A Convenient Kill

Built in 1894 it has doorways meant for people who used to be a little bit shorter. Long lonely hallways stretch to rooms in which hundred year dust has settled in every nook and cranny. I used to have a maid to gently sweep it away, but she has long since returned to the soil. Now the house lay almost barren expect for a few choice paintings that probably belong in a museum and quite minimal furniture. The echos of every creak and groan of old wood reverberates, amplified by the big open space. If walls could yearn, these ones would cry out in grief for the living that once walked these halls. This place is not entirely devoid of living things, of course, if you consider the rats nesting in the walls, constantly scratching and nibbling. You can't, of course, count me among the living. It is true that I have flesh that can be peirced and burned, but that is not all that there is to mortality.

I trail my long boney fingers along the hand rail leading down the main marble staircase. Its time to move on and who would've thought I still had a tear to shed, but now I can feel one sliding down my cheek. I shudder and bare my fangs instinctively. I am a preditor and I know it is dangerous to show weakness, and thats just what this emotion is, sentimental weakness. This mansion has served me well, but I must move to better hunting grounds. People don't leave their homes anymore, they order food from home, do all their shopping online, they even homeschool their kids. Of course a group will still occasionally wander my way, usually teenagers looking for a thrill they come drunk and bold to explore my "abandoned" mansion only to meet their untimely demise. I must eat when the opportunity presents itself, but the unfortunate side effect from teenagers is the horrible splitting headache I get from the alcohol in their blood. This side effect comes from anything that is not organic flesh and blood.

I have nothing I wish to pack. I don't need anything besides my coffin and that would be coming with the movers. The bus ride is mercifully short to my new home. There is only one other who shares the journey with me and he sleeps. I grow ravenous watching his chest rise and fall with each breath. Under a ribcage that I could so easily crush, beats a plump juicy heart. I manage to refrain simply for the feast that I know lies ahead. Each tasty morsel, packed neatly away in identical houses, a whole neighborhood of them and I would be smack dab in the middle of it, like shooting fish in a barrel, I think humans say somtimes. When I arrive, I install blackout curtains to all the windows. This place is small, much more modest and inconspicuous than my mansion. I feel so out of place here, there is no dust and decay, no drops of congealed blood on the floor. It is entirely... cozy. The comforts of humanity are wasted on me who has none left. I cannot feel the carpet beneath my feet, I can feel nothing. The only thing which bears any resemblance to comfort for me is the feeling of my hollow belly filling with the blood of a fresh kill. I will go hunting once I am settled here.

I had just began to remove the shelves from the refrigerator so I would have somewhere to sleep while I wait for my coffin to arrive, when I heard a quiet knock on the door, so soft and I almost didn't hear it. I opened to see a beautiful women smiling timidly at me. Her hair was the perfect frame for her bright hopeful eyes, it lay softly over her shoulders and halfway down her small breasts.

"Hi, you must be the new neighbor, I'm Cathy" she almost whispered.

I smiled back, careful to use only my lips.

"Listen, I know its late, but I saw you come in and I just wanted to be the first to welcome you to the neighborhood. Honestly, nothing exciting ever happened here so a handsome stranger arriving in the middle of the night.. well I guess I just had to see for myself."

She shut up upbruptly afraid she had said too much. I could hear it in the quickening of her pulse. My hunger was growing unbearable.

"Thats very kind.. Cathy" I say grasping her hand to deliver a small kiss to her knuckle shivering at the smell of fresh blood pumping in her delicate veins.

"Oh! Im sorry my hands my be cold!" She says noticing my shiver.

"Cold hands.. warm heart.." I say and look deep into her eyes. I am not simply looking. I search, feeling the small tug of her psyche responding to my suggestion and soon her eyes droop as if she is sleepwalking. She is now under my spell. Humans give up control so easily, they grow tired of making decisions and living in constant emotional and physical pain. This is why I consider what I do to be a mercy. They feel nothing, my food, I release an anesthetic and an anticlotting enzyme similar to leeches so that they just slip peacefully away. I am not a complete monster, after all.

"I know its late.." she begins again through her daydream state. "but you must be hungry from your travels, maybe you'd like to come over for a bite to eat?"

A thin smile spreads on my lips.

"Well that sounds like an... invitation."

"I suppose it is." She says and now she actually blushes, a pool of delicious blood beneath her rosy cheeks.

"I'd love a bite to eat" I say smiling fully for the first time with my fangs. It doesn't matter anymore, she is fully under my spell now. She smiles back sleepily, but I think I see a hint of fear swimming behind her glassy eyes. Before I can confirm this it is gone again and she is leading me by the hand to her home across the street. Apart from a thin drop of blood leaving a crimson trail below her pale chin, her deadly invitation was the last thing to leave her lips alive.