I walked into the room wanting to tear someone’s head off and bounce it off the walls. Not, perhaps, the best mood for a closet-vampire teacher to walk into a classroom in. Only a few faces even acknowledged my presence as I entered. The rest were simply too self-involved to pay any attention to the teacher, at least before the bell rang. They whispered, laughed, texted. They lacked any sense of self-preservation. But then, not one of them knew that more than their grades rested on my patience and self-restraint; both already frayed.

George had been staked last night.

Bambi. I slammed my briefcase down on the podium and swore once more to tear Bambi apart. It had to have been her, nothing like unrequited love to drive a girl to stake her ex. I checked my watch and paused to center myself. It didn’t work. How could I spend eternity without him? I forced a smile onto my face, forced my fangs to retract, and called the class to order. One hour and five minutes to get through before I could go hunting for the murderous Bimbette.

Once I got into the swing of teaching I could shove the pain, the need to hurt someone like I’d been hurt, to one side. It was going great until the loudmouthed Jock in the corner began whispering to his BFFs (brainless fat fucks). If I’d had blood pressure, it would have risen. He and his friends had been a pain in my ass since the quarter began. They were convinced that their Teflon-coating from being High School football stars was still firmly in place. They didn’t expect to do more than show up -- when they felt like it, and were convinced they didn’t actually have to listen… I was just the teacher after all. As my blood pressure didn’t rise, I felt my fangs extrude, my eyes go red.

I tried to talk myself down from rage. If I lost it, these adult children would be toast. Not all of them deserved to die; a few of them really had some purpose for walking the earth. Very few.

Letting my mouth continue speaking I looked around at the rest of the students. Three were taking notes. Mr. Texting had once again maneuvered his cell onto his lap and was hard at work communicating instantly with friends – so much more important than learning to write, and his BFF was peering -- as unobtrusively as one guy can be when peering at another’s crotch -- at the cell phone nestled there. Next to them was the gal with the sketchpad. It was supposed to, “Help her focus by giving her something kinesthetic to do while she listened;” yeah, right. Wasn’t working so well for her, which her midterm grade would have told her had she bothered looking. Next table over was the couple who spent entire classes making supposed “notes” which they passed back and forth; “No sense both of us taking notes when we can share,” I’d been told. Reality? I’m really not stupid; they were holding long intense conversations by note, as they had during their High School courtship, and occasionally they would put their heads together and “whisper.” The guy on his laptop was “taking notes electronically, you talk too fast for me to handwrite them – or, I type faster than I write and I don’t want to miss anything.” Again: teacher as stupid.

As I let the lecture peter out, I thought, I could let the three actual learners and the three with actual goals leave, send them to the library in a group to research something. Those six looked up in surprise as I stopped speaking and walked over to the podium; after all, class still had thirty minutes to release. But then there would be witnesses left that I had really been here tonight; making cleanup and cover-up more difficult for the cleanup crew. Their lives hung, unbeknownst to them, in the balance; it tipped.

The voices of the idiots grew loud in the pause in my lecture. “Everyone quite,” AJ, the leader of the jocks shouted loudly. “Ms. Ormandy is waiting.” His bff’s, of course, echoed his blast, making as much noise as they figured they could get away with, and drawing their noise out as long as they could. They knew from experience that the more turmoil they could create, the less exposure to the infection of learning.

“Center yourself. Take a mental breath,” I told myself in the mental voice of my vampire mentor. But it didn’t work so hot – no breath, remember. “Visualize yourself in your happy place…” nope, still not working. My current happy place was in this room, but when I visualized, the room had blood spattering the walls, and heads torn off student shoulders.

“Bloody Hell; shut the fuck up,” I enunciated quite clearly.

They looked shocked and the room fell silent. Even Mr. Cell phone’s fingers stilled, and his bff looked up from his friend’s crotch.

“I feel like I’m in a bloody kindergarten class full of ADD children; this is college, supposedly. I just can’t take this.”

I think they expected me to pick up my stuff and leave, like I’m certain many of their High School teacher’s had. They expected me to give up, give in. They didn’t expect my switch to full vampire mode. Red eyes and fangs. Super-speed and super-strength.

The super-speed came in handy as I practically teleported to the classroom door and flipped the lock to locked. Second floor with no windows, check. No window in the door, check. No other classes in this part of the building, check. I turned and gave them the first real smile they’d seen that quarter.

Then I reached out and pulled Mr. Cell Phone from his chair and threw him across the room into the wall. His bff was next, and with super-good aim I managed to ensure his face hit his friend’s crotch and he was also out cold. Not dead. Not yet. I had special plans for them. The girl with the pencil hadn’t time to react or even really think of screaming before I bounced her head forcibly off the desk, sketch pad and all. Then I picked up the pen and inserted it right in the center of her forehead.

By then a few students were rising from their chairs preparatory to making a run for the door, so I allowed myself a burst of speed. First I dispatched the six whom I’d almost spared. I did them as painlessly as a smashed head can be done. Then I went for the Jocks. I grabbed the arm of one of the students and ripped it off his body, then grabbed the stupid fuck who thought he was my best friend, my bosom companion, my golden-haired child, and I rammed his friend’s arm down his throat. One of the other jocks was making for the door, sacrificing the rest and trying to save himself, so I ripped the head off AJ and threw it into his friend with enough force to slam him into the wall. I was there as he bounced and slammed him back into the stupid, depressing, cold red-brick wall.

The rest were beginning scream and to scrabble towards the door, so I dispatched them quickly with way less pain than they’d earned.

Then I remembered Mr. Cell Phone and his friend. They weren’t conscious yet, but I could help the process. I hate cell phones in the classroom with a passion. They are the ultimate insult to teachers. I strolled to the wall where they lay sprawled in an ungainly heap, one on top of the other. I could afford to stroll now, since there were only two living people left in the room – I didn’t count myself as living – and they were unconscious.

I knelt on the floor next to Mr. Cell phone and began lightly slapping his face. As he came to he shoved forcefully away from me muttering, “wha… wha..”

“Would you like to text that?” I asked him.

Before he could really react I had crossed the room, picked up his abandoned cell phone, and was back holding him in place against the wall.

“You see this phone?”

“Yes…” he squeaked, fully aware of his dangerous situation now.

“Do you want this phone?”

“No…” he squeaked even more fearfully.

“I am going to shove it up your ass.” Ignoring his struggle, I turned him around and pulled his pants down the around his knees – easy since they sagged off his butt all the time anyway. Then I did it. I inserted his fancy iPhone where the sun had never shone. He screamed, and it was music to my ears.

About that time I remembered the bff. As I considered what to do with him, I realized I was feeling much better. I felt better than I had all term. So in spite of my good intentions, I tore his head off – let him off easy.

Looking around at the blood dripping off the chairs, desks, and walls I felt release, somehow felt happier than I had since the quarter began. And there was still twenty minutes before class was out. I felt a bit bad at all the food I’d wasted, but not too bad. Most of them wouldn’t have been any good anyway.

The cleanup crew was there in record time after I called them.

“I knew you’d lose it here sooner or later, and after last night, figured sooner,” Pat, the head of the clean-up crew told me when I let him in ten minutes later. “I’ve kept a crew on standby every Wednesday night, just in case. Why don’t you go on now, let us do our jobs. No one will ever even know you were here tonight, or that this class hadn’t been canceled tonight. Room will be cleaner than it’s been in forever. “Go find Bambi. You have unfinished business with her, and she’s an authorized kill.”

After thanking them all profusely, but quickly, I took his advice and left. There was one more student I wanted to bounce off a wall. And when I found her, I would.