it all was a stained glass ceiling, depicting trees in blossom and heavenly doves, and dying the light cast down on the uniforms’ skirts in shades of green, blue and pink. In many ways, the building looked more like a medieval cathedral than a boarding school for the rich’s daughters.

The dormitories were in an adjacent building, forcing the students to walk outside right under the classrooms’ windows to get to the school itself. In front of both there were neatly kept lawns surrounded by decorative bushes and stone paths for the parents to have promenades when visiting. Behind the buildings was a sports field and a small patch of woodland.

After graduating 8th grade, there was the option to continue the next four years of education at the school, or to transfer somewhere else. The girls in class 8A had 5 months left to decide. 

“Will you remain here, Olga?” Lavinia asked during lunch break. That day they were served potato puree and pork that was tough to cut through. 

“I don’t know…” Olga said. It was not really up to her to decide. “Probably, unless my father gets any ideas.”

“I think I’ll stay here too.” Lavinia continued, gracefully bringing a fork to her mouth. “Every other school is far away.”

“Or, rather, our province is isolated from everyone else.” Olga laughed a little bit.

“True! It would be a pain to uproot everything just to go to a different school when this one is fine as it is.”

“I agree.”

They were surprised by the arrival of another girl at their table. 

“Did you hear about the new teacher we are getting?” Emilia Petrescu said as a greeting when she sat down in front of them, food platter in her hands.

“No!” Olga responded first.

“No, who is it?” Lavinia said.

“Apparently, we will have a new French teacher, and he is a French gentleman from Paris!” Emilia said, giggling nefariously. 

“Oh, goodness, I hate Parisian French!” Olguța said. “It’s even harder to understand than regular French.”

“Georgiana and Paula saw him arrive yesterday evening with the coach and he was let in by the head mistress.” Emilia continued, voice lower. “They said he is sooo handsome!”

“How did they see all that from far away? And in the dark?” Olga asked as she ate.

“They didn’t see the details, duh! But they saw that he was tall and well-built and with broad shoulders and elegant as he walked! And he didn’t look that old! Maybe in his 20s!!”

Emilia was the kind of girl to lose her mind when a male presence appeared in their all-girl school.

“Did they catch his name?” Lavinia asked, exhaling through her nose in amusement.

“We did this morning! We heard Miss Gorun talking about it! His name is Antoine Leclaire, or Leclerc, something like that.”

Lavinia’s jaws froze mid-chewing and her eyes stared at Emilia. For an imperceptible second she was a statue, and Olga was about to furrow her eyebrows and ask what was wrong when Lavinia returned to normal with a smile.

“Are you sure?” She asked Emilia, voice perfectly calm.

“I’m not sure because we walked past Miss in a hurry, but I’m pretty certain I heard Antoine.” She said as she began to eat.

Lavinia nodded and ate for the rest of the break in silence, listening to Olga and Emilia talk and glancing often at the clock above the main door of the cafeteria.

Their next class was English with Miss Gorun, followed by French. Rather than leave the classroom at the end of the hour, Miss Gorun opened the door and invited somebody inside. The man who stepped in was indeed tall, indeed well-built with broad shoulders, strong arms visible even through the dark coat, short black hair and slightly tanned skin that lead one to daydream about the Mediterranean, and mesmerising green eyes.

The classroom fell silent, eyes wide in surprise and awe, breaths stopping in their throats and hearts skipping beats. 

Miss Gorun introduced him as their new French teacher, Mr Antoine Leclerc. The voice that came out from between those sculpted lips could read the city’s sewer administration legislation and they’d still listen to every word. 

Olga, smiling and blushing like a fool, turned to see Lavinia’s reaction. It made her pause and break free from his spell. She had never seen Lavinia stare at someone so intensely. Not with infatuation like everybody else, but… vitriol. She had never seen Lavinia, or anybody else, hate someone so much. 

Olga lightly bumped Lavinia’s elbow with her own elbow, and Lavinia smiled, cheerful as ever, but her eyes never moved once off of their new teacher. Olga turned her eyes back to the front of the class, but the uneasiness did not leave her.

Mr Antoine’s first lesson passed in perfect harmony, the students never before so attentive and enthusiastic, nearly fighting to be the ones to answer his questions. Lavinia Grozav, as class president, spoke in the name of the class, which she did perfectly politely.

“Your name is Grozav?” Mr Antoine asked, raising both eyebrows in surprise.

“Yes, Sir.” She smiled.

“That’s an awesome name to have!” He joked, and the class laughed along, as did Lavinia and Olga. But Olga thought there was something venomous behind that word-play, like when her mother spoke about other men’s wives. Lavinia too, her grin and crinkle in the eyes were almost… predatory.

What was going on?

When French class was over and Lavinia left the classroom, Olga nearly had to run to keep up with her.

“W-Where are you going?” She asked her.

“I need to get something from my dorm room.” She casually said.

“A-Alright.”

She watched Lavinia disappear around the corner, then turned her head to look at the classroom she just exited. Mr Antoine was making his way out, surrounded by fangirls. He raised his eyes and they focused on Olga, and he gave her a smile. Olga nearly fainted!

The rest of the day passed normally, but Lavinia continued to act strange. She was silent, either deep in thought or smiling conspiratorily with one corner of her mouth. 

The last class of the day was physical education, then dinner and lights out. They played cricket, Olga’s least favourite game. At one point she slipped on the grass and her palm, with which she failed to stop the fall, was left very red. It looked like her wrist was starting the swell. Just her luck.

“Miss Popa, may I go to the infirmary, please?” She whined to the teacher.

“Ugh, fine. Go.” The old woman rolled her eyes.

The infirmary was a small and white room at the end of a hallway with no windows, so it looked rather creepy and abandoned even during the day. The nurse, Mrs Oros, was thankfully always nice and she wrapped a cold compress against Olguța’s pulse.

As she waited for nurse Oros to fetch a pen to write down a note in the registry, Olga thought she heard something. There were three beds in the infirmary, two visible from where she stood and one by the wall, hidden by two grey curtains held up by old metallic rods. It sounded like Lavinia’s voice.

Curiosity got the better of her and Olga sneaked closer, trying to peek through the small space where the curtains met. She saw Lavinia’s dark hair and her slender frame, hunched over the person laying on the bed. It was Andreea Mocan! She was wearing her nightgown, and she looked deathly pale. Olga recalled Lavinia saying something about the nurse being called to her dorm room the night before.

Then Olga noticed something shocking: Andreea was bandaged up, the space between her neck and her right shoulder completely wrapped up in gauze. Blood seeped through them and drew a diagonal line across her chest. What happened to her?!

She strained her ears to hear what Lavinia was whispering.

“…do not tell anybody, I am serious…”

It was low and stern, a tone she never heard from Lavinia, one she couldn’t imagine her having. 

Olga’s blood ran cold and she backed away, but she bumped with her hip into the other bed, rattling it. She gasped when the curtain flew open and Lavinia was glaring her way.

Her features immediately mellowed down and she was about to smile, when she saw the bandage on Olga’s hand. “What happened?!”

“I-I fell on the grass, don’t worry…!”

“Goodness, be careful!” She said as she walked up to her and took Olga’s hand to get a closer look. It did not feel as comforting as it usually would.

For dinner they had porridge and chicken meat. Olga sneaked glances at Lavinia, but she seemed perfectly happy and carefree, talking to the other girls again. She suddenly seemed interested in Mr Antoine, who made his rounds around each grade in the school, teaching or just being introduced.

“During our class,” Marinela from 7B said, “I swear he winked at me!”

“He said my accent was ‘very good’!” Florina from 8C sighed, completely in love.

“I hear he is going to live here at school, in the lodgings close to the dorms!” Otilia from 7A excitedly said. “Maybe we’ll see him through the window in the evening!”

“Maybe we’ll see him take his shirt off!” Emilia cackled, red as a cherry.

When it was time for everyone to head back into the dormitories, Olga caught Lavinia lagging behind the stream, looking like she was going to go in a different direction. She was startled when Olga grabbed her arm.

“What’s wrong?” Lavinia asked.

“W-Where are you going?” Olga asked back.

Lavinia blinked for a moment. “I forgot something in the classroom. I’ll be right back.”

“Please just tell me what is going on!” Olga said, holding her in place.

“Wuh-what do you mean?” Lavinia smiled nervously.

“Y-You’re acting… weird.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, and it’s freaking me out!”

“Well, sorry, but I promise nothing is going on. I just need to go fetch my stuff.”

“Lavi, please!” Olga said, frowning deeply. 

Lavinia looked at her saddened and Olga felt horrible. She knew she was probably imagining things, but she could not shake off this awful feeling. Lavinia would not hurt anybody, right?

“I promise I will be back to the dorms soon.” Lavinia said, voice soft, holding Olga’s hands. She was like a cold compress, distracting Olga’s mind from its anxieties. “I’ll explain everything, I swear to you.”

“Alright…” Olga said, now ashamed of doubting her friend. She walked away, Lavinia waiting in the door of the school until Olga was inside the dorms.

Olguța did her homework, chatted with her dormmates, read chapbooks, played cards, but her eyes always wandered back to the door, waiting for Lavinia to appear, but she wouldn’t. When they changed into their nightgowns and turned off the light, she still didn’t return, her bed noticeably empty. The other girls asked Olga where she was but she could not answer. Eventually they had no choice but to go to sleep, Olga’s eyes closing despite her best efforts.

She slept restlessly for less than a couple hours when she, the one who usually slept like a log, instantly woke up. There was a loud BANG! somewhere in the distance. She ran to the window, flinging off her blanket, and saw one of the windows to a classroom, 6D, was broken, shards falling to the ground below like stars. What happened? Was it Lavinia? She whipped her head to the bed that was still empty. Was somebody attacking her?!

Ignoring all reason and cowardice she usually possessed, Olga ran out of the dormitories, in her nightgown and slippers. 

The school was terrifying in the dark, the windows’ curtains looking like ghostly figures and each corridor leading to a dark abyss. But the deeper she ventured, the better she heard it: footsteps. Rapid, furious footsteps. A person, nay, two people running as fast as they could down the marble halls upstairs. 

Olga arrived at the stained glass ceiling, colouring the world in magical purple and blue. She saw them, two figures running past the staircase. Olga froze for a moment before running up the stairs too.

“Lavi!” She called out. “Lavi, where are you?!”

She ran in the direction she thought she heard them go, when a hand grabbed her and yanked her into one of the classrooms. Olga tried to scream but another hand clamped down over her mouth. 

She twisted her head around and saw it was Mr Antoine. He looked absolutely terrified, sweat beading his face, panting like he ran a marathon. Olga’s eyes lowered and she gasped into his palm. Across his arm, cutting through his coat and through his flesh was a deep wound, blood glistening in the faint light offered by the moon. 

“What happened?!” She asked.

“Shhhh!” He hissed. 

“What is hap-” She tried to say when she heard Lavinia’s voice echoing down the hallway. 

“Where are youuu…?” She said in a sing-song voice. Her lacquered shoes went tap, tap, tap, tap on the cold floor as she slowly stalked through the dark. There was another sound too, something metallic scraping from time to time against the ground. “Come out, come out, wherever you aaare…”

“A maniac, a maniac!” Mr Antoine said through his teeth. Through all her confusion, Olga had a moment of thinking they looked odd.

Mr Antoine let her go and ran to hide under the teacher’s desk, almost scrambling on all fours. Olga went in his direction, then stopped, hesitated, whipped her head back and forth, then ran to the back of the classroom, pulling two desks together to conceal herself. 

“What is the matter, monsieur?” Lavinia said right outside the door. “Are you scared? Did you think you’d be like a fox in a chicken pen? From all the tales I heard about you, I thought you’d be smarter! You should have left when I first caught you.”

Olga’s eyes widened. Andreea…? 

“You are good at dodging, I admit. But I assure you I will not miss this time. Do you hear me, Antoine? Do you hear me, you stinking, rotting, blood-sucker!”

The classroom door flew open with her kick, dancing on its hinges. Olga whimpered and hid her head in her hands. 

The wooden floor creaking under Lavinia’s shoes was deafening. Olga’s heart was beating out of her chest, but she willed herself to peek. Lavinia was almost in the middle of the room, coming towards her gathered desks. In her hand was an axe, a lumberjack’s axe, caked in red. The handle was long and roughly sharpened at the end. 

In the back, Olga could see the dark silhouette of Mr Antoine rising from underneath the desk, way bigger and scarier than before. He looked like a beast!

“Behind you!” She shrieked.

Lavinia spun around and saw Antoine propel himself towards her, mouth huge and fingers held like claws. She ducked to the side, jumping over a chair, and he crashed into a desk, breaking it and making its paper contents fly around. Lavinia twirled her whole body around, letting gravity bring her heavy axe down right on the back of Antoine’s neck. He cried out like a hog.

“Putaine valaque!” He grunted, trying to push himself up.

Lavinia twisted the axe in her hands, turning it to the blunt side, and she brought it down to the back of Antoine’s head like a sledgehammer, her feet bouncing off the ground. He screamed again, almost covering the sickening crack of his skull.

“Lavi!” Olga cried from her hiding spot.

Lavinia gasped in shock. “What are you doing here?”

“I-I was w-worried and-and…!” She said, unable to stop shaking, wide eyes staring at the gore in front of her, the darkness doing little to conceal it. “Oh, God! Oh God!!”

Lavinia ran to Olguța and pulled her into a hug with her free arm, turning her around so that she was looking at the wall of the back of the room, and Lavinia was watching Antoine. 

“It’s alright!” Lavinia said, taking the moment to catch her breath as well. “It’s going to be alright! He can not hurt you!”

“What is this?!” Olga sobbed.

“Our teacher, Mr Leclerc… is a vampire.”

“What?”

“He is a vampire, a rather notorious one too.” 

“A vampire…?”

“Andreea Mocan was attacked the other night when she tried to go to the bathroom. I heard the scream and when I saw him biting her, I swung my axe but missed and hit Andreea instead…” Lavinia explained, guilt in her voice. “It was dark, I couldn’t see his face. Then when I saw him in class the next day, I knew exactly who I was dealing with. And what I had to do.”

“But… but…” Olga babbled, wiping her nose. “Today… there was light… Don’t vampires…?”

Lavinia snorted. “You think they transform into bats too?”

Olga laughed along despite herself.

“Sorry, it’s not the time to joke.” Lavinia said, pulling away from her. Olga looked over her shoulder. Antoine was writhing on the floor, a weak hand trying to feel his broken head. Olga’s eyes fell on her axe again. 

“Your axe… it’s a stake too?”

“Yes.” Lavinia said. “The stake to the heart part is real!”

“Then… why… Why don’t you just stab him in the heart?”

“He sure can’t escape now.” She grinned. 

She stepped closer to Antoine and kicked his shoulder, forcing him to lie on his back. His bloodshot eyes were visible through the dark, staring ravenously at her then at Olga. She turned the axe around again and raised it above her head. Olga’s hands flew to cover her eyes.

She heard Antoine let out horrible gurgled screams, and the squelching sound of meat. It felt like an eternity before the classroom fell completely silent and Lavinia told her she could look. She really wished she didn’t.

A heart was pierced through the axe’s handle, blackened and rotten. Antoine’s corpse lay on the ground, bulging eyes staring at the ceiling in a frozen expression of fear, anger and pain. 

Lavinia held up the axe with the heart while smiling like a proud dork.

Olga stared back at her for a moment before vomiting.

“What is going to happen…?” She weakly asked as they walked back together to the dorms, Lavinia helping Olga stand upright.

“They will find the body and the mess around school…” Lavinia speculated. “They will be shocked and terrified. They will assume it was somebody other than me, because no way a schoolgirl could do so much damage.” Olga didn’t like how smug Lavinia said that part. “The police will be summoned, until my father arrives to take the case and conceal everything. The head mistress will probably want that too. And life will go back to normal!”

“You… You’ve done this before?”

“A few times.” She said. “Mostly together with my father or my brothers, only a couple times by myself.”

“This is horrifying…”

“It’s a job.” She shrugged. 

They tip-toed their way to the dorms’ communal bathroom, the axe placed under the sink’s jet of water. In the yellow light of the lamp, Olga realised Lavinia still had the heart with her.

“W-What will you do with it?” She asked.

“I’ll send it to father!” She replied. “I’ll send it in the shoe box for the boots I received for Christmas, together with a letter.”

“A letter?”

“Yes, kind of like a report. I wrote it earlier, that Antoine has been dealt with.”

“Wait, earlier? ‘Has been’?”

“Yes, during class.”

“You wrote a letter about killing him in advance?”

“Uh-huh!”

Olga stared at her for a few seconds. “Holy molly…”

Lavinia giggled with a little snort.

A. R. Tivadar is a hobby writer from Romania and a graduate of the University of Oradea. She has been published in Alien Buddha Press, Low Hanging Fruit, 100subtexts magazine, RIC Journal, Motus Audax Press, and 15 other online literary magazines.

instagram: @a.r.tivadar

linktree: /ARTivadar

neocities: artivadar.neocities.org