Invasion

The one night I set the alarm, they show up. I think there are three. Three would be a good number. There are always three burglars in the movies. The smart one, the muscle, and the one who panics and dies at the hand of the protagonist--sometimes by happy accident. I shouldn’t project. I shouldn’t start all this by projecting. I’m bound to let myself down if I do that. They might run now that the alarm has been sounded. They might flee. I would flee if I were them. No point in dealing with the hassle of an alarm.

Back when I was at the top of my game, I still would never push past an alarm. If I tripped one up, which didn’t happen often, I would calmly walk away. The baseball cap goes on. The jacket gets zipped up. I make my way to the idling car, and I pull away quickly, but not hysterically. You’d have to be bold to keep going after all that noise and bombast rattles your bones. I hope the men downstairs aren’t as savvy as I was. It won’t be any fun if they are. I know the point is to beat the best, but I’m not as young as I once was. Now, I need slower men. Men who depend on their own hubris. I need them to believe they can handle anything. I’ll throw a few softballs their way to bolster their confidence. I like it when they’re confident. I like knowing there won’t be any fear in their blood when I find the first vein.

If I hadn’t been so hungry, I doubt I even would have gotten into home invasion. I don’t like breaking things. I don’t like destruction. What I do is not about harm. The ghouls who do harm are tucked away in the closet or perched on a tree outside the window of a scared little boy or girl. I come from a place that doesn’t believe in the linear aspect of a horror story. Standard blood-suckers take what they need only to retire back to dirt. I do not enjoy dirt. I won’t sleep in it. And I adore sunshine. I’m out all day. There’s nothing vampyric in this house. This is something more elegant. It’s a passion.

Every evening I pour myself a glass of Cabernet and I begin to post on message boards all over the darker parts of the Dark Web. I put down my address. I write that the person living there is an old woman. I’m not lying. I am old. I’m older than most people on this planet. Where I come from, a human lifetime is gone in the blink of an eye and the rest of us progress. We shift small parts of ourselves to adapt. The trouble is, in order to do so, we need fresh plasma. Sorry for all the vernacular. I know it might cause you to doze off. You might want to anyway. The next few parts are not pleasant to watch. The men will come upstairs after they figure out how to turn off the alarm, and I’ll have to collaborate with them.

My jaw will unhinge a bit so I can get the biggest part of their jugular into my mouth. The suction tubes will unfold. I’ll take what I need, but I won’t kill them. I won’t even harm them. Subjects have told me after the fact that the sensation is rather soothing. It simply doesn’t appear so from the outside. From the outside, it appears violent and detrimental. The moment when I have to shed my outer layer of skin directly after consuming the amount of plasma that I need is always disturbing as well. I wish there was an easier way to do all this, but there simply isn’t. Longevity has a cost. Most things do.

You arrived because of the post you saw, didn’t you? You believed the part about the cash I keep here at the house. You believed there was a safe. You fell right into my little In Cold Blood immersion. You came alone. I admire that. I really do. I also used to work alone, but then, I knew what I was getting myself into when I entered a home. Sleeping bodies deep in REM. Family photos on the walls and on lace doilies on hall tables. Every so often, I’d pick up one of those photos and feel jealous that the family I was about to collaborate with was going to feel something I haven’t felt since my third puberty. Where I’m from, moonrises signal maturity. When the third moon rises on your two hundredth birthday, you enter into the beginning of the end of your childhood. You are expected to sustain yourself from that point on.

You are expected to hunt.

I was never much of a hunter, but I was something of an invader. Once you’ve maneuvered a ship the size of a comet past the ozone and the radar and the spying eyes that seem to be everywhere these days, getting inside a common home is no challenge.

Unless there’s an alarm. I never messed with the alarms.

You look so comfortable in that cocoon I made you. Making the cocoons is always my favorite part. After the paralysis, the time I take constructing a vessel for growth is something I really cherish. The older you get, the sturdier your cocoons. The stronger the vessel, the brighter the emerging creature. When the time comes, you’ll see what I mean. You’ll burst forth and this room will glow with your unstoppable luminescence.

I will be rejuvenated with the gift you’ve given me in the form of a simple liquid, but you will be given something so much greater. For me to be like me--

For something as majestic as I am to bestow that same genetic code to you, who would have enjoyed nothing more than a blink of a lifetime on this planet, it is amazing to you that you do not spend the rest of your existence riddled with guilt that you cannot ever repay me for my generosity. Luckily, creatures such as us do not believe in guilt. If we did, it would slow us down immeasurably.

Ah, the alarm’s gone off. They must have seen the note I left by the door. The poor old woman who needs to write down her alarm code and mark it as such, because she’s so forgetful. She’s so sad. Look how vulnerable she makes herself in this big house with drawers of cash and a safe full of who-knows-what?

They’ll be up the stairs any minute now.

I hope they take their time. I hope they can have another moment or two of humanity--no matter how flawed it may be.

I hope they slow down and appreciate the last scoops of air they’ll inhale before I release my underteeth and welcome them to the cocoon.

I hope they don’t rush, but they always do.

For whatever reason, they just can’t get here fast enough.