The Vampire on Maple Street

Sara walked through the suburban neighborhood of brick houses to take flowers to the neighbor that just moved in. The maple trees lining the neighborhood were brightly colored in the fall season. The old cobblestone sidewalk was hard to walk on because of the unevenness.

The house was a dreary color of gray with bright red curtains hanging on the interior of the windows. The old wooden steps almost fell through when Sara stepped on them because of how old and rotten they were. When she rang the doorbell it did a kind of broken ring then broke.

The owner cracked the door then said in a very raspy voice: "Come in." Sara stepped into the house. It was furnished in red and the walls were painted gray and black.

"This is a very... interesting house..." Sara said.

"Well thank you. I decorated it myself!" said the man.

"May I have a picture of it with you?"

"Yes, I have no reason to say no." he said.

Sara took out her phone and snapped a picture.

She immediately put back her phone without looking at the picture. One the way out, he smiled a big toothy smile, then suddenly closed the door and she heard hisses from inside the house.

'Well, that was odd.' Sara thought.

The next day, Sara went to have coffee with her friend, Marie. Instead of the regular eccentric Marie she was friends with, she got a dull, odd Marie.

Sara was welcomed with the same greeting as that the man gave her. One thing she realized they had in common was the same aesthetic. The gray and black walls with bright red furnishings.

Before, Marie lived in a bright yellow house with colorful furniture and a personality to match. Now, she had a personality that matched her new house. Dreary and down right weird.

Marie welcomed Sara with chamomile tea in red cups and a black teapot with raspberry teacakes. Marie never served teacakes. Or tea.

The conversation they had wasn't as laid-back is it usually was. Marie kept talking about a very unusual man ringing her doorbell constantly to get her attention and open the door. He kept pressuring her to invite him in. Finally he pushed open the door and bit her. She forgot what happened after that.

Now, to Sara, this man sounded like the peculiar neighbor who just moved in. Sara kept bringing up the 2 dots on Marie's neck, and every time she brought them up, Marie kept saying that they were newly developed freckles. Marie said this very quickly and suspiciously.

Suddenly Marie got up quickly to use the restroom, and when she came back she turned off the lights. According to Sara, Marie used to have all the lights on.

Finally, Sara got up to leave. Marie hopped up and escorted her out. Usually, Marie let Sara guide herself out, but she had to take into consideration that Marie was not herself today.

When she exited, Marie did the same thing the man did when he closed the door. She hissed.

When Sara got back, the man was waiting for her on her front porch.

"Ah! I was wondering where you were." he said. "You invited me to coffee?"

"Yes, but that was tomorrow." Replied Sara.

"My apologies. My calendar must be off. Well, I'm here now. Would you like to invite me in to have a little...chat?" He said.

"No, thank you. I'm very busy today." That ended the conversation, and he left, hissing and rubbing his eyes.

Sara was very suspicious about this man. He seemed to never leave his house, accept to walk to other people's houses. His skin tone was a very pale white. His eyes looked different than other peoples, like he had no soul. His name... she didn't know his name but she was going to find it out. His dressing was very obsolete, always wearing grey suit pants, a button up black shirt, red tie, grey suit jacket, a grey suit vest, and to top it off, polished dark black shoes.

Finally Sara pulled out her phone to look at the picture for the first time that day. He wasn't in the picture. "Hm. He must have not been in the frame." But then she had an idea. She pulled out a cork board, and started writing furiously. Ideas from movies like Byzantium, Freaks of Nature, and Fright Night. She remembered that when the vampire's eyes were exposed to light, they hissed.

The next idea she wrote down was about their furniture. Every vampire, in their haunted mansion, would have bright red furnishings and black and grey walls. Marie and that man both had that in their houses.

The 2 freckles right in a row on Marie's neck also came in mind. She was acting very weird about them. And when she brought up the man, she had told Sara he had bit her. That wold be very strange behavior for a man, unless he wasn't right in the head. Just to be sure, tomorrow she would make garlic knots, and see his reaction. Then Marie thought about the picture. It wasn't because he wasn't in the frame. It was because he couldn't show up in the picture. Tomorrow was going to be bad. Sara could just feel it.

The next day WAS very bad. He came over, and they drank coffee together. That went OK. Then she pulled out the garlic knots. He started hissing and thrashing and trying to hurt Sara. Then the worst happened. He tried to bite her. On the neck. She ran as fast as she could, through the cobblestone streets. She got to a dead end. He walked towards her. He savored the moment. Walking around her close to her. Licking her ear like a madman. "Before you bite", Sara said," What is your name?" "My name? My name? No one has asked me that before. Thank you, Sara. It's Lucifer." Then he bit.