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Few pains were worse than hunger but the thirst would drive him mad.
Michael clutched his sides, wishing he could squeeze the ache into oblivion. Less people came out as the days grew colder which meant infrequent meals. And, when he could eat, it was garbage. A week passed since his last meal and unless he wanted to eat rats - which he didn’t - Michael had to hunt.
He swayed. His shoulder scraped the grubby brick wall. The rats barely evaded his heavy, uncoordinated steps. Vermin flocked to him when the hunger pains started. It was a pheromone thing. It overrode all sense of self preservation and urged them to come. Satisfy. Tame the beast.
Michael grit his teeth and nudged them away.
The alley opened onto a lamplit street, slick from earlier’s downpour. The skies would open up again soon. Michael smelled it. The metallic stench of ozone smothered him. A wintry wind scattered garbage across the blacktop like tumbleweeds. He shivered and pulled his damp Carhartt tighter around him. He might not die from the cold but it didn’t mean it wasn’t uncomfortable.
The barren sidewalk was a blow to his hollow stomach. The empty aquarium windows of each sad sagging storefront made it seem like a ghost town. Their flickering neon signs pathetically begged the air for customers to gorge on, but just like Michael, they couldn’t conjure prey from thin air.
A rat squeaked and Michael eyed it, then crammed his hands into his pockets before he did something stupid.
Minutes passed, maybe hours, when a man finally lumbered past Michael. The glow of a cigarette blazed between his weathered lips. A fraying ball cap covered a greying rat tail that twined down the man’s bulging neck. He smelled like clothes that had been left in the washing machine for too long and piss. His blood would taste like dishwater and still Michael’s mouth watered.
Michael gripped the rough edge of the alley for support, wiping syrupy strings of drool from his lower lip when a door slammed open beside him. Michael toppled out from the shadows and landed on the sidewalk like a jackass. Peals of laughter spilled from the bar - and even if Michael knew it wasn’t because of him, he seethed. The desolate streets echoed with their noxious howls, (was anything ever that funny?), making his head throb.
Michael glowered at the thing that startled him.
A girl.
Well, a woman.
The bar’s tawny light cast a halo around the fluff of hair spilling out of her knitted cap. She reeked of cheap beer and tobacco, though Michael couldn’t tell if that’s what she imbibed in or if it was a byproduct of being in that bar. Regardless, she was drunk. You don’t stumble out of a bar with glazed eyes if you weren’t.
Her rosy grin fell on him as the door squeaked shut.
"You okay?" she giggled, like he was another bum who had one too many.
Michael clamped his mouth shut. The wind rustled past her, blowing away the barfly stench and bringing him something much sweeter. God, was that her?
Her blood smelled like every good thing Michael ever had - which, admittedly, wasn’t a lot. It was Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled into one; a Sunday roast on a Friday afternoon; an oasis amid the desert. Succulent. Ripe. Perfect. His stomach actually growled.
She didn’t wait for an answer and bent down, offering two appetizing wrists for him to sink his teeth in.
Michael had to be hallucinating. Meals never presented themselves to him. The wafer-thin skin stretched over thick, pulsating veins would practically melt in his mouth once he bit down. His throat burned with anticipation of the gobs of steaming blood he’d suck down.
And then he realized she was probably waiting for his hands, not his fangs.
Michael could have stood on his own, but he didn’t. He didn’t even try to drag her to the ground even though he could have - easily - but hunger made him stupid. It felt rude to reject her.
Her human warmth seeped into his fingers and he sucked in a breath. It was like plunging his hand in fire.
Her lips pushed into an ‘o.’ "You’re freezing."
Michael hunched to protect his cavity of a belly. Greasy strands of hair fell over his eyes as he inched into the light.
People weren’t like rats. They could sense that Michael was wrong, especially when he hadn’t fed for a while. Their pupils shrank. They scrunched their noses like they smelled something foul. Crossed the street as quickly as they could. Refused to meet his gaze. It was a primal instinct that kept them alive and away from him.
Even drunks could sense it in their muddled minds, so Michael waited for her to skitter back. Now that she could see him in all his wretched glory, she’d put up a fight. He just hoped he wouldn’t lose a substantial amount of her blood in the process, but he wasn’t above licking cement if he needed to.
Instead, she stared up at him with twinkling eyes. Her pupils were as swollen as ever. Her lips stayed quizzically parted. She reached for her neck and unwound her lilac scarf. She tossed it over his shoulders.
"Stay warm," she slurred and walked away.
She didn’t run. Didn’t back up or pull out a cellphone and pretend to talk to someone. Just … walked. Well, stumbled. Semantics.
Michael stayed rooted in place, under that dingy lamp’s ray with a rapidly cooling scarf draped over his chest. It stood out against the beige, black, and grey he draped himself in. Realistically, it wouldn’t do a damn thing since he didn’t have a working heart, but the smell … The smell was everything. He grazed his fingers over the hem of the scarf and felt - odd.
Across the street, something clattered to the ground. Michael whipped his head around. It was the man from before, cursing like a sailor as he stooped for his zippo. Michael’s lip curled.
He was right. The man’s blood tasted vile but it quelled the gnawing emptiness. Michael wiped his bloodied mouth on the corpse’s sleeve and dragged him behind the dumpster. A gust of wind blew through the alley and Michael’s new scarf fluttered. Somehow, he managed not to stain it. Michael brought the scrap of fabric to his nose and inhaled. Heat seeped through him. He could have written it off as a full belly if the tingle hadn’t settled in his chest.
Michael stole the corpse’s hat, (not like he was going to need it anymore) and pulled it low over his brow.
Finding her was easy with a scent to guide him. She hadn’t gone far, still wobbling woozily down the streets. He wondered why she hadn’t called a cab or a friend. It’s what most people would have done in her place. Any one who cared about her would be horrified that she was alone like this. Worse, she didn’t even realize she was being followed. Dangerous things came out at night - he should know - but she didn’t have a care in the world.
They reached a cluster of tall brick buildings and she staggered up the stairs of one of them. Michael crept over the useless fence hedging the grass. It wasn’t tall enough to keep a dog out, let alone him. Moments later, a light came on in a downstairs window. Michael peered through the glass and that strange, fuzzy feeling returned.
He smiled.
Michael didn't think of it as stalking. It was curiosity; a glimpse of the life he could have had if it weren't for his father.
The girl never closed her curtains all the way. (More proof of her painful naivety.) And Michael never watched anything inappropriate. He just ... watched.
He learned her favorite colors. Her favorite show (a crappy Dark Shadows rip-off). The music she liked. Her name. Her affinity for being pants-less when alone. How, sometimes, she spoke to herself. That she had a stuffed animal she snuggled when she slept.
Everything in her little world was an invitation: the coziness of her shoebox apartment, the slouch of her leather couch, the old coffee table and crimson lampshade whose beads swayed when she walked past it. Her apricity brought him ... comfort? A snapshot of a simple life, bleeding buttery gold and umber. Nothing at all like the amaranthine chill of eternity. Her scent leached through the window, giving him what her scarf no longer could. He siphoned sniffs of it from the air like an orphan outside a bakery.
God, her scent ...
It could start and finish wars. He found himself dreaming about it during the day and fiending for it at night. A feast fit for a king.
Michael wasn't a king, though. He was barely a peasant. And his nights fantasizing about a meal he couldn't even reach cut into valuable hunting time.
Watching her was an act of self harm, but it was also the antiseptic. He'd tried to forget her. Really. Stayed away for a whole week, camped out in his dismal abandoned building with its leaky roof and stained cement floors. Michael had never been so depressed. At least here, at her apartment, he could forget reality.
She pranced around her kitchen, glancing away from her skillet to the answering machine. Michael thought - not for the first time - if he had her number, he would have called. Of course, he'd need a phone first ...
She decided to wear actual pants tonight. Denim. Loose. Good at hiding the assets Michael came to look forward to. But she made up for it by wearing the world's tightest tank top. Black. The skinny strips of fabric criss crossed with the maroon straps of her bra. It painted a picture so vivid, Michael could feel the heft of her breasts in his palms.
Her hips swayed to the song on her radio, something with a deep, pounding bass that screamed fuck me. Even her hair was done.
She tapped her spatula on the rim of her pan and checked the phone again. She captured her lip between her teeth and, as if gaining the confidence she needed, she grabbed the receiver like a liferaft.
"Hey! I was just checking if you'd left yet. If you haven't, d'you think you could pick up a video-" She could have babbled on forever. She might have, if an invisible gag hadn't fit itself between her teeth. Michael leaned toward the glass as her smile melted. "Oh."
If Michael's heart beat, it would have clenched at the pain in her voice.
"No...! No, no worries. I totally- yeah, no, totally understand. Maybe we can-?"
She cut herself off. Her throat bobbed. Shoulders sagged. Without another word, she put the phone back in its cradle and stared at the meal simmering on her stove. Poked the food dejectedly with her spatula. Sniffled.
"Fuck," she whispered. Michael pressed his fingers to the cruel pane of glass separating them. "Get a fucking grip."
She marched the length of the counter, massaging her temples. Then, she disappeared into her bedroom. When she re-emerged, she wore a pair of sweatpants: loose, grey, and paint-speckled. She'd taken the bra off and Michael's eyes bugged out of his skull. But even a see through tank top couldn't quell the ugly knot of thorns strangling his ribs.
Michael huffed. Dropped his gaze and stared at his muddy boots until the urge to kill ebbed to a manageable level. Every fiber of his being throbbed with a wrongness. He'd felt pain before but this was something entirely different.
It wasn't the first time Michael watched others disappoint her. A phone that never rang with an answering machine that stayed empty. The only letters in her mailbox were junk advertisements and the occasional postcard from her parents. She even kept her cell charged just in case someone texted. They never did.
She wiped her tears before they were fully realized and turned the radio off. Michael ground his teeth until his jaw threatened to crack in two. She retrieved her tupperware and dumped half her meal into it, haphazardly plating the other half on her chipped plate.
Quietly, she sunk into her couch so low her head threatened to disappear behind the edge and began to eat. She didn't reach for the remote.
It was an acute loneliness Michael was all too familiar with.
No one in her life knew what they had. They were careless gods dumping a loving flame into a jar with a tight lid. Her, with her life-giving smiles. Her kindness ... None of them deserved her. Even a monster like Michael could see that. Someone less fortunate would kill to bask in her light even for a second and they squandered it.
"Excuse me?"
A voice - not hers - broke Michael from his trance.
"Excuse me?"
He glanced over his shoulder and found a woman standing on the illuminated sidewalk. Blonde. Tanned. Glowering at him like Michael was something she'd stepped in. She clutched the leash of a yippie, crusty little dog who bared its needle-like teeth at him.
The stranger drew herself up. The dog growled.
"What do you think you're doing?" She all-but shouted. "Why are you watching that girl?"
Any louder and it would surely bring unwanted attention, which was exactly what she wanted: to shame Michael. Force him to run like a pervert caught with his pants down.
Michael wasn't a pervert but he had started to drool.
When was the last time he ate? A week? Two?
"You're not supposed to be here." The woman enunciated each reproachful syllable.
You think I don't know that? Michael wanted to shout. He couldn't open his mouth without releasing a torrent of saliva, and that would have really been embarrassing.
His stomach gurgled.
The stranger's blood was the best thing Michael drank in a long time. The healthiest, too. Still, it ... lacked something vital. It wasn't Hers.
Michael dumped the corpse behind the rose bushes. The dog vanished to god knew where. He wiped his chin clean and licked the remnants off his fingers, staring up at the sky. There wasn't a moon. The clouds congealed in a thick spread, blotting out all heavenly light.
His girl wouldn't be some gas station snack. No. When Michael got his hands on her, he'd savor her. Every lick. Every drop. Every clot. She was a meal. Something to enjoy over hours, possibly beyond tht.
Michael tried to shove that thought away, but it kept cropping up from the moment he'd seen her. Post-meal, it sounded like the best idea in the world. The only thing that made sense. Michael would cherish her. He wouldn't leave her in the dirt. He wouldn't drain her in one go. Michael would listen to her. Talk to her, even. Laugh with her. Bask in her light the way no one else did. He'd make sure she was never crippled by loneliness ever again.
He would become Prometheus.
Stealing her was easier said than done, especially after the serial killer rumors started.
In Michael's defense, he wasn't used to pacing himself. He had never had a steady stream of meals right at his fingertips, so he usually gorged himself when the opportunity arose.
The apartment complex was an excellent flytrap. His girl had nosy neighbors pouring out the door, each one itching to tell him off like a bad dog. Michael got careless. He even knocked off a security guard and a cop. Their fault. Honest. But, Michael learned his lesson, and forced himself to get better at hiding his nightly visits.
It didn't undo the damage he'd done.
Michael didn't think she was scared. Sure, she glanced over her shoulder more often and got stricter about the gap of her curtains, but she seemed normal. That was, until it was eight o'clock and she still hadn't appeared. He stayed by the window, cutting more and more frown lines as the minutes passed.
When she appeared, she wasn't alone.
Michael recognized the man's face. He was a neighbor. A painfully oblivious asshole named Peter. Michael only knew that because the endless stream of girls crooned his name like a broken fucking record. Peter! Oh, Peter, you jerk! Peter, you're so handsome! Peter, stop it!
Michael left ol' Petey alone because his head was stuck up his ass, too blinded by cleavage and ass to notice his lurking. Now, though? With the way Peter leaned against his girl's doorframe with an oil-slick smile, Michael wish he tore his throat out months ago.
That ugly feeling returned.
Michael wasn't jealous. No way. It was the same feeling he used to get at the breakfast table when his siblings stole the last blueberry muffin even though they didn't like blueberries and Michael did. They did it unthinkingly. Selfishly. Uncaring of who the muffin was meant for.
Peter overstepped.
His girl giggled. Michael couldn't see her face from this angle, but he's sure her star-like eyes were fixed on Peter's unworthy face like he'd hung the moon.
"You sure you're fine by yourself tonight?" Peter asked.
Michael would be well within his rights to break the window and rip Peter's head off.
"Yeah," she said.
"You're not lying to me so I'll leave, are you?"
"No," she laughed. Her hair bounced as she shook her head. Michael heard her heart quicken. "Promise. And I'm sorry about-"
"Don't mention it," Peter cut in. "I think we're all on edge."
Michael's frown deepened. What did that mean?
She turned her face ever so slightly and Michael caught sight of the tear tracks and puffy eyes.
"And, if you get scared or hear anything," Peter continued, soft. Michael saw red. "You know where to find me. I won't let some killer get to you."
She nodded shyly and said her goodbies, shutting the door behind her. Michael pressed his back against the cold stone wall and ran a hand over his face. Even though he didn't need to breathe, he couldn't catch his breath.
What the fuck had he done?
Michael hit himself and dug at his chest where his frozen heart wasn't beating. He hadn't messed up this bad since ...
... Well, it had been a while.
Peter made himself a nuisance, which is how Michael found himself outside the bar where he first met his girl. A few curious rats poked their heads around the corner, sniffing him. Gauging if the beast was hungry.
Michael was hungry. Dangerously so. After a month of a full belly, returning to the old ways was slowly killing him. Michael could handle hunger. What he couldn't stomach was leaving her alone with him.
The bar didn't have any windows - they'd bricked them up years ago - so Michael's only option was to go inside. Waiting wasn't an option. Not when Peter could be in there, running his hands over Michael's property.
The word WELCOME painted on the cement stoop was scuffed from years of service, but it did the trick. Michael opened the door.
The stench of sweat, piss, and smoke overwhelmed him. There was blood, too - oh, god, there was blood - but it smelled as pleasant as wet dog. Watery blood, drug ladened blood, even cancerous blood from bodies in slow death. The sort of blood Michael used to choke down without complaint. His belly growled low in warning, but Michael kept his head low and held his breath.
The bar's wood paneled walls had seen better days. The planks that weren't stained or smashed were outright missing, revealing its rusty rebar guts. Old, greasy men in their old, greasy clothes haunted the pool tables and dart boards. Some were leathery. Some gaunt. Pinched noses and sun-mottled gizzards and crooked greying teeth. The same decay reflected on each and every one of them.
Tucked in the very back of the room was his sunlight.
She braced her elbows on the sticky plastic tabletop and spoke animatedly, “… And so he insists that the baby isn’t his, but it’s so obvious that it is his son, and Clara is stronger than me for putting up with his bullshit -“
Peter was too preoccupied with ogling the bartender's ass as she delivered their drinks to acknowledge.
Nothing would stop Michael from marching over and popping Peter's eyes out of his sockets. No one would even know what happened. By the time they did, Michael could have feasted at his own all-you-can-eat buffet and used the empty bottles as take-home containers.
Instead, Michael skulked toward the bar and pulled out a few crumpled bills he'd taken from his last meal. The bartender didn't noticed the discolored edges, nor did she ask for Michael's ID. The people previously sitting around him conveniently migrated elsewhere.
Michael pretended to nurse his beer as he observed her. She was still talking. Peter still ignored her, turning his attention to the dartboard. What was the point of taking her out if he wasn't going to pretend to be interested?
Well, Michael knew, but he didn't want to think about it.
Abruptly, Peter turned his attention toward her and his hand fell from the table to her thigh. She stilled. Peter leaned in way too close - if he kissed her, Michael would have said fuck it ripped his tongue out.
Instead, he whispered in her ear. "I'll be right back. 'Kay?"
She nodded.
Peter went outside, leaving her all by herself at that rickety table.
Michael swallowed. His girl sunk into her chair and stared at her lap. He could go up to her. In a perfect world, he would have. He'd stride over and say something quippy and she would laugh and forget all about fucking Peter.
But Michael was a realist. He knew the reaction he'd get. He needed to bide his time until the golden opportunity presented itself. Then, he would be ready and nothing would go wrong.
Michael left his bottle at the bar and slipped out the front door, back into the bitter night. Peter stood in the alley, muttering a litany of profanity as he rummaged through his pockets. He noticed Michael.
"Got a light?" he asked. A cigarette dangled from his lips.
"Yeah."
Michael fished the zippo from his pocket and passed it over.
Peter grunted. His way of saying 'thank you,' Michael supposed.
Michael leaned against the opposite wall, keeping his fists safe within his jacket pockets. The alley seemed dirtier than the last time he'd been in it. Bits of faded police tape littered the cracked pavement. They found the body. Funny. If they hadn't, Michael could have given Peter a good scare.
Michael cleared his throat. "What are you doing with that girl in there?"
Peter's eyes flicked toward him. Fire danced in his pupils. He passed the lighter back and sucked on the cigarette until the cherry glowed orange.
"Pussy's pussy."
Peter expected Michael to laugh, but all he managed was a tight smile. His rage roiled, that he could be mistaken for a run of the mill sleazebag like him. It clearly irked the man because he narrowed his eyes.
"Why?" Peter goaded. "You interested, bub?" He blew smoke from the corner of his mouth and scoffed. "She's kinda annoying, but she's desperate. If you're into that."
Michael's jaw twitched.
Then, Peter added, "I guess she's cute in a plain-ish way."
"Mh."
Michael had been twisting the lighter in his pocket, desperate for a distraction, but his hand cinched around it. The plastic cracked and fluid oozed between his fingers.
"Nice tits, though."
Michael's grin reached its limit. "Really?"
"You didn't notice?"
Michael wouldn't answer that. He cocked his head to the side, humming. "I was more curious about what she saw in you."
"'Scuse me?"
Michael shrugged. His gums pounded like a second heartbeat. His fangs cut into his tongue. "Trash winds up in the gutter one way or another."
"The fuck does that-"
Those were pathetic last words, but Michael didn't have it in him to let Peter finish.
His blood was repulsive. A single drop of it on Michael's tongue was enough to make him gag. Most blood was too precious to waste, but Peter's needed to be dumped. So, Michael ripped his neck open and let it gush to the ground. He sunk his sharp nails into Peter's flesh and ripped, piece by piece, chunk by chunk. The stupid fuck was lucky Michael let it go on this long.
Michael loomed over the remaining gore puddle, unsatisfied. Sure, Peter didn't exist anymore, but his memory remained. Every disgusting word he'd ever spoken to Michael's girl lingered in her mind. Every touch. Every lie he fed to her. He was as alive as ever, and it burned through him like a wildfire.
The softest hitch of a breath caused Michael to whip his head to the side.
There she stood. His angel. Mitten-clad hands clasped over her mouth, eyes wide with horror.
"No," Michael rasped.
She stumbled back, but Michael was on her in a blink. He shoved her against the grimey brick as she swung at him. Her arm glanced off him with little impact. He covered her mouth, hand damp with that loser's blood, which didn't help the whole not-screaming thing.
"No, no, no, please!" It wasn't supposed to be like this. Not today. Not now. Fuck! "Why did you have to come outside?"
Michael said her name and her eyebrows pulled together in utter confusion. Bad plan. Her muffled shrieks resumed and she thrashed against him, not that she would ever be strong enough to fight him off.
"Stop squirming," he hissed. "Look at me."
She didn't want to, but humans were stupidly easy. In trying not to obey, her eyes locked onto his for a fraction of a second and that was all it took to seize control.
Her shoulders slackened. Eyes glazed like a piece of taxidermy.
Michael rarely compelled people. They didn't let him get close enough to try. Besides, Michael didn’t want mindless puppets. He wouldn’t have done it if there was another way, but his options were limited and he had to stop her before she hurt herself.
"I would never hurt you." Michael couldn't keep his voice strong. Her terror had cut him deep. "You're - you're the only thing that matters, okay? Peter didn't care about you. You should have heard the - the vile things he said. He wasn't a good man. I would never forgive myself if I just stood aside and let him-"
Michael shook his head. He was babbling, and she didn't need to hear that.
"I'm sorry," he muttered. "But please, don't be scared of me."
She blinked her doll-like eyes with slow understanding. He let his hand slide off her mouth. A red, malformed handprint streaked across her chin. Michael stroked her jaw and it was like hovering a hand over an open flame.
"Who are you?" she asked in hushed tones.
He swallowed thickly. "Michael."
It registered to her with that molasses slowness, like someone coming out of anesthesia. A light flicked on in her head.
“Michael.” She sang his name like a hymn. “You’re all messy.”
She wiped her mittens over his mouth, trying to wipe Peter from his cheeks. Her mouthwatering scent wafted toward him and Michael swallowed a moan. He forced himself to stay still despite every fiber of his being begging to have a taste.
"I don't think this is working," she said, half joking. But she was right. It wouldn't help.
"It's - you don't have to," he said.
"Well, you can't go back in looking like that."
She gestured to him, like he was splattered with beer instead of viscera. She sighed and pulled the glove off and licked her thumb. A question pushed itself to the tip of Michael's tongue, but he didn't have a chance to ask it before she swiped it over the corner of his mouth. A good, old fashioned spit shine.
Michael trembled and squeezed his eyes shut. He hated himself for missing a single second of this, but it overwhelmed him.
"Damn," she muttered. "Worth a shot."
When she pulled away, Michael wanted to cry. He peeled his eyes open and wondered if, maybe, he was dreaming. Michael didn't deserve good dreams like this. He didn't deserve a reality like this even if he desperately wanted it.
"You can't go in like that either," he stammered.
She glanced at her clothes, noticing the stains for the first time. Michael waited for her to scream. Surely, whatever iota of calm he'd imbued in her wouldn't withstand the shock. But she sighed, plush lips pushing into a frown.
"Aw man. I really liked this coat, too."
It wasn’t only her coat, but Michael didn’t have the strength to point out her face in case it broke the illusion. Covered in all that blood, she looked …
Well, she looked like him.
"I'm sorry."
She rolled her eyes. "It's not your fault, dummy." It was, actually. Still, she sighed again and wiped a flesh chunk away. "We should clean up, though."
"My place is closer," he blurted.
Stupid fuck! his mind hissed.
She looked up, eyes star-bright. Like his offer was a favor, not a burden. She didn't even ask him how he knew her apartment was farther away.
Her breath plumed like a storm cloud forming each word: "Lead the way."
They washed up in an old gas station manned by a teenager who wasn’t paid enough to care or notice. The closet of a bathroom barely fit both of them, but it was private. They didn’t have a mirror. Someone destroyed that a long time ago, so all that remained were the pegs that once held it to the mottled tile.
Michael soaked a wad of brittle toilet paper under the faucet.
“Here,” he said.
She accepted the sopping lump. “What are you, Michael?”
A tingle trilled down his spine. She turned his name into a spell and even a bathroom that smelled of calcified shit couldn’t mask her blood.
“Does it matter?”
He wondered how anyone could look so ethereal under sterile light like she did. She leaned against the sink, hair tousled, heart pumping syrupy ichor quicker to her frosty extremities. Her eyes, big and shiny, reminded him of the rats.
“Normal people don’t rip men to shreds with their bare hands.” She dabbed the paper across her chin. “They aren’t so … cold, either.”
“Is that so?” He scoffed and scrubbed his face with his own mushy ball. The paper flaked like pill bugs. He thought his little party trick had wiped the slate clean but apparently not. “Do you have a theory?”
“Yeah,” she said, and kept it to herself. It was for the best. Michael wasn’t sure what he’d do if he heard the ‘v’ word.
When they looked clean enough - barring their clothes - Michael led her through the back exit of the gas station and through a small wooded area until they reached a vine-choked abandoned building.
Having her in his home was like housing the Holy Grail in a moldy plastic cooler. She didn’t wrinkle her nose at the graffitied walls or the water stained cement. She didn’t tiptoe around the debris or ask, ‘You live like this?’ even though he would have preferred it. Her lackadaisical attitude freaked him out. Michael comforted himself by assuming she was mentally screaming.
“This way,” Michael said, and ushered her to the least offensive part of the room.
Old bedsheets hung like curtains, blocking off a small section of the building. He lifted the corner and let her in, then flipped a switch on the extension cord. The space heater roared to life, followed by a naked bulb, illuminating the patchy couch and coffee table with an orange glow.
It wasn’t the same as her golden apartment. It looked artificial in every way, but Michael knew - after he decided he wouldn’t kill her - that he’d need space for her. A place she might, if not love, then tolerate.
It wasn’t done, though. Michael assumed he’d have more time to get things together, and looking at it through her eyes made him want to shrivel up and die. He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Get warm.”
“You should, too,” she said. Then, she remembered. “Or…?”
Michael pressed his lips together. Being here was worse than the gas station because he didn’t have fecal matter to fortify him. He didn’t want to talk. Talking meant breathing, and breathing meant smelling her, and smelling her broke the illusion of self control.
Stilted, he said, “I need to change.”
He ran from the homemade tent into the cover of darkness. Michael didn’t have an unlimited supply of clothes. He was careful when he fed so he wouldn’t ruin what he owned. Tonight was the exception. (He was already cursing himself for ruining his good jacket.)
Michael replaced his ancient band t-shirt with a grey, waffle-weave henley. His stomach growled, but for the first time in his life, there weren’t any rats around to take the edge off. Michael gnashed his teeth. The one fucking time they made themselves scarce … It would be fine. It had to be. Even if it hurt - especially then - he could control himself.
Michael rejoined her. She had removed her ruined gloves and coat and curled up on the couch under one of the fluffy blankets. Her scent slammed into him like a brick wall, intensified by the heat and the frantic pump of her heart to warm her blood. No longer an orphan standing outside of a bakery, but a starving man trapped inside one. Damn him for not drinking more from that jackass. He could have choked it down, even if it tasted like toxic waste.
“I brought this for you.” Michael passed her a hoodie - it was too big for him and he never found an occasion to wear it. So you don’t freeze, but that would have been too many syllables. Too much of a chance to taste her in the air.
“Thank you.”
His throat bobbed. “If you need to leave-“
“Do you want me to?” she asked, voice too soft to be real.
Michael shifted uncomfortably.
"When people realize Peter’s dead, they’ll look for me." She shifted to accommodate sliding on Michael’s hoodie. "Those people … that was you, too, wasn’t it?"
He jerked his head down.
The roar of the heater would have drowned out the admission if Michael had normal senses. "I thought you looked familiar."
Panic curdled his senses, filling his mouth with the sour tang of anxiety. She couldn’t mean that. Not literally. Michael would have smelled her fear if she noticed someone watching through the window. She must remember him from before - a wisp of a memory from that drunken night.
"I wouldn't-" His mouth moved faster than his brain. "I wouldn't do that to you."
Her expression remained impassive. "I know."
She said it like it was the simplest truth in the universe. More concrete than gravity. More certain than the crust of the earth. Michael hated himself because while she believed him, he couldn't stop thinking about that throbbing vein on the side of her throat. Thin as tissue. Melt-in-your-mouth packaging wrapped around gooey goodness. An eager rat poking its nose at the beast.
"Do you want me to leave?" she asked a second time.
Michael stared at her boots, crusted with viscera. "I wish I did."
His esophagus burned, eyes watered with want. Michael couldn’t change what he was or what he needed.
If she left him, he’d never see her again. Michael felt it in his bones. She would return to the real world and remember the horrors, leaving him to his wintry grave of nothingness. Maybe she would be alone, too, but alone in the sun, safe from him and his urge to gorge on her.
"I don’t want to go," she said, like she was trying to help his decision. Like it was a choice to be made lightly. Like he wasn't moments away from losing himself.
He looked at her from under his lashes. “You will.”
Her eyes softened with pity he hadn’t earned. “Michael?”
He moaned that time.
“What’s wrong?”
Michael clutched his neck, digging the point of his nails into the flesh. "I'm ... I'm so hungry."
Something akin to fear crossed her face, and then it was gone. Her lips parted and she looked at him with the utmost concern.
"What do you need?"
Ragged, he said, "You."
The pain tearing him open from the inside was nothing like starving. He could deal with the white-hot poker melting the mushy flesh of his throat. He could handle his stomach boiling like molten battery acid. What he couldn't handle was the suffocating urge to devour her whole. He felt it in every fiber of his being, that need to possess, consume, and hold. Have and not share. Absorb and squeeze and merge into one singular self, to be filled by her and fill her in turn.
"Okay," she whispered, damning him.
Michael lurched back. "No."
"You won't hurt me," she parroted.
"I will."
"You won't."
She tossed the blanket off. That was all. A quick, frustrated shove and yet the movement triggered something inside Michael. A frenzied instinct that screamed Prey! Prey escaping!
Michael had her cornered in the bend of the couch before she could blink. She gaped, body pressed to his sinfully. All his fault. Had he been normal, the squish of her breasts would have sent him over the edge just like that. Somewhere deep inside, that horny young man was freaking out, but the monster had control.
Michael let himself breathe without fear. One breath. Another. And before he knew it, her head was thrown back and his lips caressed her neck. He let his tongue slip out and tasted her. A candied shell.
He bit.
Her body lurched as his fangs penetrated her, muscled seized with agony, lungs constricting around a silent scream. What came out was a weak cry - a call into the void, a song meant just for him.
Her blood was even better than he imagined. More than every happy thought he’d ever had, it was hope. It was life. Michael sunk into her, wrapping his body around hers like a kid squeezing a juice box. He gulped her by the mouthful - hot and perfect. Springtime blossomed in his chest. He moaned. She gasped.
Her fingers flexed around the nape of his neck. She quivered like they all did. Michael couldn’t remember feeling what she felt. He just remembered what it reminded him of: that shitty rollercoaster his father took them to that one summer. An ancient wooden thing with metal wires keeping the stilts from tipping over. Michael had thought, surely this will be the day the coaster collapses. But it didn’t. And he rode it a dozen more times, and each time he reached the top he thought it was the end. That thrill of facing death left him dizzy and drunk.
Having his blood sucked was kinda like that.
“Michael?” Her voice quivered.
Michael wrenched back. He gripped the cushions for support, tearing the fabric open. Aged yellow fluff spilled from the rip.
Her skin was ashen. Her eyes glazed and half-lidded like someone losing a battle to exhaustion. But she was alive. That was the first time Michael could say that about a meal since … ever.
She rubbed the back of his neck with shaking fingers. “You’re warmer.”
“You’re beautiful,” he said, drunk off her. “I want-“
“Take it.”
“I want you.”
Bloodless lips quirked like a fish hook. “Take me.”
Michael kissed her. For the first time ever, their bodies felt like the same temperature. Sparks fizzed like whizzbangs within his sternum. The small noises she made fueled a primal want within. Something changed, though. Her blood still called to him, but not as much as her body. The beast had been fed. The horny young man reemerged.
They rolled against each other. Well, Michael did most of it. Dazed and weakened by the bloodless, all she managed were a few twitches of her hips when he grazed a good spot. Michael kicked the blanket completely off the couch. Pants were ripped and pushed aside, underthings too, and Michael rucked up her shirt to massage the breasts he’d thought too much about.
It was better than he imagined. At her center, she was still a blazing sun, and when Michael sank inside her, he knew he’d let her burn him to ash.
"Fuck," he whined.
Her brows pinched, quivering mouth forming a silent cry. Her wonderful, slick walls sucked him in, sucked him deep, tight like a vice.
He knew he wouldn’t last.
The night was full of unpreparedness. He should have remembered that. But how was he expected to stop when her pussy dragged him back every time he tried to pull out. Eventually, he stopped trying to leave and pressed his whole weight into her, humping her sopping channel with abandon. He moaned for her, slurred her name until it lost all meaning. She whimpered in tandem with his greed.
All it took was a little moan. A dulcet keen of his horrible name dripping off her tongue like honey. "Ah-! Michael." And he spilled himself inside.
His orgasm broke him. The wires of self control snapped before his eye, a pleasure like none other bulldozed through him.
"Shit," Michael whimpered. "I’m sorry."
Always screwing up. Even if this was the most glorious screw up he’d ever experienced.
“Let me try again,” he slurred.
He ground against her, forcing his sensitive, softening cock to stay inside. The drag of her sticky walls against his spent member bordered on torturous, but he wouldn’t dare stop his thrusts.
"I can make it feel good," he said. An empty promise. Michael was so out of his head, he couldn’t tell up from down. His thighs tingled, his muscles screamed, but he’d left her wanting.
She groaned, "Michael-"
No. Michael pushed his forehead to hers and stared at the space between their bodies. His reddened shaft, soaked with mutual slick, twitched. He had to keep going. For her. She’d willingly given so much of herself to him. It was the least he could do. He wouldn’t let her grant him the easy way out.
"Please," he whined.
In.
"Please."
Out.
"P-Please."
In.
"Please."
Out.
"Oh, f-fuck, please."
The velvet hug around his dick brought tears to his eyes. Every pass brought him to new heights of torturous euphoria. His cum sloshed around his slowly hardening cock, spilling out of her hole and accumulating around his base in a creamy ring.
Michael gripped her hips to ground himself, unable to stop the filthy slew of whines that escaped him. He was too overstimulated to be mortified. He built a rhythm, slow and deep, much less frantic than the rabbit-race he’d won before. He pressed a hand to her belly and she sighed. Her eyes rolled around like pretty little marbles.
"Let me," he babbled. "Let me- mh. S-Shit. Shit. Oh, fuck. Lemme fuck you."
Too much. Her heat coaxed him to a full erection and he grit his teeth, biting back the rising urge to cum a second time. But Michael had never been great with self control. When he took, it was never in moderation. He rocked into her, choking on sobs of pleasure as she lay blissed beyond belief beneath him.
It started in his belly, a knot so frayed it couldn’t withstand a single tug before he snapped and came a second time, pumping her pussy full of his spend. She pried the orgasm out of him like it was a shard of glass. Ethereal punishment. Michael couldn’t believe he had more to give, but he’d never been good about this method of self care. Ejaculation was a luxury, and he’d built up at least a couple decades worth of frustration in his overfull balls to pump into her.
Agitated, Michael didn’t wait for his legs to stop shaking. He tore himself out of her depths and dropped to his knees. She was too far gone to care. Body limp, eyes turned to god - or, in this case, the exposed ductwork - she probably hadn’t realized Michael failed to make her cum twice. She keened as he spread her thighs. Her body slumped low in on the cushions, flopping like his perfect little rag doll.
He moaned when he saw what he’d done. Her pretty, puffy pussy leaked fluid. Creamy white semen mingled with her own sticky lubricant. It formed webs between her lips.
Michael dragged his mouth over her inner thigh. Her blood pounded against the skin there, practically begging for him to imbibe. He grazed his fangs over it and her pulse responded. He couldn’t make himself break the skin. A scrape would do until she’d recovered.
Michael knew what to do in theory. The few high school fumbled he’d had in the backs of cars gave him the vague idea. When he reached her sex, Michael forgot all of that, though, and dragged the flat of his tongue through her seam.
"O-Oh-!"
She jolted, coming to life when he reached a particular spot near the top of her pussy. He liked it when she twitched. Liked watching her muscles spasm and hearing the sputter of her pulse.
Michael mouthed at her, suckling the knot of flesh - so perfectly swollen - that made her cry. He clumsily slithered lower and lapped at her hole, daring to plunge inside and scoop their amalgam onto his tongue and down his throat.
He liked the taste they made.
Beyond that, though, there was a taste similar to her blood. Hedy and intoxicating, stoking the greed he thought he ejaculated away - it was her arousal.
Her needy pussy was so responsive to his haphazard movements, gushing for him. All for him. Her stomach heaved as she sang him a delirious song of his name and other mush-mouthed yelps.
Michael didn’t need to breathe, so he didn’t care when her legs closed around him. He didn’t care when she started bucking harder against him. He didn’t care until finally her cunt contracted and she sobbed, then melted into the couch like he’d stolen her bones.
She was asleep by the time Michael crawled out from under her. Yes, just asleep. Not dead. (Michael made a point to check. He'd never hallucinated a heartbeat before but he'd also never had sex post-feed before, so he wanted to make sure his judgement wasn't impaired.)
He would have liked to kiss her again, he thought. But he'd wait until her lips would be responsive. He licked a small trail of blood that had escaped her wounds and circled the jagged holes with the tip of his tongue. Michael would find bandages when he went out, but he would leave that for tomorrow.
He grabbed the fluffy blanket off the floor and pause. Then, careful not to wake her, climbed onto the couch and pulled her on top of him, and draped the blanket around them. Eventually, Michael would get up. He could only stand her scent for so long before he'd snap. But, he would indulge himself. Just for a moment.